- Talk - lists.gtalug.org

LED bulbs was Re: computer hardware testing tools.
by Michael Hill 19 Jul '23

19 Jul '23

On Tue, Jul 18, 2023 at 11:27 AM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk < talk(a)gtalug.org> wrote: (I too suffer a problem that might be power-related. My home office > seems to burn out LED lightbulbs more quickly than it should. I don't > know where to start on that one. It might even be heat related rather > than power-related.) > Would love to hear any conclusions to this. All of ours require a ladder to change, and change is generally required more frequently than the claim on the box. Mike

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Red Hat Paywall...
by Colin McGregor 18 Jul '23

18 Jul '23

Let's see if I understand this correctly, Red Hat has now put a whole lot of open source / GPL software behind a paywall, where you have to pay $$ for a subscription in order to access the source code. Then if anyone uses that subscription to produce an Red Hat style distribution (ie: Red Hat minus any support services) their subscription will be cancelled... Is the above what I am reading here? : https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2023/im-done-red-hat-enterprise-linux If this is true then it confirms my decision to use Debian GNU/Linux as for all its' faults (and it does have several) Debian GNU/Linux just doesn't pull this sort of @#$% .

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Tonight's meetings Canceled.
by Alan Heighway 11 Jul '23

11 Jul '23

Please note that tonight's general meeting is canceled. Next months meeting information will be posted on the GTALUG website once our speaker confirm. Thank you.

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Latest Firefox on Debian 12
by Daniel Wayne Armstrong 05 Jul '23

05 Jul '23

For anyone interested in running the latest stable release of Firefox on Debian 12 aka "Bookworm", its possible to use the Firefox tarball provided by Mozilla. Steps: 1. Download the Firefox tarball from Mozilla - https://www.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/new/ 2. Unpack tarball and store the folder somewhere, i.e on single-user system I keep it in home 3. Create a link somewhere in your PATH to the Firefox executable, i.e ln -s ~/firefox/firefox ~/bin/firefx . Hint: I call the link something different - "firefx" - so as to differentiate this manually installed Firefox from any Firefox (firefox-esr) installed by the Debian package manager. 4. If you use a traditional desktop menu to select and launch your programs, you can create a .desktop file for your new Firefox. I skip this step because I use a dynamic menu/application launcher (rofi/wofi). This is how I do it and it works good! --- Open Source Outer Space => https://www.dwarmstrong.org

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Debian releases
by Giles Orr 05 Jul '23

05 Jul '23

As I mentioned in a previous email, I'm kind of intrigued by which toy Debian releases will be named after. To quote Wikipedia: "Debian distribution codenames are based on the names of characters from the Toy Story films." The current release is "bookworm," and I was amused to see that the current testing branch is called "trixie." According to Wikipedia's page on Debian's version history, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_version_history, the release after "trixie" will be "forky." If we've progressed to "Toy Story 4," I look forward to Key and Peele's characters "Ducky" and "Bunny" - although the names aren't the most exciting. And of course we can hope for "Caboom" - named after Keanu Reeves' decidedly Canadian character ("for you, Rejean!"). -- Giles https://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr(a)gmail.com

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Calander
by bitmap 29 Jun '23

29 Jun '23

Long time lurker here. I always see the announcent for an interesting meeting juuuust after it has happened. Is there a share calendar I can sub to? Or just look in advance for second tuesday of the month. Is there a modified summer schedule or things stay the same? Also wondering if they are virtual only on an indefinate basis. Would love to meet some other linux types.

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Debian 12
by Colin McGregor 21 Jun '23

21 Jun '23

I assume I'm not the only Debian GNU/Linux fan here. So, just of note Debian 12 (code name: bookworm (for the non-Debian fans let me note that major Debian releases get code names taken from characters in the "Toy Story" series of movies)) was released earlier this month. I have upgraded my main desktop and laptop computers from Debian 11 (code name : bullseye) to Debian 12 without any significant issues. A review of Debian 12 can be seen here : https://youtu.be/YRaJa-VjLGE Colin.

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CVT-RB: another video mystery
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 20 Jun '23

20 Jun '23

Video bandwidth is precious. In particular the HDMI standards seem to lag in providing the bandwidth I need. Partly because I run old hardware. One silly wast of bandwidth is blanking intervals. That mattered for CRTs since steering the electron beam took time. It should not matter for LCDs. CVT-RB (Coordinated Video Timings - Reduced Blanking) is a standard for reducing the blanking intervals. It sometimes makes the difference for supporting UltraHD. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Video_Timings#Bandwidth> I haven't yet fiddled with this. Perhaps it is currently optimal on my systems. But I have had mysterious troubles getting UltraHD working on some systems. The linux cvt(1) command has a flag --reduce: Create a mode with reduced blanking. This allows for higher frequency signals, with a lower or equal dotclock. Not for Cathode Ray Tube based displays though. But I don't think that command is used in my (automatically generated) configurations. Does Linux automatically know when to use CVT-RB? If so, how does it know? If not, how do you tell it?

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Toshiba Satellite L500 rejects Linux
by Giles Orr 16 Jun '23

16 Jun '23

I've recently acquired (through a friend who stopped using it) a Toshiba Satellite L500 - Core i3 (3rd gen?), 4G RAM. I'm determined to get Linux onto it (preferably Debian). I thought I had succeeded: I booted from a Debian USB stick, installed to the HD. All appeared to go well, but the system won't boot. It returns to the Boot Menu and says "HDXXXX has failed." What the search engines are telling me is that with this generation of Toshibas, the problem is generally Secure Boot / CSM etc. Which makes sense, but ... there is absolutely zero mention in the BIOS/UEFI ("Phoenix SecureCore Tiano Setup") of "Secure Boot," "CSM," "Legacy," or "UEFI." Acccording to notes I found online, "SecureCore Tiano" has "full support" for legacy booting. Another issue with this machine is my mixed success booting from USB sticks: I have an old-ish USB stick I built myself that has GRUB and a large menu of ISOs: works great on most systems, won't boot on this thing - probably because it's an old-style BIOS-boot only(?). One of my ideas was to upgrade the BIOS: it appears there's a newer version available, but it's NOT available from Toshiba, which is the only place I'd want to download it from. The rest look like dubious secondary download sites (if you know one you consider reliable, let me know). What I read online said that Fedora's installer puts an EFI partition on the HD as part of the install, while Debian doesn't. And that may(?) be why I can't boot from my Debian install? So ... I downloaded the Fedora installer, put it on a USB stick ... and no joy: the Toshiba doesn't recognize the Fedora USB stick as a bootable item. Would this be because I burned it on a "Legacy" system? Is there a fix for that? Except ... I'm about 99% sure the Debian Installer USB stick was created on the same machine. Worst case, I can stick the HD from the Toshiba into another machine, install Fedora on it, repartition to make room for Debian, put the HD back into the Toshiba ... but that's getting damn complicated and annoying. As always - any suggestions welcomed. -- Giles https://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr(a)gmail.com

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computer hobbiest with about 45 minuets?
by Karen Lewellen 15 Jun '23

15 Jun '23

Hi folks, The freecycle cafe used to be wonderful for this sort of thing. If I am honest my situation is sort of getting desperate. On top of my lack of usable landline services, my main computer is having issues now. what I need quite intensely Is sighted help in person to trouble shoot what I cannot due to blindness. and no, CNIB has not provided resources of this kind since well..ever. At least not without a 2 or 3 year waiting list. Might be fun for someone curious about adaptive technology in a low graphics setup. Any prospects? I am on Kingston road if that helps. Thanks, Karen

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