Latest version of Glibc fixed old Nvidia graphic card reset problem

The most recent upgrade of glibc (version 2.42 according to rpm -qa --last) fixed my issue with the graphics card. I have had problems with my graphics card for ages. It is an archaic Nvidia GeForce 710M, resetting the laptop when starting up the graphical login process or after running for a few minutes. The startup logs say it's some ACPI power management bug and my Lenovo laptop are known for having some ACPI issues on their laptop motherboard. The display manager works fine. It would start, show me the login screen and after entering my password and starting up, it would reset the laptop and I'd be looking at a bootup screen again.

However, it only affects the main (and more bloated) graphical environments, KDE and Gnome. I'd have use a lighter Window Manager, like IceWM. It would start ok and I'd be able to open terminals for work or use the applications as normal. Gemini says it some kernel-related issue and suggested some parameters to pass to the kernel during the Grub stage about ACPI backlight management and disabling Compositing, which it wasn't enabled. 

Right now it works ok and I'm happy. A period like that happened a few months ago and an update broke it again. This was before the big update to Mageia 10. I'm sure it'll come back again and I'm back to Fluxbox. 

Pandemic and Mageia Madness

Fortunately, the pandemic has little negative impact for me. Working from remote, couped up in the house,endless remote meetings. Tell me something new. It's just more of it. And my exprience with work during the pandemic is opposite of most, I got even busier. New clients looking for a cheaper way of doing the same things. Companies looking at open source solutions mainly as a cost reduction option, suddenly okay with solutions that cost less even though it sticks out in their MsWindows environment. I'm not complaining but some days, I'm am at the edge of it.

 I've recently moved to the most recent version of Mageia. Well, forced to was the more likely. A distro upgrade broke and screwed up the loading of the kernel. I could try to fix it but decided to just start fresh. The data directories were in a different partition (best practice ever) and installing fresh would just mean I may had to deal with the configuration setting differences between the older KDE/Cinnamon with the most recent one (since it was reading my existing home folder). Long story short, it worked like a charm (other than my USB stick coming down with a case of bad blocks).

Then came the whole process of reconsidering the apps I really needed vs the apps I wanted (but almost never use). This is where my thoughts of the needs of the average user return. Does the average user use the apps I use or need? Do they use apps that I don't? This is important to me as a Linux advocate because if Linux doesn't meet the need of the average joe, then the adoption will always fall short. 

This was a slow start.

Login failures and the joy of Linux

Linux login screen (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have only Linux running at home, most of them Mageia. Which means that I am also Technical Support. A few days ago, the kids complained that they couldn't log in on the shared computer near the kitchen..I tried logging in and after I entered my password, a dialog box appeared and said "The name org.gnome.DisplayManager was not provided by any .service files". Clicking on OK would land me back in the login page. Fortunately, I solved it pretty quickly.
I found out that there was a power outage and the machine restarted with a filesystem error. It fixed itself but then the error message came out. I reckon one of the config files got mangled and needed to be re-installed. If you are new to Linux, this is not as bad as it sounds. This isn't the only Linux box in the house, so I had options. My first guess was that the Mate / Gnome config file in my directory was messed up. So I logged in as root. It logged me in without any error.
A quick Google search did said that it was likely my GDM custom.conf file was mangled. I compared it with my laptop's version and it was the same. Then I remembered that Mageia didn't use GDM but LightDM instead. And then I realized that all I had to do was switch Display Managers. Mageia came with about 4, so I was spoilt for choice. I opened up the Mageia Control Center and then chose Boot and then Display Manager. I chose GDM, saved and logged out. Problem solved.
Sorta. I will have to get around to fixing LightDM but there is no rush. GDM is almost similar and Mageia developers went to great pains to ensure all the graphics were consistent. So the difference my kids saw was that instead of a drop-down list with their names to choose from, their names were now in a dialog box list. It was something they saw for about 3 seconds and knew immediately what to do.
This is one of the reasons I love using and working with Linux. It not only gives you choices, those choices are modular to the point where one breaks down, chose another that does the same thing and move on. This would have been a major catastrophe on MSWindows. I'd be looking at a re-installation at least. If I knew, what file was corrupted, I could replace it but I wouldn't know whether it would be of the same version of the other MSWindows components.

Going Minty 3 - Solving why Gimp is opening PDFs on Chromium

Something I did not encounter on Mageia but cropped up in Linux Mint is something quite strange. It's strange because it also seems counter intuitive. Especially for a distribution that does so well in keeping things user-friendly. The odd thing that happened to me in Linux Mint was that Chromium opens PDF with Gimp.

GIMP 2.2.8  graphic software. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now this is not too bad if you have a good PC. And it's not wrong either because Gimp can open PDFs and better still, edit them. But you want to open a multi-page PDF, Gimp will render each page up-front. Meaning that if the PDFs has a lot of pages, it's gonna take some time. If your rig has less than 1 GB of RAM, the wait becomes worse.
The solution is obvious: change the default setting or program for opening PDFs. Unfortunately, that didn't work for me. Set what ever it is, the default is set to Gimp. I do get a choice to switch to another program each time, but it tends to get annoying. So how does one change the default application. Apparently there is common program called xdg  that helps with opening of files. Applications under freedesktop.org call on xdg to help them open document files. So for Chromimun, after it downloads a PDF file, it calls on xdg to open it. xdg determines the actual viewer and passes the name of the PDF to the viewer for it to open. The definition for the 'actual viewer' is either set by the underlying environment (KDE, GNOME, etc) or by xdg itself. The command is as follows:

Is Ubuntu is licencing Linux? Canonical looking for value in the wrong places

Linux Mint 11 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Full disclosure: I am no fan of Ubuntu. I applaud their efforts to put Linux in as many hands as possible with the free CD distribution effort but I'm of the opinion that Ubuntu puts itself above Linux while riding on the contribution of open source developers to Linux in general. I applaud their focus on making Linux user-friendly but I'm of the opinion that their effort is no more better than of other distro developers like Mandrake/Mandriva in the past. To top it off, I've predicted the path Ubuntu will take eventually once it has decides it does not need the community any more.
So it comes to no surprise the latest move by Ubuntu to protect 'it's intellectual property' is to licence Ubuntu. Sounds harsh? Some people will think I am being unfair using language normally used to describe Caldera. How else should I react when Canonical is asking derivative distros to sign a license to use 'Ubuntu binaries'? Ubuntu apologists have already made their stand known. They have made light of the gravity of the act of demand to licence and trying to convince us that the issue is about protecting the Ubuntu brand when it comes to derivative distros, Linux Mint, specifically.
I have ask: Why Linux Mint specifically? Does Canonical ask the same from Kubuntu and lubuntu? Is it because Linux Mint is becoming increasingly popular at the cost to Ubuntu? I've been thinking about writing of the possible danger of other distros basing their work on Ubuntu and how dangerous it is to base their work on a source that is actively consolidating their hold on it. I guess I don't have to now.
Really, I don't. At the end of this post are links to articles that go into this deeper.

Solve CMOS Battery Issues with NTP

Hewlett-Packard Mini 1000 netbook Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I guess it was time. My HP Mini 1000 netbook was giving me the wrong time and date every time it booted up. It made going to websites with HTTPS impossible because I was apparently accessing them from the past. Resetting the time didn't work because it would forget the current time and reset back to 2002. I would then manually reset the time using ntpdate.
After a few times, I got tired of this and decided that there is a better way. Since the netbook is connected to the Internet most of the time, I knew that a script could be triggered to run every time the network card started up. All I needed to do was to add the ntpdate command and options to it. Problem was I didn't know what script it was. I wasn't also big on making a custom change that would affect future updates.
I knew the scripts that set the network configuration was in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts. My network interface family was eth so the script that set it up was /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-cfg. At the of end of the file was the command

exec /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-post ${CONFIG} ${2}

Reading the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-post file, I found the following command at the end.

if [ -x /sbin/ifup-local ]; then
    /sbin/ifup-local ${DEVICE}
fi

However, the file /sbin/ifup-local does not exist. So I created one with the ntpdate -u pool.ntp.org command in it.  So now, every time the network is configured, the time is correct.
I know it doesn't address the problem of the battery being dead or needing replacement but it'll do for now.

This didn't work for you? Maybe you're using NetworkManager. Run NTPDate automatically with NetworkManager too.

Mageia2 Upgrade Survival Guide

It's been over a week since I upgraded my netbook to Mageia 2. I'd like to share what I've learned so far and hope it would be of use to someone. Given that my experience is on a netbook, the smaller screen size may have an influence on how well Mageia behaves. But my expectations before I upgraded was high since I had Mageia 1 and had no problems with it. I will update this from time to time as I find out more things and install Mageia on more boxes.

First Things First
Backup. No two ways about it. With the cheap network storage available, it's nuts not to back up. If you don't have 50Gb Box.net account, get an external hard disk. Just back it up somewhere. You don't want to be sorry.

The Upgrade 
If you are doing the software upgrade (as opposed to an upgrade using a DVD/CD), I strongly recommend to set to "download the files first". I once did a software upgrade on a previous version without it and upgrade broke halfway through. I had to do a disk upgrade/install to recover. Once the upgrade is done, it will ask to reboot and you will rebooted into Mageia 2.
If you are doing a disk upgrade, make sure you pay attention to the disk partition information screen. Preferably, do this while you are awake. I had a friend who thought it would be nice to start it in the middle of the night and wake up to a new system. You guessed it, he clicked through not realizing the installer had asked to delete the entire hard disk. In fact, the installer didn't do that by default. He thought he was being smart by checking the partition manually. With one eye closed.

Welcome to Gnome3
If it isn't clear already: Gnome3 is nothing like Gnome2. Here are some of the things to get used to in Gnome3

• Everything changed - accept it and you won't go crazy. In fact, don't even think of this as an upgrade to Gnome2. Gnome2 just melted away.
• Doing the Gnome3 jab. That is the move you do when you move your mouse to the top left hand corner of the screen to do anything: change windows, move between workspaces, run applications. Deeply reminiscent of the move rappers do to pretend scratching a record as they rap. I gave up and got a trackball instead
• Remembering the name of the program you want to use. Because the fastest way to get to an application is to type the name of the application in the search box on the top right corner of the screen.
• Add programs to the favorites bar for quick access. Right click on application icons to add it to favorites bar for easy access.
• Using multiple workspaces needs getting used to. Gnome3 developers claim that workspaces are now unlimited. They are referred to as either "down" or "up" not numbered as they were before. You can move applications to other windows by right-clicking but then they can become nuisance to get to. Do the Gnome3 jab and click on the workspace. Alt-Tab will get you there too but if you are the type that sorts windows according to workspaces, alt-tab will bounce you between workspaces and it can get confusing.
• By the way, Alt-Tab switches between programs. To switch between windows of a program, say between multiple windows of Firefox, use Alt-~ instead. Learn that.
• The top panel can't be hidden. For a system supposed to be tablet friendly and thus limited-screen-space friendly, this is strange. I used to set my top and bottom panels to Auto-hide and thus moving my mouse to the top or bottom to reveal the panel was normal. Which essentially means that the Gnome3 UI designers made the same thing I used to on Gnome2 harder by making my target smaller.
• Access Advanced Settings, the next step up from Systems Setting, like it is a separate application. Strange? Not really because it is a separate application. Go there to set advanced settings such as the size of fonts, what to do when you close the lid of the laptop and putting back maximize window button.
• The over-bearingness of the Gnome3 UI designers. Talk about a nanny-state. Discard the notion of choice (and thus individuality). Nobody wants different screensavers, right? It's too difficult. Gnome3's policy is very clearly: "less choice is good" and "go somewhere else for it". Okay, I'm sorry if I said that Gnome3 removes a person's individuality. They constantly remind you of who you are at the top right corner of the screen. Bizarrely, their stand that "the options are not gone, just hidden" is an invitation to hacking. Which brings me to my next point...

Extensions.gnome.org is you friend. 
Extensions are basically Javascript hacks to give users access to the hidden options in Gnome3. They are not part of Gnome proper so use the same judgement you use for installing browser extensions. Just go to extensions.gnome.org in a browser to install individual extensions. Here are some of the the important gnome3 extensions to install to add back some of the functionality taken away.

• alternative status menu - give me back my hibernate capability. And does anybody know whether Suspend is Sleep or Hibernate. The discussion I read from the Gnome developers clearly indicate that they thought that Suspend was a state that "you could take out your batteries" and recover from that. Clicking Suspend on my machine only put it on Sleep mode. Pull out the battery and it's a reboot. 
• Left/Middle-message-tray - take control of the bottom right corner. You will find yourself fighting with Gnome3 over it because that is were you move the mouse to see the messages bar. The Gnome3 UI guys forgot that's also where the bottom scroll arrow button for maximized applications is. Oh wait, they removed the maximize window button.

Gnome3 hates me, so be it

I am loathe to think that the same people who made Vista what it is could be the same people who are behind the UI changes in Gnome3. It isn't true, of course. But if Microsoft wanted to sabotage Linux on the Desktop, this would be the easiest way. Have the Vista people infiltrate the Gnome organization and unleash their ideas on unsuspecting Gnome developers. I apologize sincerely to all the hardworkng Gnome developers who are doing cool things on their free time but I think the Gnome3 UI deserves all that people are saying about them.
At first, I was going to rant on the shortcomings and nuisance that is Gnome3. I was going to elaborate on the designers "This is not the desktop for you, it is for everybody else" alienating attitude and wonder who else is left when they are done and who exactly are these mythical "everybody else" that would fall in love with Gnome and Linux by just spending 5 minutes using Gnome3.  I really wanted to delve into their "We know best..." opinions and "...therefore we will teach you how the it should be" pretensions (example). Finally, I wanted to draw parallels to their condition with that of the XFree68 organization before it was disbanded, though I do not wish them that fate. (For those of you too young to remember, read XFree86 Wikipedia link and the two opposing views here and here).
Finally, as I slowly solved my problems one by one (Is Suspend Sleep or Hibernate? Where is Mageia Control Center? and on and on), I realized that this is a necessary process. What is going on with Gnome3 is what makes Open Source what it is. As the Gnome3 UI developers hide (but not remove) features, other developers create extensions that uncover them for their current userbase. As developers and users push and pull, the result can only be a better program for everybody who uses it. This is about finding the middle ground between high-concept, bleeding edge UI design and the guy who has to use this for work every day, day in and day out. If you have chosen to leave for XFCE or KDE, that is your choice and I understand and respect that. That is just the way of the world we live in and we like it that way. And on the other side of the fence, we have passed the half-way mark of the Decade of Hating the Office Ribbon and powerless to do anything about it.
Please excuse me while I moderate the fight over control of my screen's bottom right corner between the Gnome3's notification and the down vertical scroll button of every other graphical Linux program out there.