tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87890952723047399202024-03-19T13:17:01.311+13:00Nick's WorldMy ramblings.
Copyright 2008 to the day I die Nick Brooker.Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.comBlogger74125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-25329924857477759412024-03-19T13:15:00.008+13:002024-03-19T13:15:59.904+13:00Gentoo grub-probe not working<p> I have a bunch of history commands I run when I d a new kernel etc and one stopped working.</p><p><br /></p><p>grub-mkconfig would fail with grub-probe for /.</p><p> </p><p>I read about a simialr issue where you where supposed to have a link for /dev/root to your root device and that fixed it right up. <br /></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">grub-probe fails and I don't have /dev/root set</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: courier;">StudyPC /usr/src/linux # grub-probe /<br />grub-probe: error: cannot find a device for / (is /dev mounted?).<br />StudyPC /usr/src/linux # ls -l /dev/root<br />ls: cannot access '/dev/root': No such file or directory</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: courier;"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mount shows / is there and on sda2<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: courier;"><br />StudyPC /usr/src/linux # mount<br />/dev/sda2 on / type btrfs (rw,noatime,ssd,discard,noacl,space_cache,subvolid=5,subvol=/)<br />..</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: courier;">waffle</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: courier;">.. <br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: courier;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So symlink that and try grub-mkconfig again</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: courier;"> <br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: courier;">StudyPC /usr/src/linux # ln -s /dev/sda2 /dev/root<br />StudyPC /usr/src/linux # ls -l /dev/root<br />lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Mar 19 13:04 /dev/root -> /dev/sda2<br />StudyPC /usr/src/linux # grub-probe<br />No path or device is specified.<br />Usage: grub-probe [OPTION...] [OPTION]... [PATH|DEVICE]<br />Try 'grub-probe --help' or 'grub-probe --usage' for more information.<br />StudyPC /usr/src/linux # grub-probe /<br />btrfs<br /></span></span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">And we're good! No more handcoding grub.cfg</span><br /></p>Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-84093651060209298922023-06-15T20:03:00.003+12:002023-06-15T20:03:39.085+12:00Time for a change<p> We're moving on a bit in life. Got an empty house, got a stupid car.</p><p><br /></p><p>So it's time to start tracking the stuff we watch and how good it was.</p><p><br /></p><p>So let start with </p><p><br /></p><p>God Bless America</p><p><br /></p><p>Classic movie. This man gets all the things I hate. Social media is this generation's smoking. It will get worse when we look back on it.</p><p><br /></p><p>Solid 9/10</p><p><br /></p><p>Blake's 7 the complete series.</p><p><br /></p><p>This aged better than I thought it would. Loved this series as a child. I tried to make the liberator so many times for art projects.</p><p><br /></p><p>Decent 7/10</p><p><br /></p><p>Cold Case</p><p><br /></p><p>Really enjoyed this as my going to bed series. So I may have missed a bit here and there. A little samey but good arcs in the series and soem interesting back stories.</p><p><br /></p><p>Decent 7/10</p><p><br /></p>Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-66078050709219168922021-04-02T14:40:00.001+13:002021-04-02T14:40:12.375+13:00Nanomesher Weather Board tweak<p> I've backed a number of Nanomesher's boards onn Kickstarter from the weather prodboard to different audio boards, and they've all been great. The DAC2 in particular is a fantastic piece of kit.</p><p><br /></p><p>I was playign with the Weather board and tweaked the script a bit to show the time and date rather than the default Nanomesher PiAirMon.</p><p><br /></p><p>To do this vi the PiAirMon.py file and comment out the line with the old text and add the new lines:</p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: courier;"> with canvas(device) as draw:<br /># draw.text((1, 1), "Nanomesher Air Mon", font=font1, fill="white")<br /> now = datetime.datetime.now()<br /> draw.text((1, 1), now.strftime('%H:%M:%S %a %d %b'), font=font1, fill="white")<br /></span></span></p><p>This shows in your locale the time, day, date and month.</p><p><br /></p><p>So mine currently shows</p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: courier;">14:37:29 Fri 02 Apr</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: courier;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This sits on the desk in front of me to remind me to open the window when the CO2 gets too high, and it's nice having a clock on it.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: courier;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: courier;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span> </span></span><br /></p>Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-36343250853410032142018-12-13T06:34:00.000+13:002018-12-17T09:14:06.793+13:00CS:GO on Linux not startingValve, for a company that supposedly loves Linux your support is terrible. I got pointed to a community forum for support when logging this with them. To top it off I paid for it a week before they made it free. Grr..<br />
<br />
So I could get CS:GO to launch sometimes so it did work but rarely.<br />
<br />
After some pretty extreme testing it seems you need to slow it down when launching.<br />
<br />
I found sometime just alt tabbing repeatedly was enough but that was hard to replicate.<br />
<br />
Ready for the most stupid work around ever?<br />
<br />
Are you sitting down for this one?<br />
<br />
I run Gentoo Linux so everything is compiled from scratch. You can see where this is going..<br />
<br />
I start compiling something. Mesa is my usual goto. Once this is compiling it slows down the launch of CSGO enough that it works.<br />
<br />
This is just insane. I tried changing versions of libraries, dependencies etc but none of this mattered just making the system loaded while launching works.<br />
<br />
<br />
Edit: turns out you can avoid all this by adding the -nojoy option in the command line options.Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-63583480374739786292018-08-26T16:50:00.002+12:002018-08-26T16:51:00.678+12:00Postfix with ECDSA certificate not connectingI was playing with this a while back and it didn't work and got forgotten about but this time I dug into it further.<br />
<br />
There are lots of guides for setting this up such as<br />
<br />
https://zhadum.org.uk/2015/07/25/ssl-certificate-agility-with-postfix/<br />
<br />
but this did not work for me. Using<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">openssl s_client -cipher ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA -connect localhost:25 -starttls smtp</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">CONNECTED(00000003)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">1995830688:error:14094410:SSL routines:ssl3_read_bytes:sslv3 alert handshake failure:../ssl/record/rec_layer_s3.c:1399:SSL alert number 40</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">---</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">no peer certificate available</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">---</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">No client certificate CA names sent</span><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
failed and said it had no presented no cert.<br />
<br />
After looking at my cert file I noticed:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> openssl x509 -text -noout</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">MIID9zCCA5ygAwIBAgIQJDK88IzKKF3Cva9HhMswejAKBggqhkjOPQQDAjCBkDEL</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">MAkGA1UEBhMCR0IxGzAZBgNVBAgTEkdyZWF0ZXIgTWFuY2hlc3RlcjEQMA4GA1UE</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">BxMHU2FsZm9yZDEaMBgGA1UEChMRQ09NT0RPIENBIExpbWl0ZWQxNjA0BgNVBAMT</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> Subject Public Key Info:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> Public Key Algorithm: id-ecPublicKey</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> Public-Key: (384 bit)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> pub: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> 04:24:64:3c:45:da:96:fe:eb:cd:0b:4c:9b:da:4f:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> db:dd:0d:fa:e9:14:54:67:96:3e:81:3f:55:b8:1d:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> 36:0a:db:c7:a8:be:32:a2:5d:59:4c:dd:c6:11:78:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> a4:cd:6b:12:c4:0d:76:af:6e:ef:8e:b5:78:4a:ae:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> 94:5a:90:ac:21:04:6a:f1:f2:6e:2e:8d:87:d8:46:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> a3:54:f3:7e:f0:08:8e:81:3b:1c:0a:1d:ff:b8:a7:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> fd:db:91:3a:b6:0b:48</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> ASN1 OID: secp384r1</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> NIST CURVE: P-384</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
from the postfix page</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> smtpd_tls_eecdh_grade = strong | ultra</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> # Underlying curves, best not changed:</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> # tls_eecdh_strong_curve = prime256v1</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> # tls_eecdh_ultra_curve = secp384r1</span></div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In my version 3.1 it defaults to strong</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">postconf -d | grep smtpd_tls_eecdh_grade</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">smtpd_tls_eecdh_grade = strong</span></div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
but needs to be set to ultra to support sec384r1 which the cert was issued with. So adding the line</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">smtpd_tls_eecdh_grade = ultra</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
to main.cf made the cert work.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
None of the other articles I have seen mention this so maybe it's not that common.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-177387999211993412018-03-17T13:43:00.000+13:002018-03-17T13:43:24.752+13:00Switch your Raspberry Pi 3 to use a hard driveI have a Pi 3 that is a DNS, web, email etc server and it's gone through a few SD cards and gets bogged down in high wait % in top sometimes. It has a USB drive for storage for Storj etc and I was reading how you can boot a Pi 3 with a hard drive to speed things up and hopefully be a bit more reliable than the SD cards have been.<br />
<br />
So I found this article<br />
<br />
https://thepi.io/how-to-boot-your-raspberry-pi-from-a-usb-mass-storage-device/<br />
<br />
Now a bunch of gotchas came up.<br />
<br />
Firstly the boot USB option is a OTP setting. This means once it's set, it for good on your device. Read up on this before doing it!<br />
<br />
https://github.com/raspberrypi/documentation/blob/master/hardware/raspberrypi/bootmodes/bootflow.md<br />
<br />
I had a spare drive so I restored a Jessie image to the drive and plugged it in after setting the option<br />
<br />
program_usb_boot_mode=1<br />
<br />
and it seem to boot (it's headless) but the drive was accessing, the network was flashing etc. Seems pretty easy.<br />
<br />
Ok lets try and migrate the current SD card and drive to a new drive.<br />
<br />
So some points to note here. I tried the SDCard again to get DNS etc back up while I moved data around and it would not boot. Seems you need to remove the line we added earlier<br />
<br />
program_usb_boot_mode=1<br />
<br />
from /boot/config.txt or the SD card won't boot again. That's a bit annoying.<br />
<br />
So I imaged the SDCard and restored this to the drive and tried to boot this and it started but then did not complete booting. OK silly move, need to modify the /etc/fstab on the root partition and the /boot/cmdline to say sda rather than the mmc device that is the SDCard.<br />
<br />
Once that was done it booted OK. We're getting there. Tried to use raspi-config to exapnd the root partition but that doesn't know what the drive is and only works on SDCards. Doh. Back to the PC and expand with GParted and finish copying the data over and we're in business.<br />
<br />
So in short to move you RaPi3 to a harddrive:<br />
<br />
Image your SDCard and restore this to the new harddrive. <br />
Expand the harddrive root partiion with GParted or similar.<br />
Modify the /etc/fstab and /boot/cmdline on the new drive to use sda rather than the mmc device ( I had 3 entries)<br />
On the PI, set the "program_usb_boot_mode=1" option in /boot/config.txt and reboot.<br />
Shut the Pi down and remove the SDCard and plug in the USB drive and it should boot.<br />
<br />
Hope that saves some frustration :-)Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-53682677710068678212017-05-20T07:04:00.000+12:002017-05-20T07:04:09.837+12:00A simple video card upgrade... not so muchI wanted to get a new video card and found a deal on a Sapphire RX580 and thought great, going from a RX390 to a RX580 should be easy. Both are AMD, both are just rehashes of an older card so drivers are established.<br />
<br />
But no, seems the Sapphire card is cheap for a reason...<br />
<br />
So started up in Linux and it booted to the point where it said switching to amdgpufb, then blank screen. HDMI was UP (the card has two HDMI ports and one goes to an AV system for sound). It's all working but you can't see anything. crtrl-alt-delete and try again.<br />
<br />
Change kernel line options in grub to include nomodeset and it boots and you can see (apart from about 2 minutes of tearing when it tries to start gdm)<br />
<br />
Logs look fine looks amdgpu is starting OK and recognising it as an RX480 which it is based on. Doh, wrong firmware. OK so update from TONGA to POLARIS10 firmware blobs int he kernel. My kernel doesn't use ramdisk it just boots and includes all the firmware for video, wifi etc. Not the linux way but it works and it's quick.<br />
<br />
Boot again, but still blank screen and now firmware loads and the card looks to be running. Hmmm...<br />
<br />
Boot into windows and just make sure and the card is fine.<br />
<br />
Run make menuconfig on the kernel and check for options but everything is just amdgpu generic not specific to a model. Found a firmware option related to EDID and checked the docs on this in /usr/src/linux/Documenation/EDID/Howto.txt. This talks about video starting but cards not reading EDID from the monitor correctly and stopping at a blank screen when start KMS. OK sounds promising...<br />
<br />
Making a EDID file is as simple as running make in that directory to use the default ones.<br />
<br />
Copy 1920x1080.bin to /lib/firmware and add that to the kernel blobs and reboot. Still no good.<br />
<br />
Google comes to the rescue to find an Arch Linux article (damn these guys document well) which is similar to Gentoo and it mentions you need to turn on this firmware at boot with a kernel option<br />
<br />
drm_kms_helper.edid_firmware=1920x108.bin<br />
<br />
and sure enough it boots and video stays on.<br />
<br />
So if you have a Sapphire RX580 (pulse in my case) and linux and have blank video issues try this. I'm sorry to sapphire if it's a general RX580 thing but I didn't find any other posts etc on this issue so I'm guessing not.<br />
<br />
I can post line by line if anyone comes across this and it doesn't make sense to them.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-40233075754748472422017-04-29T10:49:00.003+12:002017-04-29T11:32:51.476+12:00Gridseed dual mining on mineraThis is something that caught my interest a few years ago and has been sitting in the garage churning out tiny fractions of a bitcoin regularly.<br />
<br />
Bitcoin spiked back up to $1700 recently and previously it wasn't worth the power to mine but might be now. I buy my <a href="https://www.humblebundle.com/monthly?refc=EhvFXZ">humblebundle.com</a> etc stuff with bitcoin.<br />
<br />
My original setup uses a raspberry pi with minera (<a href="https://getminera.com/">getminera.com</a>) to have a simple web based front end for 6 gridseed minis. These are a unit with 5 gridseed chips together. The gridseed chip can mine SHA256 (bitcoin etc) and scrypt (litecoin, doge etc) and both at the same time.<br />
<br />
These just sat quietly mining scrypt which a site called <a href="https://clevermining.com/">clevermining.com</a> converts to Bitcoin and adds to your wallet. All very easy.<br />
<br />
I could never get them to mine bitcoin or dual mine both and gave up but revisiting it showed it wasn't really that hard with the right mining client. I haven't got the nice front end to work yet. That's the last step.<br />
<br />
To get Bitcoin (SHA256) to work, SSH to your raspberry pi with Minera and you run<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">screen sudo /var/www/minera/minera-bin/cgminer-dmaxl-zeus --sha256 -o stratum+tcp://us.multipool.us:3332 --user nickbrooker.1 --pass x --gridseed-options freq=800 --widescreen</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
You can use my details if you want to give me some extra BTC :-)<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
The cunning part is this software sets up local UDP listeners when running on SHA256 to allow a second copy to connect via UDP to the scrypt side.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> cgminer version 4.3.5-scrypt.2 - Started: [2017-04-29 10:44:40]</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> (5s):0.000 (1m):0.000 (5m):0.000 (15m):0.000 (avg):0.000h/s</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> A:0 R:0 HW:1 WU:883.5/m | ST: 5 SS: 0 NB: 1 LW: 48 GF: 0 RF: 0</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> Connected to us.multipool.us diff 2.05K with stratum as user nickbrooker.1</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> Block: 12519e6d... Diff:522G Started: [10:44:40] Best share: 1.69K</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [U]SB management [P]ool management [S]ettings [D]isplay options [Q]uit</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> 0: GSD 8D8638654955: 800 MHz SHA256 | 1.331G / 4.684Gh/s WU:130.9/m</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> 1: GSD 8D8848665055: 800 MHz SHA256 | 1.322G / 4.684Gh/s WU:98.2/m</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> 2: GSD 8D8307735055: 800 MHz SHA256 | 1.346G / 4.684Gh/s WU:98.2/m</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> 3: GSD 8D8340625055: 800 MHz SHA256 | 1.376G / 4.684Gh/s WU:163.6/m</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> 4: GSD 6D8527885750: 800 MHz SHA256 | 1.317G / 4.684Gh/s WU:261.8/m</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> 5: GSD 6D7631994853: 800 MHz SHA256 | 564.5M / 2.342Gh/s WU:130.9/m</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:35] Gridseed device found, firmware v01140113, driver v3.8.5.20140210.02, ID 8D8307735055</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:35] GSD2: System reseting</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:35] GSD2: Set GC3355 core frequency to 800 MHz</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:36] GridSeed options: 'freq=800'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:36] Gridseed device found, firmware v01140113, driver v3.8.5.20140210.02, ID 8D8340625055</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:36] GSD3: System reseting</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:36] GSD3: Set GC3355 core frequency to 800 MHz</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:37] GridSeed options: 'freq=800'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:37] Gridseed device found, firmware v01140113, driver v3.8.5.20140210.02, ID 6D8527885750</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:37] GSD4: System reseting</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:38] GSD4: Set GC3355 core frequency to 800 MHz</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:38] GridSeed options: 'freq=800'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:38] Gridseed device found, firmware v01140113, driver v3.8.5.20140210.02, ID 6D7631994853</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:38] GSD5: System reseting</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:39] GSD5: Set GC3355 core frequency to 800 MHz</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:39] <span style="background-color: yellow;">Create scrypt proxy on 3350/UDP for GSD0</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:39] GridSeed GSD0 opened on usb:1:11</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:39] <span style="background-color: yellow;">Create scrypt proxy on 3351/UDP for GSD1</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:39] GridSeed GSD1 opened on usb:1:9</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:39] <span style="background-color: yellow;">Create scrypt proxy on 3352/UDP for GSD2</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:39] GridSeed GSD2 opened on usb:1:7</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:39] <span style="background-color: yellow;">Create scrypt proxy on 3353/UDP for GSD3</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:39] GridSeed GSD3 opened on usb:1:12</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:39] <span style="background-color: yellow;">Create scrypt proxy on 3354/UDP for GSD4</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:39] GridSeed GSD4 opened on usb:1:10</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:39] <span style="background-color: yellow;">Create scrypt proxy on 3355/UDP for GSD5</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:39] GridSeed GSD5 opened on usb:1:8</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:39] Probing for an alive pool</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:40] Pool 0 difficulty changed to 2048</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:44:40] Network diff set to 522G</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<br />
So disconnect from screen (Ctrl A, Ctrl D) and start<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">screen sudo /var/www/minera/minera-bin/cgminer-dmaxl-zeus --scrypt -o stratum+tcp://us.multipool.us:3334 -u nickbrooker.1 -p x --widescreen</span><br />
<br />
It will check local host and connect to the ports automatically.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">cgminer version 4.3.5-scrypt.2 - Started: [2017-04-29 10:24:30]</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> (5s):883.0K (1m):106.3K (5m):21.89K (15m):7.333K (avg):1.489Mh/s</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> A:512 R:0 HW:0 WU:15.3/m | ST: 3 SS: 0 NB: 1 LW: 26 GF: 0 RF: 0</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> Connected to us.multipool.us diff 512 with stratum as user nickbrooker.1</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> Block: 8dd69347... Diff:146K Started: [10:24:30] Best share: 710</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [U]SB management [P]ool management [S]ettings [D]isplay options [Q]uit</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> 0: GSD 8D8638654955: 800 MHz DUAL / SCRYPT | 136.8K / 260.8Kh/s WU:0.0/m</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> 1: GSD 8D8848665055: 800 MHz DUAL / SCRYPT | 136.8K / 260.9Kh/s WU:0.0/m </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> 2: GSD 8D8307735055: 800 MHz DUAL / SCRYPT | 145.1K / 272.6Kh/s WU:15.3/m</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> 3: GSD 8D8340625055: 800 MHz DUAL / SCRYPT | 136.9K / 260.9Kh/s WU: 0.0/m</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> 4: GSD 6D8527885750: 800 MHz DUAL / SCRYPT | 136.9K / 261.1Kh/s WU: 0.0/m</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> 5: GSD 6D7631994853: 800 MHz DUAL / SCRYPT | 136.8K / 260.8Kh/s WU: 0.0/m</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:24:27] Started cgminer 4.3.5-scrypt.2</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:24:27] Found scrypt proxy on 3350/UDP</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:24:27] Found scrypt proxy on 3351/UDP</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:24:27] Found scrypt proxy on 3352/UDP</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:24:27] Found scrypt proxy on 3353/UDP</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:24:27] Found scrypt proxy on 3354/UDP</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:24:27] Found scrypt proxy on 3355/UDP</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:24:28] Gridseed GSD0 opened on 3350/UDP</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:24:28] Gridseed GSD1 opened on 3351/UDP</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:24:28] Gridseed GSD2 opened on 3352/UDP</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:24:28] Gridseed GSD3 opened on 3353/UDP</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:24:28] Gridseed GSD4 opened on 3354/UDP</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:24:28] Gridseed GSD5 opened on 3355/UDP</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> [2017-04-29 10:24:28] Probing for an alive pool</span><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So now they are happily mining away on both scrypt and SHA256. You're never really going to make money on this unless you are exceedingly lucky and mine solo and solve a bunch of blocks. It just a fun thing to do.<br />
<br />
Update: seems one thing to be careful of is power supplies. I have 6 of these gridseed minis and they draw 6 watts in scrypt and I read 30 watts in SHA256 but it may be more. I have a 12V 30A power supply that just expired and was a bit toastie.</div>
Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-82395954196327114042017-04-04T18:29:00.000+12:002017-04-04T18:29:12.164+12:00Windows 8.1 over Windows 7This one may save someone some time. One of the kid's computers was on windows 7 and I thought it might be nice to try going to 8 as they've put the countdown on windows 7.<br />
<br />
I tried the DVD from within Windows 7 and booting the DVD. Booting from the DVD won't let you update and from within Windows it failed after it got to 100%.<br />
<br />
I had recently installed an SSD and disabled superfetch and Windows search services. After trying a few other things I re-enabled these and it worked.Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-53406551705064218842016-12-12T20:12:00.002+13:002016-12-12T20:12:41.285+13:00Linux kernel 4.9 amdgpu blank screen in GentooAfter updating to kernel 4.9 I ended up with a blank screen after grub.<br />
<br />
Booted back to 4.8 and checked logs and found a firmware file was showing as erroring and load not loading:<br />
<br />
/lib/firmware/amdgpu/tonga_k_smc.bin<br />
<br />
So I had to add that to firmware load files in the generic device drivers of the kernel and now all works. <br />
<br />
It had a firmware file<br />
<br />
/lib/firmware/amdgpu/tonga_smc.bin<br />
<br />
before so the k one is new in 4.9.<br />
<br />
<br />Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-53567673088381707932016-11-13T11:20:00.002+13:002016-11-13T11:20:55.642+13:00LG LED IPS 24MP68VQ-P monitor review (sort of)I thought it was time for a new monitor and a local sale gave me the incentive. The main reason I wanted a new monitor was primarily Freesync for gaming and watching video.<br />
<br />
After reading reviews I had a couple of favourites. This LG and a Viewsonic fitted my specs and price.<br />
<br />
On the night the LG was there and had quite a hefty discount and I like LG gear. I think it's the quieter, less flashy (dare I say better?) sibling of Samsung. <br />
<br />
Going from a 2009 or so Viewsonic 24 VX monitor to this LG is quite a revelation. I'm not saying the Viewsonic is bad, it's just an LCD panel that is older technology. I would happily buy another Viewsonic.<br />
<br />
First off the size. Same viewable size but the LG is barely bigger than the panel. I could have gotten a 27" LG taking the same space as the old monitor. It's barely 15mm deep. The base is also smaller as the monitor is lighter hence more desk space returned.<br />
<br />
Brightness/contrast: panel technology has moved on a lot in seven years it seems. It is so much brighter and still black is black, so better contrast. The colour accuracy, if the included output sheet is to be believed, is a huge improvement as well.<br />
<br />
Gaming/video: once I found the freesync switch (see cons later) it makes quite a difference if you have a new AMD video card (CGN 3 and up so RX9 300 +) Gaming is sharper and watching video (especially fullHD BD etc) no longer tears. It is just nicer.<br />
<br />
The cons: the controls of this monitor are by a little joystick facing down under the panel. This is a bit fiddly and not very descriptive. Settings like Freesync were off and you'd think they would default to on since they won't work unless the video card supports them. So nothing major.<br />
<br />
To be fair most new monitors would provide these but I'm quite stunned how for not much money you get what is normal today and is such an improvement over what was OK 5 years ago. I guess it's like cars.<br />
<br />
So if you have an old monitor, go do yourself a favour and find yourself something like this and upgrade. It's smaller, better to look at and uses less power.<br />
<br />
<br />Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-81201752746735619152016-09-27T21:45:00.000+13:002016-09-27T21:45:13.881+13:00Why I'm driving to work againWell today is my first day of driving to work in over 7 months.<br />
<br />
Yet another train/track fault last night was the final straw. Why is Auckland transport making new tracks when it can't even maintain what it has already? Too many times it's "OK get off here, go and find a bus" or trains just vanish from the timetable.<br />
<br />
For public transport to succeed it needs to be cheap, reliable and easy. Auckland transport is reasonably priced is 0.5 out of 3.<br />
<br />
Make it free and get people to use it, then either add a small charge or remove some of the council bloat and put that towards public transport. Once more people use it then it should get more frequent. Again as no-one had forethought, some tracks a single lines so you can only have one train tieing up the line beyond Penrose to Onehunga for example. That needs to change to twin lines everywhere and trains to the airport and north shore to at least Albany. Don’t try and milk it to make money just make it good. Every household contributes $1000 a year or so in rates for it if I recall correctly.<br />
<br />
It needs to be easy. Needs to be a no brainer to use. I take the train because each time I've taken the bus it's been like being a passenger in a rally car and it's impossible to read etc. Whoever thought that any park and ride is big enough obviously doesn't use them. All the ones I know about are full early and New Lynn doesn't even have one. And just little things like the times they run. I would get to town at 8:32. Great, not many people take 28 minutes to get to their offices. I gained almost an hour in my day today by driving.<br />
<br />
I'm generally for small government but public transport is something that needs to be right for a city to function. You should be able to jump on something go to an event or out for dinner and know you can get home safely even if you've had a few drinks.<br />
<br />
If you can't do it properly just make the main roads bigger and give up. Let Uber rule transport and give me a third of my rates back.<br />
<br />
I do miss an hour reading each day though.<br />
<br />
Yes, TL:DR.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-52793716106513365942016-06-21T13:00:00.000+12:002016-06-21T13:00:13.102+12:00Linux Wake on LAN with Realtek RTL8111FSo I splashed out and bought a new motherboard, CPU and RAM after finding my motherboard BIOS was last updated in 2010 and upgrading the RAM was going to cost more than a new combo.<br />
<br />
Quite a difference. I can compile Firefox, LibreOffice, Webkit etc in about 20 to 25 per cent of the time it used to take.<br />
<br />
I've converted everything from old MBR to GPT and booting with UEFI boot files which is quite cool.<br />
<br />
One thing I couldn't get going was wakeonlan.<br />
<br />
I set wakeonlan to magic packet (g in ethtool) but it would not wake up. I'm using kernel 4.6.2 so that's the most recent stable for Gentoo.<br />
<br />
After some searching I found another network problem with the RTL8111F that they fixed by using a driver from Realtek's web site.<br />
<br />
So I went to this page<br />
<br />
http://www.realtek.com/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=13&PFid=5&Level=5&Conn=4&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false<br />
<br />
and downloaded the driver for 3.X kernels. I build kernels in the monolithic style so, disabled the RTL8168 driver (I think the kernel calls it that or rtl8169) and rebooted. The download from ReakTek has a script that unloads the rtl8168 module and compiles the new one and loads it.<br />
<br />
Low and behold, after that WoL started working. So maybe the kernel driver for the Realtek cards needs some love.Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-4888495038895273892016-06-20T18:08:00.002+12:002016-06-21T08:57:29.210+12:00Android phone Google account problemsWell I have to say I've lost a lot of respect for Google today.<br />
<br />
I got a message on my phone from the Google account to say something suspicious had possibly gone on and I should change my password.<br />
<br />
So I logged into the web site and double checked and changed my password. Changed on the web browser OK and other machines but not on the phone. No way.<br />
<br />
You enter your details (username, password and 2 factor from Authenticator) and you get "sorry, there seems to be a problem. please try again." Tried this a few times, rebooted etc but no joy.<br />
<br />
So I deleted the account from the phone and tried re-adding it. Nope still the same problems. Search for this error and quite a few people have had it. The suggested try an App specific password. Nope it say dah, enter your account password not an app specific one.<br />
<br />
Finally got frustrated and removed the 2 factor from the account and that did it. So you have to unsecure your account to get your phone on. How bad is that?<br />
<br />
Hope this saves someone else some frustration.<br />
<br />
Now to try turning two factor back on and see if it breaks.Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-87665889406327071172016-06-17T21:20:00.001+12:002016-06-17T21:24:53.170+12:00Random libraries in LinuxI'd been having some issues with the Linux box not compiling things like<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">emerge -1 =dev-perl/libintl-perl-1.240.0-r2</span><br />
<br />
It would stop and saying<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">skipping incompatible /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/5.3.0/../../../../lib64/libiconv.so when searching for -liconv</span><br />
<br />
I searched for ages and found there was indeed a libincov but you can't have that installed at the same time as new glibc.<br />
<br />
Hmm... OK what package installed these things. Looks like gcc 5.3.0. Recompile that.. nope... try older gcc.. nope.<br />
<br />
Newb mistake there. The number of .. parent links takes it right out of the gcc folders. Right pack to /usr/lib/<br />
<br />
Ok what package installed it? Equery, the package manager query tool<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">equery b libiconv.so.2.5.0</span><br />
<br />
returned nothing. Meaning no package installed it. Tried taking off the .so versions numbers etc still the same.<br />
<br />
What the? OK this is crazy how about just deleting it. If anything needs it it will re-install it surely.<br />
<br />
All of a sudden<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">emerge -1 =dev-perl/libintl-perl-1.240.0-r2</span><br />
<br />
worked again. The texinfo etc ones with the same errors worked.<br />
<br />
So having extra unwanted libraries is as dangerous as not having the right libraries. More so, because you think they're OK. I guess at some stage I've installed somethign that has left them there or a Gentoo package has changed and not cleaned up after itself nicely.<br />
<br />
Either way , weird problem.Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-23923243908367436872016-03-25T12:06:00.000+13:002016-04-08T00:21:25.891+12:00How to make Firefox more secure in a few clicksI've messing a lot with cipher suites lately and something I always do in my firefox browsers will stop all the non forward secrecy ciphers.<br />
<br />
What Forward Secrecy does is use a second dynamic key when encrypting your traffic. So even if the bad guys break a private key on your server's certificate at the later date your traffic is encrypted by another layer. If you don't use forward secrecy and they capture your data and find the private key it's easy to decrypt. Wireshark will do it on the fly.<br />
<br />
So in Firefox<br />
<br />
type about:config in the address bar<br />
<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TWXJdN0HbqQ/VvRwQgZgtYI/AAAAAAAAJBY/5XtqLh-qn_Q16rk7X-L0Ge10s-oiQBmbw/s1600/about%2Bconfig.PNG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="66" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TWXJdN0HbqQ/VvRwQgZgtYI/AAAAAAAAJBY/5XtqLh-qn_Q16rk7X-L0Ge10s-oiQBmbw/s320/about%2Bconfig.PNG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
It will bring up a warning saying be careful. Click yes you know.<br />
<br />
In the search box below the address bar type ssl. Look at the bottom of the list and find the ones that start security.ssl3.rsa and double click them and will change enabled to false. You should also disable anything that mentions rc4. The ones that have dhe are good, the ones that have ecdhe are better, and the ones that have chacha20 are best but not everything supports them.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RVUawytUWYE/VvRw17UDHTI/AAAAAAAAJBg/myvKoNSe93MW_DxZzBloFjwLl5nyXdf9Q/s1600/Ciphers.PNG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RVUawytUWYE/VvRw17UDHTI/AAAAAAAAJBg/myvKoNSe93MW_DxZzBloFjwLl5nyXdf9Q/s640/Ciphers.PNG" width="640" /></a><br />
<br />
Try you websites and you might need to re-enable some if, say your bank doesn't work. Alternatively run your bank against this site<br />
<br />
https://www.htbridge.com/ssl/<br />
<br />
and let them know if they don't get a good score.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-27442434075393625772016-03-15T22:40:00.000+13:002016-03-15T22:40:43.682+13:00Linux Kernel 4.5 and amdgpuMy Linux gaming experience has been a bit sub par since upgrading to a Radeon R9-380.<br />
<br />
It was just laggy enough to make playing hard. You often don't see the person that's killed you and things like air blasting rockets in TF2 was almost impossible to time right.<br />
<br />
However things seems to have turned. With Kernel 4.5, the amdgpu driver and adding the amdgpu.powerplay=1 to your kernel options in GRUB speed of gaming and even YouTube is quite noticeably improved.<br />
<br />
The other problem I had been having was TF2 would freeze after a few games and you had to do the old alt prt-sc REISUB to reboot. Touch wood that also seems to be fixed.<br />
<br />
So a big debt of thanks to the Kernel team and particular the amdgpu guys.<br />
<br />
<br />Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-54119782660819040322015-12-18T21:26:00.000+13:002015-12-30T07:00:53.243+13:00Windows 10 stalling with 100% disk active time but read and write 0 KB/sI gave Windows 10 another try tonight and after some pretty hefty updates I still have the same issues as before. Same hardware on Windows 8.1 didn't do this.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This is the Task Manager when it happens: 100% disk usage, 0 ms response time, but 0Kb/s in and out and it happens for over 35 seconds. The whole system just stops for just about everything. Programs that are completely loaded and don't access disk are fine. (i.e Task Manager) Not so good when gaming though.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Someone else must be seeing this I'm hoping and maybe have a solution. I've read of some others seeing it but also the same issues in 8.1 so maybe I was lucky not to get it then. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br />
<div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aH2kejzE8fw/VnPBQi8_XNI/AAAAAAAAIps/GvwbZc8XqGQ/s1600/Windows%2B10%2Bpauses.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aH2kejzE8fw/VnPBQi8_XNI/AAAAAAAAIps/GvwbZc8XqGQ/s640/Windows%2B10%2Bpauses.png" width="614" /></a></div>
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Update 29/12/15 I had another look at this over the Christmas break and may have made some progress. I downloaded the driver for the AHCI for the nForce controller on this motherboard and it seems to be better (touch wood)</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I wouldn't install the whole package of drivers but I downloaded the Vista 64 bit drivers (Windows 7 64 bit showed no downloads for some reason) and updated from device manager the storage controller and in a few hours testing no more 100% active 30 second lock ups. Far from conclusive but hopeful.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
So yes it's an old board but there's bound to be others with the same or similar issue. The nForce storage driver in windows 10 looks a bit broken.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-11892251833217915532015-11-21T07:31:00.000+13:002015-11-21T07:31:04.906+13:00OSX high CPU UserEventAgent processThis one might save someone some searching :-)<br />
<br />
I can't remember when it started happening but the UserEventAgent process started using 90 to 90% CPU so basically stealing one core all the time.<br />
<br />
I thought it was related to a whole lot of things that turned out to be red herrings.<br />
<br />
In my case it was TeamViewer causing it. Uninstall TeamViewer and it spikes but generally sits at 0% rather than 95%.<br />
<br />
Some Googling found one particular plug in related to certificate verification that the UserEventAgent uses caused their high CPU usage so maybe some Apps just make it go nuts.Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-51337752604606381602015-11-07T09:08:00.001+13:002015-11-07T09:08:57.210+13:00Upgrading the SD Card on a Raspberry PiWell this turned out to be a whole lot easier than I thought :-)<br />
<br />
I had an old card from a version 1 Raspberry Pi and had just moved it to a version 2 board. It's a little mail, DNS etc server and stalls occasionally especially when fail2ban is starting as that goes through all the syslogs etc looking for failed logins. Top showed way too much waiting for disk time so it was time to investigate.<br />
<br />
I brought a new SDCard (bigger was my first goal as mail expands) and an SDCard reader and started playing. Well, boy is SDCards one of those things you don't know what you don't know. It's just a little card you chuck in your phone or camera? No way.<br />
<br />
There is so much forwards, backwards compatibility and huge variations in speed.<br />
<br />
I bought a MicroSD HC UHS class 3 card. Benchmarking showed this seemed to be limited by USB2 speed but was already three to five times faster than the old card but would the Ra Pi read it?<br />
<br />
The easy part was moving the data from the old card to the new one. There are 3 partitions (well 3 actual, 4 logical) on the old card. Oddly you have<br />
<br />
RECOVERY a 1.5 GB fat32 partition then<br />
and extended partition that has<br />
BOOT a 64MBish fat32 logical partition and<br />
root a 6GB ext4 logical partition and<br />
SETTINGS a small ext4 partition.<br />
<br />
They could have avoided using logical partitions all together but I guess it give easy expansion.<br />
<br />
The actual transfer from the old card to the new card was as easy as mounting both, starting GParted and copy and paste the partitions. That is a fantastic piece of software. Literally right click, copy from /dev/sde and paste /dev/sdf and adjust the size of the root partition to use the rest of the free space and it's done.<br />
<br />
Plugged the card into the Raspberry Pi 2 and started it up. Looked good! The disk light flashed and it seemed to boot. The access seemed briefer if that is the right word. It used to flash and stay on a few seconds at a time during boot but it was less than a second for each pulse now.<br />
<br />
By the time I logged in (it's headless in the garage so this is about 1 minute later) it had started and fail2ban had started so it was way quicker.<br />
<br />
This is all anecdotal but it feels quicker and the Ra Pi 2 seems to be happy with the new cards. I'm not sure how much the Ra Pi wears an SD card so replacing them every so often seemed sensible.<br />
<br />
<br />Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-88810804722933857192015-10-31T17:02:00.000+13:002015-10-31T17:02:06.693+13:00Video card upgrade timeI thought it was time to upgrade the old video card which was a Power Color ATI 5770 1GB.<br />
<br />
I had a bit of a look around and thought I'd stick with AMD/ATI which may or may not be wise but I know the issues I've had and resolved with ATI.<br />
<br />
I looked through the support forums and settled on an R9 380 2GB from ASUS. It seems to be well supported in the latest kernels and they've developed an new driver (amdgpu vs radeon) so I'd imagine it's going to get way better over the next few months.<br />
<br />
It plugged in easily enough (double slot sized card) and first thing you notice is this is quiet. The 5770 was noisy at idle and very noisy when playing games. I've only played TF2 but I can't even hear if the fan on the video card is going over the CPU fan now. The CPU fan is an Arctic Ice one so it larger and slower than standard and so usually pretty quiet. Downside is TF2 was more slightly choppy than it had been on the 5770 so it looks they still have some optimising to do but this is early releases of the driver for kernel and xorg. OpenGL is now 4.1 from 3.3 with the old card so more games work.<br />
<br />
On Gentoo you add radeonsi and amdgpu to the VIDEO_CARDS list in make.conf and do a emerge -DuN @world to update Mesa, xorg drivers etc. emerge the amdgpu-ucode files and add them to the kernel and you're done.<br />
<br />
I'll add more as I play more and as new drivers come out but so far it works and is quick enough to play games and has plenty of potential to improve.Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-17063829081396528302015-09-05T10:19:00.000+12:002015-09-05T10:19:06.399+12:00Mincraft Gentoo 64 bitI recently upgraded to Gentoo 64 bit and generally it's been great. Dropped LVM and just used partitions at the same time and it feels generally a bit quicker. A few issues with Steam but they've been resolved in another post.<br />
<br />
Minecraft was the one thing that still didn't work.<br />
<br />
It needed one extra install to make it work.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">emerge x11-apps/xrandr</span><br />
<br />
Once this was installed it worked fine otherwise it crashes with errors like:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">OpenGL: ~~ERROR~~ RuntimeException: No OpenGL context found in the current thread.</span><br />
<br />
<br />Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-27455036416999152642015-07-31T17:52:00.002+12:002015-08-01T15:35:04.614+12:00One man's Windows 10 experienceI was quite excited by this one. I thought it's windows 9 (they should have left it at 9 not 10) it's the odd numbered one. It will be good. It will fix the annoying windows 8.<br />
<br />
Got that hugely wrong I did.<br />
<br />
I usually live in Linux and boot into a windows 8.1 partition to play some games and the odd app that i can't replace in linux. So I started into windows on the 29th to see if win 10 was available as I reserved a copy.<br />
<br />
No sign of it on the 29th, nor the 30th (we're a bit ahead so it's not uncommon for stuff to be a day late for us) so I did a search and found sometimes you have to clear the download folder to get it to download again and run a cmd command. Windows update popped up and it said windows 10 is downloading. Cool. About 3GB later it said it was ready to reboot so off it went. First fail. Waited a while but restart never happened. I guess that technically is an 8.1 fail but windows 10 was behind it I'm sure :-) After hitting the reset button I was back to 8.1 and no update offer. Back to the web site, clear the folder run the command again. We're away. It'll work this time. yeah, nah. Not quite.<br />
<br />
After 6 tries at this it seemed to work so I started it and went to work. Weirdly the download got bigger each time by the last time it was 8.3GB.<br />
<br />
At least we're under way. Got home from work and it had installed and was waiting to be set up. So the first question was default of custom settings. OK custom settings is my usual choice.<br />
<br />
Boy that was a good choice. Every option defaulted to on and every option was we'll send your typing and gestures to microsoft to improve things, we'll send your web history to microsoft to improve your searches, we'll send you typing in search fields to microsoft to improve things. What a load of bullshit. microsoft want all your data and are just going to T&C to take it. Wake up people. Time to switch OSes. If you want any sort of privacy you're in the wrong place. Send your typing to microsoft? WTF?<br />
<br />
It's gets better. Once all the invasion of privacy questioned were answered win 10 finished it's setup but complained about internet. OK sometimes it takes a while to connect. So I logged in and there were no network adapters. WTF again? There were three before. So device manager has the devices and says they're OK. I uninstalled and reinstalled the Wifi card. Still no adapter. They're crazy wacky adapters like Intel 7260 Wifi, realtek 8139 and Nvida onboard ethernet.<br />
<br />
So I'm back in Linux searching for answers to make my useless windows 10 partition somewhat usable again.<br />
<br />
In summary windows 10? Just say no people. If enough people stick with windows 7 they'll have to keep supporting it. I wish I'd never left it behind.<br />
<br />
<b>Update</b> for the no network adapters issue. I saw a post from a ms tech (sorry I can't find it again to credit him) and if you've had the Cisco VPN client installed on 8.1 and upgrade this will happen. That won't be many people..<br />
<br />
The fix is open a cmd window as administrator<br />
<br />
type the commands<br />
<br />
netcfg -s n<br />
<br />
look for DNI_DNE<br />
<br />
if that's there then do<br />
<br />
reg delete HKCR\CLSID{988248f3-a1ad-49bf-9170-676cbbc36ba3} /va /f<br />
netcfg -v -u dni_dne<br />
<br />
<b>Update 2</b> full details at http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-networking/no-network-connections-after-81-to-10-update/d2772d1a-8e14-4a83-bdd1-f2306abc89c5?page=2 <br />
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-32126407789268406162015-02-06T12:18:00.001+13:002015-10-18T16:35:38.512+13:00Steam client on Gentoo stops with GL errorsI use the Steam client on Gentoo Linux and recently it stopped working which meant I had TF2 withdrawal :-)<br />
<br />
I'm not a programmer so this may be a bad way to fix things but it worked for me. YMMV.<br />
<br />
It all started when you launch the steam client it brings up a dialog:<br />
<br />
<i>OpenGL GLX context is not using direct rendering, which may cause performance problems</i><br />
<br />
TF2 would not even launch :-(<br />
<br />
Launching from a terminal gave me<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">libGL error: unable to load driver: r600_dri.so<br />libGL error: driver pointer missing<br />libGL error: failed to load driver: r600<br />libGL error: unable to load driver: swrast_dri.so<br />libGL error: failed to load driver: swrast</span><br />
<br />
<br />
After searching through all sorts of things I found an <a href="https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1463297#p1463297">article</a> about MatLab but with similar errors.<br />
<br />
After doing the:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">export LIBGL_DEBUG=verbose</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">things started to make sense.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">libGL: screen 0 does not appear to be DRI3 capable<br />libGL: pci id for fd 7: 1002:68b8, driver r600<br />libGL: OpenDriver: trying /usr/lib/dri/tls/r600_dri.so<br />libGL: OpenDriver: trying /usr/lib/dri/r600_dri.so<br />libGL: dlopen /usr/lib/dri/r600_dri.so failed (/home/nick/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.20' not found (required by /usr/lib/dri/r600_dri.so))<br />libGL error: unable to load driver: r600_dri.so<br />libGL error: driver pointer missing<br />libGL error: failed to load driver: r600<br />libGL: OpenDriver: trying /usr/lib/dri/tls/swrast_dri.so<br />libGL: OpenDriver: trying /usr/lib/dri/swrast_dri.so<br />libGL: dlopen /usr/lib/dri/swrast_dri.so failed (/home/nick/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.20' not found (required by /usr/lib/dri/swrast_dri.so))<br />libGL error: unable to load driver: swrast_dri.so</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The libstdc++ in the Steam directory was</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">ls -al /home/nick/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6<br />lrwxrwxrwx 1 nick users 19 Jul 19 2014 /home/nick/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 -> libstdc++.so.6.0.18</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">but the r600 driver was now built with</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">ls /usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.9.2/libstdc++.so.6*<br />/usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.9.2/libstdc++.so.6 /usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.9.2/libstdc++.so.6.0.20</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So can you just link the one outside the Steam directory? Delete the link and try.. </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">rm /home/nick/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">ln -s /usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.9.2/libstdc++.so.6.0.20 /home/nick/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Let's try steam</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">libGL: screen 0 does not appear to be DRI3 capable<br />libGL: pci id for fd 7: 1002:68b8, driver r600<br />libGL: OpenDriver: trying /usr/lib/dri/tls/r600_dri.so<br />libGL: OpenDriver: trying /usr/lib/dri/r600_dri.so</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It says not DRI3 capable but I thoguth it was but no biggie. No dialog about OpenGL. Getting excited... Launched TF2. No error straight away and it worked! I was back in Pyro land :-)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Update: I recently made the jump to 64 bit Gentoo and the link command is now different but otherwise it just worked again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">ln -s /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/4.9.3/libstdc++.6 /home/nick/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A second link is needed to make </span>some<span style="font-family: inherit;"> games go (such as Outlast) I'm guessing these are 64 bit</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">ln -s /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/4.9.3/libstdc++.6 /home/nick/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/amd64/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><br /></span>
<br />
<br />Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8789095272304739920.post-10575983189731008142014-11-20T06:33:00.003+13:002014-11-20T06:33:55.800+13:00Raspberry Pi panics on boot with no HDMIOne of the Pis started playing up and it's got some odd symptoms.<br />
<br />
Initially it would boot and and then reboot just after the login prompt appeared. I think that was a process not seeing the hardware it expected and trying to recover but diagnosing this I hooked it up to the monitor to see what was going on.<br />
<br />
The odd thing that is since then it won't restart without a monitor attached. If there is no monitor it kernel panics and says it can't it can't mount the root file system. I tried hooking up a cable with nothing on the end but that fails as well so it needs to get the information from a monitor to start.<br />
<br />
the /boot/cmdline.txt file is<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=ttyAMA0,115200 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p6 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline root-wait</span><br />
<br />
I think the problem is root-wait. This might have got auto corrected when I loaded the file onto the Mac to add init=/bin/sh to do some trouble shooting. It looks like it should be root-wait no hyphen.<br />
<br />
<some later="" time=""></some><br />
<br />
Looks to be sorted now. So be careful editing that file on machines that want to auto correct things.Nick Brookerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667197891569246624noreply@blogger.com0