David Zuccaro <david.zuccaro@optusnet.com.au> wrote:

I'm using gnome 3 in classic mode, and not having any problems with it.

I'm using it (not in classic mode) whenever I need an X session. (I sometimes require accessibility-related tools that only run well under GNOME. If it weren't for that, I'd run a basic window manager instead.) Mostly, however, I'm still working in Emacs and console sessions. If one can't see the graphics, there isn't much value in running X, other than for applications that really need it, such as browsing Web sites that require JavaScript, the DOM and all those other Web APIs that have proliferated recently around HTML 5. In general, I prefer not to work with user interfaces that (1) attempt to hide what is really going on from the user, thereby introducing a lot of complexity; and (2) leave the user with limited understanding when something goes awry, due to all of that abstraction and complexity.

Trent W. Buck <trentbuck@gmail.com> wrote:

It's really a pity that edbrowse is too weird for js-happy web apps to work in it :-( Somebody said it was because it doesn't implement the DOM, which I didn't really understand.

Many Web applications manipulate the DOM tree, so yes, its lack of support for the DOM rules out Edbrowse for many script-dependent sites. I'm assuming you know what the DOM does: its an API for querying and modifying the document as a tree of objects, including CSS styles as well as HTML or XML elements. Beyond that there's the Window object, XMLHttpRequest, and many other APIs (e.g., the HTML DOM as defined now in HTML 5), persistent storage, and on and upward.

On 10 August 2013 17:21, Craig Sanders <cas@taz.net.au> wrote:

On Fri, Aug 09, 2013 at 09:23:50PM +1000, Mark Trickett wrote:

...

I have managed to install Debian 7.1.0 on an Acer Travelmate 3230, even coping with the binary blobs during the install. It is generally working well, standalone, but now I am looking to sorting out and using now and then networked.

i spent about 8 months trying to get gnome 3 to a usable/useful state and ended up just giving up and switching to xfce. it does everything i want in a window manager, without fuss and without forcing an "experience" or, worse, a glorious vision on me.

...

I may need to remove a great deal and install a lighter desktop, the Notebook is maxed out with 1.5Gig of RAM.

IMO, that's definitely not enough for gnome3. IME it's barely enough for normal casual use if you're going to use a web browser. my little asus x401u laptop only has 2GB RAM and even running xfce, swapping delays are quite noticable if i'm running iceweasel or chromium.

I'm using iceweasel 17.0.7 in wheezy on the ancient systems I mentioned upthread, and I've never noticed my swap partition in use. I'm curious about the apparently different experience. Perhaps it is swapping and I've just never noticed? Would that info be logged anywhere?

for a minimal debian install, you have to be careful to install nothing but the base system (and maybe ssh) from the installer CD/USB/PXE/whatever.

de-select *everything* when d-i gets to the Task Selection stage.

then when you've booted into the new system, use apt-get to install only the things you know you'll need. you'll end up with a system that's still significantly larger than a tiny-distro like Damn Small Linux, but you'll have access to apt-get and the enormous library of packaged software.

I forgot to mention that is exactly the procedure I used installing my desktop and notebooks that I quoted the LXDE memory use in my previous message. So maybe I've avoided some bloat that way, also I always used 'aptitude -R' and installed only "recommended" packages that I actually need, otherwise they are installed by default (without -R).

IMO, though, if 256MB isn't enough then a tiny-distro is still not the right solution, apt-get and friends are far too useful to discard - you can get P3s and better with 512M or 1GB or more for free without looking too hard. they're disposable "rubbish" that most people/businesses don't want (but still make perfectly good routers/firewalls and even desktop systems)

True here. But I'm not doing anything very cutting edge. Except heroically minimising e-waste going to landfill :) The last time I bought a new PC was in 1988 when I got a bank loan to buy an 80286! I don't think there were many second-hand PCs around back then :) I've been recycling ever since.

On 12 August 2013 12:41, Trent W. Buck <trentbuck@gmail.com> wrote:

David <bouncingcats@gmail.com> writes:

...

I'm using iceweasel 17.0.7 in wheezy on the ancient systems I mentioned upthread, and I've never noticed my swap partition in use. I'm curious about the apparently different experience. Perhaps it is swapping and I've just never noticed? Would that info be logged anywhere?

free(1) reports the swap usage as at query time.

Thanks, I already know free(1). By the word "logged" I meant a history or cumulative report of swapfile use, not a snapshot. For example does the kernel write anything to some logfile when it actually swaps, or can it be instructed to do so, or is there some other tool for monitoring this apart from running 'watch free' and staring at it forever to see if the "Swap:" zeros ever briefly change to anything else. I looked at vmstat(8) whose man page says: "The first report produced gives averages since the last reboot. " and "so: Amount of memory swapped to disk (/s)" so if I understand that correctly even the "first report" of "so" would be an average "/s" per second since last reboot?. So is the answer to run vmstat continuously with a one second delay, so that these averages can be taken as actual measurements? I found this article http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8178 where the comments mention vmstat log files, but following that link is about post-processing with other tools. Running vmstat in a loop post processing a logfile of its output seems an odd method to detect cumulative use. I suppose awk could do it, but isn't there any nicer way? I do often see load averages much greater than one on these older desktop/notebook machines. But I have never noticed swapfile use. So I'm wanting to answer the question "is my swap file ever used?" because I suspect it never is, and I wonder why my experience is so different to Craig's comment, or if I'm missing something. So I'm looking for cumulative data. Or another way to answer that question. I could look to see if the swapfile content changed, but that wouldn't give a quantitative indication of use.

On 14 August 2013 10:45, Trent W. Buck <trentbuck@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Thanks, I already know free(1). By the word "logged" I meant a history or cumulative report of swapfile use, not a snapshot. For example does the kernel

while free -m | tail 1; do sleep 15m; done | logger -t swapstats

Thanks for that Trent, terse but instructive! Good to be reminded of 'logger'. However it does not address the point that I must not have expressed clearly enough in my prior comments about about vmstat. I want to avoid sampling because it introduces uncertainty and overhead when answering a question that does not require sampling. This kind of sampling method requires knowledge of what sampling resolution is small enough to ensure that a brief use of the swapfile would not occur in between "free -m" snapshots, and be missed in the logfile. Due to inexperience of active swapfiles, I lack that knowledge, and that knowledge gap introduces doubt that makes any sampling method feel unreliable for me. It seems to me that the most best answer to whether the swapfile has ever been used would be provided by some flag that indicates that the swapfile has been used, if any such thing exists anywhere on the system. I'd have thought something would be /proc Also, there might even be an "uncertainty principle" at play. If I have to sample so often that I have to log a huge amount of data, it might cause swapping :) I found this: http://www.linuxinsight.com/proc_vmstat.html from which I conclude that the answer to my question "has the swapfile ever been used" would be authoritatively given by: $ cat /proc/vmstat | grep pswpout pswpout 0 I was unable to find a more authoritative documentation of /proc/vmstat for kernel 3.2.0. I've had a look at the kernel source mm/vmstat.c but it is not obvious so I'll probably give up and leave it at that, unless anyone has anything helpful to add.

On 14 August 2013 13:31, David <bouncingcats@gmail.com> wrote:

from which I conclude that the answer to my question "has the swapfile ever been used" would be authoritatively given by:

$ cat /proc/vmstat | grep pswpout pswpout 0

or alternatively it looks like the same (cumulative) information appears in the output of 'vmstat -s' I think that's the answer I was looking for all along.

Hello Craig, On Sat, 2013-08-10 at 17:21 +1000, Craig Sanders wrote:

On Fri, Aug 09, 2013 at 09:23:50PM +1000, Mark Trickett wrote:

...

I have managed to install Debian 7.1.0 on an Acer Travelmate 3230, even coping with the binary blobs during the install. It is generally working well, standalone, but now I am looking to sorting out and using now and then networked.

First, I am finding the Gnome 3 series different, and not certain that I either appreciate or like. Any comments about making it behave more "traditionally" appreciated.

if you want it to be similar to the old Gnome 2.0, your best option is to install xfce4, and configure debian to use it as the default (as root, run "update-alternatives --config x-session-manager" and then choose xfce4-session from the menu).

That is what I was looking for. I was considering lightweight graphical desktops, and not sure of quite which. Comments from the experience of others is what I value in this situation.

all of your gnome applications will still work - for best results, install a theme that has good support for both GTK2 and GTK3 (I use clearlooks-phenix-theme)

Again, thanks for the detail of the experience.

i spent about 8 months trying to get gnome 3 to a usable/useful state and ended up just giving up and switching to xfce. it does everything i want in a window manager, without fuss and without forcing an "experience" or, worse, a glorious vision on me.

there are a few minor differences between the "look-and-feel" of xfce4 and gnome 2, but they're trivial and easy to get used to. slight differences and evolutionary changes/improvements rather than radical, revolutionary change.

While I can get by a lot with the command line, a good graphical interface has a place. With the experience of living with, I can know what I am suggesting when I try to persuade others to change from Microsoft based software. I have every reason to not go back that way, despite some good applications. I was a WordPerfect user, and might install one of the copies I have under Wine, but the alternatives are effective, and for some things, raw postscript is really the only effective solution.

...

I may need to remove a great deal and install a lighter desktop, the Notebook is maxed out with 1.5Gig of RAM.

IMO, that's definitely not enough for gnome3. IME it's barely enough for normal casual use if you're going to use a web browser. my little asus x401u laptop only has 2GB RAM and even running xfce, swapping delays are quite noticable if i'm running iceweasel or chromium.

Up against hardware limits. I am also up against income limits. I have work as a Traffic Controller on road works sites and there is no work with the current weather. I have to try to minimise outgoings until work picks up, perhaps four weeks, and my reserves are already diminished. The total lack of work was not expected. I do expect utility bills in the meantime. I can later buy a RPi and start playing, including practical networking, but not enough machines at the moment, primarily two limited notebooks. This is on the A20m Thinkpad, PIII at 700Mhz with 256Mb of RAM, so the Acer is a large step up.

I strongly recommend use zram as a swap device. a compressed swap device works very nicely in low-ram machines, and makes a really noticable performance difference.

as long as you've running a new enough kernel (3.6 or later, IIRC). it's easy to do, but here's a useful howto on setting up zram in debian:

http://linuxvillage.net/index.php?topic=92.0

apart from bloated web browsers, it runs fine (although I still hate touchpads - one of the most annoying input device ever invented)

Similar feelings, much prefer to plug in a USB mouse. Will consider the zram, but wait for budget.

(i've actually got a 2nd 2GB SODIMM to install in the laptop but I got as far as opening it up and pulling the keyboard and case off it before realising i'd have to completely disassemble it to pull out the motherboard to get at the bottom of it where the RAM sockets are. designed to be a PITA to upgrade)

And the Thinkpad has some damaged keys I live with. Dropped a bit of timber when chasing mice in the walls. Have mostly eliminated critters, but still more needs doing.

...

Next, comment appreciated about Net-Manager. As I expect to use it on

whenever anyone says "Net-Manager" my initial reaction is "purge, purge, purge! kill it with fire!"

however, as long as you don't want to do anything even remotely fancy or unusual, it should just work for you. it can cope with handling an ethernet and/or ppp connection as well as uncomplicated wifi connections. it is very limited and inflexible, however, so don't be surprised if it is incapable of being configured to do what you want - if that happens, don't fight it and try to figure out how to get it to do something it is designed NOT to do - just purge it and configure your networks manually. your sanity will thank you for that.

Not certain about the ppp, at least from my experience on this Thinkpad. Using Wvdial, "Net-Manager" fails to see, but it all works. I am going looking at files like resolv.conf, and seeing what route returns and the like. Practical networking. Playing with several PC's will help, but I did find that this Notebook would set the default route via the other end of a ethernet link, which was another (now dead) stand alone PC, as did that one. Duh! invoking wvdial connected, but did not set the modem as the default route. I am learning, by poking around, but I would like to be playing at the workshops. The drive of four hours each way, and fuel costs, even with an economical car, is a significant deterrent.

...

The other thing is that CUPS (V 1.5?) will not let me set up a printer

sorry, can't help with cups.

The significant "annoyance" is that previous versions were dead easy to set up, even with no attached printer. The new one (1.5.3) greys out the add printer when there is no attached printer. Not necessarily a problem on upgrade, the printers are already configured, or when there is a printer on a cable, but when setting up the notebook away from said printers, it resembles sitting on a cactus. I did see the Apple copyright plastered liberally, maybe that explains the "expectations".

...

I will need to poke around further as IceApe (FireFox) could not find

iceape isn't firefox, it's seamonkey (and obsolete). it still works (i use it myself as a secondary browser) but the debian package is old and pops up a warning about how terribly ancient and unsupported it is every time i launch it.

iceweasel is firefox.

Mistake, was getting a bit late. It would be good to have access to FF as FF, not rebranded, in a separate repository.

...

The initial install left my user account without sudo access. I have rectified that so I have both full root access, and sudo. They give me ways of doing different things. For a single command that need not be run from a root login, sudo can be much better than an unguarded root login left sitting vulnerable, while some tasks are where I want full root login, at least at this time.

it's never a good idea to login as root on X.

instead, if you want to run several root commands without typing "sudo" in front of every one of them (a tedious practice that i blame ubuntu for popularising :), run "sudo -i" in a terminal to get a root shell, run whatever commands you need as root, and then "exit" or Ctrl-D to exit the root shell and return to your login user's shell.

"su -" would work just as well (except you'll need to type in root's password rather than your own password as you would for sudo)

you can also "ssh root@localhost" if root ssh logins are enabled.

I have organised such that I can log in as root, or su to root as needed, or use sudo. Which I use will depend on the appropriateness at the time. It is a matter of having the diversity, and learning.

...

Overall 7.1 is reasonably impressive, but I would still appreciate a lighter version. I am inclined to do a base install as a command line only box on something with perhaps a PIII or PII and 256 Mb of RAM, or even less. There are other distros, but there are reasons I am looking at Debian, primarily the apt toolset.

for a minimal debian install, you have to be careful to install nothing but the base system (and maybe ssh) from the installer CD/USB/PXE/whatever.

de-select *everything* when d-i gets to the Task Selection stage.

then when you've booted into the new system, use apt-get to install only the things you know you'll need. you'll end up with a system that's still significantly larger than a tiny-distro like Damn Small Linux, but you'll have access to apt-get and the enormous library of packaged software.

it's been a very long time since i tried to install debian on a system with only 256M...i'm not entirely sure it will work. it should *run* OK-is once it's installed but the installer may require more than 256M (the debian package list is *huge*)

IMO, though, if 256MB isn't enough then a tiny-distro is still not the right solution, apt-get and friends are far too useful to discard - you can get P3s and better with 512M or 1GB or more for free without looking too hard. they're disposable "rubbish" that most people/businesses don't want (but still make perfectly good routers/firewalls and even desktop systems)

Noted, it might be possible to do an install to a disk in a better PC, then transfer. If I can get some specs, would you, or Russell Coker be able to source old RAM and post for a payment. I do not wish to impose, and I did "haunt" the Swap Meets, but being four hours from Melbourne makes it a bit difficult. I am also now a bit out of touch with most things post Pentium Classic, not entirely, but certainly not so familiar.

craig

With thanks, Mark Trickett

Hello Gavid, On Sun, 2013-08-11 at 00:15 +1000, David wrote:

On 10 August 2013 19:34, Mark Trickett <marktrickett@bigpond.com> wrote:

...

And the Thinkpad has some damaged keys I live with.

Have you tried searching eBay for either replacement keytops or keyboard? They are readily replaced. I've had good success doing this for my Thinkpads.

Not quite certain of availability. Probably needs full keyboard for the IBM Thinkpad A20m. I do not do eBay on dialup, too slow, and limited session, each time I connect, costs a local call fee, and do not leave running, mostly. Sometimes I do have to leave connected while garnering some files via wget, but not often. Large items tend to not work witth the browser.

By the way, in case it is not apparent, the reason I responded to your first message with information about LXDE is because you wrote "I may need to [...] install a lighter desktop".

Have the Debian 7.1.0 first DVD, used that to install on something with only 256Mb of RAM, and chose the LXDE desktop. Looking good so far, standalone. Next to look at setting up dialup connection with it, when not coping with much else, including getting firewood, splitting and stacking to dry, then carrying in and keeping the fire running. Spring is also encroaching, already, and I need to also service the mower and put in hours with that and the brush cutter. That is a rural life, along with various work, when available, which tends to very long days. Regards, Mark Trickett

Hello David, On Sun, 2013-08-11 at 21:10 +1000, David wrote:

...

Not quite certain of availability. Probably needs full keyboard for the IBM Thinkpad A20m.

FYI a search on eBay reveals about 10 of those (used) offered for sale from various vendors in the USA. About half of those are under US$10 with shipping quoted around US$20.

As per previous message, on dial up, very slow with graphics, so do not do eBay. I will consider at some point, but looking to retire this Thinkpad. Also funds decidedly limited at the moment, nor am I currently prepared to do on line transactions, for a multitude of good reasons. Regards, Mark Trickett

On Sat, Aug 10, 2013 at 07:34:51PM +1000, Mark Trickett wrote:

That is what I was looking for. I was considering lightweight graphical desktops, and not sure of quite which. Comments from the experience of others is what I value in this situation.

lxde is another popular option for a lightweight window manager.

Will consider the zram, but wait for budget.

sorry, i must have given the wrong impression. zram is free, it's included with recent-ish kernels. it uses some of your existing RAM and creates a compressed ramdisk swap device. so if you have 2GB, you might configure it to use up to 1GB as compressed swap and, depending on exactly what was being paged out and how compressible it was, you get much more than that. when a process needs some code/data swapped back in, it comes from the zram swap which is much faster than disk - especially the slow 5400rpm disks typically in a laptop. (of course, if you've got an SSD then it's probably not worth it)

Dropped a bit of timber when chasing mice in the walls. Have mostly eliminated critters, but still more needs doing.

mice love cats, esp with toxoplasmosis.

Noted, it might be possible to do an install to a disk in a better PC, then transfer. If I can get some specs, would you, or Russell Coker be able to source old RAM and post for a payment. I do not wish to impose, and I did "haunt" the Swap Meets, but being four hours from Melbourne makes it a bit difficult. I am also now a bit out of touch with most things post Pentium Classic, not entirely, but certainly not so familiar.

what sort do you need? i may have some old DDR or DDR2 RAM lying around you can have. i don't have any old laptop ram, i've always been averse to laptops (i dislike tiny keyboards, tiny screens and especially touchpads) and haven't had any real need for one...i only really bought my x401u because it was cheap and i wanted a keyboard/screen/ssh terminal to take to linux conf. craig -- craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au> BOFH excuse #446: Mailer-daemon is busy burning your message in hell.

Craig Sanders <cas@taz.net.au> writes:

it's been a very long time since i tried to install debian on a system with only 256M...i'm not entirely sure it will work. it should *run* OK-is once it's installed but the installer may require more than 256M (the debian package list is *huge*)

Last time I tried it, IIRC with wheezy when it was testing, you can boot w/256M, but you can only install w/256M if the udebs are available on local media -- i.e. it doesn't need to dl them into memory first AND unpack them into memory.

IMO, though, if 256MB isn't enough then a tiny-distro is still not the right solution, apt-get and friends are far too useful to discard - you can get P3s and better with 512M or 1GB or more for free without looking too hard. they're disposable "rubbish" that most people/businesses don't want (but still make perfectly good routers/firewalls and even desktop systems)

FTR, openwrt and friends have opkg. AIUI it's a de facto standard in the embedded space. It's not apt/dpkg, but it's not hand-rolling either.

Jason White <jason@jasonjgw.net> writes:

Trent W. Buck <trentbuck@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Craig Sanders <cas@taz.net.au> writes:

...

it's been a very long time since i tried to install debian on a system with only 256M...i'm not entirely sure it will work. it should *run* OK-is once it's installed but the installer may require more than 256M (the debian package list is *huge*)

Last time I tried it, IIRC with wheezy when it was testing, you can boot w/256M, but you can only install w/256M if the udebs are available on local media -- i.e. it doesn't need to dl them into memory first AND unpack them into memory.

What happens if you boot a live medium (GRML is my preferred option, but there are many others) and run debootstrap? As I remember, GRML has scripts to automate the installation by running Debootstrap and then creating configuration files.

I didn't try it. It would probably require about as much ram for a minimal live environment as for d-i (which is, after all, a live environment itself). If both are local media, the results should be comparable.

Erik Christiansen <dvalin@internode.on.net> writes:

On 09.08.13 21:23, Mark Trickett wrote: Cause: Ubuntu NetworkManager had overwritten /etc/resolv.conf with crap: 192.168.1.254 Also, /etc/network/interfaces only had an entry for lo. eth0 was missing.

That is by design. As at 8.04 or 10.04 (the last time I looked), NM will ignore any interfaces specified in interfaces(5). It makes sense that if a fresh install is to have NM, it should lack interfaces(5) entries.

First: sudo apt-get remove network-manager # Since it overwrites # /etc/resolv.conf on each reboot.

In case anybody hasn't realized it, "remove" leaves config files around (including e.g. init files), which is a little icky and a (probably negligible) performance hit. Use "purge" to get rid of those as well. aptitude search ~c # lists removed-but-not-purged packages.

Fix: Put two nameservers back into /etc/resolv.conf

See also "resolvconf" package if you have >1 system writing to resolv.conf (e.g. two PPPoEs, or DHCP + OpenVPN).

Added eth0 to /etc/network/interfaces (Including "auto eth0", for auto ifup at boot.)

IMO you want both "allow-auto eth0" and "allow-hotplug eth0", although the latter is completely ignored on Ubuntu systems because the udev script that implements it is missing. Presumably NM is expected to replace that. Also you can write >1 on a single line, so instead of auto foo iface foo ... auto bar iface bar ... I prefer allow-auto foo bar baz quux allow-hotplug foo bar baz quux iface foo ... iface bar ...

When I last installed debian, there was an LXDE version. I think it is a much better choice for laptops.

At the boot: prompt of the installer, pass desktop=lxde. During the install the tasksel task prompts for something like "desktop environment" -- which one you get is goverend by the desktop= option, which almost certainly also has a debconf/preseed longhand form that I'm too lazy to look up. See also F1...FN help screens, see also amd64-installation-guide (or whatever arch) package, also available on debian.org website somewhere. I also highly recommend theme=dark during the installation.

On 19.08.13 11:23, Jason White wrote:

A further consequence is that you can populate interfaces(5), leave NM installed but inactive and not break GNOME 3 package dependencies by trying to remove or purge NM.

This solution works under Debian; I assume it would hold under Ubuntu as well.

Err, I wouldn't make too many assumptions about ubuntu, based on debian. It's the creeping crappy auto-magical interference with the interfaces file which prompted me to kill that NetworkMunger.

As far as I know, GNOME is the only desktop environment which depends on NM.

Are you sure? My ubuntu boxes have been running for years with gnome and no network-manager or network-manager-gnome, and it meets all my needs and expectations. (Same for older versions of ubuntu.) Erik -- In attempting to ride roughshod over 1170 written objections, a local government determination, a resident survey 94% against them, and years of protests, McDonald's is seeking to trash democracy, I reckon. We have over 85,000 signatures on www.change.org, and are flying to Chicago with them.

Jason White <jason@jasonjgw.net> writes:

Erik Christiansen <dvalin@internode.on.net> wrote:

...

...

As far as I know, GNOME is the only desktop environment which depends on NM.

Are you sure? My ubuntu boxes have been running for years with gnome and no network-manager or network-manager-gnome, and it meets all my needs and expectations. (Same for older versions of ubuntu.)

As of GNOME 3, the Debian "gnome" package depends on netowrk-manager-gnome. That's all I was referring to.

"gnome" does; "gnome-core" does not.

Erik Christiansen <dvalin@internode.on.net> writes:

On 19.08.13 10:54, Trent W. Buck wrote:

...

aptitude search ~c # lists removed-but-not-purged packages.

Many thanks for that. Fortunately it only lists 7 packages here, but, sadly, "sudo apt-get purge ..." won't remove the old config files, since it finds the package missing. I could perhaps reinstall them to tickle it into purging, but it'd probably interfere with the /etc files again. Yuck.

That is... odd. "aptitude purge ~c" is what I do, but IIUC you'll get the same error from that. Agree not worth worrying in your case.