July 2026 - Talk - lists.gtalug.org

war story: nVidia proprietary driver abandons my system
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 25 Jul '26

25 Jul '26

My old desktop has used a GTX 650 card since 2013. The Nouveau driver just didn't work for my system. I tried it a few times over the years. Unfortunately nVidia's proprietary driver stopped supporting my card, relegating it to the "legacy" driver. That legacy driver does not get along with Wayland and modern Fedora no longer supports X11. Over the years, I had accumulated a bunch of kernel options in the grub configuration, all to stop Nouveau confusing things. I had to remove them. I edited /etc/default/grub and rebuilt grub's config files using grub2-mkconfig. Nouveau seems to be good enough now (but I no longer stress it with a million FireFox tabs). Old (all one line): GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="resume=UUID=6be9f593-abf3-4151-8b0a-8135946edbb4 rd.driver.blacklist=nouveau,nova_core modprobe.blacklist=nouveau,nova_core nvidia-drm.modeset=1" New: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="resume=UUID=6be9f593-abf3-4151-8b0a-8135946edbb4" Unfortunately, grub itself used a video configuration that displayed illegible characters. Again, a change to /etc/default/grub and a grub2-mkconfig Old: GRUB_TERMINAL_OUTPUT="console" New: GRUB_TERMINAL_OUTPUT="gfxterm" GRUB_GFXMODE=1024x768 I tried 1920x1080 but that didn't help. I don't know why. I don't really know why "console" doesn't work or what "gfxterm" is. I got this from <https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/grub-menu-screen-resolution/138544/2>

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Linux community outreach and education/promotion
by rsoulliere＠yahoo.com 24 Jul '26

24 Jul '26

Hi All, I am new to this group but had a question about outreach programs an Linux education... something like this at TPL -- presented at a GTALUG meeting in 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvZ3gCzrXak Is anyone involved in programs like this or have experience? Would there be any demand from the general public if it was a program proposal done through a public library as an in-person event? FreeGeek Toronto had this program as well more recently: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/install-linux-on-an-old-computer-tickets-166975… and I wonder how that went. Thanks.

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Smart home on a tight budget...
by Colin McGregor 15 Jul '26

15 Jul '26

Paul Hibbert has done a series of videos on doing smart homes. Below Paul Hibbert does a video about doing a smart home (a one bedroom apartment) on a very tight budget (100 UK Pounds (UKP) or roughly $190 CDN (exact amount varies from day to day), How is that pulled off? Well there is a bit of cheating... Mr. Hibbert assumes you have an Amazon Echo (hahaha, but easy to do, as noted in the video you just sacrifice a goat to Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos (because he doesn't yet have enough yachts)) or get out an old PC / Raspberry Pi that can run the "Home Assistant" ( https://www.home-assistant.io/ ) program which is fully free / fully local, runs under Linux, plus those other OSs (Paul Hibbert has videos on the install / set-up of Home Assistant). In other words, the "brain" of the system is not included in the 100 UKP price as it is assumed to be (effectively) free. In my case, yes, I have an older Raspberry Pi gathering that (just) meets the requirements for Home Assistant, so the (effectively) free bit is true for me, but not everyone. Another cheat on cost is on power. His shopping list includes some remote controls and motion sensors, the costs of which are included in the 100 Pound price. What isn't included is the cost of batteries (AAA size) to power those remote controls / motion sensors (fine, I'll just buy a Costco size package of AAA batteries and be done with it). Likewise he includes a presence sensor in the price, but not the USB power supply (I have an old spare Raspberry PI power supply that should do here, free for me, but this will vary for others). For those easily triggered, let me note that besides mocking Jeff Bezos, Paul Hibbert takes potshots at Star Trek, Star Wars, Tim (Tony is next week), and the IKEA smart home hub (he likes a lot of IKEA home automation products, just not their hub). The above are my criticisms of the video. The strengths include the fact that MOST of the products he mentions are from IKEA, and more-or-less all are available in Canada in versions (as required) compatible with the 120 / 60Hz AC power found here. The prices that he lists (when you take the exchange rate into account) are roughly about the same here as in the UK. Obviously this is all a starting point to a low cost, reasonably flexible, and reasonably expandable, home automation system, it will have to be tweaked for each household (ie: the example given is for a one bedroom apartment, I live in a two bedroom apartment, so a few extra bits and I'll be good). Any event, I have a presence sensor on order from AliExpress, I've done some shopping at IKEA and I am looking forward to pulling this all together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq6-v6hIyYE Colin McGregor

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Meeting?
by Ron 15 Jul '26

15 Jul '26

Are we going to have a 2nd Tuesday meeting this week?

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Gordon Chillcott has passed away.
by Scott Sullivan 08 Jul '26

08 Jul '26

I just received word from Gordon's son, Sean. --- Gordon Chillcott passed away on Monday July 6 at Centenary Scarborough Hospital at the age of 84. He passed away peacefully, myself and my cousin by his side. His health took a turn since he fell due to ice in February and his health steadily declined from there. A service to honor Gordon’s memory and share the stories he left behind will be held on Monday, July 13 at McDougall & Brown Funeral Home, 2900 Kingston Road, Scarborough, Ontario. Visitation will be at 10am followed by a service at 11am. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in Gordon’s honor to his favourite charity, The Salvation Army, or a local charity of your choice. --- Gordon was an immeasurable positive influence on the world, this community, and to me personally as a mentor. He will be dearly missed, and I am grate for what time I've share with him in this life. Thank you, -- Scott Sullivan

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cute vim tutorial
by Lennart Sorensen 08 Jul '26

08 Jul '26

If anyone actually wants to learn vim someone created a lovely tutorial. https://vimscoops.dev/game -- Len Sorensen

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speaking of USB, stick brand suggestions?
by Karen Lewellen 04 Jul '26

04 Jul '26

Hi all, or ones to avoid? When asking this on the Debian list some hinted that size is not always correct in terms of capacity. Thanks, Kare

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Apparently USB PD spec has even higher power than I realized
by Lennart Sorensen 03 Jul '26

03 Jul '26

Having finally received my warranty replacement laptop (took 3.5 months due to parts not getting delivered from intel, specifically CPUs. How I hate this stupid AI craze.) I noticed the replacement now has USB-C for the power connector rather than a proprietary lenovo plug. Given the power requirements I remember them having in the past that seemed like a low since I thought 100W was the maximum (20V at 5A), but no it turns out they support 28V, 36V and 48V these days, and this power supply supports up to 28V, so 140W. That's impressive. I guess the days of proprietary power supplies might actually be numbered. -- Len Sorensen

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Keyboard meetup, July 11
by Evan Leibovitch 01 Jul '26

01 Jul '26

Given the recent threads I thought this might be of interest to GTALUGers. https://www.camkmeetup.ca/ Toronto Reference Library July 11, 13:00-17:00 One thing that may keep people away is that tickets are $25 (more than $30 when taxes and transaction fees are added)... -- Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch / @el56

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