March 2013 - luv-main

Video problems - NVidia/Nouveau
by Jason White 19 Apr '13

19 Apr '13

My desktop workstation has been encountering intermittent video issues, including illegible screen displays and cases in which the monitor doesn't respond at all after Linux is loaded. Rebooting the system always seems to fix it however. This isn't so much of a problem for me, as I have a vision impairment and use braille and speech output, but it is an issue when someone else wants to use the machine. The only relevant error I found in the kernel log is: Mar 20 15:05:58 jdc kernel: [23207.760016] [drm] nouveau 0000:40:00.0: DDC responded, but no EDID for DVI-I-2 (after turning the monitor off then back on, after which it still didn't display any video.) The video card in this machine has been replaced twice over the years, both times under warranty/service contract, and with the same model of card, so I have my suspicions. It's a very up to date Debian Sid system, kernel 3.2.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.39-2 x86_64 GNU/Linux I didn't find any relevant Debian bug reports. Obviously I want to know whether it's hardware or software, and if hardware, the card itself or something else.

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Best way to copy a large directory tree
by Aryan Ameri 07 Apr '13

07 Apr '13

What's the best way to copy a large directory tree (around 3TB in total) with a combination of large and small files? The files currently reside on my NAS which is on my LAN (connected via gigabit ethernet) and are mounted on my system as a NFS share. I would like to copy all files/directories to an external hard disk connected via USB. I care about speed, but I also care about reliability, making sure that every file is copied, that all metadata is preserved and that errors are handled gracefully. I've done some research and currently, I am thinking of using tar or rsync, or a combination of the two. Something like: tar --ignore-failed-read -C $SRC -cpf - . | tar --ignore-failed-read -C $DEST -xpvf - to copy everything initially, and then rsync -ahSD --ignore-errors --force --delete --stats $SRC/ $DIR/ To check everything with rsync. What do you guys think about this? Am I missing something? Are there better tools for this? Or other useful options for tar and rsync that I am missing? Cheers -- Aryan

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Virtualbox on SuSeLinux 12.3 (latest)
by Andrew Greig 02 Apr '13

02 Apr '13

Hi All, I have loaded Virtual Box under Gnome on a SuSe 12.3 64 bit system. On trying to add a VM, I get this error : Could not add the VM. This parameter must be a string or Unicode object. I have added myself to the vboxusers group. Are there any other gotchas? That I need to fix to get this to work? Andrew Greig

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Migrating Evolution setup from old PC to a fresh install
by Mark Trickett 30 Mar '13

30 Mar '13

Hello everyone, I have been using an IBM Thinkpad, and continue to do so for this message, with Ubuntu, currently upgraded to 8.04. There are aheap of updates not applied as there is a hiccup with an earlier kernel marked for uninstall, that fails as the relevant modules package is already gone, and not retrievable. Since the processor is a PentiumIII at 700Mhz, it is time to move on, and I am doing so, and may consider reworking this Thinkpad for a lighter distro and playing around. I have chosen to install Debian (6.0) on the fresh desktop PC, and on a later Acer laptop. I invoked the Evolution backup on this laptop, then restored on the desktop, never having set up Evolution prior. It now will not recognise the analog modem ppp connection. I expect to have to edit config files and get ppp to set up as the default routing, but also in backing up and restoring Evolution, there are some settings that came over and are inappropriate, not least the old hostname. I would appreciate comments and suggestions from others who have made such a transition as that. I am expecting that the networking was also where the fault lies with updating Synaptic. I tried to use Google+, only to be told that the default Iceweasle was not recent enough. I could have taken the link on the webpage for Firefox, but I would prefer to have everything logged through apt/synaptic rather than trying to hand install and then maintain and keep up to date. That is a big part of why I have chosen Debian, and the administrative tools associated with Debian. At the moment, major updating will be done by taking the complete box and peripherals with me to visit a friend with ADSL that I can "borrow", but smaller matters can come in via analog modem now that it will dial out and run ppp. Having the necessary .debs on a disk or USB stick is also very useful. Mark Trickett

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Debian install on a Gigabyte X79-UD5 MB
by zlinw＠mcmedia.com.au 28 Mar '13

28 Mar '13

The following is just for the sake of information......... I just did an install of Debian testing from a snapshot done around 4 months ago. The new system consisted of an Gigabyte X79-UD5 MB, all new drives a combinataion of HD and SSD'S. System is a dual boot with WindowsXP. Partitioning was done with GParted live cd around 5 months old. This went OK. On the install of debian, install cd booted OK but on reboot on the finish of the install system failed to start. Console locking up not long after the drive subsystem is initailised. A mass of error messages asociated with APIC being printed. A search on the net showed this was a known issue as the Linux kernel does not currently support APCI 5.0 found on current MB's, which should _NOT_ have prevented the kernel starting. An attempt to turn off APCI support on the boot command line did not suceed. So I compiled and installed a new kernel via Debians rescue mode, using Linux 3.7.9 sources, with APIC disabled. Everything worked well after that. If the APIC disabling was the cure is unknown, the kernel config these days being __very__ complex (mind you it always was). The config I use being one of long standing with only the facilities I require. The config of course being modified as required using " make oldconfig" as new facilties come along with newer kernel versions. Using Linux for 20 years, Lindsay

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Re: Best way to copy a large directory tree
by zlinw＠mcmedia.com.au 27 Mar '13

27 Mar '13

Just a couple of small points........... I have been using rsync to backup hardisk's for some years with little problem, can save ages after the first one is done. I did get a few hints though from the thread, many thanks. 2nd point, Around 4 years ago I submited a bug fix to the kernel and had a nice conversation with one of USB driver developers in the kernel. He stated the major limiation with USB2 was the abilty of the USB chipsets on the mother board to commucicate with the PCI bus. He did quote max transfer figures for different chipsets and they were nothing like the USB2's spec. Using Linux for 20 years, Lindsay

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openwrt and routing performance
by James Harper 27 Mar '13

27 Mar '13

I have a netgear wndr3800 running OpenWRT aa rc1. The wndr3800 has gigabit ports but the most I can get through it with iperf is an average of around 80mbits/second (varying between 30 and 150). Because I can regularly see over 100 I can confirm that the ports are gigabit connected. It's configured such that port 1 is on a 192.168.0.0/24 network and port 2 is on 10.1.0.0/16 network and it routes between the two. I don't expect to get gigabit performance or anything out of it, it's only a little CPU after all, I'm just wondering if there are any tricks I can use to get a bit of extra boost out of it (software tricks - not interested in overclocking). It's also an internet gateway so needs to run iptables. I tried using the notrack target for packets between the two networks but then performance dropped to under 20mbits/second. Any suggestions? Thanks James

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graphite deployments
by Ashley Baumann 21 Mar '13

21 Mar '13

Hi Is anybody on the list using a large scale graphite deployment? The company I work for is thinking of deploying graphite across our production infrastructure (3000 machines in 20 DCs) and I was hoping to pick someone's brains for layout hints, tips and gotchas. TIA Ashley

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server stopped resolving dns for domain
by James Harper 21 Mar '13

21 Mar '13

I have a server that now refuses to resolve dns for the local domain (say xxx.local) Tcpdump shows no outgoing queries on port 53 for that domain. Nscd is not being used. Any other domain works just fine. So for example, I have a host called xxxdc1.xxx.local. Resolve.conf contains: search keech.local nameserver 192.168.0.235 "ping xxxdc1" does all the correct things (dns traffic visible, icmp responses). "ping xxxdc1.xxx.local" or "ping xxxdc1.xxx.local." does nothing. No dns traffic, just an eventual unknown host message. I can reboot the server tonight but I'm a bit suspicious that something else is going on. Any suggestions? Thanks James

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Re: Video problems - NVidia/Nouveau
by zlinw＠mcmedia.com.au 20 Mar '13

20 Mar '13

A couple of points >> Check the temperature of the card too. Try and see if increasing the load >> on it can trigger the condition. Also compare the cards diagnostics in >> Linux and Windows. >I can do the first two, but not the third (no Windows around here). >nouveau-pci-4000 >Adapter: PCI adapter >temp1: +81.0°C (high = +100.0°C, crit = +120.0°C) >That's with the machine mostly idle. As far as I am concerned that temps way to high for an idle video card, if its the cards real temp. Next time you turn the system on try to read the temp as soon as possible to see if starts out near room temp. Even being pushed with a lot of 3D work the temps on my system, video card being a Radeon 5870, rarely exceed 65 degrees C. If the temp is real may be the card has an air flow restriction, say to many cables around the place, or if it has a fan it requires cleaning and a drop of oil. Second point may be minor, I am slightly suspicious of the monitor not coming back after being switched off and on. I have struck some older monitors that will not sync to a high resolution signal when restarted but it would be rare these days. Using Linux now for a few months under twenty years, Lindsay

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