 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 777, 20 August 2018 |
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Welcome to this year's 34th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
These days many people are concerned with privacy and are looking for alternatives to web-based applications, company-run e-mail services and file storage provided by commercial organizations. One way to maintain control over our data is to self-host services at home, but learning how to set up complex services at home can take a lot of time and effort. This week we begin with a review of YunoHost, a Debian-based distribution which offers a point-n-click approach to setting up popular network services and web apps. In our Tips and Tricks column we explore a variety of ways to limit the resource usage of greedy processes to prevent them from interfering with the rest of the operating system. Our Opinion Poll asks how many of our readers use methods to restrict processes to keep them from impacting system performance. In the News section we talk about Fedora making it easier to convert from one file system to another and Red Hat addressing hardware bugs. Plus we talk about Lubuntu migrating to Wayland and celebrate Debian turning 25 years old. Finally, we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (10MB) and MP3 (14MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
YunoHost 3.0.0.1
YunoHost is a Debian-based distribution for people who want to run their own private server. The distribution is particularly geared toward offering web, e-mail and media streaming services which can be set up with relative ease from a web-based interface. Or, as the project's website states:
YunoHost is a server operating system aiming to make self-hosting accessible to everyone. It is based on Debian GNU/Linux and is fully compatible with it... YunoHost's goal is to make installing and administering a server accessible to as many people as possible, without taking away from the quality and reliability of the software.
The latest version of YunoHost (pronounced "Why you no host?") at the time of writing is 3.0.0.1, which is based on Debian 9 "Stretch". The project's documentation mentions that YunoHost includes the Nginx web server, the Postfix e-mail server, Dovecot for handling mail through clients, a spam filter, LDAP service and a DNS server. A Let's Encrypt certificate manager is also listed as a feature.
YunoHost is available in a number of different builds, including ones for generic PCs, VirtualBox, the Raspberry Pi and a few other single-board computers. I downloaded the generic PC build which is 369MB in size.
Installing
Booting from the distribution's media brings up a menu offering to start a text installer, graphical installer or an advanced installer. I tried both the text and graphical installers. Both are basically Debian's standard installer with the disk partitioning section and package selection step skipped. YunoHost automatically wipes our hard drive to install itself with its own partition layout and chooses the packages it needs in order to run.
The first time I tried to install YunoHost the installer ran into an error during the partitioning section and reported it was unable to mount the new file system it had created. After that it was unable to proceed. I rebooted the computer, took the same settings again and, the second time through, the installation completed without incident. When the system installer finished the disc was ejected and the computer was automatically rebooted.
Early impressions
The first time I booted YunoHost the system brought up a text console. A welcome message appeared which told me my computer's IP address. The first time I started the distribution the IP address was correct, but when I started YunoHost in the future the IP address field was always blank even though the system was connected to my network.
The first time I booted into YunoHost a first-run wizard started on the text console and offered to help me configure the operating system. The prompts ask us to provide our domain name (which must be in the form of a fully qualified domain name, such as example.com). We are asked to create a password for the system's admin account. I feel it is important to keep in mind the admin account, in this case, is the account we will use to sign into YunoHost's web-based interface. The admin account does not have special access when logged into the console and cannot upgrade packages or manage the base operating system directly. The root account's password, used for performing system administration actions from the command line, is not changed from its default on the live disc. The root account's password will remain "yunohost" until we sign in and change it.
The wizard then sets up the default services as some status messages scroll by. When the wizard was done the console appeared to freeze and did not respond to further keyboard input. I was able to switch to another console to login. I found YunoHost used about 2GB of disk space with the default packages installed and the operating system consumed about 220MB of RAM.
Web interface
YunoHost's web interface begins with a simple, mostly blank screen where we are asked to sign in. We can login using our admin account's password. This brings up a menu where we can access sub-menus and controls for Users, Domains, Applications, System Updates, Services, Tools and a Backup panel. I'd like to go through and give a brief overview of each section of the web-based control panel.
Users - By default, there are no accounts listed on the Users page. This appears to be because the YunoHost panel does not display system accounts, only accounts which can sign into the web-based interface and run web-based applications. To work with system-level accounts we should sign into a console or remotely access the server over secure shell.
With the click of a button we can create new accounts that will be able to sign into the YunoHost web portal and run applications. These accounts we create cannot sign into the system over secure shell or a local terminal, they only have access to the web portal. Signing into the portal will bring up a list of applications the user has been granted access to.
One interesting side-effect of separating web portal accounts from system accounts is that we can install a web-based virtual terminal and have the user run it. But they cannot sign into the virtual console unless we set up a separate, system-level account for them.
Domains - The Domains page starts off by showing us the first domain we set up (using the first-run wizard) and gives the option of creating new domains. We can add SSL certificates and check a domain's DNS information from this page.
Applications - At first there are no web applications installed. However, clicking a button brings up a list of several web-based apps we can install. There is a terminal emulator, RSS feed reader, the Ampache media streaming service, an arcade game, Nextcloud, the phpMyAdmin console and a handful of others.
YunoHost 3.0.0.1 -- Browsing applications
(full image size: 107kB, resolution: 1239x1024 pixels)
I tried a few of the simple applications and confirmed they worked. We can set each application to be available to only certain users, or let all users access an installed service. I like the potential flexibility this gives us as it means we can limit access to a login console or phpMyAdmin panel for some users.
System updates - The updates panel should list low level package updates, which are provided mostly by Debian and a YunoHost repository. This page also has a section for showing web application updates. I was not using YunoHost long enough to have any updates appear in this panel. The system was up to date at install time and remained that way for the next few days I was using it.
Services - By default YunoHost runs several network services in the background. The Services page lists these and provides buttons to enable/disable and start/stop these services. The operating system runs a Postfix e-mail service, Dovecot, a firewall, the Nginx web server, the fail2ban security software, MySQL and the OpenSSH secure shell. Sometimes while toggling services on/off an error message would appear saying the systemctl program did not recognize the name of the given service. However, the enable/disable action typically completed successfully anyway.
YunoHost 3.0.0.1 -- Managing background services
(full image size: 115kB, resolution: 1239x1024 pixels)
Tools - The tools page offers access to low level information, for the most part. There is a monitoring tool for checking the resource usage of the system. The firewall tool lets us open and close ports. There is a page which brings up a list of security advisories for popular packages such as Wordpress and the Linux kernel. Another tool just shuts down or reboots the server. One tool is called Migrations and I'm not entirely sure what actions it will perform, but it appears to offer advice on switching between major package versions, such as from PHP 5.6 to PHP 7.0.
YunoHost 3.0.0.1 -- Browsing tools and status messages
(full image size: 102kB, resolution: pixels)
I like the Tools panel. It seems to be a miscellaneous group of items that did not fit elsewhere, but the tools do provide useful information and I found each one easy to navigate.
Backup - The Backup page is very simple and provides a button to create a new archive of our system and its data files. We can toggle three boxes which control whether to back up our configuration files, user data, and mail. Once an archive, which is saved in tar format, has been created it can then be destroyed or restored with another click from the Backup page. I tested the Backup page's features and they all worked, allowing me to roll back the system to an earlier point in time.
Command line interface
Apart from the web interface, YunoHost provides a command line utility which provides the same basic features. This allows us to address problems or install new web applications over a secure shell connection. The functions are all run through one unified program called yunohost. Running this program we can then specify a category like the ones list above ("backup", for example) and then an action to perform. The help text for the yunohost command is a little sparse, but there was enough there to help me navigate through adding and removing applications, checking status information and restoring a backup.
YunoHost 3.0.0.1 -- Blocking network ports
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Conclusions
At this point I have only set up YunoHost, created a few user accounts and installed a handful of applications. While I may play with it further, my main focus going into this trial was how well the framework of the distribution functions. That is: is it easy to install, how hard is it for new users to add services and accounts, and is it straight forward to keep the system up to date? Basically, I wanted to know whether I could give this distribution to someone who wanted to set up home-based network services for the first time and expect them to be able to use it. Based on my experiences so far with YunoHost, my answer is: probably.
The distribution does make it pretty easy to create user accounts and install web-based services. In fact, YunoHost does this quite well. The admin panel is very streamlined, uncluttered and easy to navigate and getting something like a game of Hextris or a media streaming service installed is about as easy as a few mouse clicks. Managing the firewall, monitoring the system and creating backups are nearly as easy. The administrator still needs to figure out how to get backup archives off the disk to another location for safe keeping, but the bulk of the work in backing up and restoring the operating system is done for us.
Where I feel the distribution runs into trouble is mostly little details, and a few general concepts. For example, asking the user to create an "admin" password but leaving the root password as the default is both likely to confuse people and leave a permanent security hole on the servers of most inexperienced hobbyist administrators. On the topic of accounts, it makes sense, from a security standpoint, to separate web accounts from system accounts. But, this means there may be some confusion as to why, once an account has been created, it cannot log into the system. Little concepts like this may throw new users and I don't feel these issues are well addressed by the documentation.
The first time through, the system installer failed during the partitioning section. It worked the second time though with the same settings, so I'm not sure if this is a semi-persistent bug or a one-time error with my system.
On the whole, YunoHost performs well. It's light on resources, it offers a lot of common network services home administrators will probably want and it is pretty easy to run and maintain. There are a few little wrinkles in the experience, but in general I found the distribution to be straight forward to use. For people looking to set up a home server, this is probably a good platform on which to build.
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Visitor supplied rating
YunoHost has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9/10 from 3 review(s).
Have you used YunoHost? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Fedora makes it easier to convert file systems, Red Hat responds to hardware bugs, Lubuntu plans migration to Wayland, Debian turns 25 years old
Most people set up their operating system on a file system and continue to use that file system for the life span of the operating system. However, while it is rare to want to change which file system is in use, it is possible to convert one file system to another. This process can even be (mostly) automated by a tool called fstransform. The fstransform documentation states: "The program fstransform does the following: it takes a device with a file system on it (even if almost full) and transforms the device to a different file system type, in-place (i.e. without backup) and non-destructively (i.e. it preserves all your data). It works even if the file system is almost full." Fedora Magazine has an article on fstransform, how to use it on Fedora, and some precautions to take to avoid data loss during the transition.
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Hardware bugs affecting popular makes and models of CPU have been in the news a lot this year. One of the more recent revelations has been the L1 Terminal Fault attack, mostly known by its ominous-sounding name Foreshadow. The Red Hat team has put together a series of blog posts which explain the Foreshadow issue, how it works and why it is a problem. While CPU bugs have serious security implications, Red Hat reports the fix should be relatively painless for Foreshadow: "The L1TF attack against bare metal machines is trivial to mitigate through a few lines of kernel code (that is available in all of our errata releases, and has also been submitted for inclusion in upstream Linux). This mitigation has no measurable performance impact and requires systems be promptly patched."
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The Lubuntu project has announced plans to gradually migrate from using the X display server to running the LXQt desktop on a Wayland session by default. This change is expected to take place in about two years (with the release of Lubuntu 20.10) and will make use of Mir as the Wayland implementation. More information on this change and other plans for future versions of Lubuntu can be found in the project's newsletter.
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We are pleased to report that Debian, one of the world's largest Linux distributions, has reached its 25th birthday. An announcement on the Debian website reports: "When the late Ian Murdock announced 25 years ago in comp.os.linux.development, 'the imminent completion of a brand-new Linux release, [...] the Debian Linux Release', nobody would have expected the 'Debian Linux Release' to become what's nowadays known as the Debian Project, one of the largest and most influential free software projects. Its primary product is Debian, a free operating system (OS) for your computer, as well as for plenty of other systems which enhance your life. From the inner workings of your nearby airport to your car entertainment system, and from cloud servers hosting your favorite websites to the IoT devices that communicate with them, Debian can power it all." Happy birthday, Debian!
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Tips and Tricks (by Jesse Smith) |
Limiting resource usage
Generally when we run applications we want the program we are working with to be fast and responsive. Ideally, we want videos to play smoothly and web pages to load quickly. For this reason, the underlying operating system usually provides the programs we run with as many resources as they request. So long as there is not too much competition from other applications and services, the programs we run will get to use as much of our CPU, memory and disk as they want.
Sometimes though we do not want a program to get all the resources it wants. Number crunching programs may use up too much CPU time and cause other applications to stutter. A service that scans our hard drive to index files will make opening and saving documents slower. A program that consumes too much RAM may cause the system to slow down or rely heavily on swap space which will make the computer unresponsive. This article explores four utilities which can be used to limit a process's resource usage and prevent the system from getting bogged down.
One of the easiest tools to use when trying to limit a process's impact on the operating system is nice. The nice command reduces the priority of an application or service so that it does not use the CPU as much when other processes want a turn. This is especially useful if we are running several programs at once and want to accomplish something in the background that will not slow down other programs. For example, if we are running checksums on multiple files to confirm their integrity the nice command will make sure the CPU-intensive checksum process does not impact other tasks we are performing, such as browsing the web.
Typically the nice program is run and just passed the name of another program to run. For example, here we run an MD5 checksum on a file called Fedora-28.iso:
nice md5sum Fedora-28.iso
Different programs can be run with different "nice" values. The more "nice" a program is, the more it stays out of the way of other processes using the CPU. The default "nice" value of most programs is zero. A program started by the nice command is assigned a "nice" value of 10. We can specify a niceness value as high as 19. This is accomplished by using the "-n" parameter:
nice -n 19 md5sum Fedora-28.iso
We have written about nice before and have examples for using nice and adjusting the niceness of a program that is already running.
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While the nice command reduces the priority of programs which want to use our CPU, it does not do a lot to reduce the amount of disk input/output (I/O) a process uses. When we have a program that does not perform a lot of number crunching, but does read data frequently from the disk, then we need a different tool. The ionice command works in a very similar fashion to nice, but forces processes to stay out of the way when accessing the hard drive. This is especially useful if we have a background program that constantly indexes files. We probably do not care how long the indexing takes, but we want to keep it from making other programs lock up when accessing the disk.
The ionice command is typically used to either launch a new program or force a running program to be more polite. Here we run a backup job, using the rsync program, and force it to only access our files when the disk is idle. This is accomplished by using the "-c" flag and passing the number 3, which means the process has a low or "idle" priority.
ionice -c 3 rsync -a ~/Documents/ ~/Backups/
To adjust the I/O niceness of a running program we need to pass its process ID number (PID) to ionice. If my rsync program from the past example needs a lower priority and has a PID of 1234 we can adjust it like this using the "-p" flag:
ionice -c 3 -p 1234
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While the nice command will make a process be polite and not use up too much of our CPU's time when there are other processes competing for CPU cycles, nice will not throttle the total amount of CPU cycles a process uses. The nice command prevents one process from getting in the way of others, but it does not prevent one lone process from using up all the CPU cycles available if it has no competition. Put another way, if you are running 20 different programs, nice will force one to step aside, giving the others priority. But if we are running just one active task then it has no competition and can use up 100% of our CPU's time.
Sometimes we want to limit a process's CPU usage so that our CPU doesn't get hot, or so that one process will never use more than 50% of our CPU's time in case something else wants to run later. We can do this with a tool called cpulimit.
The cpulimit command basically throttles a task so that it does not use more than a given amount of CPU time. We can launch Thunderbird and tell it to only use half of our CPU's resources by running:
cpulimit -l 50 thunderbird
The "-l" flag specifies a limit, in this case 50%. We can limit an existing process using its PID by providing the "-p" flag. A process with PID 1234 can be limited as follows:
cpulimit -l 50 -p 1234
We have talked about cpulimit and provided more examples of it in use in a past issue.
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So far we have covered limiting competition for the CPU, throttling processes so they do not take up too many CPU cycles and forcing processes to limit their disk input/output. Another key resource on any system is memory. There are a number of tools which prevent tasks from using too much RAM, and one of them is earlyoom, which stands for Early Out Of Memory. The earlyoom utility monitors the amount of memory and swap space currently available. If the amount dips below a certain amount (usually 10% of both, by default) then earlyoom tries to trigger the termination of the process which is using too much memory.
While earlyoom does not target one specific process, it will try to kill off the program which is using the most memory, freeing up RAM for the remaining processes. Generally, earlyoom waits until memory and swap are nearly full before terminating any programs. The earlyoom program can be run directly by a user, but is typically set up as a service which starts up automatically in the background and monitors the system without user intervention. This way if any user launches a program, such as a web browser, that misbehaves and consumes a lot of RAM the program will be shut down automatically without the user needing to do anything. This is particularly useful when we consider systems with full RAM and swap often become unresponsive and it may not be possible for the user to run new commands while the system juggles swap space.
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There are a lot of Linux tools for dealing with aggressive or resource-heavy processes. The above utilities can be used, separately or together, to keep programs from consuming too many resources or interfering with desktop performance. The trick is matching the right tool with the resource or performance issue being addressed.
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Additional tips can be found in our Tips and Tricks archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Zorin OS 12.4
Zorin OS is an Ubuntu-based distribution which strives to provide a desktop interface that will look familiar to Windows users. The project has published an update to the distribution's 12.x series, offering improved hardware support and bug fixes. The release announcement for Zorin OS 12.4 states: "We are pleased to announce the release of Zorin OS 12.4. This new release brings together the latest software updates, bug fixes, performance enhancements and hardware support out of the box. Zorin OS 12.4 introduces an updated hardware enablement stack. The newly-included Linux kernel 4.15, as well as an updated X server graphics stack, add compatibility for newer computers and hardware in Zorin OS. In addition, new patches for system vulnerabilities are included in this release, so you can have the peace of mind knowing that you're using the most secure version of Zorin OS ever. After installing Zorin OS 12.4, you will have the latest versions of the pre-installed packages. That means fewer software updates will need to be downloaded after installing Zorin OS onto your computer. All editions of Zorin OS 12.4 - Core, Lite, Ultimate, and Business - are available to download immediately."
Quirky 8.6
Barry Kauler has announced the release of a new version of the lightweight Quirky distribution. The new version, Quirky 8.6, is based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and contains mostly bug fixes and minor improvements over previous 8.x releases. "Quirky Linux 8.6 is the latest in the 'Xerus' series, binary-compatible with x86_64 Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS, though built with woofQ and architecturally very different from Ubuntu. Quirky is an experimental distribution, that forked from Puppy Linux a few years ago, and has followed a different path, exploring some new ideas. Continuing the Puppy tradition, Quirky has a 'complete' suite of applications, drivers and utilities, in a very small size. Version 8.6 is an incremental upgrade from 8.5, with package upgrades and architectural improvements. The SeaMonkey web browser is now 2.49.4 and the Linux kernel 4.14.63. EasyShare, simple network file and printer sharing, continues to evolve, and now supports connection to an Android phone." Further information can be found in the distribution's release announcement and in the release notes.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 983
- Total data uploaded: 21.1TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
Limiting process resource usage
In our Tips and Tricks column this week we discussed various ways users can limit resource usage of applications. This can keep the system running smoothly when an ambitious program tries to gobble up too many resources. We would like to know how many of our readers use resource limiting tools to keep runaway processes in check.
You can see the results of our previous poll on whether to review Linux Mint Debian Edition 3 in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Limiting process resource usage
| I limit processes using tools listed in the article: | 99 (10%) |
| I limit processes using tools not listed in the article: | 28 (3%) |
| I use a combination of tools listed along with others: | 36 (4%) |
| I do not limit process resource usage: | 829 (84%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Various website updates
Our website received two significant updates this week, thanks to generous readers who volunteered their time and efforts. Enrico Bella kindly updated our Italian translation and made suggestions for improving translations across languages.
Over the weekend Jeffry Allred also came forward with an detailed review of all the distributions on our waiting list - pointing out which ones are no longer maintained and which may be worth re-evaluating. This has helped us trim the waiting list and highlighted a few we plan to look at more closely in the coming month.
Thank you to these volunteers and the many people who continue to send us suggestions, feedback and updated information. It makes our tasks here easier.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 27 August 2018. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Limit CPU usage (by Mike on 2018-08-20 00:53:52 GMT from Australia)
I use 'nice' because it was set up automatically by 'Back in Time' and I wasn't sure what it did. This was a great article,thanks.
2 • "without backup" = "begging for disaster" (by OS2_user on 2018-08-20 01:12:10 GMT from United States)
Re the Fedora "fstransform": I wouldn't advise anyone try to convert a file system on the fly. Vastly safer way is make a backup FIRST. Then you have a backup. You can swap the 2nd drive in physically and use it, or reformat the existing and copy to it. -- With the last 3T WD I bought new at $50, there's NO reason to risk loss. Whether pro or home.
I'd say Fedora is actually making these assumptions: 1) the data IS backed up elsewhere, would be only lose a little of recent 2) the system is highly reliable 3) and powered by UPS / EPS so losing power in middle of this foolishness won't happen: otherwise, you'd have TWO file systems! -- sure: the program MIGHT have crash recovery. -- Risk it if you want! You know you want to. Won't bother ME. -- I just do things the obvious way, rather than try fancy stunts. (By the way, I've never actually lost a byte with OS/2 except for hardware failures -- and even then I'd a full backup except for what was working on.)
3 • Mint Debian (by Jon Wright on 2018-08-20 01:29:17 GMT from Hong Kong)
I've been running Mint Debian for a week now. I mentioned last week how the resource usage was very high, but running MATE desktop brings it down significantly. Install a few Caja packages and fix gksu to get the file manager working in a familiar way, then install a few (more) MATE packages to get the Control Center and panel filled out ... then you have a solid desktop. I've gone through my usual post-install songsheet and everything goes smoothly. Using 723MB with a few services already installed. This 'beta' could be the best release of 2018.
BTW Jesse, you omitted hardware used in review.
4 • Yunohost (by tuxUser on 2018-08-20 01:41:34 GMT from Canada)
Yunohost
I have also tested this promising system. I am a regular server user. Cpanel, Webmin etc ... Yunohost saves us a lot of time. On the forum there is a lot of problem with the DNS. The tutorial on the website is not bad but it gets lost in explanation.
If you have your own domain name with a registrar. The problems begin my friend. We can not give an ip address like this: 111.222.33.44 (dns target) at our registrar domain name.
You must specify a server name like this:
ns1.name-server.net
ns2.name-server.net
Yunohost is easy to use but they have to work Wiki with clear explanations with screenshoot or small video by function type. Not one
45 minutes video. But 1 minutes. Clear, Simple, Direct how to on screen.
I tested all the server distributions. Although they all want to be Lambba user oriented, I can tell you that none succeed. You must have the knowledge to install, use and especially maintain a security server at home.
In conclusion: Great Work!
5 • Hardware (by Jesse on 2018-08-20 01:53:03 GMT from Canada)
@3: I didn't run YunoHost on any physical hardware for this review, it was done entirely in VirtualBox as I wasn't testing compatibility, just features. Though YunoHost should run on any hardware Debian works with, including some single-board computers.
6 • limiting a process (by MikeOh Shark on 2018-08-20 02:21:00 GMT from Turkey)
In Mint 13 I noticed that when the updater ran my system would become nonresponsive for a minute or two. It was annoying. I added
taskset -cp 2,3 $(pgrep mintUpdate)
renice -n 19 $(pgrep mintUpdate)
to my startup and the problem went away. In Mint 19 I tried the same BUT now mintUpdate starts checkAPT.py. How do I make sure a process started by another uses the same niceness?
7 • Family of nice (by Jesse on 2018-08-20 02:38:58 GMT from Canada)
@6: "How do I make sure a process started by another uses the same niceness?"
This happens automatically, you won't need to do anything. Child processes inherit niceness values from their parents. If you assign a program, like your shell, a nice value, it automatically gets passed onto its children.
8 • Linux Kernel 4.19 GPS/GNSS subsystem - Limiting process resources. (by Larry Limitter on 2018-08-20 03:06:37 GMT from Canada)
If new released linux kernel 4.19 supports GPS/GNSS subsystem on low level system bus, some users would like to Limit process resource usage by different means.
9 • Limiting CPU Useage (by penguinx64 on 2018-08-20 03:14:40 GMT from Bahrain)
I don't limit CPU useage. I'm running Mint on a laptop with an AMD quad core A8 processor, 16gb of RAM and an SSD. Most of the time there are plenty of resources available. But sometimes the system bogs down when I run Virtualbox guests. Thanks for these tips. I'll give them a try.
10 • Nice? (by edcoolio on 2018-08-20 04:18:26 GMT from United States)
I do not use the nice command.
I do, however, tend to minimize background processes, stripping my system(s) to the minimum I need for the task at hand.
One thing that I do not like are processes running in the background that will never be used or that are used so little that I prefer to run them as necessary.
Cutting out the bloat in the 'buntu seems like a full time job these days...
11 • Cutting out the bloat in the 'buntu seems like a full time job these days... (by Larry Limitter on 2018-08-20 04:56:07 GMT from Canada)
@ # 10
"Cutting out the bloat in the 'buntu seems like a full time job these days..."
absolutely.
Many lone linux distro brewers might stop brewing and only those who are funded might continue. Many users might walk-away from linux, and many users might dump all tech-tools in the garbage. Seems like end-phase has already begun.
Do not get surprised if you can not find many incl. myself very frequent here.
12 • Resources limiting (by zykoda on 2018-08-20 07:05:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
With 8GB RAM, 4 CPU cores, SSDs, Gigabit LAN and 350 Megabit WAN systems are faster today. Limiting resource usage is a rare necessity. GRUB2 os_prober is a slowdown with multi-boot. I see core under-use (<30%) most of the time. Competing processes from several users is where resource limiting is useful.
13 • Debian and offshoots (by OstroL on 2018-08-20 09:28:04 GMT from Poland)
Well, at least a review of Debian based distro is here today at DW,, even though it is quite an unknown one. It would've been much nicer, if there had been a feature story on Debian and its footprint our new history for last 25 years. The review of this unknown distro shows how embedded Debia is in our environment.
14 • unnecessary background processes (by cykodrone on 2018-08-20 13:28:03 GMT from Canada)
Never used 'nice', nice to know (pun intended), but do shut off useless processes via other methods, CL and otherwise (I am NOT a systemd user). A kajillion background processes reminds of a certain monopoly OS, where I got in the habit of hunting down and making sure things that don't need to be running won't start at boot. The great irony, that hand-holding OS (actually very buggy, complicated, and Swiss cheese security wise) turned me in to an uber geek, go figure, at least it was good for something. :)
Here is a good example, I don't own or use any bluetooth devices, but yet almost every OS I have tested or used insists on enabling it at boot. I get the 'just in case' mentality, just sayin'.
15 • Happy Belated Birthday Debian (by cykodrone on 2018-08-20 13:34:59 GMT from Canada)
Sir Ian Murdock is one of my many FOSS heroes, second only to Linus, but I can assure you, he is spinning in his grave because Debian is now infested with and beholden to buggy bloat written by a corporation. Blasphemy. Democratic distro my rear.
16 • @18, Time traveling (by Angel on 2018-08-20 13:40:45 GMT from Philippines)
There are several degrees of paranoia among internet users. Some don't wish to be followed or located at all. It's a bit of extra bother, but to each his own. For example: I was on Distrowatch two weeks ago, and someone posted a link to an SSD card holder from China. I clicked on the link. Next day, as I was reading Yahoo news, an ad for those very same card holders appeared. Some people may be spooked by that. Me, I don't mind. Makes my Google searches more tailored and productive, among other things. Not that the spooky followers are as good as some think. Some Chinese company keeps trying to sell me giant rock crushers, earth movers and cranes. How they got the idea I need them or would have a use for them, I don't know. In any case, when I want to go private, I con do it as well as anyone else.
17 • @20 (by OstroL on 2018-08-20 14:43:21 GMT from Poland)
"Some Chinese company keeps trying to sell me giant rock crushers, earth movers and cranes."
Well, they've already sold you a laptop, don't they? Even if your mobile is an iPhone, it is also made in China, even if they say, it had been designed in the US. The Chinese are very hard working, effective people. I've been there. What a country!
18 • Linux on a usb stick. (by willi-amp. on 2018-08-20 15:12:38 GMT from United Kingdom)
Two weeks ago 'Comments' item 4, by Bob. He wrote, ‘MX linux is amazing on a USB. I put it on a USB and installed it to a 16G USB’. I’m just a linux user, not that clever, but by following Bobs simple instructions I successfully made a stand-alone USB stick installation. If only all instructions were as succinct and that easy to follow. Thanks Bob,.and thanks MX.
19 • Nice reminder (by Norm on 2018-08-20 15:40:33 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the nice writeup and notes on CPU limit functions.
Last time I used nice was in 1991 on a Unix machine. I wounder if that means I am old and mean?
In any case; it is a great function, if you are running FE models, and want to do something else while it churns in the background.
Thanks again for the nice reminder!
20 • used cpulimit for ffmpeg on vps (by dmacleo on 2018-08-20 17:12:11 GMT from United States)
was playing around running clipbucket on vps with all vid conversions (1080,720,etc) working using ffmpeg.
so had to limit process somehow, set up bash cmd that ran cpulimit (set process ffmpeg to 60%) by cron every minute.
seemed to work better than nice did for this issue, vps host said never crossed any TOS/usage limits.
21 • Limiting resource usage (by AboTaha on 2018-08-20 20:11:25 GMT from Saudi Arabia)
Many thanks for the very informative article about Limiting resource usage.
22 • Cpulimit (by Tim on 2018-08-20 21:57:21 GMT from United States)
This was a really good article on limited resource usage, I thank you for it.
I used to use cpulimit quite a bit when encoding video. I had an old 32 bit Compaq laptop and if you just let it go while doing that it ran so hot you could smell it. I always found it useful to use with the Top command and the PID. I haven’t needed it on any of my machines in the last 3 or 4 years.
23 • OS/2 reliability (by qweo on 2018-08-21 02:09:04 GMT from Russia)
OS2_user, did you use HPFS then, JFS or, perchance, FAT?
24 • About limiting resources (by SA on 2018-08-21 08:30:45 GMT from France)
A tool that is useful in some cases: cpufrequtils
It has two commands: cpufreq-set (to run with sudo) and cpufreq-info (as normal user)
With this you can set up either a fixed frequency, either a range of frequency for your processors.
(and each core can have a different frequency "setting")
I have put it in the crontab (with "@reboot") for a laptop that did have too much 'heat'. (in summer)
25 • Deepin 15.7 (by OstroL on 2018-08-21 22:00:14 GMT from Poland)
The newly released Deepin 15.7 has brought down the idle memory usage to around 830MB from 1.1 GB of Deepin 15.6, a massive jump for a point release. I have found that Ubuntu based on Deepin DE would idle at 660MB! Both screenshots are available in another website writing about Ubuntu, one screenshot today, and the other with Ubuntu base 2 months ago.
Deepin was originally based on Ubuntu, but moved to Debian Sid, which was a smart move by Deepin. Ubuntu too is based on Debian Sid, somewhat cranked to not to suit the normal Debian Sid.
I've been using both, standard Deepin and Deepin DE on Ubuntu base for quite a while, both working without a hitch. While Cannonical doesn't appear to have developers, Deepin seems to have a lot of dedicated developers, and it shows; by comparing the default releases of both. Most probably, Ubuntu Kylin must be more popular than Ubuntu default with Gnome shell. Ubuntu default with Gnome shell is quite bug ridden.
Don't have to believe me, just try out the new Deepin 15.7 for a check. It can be downloaded from a fast server in most European countries and the US and SA.
26 • k3b, brasero, xfburn, etc. (by Stone on 2018-08-21 22:17:57 GMT from United States)
I have tested all 3 mention dvd burners and none of them works.
It seems counterproductive to limit accidentally or otherwise the ways to record isos.
example: Sudo dd, unetbootin, etc do not work for all the Linux distros,the only sure way there was before was burning to a disk, now we are scrambling trying to record an iso for installation.
Please somebody correct the problems with dvd burners otherwise Linux will be used by only the ones that make the different distros.
Thank You.
27 • Burning dvds (by Tim on 2018-08-22 01:56:15 GMT from United States)
@26
On what distro are you having trouble? Brasero works great for me on Ubuntu Mate 18.04.1.
Occasionally on certain distros I’ve had trouble with it, but in those cases K3b always worked.
28 • @26 DVD burning in Linux (by cykodrone on 2018-08-22 10:35:21 GMT from Canada)
I prefer Xfburn, I reduce the burning speed on purpose (half of the drive's max burn speed is my basic rule of thumb, 16x burner=8x burn setting), not only does that make for a better bug free burn, it makes less 'coasters'. There must be something wrong with your burner or setup, possibly very proprietary hardware, because I have been building generic PCs for years and rarely had a problem burning anything. K3b is good, but it drags in the rest of the KDE DE if you try to install it, I dumped KDE years ago because of over-engineering bloat, no thanks. Brasero was always the most flaky, worked OK but would try to burn at the most insane fastest speed possible, doesn't allow burn speed throttling. Slower burning is a must for OS ISOs, you don't want even the tiniest of errors.
I have also used various tools, methods and means of 'installing' or copying live or installer distros to USB sticks, don't remember ever having a problem with that either, granted formatting and permission issues could be tricky for some people, live and learn.
You definitely sound frustrated, but FUD is never the answer, I find research and trial and error works for me. :)
29 • @26 (by kc1di on 2018-08-22 10:50:11 GMT from United States)
I also use xfburn from most of my dvd burning, it's fairly light weight and has always burned everything I've thrown at it. Never like Baerso or K3b that much.
for usb burning try Etcher found at https://etcher.io works well and is appimage so no need to install it.
good luck in your search.
30 • Late answer (by frisbee on 2018-08-22 11:20:55 GMT from Switzerland)
From: DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 776, 13 August 2018
37 • Linux file system (by Carney3 on 2018-08-13 19:15:54 GMT from United States)
"... I'm much more interested in Linux finally getting what Windows and MacOS have had for decades: information about date/time CREATED as well as date/time modified. ... It's IRRELEVANT if YOU don't see the need to find or sort by date created ..."
Linux offers three timestamps for files: time of last access of contents (atime), time of last modification of contents (mtime), and time of last modification of the inode (metadata, ctime).
date/time modified you get as an output of stat command.
stat /path/to/file/example.txt
Executing stat command shows us that date/time created is supported but, on ext4 fs it is empty. Noticed the empty field "Birth time"?
This missing timestamp you can find out by executing a couple of commands.
First, you need to find the mountpoint for the file or directory, which you need to find out the inode number of the file:
df --output=source /path/to/file/example.txt
Output:
Filesystem
/dev/sda1
Next, you lookup for the inode number:
stat -c %i /path/to/file/example.txt
Output:
1311459
(This is some example number and yours will be different.)
At the end, command debugfs will give you date/time CREATED.
Syntax of debugfs is:
debugfs -R 'stat ' DEVICE
So, to get the creation time for our file, you simply execute:
debugfs -R 'stat ' /dev/sda1
Output:
debugfs 1.42.13 (17-May-2015)
One could also make a script to automate it and combine it together with sort to output a sorted list in a file.
31 • @30 (by edcoolio on 2018-08-22 12:36:53 GMT from United States)
Although your effort is greatly appreciated, and in a pinch it will be very useful, it seems a bit complicated compared to just clicking on "Date Created" in Windows 10.
Just sayin'
32 • @31 (by frisbee on 2018-08-22 14:14:22 GMT from Switzerland)
Don't mind your "Just sayin'" but ...
This is where the discussions about sense and nonsense starts.
Timestamps are very complex topic and a very unreliable thing.
Timestamps are depending on file systems, on protocols and on applications (== metadata).
Imagine a file "example.pdf" creadted on January, 1st 2015 modified on January, 1st 2016 and last accessed on on January, 1st 2017 and imagine a folder A and folder B.
When your document was created? On January, 1st 2015, right?
Now, copy that file from folder A into the folder B. How old is it now? August, 22nd 2018.
If you go and check properties in Adobe Acrobat reader, it will still say January, 1st 2015. ;)
Can one file have two "Birthdays"? Was it created when it was actually created or was it created in a moment when it was written to your HD? If first, timestamps would have to stay preserved but, same time, they would be wrong because the file was actually created later, when you copied it. So, it would have to have two date/time created's -- the time first ever created and the one when it got localy created.
Usually, in practice you would download a file from Internet. To help forensics (== spying), Microsoft for example writes hidden datastreams, so you can reliably say when and from where one file was downloaded, even if you later copy it and the creation date changes or if it has completely different creation time.
The way I showed you is the most reliable way and how you do it if you are into forensics and you do it that way under Mac, Windows and Unix, incl. Linux. All other ways (right click/properties) are not reliable.
Please have a look at the following example here: https://ibb.co/eHr6ce
Birth (Erstellt): May, 16th 2016
Change/Modify (Geändert): December, 7th 2015
Access (Letzter Zugriff): May, 26 2016
Here we have two problems:
1. The file was changed/modified half a year BEFORE it was created. ;)
2. Last accessed time was August, 22nd 2018, NOT 2016.
Edge Browser under Windows 10 "forgot" to write a new timestamp when it accessed the file.
So, it's more something like: "It's IRRELEVANT if YOU don't see the need to find or sort by date created; what's relevant is that Windows and Mac users CAN'T have taken for granted for decades the ability to do so if they chose BECAUSE THEY'LL GET MISINFORMED."
33 • Response to @26 about dvd burners. (by Stone on 2018-08-22 23:21:23 GMT from United States)
Mr @26 I read your post and at the same read a lot of comments of people having the same problems with dvd burning in linux; My computer is less than 3 years old, with lots (8g) memory, I started with Ubuntu in 2004 but Ubuntu did some radical changes around 2010 and i did not work for me. Switched to L. mint, then L. LITE, etc, that is to tell you I am not an expert neither a beginner.
I have tried dvd burners in different computers, newer laptops and desktops with the same results, did that before posting my problems.
I tried ETCHER for about 3 months and I like it.
The problem started about 4 months ago and gotten worse with an update to k3b, xfburn, brasero.
Apparently you are one of the lucky ones "congrats" but I am not as a lot of users like me.
Thank You.
34 • Distros (by Tim on 2018-08-22 23:59:57 GMT from United States)
@33
I am sorry you’re having trouble, but you haven’t answered my question. What distro are you having this trouble on?
35 • Response to @33 about Linux distro being used. (by Stone on 2018-08-23 00:17:19 GMT from United States)
Mr @33 I am sorry initially missed your post.
I am using mainly two distros now: L. Mint and L. lite but during last 4 months several others.
This is the best answer I can give you.
If there is a way to send you the debugging from k3b and brasero let me know and gladly will.
Thank you.
36 • Sorry (by Tim on 2018-08-23 01:25:04 GMT from United States)
@35
This was the only thing I could find that seemed like it could be helpful. Seems to be a wodim problem affecting multiple burners.
https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmint/comments/8n2np7/brasero_does_not_work_with_usb_burner/
I hope it helps! If not I think if you ask a question on the Mint or Ubuntu forums they might be a better place and can get you more help (and make it easier for everyone having the issue to find it.) Good luck!
If you get too fed up Ubuntu Mate 18.04 is a great distro and I’ve had good luck burning with it.
37 • @32 (by edcoolio on 2018-08-23 01:41:29 GMT from United States)
You are, of course, correct.
I suppose I was just lamenting the fact that, forensics aside, it would be nice to have a simple and quick function when working with straightforward documents. I believe that from the standpoint of usability for an end-user, it would be a huge plus to ease linux adoption.
Is anyone up for writing an kernel API to simplify things?
I suppose we could really throw a monkey-wrench in things and begin to discuss the use and possible abuse of the 'touch' command...
Either way, I enjoyed your take on the issue(s) and the information.
38 • Respomse to @36 (Tim) about dvd Burners. (by Stone on 2018-08-23 01:42:00 GMT from United States)
Mr @ 36 (Tim)
I appreciate your advice about ubuntu mate 18.04 and will follow your advise, will download it and try it, it is a shame to have to abandon a good distro because of dvd burning.
I do hope somebody payed attention to this and correct the problem.
We at Linux use and love it, ussualy is very well designed and capable,
Updates do not require hours to install during which no one can use the computer. Nowadays Linux has improved a lot from the almost begining
I remember in 2004 one had to go looking for players and how to install them, codecs also.
Mr @36 thank you for your time and advise and will do.
Thank you
39 • Response to @32 by edcoolio (by frisbee on 2018-08-23 05:23:03 GMT from Switzerland)
Thank you!
"... it would be nice to have a simple and quick function when working with straightforward documents. ... Is anyone up for writing an kernel API to simplify things?"
No need for writing anything new, its all there just not implemented.
https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/LSB_1.1.0/gLSB/baselib-xstat-1.html
Today, my answer shall be a couple of citations.
But:
"For a long time, Linux hasn't bothered with file creation dates because none of the file systems it commonly used supported them."
Today we have couple, ext4 among them. Anybody can install xstat without much hassle. Or simply use ZFS.
But again:
"That birth time is rarely useful. It's not the age of the data in the file (data is written to files after they have been created), nor necessarily the time the file appeared by that name in a directory (it could have been created as a different name and renamed or linked there and the content or attributes been changed several times in between)."
About xstat:
"The struct xstat structure resembles struct stat, but with some differences. It includes fields for file metadata like the creation time, the inode "generation number," and the "data version number" for filesystems which support this information, and it has a version number to provide for changes in the system call API in the future."
Further down:
"This worries me, the updated version returns different data depending on the underlying filesytem. This will surely lead to breakage when someone gets that one wrong. The result should include the filesystem where the file lives somehow."
https://lwn.net/Articles/394298/
You noticed "metadata" and "for filesystems which support this information" ... this is allready the first problem. Linux would have to limit itself by not supporting some file systems any more. Not to forget, applications would also have to be able to handle it and of course the protocols.
Depending on your DE, metadata can be kept or ignored (== destroyed) when working with smb for example.
So yeah, quiet complex topic.
If you are interested in it, here some more discussions/information/sources:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/304779/is-there-still-no-linux-kernel-interface-to-get-file-creation-date
https://superuser.com/questions/703768/is-there-really-no-way-in-linux-to-get-creation-time-for-files-on-cifs-smb-share/703927#703927
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/304067/why-does-my-file-have-multiple-crtime-entries/304245#304245
40 • @Stone #s 26, 33, 35, 38: (by dragonmouth on 2018-08-23 13:05:25 GMT from United States)
I have been using k3b regularly and Brasero intermittently on various Linux distros to burn ISOs for over 10 years with very few problems. Both Brasero and k3b have performed flawlessly. I may not like some of their features and look-and-feel but that is an another discussion. Any problems that I have had burning ISOs were caused by bad file downloads, cheaply made DVD disks or DVD drive failures. The DVD drive failures are understandable since I use drives pulled from discarded PCs so some may be in questionable condition.
Since none of k3b, Brasero, xfburn or dd work for you, I would suggest that your problems are be due to the hardware you use and/or the way you have it set up.
BTW - even though Ubuntu, Mint and Lite are considered to be separate distros, they are all Ubuntu-based and therefore basically the same distro. Have you tried any distros based on Fedora, Slackware, Arch or Mageia?
41 • @28 • Brasero DVD burning in Linux (by cykodrone) (by Ted H in Minnesota on 2018-08-23 14:56:00 GMT from United States)
"Brasero...doesn't allow burn speed throttling."
Yes it does, click on the button box "Properties" and you can choose your burn speed.
I also burn at about half of the possible burn speed for the same reason you do.
42 • @Stone regarding Optical Drive Burning (by Rev_Don on 2018-08-23 16:47:35 GMT from United States)
I tend to agree with dragonmouth in comment 40. Hardware issues including the use of cheap blank disks and corrupted files tend to cause a lot more bad burns than the software used to do the burning. Why don't you post what your hardware specs are (in as much detail as possible) and what blank disks you are using. That will give us some sort of starting point to attempt diagnosing your problem. And don't tell us it's a dual core processor as that tells us absolutely nothing useful. You need to be as specific as possible such as Intel i5-2500 and the brand name and model of the drive and how old it is.
And if you are burning on a laptop make sure it is running on the charger. I've seen a lot of laptops that had problems burning while running on battery power, especially older laptops.
As for burning speed, the speed of the drive is less important than the speed of the disk. One person recommended burning at half of the drives rated speed, but if you try to burn a n 8x rated disk on a 24x rated drive his method would result in burning the disk at 12x, probably below it's reliability factor. Try half of the rated speed of the lowest of the drive and the disk. But for the record I have had much better luck burning at the rated speed of the disk and I burn several hundred disk per year with maybe 2 or 3 failures using that method. At most I will burn at one speed lower than the rated speed of the disk.
43 • Response to Dragonmouth, cykodrone and Rev_Don. (by Stone on 2018-08-23 20:26:41 GMT from United States)
Gentlemen:
Thank you for the interest in my problem.
The disks am presently using are :
Verbatim dvd+r 16x single layer
Optimum dvd+r 16x single...
Also used Memorex +r 4x single layer
verbatim rw 4x single layer
and none of them ever failed before.
Computers:
1- Dell Inspiron 15 series 3000, intel i3 (1.9) with 4 gigs mem.
2-Dell inspiron 15 series 3000, intel i3 7 gen with 8 g mem.
3-Desktop proyect in progres and being improved 2 dvd burners
one is a Lite-on.
Op. Sys for # 1:
Kernel Linux 4.4.o-134 generic (x86-64)
Comp #160-Ubuntu smp.
Linux Lite 3.8
Desk env. Xfce-4 The brand name of burner unknown (Dell)
Last night I got a couple of updates and after k3b managed to burn
L Mint mate 19 64b.iso but failed on Ubuntu mate 18.04 desk-amd 64;tried with Brasero and it did. YES i know xfburn is the one that comes with the distribition but when ist started failing I changed to k3b and brasero.
But disregarding specs the fact the problem with dvd burning software started about 4 mo. ago (For me that is) is very strange and that all three computers started failing to burn at the same time.
Supposing I changed a parameter that would be only in one, the other 2 have not been changed. (I do all the dumb stuff in one computer only).
Thank you.
44 • @Stone re: burning (by Rev_Don on 2018-08-24 02:54:25 GMT from United States)
Did all of the problems coincide with the use of 18.04 or a distro based on it? I found 18.04, 18.04.1, Mint 19, and every other distro based on 18.04 to be buggy as all get out. One of the worst releases in the past several years as far as I'm concerned. Just out of curiosity try booting to a recent Knoppix Live USB or anything based on Ubuntu 16.04.x and see if your burning problems go away.
45 • Response to Rev_Don about burner sotw... (by Stone on 2018-08-24 03:21:21 GMT from United States)
Mr Rev_Don.
You may have hit the problem on the nail head, in one of my computers I had to shop for a distro that worked; tried Solus, Manjaro,etc; ended up for using L. Mint xfce but had to replace kernels until finding one that worked.
I will try to avoid the ubuntu derivatives for a while until corrections are made, I also tried slackware but could not get sudo dd to work on it, my computer kept flaging a major problem and refused to reboot.
Now I think may have to suffer until a new Ubuntu version and derivatives come out.
I will try knoppix and let you know.
Thank you Rev_Don.
46 • Mr Rev_Don about knoppix. (by Stone on 2018-08-24 03:29:21 GMT from United States)
mr Rev_don
Sorry but knoppix is not a go, my internet is not too fast and knoppix is 4.4G.
Apreciate the thought.
Thank you.
47 • Old dvds (by Tim on 2018-08-24 12:42:15 GMT from United States)
Stone
Do you have any old DVDs lying around from a distro based on 14.04 or 16.04?
If you go back to an old OS that worked for you and it still works, you know it’s Ubuntu 18.04 and your hardware not being compatible. You could try openSuse or Manjaro.
If not, then you know it’s the hardware going bad
48 • @Stone re: burning (by Rev_Don on 2018-08-24 14:34:21 GMT from United States)
Yeah, Knoppix can be a lot to download if you have a slower connection or data cap. I'm lucky to have a 50 meg download connection with no data cap.
49 • Live USB/DVD burner (by Gary on 2018-08-25 00:59:45 GMT from United States)
Am running PeachOS on an old generic desktop. (dual 3.06 64 bit intell processor) Enjoy checking out new distos and installing them on either my or others computer. Usually since I right click on the ISO image, open with, disk image writer, and specify the disc to write to. Haven't had any problems.
50 • @41 Re Brasero burn speed, etc (by cykodrone on 2018-08-25 02:14:02 GMT from Canada)
You are right, you can 'attempt' to throttle the speed in Brasero, but it always ignored the throttling for ME.
Re half burn speed, I meant half the disk's rated max speed, I have a 16x burner and use 16x disks, everybody has to do their own math. After years of burning and experimenting, it's MY fail-safe setting, makes a perfect burn, every time, movies, tv shows, OS ISOs, etc.
Re Verbatim disks, I used to love them but started noticing problems with them (especially their DVD+Rs), I also switched back to DVD-Rs, far more compatible with my home DVD player, etc. Even discount DVD-Rs burn problem free for me. The feature difference between DVD-Rs and +Rs is negligible.
Are your BIOSes UEFI? Have you poked around the settings? Sounds like the optical drives are no longer communicating with the kernel and the machine properly. Don't UEFI BIOSes require all that 'signed' nonsense? I have mine set to legacy (non UEFI), I'm old school like that.
Everybody's setup/situation is different, you have to find what works for you. Like one person suggested, try an older distro/kernel version and see what happens, try a live copy-to-ram distro like PCLOS Xfce, eject the live disk and try a burn. My machine hated the 4.4 kernel series, loves the versions below and above, I tend to run the highest LTS available, was glad to see the back of the 4.4 series.
51 • response ro Rev_Don (by Stone on 2018-08-25 03:15:26 GMT from United States)
Mr Rev_Don:
I am already looking for a faster speed but it makes me itch just to think of the prices isp are asking.
Nice talking to you Mr Rev_Don I got Absolute64-15ob.iso which is supposed to be based on Slackware and as soon as I find out how to put it in usb stick will try.
Thank you.
52 • @50 re: Verbatum disks (by Rev_Don on 2018-08-25 04:01:37 GMT from United States)
The old Mitsubishi manufactured Verbatum with AZO dye disks were some of the best ever produced. When Mitsubishi outsourced the manufacture of them to outside sources the quality slipped dramatically with some being worse than Memorex, house brands, and other junk disks.
Right now the good brands are CMC Pro Powered by TY (CMC purchased the rights and technology to ajvc/Taiyo Yuden in 2015 when they decided to get out of the business) and Falcon Media. Everything else manufactured today is junk at best. If you have or can find the older (and now out of production) AZO Dye Verbatums they perform on par with the CMC Pro TY's and Falcons, but they are getting harder and harder to find.
As far as DVD +R vs -R that depends more on the specific drive as to which works best. Some of mine prefer +R and some -R. I keep a supply of each and use whichever one the specific drive prefers.
53 • Mr Rev_Don /about disks. (by Stone on 2018-08-25 09:16:53 GMT from United States)
Mr Rev_don:
It seems that about dvd disks I am a lot out of the loop, will get some cmc's and try them.
Thank you.
54 • Burning / Media etc. (by Winchester on 2018-08-25 12:57:48 GMT from United States)
First,I use PClinuxOS for most of my multimedia tasks,including disc burning with K3B.
Just yesterday,I burned (successfully) a Voyager Linux Debian Version .iso to a DVD+R using PClinuxOS and K3B. I actually can't remember it ever failing.
Sometimes,I use "xfburn" through Void Linux XFCE or "pBurn" from the Puppy Linux family. pBurn is also available in Gentoo.
As far as blank media discs go, CMC is good but,archival grade discs from MAM-A or JVC are even better. Here's the link : * http://www.mam-a.com/ *
For burning Slackware-based .iso's to USB,I have found that I actually need to use the "Rufus" software under Windows. That's one of the extremely rare tasks (probably can count them on one hand) when I find that I need to use Windows. Fire-up a secondary computer with a Windows installation on a partition and start-up "Rufus" ...... only for Slackware-based .iso's. Alternatively,they could be burned to a blank Optical Disc under Linux.
There are a few USB .iso burning tools for Linux which work great for everything EXCEPT the Slackware family. SUSE Studio Image Writer. Fedora Media Writer (also lets you select non-Fedora .iso's). Etcher. ROSA Media Writer. The Gnome "Disks" Utility >>>> "Restore Image".
55 • L1 Terminal Fault attack (Foreshadow) (by cykodrone on 2018-08-25 18:55:28 GMT from Canada)
I ran (as root) [code]cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/l1tf[/code] and got "Not affected", thank you AMD. :)
56 • @54 Re: Blank Disks (by Rev_Don on 2018-08-25 21:07:22 GMT from United States)
JVC hasn't made disks since 2008 when they sold their Media Division to Taiyo Yuden which then sold it to CMC in 2015. Any JVC disks available now would be at least 10 years old. See the linked article for more information on this.
https://www.mediasupply.com/taiyo.html#
57 • Writing images to USB (by Barnabyh on 2018-08-26 02:32:48 GMT from United States)
Why don't you just use the dd command in the terminal to transfer images to USB key? Works every time, even for Slackware ;) .
58 • @26 • k3b, brasero, xfburn, etc. (by Stone) (by frisbee on 2018-08-26 11:11:17 GMT from Switzerland)
„I have tested all 3 mentiond dvd burners and none of them works.“
I have tested all 3 mentiond dvd burners and ALL of them work.
Sudo dd also works.
You could install Jorg Schilling's cdrecord from Brandon Snider's PPA. This has often solved odd burning problems for many.
First add the repository:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:brandonsnider/cdrtools
Then find the appropriate device address for your DVD drive by running:
cdrecord --scanbus
Finally run a commandline like the following (your own device address will be different):
cdrecord -v dev=0,0,0 -speed 8 driveropts=burnfree fs=32m -eject my_distro.iso
A modern cdrecord has no issues with either CD or DVD burning, or Bluray for that matter...
However, before burning a DVD or write USB, I would strongly suggest you to red How-To on distribusions Website.
The burning/writing problems usualy are not a problem of your SW or HW but have more to do with how the.iso was prepared.
Reference:
http://www.andrews-corner.org/linux/burning.html
59 • Response to Winchester, barnabyh and frisbee. (by Stone on 2018-08-26 17:37:37 GMT from United States)
gentlemen:
It seems i got a goldmine of info with all of you.
As for using Windows and Rufus I got rid of Windows completely, any new computer first thing is to erase Windows and the stupid uefi so Legacy is the word. (you must have seen how many partitions uefi creates in the hard drive and some are really hard to erase)
As to disks brands, I live in California and first time I heard about them.
Regarding Slackware and derivatives you are right I get a lot of trouble putting it to disk, the software flags "this is not an iso".
Mr Winchester in 15 years or so of using different Linux versions this the first time I got this kind of trouble, I have tried redownloading, rebooting,
changing speeds, dedicating more memory to burning software, friends computers, etc and still the problem persists.
I think will stop thinking about this for a while and then hit it again;f it does not work I will do the sensible (coward) thing and leave Ubuntu derivatives for a while.
Thank You.
i
60 • LINUX : CD and DVD BURNING (by C D McBURN on 2018-08-26 20:45:32 GMT from Canada)
For myself, k3b (PCLOS) just works fine all the times. but, last cd/dvd was burnt a long long ago.
Brasero and Xfburn also worked for me, but, also produced tea-coaster once in a while.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As already said in # 58 by frisbee
You could install Jorg Schilling's cdrecord.
Then find the appropriate device address for your DVD drive by running:
cdrecord --scanbus
Finally run a commandline like the following (your own device address will be different):
cdrecord -v dev=0,0,0 -speed 8 driveropts=burnfree fs=32m -eject my_distro.iso
A modern cdrecord has no issues with either CD or DVD burning, or Bluray for that matter...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once in a while, I use cdrecord as under:
linuxmint@user#> cdrecord -v -dao speed=4 dev=/dev/dvd /path/to/linuxmint-19-cinnamon-64bit-v2.iso
where,
-v - turns on verbose mode.
-dao - puts us in Disc At Once mode and finalise the disc.
speed=4 - I keep the burning speed down as it is more likely to burn properly and not fail. You can experiment with higher speeds if you want,
dev=/dev/dvd - this is the device node for your DVD drive. It's usually safe to put /dev/dvd here, but if that doesn't work, you may need to use /dev/cdrom or something else.
according to cdrecord --scanbus --> my burner located at dev=0,0,0
Finally, I specify the path to the ISO image I want to burn.
in my case, /usr/home/downloads/linuxmint-19-cinnamon-64bit-v2.iso
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Furthermore,
ArchWiki and GentooWiki has very useful information for Linux New Bees.
61 • 16.04 (by Tim on 2018-08-26 22:42:44 GMT from United States)
@ Stone
Keep in mind too that if a 16.04 derivative worked for you (I loved Mint Mate Serena 17.1) you can go back to it through 2021.
Number of Comments: 61
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