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ASUS EEE 701 GRUB problem
by Peter Ross 21 Nov '14

21 Nov '14

Hi all, I found an older ASUS EEE 701. The Ubuntu login on it was unknown and the person who used it on company travel left a while ago. I decided to put Debian 7.6.0 on it (BTW: FreeBSD 10 does not recognize the WLAN). I installed "standard" (text) and all seemed fine. Just grub refused to install. So I installed the grub packages manually (using the "live" USB stick) and run "grub install /dev/sda" in a chroot environment. All worked but it still does not boot. "grub-setup /dev/sda" seems to be working too.. I also used "grub-mkconfig" successfully. The Asus EEE 701 has a 8GB SSD drive. Is there something "special" about the Asus I should do? Workarounds? Thanks for ideas Peter

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Re: ZFS compression - looking for space savings
by Peter Ross 20 Nov '14

20 Nov '14

Hi Toby and all, Before you ask;-) > I can make a test on a 32 GB RAM, 2 Xeon processor machine but this is a > bit of limited value, I think. I can actually test it now and will see the space savings. And then I hope I do not "kill" the 1GB machine. Regards Peter

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Re: ZFS compression - looking for space savings
by Peter Ross 20 Nov '14

20 Nov '14

Hi Toby, thanks for the answer. > So.... what's stopping you doing a quick test to find out what is best > for you? I have the appliance not available yet but I will get there next week. Actually I forgot one condition.. the 1 GB RAM. I installed PC-BSD on a laptop with 1GB of RAM before (with ZFS only) and realized that it works in general (with Flukebox, no Gnome/KDE..) So I hope this works for this appliance too (no GUI needed here) I can make a test on a 32 GB RAM, 2 Xeon processor machine but this is a bit of limited value, I think. [For historical reasons - this problem is solved] The other issue was a "start". ZFS is only compressing new data. So I do not have an issue to send data from incremental snapshots from an uncompressed filesystem to a compressed one. But if I have a few hundred GB already? The "zfs receive" will create the ZFS.. I figured out a way, you can create the parent filesystem with compression on and the new one inherits this value:-) I may need some smarts in a script to get the path names right. > I ran a quick test using (non-zfs) equivalents of various compression tools, over a 2.0G filesystem image. (ie. hoping that represents a fair variety of binary+text files) > lz4 1.7s 221M > lz4 -6 10s 189M > gzip 25s 151M > bzip2 54s 135M > 7z 147s 102M > xz 253s 103M Thanks for it. I will see whether it matches the ZFS compression. > So if space is really at a premium, you're better off using an archive tool to compress everything, rather than zfs' built-in compression. The fun comes if you can keep a bunch of older copies thanks to snapshots. At the moment the backup is keeping six weekly backups online (compressed full backups) plus a year worth of quarterly backups. I hope to push it further back with snapshots. > But otherwise, gzip is better than lz4, but at significantly slower performance. Agreed and thanks Peter

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mythtv settings
by Brian May 19 Nov '14

19 Nov '14

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Computer issues with Linux
by Brian May 19 Nov '14

19 Nov '14

Hello, Am having two strange problems that are starting to eerk me with this (relatively new) computer, running Debian wheezy: 1. If I boot anything later then 3.12 kernel, I don't get any display. As in the monitors display black. No cursors of any sort. Changing to a virtual console doesn't help. Booting in rescue mode doesn't help (I think this rules out X-Windows being a problem). If I go back to the 3.12 kernel, everything works perfectly. I also tried plugging monitors into alternative ports just in case it is going to the wrong place, but get nothing - in any case, under 3.12 the computer seems pretty good at automatically working out what ports are active under X-Windows. 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation G96 [GeForce 9500 GT] (rev a1) Am currently using the non-free nvidia drivers. Had exactly the same symptoms when I installed the latest kernel without the non-free nvidia kernel modules. I think the problem is occurring before X starts. Computer seems to be up and running, and responsive to crl+alt+del despite not having a display. 2. There seems to be some weird performance problem. e.g. save a 2 kilobyte file in vim, and the computer can completely freeze (all other windows, including xterms, stop responding to user input) for, say 30 seconds, while it is writing that file. Chromium takes ages to load with several tabs, and pages can fail to start properly while it is doing so. Computer has 16GB RAM and is not using any swap. It has 11GB of buffer/cache space: total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 15G 13G 2.1G 0B 1.1G 7.9G -/+ buffers/cache: 4.6G 11G Swap: 3.8G 0B 3.8G Problems occurred before starting chromium, previously I wondered if it was chromium's fault. This is moving disk + RAID1 + LVM + ext4. Bonnie++ results seem to be pretty good, better in fact then my work computer, which doesn't suffer from similar problems. Writing a byte at a time...done Writing intelligently...done Rewriting...done Reading a byte at a time...done Reading intelligently...done start 'em...done...done...done...done...done... Create files in sequential order...done. Stat files in sequential order...done. Delete files in sequential order...done. Create files in random order...done. Stat files in random order...done. Delete files in random order...done. Version 1.96 ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random- Concurrency 1 -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks-- Machine Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP /sec %CP falidae 31904M 1228 94 107313 4 47471 2 +++++ +++ 137886 3 441.8 2 Latency 19141us 12435ms 251ms 19913us 88073us 283ms Version 1.96 ------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create-------- falidae -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- files /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP 16 +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ Latency 36us 223us 226us 36us 10us 24us 1.96,1.96,falidae,1,1404290654,31904M,,1228,94,107313,4,47471,2,+++++,+++,137886,3,441.8,2,16,,,,,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,19141us,12435ms,251ms,19913us,88073us,283ms,36us,223us,226us,36us,10us,24us I am currently working on a new theory that the performance problems only occur when the computer is cold and first turned on. I think I have seen evidence to disprove this, but guess I should run bonnie++ as soon as I turn the computer on, just to be sure. Any other ideas? Thanks -- Brian May <brian(a)microcomaustralia.com.au>

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New openSUSE 13.2 Install failure
by Andrew Greig 12 Nov '14

12 Nov '14

Hi All, Toshiba Satellite 32 bit, has been running under OpenSUSE very nicely since 11. Tried an Upgrade to 13.2 from 13.1 KDE splash screen indicated that it failed to load the Display. In 13.1 it was a Gnome desktop. So I selected CTRL +ALT +F2 and logged in there to try again, this time with a Gnome desktop. Worse outcome. Clean shut down from the Alt F2 screen and decided to run the install with LVM btrfs and encryption to force a format of /home for the next attempt. Now I know that openSUSE has moved to systemd for this release, but is that the problem, or do I look elsewhere? I still have the isos for 13.1 so regression is an option. I am seriously apprehensive about upgrading my production machine. Thanks Andrew Greig

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Oracle and Linux
by Russell Coker 11 Nov '14

11 Nov '14

I'm writing this message as a Linux user and a member of LUV - not as a member of the LUV committee. Avi, you have a history of making good technical contributions to LUV and of representing your employer well. However I think that Oracle has been under- represented given their technical work and their importance in the industry. I think that it would be good to have some Oracle employees give talks at LUV meetings as they are doing a lot that LUV members could learn about. Avi you are obviously well qualified to give such talks, but I think it would be good to get other Oracle employees with different skills involved too. A lecture about running the Oracle Database on Linux would be of interest. Also Red Hat has been running free public events teaching people about their products and services which I have found to be good value (and I have recommended some on this list). Does Oracle run such events? If so please inform the LUV committee and we can forward to the list if appropriate (I don't think it's appropriate for Linux companies to advertise on this list, but it's OK for LUV members who aren't associated with companies in question to recommend them). Some years ago there was an Oracle database install-fest, that was a useful event and many people learned a lot there. I think it would be good if Oracle ran another of those, if that happens I think it would be appropriate for LUV to promote that. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

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raspberry pi sd cards
by Brian May 11 Nov '14

11 Nov '14

Hello, In 20912 I purchased a Raspberry Pi B and a 4GB SD card from RS. It worked fine until I tried to upgrade my Raspian version. Basically it crashed the Raspberry pi, and wouldn't reboot. So I installed a new version of NOOBS, and the install worked fine, until the final reboot. After booting is almost complete it comes up with lots of mmc0 errors (possibly "Timeout Waiting for Hardware Interrupt on mmc0" although I will need to double check). A Google search suggested that this is because the SD card is incompatible. Which is disappointing, as I purchased it with the Raspberry Pi so I wouldn't have compatibility issues. Anyway, on the assumption that something is wrong with the SD card, are there are known good SD cards I can buy locally? The list at http://elinux.org/RPi_SD_cards is not helpful, and seems to be full of contradictions. I have read stories of people spending lots of money on SD cards and finding none of them work, so am a bit nervous about doing this myself. Thanks -- Brian May <brian(a)microcomaustralia.com.au>

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Re: VirtualBox - remote X11 console
by Peter Ross 11 Nov '14

11 Nov '14

Hi Brian, From: "Brian May" <brian(a)microcomaustralia.com.au> >> X11 connection rejected because of wrong authentication. > > Try running a simpler X client, e.g. xhost or xterm. The VirtualBox configuration tool works and displays on my desktop - so X11 redirect and xauth are "basically" working. (I do not have any other X11 clients on the server) Thanks Peter

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VirtualBox - remote X11 console
by Peter Ross 10 Nov '14

10 Nov '14

Hi, since yesterday I have a weird problem. I cannot display VirtualBox _guest_ consoles remotely anymore (the GUI for configuration works). I am running Virtualbox headless on a server but use the GUI for installs when needed. I forward ssh (-X) and use "su -m" to keep the DISPLAY environment variable(DISPLAY=localhost:10.0) and xauth. Two weeks ago I did just that, 1. started "VirtualBox", 2. created a VM and a disk, 3. attached an ISO disk 4. pressed start and the "BIOS" appeared Yesterday it all goes up to step 3- just 4 does not work. I get an error instead of the BIOS screen, and on the server I get: X11 connection rejected because of wrong authentication. I checked all variables and parts - nothing has changed since the last install that worked a fortnight ago. Same kernel, same VirtualBox, same xauth, same desktop. The server is a recent FreeBSD 10, the desktop Oracle Linux 6.5. Do you have any ideas what could go wrong? Thanks for ideas Peter

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