#linux antergos

[linuxlife]

Linux Life Episode 50

Hello and welcome back to the world of Linux Life.  Sorry for the delay between episodes but I’m afraid family life has been pretty hectic and I have not really had time to sit down and do much.  I was intending doing something special like a podcast or a Youtube video but I never got time.

When I have had free time I have had I have been pushing through playing Path of Exile but I finally got to a point I can’t progress without totally rehashing my character as I didn’t go for a particular build.  So I’m screwed.  Proving that as much as I like Path of Exile it’s skill tree system is broken.

So lets get something out there straight away Antergos Linux has been closed.  The forums and updates will continue for the next three months but the project is now declared as over.

So not happy as it was the Linux I have reliably used for a long time.  Sure the community claims they will continue it in the form of the Endeavour project.  However that’s going to take a long time to put together and get organised so Antergos is off the cards.

So I went on a spree of trying to find a version of Arch Linux that was comparative and worked with no issues.  Hence I had a three day search which lead me even at one point to install Linux Mint 19 (I was getting desperate OK).

First I tried installing CondresOS which installed the main system and dependencies fine, but refused to start if I used the Nvidia drivers.  It would only work with Nouveau which meant I could not use Lutris to play Path of Exile as I needed DXVK to get the game to work.

If you even installed the Nvidia driver it refused to start up and would not let me get back into GRUB to get into text console mode.

OK so next I moved on to Manjaro MATE version.  Now it installed fine but for all it would load the Nvidia drivers.  For some reason would not allow my GTX 1030 to use Vulkan so once again DXVK was not possible for some reason even after installing the Vulkan libraries and tools.

So another distro down I next took on Netrunner Rolling 1905.2 which was just released OK now it did use KDE but once again upon installation would only use Nouveau and refused to work with the NVIDIA driver.  Regardless of how I installed it using Octopi, Pamac, Pacman or Yaourt using the text terminal from GRUB.

OK onto now my fifth distribution of Arch in the form of Archman Linux this went all the way through the installer then upon restart refused to do anything as graphics would corrupt on start.  I even tried going via text mode and regardless of what I did it would not get beyond the initial kernel and file check.  At this point I was totally fed up and was running out of Arch distros to try.

I tried BlueStar Linux and once again installs fine but refuses to run if using the Nvidia driver.  I am sure many can get by using just Nouveau but I am not one of them.  It was at this point I was about to give up for the day so I went for a system I knew would install and downloaded Linux Mint 19.2 MATE edition.

Sure enough it worked and I gave up for the night feeling rather annoyed but I knew I had a working Linux system.

So I attempted to use Mint first I could not find the PPA for Nvidia which took 3 attempts to find the right one.  Reason I needed the latest PPA because the one listed in Driver Manager wont work with DXVK. However it did find it eventually.  OK it works now for Lutris you equally need Wine guess what the one in Mint is too old so I have to find a PPA.  I  could go on but to be honest I got so sick of searching for PPAs in the end I went back to Distrowatch and back to the Arch Linux section.

So BlackArch and MorpheousArch are backup/security penetration versions of Arch so not designed to be used as a daily driver as that is not their purpose.

So that left me a small list many use Openbox or XFCE which are more than capable but not my thing.  Finally I came to Namib Linux which is a Canadian distro I had never heard of but I was at a point where I would try it as it was one of the few that allowed MATE to run from install.

Trust me I have installed a different Display Environment (KDE) then tried to install MATE before and the issues it causes is unreal.  So if i can get an installer that can run MATE from the start all good.

Well Namib Linux uses MATE as it standard desktop so all good.  Installed it and first boot I get a graphical corruption and I am thinking oh not this again, but I restart it and this time it works fine.  I manage to install the Nvidia drivers and it works fine.

In fact everything works fine so I have now for the last few days been running Namib Linux and everything is back to the way it was before I changed from Antergos.  I am now happy and everything I was using I have managed to reinstall and because the data was in my home directory which is on a separate partition, no data was lost.

Also to add insult to injury during this time my 3TB external hard drive had issues and the SATA to USB bridge failed.  I had to move it internal and after 18 hours of running TestDisk it found the partition that had gone AWOL but then refused to boot it. Then when I managed to restore the boot header the file table was corrupted.

So I lost over a terabyte of backup files.  Also it corrupted one third of the drive as now it only lists as a 2TB drive not 3 so either it can’t see the rest or it’s damaged beyond use.

The drive is back working, but is no longer external or 3TB in capacity.

Although I have not been doing much in the way of apps in Linux.  I still have been spending a lot of time messing about trying to get Linux to work.

Anyway this is already too long and if you managed to get this far.  Thanks for putting up with me this far.  I appreciate those who have read this nonsense no matter whether you came in at Episode 1 or this very episode.  

So until next time ... Take care.

[linuxlife]

Linux Life Episode 46

Hello and welcome again to my Linux Life.  So since we last had words I have been playing with a few different new programs.

First I was trying to look at a few updated Distros using Virtualbox.  I do this from time to time as it is interesting to see what is happening in the other distros even if I am not using them.  So I was looking at a few that were KDE Plasma based.

The three distros in question were ArcoLinux D Plasma, Netrunner 19.01 and Mageia 7 Beta 1.  Now it seems Virtualbox has a real issue with KDE Plasma it refuses to start it with the Virtualbox Arch modules.  Apparently if you use the DKMS versions it works fine but that would mean resetting up Virtualbox which is a pain.

So I had to use VMWare Workstation for Linux.  For one I didn’t even know it existed and two didn’t know if it worked with Arch.  Sure enough it is in the AUR so I attempted to install it.

So I installed Mageia 7 and sure enough VMWare works with Arch and will run KDE Plasma fine in its VMs.

By the way Mageia 7 is quite nice if I ever was going to run a system that was not a rolling release it’s not a bad one. Netrunner 19.01 is pretty to look at but I hate the KDE Neon Menu system it’s worse than Gnome 3.  As for ArcoLinux D Plasma I am yet to test it, hopefully ArcoLinux have sorted their repository issues which is why I had to leave it in the first place.

Now VMWare is a proprietary software but it is also owned by Microsoft so it gets much more up to date support.  Now sure you could argue that Virtualbox is owned by Oracle so should be able to keep up to date but it does not seem to.

All this playing with KDE Plasma made me realise how much I really dislike KDE Plasma.  It’s not that its UI is bad it’s quite nice to look at.  It’s the fact that it is a resource hog, it is slow and I don’t like its silly widget based setup which seem to crash at the slightest twitch.

Maybe running it in a VM doesn’t give it, the best platform but even when I have ran it on actual bare metal hardware it really has issues with my Nvidia graphics cards.  

Now I admit I don’t run high end graphics cards because I won’t pay the ludicrous prices for them and as I am not really a major gamer I don’t get any advantage from doing so.

I used to like KDE and earlier versions seemed a lot better I remember using OpenSUSE years ago with KDE 3.0 and it was fine.  It just seems like for all of the alleged improvements it seems to have got worse rather than better.

Mind you as I said in one of my previous episodes I suffered a similar problem when I ran Arcolinux D Cinnamon.  The newest version of Cinnamon (version 4.0) seems a lot less stable and has many bugs which I am sure they will sort in time but presently made it unusable for a daily driver.

Especially as I run an Arch based system I have no issues with regular updates and even have become quite adept at fixing minor issues but sometimes updating the whole system such as KDE and Cinnamon has done it no favours.

Now I am sure there are those out there who will say it’s because I am not running the latest and greatest Nvidia cards and drivers that such issues exist.  Well I would like to believe that would be the case and if I could get my hands on the appropriate hardware I am more than happy to be proved wrong.

Does KDE work better on new graphics cards?  Is my system just too old?  

Speaking of desktops I had a minor issue with MATE recently due to Antergos updating a  file.  The file in question was exempi which is apparently a library file.  I have no problems in updates as I said earlier but it then caused a few issues such as caja would not load or any icons on the desktop.

After trying caja in the terminal I discovered it could not find exempi.so.3.  Luckily it’s an easy fix using the ln -s command and once restored the link and rebooted.

Now this was using a bit of my old knowledge from earlier Linux days when links did not always set themselves up.  However if I was pretty new to Linux this would not have been easily apparent what to do next.

Moving on so one thing I used to use on Windows was Xara Studio and I know many moons ago Xara did attempt a Linux version.  Now before you tell me I know some of its code got transferred into the Inkscape application.  I have used Inkscape.

However I wondered if the Xara Xtreme Linux edition was still available.  Well the answer my friends is it still is in the AUR and okay I had to install two lib32 dependencies to get it to install.

Sure enough I now have it on my current day Antergos desktop.  It will never be updated as Xara have moved back to Windows and are now owned by Magix I think.  Overall it is a bit of nostalgic fun that works and I can play with vector art using it.    

Its good that Xara attempted working with Linux and hopefully if all goes according to news Adobe are thinking about re-looking at whether Linux is seen as viable platform for them.  If they decide yes that will be interesting.

Not having Photoshop for me while not the end of the world is a bit inconvenient I have spent much time using it when I was working on projects and I know how to do several interesting tricks in it.

For as much as I have used GIMP and Krita and they can do certain things well there is still several things I can’t get it them to do.  It’s not because what I do is complicated it’s just I lack the skills in these to do it.  Now I could spend weeks learning this programs and have learned some things in them.

However I just don’t want to dedicate the time relearning something just because I have not got the program.  For all Photoshop is seen as a pariah in the Linux community as it proprietary software it is a fundamental base to the main graphics industry.

Is Photoshop big, unwieldy and unnecessarily complex.  Yes but many people have learned its ways and now doing it any other way seems complicated.

Would having Adobe software benefit Linux?  Well it would definitely help several people decide to adopt it that’s for certain.

Got an issue with it being Adobe and proprietary.  Then don’t use it, don’t install it, simple as that.  

At the moment I don’t really have a need for Adobe software as I am not doing anything that requires major artistic work, unlike when I was writing Amigaville.  So I don’t miss it but at times it would be handy if I could just do so with out waiting forever to wait for Wine to start if I want Photoshop.

I don’t have Photoshop installed on this machine currently which I can get certain versions working in Wine as I have done in the past but not really necessary at this time.

Anyway I think I have flogged a dead horse long enough.  Will Adobe come to Linux? If it does, it does I won’t hold my breath.

Well I think that’s enough waffle for this episode.  So until next time... Take care

[linuxlife]

Linux Life Episode 43

Hello folks and welcome back to the world of Linux Life.  Hope you had an amazing time over the holidays and here is hoping that 2019 brings you everything you desire and more.

I would love to say I had an amazing time but I would be lying.  Sadly I was ill over the holiday period and spent many days in bed.  However when I was able to spare some time I have been installing Antergos on to Xeon.

It had ArcoLinux A on it which is based in XFCE.  However it had been so long since it had been updated that it kept throwing out GPG keyrings and it corrupted the database for the installation so I had to install Antergos instead.

Now I must admit the Xeon does not have a Wi-Fi card installed so I had to actually use my Android phone in a tethered way in order to get Internet access.  At first I was dubious this would actually work but it worked exceptionally well.

It just uses the phone as a bridge and accessed the Wi-Fi network using it so no real issues at all.   I honestly don’t know if that’s a credit to Android for making it so easy or Linux for not having any issues doing it that way.

Obviously the Xeon only has 8GB of RAM and I have been using the i7 desktop which has 24GB of RAM.  So the transitions are slightly slower.  Also the i7 has an SSD in it for a boot drive so loading is obviously much slower on the Xeon.

I will have the i7 back soon I just before I went ill was staying at a family location other than home and took it with me and have yet to bring it back.  Hopefully I should be able to do that soon.

I don’t know why but I spent quite a while playing with emulators on the Xeon.

On the i7 I have been experimenting with videos.  I have captured various game footage clips using OBS and a few emulators.  The results were were then imported into Kdenlive.

I was thinking of using Davinci Resolve but I thought I would start with something a bit lighter first then move to Davinci if I manage to get a degree of competence.

So far I have managed to edit the footage down to sufficient and even add minor title  clips.  I am yet to record the audio to go with the video footage then I get the marvellous fun of trying to mix the audio tracks together without causing issues.

I admit this is not where my expertise lies but I will do my best to try and do this.  I also need to work out how to make a beginning and end sequence to my videos something I have equally never ever done before.

Apparently Natron is supposed to be quite good for doing that as it’s a node based editor whatever the hell that is. So I will play around with that see if I can figure something out.

I have also managed to setup on the i7 desktop FS-UAE the Amiga emulator working with Amiga Workbench 3.9 via hard drive using an RTG card setup using Picasso96 drivers.  WHDLoad is installed and a few games are working just need to setup the other roms to get things like AGA working with it.

It took a couple of attempts to get the RTG setup working as you had to put the card ROM in a specific directory.  The first couple of times I got it completely in the wrong section and nothing was happening.  That’s however due to the FS-UAE sets things up slightly different to WinUAE which I am normally used to using.  Got there in the end though.

One thing I do like about FS-UAE is the Disc Switcher list.  Got a major set of floppies to install.  Add them to the Switcher list then all you need to do is select the appropriate one from the list using F12.  Handy...

Next I want to install Scala on the Amiga setup (it’s 14 floppies folks) and really see if I can get it to do something interesting.  It was always something I wanted to play with and never really got around to doing when I had my actual A1200 Amiga.

I had Scala installed on the A1200 but never really got around to using it as I was busy doing other things with the machine at the time.  Anyway that’s a different story for a different blog.

So although I have been ill I have managed to get quite a bit done with my Linux machines.  What I think is more scary is that on the 5th January 2019 this blog will actually be 1 year old.  That’s right I will have spent one year playing in Linux.

It’s kind of strange as I now very rarely use Windows unless it’s helping the kids do something with their laptops.  None of my current machines with the exception of the i7 laptop has windows.  The only reason it has Windows is I am loaning it out while another machine is being repaired.

When I first started this project I was highly resistant to Linux and over time it has slowly managed to persuade me it is worth the journey.  Sure it has had its ups and downs and I have switched versions of Linux a lot.

This project is far from over and hopefully I can continue it for as long as I have content.  If you have been here with me for this complete journey or even if this is the first entry you have ever read of me. Thank you for coming along for the ride and hopefully I can continue to entertain you.

Well I think that’s enough waffle from me for this episode.  So until next time... Take care.  

[linuxlife]

Linux Life Episode 42

Hello folks and welcome back to Linux Life.  Well since last episode I was still having issues with ArcoLinux B Cinnamon due to issues with mirror lists.  I changed them I reset them and I was still having issues regarding updates.  Also Cinnamon kept crashing at random intervals for no apparent reason and had to be restarted.  So it was being a tad problematic.

So I have now gone back to Antergos using MATE on the i7 desktop.  First I had to write my USB stick to install it.  I used Etcher under ArcoLinux which has normally not been a problem but for some reason it did not set up the stick correctly and it failed when I tried to boot it into the UEFI version.

Given my BIOS does not like Legacy boot systems it can do them but is very reluctant to do so.  I tried to install the old way but it refused to start Grub 2 correctly.  Ironically I had to now go and use a Windows system to rewrite the USB stick using Rufus and the UEFI setup worked.

Once installed I setup all of my regular programs without a hitch and was actually surprised the MATE could use the theme I had downloaded for Cinnamon called Cinnamox Heather without any conversion or problems.

Due to me having my home directory on a separate drive I also did not have to setup Steam, Thunderbird or Firefox plug-ins as they were already in the home directory config files, Handy.

So within a matter of under an hour I was back up and running without a hitch.  Updates seem to be working fine in Antergos and Cnchi did not crash on me even once which is an absolute achievement as it used to be unstable as hell.

It did give me a few more Window Manager options to play with such as i3, Budgie and Openbox which I don’t believe were in the list last time I tried to run Cnchi.  Ultimately I went with MATE because I know it works quite well and is quite low on resources usage compared to Gnome 3 or KDE.

So Antergos is back for now.  We will see how long it lasts.  Something didn’t work I think it was Davinci Resolve 15 but that I have discovered is due to you need the Nvidia 390.xx drivers as it does not work using the 340.xx ones.  The 340.xx drivers don’t work well with OpenCL and CUDA which is what Davinci Resolve uses.  The 390.xx ones are fine with it.

I planned a video experiment using OBS and certain emulators to do a comparison of a game between systems.  Now I managed to install Fuse (ZX Spectrum) and VICE (C64) emulators no problem.  However when it came to Amstrad emulation it was a bit of a pain.  First I tried to install Caprice32 from the AUR but it refused to build due to issues with an alleged missing freetype-config.  Also it was looking for pkg-config so I installed pkg-config then as soon as I ran the AUR build it uninstalled it and reinstalled pkgconf.

After lots of trying to get it to build playing with Makefiles and PKGBUILD files which the AUR uses I eventually gave up.  Eventually I installed Arnold which seems to work.  As a man who has not really emulated Amstrad machines I have no idea which one is a good emulator.  They did say CPC4x is not bad but I could not get it compile as it uses TCL/Tk and I had no idea how to get it to build.  I kept claiming it was missing old GCC v5 libs which I could not be bothered to install.

Especially as Antergos is using GCC version 8 if I remember correctly so it would have been a major step backwards and would probably break something.

Now that I have the three emulators working I can do my comparison but I must remember if I am using OBS not to capture in MP4 as the free version of Davinci Resolve does not include the H264 codecs, for them you need to buy the Studio version which is $200 I believe.

Unless Kdenlive can use MP4 considering I have not used any video editing packages beyond Adobe Premiere for about 5 minutes.  I can try them and see if I can find one I like. Natron I believe is more like After Effects and is used to add filters and transitions but I have no idea as I have not tried it.

So now I have all of the necessary tools I can start playing with my video project.  I can’t guarantee I will be happy with it or that I will even release anything but it will be a learning experience.  I am sure I will keep you informed of the joys and pitfalls if I do so.

Anyway that’s enough waffle for this episode.  So until next time ... Take Care

[linuxlife]

Linux Life Episode 32

Hello folks and welcome back to Linux Life.  Well since we last time I have been playing around with my Celeron G520 desktop with 8GB of RAM.  Now it did have Antergos installed on it last time but I did try to install Haiku instead on there as they have updated to Beta 1 which is the first update to the OpenBeOS program in six years so I was keen to see what was new.

Installation went fine after setting up the drive to use the BE Filing System.  Sure enough once installed I rebooted the system and in about six seconds later Haiku had loaded.  I test a few things such as GL Teapot which runs at over 600 frames per second due to the Nvidia GT520 card in there.

OK time to install some software.  Haiku has its own repository knows as the HaikuDepot so I start it and nothing appears.  aha I think I have not set up the Wi-Fi so not surprised.  Off to the preferences section and select Network.  Well my Ethernet built in is seen which i don’t use but it is not seeing the Wi-Fi dongle plugged into USB.

Off to the Internet. I find on their site an article that says to run install-Wi-Fi-firmwares.sh in the Terminal app.  Try that no joy.  It is trying to download stuff from the internet which it obviously can’t do as it does not have a Wi-Fi driver, which seems to me to be kind of counter productive as in if you could get the internet you probably don’t need the Wi-Fi drivers.

A bit of further reading I discover that Haiku can also use the Wi-Fi drivers from FreeBSD 11.1.  after a bit of searching around FreeBSD I find out the driver I require is called rtwn (of course should have known that...err).  I download it using another machine and transfer it using a USB flash drive.

Unfortunately after unzipping it I discover you have to build it from source.  The download is just the source code.  Several failed attempts to build it later.  I return to the internet on the other machine to find a firmware build already made.

I attempt to copy it after unzipping it but due to the new version of Haiku the system drive area is now marked as read only as a new form of security protection so I can’t copy the things to where they should be.  in frustration I give up.  It’s a shame as it really is a nice fast system but can’t install anything without either connecting another machine to the internet then bridging the connection to Ethernet which means I need two machines running or find a different Wi-Fi card.

I later found out that even if I had got the rtwn driver working, Haiku has not got the ability to use USB Wi-Fi connections anyway so it was all for nought any way.

So I was about to reinstall Antergos when I thought I would try a different version of Arch Linux.  I decided to look at ArcoLinux  now it comes in three variations ArcoLinux, ArcoLinux B and D.  I decided to go with just the standard version as B and D while having more configuration options looked a lot more complicated to setup.

So one download and USB drive made up later I set about installing ArcoLinux.  I restart the Celeron and start from USB using BIOS boot menu.  Sure enough all fine until it comes to initialising video it starts at a mode my monitor does not like so I have a nice little message on screen from Dell saying set monitor to 1280x1024 60hz and I can’t see anything on display.  Great start.

So I restart the PC this time I intercept the Grub2 boot loader and set a command in there that video=1280x1024 and then boot.  This time it works fine and I manage to install ArcoLinux and it installs all fine.  I reboot and once again monitor won’t start.

Once again back to Grub loader and put in video command sorts it out.  Time to investigate why it seems the Display settings are set to 1280x960 for some reason which is the mode my monitor does not seem to like.  Bit of fiddling I manage to set it to 1280x1024  but when I restart the machine.  The machine sets the display to 1024x768 now.  Hmmmm getting a bit annoyed now.

So I start playing with xrandr I think I have gone into all the fun I have had with that stuff before so I won’t go through it again.  But this time I manage to get xrandr to work it will add the mode which is why I didn’t use Antergos before as no matter how much I set the xrandr driver it would not change but it seems ArcoLinux has no issue with it.

So one minor config entry added to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d and it seems it now runs fine and in 1280x1024 with no further hassle.  It seems to be slightly to the left side on my monitor but fully visible so not playing with it any more.

So I installed all the usual stuff from the repositories and AUR (which I had to turn on, no big surprise).  Sure enough I now have a fully functional secondary Linux box and it is working fine.  Only thing I had to turn off was it installs Variety which is a wallpaper switcher by default but it was just a case of opening the preferences and telling it not to load on start up.

Now ArcoLinux uses XFCE4 and I must admit it seems quite functional.  Last time I tried XFCE was when I tried Peppermint Linux and it had a horrible setup.  ArcoLinux sets it up really well.  All I have to do now is figure out what I am going to do with the G520 as its now fully loaded and ready to go but I have no real plans for it.

I’m sure I will think of something...  Anyway that’s enough waffle for this episode so until next time. Take Care.

[linuxlife]

Linux Life Episode 31

Hello ladies and gents and welcome back to the my twisted world of me and Linux.  So as I said recently I have rebuilt an i7 desktop and for a few weeks I admit I was running Windows on it for a while.  I have nothing against Windows 10 but after fighting with malware for a few weeks.  I was getting tired of it.

I intended to dual boot the system with a Hackintosh system.  Now I admit I have not used Clover for a while so I was willing to be forgiving to it as I had problems in the past.  I hoped it had improved but apparently I was wrong.  I installed a secondary 1TB drive into the machine so I did not interfere with the Windows installation.  I had been messing around with certain games I could not play on Linux.

However I admit I screwed up the installation and formatted the wrong drive and wiped out the Windows drive (some would say no loss).  Then when I installed the kexts (driver files for OS X I needed) Clover locked me out of the installation.  This is why I stopped using it in the first place.  I hoped it had updated and stopped doing that but apparently not.

So what has all this got to do with Linux I hear you ask.  So with now no working Operating System as I had destroyed my Windows drive and the Hackintosh had failed I decided it was time to go back to Linux where I had less issues.  OK, gaming was slightly limiting but to be honest I am not a huge gamer and playing these modern games realised a lot of them were not much cop.  

Now I originally did not install Antergos on the machine because I was having issues changing from Nouveau to NVIDIA drivers which would not allow me to change the resolution of the screen.

Since then I have changed my video card connection.  I was connecting the NVIDIA card via the VGA connector but I seem to get less problems using the DVI-D connector on the card.  So I changed cables and now the issue seems to resolved and I can set my monitor to 1280x1024 which is the designated format for this Dell monitor I am using.

So as I had no OS I could get working I went through a few options.   I looked at Druager which is a particularly new distro which is aimed at gamers.  It has a low latency kernel in order to speed up response.  Now I am sure this is handy but because its a new distro it still has a few bugs and the store was a bit dodgy.  I did not like they were trying to create an interface that was very gamer orientated for example the start bar was about a third of the way down the page..  Now I am sure if you are a regular game player you think this is ideal.  Sure it could be moved but that was their ideal position decision.  Strange so after about an hour I decided it was not for me.

I then installed Linux Mint and while it is more than functional I think as I have got used to a rolling distribution many of the programs were way back and as soon as I had to start adding PPAs just to get things up to date.  For all Mint 19 has this new rollback system I find it inconvenient.

So I downloaded Antergos again.  Now I have documented many times for all I like Antergos.  Cnchi its installer is very broken but once past it you never use it again.  Some will give up at this point and to be honest I would understand if you did so.

It can be amazingly bad regarding things screwing up.  So I can understand many who don’t like it and go elsewhere like Manjaro.  however Manjaro I have explained my issues with it.  However Antergos do keep trying to fix it, sometimes breaking it worse.

So I downloaded version 18.9 of the ISO and upon starting the installer it searches for an update to Cnchi.  It found the update but as soon as the update went to run it crashed.  I said I have had issues with Cnchi, so I immediately pulled up the terminal and attempted to run it in terminal.

The updated version of it (version 16.2) it seems to be missing certain archives.  I install the ones it lists but still it is not working.  I head back to the internet and find a solution after about ten minutes if searching the Github entries.  It seems the guy has forgot to put the things in the PKGBUILD when compiling.

Now he realised that 10 minutes after I started the installer and provided a quick fix until he managed to put the package correct.  So I actually managed to get the Cnchi installer running.  Its bad when you have to search through bug reports to find a solution just to get the OS installer to work.  but as I knew I liked Antergos  I was willing to do so.

If I had been new to Linux I would have abandoned it long ago and gone onto something else.  Put I persisted then it installed but due to me being so distracted I installed it with the Gnome desktop.  i tried to switch to MATE by installing the certain files and changing the setup but the icons would not display so i must have missed a step or something.

So I had to reinstall it.  Cnchi still had not been fixed so I had to run through the Live CD quick fix again but finally I got Antergos installed using the MATE desktop and everything was good.  As I said earlier I have changed to the DVI-D connection so it defaults to 1280x1024 I did not even have to set it up.

Also the Cnchi setup included the option to install the NVIDIA driver automatically so saved me a lot of time having to download it and play with it.    The reason why Cnchi had updates is 16.2 now includes a few more Window managers.  It now included Deepin, i3 and Openbox which it didn’t before.

They probably have fixed it so it works now but I think I caught in while it was changing over.  I eventually managed to get it installed and set about installing all the usual programs I use.

All was fine until I tried to install Shutter (which is a screen capture tool).  Previously I had issues with Perl when trying to get to install from the AUR but they resolved that.  This time I hit issues with two libraries that missing and would not download so I could not build Shutter first was Orbit2 (a CORBA client) and the next one was Libbonobo which used the Orbit2 library.

So I browsed around the Antergos forum to no avail for answers.  So I had to figure how to install these libraries as the new ones did not want to install.  Luck would happen and on Archive.org they keep an archive of old libraries from the Arch Linux set.  So I managed to find older versions and install them using pacman.

Finally I managed to get Shutter to build but it was a nightmare that I had to search all over before I could compile a program that should have been reasonably simple.  Now if this had happened to me at the beginning of using Linux say back at Episode 1 I would of abandoned trying to do it.  

It’s funny I definitely have a much higher tolerance to dealing with errors which I didn’t have previously.  Reason being I guess once its working it very rarely goes wrong.  I tried other screen capture tools but I found Shutter the best so it was worth the hassle.

People say rolling releases break a lot.  I have had a few programs cock up but nothing major.  Even then it is normally fixed the next day so it is not a problem for long.

So now the i7 desktop is running Antergos which previously I could not really do.  sure I could reinstall Windows but to be honest I really don’t have any desire to do so.  I unlike many Linux users do not have an outright hatred for Windows it has its uses.  But I admit I have less grief with Linux.

When it has its issues they can be harder to solve but nine times out of ten.  Issues are very few and far between.  Or if there is an update issue it’s solved quickly.  Which is why I like a rolling release as opposed to the Mint/Ubuntu models.

I was trying to play All the Mods 3 on Linux but the Twitch program available for Linux does not include the Minecraft mod plugin.  The FTB Launcher does not include All the Mods 3.  Eventually I managed to use MultiMC 5 and by using a zip containing the list I have managed to get it running on Linux.

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

[linuxlife]

Linux Life Episode 29

Well hello again folks and welcome back to the world of Linux.  Been a strange time in Linux for me lately.  As I mentioned a little time ago I have an i7 desktop to play with.   Well it has been a bit of an odd one as I tried to use the Nvidia drivers as it has a GT630 card that’s when things went awry.

So I had it with Antergos on it.  I realised it was not using the Nvidia driver but the nouveau driver and would only allow me to run at 1024x768.  So I installed the 340.xx drivers as the GT 630 wont work with the latest 390 series as the GPU uses the Fermi chipset no longer supported by current drivers.

Strangely enough Antergos won’t start so after a bit of faffing around setting it to a text boot and removing the Nvidia drivers I manage to get it back to nouveau.  Still 1024x768.  So I start playing with CVT and xrandr manage to get it to 1280x1024 using xrandr but it wont stay.

Apparently needs a file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d called 10-monitor.conf or something like that, set up a certain way.  OK so I do that after having to sudo -i to get as root to allow me to write to the directory.  File sorted time to reboot.

Antergos fails to display anything.  OK back to text boot mode and remove added file.  Back to 1024x768.  Getting frustrated.  I took a break and went to play a game in Windows as the machine is dual boot.  While playing game Windows resets due to update as I forgot to turn off that option.   Update fails kills EFI partition for some reason so cant boot either OS.

OK time to try Manjaro after all its #1 on Distrowatch and is Arch based maybe it can do what Antergos can’t.  Well it installs fine, Sod Windows for the moment.  OK install usual programs all fine until I get to Shutter.

Now I know I had issues with Shutter due to Perl but I figured what was wrong and sorted that.  But this is a new installation now in Antergos it realises it needs certain dependencies and pulls them down so it can build Shutter.  Well lets just say Manjaro doesn’t it just admits you need these dependencies and dumps itself out installing nothing.  OK so I systematically have to install each individual piece to get Shutter to build and work.  What an annoyance.

For the Number 1 distro on Distrowatch it sure is annoying when it comes to building things from the AUR (Arch User Repository).  One of its central advantages and it makes it awkward, Way to go Manjaro.

OK try and set up Nvidia drivers now it has its own driver detection system called HWND so off I try.  It finds the Nvidia card, installs drivers, asks to restart.  Restart and fails to load video.  Apparently it has installed the 390xx series drivers  and I have already explained they don’t work with this version of the graphics card.  Fail number 2.  Back to getting a text boot and restoring nouveau.  Unfortunately it won’t return to nouveau even though I removed the file it added to the /etc/x11 etc. nonsense.

Oh well back to Antergos, or so I thought.  Installing Antergos gets stuck at search inter conflicts every time I try to install and no matter how I set it up Cnchi won’t finish the install.  Aha good old Cnchi I have covered it’s being an arse before too.

So now I have no working Linux OS. So using Live Antergos and External Hard drive I manage to write Linux Mint 19 Mate Edition ISO to USB.  Well that installed fine and is what I have typed this entry in using.

Had to update but would;d not let me do so until i used the new Timeshift program to make a backup restore point.  Interesting but not bad idea.  Not complex to do so I do so and then update.

It has a driver manager so I install Nvidia this time it gives an option which drive to use.  So I select 340.xx series and it installs and restarts fine.  Still in 1024x768 but a quick play with the Nvidia settings I manage to get it 1280x800 but wont let me set 1280x1024.  Oh well it will have to do.

So that’s the annoyance I have been having.  still running Antergos on i7 laptop and it’s working fine, just not used it much as been playing with this daft desktop.

Well that’s enough waffle for now.  So until next time ... 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