- Talk - lists.gtalug.org

issue with gimp
by CAREY SCHUG 10 Jan '26

10 Jan '26

I only run gimp on my main desktop computer. I use it from weekly, up to 6 weeks apart. I can't open any of my projects, I get this error message: Opening '/home/carey/sourcematerial/myproject.xcf' failed: XCF error: unsupported XCF file version 19 encountered which a query tells me means the file was created with a newer version of gimp than I have. I have not knowingly backleveled. I could try to update to see if there is a newer gimp, but thought I'd ask here in case that might only make it worse. Carey

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Migration: Slackware -> CachyOS
by William Park 08 Jan '26

08 Jan '26

It took 30+ years, but I finally managed to migrate from Slackware, to CachyOS. I can now hang out with all the cool kids. These are my observations: 1. BTRFS was excellent and defining choice, in hind sight. Snapshot makes backup so easy. I'm willing to take speed hit, but I found it's quite fast. BTRFS filesystem has "subvolume", eg. for CachyOS, - root is "@" subvolume, mounted at / - home is "@home" subvolume, mounted at /home So, - to back up /home within the current filesystem, just take snapshot. - to back up to another BTRFS filesystem, do "btrfs send | btrfs receive". I see 60MB/s throughput on my machine with SATA2 harddisks. 2. Font was surprising. Using same Firefox, same website, - Fedora has the best fonts. - CachyOS is close second. - OpenSUSE has the worst fonts. 3. CachyOS is the fastest. Fedora and OpenSUSE felt about the same in speed. 4. Vim is Vim is Vim. It should be, but each distro has their own configuration stack. You have to watch out for that. I took me some time to get "indentation" that Slackware gives you by default. Conclusion: ----------- I'm satisfied with CachyOS, so far. I recommend people to try BTRFS distros. It will make your backup much easier. And, ability to do "rollback" is bonus. --William

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systemd timer VS crontab
by William Park 06 Jan '26

06 Jan '26

Hi all, 1. For cron jobs, do you use - systemd timer/service, eg. job.timer, job.service, OR - traditional crontab from /etc/cron.daily/job, ... ? 2. After translating to "systemd" scripts, how is the maintenance? --William

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1/7/2026 GoLUG meeting, 7pm Eastern STANDARD time
by Steve Litt 06 Jan '26

06 Jan '26

Hi all, Where: GoLUG Online: https://meet.jit.si/golug When: Wednesday, 1/7/2026 7pm sharp Eastern STANDARD time Arrive 15 minutes early for Microphone check & discussion Who: Steve Litt, Troubleshooter, Developer, Tech Writer What: Free for all discussion of Open Source There's no moderator or speaker. Everybody will say anything they want about any Open Source software, as long as it doesn't depend on major closed source stuff (AWS, ChromeOS, etc). Basically, if you can run it on your own computer and by license be able to give copies including source to anyone you want, it's on topic. David Billsbrough will give his observations about Wine. I might praise syntax checkers (lint, gcc -Wall, shellcheck, xmlchecker.py, W3C validator, etc). Everybody else will talk about their favorite Open Source topic, and a good time will be had by all. Hope to see you there. SteveT Steve Litt GoLUG Publicity Coordinator

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(Test) testing duplicate posts
by William Park 05 Jan '26

05 Jan '26

(Testing... so ignore.) I send out 1 email to GTALUG, and I get 2 duplicates coming back. Other people's posts are fine, I only get 1 copy. I think, Thunderbird is filtering twice.

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Interesting PS1
by William Park 05 Jan '26

05 Jan '26

Hi all, While searching for a distro to migrate to, I found an interesting PS1: PS1='[$(tr " " "|" <<< "${PIPESTATUS[*]}") \u@\h \w]\$ ' where the interesting part is the use of PIPESTATUS variable. I knew about it, but used in PS1. It's nice, because you don't have to type "echo $?" every time, and you see the result of each part of pipe. By the way, the fonts I used to type are, - "Fixed Width" for "PS1=" block quote line -- which is "Noto Sans Mono" on my screen. - "Variable Width" for the rest -- which is "Noto Serif" on my screen. How does it show on your screen? --William

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Can someone test <homedepot.ca>
by William Park 05 Jan '26

05 Jan '26

Hi, This is my first email from new distro (CachyOS). In addition, I had to switch from POP to IMAP, and Thunderbird is sure buggy. I hope it goes out. Anyways, can someone go to <homedepot.ca> ? On my Firefox (146.0.1), it's blank screen. But, I know something is there, because mouse pointer changes as I move on the screen.

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(question) how to preserve font in Thunderbird
by William Park 04 Jan '26

04 Jan '26

To those using Thunderbird... Thunderbird is set to use "Variable Width" font and "medium" size. - When I write, it looks like "Noto Serif". - When I see my post, either in "Sent" folder or from GTALUG list, the font is not what I sent out. It looks like some "san serif". And, also, size is not right. So, how do you preserve font/fontsize in Thunderbird? --William

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Linux on a phone
by Michael Hill 04 Jan '26

04 Jan '26

I was going to ask for a phone recommendation because my latest phone (a Sony XPeria) doesn't do WiFi calling (thanks to Sony's reduced presence in North America). Then I read this article: https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/app-store-oligopoly I've been following Phosh since I applied for a job at Purism before covid. Debian and postmarketOS now seem mature enough to convince me to spring for the hardware and I was thinking of a PinePhone. It requires less of a financial commitment and runs less hot than a Librem 5, and my son has the watch (PineTime). Casual searching tells me the PinePhone's supported by Freedom and Telus. Does anyone have any experience? Mike

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Zero 2W reboots when plugging/unplugging micro USB OTG cable
by William Park 03 Jan '26

03 Jan '26

(Double posted, so reply to your list) To anyone with Raspberry Pi Zero 2W... I just got Zero 2W + mini HDMI adapter + micro USB OTG cable combo, from Amazon last week. All seem to be working. *Except*, whenever I plug or unplug OTG cable, the Zero 2W *reboots*. Nothing is connected to the USB cable, so it's not "power" issue. I don't know if the problem is Zero 2W side or USB cable side. Does your Zero 2W reboot, when you plug/unplug OTG cable? It's strange that plugging/unplugging just USB cable, would cause a reboot.

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