#pamac-aur

[arch-official]

I've come to make an announcement: Manjaro Linux is a bitch-ass motherfucker. He DDOSed my fucking AUR. That's right. He took his broken fuckin' pamac out and he DDOSed my FUCKING AUR, and he said his pamac was THIS BROKEN, and I said that's disgusting. So I'm making a callout post on my lkml.org. Manjaro Linux, you got a broken pamac. It's the shittyness of apt except WAY brokenener. And guess what? Here's what my pacman looks like. That's right, baby. no DDOSing, no expired SSL certificates, no 2000$ laptops, look at that, it looks like a purrfect pawsome linux distro for catgirl furry girltwinks. He DDOSed my AUR, so guess what, I'm gonna DDOS IRC. That's right, this is what you get! My SUPER LASER DDOS! Except I'm not gonna DDOS IRC. I'm gonna go higher. I'm DDOSing USENET! How do you like that, STALLMAN? I DDOSED USENET, YOU IDIOT! You have twenty-three hours before the USENET servers GO DOWN. now get out of my fucking sight before I DDOS you too!

We've been over this: it's not fair to be funnier than me in my own ask box. Wtf am I going to say to add to this perfect specimen

[soreenel]

AUR, it's like magic

AUR and pamac are such nice things.

Say you need Brave to watch some movies, you just pamac build brave and one hour later, done!

I would assume this is the true modern Linux experience, because everything is built from source by that command. It actually checks out the git repos for brave-browser, brave and chromium.

It's been cloning Chromium for a while now, I'm wondering if it's still doing something or it froze.

[linuxlife]

Linux Life Episode 54

Hello people and welcome back to another episode of Linux Life.  My seemingly never ending quest of messing about with Linux.  Its funny you know as when I originally started this blog.  It was regarding my transition from windows to Linux but over time I now very rarely ever use Windows.  In fact there is now only one machine I own that still has Windows 10 on it.

In fact its the recent acquisition which is HP Z400 workstation which contains a Intel Xeon W3550 with 12Gb of ECC memory.  The reason I even mention this machine is it has been the subject of my most recent Linux adventure.

Now the machine has sat under my desk gathering dust for a few months but I decided it was time to do something with the thing, so I finally dusted it off and set it up in another room.

First I had to find a video converter as the card in the Xeon is a AMD Radeon R9 370X with 4Gb of memory.  Th issue was not with the card itself but the spare monitor I had was a VGA only monitor and the two connectors on the R9 are DVI-D and DVI-I.  I did order a converter but I had to rake around to find it.  Luckily I found it in the end so now video is working fine.

However there is a rather large blue dongle-like converter sticking out the back of the machine so it won’t sit flush against the wall so it is sitting at an angle to work.  Not the most inconvenient thing in the world but I don’t have another DVI monitor spare so we make do with what we have.

However it is happily running at 1680x1050 32-bit colour through it so I am not complaining.

OK so I tried to install Namib Linux which I have been running on my i7 desktop for quite some time.  Sure enough set up the USB stick using Rufus on the Windows 10 partition and prepared to install.

Sure enough on boot a few failed things and when we get to MATE it can see the Ethernet port but can’t see the Wi-Fi card.  Now I admit even Windows 10 did not have a pre-installed driver for the card in question so I had to download the driver to the i7 and transfer it using aforementioned USB stick.

Now the Wi-Fi card in question is a TP-Link Archer 9E PCI Express card.  It’s a A/b/g/n/ac card with three aerial connections.  However because it can’t see the card Namib will not install as it needs an online connection to install.

Most Arch installers do this so it was not a huge surprise.  OK well luckily for me as I mentioned last episode EndeavourOS (the new team who took over the Antergos system) at the moment have a version that uses an offline installer.

So I went back into Windows 10 downloaded the EndeavourOS ISO and managed to transfer it to the USB using Rufus just like I did Namib.

Sure enough I managed to install EndeavourOS on the Xeon but it also could not see the Wi-Fi card.however as it was an offline installer it did successfully install an Arch system with XFCE.

Everything else worked including sound it was just the Wi-Fi card so I decide to trawl the net and find out if Linux can use the Archer 9E card.  Sure enough on the AUR there is a set of drivers called broadcom-wl-ck as the Archer 9E uses a Broadcom chipset.

OK so I boot back into Windows and pull down the snapshot from the AUR onto the USB stick and then go back in to EndeavourOS and transfer it to my Downloads directory.

After unarchiving it as I did try using pacman to install it locally but it wasn’t having it.   I run makepkg which will build the package using the given manifest sure enough it immediately informs me I am missing the Linux-ck headers.

Can’t build it.  OK so I look up Linux-ck.  Now I admit I had no idea what it was but given Linux-ck had headers I assume it some form of kernel.  It is indeed.  Apparently it’s a custom LTS based kernel made by a user known as Con Kolivas.

I will spare you the details of exact files I needed but every time I tried to build Linux-ck I needed another file.  So every time I needed to go back into Windows download the appropriate file and then move it back to EndeavourOS.

Lets just say I ended up doing that about six times so it was a bit  tedious to say the least.  Eventually I managed to get all the files required and started the makepkg command.

All good but it refuses to acknowledge the PGP key and after about a minute it throws it out.  OK not happy so I ultimately decide to set he makepkg flag of --ignorepgpsignature.  Probably not the best method in the world but after a minor warning it seems to start to compile the kernel.

The whole compilation took 5 hours to complete on the Xeon.  Now the W3550 has 4 cores and 8 threads so I didn’t think it would take that long but it definitely took forever.

Eventually it did build and using pacman -U  I was able to install the Linux-ck kernel from the local directory it was in.  It obviously installed the Linux-ck kernel and the headers so finally I could now build the broadcom-wl-ck drivers.  Yay!

It built the drivers in about five seconds flat.  So 5 hours for kernel, five seconds for the driver.  Oh the irony.  OK so now installed I restart the machine and sure enough the Wi-Fi card is now working.

EndeqvourOS now tells me there is about 200+ updates to download which is about what I expect so I set it off working.  Sure enough it installs the updates all fine.  Having waited for 5 hours for the kernel it was now getting late so I closed the machine down for the night.

Wi-Fi is working the system is updated.  All good.

Day Two of EndeavourOS on the Xeon.  I boot up and everything is just fine as the Wi-Fi connects without issue. Now I am not a huge fan of XFCE, don’t get me wrong its functional I just don’t like the way it does certain things like updates.

However I know that EndeavourOS had MATE on its servers. So I try pacman to get MATE.  First problem hit.  Apparently the MATE system is in the AUR not the main repo of EndeavourOS.  OK try and install pacaur but for some reason it doesn’t seem to want to do that.  Why I don’t know.  OK then I will try and install Yaourt.  Nope I can’t seem to find that either.

I’m starting to get desperate at this point and the Arch guys seem to recommend YAY as apparently Yaourt is a bit older now and not quite as good as it once was.  Sure enough I manage to get pacman to install YAY.  Progress...

So it seems to use the same flags as pacman but can access the AUR.  So I manage to install MATE and get it running.  However now as I am using that I don’t seem to have a way of installing software via GUI. sure i can use Yay but that’s a command line tool.

So I decide using Yay to install pamac-aur which will give me a nice frontend.  Sure enough it installs and after a reboot seems to be installed fine.

Then the fun begins as the first thing Pamac notices is the broadcom-wl-ck driver and the Linux-ck stuff has been updated.  OK I think well surely now it has the Linux-ck kernel it will just patch it and then the rest can be done from there.

Nope apparently it has to totally rebuild the kernel and the headers so I have another 5 hour wait upon my hands.  The good thing is this time it does sort out the PGP keys so at least this time I don’t have to ignore them.

OK so many hours later the update finally finishes and I restart the PC to check that everything is running fine.  Sure enough it seems to have upgraded without any issues.  A few minor updates later I am ready to go.

Or so I thought.  As I go to run the minor updates from Pamac it seems to keep dropping out and not picking up the network.  Hanging many times while trying to download the actual update files.

However if I run Yay -Syu from the command line.  It works no problem.  Strange.  Also every time I build something from the AUR in Pamac I have to keep clearing out the cache or it stops working.

I eventually get everything I want to work installed mainly using Yay instead of Pamac. Which kind of defeats the point of even having Pamac installed.

I still have not solved this issue and I have no idea why it is happening.  If anyone has any insight into why this is happening please let me know as it is a bit of a pain in the arse.

Sure I can update using Yay but its annoying having to see Pamac tell me there is updates, refuses to download them and then yay does it first time without problems.  I’m sure its something pretty simple but I can’t seem to get it to work.

The ironic factor is sometimes after a bit of searching Pamac can install sometimes but nine times out of ten it just times out the connection of the repo servers.  Its probably a setting in one of the config files I need to correct but i have no idea.

Help me out if you know what i need to do.  So I now have the Xeon w3550 running EndeavourOS running MATE.  Thanks to Yay everything is up to date and I have managed to install all of my usual applications.

It took two days of messing about and lots of time.  I hope that the Linux-ck kernel is not hugely updated regularly as having to wait 5 hours for it to compile is not the most fun time in the world.

Luckily after the second time it seems to have managed to remain OK for the time being.  However I will not doubt updates will eventually come in time, after all this is Arch and it will no doubt inform me of such an update.

So now the Xeon is a dual boot machine running Windows 10 and EndeavourOS.  The Wi-Fi works on both and its working reasonably well with the exception of Pamac.  I have tested it with a few other programs and all seem to work fine.

If I have any further issues or manage to find out why Pamac is being like it is, I will no doubt update you on the Xeon’s progress.

As for now I think that is enough waffle for this episode  so until next time...Take care.

[linuxscoop]

Manjaro 19.0 Kyria KDE Edition - Features KDE Plasma 5.17 and Powered by Linux Kernel 5.4

Manjaro, the Linux distribution based on Arch has just put out a new release with Manjaro 19 with codename “Kyria”.

Manjaro 19 KDE Edition ships with the latest version KDE plasma 5.17.  The themes have been updated including new “light” and “dark” versions within the Breath2 theme. In addition, KDE 19.12.2 packages and applications have been included.

Manjaro 19 offering Office Suite Freeoffice 2018 by SoftMaker during installation. Bauh, the graphical package manager now supports Snaps, Flatpaks, Appimage and the Arch AUR. This means that Manjaro users now have three choices of application installation in the GUI.

Manjaro 19 are based on the Linux 5.4 LTS kernel, introduce NVIDIA PRIME support paired with their latest proprietary driver, Oracle VM VirtualBox support fixes, and the package manager, Pamac 9.3 , has also received its ration of changes and improvements.

[engineeringtrust]

Pcsx2 steam controller

#PCSX2 STEAM CONTROLLER HOW TO#

Speed: 499 MHz min/max: 400/3100 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 500 2: 500ĭevice-1: Intel Skylake GT2 vendor: Lenovo driver: i915ĭevice-2: NVIDIA GM108M driver: N/A bus ID: 03:00.0ĭisplay: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: intel tty: N/A Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i7-6500U bits: 64 type: MT MCPįlags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 20744 ID-1: BAT0 charge: 24.3 Wh condition: 24.6/30.0 Wh (82%)ĭevice-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Wireless Mouse MX MasterĬharge: 55% (should be ignored) status: Discharging Mobo: LENOVO model: Toronto 5A1 v: SDK0J40709 WIN serial: Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 80SR v: Lenovo ideapad 510-15ISK I'm not so used to the new package manager and have very little experience activating kernel modules e.g. Sorry for all this, I'm a total Arch noob, but used to be relatively comfortable with ubuntu/debian based systems.

#PCSX2 STEAM CONTROLLER HOW TO#

Xbox One S Controllerīesides this, I can't install/activate xpad itself, I have no idea how to do this. I don't understand what I need to do to fix this, lsusb picks the controller up after all $lsusbīus 001 Device 009: ID 045e:02ea Microsoft Corp. I couldn't get either to work, xboxdrv couldnt find my controller and steamos's xpad didn't compile because of missing kernel headers. It's the only controller I have on hand right now and would love to play some emu games. I noticed however, that controller setup is a bit different and now I'm having trouble getting my Xbox One controller to work. I however used to use a ps2 emulator (pcsx2) which I installed via the pamac gui installer (AUR v1.4.0). So I recentely completely switched over to linux and chose Manjaro for it's splendid optimus support!

[kirito-1011]

Arch Linux On Line Installer

Arch Linux On Line Installer

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[tqvcancun]

Manjaro Webdev Edition. La versión de Manjaro para diseñadores web y programadores

Escritorio de Manjaro Webdev basado en KDE

Manjaro Webdev Edition es una versión especial de la distribución basada en Arch Linux. Está pensada específicamente para desarrolladores web y programadores. La compilación incluye la mayoría de los lenguajes de programación, compiladores, editores y entornos de Desarrollo Integrado (IDEs) más utilizados. Cómo interfaz gráfica utiliza el escritorio KDE.

Hay que aclarar que se trata del proyecto de un usuario particular y no de una alternativa soportada oficialmente

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A diferencia de los proyectos oficiales y comunitarios, Manjaro Webdev es solo una variante de la versión KDE de Manjaro con programas agregados

Qué incluye Manjaro Webdev Edition para diseñadores web y programadores

Como dije más arriba, el escritorio es KDE Plasma. Podemos configurarlo a nuestro gusto instalando cualquiera de los widgets de que dispone. La instalación de software la podemos hacer vía Pamac, el gestor de paquetes gráfico basado en libalpm con soporte para AUR y Appstreamos. A su vez, disponemos de gestores de paquetes específicos para instalar librerías utilizadas por los diferentes lenguajes de programación. Algunos de ellos son:

NPM: Gestor de paquetes para JavaScript.

Pip: Un gestor de paquetes para Python.

Gem: El gestor de paquetes del lenguaje Ruby.

Composer: Es el gestor de paquetes estándar para instalar módulos PHP.

Si eres programador y usas Linux, vas a trabajar múcho con el emulador de terminal. Yakuake es un terminal desplegable. Esto significa que puede presionar, por ejemplo, F12, y se desliza hacia abajo desde el borde superior de la pantalla. Después de que haya terminado, puede volver a presionar F12 y se desliza de nuevo en la parte superior.

Con el gestor de paquetes Pamac, podrás instalar muchas herramientas de programación y desarrollo desde los repositorios de Arch Linux.

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Programas preinstalados

Algunos de los programas incluidos en la instalación por defecto son:

Firefox Developer editión: Es una versión del navegador con el agregado de herrramientas para desarrolldores.

Visual Studio Code: El  entorno integrado de desarrollo de MIcrosoft con soporte para múltiples lenguajes de programación.

BueGriffon: Lo más parecido a Adobe Dreamweaver que podemos conseguir los usuarios de Linux. Es un editor visual de sitios web basado en el motor de renderizado de Firefox. Si quieres las prestaciones más avanzadas deberás pagar una licencia.

BlueGriffon nos permite identificar los componentes de un sitio web.

GitG: Interfaz de usuario para el sistema de control de versiones Git

PyCharm CE: Entorno de desarrollo integrado para Python.

El creador de interfaces gráficas de QT.

Scratch: Un entorno de desarrollo para el lenguaje de programación visual creado por el MIT

Para mi gusto faltan programas que un desarrollador web podría necesitar, como Inkscape para el manejo de gráficos SVG o  El Gimp para la manipulación de imágenes. Tampoco, en una web cada vez más multimedia, se incluye un editor de video. Por el otro se incluye un lanzador para la web de Microsoft Office 365 y se instala Calligra Suite,  una suite ofimática en la que no entiendo por qué el proyecto KDE sigue insistiendo. De todas formas, ya dije que se trata de un proyecto de unusuario individual y no de una variante apoyada oficialmente.

Inkscape es una herramienta para la manipulación de gráficos vectoriales. Si queremos utilizarla deberemos instalarla desde repositorios

Cómo dije hace algunos días en Twitter, Manjaro es una distribución que representa todas las virtudes del mundo Linux. No toman decisiones basadas enla ideología o el odio. Buscan las mejores opciones para los usuarios y la plasman en una distribución fácil de instalar y que da gusto usar.

No sé como irá evolucionando Manjaro Webdev Edition, pero en este momento no es más que la versión KDE con programas agregados. Lo mejor es descargarse alguna de las versiones originales de Manjaro e instalarte las aplicaciones que más te gusten.

En la página web de Manjaro dispones de una variada gama de opciones para crear tu propia distribución para programar.

Puedes descargar Manjaro Webdev Edition desde aquí

Fuente: Linux Adictos https://www.linuxadictos.com/manjaro-webdev-edition-la-version-de-manjaro-para-disenadores-web-y-programadores.html

[imeyalo09]

Install Pamac in Arch Linux for a GUI like Manjaro

Install Pamac in Arch Linux for a GUI like Manjaro

Arch Linux by default does not come with a GUI tool for updating packages or working with the AUR (Arch User Repository), and this is just fine for most Arch users. However, having used Manjaro for quite a while fairly recently, I kind of got used to using Pamac as a GUI option for these things when I didn’t feel like mucking around with a terminal.

So, I decided to install it on my Arch system,…

[galigio]

Install Pamac in Arch Linux for a GUI like Manjaro - Ghacks Technology News Install Pamac in Arch Linux for a GUI like ManjaroGhacks Technology NewsArch Linux by default does not come with a GUI tool for updating packages or working with the AUR (Arch User Repository), and this is just fine for most Arch users. However, having used Manjaro for quite a while fairly recently, I kind of got used to ...

July 08, 2017 at 05:52AM & selected by Galigio

[linuxlife]

Linux Life Episode 51

Hello folks as I have managed to get myself a quiet moment it’s time to check in with the blog.  As I said I will be a bit more sporadic with the posting here this is due to family situations.

So what have I being doing with Linux since the last episode.  Well my Kingston 120GB SSD I was running Linux on decided to have issues and for all of the attempts to save it I had to swap it out and replace it with my Integral 120GB SSD.

Luckily because I don’t keep my home directory on the SSD but on a separate 1TB Seagate hard drive no data was really lost.  So I had to re-install Namib Linux onto the new drive.  This was a bit odd but I got it working.

The installation went smooth but upon restart GRUB would start and then pixelate the screen as the video didn’t initialise correctly.  So I went in using mode 3 to just a text prompt but upon signing in this way MATE actually started which was odd but handy.

At first I could not update as Pamac would not download any of the required 538 updates from the base Namib.  So I opened a terminal and tried to use pacman.  First attempt using ‘pacman -Syu’ it just sat there after updating the main repositories as it failed to download just as Pamac had.

In the end the way I managed to get it working was to use the ‘pacman -Syyuu’ which forces the update.  So finally I managed to get the system updated and working.  I also managed to install the Nvidia drivers while I was there and all of the previous programs I was using which luckily was not many as I have been pretty quiet on Linux at the moment.

After installing Grub Customizer from the AUR I was able to put Grub into a mode that I knew would work with my ageing monitor.  I really must get a new one although this works it’s an old Dell 19 inch monitor with a max resolution of 1280x800 so it really is showing its age.  It works fine however and there is no pixel damage so I really can’t complain.

So within an hour I was back up and running and even managed to get my desktop back including my Cairo Dock at the bottom of the screen with all its icons restored and reworking including the Vulkan drivers and DXVK to get games working through Lutris.

However I have not really been playing games lately but it is nice to have that capability should I start using it.  

I have however been messing around with stuff.  I was playing with the Previous emulator.  If you remember I discussed this NeXT emulator before.  Well I managed to get a few programs installed using ISOs of the Peanuts Archive including a few games and a few applications.

I have also been messing around with DosBOX and I decided to have a bit of fun playing with some old programming stuff to see if I can remember any of it.  I honestly can’t but I installed Borland Turbo Pascal 6.0 for DOS and Borland Turbo C 3.0 for DOS and I was playing with them.

I vaguely managed to get a basic “Hello World” type program that cleared the screen and then waited for a key press to exit but it took me far longer than it should have as I have totally forgotten how to program Pascal and C++ and to begin with could not even remember the keywords.

This could be because the last time I actually did any programming in DOS has to be more than 25 years ago.  However I did have fun playing with them and although it won’t lead to anything serious.  Trust me I don’t desire to become a programmer as I just don’t have the patience, it is fun to mess around and do small things with.

I did create their own dosbox.conf files so they auto-start in DosBOX from a launcher and now they sit on my Cairo Dock bar along with everything else.  I’m sure in time I will kill them off but for now it keeps me vaguely amused in this tricky time.

So that’s what has been happening in my little Linux world so until next episode.  Take care.

[linuxlife]

Linux Life Episode 28

Hello folks, here we are back  in the world of Linux again.  Been a few weeks since I last updated, afraid real life has a tendency of breaking the flow a little.  So what have I been up to since the last episode.

Well I have rebuilt an i7 desktop.  Its an i7 3770K, 32GB DDR3 memory, 1 TB Hard Drive, NVIDIA 630 2GB Graphics card.  At the moment it’s a dual boot machine between Antergos and Windows 10.   I would have Hackintoshed it but I have hit the limit of 4 entries to the Partition table so can’t add that at the moment.  Well I can but it means converting to GPT which while not impossible is probably a pain in the neck.

Meanwhile on the laptop I was trying to play various games using Wine to varying degrees of success.  While a lot of the earlier games I have tried have ran pretty easy even several of the Steam games which I installed from the Windows Steam version they will run but with a considerable hit of frame rates and occasional crashes.

However I did try and play a couple of newer games without success.  Now obviously these were not high powered games but should have been able to run none the less.

One game I was trying to play was Yorkshire Gubbins which is a point and click adventure with very basic graphics by Charlotte Gore.  If you have not tried the series start with Holy Molluscamony and then Aye Fair Lady which are both free on Gamejolt.  Follow the adventures of Steggy, Bertrella and many others.

Anyway I tried to play Yorkshire Gubbins and the title screen would load but no text was displayed on screen to start the game.  So off I went on a bit of a research about the internet to see if I could get some help.

I downloaded a thing called DXVK which apparently converts DirectX graphics commands into Vulkan compatible graphics. Also pulled down a front end called Lutris which would start Wine programs in a little graphical front end.

I sat and played with it for quite a while before remembering this is an Intel card not a NVIDIA one so don’t have the facility to use Vulkan anyway as it’s not part of the chip-set. So obviously I don’t solution to that at this time.

Mesa is kept regularly up to date so it’s once again the HD4000 not being up to snuff.

However I can play Thimbleweed Park which is good.

To be honest now I have the desktop it’s going to be used for games, not that I really play them much but I did spend quite a few hours playing No Mans Sky Next on it.  That’s also why there was a delay to this episode ...Sorry.

Had fun with Pamac would not update Perl for a few days.  Reason being I had been playing with a VM of FreeDOS and I was using libguestfs to mount the VHD as a hard drive now it used certain things that would not let the Perl update to the latest version.

By the way for all the FreeDOS VM worked it was not exactly the fastest thing on the planet so ultimately I rid myself of it.  It was quite interesting I could mount VHD files but I had to be root to do so which was time consuming and a pain in the butt at the same time.

I actually have an old Pentium 2 machine I can run DOS on but I can’t be bothered to dig it out of the cupboard it lives in.  Besides there is so much in there it would probably kill me first by falling on my head.  Anyway back to Linux.

Sure I don’t mind occasionally sudo commanding the odd thing but this was annoying.  Once I got rid of the libguestfs as I was no longer needing it.  Two more Perl scripts removed which it had installed and et voila Perl would finally update.

Not all bad and removal was easy in Pamac just search for named files and mark to delete.  Antergos makes things much easier, man I would find going back to something like Linux Mint nowadays.

Speaking of Linux Mint it has now released version 19 “Tara”.  Apparently it now offers you restore points and backup options.  Other than that not much else other than the obvious incremental program updates.

I’m sure someone will inform me I’m wrong and then send me the full change log of all the things that were changed.  As I am not using Mint at this time, I really don’t care so please don’t do that.

Also had to remove Shutter which is a screen capture program due to the Perl thing and it is Perl based.  Now that was a minor inconvenience as it’s what I use to grab the screens normally at the top of these articles.

Reason being it needed a module that doesn’t apparently work with Perl 28.0.1 which is the updated version.  Shutter installed but every time I tried to run it I got an error message.

Who knows maybe I can fix it but for now I will have to find another program to do the job.  First time I have been inconvenienced by the constant rolling release of Arch and to be honest there is probably something I can do to put it right just have not found it.

People tend to fix things in the AUR community pretty quickly so hopefully I will have it back soon.

Well that’s enough waffle for this episode so until next time... Take care

[linuxlife]

Linux Life Episode 67

Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to my ongoing quest regards Linux.  Well I did say I was getting frustrated with the slowness of Manjaro well due to having to fight with it virtually every time when I built something from the AUR.  I eventually had enough.  So now the i7 desktop is now running Archman Mate.

The problem with Manjaro as I said was it seemed to be sluggish to load, respond and generally work.  It did work but for some reason everything took far longer than it should.  Also building anything would be problematic.

I will explain what I mean.  Now Arch has a tendency to build from source which is not a problem.  However most Arch versions with the exception of Manjaro if they script is in the wrong order it will normally correct so it will be able to build the program.Manjaro will just stop dead make you find a series of libraries which itself could have made.  It's counter productive.  Now I know sometimes AUR scripts are not perfect but just installing say Fuse the spectrum Emulator.

It uses libspectrum now every other Arch distro I have used discovers this and build this first and then Fuse.  Manjaro just stalls, informs  libspectrum is needed and stops.  So now I have to go back to pamac install libspectrum first and now I can install Fuse.  I'm sure someone seems to think this is a good idea as you see what you need before building the program in question.

However I just need a program to work and find all these unnecessary install steps annoying.  If it needs such then like every other version out there install the library first and then build.  However it will stop warn and not install.

This is very much like the old issue I used to have with Debian when it will inform you of the dependencies but not where they are.  So you end up installing one library, then another, then another and still may not be close to being able to install the program you want.

It's inconvenient.  I really don't understand how Manjaro is listed and praised so highly.  I really don't.  I have found it slow, obnoxious and obstructive.  But for some reason people like it.  Well let's just say I don't.

If you like Manjaro that's your prerogative.  To be honest I admit I think I am pretty fussy about things.  This is why I have shifted many times and through many versions of Linux.

Don't get me wrong now I will at least attempt to see if their is a fix if there is an issue which previously I wouldn't.  Well I would but I have learned several things over time about symbol links going missing and how to sort them and that amending one or two files may be enough to save you having to totally reinstall the distribution.

As I have said before the reason why I use an Arch system over a Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora system is the applications are in a much more central location on Arch.  On the others you normally need to keep adding PPAs and pointing the distros to file servers you have no idea whether they are safe or not.

Admittedly several scripts at the AUR may not work so I'm not saying it's perfect but nine times out of ten I can get the programs I want either from the central repositories of  the distribution I'm using or the AUR.

Do they move their mirrors and files.  They probably do but that is sent with the updates normally so I don't have to manually enter the movements.

Obviously I understand that if I was running a server I would want a machine that I set up once and  then hopefully only have to do occasional updates the likes of Debian/Fedora are commonly used and I respect that.  If I was to setup a central server then I would be looking at them but I don't have a server need.

As a desktop user I like to install programs try them, love them or hate them, keep them or remove them so I need a pretty dynamic setup.  Hence why the Arch system suits me.

However I have discovered once I find something I like I will tend to stick with it.  For example my usage of Shutter to grab screenshots.  Sure there is Flameshot and Greenshot and probably others but they don't always manage to grab game shots very well which I normally can get Shutter to do.

Shutter hasn't been updated in a long time and getting it to build on various distros can be a long trek but Archman for example made sure it built without stopping by building the libraries in the right order which Manjaro could not do.

Maybe it's because Archman is using Mate where as when I was running Manjaro it was KDE.  Given Shutter is primarily based in Gnome and Perl maybe Mate just knows how to deal with it better as it's based on the Gnome system.  I don't know you see for all I am quite technically minded.

When it comes to complex programming my brain has decided it just doesn't want to get involved.  I tried programming many years ago and discovered it was not for me.  I just don't have the patience to find a missing semicolon or symbol in a several thousand lines of code program.  

As much as I like to investigate programs I really don't have the patience to sit and learn programs that are incredibly complex either.  I know Blender is an incredible tool and as well as being a 3D modelling software is capable of  producing animation and some even use it for video production.

I have sat and rendered a model from example files and sat and waited for several hours for what turns out to be a two minute animation.  Yes it's impressive but to be honest I know in my heart I would not sit and do such.

I love Emulation.  It fascinates me seeing a machine running on my PC which was never meant to.  Being able to try out programs and games I never could.

For example MAME includes MESS so it can run several computer systems as well as arcade games so I was able to play with Irix as there is now SGI Emulation in there.  It's far from perfect and obviously not a huge amount of stuff is widely available to download for it.

However I have always wanted to see the Irix system in action and unless I was willing to pay the silly amounts asked on eBay for machines such the Octane and the Indigo.  This is the only way I will get to try out such.

Hence why I now have Previous on most of my setups.  It's an Emulation of  the Next Systems so I can play with NextStep.  Once again software is pretty limited and getting some of the stuff to work is a bit of a challenge.  However seeing it and how you can see Mac OS X has integrated many of its features and improved makes it fascinating to me.

It never ceases to amaze me how the emulator programmers keep getting things working.  I wouldn't know where the hell to start.  Seeing them get things like Yusu, Xenia and Citra which are running emulation of Switch, Xbox 360 and 3DS games respectively.  OK they are not perfect but the fact they have done so just proves how incredibly dedicated these people are.

I have always said my ideal desktop operating system which would never be possible.  Is a machine where I can run Linux, Windows, Mac, Amiga, Next, BeOS and more from one desktop with one simple double click.  Integrated Emulation at desktop level.  Integration between clipboards and software.  It's very idyllic and would never happen as the companies responsible for said technology would vehemently prevent such.  But hey a man can dream.  Either that or I'm just lazy and want everything under one roof to save me leg work.

Anyway I think that's enough waffle for this episode.  So until next time ...take care.

[linuxlife]

Linux Life Episode 61

Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to my on going quest in the world of Linux.  

Well a lot has happened since my last episode.  The W3550 Xeon decide to fail on me as The PSU decided to give up the ghost with no warning or real errors.  All I know is it refused to start a few times.  Now I had been having problems with the AMD R9 270X graphics card so I swapped it out with a Nvidia 630 GT.

The 630GT was from the i7 desktop which I swapped out with the Nvidia 1050 which is still in there currently and working well.  However when I switched it into the Xeon it worked upon initial installation then the Xeon started to fail upon start up but lights would come on.  After two further attempted start ups it the refused to do anything whatsoever.

So unfortunately I don’t have a replacement power supply to hand as the Xeon requires a 750w PSU to work efficiently.  The only one I have to had is a 450w one on hand which would not allow the Xeon to start.  So the Xeon at the moment is on the shelf until I can source a new one at a reasonable price.

So I got another machine up and running.  The Machine is an Intel G540 Celeron board I had lying about in an Acer case.  It’s not an Acer system I just reused the case to install the G540 which is sitting on a Gigabyte H61M-S2PV motherboard.

I also installed the Nvidia 630GT as I had it to hand from the Xeon.  I also used the 240GB V Series SSD from the Xeon as it was available.  So once again I have a working system.  Now the Intel G540 Celeron for those who don’t keep chip specs to hand is a Sandy Bridge dual core dual threaded machine so it is never going to be a speed demon however it is running at 2.50 GHz which is not bad.

I have also installed 8Gb of DDR3 RAM from the Xeon so although it’s ECC ram the machine doesn’t worry about that and is running perfectly fine.

So I naturally went to install Namib Linux and it installed fine initially but after its first update broke and pamac would not update any more.  I managed to get pamac back after a bit of playing with terminal commands but it still wouldn’t synchronize the databases.  More finagling later involving pulling down the required files from the AUR to my phone then transferring them using a program called Sweech via Wi-Fi.  I got Pamac back to the tray

Restarted but still no synchronising databases.  Updated keyrings and mirrorlists but still no avail.  In the end I gave up as no matter what I did it would not update.  Not happy.

The crazy thing is the i7 desktop is still running Namib Linux and I did exactly what I did regarding the Xeon and it works absolutely fine so I am confused.  There must be a step on the i7 I did which I have completely forgotten, who knows one day I may remember.  So Namib is out of the loop also at the moment.

So I decided since this is not a regularly used machine more of a test bed I remember quite a few episodes I liked the look of Solus 4 at the time.  Well it just happened a few days before I typed this article Solus announced the update to Solus 4.1, new and improved and several bug fixes.  So I downloaded the ISO on the i7 transferred it to USB using Etcher and installed it on the newly restored G540.

It installed fine and I even managed to install the Nvidia drivers without a problem and it worked fine.  I used their software Centre which is based on the Ubuntu one to install my usual software however I came unstuck with the dock I use.

Now I use Cairo Dock.  I use it because you can move its offset to move it up and down off the edge of the desktop so you can clear the main dock.  Which you can’t do with Docky or Plank.

It’s not in their store.  I look on Solus’ website.  Many have requested it but they have not got it working.  So i couldn’t use it.  I tried Plank for about half a day before remembering why it annoyed me.

Another program I use is I-Nex to check the video driver it’s similar to CPU-Z which is used on Windows and Mac.  Guess what its not in the store database either but CPU-X was.

However as good as Solus is their store is missing so many things and because they use their own package manager extension of eopkg there is no converter like Debtap which Arch uses to convert Debian files to allow them to install.  So it makes life very awkward if you want specific software.

I’m sure someone is going to tell me of such a convertor and what it is called and I am going to feel kind of stupid, but I could not find it or any clue to such.

So I decide against Solus.  In time I may go back should they update such but for now like every time I have tried Solus ,it is still in development and needs to catch up.

Maybe in about 2 years I may try again.  So now I am current running Ubuntu Studio 19.10 it works OK.  I have had to add a few PPAs to get certain programs but it has been reasonably easy to get most running.

However one thing that does annoy me is having to search the appropriate apt-get package name for certain things because it isn’t always what you think it would be.

Once again I was trying to install I-Nex.  I added the PPA and sudo apt update, sudo apt-get install I-Nex.  It failed could not get libcpuid version 14 or higher.  So I found the deb file installed it and I-Nex still wouldn’t install.

Luckily CPU-X would install so I removed the I-Nex PPA aned installed the CPU-X one and it worked first time.  Such an annoyance that even if you install the info even from the alleged website of an app.  It isn’t always true.

That is one thing I will say about Arch if it changes someone updates the wiki immediately and tells you the new name or how to sort it.  Not the case it seems with Ubuntu.

However after all that Ubuntu Studio is still on the G540.  I have managed to get Steam, working, however because the 630GT doesn’t have Shaders 4.0 as it’s the Fermi model of the card not the Pascal which was produced later, I know I can’t use Lutris and Vulkan as it will not work sufficiently.

However it will play games just not high end ones which I can live with.  So that brings us up-to date.  How long it will remain with Ubuntu Studio 19.10 I don’t know.  However I have got all the programs I want at the moment and it does work if albeit slower than the Xeon.

Have you any Linux distributions you would like me to examine... Zorin OS, MX Linux, Fedora Silverblue, Mint 19.3, Netrunner, the list goes on.  If so give me a message at linuxlifetumblr@gmail.com with your suggestions.

OK well I think that’s enough for this episode...so until next time, take care.

[linuxlife]

Linux Life Episode 55

Hey ladies and gentlemen and welcome back to Linux Life.  My ongoing adventures in the sphere of the Linux world.  There is no fixed schedule for these episode releases due to I don’t always have time to make one every month say consistently.

Anyway since episode I am still playing about with the Xeon.  I managed to add the repo-ck to the listed repos checks.  So now it doesn’t have to rebuild the kernel taking 4 hours it just pulls the latest version from the repo meaning it is a lot faster to update.  Which is good considering it has had two updates since the last episode.

Pamac is still unable to connect to the internet very well so in the end I actually uninstalled it using Yay and have been using that to keep the Xeon up to date.  Yeah I know it’s a terminal thing but I will just have to live with it.

The hope with Arch is using the terminal as little as possible, but if it means I can keep the software up to date its a small price to pay.  In time I hope to upgrade the memory on the Xeon.  Don’t get me wrong 12MB of RAM will ruin most things but its just nice to have that bit of overhead should you need it.

The HP Z400 workstation that it is can apparently be upgraded to 24MB of RAM according to them, but I have seen reports that if you get the right type of 16MB ECC memory it can actually have 48MB of RAM installed.  However that is a long way off as at the moment i have a few things I need to sort before I even think about adding memory to this machine, but it is a future update plan.

I once put more memory in a Mac (can’t remember which one) it worked but was a bit temperamental with the extra ram so I may just settle at 24MB which is enough for most things.

Something I am intending to look at between this episode and next is a program called Scrcpy which allows you to connect your Android phone to Linux and display it on your desktop and control it.  Why you would want to do that I am yet to know, but hey it will be fun to try out.

I was testing the Xeon with emulators.  Now previously when using Amstrad stuff I was using Arnold.  However most do say the best one is Caprice32.  Now Caprice32-git is in the AUR but when you try and build it you get issues with the free-type libraries.  SO I had never managed to get it to run properly from the AUR.

It seems the one in the AUR has not been updated for a long time and I am not even sure if anyone is ever going to update it as it doesn’t seem to have a maintainer keeping it in check.

So I just wanted to see if it was worth all the hype involved.  So I downloaded the source and tried to build it that way.  It also hit the free type error.  The crazy thing is both Freetype and FreeType 2 libraries are on there so I don’t know why it doesn’t compile apparently some file is missing.

So I installed Snapd (yep I can now use Snaps from Canonical), I honestly was not sure it would work given that Snaps are based in Ubuntu and with the differences between Ubuntu and Arch I had no idea whether it would even work.

Sure enough I downloaded the Caprice32 Snap.  Now I know Snaps are a self contained package which includes all the libraries it needs to run so obviously it’s a bit bigger to download.  However I am happy to say it ram just fine.

Now i will admit I was not an Amstrad owner or user so although I have tested the system using DSK files of programs I kind of know.  I really don’t know which Amstrad games are the best ones to look at to show it off.

I did try the Amstrad version of my favourite Spectrum game Tornado Low Level and man does it play slightly different.  If you remain low the plane turns and moves much slower and the wings only sweep back when you get to max altitude and the screen then has a strange effect and the plane absolutely motors along the map.

It’s bizarre to say the least.  It does however seem a lot of Amstrad games were just straight Spectrum ports and given that Amstrad eventually owned Sinclair this is not a huge surprise.

So has anyone got any Amstrad games to recommend to me to have a look at?   If so feel free to add them in the comments or send me info via the Facebook group etc.

Also I installed Vice and Fuse (Commodore 64 and Spectrum emulators) on the Xeon just for test purpose.  The Xeon seems to have no major problem running these.

As a man who absolutely adores emulation I believe I have looked at most of the possible available emulation options for Linux, but if you are aware of any I have not tried or checked out please feel free to let me know about them.

I keep meaning to start on YouTube videos but to be honest I keep backing up on them because I really don’t have a good enough idea to run as a series.

I did intend to do a thing regarding the history of emulation looking at the likes of MAME version 0-.1 and various DOS emulators but the timelines and history is so all over the place.  It would be a nightmare to sort out the spaghetti.

Also many early emulators did not include dates so knowing when they were released is total guess work.  I mean it is amazing some of the emulators that ran in DOS and how well some of them worked.

Maybe one day I will figure a format that works so for now that remains on the back burner for a little longer.  I have no idea if anyone would be interested in seeing old emulators but I think it could be an interesting subject to look at.

MAME 0.1 for DOS only ran five games (Pacman, MsPacman(bootleg), Pengo, Crush Roller and Ladybug).  Regarding Crush Roller the palette was guessed by Gary Walton as they didn’t have the actual palette information to hand.  So Nicola Salmoria and crew ere really winging it in the first MAME release.

Any way I’m waffling on about nothing Linux related so forgive me.  However if I do decide to take this series on I will no doubt be sorting the videos using Linux.

So it’s back to looking at the Likes of Davinci Resolve, KDEnLive, Natron 2, Flowblade etc.   I notice a lot on YouTube seem to use KDEnlive and I have played with it and it seems reasonably easy to use.

I am open to suggestions regarding which video editor is best...  Anyway that’s enough waffle for this episode so until next time.... Take care.

[linuxlife]

Linux Life Episode 64

Hello ladies and gentlemen to my ongoing quest in the world of Linux.  Now since the  last episode I have been having issues with Namib Linux on the i7 desktop.  It really is having issues with networking especially connection to the internet.  Which in turn is causing issues with the updates.

It seems I may have to move away from our Antergos replacement friend Namib and against my better judgement I may move over to Manjaro KDE 19.02.

Although people rate Manjaro very highly I have always hit various issues with it.  Admittedly it is running reasonably well on the i7 potato but even then to get certain things to work I have had to kludge fix things.

But if Namib isn't being updated and bless it as far as I'm aware it is primarily one guy doing the majority of its upkeep.  I have to move on.

Having now used KDE on the i7 potato it has been quite stable.  However I am about to find out if it stands up to scrutiny on my primary desktop.

I really didn't want to make this shift but the ongoing issues with Namib are becoming annoying. So the i7 desktop is now running Manjaro KDE 19.0.2 already i have had to fight with certain methods to get programs such as Shutter to install.

Most Arch versions if they need a dependency set rearrange the build order so it can build the program.  Manjaro just refuses to do that.  It loads twice as slow as any other version of Arch Linux I have run and that is running on the SSD.

There is major pauses before certain things come up.  Why is it so slow with some things I really don’t understand.  I will however say it is working so I guess a minor compromise in speed is the least of my worries.

So other than Manjaro what else have I been playing about with since we were last here.  Well I have been playing with RAINE (A CPS1/CPS2/NeoGeo/Arcade emulator).  Now I did look at RAINE in Episode 27 but to do so I had to convert a debian file top get the thing to work using Debtap.

Well RAINE 0.64.16 is now part of the AUR so I managed to just build it from there by selecting it in Pamac.

RAINE as the name suggests I believe was originally designed to run Rainbow Islands as it was taking MAME a long time to get past the encryptions.  However it went on to be a much larger emulator.  Like many emulators I do believe a lot of the RAINE code ended up being amalgamated into MAME which is quite common.

RAINE has passed through several hands to get to it’s present state and to be honest, how actively developed it still is I don’t really know.  But if you want to play games such as Bubble Symphony or Neo Geo games it does seem faster than MAME.

Obviously finding the complete set of RAINE Roms is a bit more difficult than finding a complete set of MAME Roms but not impossible if you know where to look.  Like anything it is available but be very careful where you download from as not all sources are safe.

Next on the list is Project Starfighter... Now this was a game released by a company called Parallel Realities in 2003  and was commercially available for many years.  However now it is available for free since 2019.

The game is a 2D shooter with various missions to achieve.  Its not the fanciest thing you will ever see but is good for an occasional blast...

Here is the given plot synopsis from the website...

In the year 2579, the intergalactic weapons corporation, WEAPCO, has dominated the galaxy. Guide Chris Bainfield and his friend Sid Wilson on their quest to liberate the galaxy from the clutches of WEAPCO. Along the way, you will encounter new foes, make new allies, and assist local rebels in strikes against the evil corporation.

Hardly rocket science of a plot but is available to download from https://pr-starfighter.github.io/ and is available for Linux, Windows and MacOS.

Finally on the list is Red Eclipse 2.0 (Jupiter Edition).  This is an updated version of Red Eclipse which was a complete overhaul campaign based on the Cube2 (Sauerbraten) engine.  Basically it’s First Person Shooter with various modes such as Deathmatch, Capure the Flag etc.  You know the drill if you have played anything remotely similar in the last ten years.  It has online multiplayer and local practice modes and is designed to give you an environment to murder each other in, in the name of fun.

Basically Red Eclipse 2 is the same game but it has been upgraded to use the Tesseract engine instead of the Sauerbraten one.  Obviously this requires quite a beefy machine with Shaders 3.0 or higher and a medium level processor.

It performs more than adequately on the i7 desktop and to be honest if you can’t afford the new Doom Eternal or had enough of Quake Champions this is more than enough to keep you amused with your murderous rampage moments either on or offline.

It is available for free and works on Windows, Linux and MacOS.  You can find it to download from here...https://www.redeclipse.net/ or it is also available to download through Steam.

If you do have a lower spec machine the original Red Eclipse is still available so you can run the lower requirement Sauerbraten (Cube 2) version still.

Well I think that’s enough waffle for now so until next time...take care  

[linuxlife]

Linux Life Episode 27

Hello folks, here we are again.  As I said in the last episode I have been playing with MAME.  Well this week I was playing with a different emulator.  This was the Raine emulator.  Now a lot of the Raine source has been moved to MAME so all of the ROMs used by Raine work (probably been re-dumped so not directly but the games they run are in the list) but it seems to run slower and has sound issues.

Now to get Raine I tried the Pamac search in Antergos all I got was subsections of the Raine stuff such as artwork and emudx which enhances certain ROMs giving better graphics and sound (debatable).  The emulator however did not come up in the list.

So off I went to the Raine website and found they were a Debian package.  So the latest listed was 0.64.14 but was aware a newer version was out due to their forum page.  So downloaded Raine 0.64.14 in the end as it was the latest I could find.

Off to run Debtap.  I explained once before what Debtap was when I converted Pencilsheep (now unavailable for download from the Pencilsheep website).  It converts Debian files to a format Arch can use (normally tar.pkg.xz) unfortunately although Debtap converted it it would not install as it was i686 (32 bit version) which would not install on my 64 bit Antergos installation claiming wrong architecture.  Which is true it’s not a 32 bit Linux.  There probably is a 32 bit version of Antergos but I don’t own it as I don’t have a machine that is exclusively 32 bit.

OK back to Raine website find a 64 bit version but its 0.62.1 so it’s a few versions back.  Run it through Debtap and install using Pacman (Antergos Package Manager command line option not the arcade rom) has to install a few additional aarch files.  Yes I did use the terminal shocking I know. Your guess to what they are and what they do is as probably good as mine, but the minute it installs.

Pamac admits there are system updates available.  Open it up and AUR now has a Raine update to version 0.64.15-1 which as far as I am aware is the latest version available.  So why didn’t that come up in the search earlier when I tried it.  Bizarre.

Why did I have to go and find the old 64bit version, convert it, install it before it discovered the AUR version?  I have no idea.  But now updated it works.

So tested a few ROMs.  Most of CPS1 & CPS2 games run faster in Raine than in MAME but the Neo-Geo ones run about the same.  Also games like Puzzle Bobble 2,3,4 which run using the Taito F3 system definitely run slightly faster under Raine.

But obviously because the Raine core has been integrated into MAME it’s not amazingly faster.  It does fascinate me when MAME integrates technology into its behemoth self (getting bigger all the time due to including Mess, Multi Fruit Machine Emulator and PinMAME now).  One of the first I remember seeing being moved to it was from an old DOS emulator.

The emulator was called M72 and it emulated various IREM ROMs such as R-Type, R-Type 2 and more.  Now it was fast in DOS it could play all my games at 60 FPS but once it got into MAME it could only manage 30-40.  It did get better but it was disappointing that when the M72 core was imported into the code base it was slower than the M72 emulator.  The M72 guy stopped writing his own emulator and joined the MAME team.

If you run M72 through DOSBox you have to hype the cycles up to get 60 FPS but it can be done.

Although all of the game in Raine can now be run in MAME now it’s nice to see that people are still working on Raine to this day.  If you have MAME you probably don’t need to install it but it was an interesting nostalgia trip for me who started following emulators in the DOS days.

Makes me feel old sometimes. Anyway that’s enough waffle for this episode so until next time ... Take care.