Raymond P. Burkholder - Things I Do

From Things you can do with Debian: multimedia editing

• gimp - image processing
• audacity - quick audio recording / editing
• ardour - audio recording / editing / mixing / mastering
• kdenlive - video editing / mixing
• openshot - video editing / mixing
• handbrake - video transcoding

Simple streaming the Linux desktop to Kodi using GStreamer and RTP by Petter Reinholdtsen

2018/09/13 - Distributing static routes with DHCP

2021/03/21 - Debugging a Doorbell - fascinating Linux debug mechanisms for an embedded device

Intel has released a new NUC, the NUC8i7HVK. It used an integrated AMD GPU graphics engine, the Radeon RX Vega M GH in the NUC8i7HVK model.

During the initial release days, most of the installation and configuration documentation revolved around installing a specific version of Ubuntu, and installing a particular driver set from the AMD support pages.

That is no longer necessary. AMD has been contributing a significant amount of code to recent versions of the kernel for driving their new graphics chipsets.

I had tried to load, build, and install the amdgpu-pro driver, but it would never match up with the current kernel header files in Stretch and Buster.

One important note: the built in Intel graphics adapter needs to be disabled in the BIOS. Then these are the installation steps to get things running (I have two 4K screens attached, both rotated 90 degrees). So things seem to work.

In addition, i have the following in /etc/default/grub (run update-grub after changing):

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="amdgpu.dc=1"

I used the non-free firmware image of Debian Buster to get the ball rolling. I think I encountered some black screens so had to ssh in from a different computer to fix various gaffes on the way to getting something working.

apt -t experimental install linux-image-4.18.0-rc4-amd64 linux-headers-4.18.0-rc4-amd64
reboot
apt -t experimental install mesa-utils mesa-utils-extra mesa-va-drivers \
         mesa-vdpau-drivers mesa-vulkan-drivers libglx-mesa0 \
         xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu
wget -m -np https://people.freedesktop.org/~agd5f/radeon_ucode/vegam/
mkdir /lib/firmware/amdgpu
cp people.freedesktop.org/~agd5f/radeon_ucode/vegam/*.bin /lib/firmware/amdgpu/
/usr/sbin/update-initramfs -u -k all
reboot

Which results in:

# lspci|grep -i vga
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Polaris 22 [Radeon RX Vega M GH] (rev c0)
# uname -a
Linux nuc8i7hvk01 4.18.0-rc4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.18~rc4-1~exp1 (2018-07-12) x86_64 GNU/Linux

Long story short, the solution was to install the latest firmware. In this case, I have an Intel NUC8i7HVK Mini PC with Intel Wireless-AC 8265 and Bluetooth 4.2. I installed the Intel wireless firmware package from experimental:

apt -t experimental install firmware-iwlwifi

This is also running current experimental kernel:

# uname -a
Linux nuc8i7hvk01 4.18.0-rc4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.18~rc4-1~exp1 (2018-07-12) x86_64 GNU/Linux

Which provided a more recent load on boot:

[ 2.478527] iwlwifi 0000:06:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware iwlwifi-8265-36.ucode

Upon reboot, it was easy to scan, connect, and pair the Logitech MX Anywhere 2S mouse.

For future reference, here are some commands to see some activiites:

$ hcitool dev
Devices:
        hci0    0C:54:15:66:3B:9E

$ hciconfig
hci0:   Type: Primary  Bus: USB
        BD Address: 0C:54:15:66:3B:9E  ACL MTU: 1021:4  SCO MTU: 96:6
        UP RUNNING PSCAN ISCAN
        RX bytes:41366 acl:2102 sco:0 events:164 errors:0
        TX bytes:4913 acl:29 sco:0 commands:75 errors:0

# bluetoothctl
Agent registered
[MX Anywhere 2S]# help
Menu main:
Available commands:
-------------------
advertise                                         Advertise Options Submenu
scan                                              Scan Options Submenu
gatt                                              Generic Attribute Submenu
list                                              List available controllers
show [ctrl]                                       Controller information
select                                      Select default controller
devices                                           List available devices
paired-devices                                    List paired devices
system-alias                                Set controller alias
reset-alias                                       Reset controller alias
power                                     Set controller power
pairable                                  Set controller pairable mode
discoverable                              Set controller discoverable mode
agent                          Enable/disable agent with given capability
default-agent                                     Set agent as the default one
advertise                            Enable/disable advertising with given type
set-alias                                  Set device alias
scan                                      Scan for devices
info [dev]                                        Device information
pair [dev]                                        Pair with device
trust [dev]                                       Trust device
untrust [dev]                                     Untrust device
block [dev]                                       Block device
unblock [dev]                                     Unblock device
remove                                       Remove device
connect                                      Connect device
disconnect [dev]                                  Disconnect device
menu                                        Select submenu
version                                           Display version
quit                                              Quit program
exit                                              Quit program
help                                              Display help about this program

[MX Anywhere 2S]# paired-devices
Device E1:38:CB:49:A9:A5 MX Anywhere 2S

[MX Anywhere 2S]# devices
Device E1:38:CB:49:A9:A5 MX Anywhere 2S

[MX Anywhere 2S]# paired-devices
Device E1:38:CB:49:A9:A5 MX Anywhere 2S

Debian wiki on bluetooth: Using Bluetooth in a Debian system

2024/06/02 If the mouse does not start when logging into KDE, the file '~/.config/bluedevilglobalrc' may need to be adjusted with:

[Adapters]
<Your Bluetooth adapter> mac_powered=true

Even though you appear to enable it in the bluetooth configuration screen, it does not seem to 'stick'. Another 'fix' is after setting the powered option to true make the file read-only so that it doesn't get set to false again (should that happen).

• XAGYL Communications: well stocked Ontario Mikrotik distribution
• Solimedia Technology Inc.: Vancouver based online ordering, with some interesting 4G and IP Telephony products
• Baltic Networks: US based distribution with larger product line
• Miro: an African company with product lines of reference interest
• MikroTik Router Hardening
• automated backup scripts
• Mikrotik Open Ports which may need firewalling
• Tools for effortless reverse engineering of MikroTik routers
• SFP module compatibility table
• Managing 1500 routers with a single click: high level notes only (I'll probably use SaltStack with the SSH proxy capability instead)
• Manual:Flashfig
• Automatically provisioning RouterBoards: background info with someone's specific ideas on a domain specific language
• Manual:CAPsMAN: Controlled Access Point system Manager (CAPsMAN) allows centralization of wireless network management and if necessary, data processing
• CPE WAN Management Protocol & Auto Configuration Server from a TR-069 perspective but Mikrotik NetInstall is still integral to a clean recover process
• automatic backup '/system scheduler' ideas
• Mikrotik Script Repository

• Linux Kernel Archives
• Linux Kernel Mailing List
• Kernel Newbies
• LWN
• phoronix
• Linux Compatible

Other randomness:

• Networking CAKE Is Ready For Tasting With Linux 4.19: CAKE Qdisc (exposed as the sch_cake module) aims to "squeeze the most bandwidth and latency out of even the slowest ISP links and routers". The comments section has a number of links to other resources.
• Clixon is an automatic configuration manager where you generate interactive CLI, NETCONF, RESTCONF and embedded databases with transaction support from a YANG specification.
• YANG-Based Unified Modular Automation Tools
• Infrared temperature sensor driver for Linux kernel released - not sure how useful this is but leads to other products of possible value

Prelude To A 2008 Event: Paper Gold Manipulation Intensifies

And has anyone checked gold lease rates lately? Currently the lease rate curve for gold and silver in London is inverted. In fact, lease rates gold from 3 months to a year are negative. Negative lease rates mean the Central Banks will pay bullion banks to lease gold and silver. Long-timers like me know that this means there’s an immediate and anticipated shortage of physical gold and silver available for delivery, where “delivery” means the metal is removed from the London vaults and shipped to the entitled buyer.

Both gold and silver are backwardated. It took 11 iterations in the LBMA p.m. fix on Tuesday to balance out the heavy demand for physical gold from bidders. 11 iterations is rare occurrence. 5-6 iterations is rare. 1 or 2 is typical. Metal is tight in London.

If you are monitoring the Comex Hong Kong kilo bar vaults, you are aware that the movement in and out of the vaults there suggests that metal is also tight in Hong Kong, which means it is likely tight in Shanghai.

• PacketLife's Armory - encryption, exploitation, intrusion detection, forensics, vulnerability scanning, system monitoring, packet crafting, spoofing, ...
• IpCisco's Network Tools - packet analyzers, security audit, simulators, intrusion detection, ...
• packages found in Debian Linux for generating packets and sending, useful for testing openflow controllers: packeth, ostinato, netexpect, tgn (simpler netexpect), sendip, 4g8 (l2 interception)

Here are some instructions I use to build a light weight gui in an LXC container. The window easily scales, and with Wine, Windows applications can be run without the Windows overhead.

Using X2Go Packages for Debian GNU/Linux as a reference, I created /etc/apt/sources.list.d/x2go.list with the following content:

# X2Go Repository (release builds)
deb http://packages.x2go.org/debian stretch extras main
# X2Go Repository (sources of release builds)
deb-src http://packages.x2go.org/debian stretch extras main

I have the following primary sources in /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb [arch=amd64] http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian          stable        main contrib
deb [arch=amd64] http://security.debian.org/debian-security stable/updates main contrib
deb [arch=i386] http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian          stable        main contrib
deb [arch=i386] http://security.debian.org/debian-security stable/updates main contrib

Then the following commands will add wine64, wine32, lxde, and x2go server:

vim.tiny /etc/apt/sources.list
apt update
dpkg --add-architecture i386 && apt-get update && apt-get install wine32 wine winetricks
apt update
apt --no-install-recommends install gnupg2 dirmngr
apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com E1F958385BFE2B6E
vim.tiny  /etc/apt/sources.list.d/x2go.list
apt update
apt-get install x2go-keyring && apt-get update
apt install \
  --no-install-recommends \
    xserver-xorg-core \
    xserver-xorg-input-all \
    xserver-xorg-video-fbdev  \
    xserver-xorg-video-vesa \
    lxde \
    x2goserver-xsession \
    x2golxdebindings

VNC client is not used. An X2Go client is used instead. It seems to be fast and efficient. And works through ssh. It can even do a proxied hop through one ssh connection to a second ssh destination.

Q.  Which is the greater problem in the world today,
    ignorance or apathy?
A.  I don't know and I couldn't care less.

"If was one thing all people took for granted, was conviction that if you 
 feed honest figures into a computer, honest figures come out. Never doubted 
 it myself till I met a computer with a sense of humor."
                             Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

hope for the best, plan for the worst

Never assume malice ("on purpose") something which can be adequately explained by incompetance.