libera/#devuan/ Tuesday, 2021-10-05

hyrcanusfacebook got deplatformed today!  PROST!00:44
golinuxWrong channel for that news and discussion01:03
golinuxPlease take it to #devuan-offtopic01:03
adhocgolinux: perhaps what we can learn from this situation is, what mistakes happened, learn from them and apply changes as appropriate01:35
adhocwhich reminds me, quagga packages...01:35
adhocI see that debian has dropped them from stable01:36
adhochowever I was unable to find out why01:36
bb|hcbadhoc: it got replaced by frr01:49
adhocoh01:49
adhocbb|hcb: do you know why ?01:49
bb|hcbthe quagga project became inactive and frr forked01:51
bb|hcbsame as how quagga replaced zebra01:52
bb|hcbfrr is in Devuan, not forked01:53
bb|hcbTBH I don't know the answer to the 'why'01:54
adhocok, thats cool.01:55
adhocjust trying to understand why quagga was dropped.01:55
adhocthanks bb|hcb01:55
adhocI dist-upgrade'd some machines from beowulf to chimera last week02:17
adhocif i run;02:17
adhoc# lsb_release -s -c02:17
adhocbeowulf02:18
adhocso that makes sense02:18
adhocbut on chimera;02:18
adhoc# lsb_release -s02:18
adhocNo LSB modules are available.02:18
adhoc# lsb_release -c02:18
adhocCodename:n/a02:18
adhocis that supposed to happen ?02:18
adhocif I; cat /etc/os-release02:19
adhocthings look sensibla and all the usual values are filled in02:19
adhochi nemo02:22
hyrcanusi get n/a with that command adhoc02:44
hyrcanuson ceres02:44
adhocright, so does that mean it is broken?02:51
adhocsurely that can not be the expected output?02:51
adhocvarious scripts relly on that givning back a release name so it can pick the right repository to pull package from.02:51
adhocs/relly/rely/02:52
adhocI assume if chimera is going to be 'stable' soon, that needs to get updated ?02:55
golinuxIt is "stable". Waiting on documentation and updated website to release.02:58
golinuxHopefully after the upcoming Bullseye point release02:59
golinuxadhoc: ^^^02:59
adhocgolinux: thanks for that =)03:00
adhocif it was a bug and no one has spotted it yet, it could be sorted out =)03:00
golinuxIt could be a Debian bug.  (Didn't read too closely)03:01
adhocwell the package that has lsb_release in it must be devuan specific?03:04
adhocotherwise we would have all the debian relase names and numbers?03:05
bb|hcbadhoc: you can fix that by adding VERSION_CODENAME=chimaera to /etc/os-release (that was discussed some time ago, but I do not remember); Devuan specific packages have +devuanN or ~devuanN in their version03:08
adhocbb|hcb: ok thanks.03:09
adhocshould that be done manually, or is that something that users would expect to be done in the jump to stable?03:10
golinuxadhoc: We are also waiting for updated versions of the "live" isos.03:10
adhocok03:11
* adhoc will pull those down and tinker when they are done =)03:11
golinuxInstaller isos are OK.03:11
systemdleteis there a way to prevent a package upgrade?  My system has its heart set on upgrading this one package, no matter what I try to do to stop it.  It is a huge package, and I kind of want to do some kind of integrity check on the package system before doing anything further.08:06
systemdleterpm had a tool that would sort of clean up the rpm database.  I get a sense that debian does not feature a db in its packaging system08:07
systemdleteIf I proceed with the install of the package, it hangs during unpacking08:08
systemdleteI've tried rebooting08:08
gnarfacesystemdlete: look into pinning; you can pin packages at a particular version to prevent them upgrading automatically along with the rest of the system08:14
gnarfaceof course, that will prevent any upgrades of stuff that requires the newer version if the package is set to check, and may break stuff invisibly if not08:15
systemdletethis package is in a funky state.  I get a message saying:  1 not fully installed or removed08:15
gnarfacetry to purge it first08:15
systemdletewont let me do that either08:15
systemdlete:(08:15
gnarfacewhy does it fail?08:15
gnarfaceany error message?08:15
systemdleteis there a way to tell apt to completely forget about the package?08:15
systemdletehold on08:16
gnarfaceno that would be bad08:16
gnarfaceyou need to remove it08:16
systemdleteis there a way to remove it?08:16
systemdleteforce if need be?08:16
gnarfacecheck the preinst/postinst scripts08:16
gnarfacefigure out what they do and run the parts manually that are failing08:16
systemdleteso extract them?08:16
gnarfaceif you tried to install it they're already extracted somewhere08:17
gnarfacesomewhere in /var i think08:17
gnarfaceif it's half installed it's in that state exploded across the filesystem08:17
gnarfacethat's why you don't want to just tell apt to "ignore it" that would make the mess worse08:17
systemdletethe problem I think is that the hang is happening during the unpacking which is probably when it gets those scripts08:17
gnarfaceis it running out of space?08:18
systemdleteno08:18
systemdletebut!08:18
systemdletewhen I first tried to install it, it DID run out of space.08:18
gnarfacedid it come with a lot of other dependencies?08:18
systemdleteso I added some space and then restarted the install.  that's when all heck broke loose08:18
systemdleteyes, many.08:18
gnarfacemaybe make sure they complete installation first08:18
gnarfacethen check for free space again08:18
systemdletethis was the last to be installed.  All the others (deps) got installed ok08:19
gnarfaceno actual error message?08:19
systemdletewhat sort of error message -- from what exactly?   There are messages galore from apt install...08:20
gnarfacejust paste the last screen or so of it at paste.debian.ent08:20
gnarfacepaste.debian.net i mean08:20
gnarfaceactually proably just the last 10 lines should be enough08:20
systemdleteapt or apt-get?08:20
gnarfaceapt-get is the one i'm familiar with but you'd better have run "apt-get update" first08:20
systemdletefunny part is, I did this on another devuan beowulf VM and no problem!08:20
gnarfaceyea i have a strong feeling this issue is self-inflicted i'm just looking for the proof08:21
systemdleteself-inflicted huh08:22
systemdleteI committed the sin of running out of disk space, then apt refuses to be happy for me08:22
gnarfacewell it's proably in stages08:22
gnarfaceso that was part of it08:22
gnarfacethen skimming the error messages without reading them was another part08:22
gnarfacei suspect there is another undiscovered tactical error in the chain of events though08:23
gnarfacebut it might just be a bad preinst/postinst script that doesn't clean up right in this corner case08:23
gnarfacethat's why you gotta find it08:23
gnarfacethe error messages in question would have provided a strong clue so it might not have been necessary08:24
gnarfacei hope this isn't a package from a 3rd party repo...08:24
systemdletehope all you want gnarface.  It is, indeed...08:24
gnarfacehmm, that might be the critical key error, because it could have been built on invalid assumptions from ubuntu or something, and really made a mess that can't be cleaned up without a complete reinstall08:25
gnarface... but i don't know that for sure, that's just the worst case scenario08:25
systemdleteidk.  Like I said, I had no problem on a differnt system, but then that one had enough space the first go around08:25
gnarfaceyea, so you're in uncharted territory now08:25
gnarfaceyou've used the tools in a way they were not intended and now this is the definition of undefined behavior08:26
systemdletehttps://paste.debian.net/1214342/08:26
gnarfacemy advice stands that if you examine the preinst and postinst scripts (and maybe the prerm and postrm ones too) you should be able to figure out a way to clean it up08:26
gnarfacethat paste looks normal08:27
gnarfacethen it errors out after you say yes or what?08:27
systemdleteno, it proceeds but it hangs during unpack08:27
gnarfacehangs as in i/o locks?08:28
systemdleteI mean, for a long, long, long... x100 times08:28
gnarfacethat suggests an out of memory or out of storage error08:28
systemdleteI looked for locked files, but I don't see anything08:28
systemdletenope plenty of memory and disk08:28
gnarfacecan you ssh in remotely while it is doing this?08:28
systemdletecpu's barely moving08:28
gnarfacedoes the whole machine freeze or just that terminal?08:28
systemdleteterminal doesn't really freeze, no08:28
gnarfacecould the package be trying to connect to a remote server that is unresponsive?08:28
systemdletesystem is not freezing, slowing down a bit sometimes, but not freezing08:29
systemdleteduring unpacking?08:29
gnarfacewait... so let me be clear here, just the package installation task hangs, not anything else on the system?08:29
systemdleteright08:29
gnarfacebut cpu and ram usage are low at that moment and drive space is free?08:29
systemdletehtop says so08:29
systemdletenothing unusal.  More like some file lock08:29
gnarfaceand it's got all the same library versions as the other VM that works?08:29
systemdletelsof |grep /lock shows 3 files locked, 1 by apt and the other 2 by dpkg08:30
systemdleteI'd have to run a comparison for that, but I think they are more or less the same in terms of base libraries, etc.08:30
systemdleteThey're both devuan beowulf and they've both been kept updated/upgraded08:31
systemdlete(sometimes I get behind on that from time to time, but I always run update first before upgrade)08:31
gnarfacesee if it makes outgoing network connections during install08:31
gnarfacemaybe the server went down between the two installs08:31
systemdleteoh it definitely did08:32
systemdleteI had to take it down to install additional disk space08:32
gnarfaceno i mean the remote server08:32
systemdleteoh08:32
gnarfacemaybe this omd labs thing tries to download files from a remote server during install and maybe that's why it appears to hang with no apparent load08:32
systemdleteyou think the unpack step might involve remote accesses?08:32
systemdleteI have tried this multiple times now08:33
gnarfacei know it is technically feasible that's all08:33
systemdletesame pattern every time08:33
systemdletesure08:33
gnarfacei'm not familiar with this software08:33
systemdleteand I am not confident in apt08:33
gnarfaceit is usually fine unless you start mixing foreign packages from other distros in, then it can get really confused really fast08:34
systemdletethis is not really another distro, per se, but I agree that can introduce issues08:34
systemdletewhat would happen if I remove those 3 lock files and let the process fail or re-create them?08:35
systemdletethey're just files after all...08:35
gnarfacedunno for sure but i assume massive irreversible dependency tree corruption leading to all future upgrades and installs failing08:35
systemdleteyou think that apt would proceed to lock a non-existent file?08:35
systemdleteI would think it would just stop with an error08:36
gnarfaceit makes a lock file so only one thing can change the dependency tree at a time08:36
systemdleteyes08:36
gnarfaceif you disengage that you have two processes changing the dependency tree that were written to assume that's not possible08:36
gnarfaceyou don't see why that might be a bad idea?08:36
systemdlete???  what 2 processes?08:36
gnarfaceif you don't, just take my word fo rit08:36
gnarfacefor it08:36
systemdleteI'm not trying to run apt at the same time as another process08:37
systemdleteat least not one that would be accessing the apt's lock files...08:37
systemdletesorry, not following08:37
gnarfaceafaik that's the only thing removing that lock file would do for you08:37
gnarfacebut at this point i can't do the leg work for you08:38
systemdleteI'm thinking that maybe... maybe one of those files is 'bad'08:38
gnarfacemy speculation would be useless here, you have to follow your heart08:38
systemdletewell thanks for the help08:38
systemdleteI'll keep monkeying with this08:39
systemdleteI may have to just re-install the whole blasted system.  I have backups, so it is not a big deal.08:39
gnarfacenext time maybe try the foreign packages in a chroot, so if this type of thing happens you can just delete it all and start over08:39
systemdleteno08:39
systemdletemaybe next time I will remember to snapshot the VM  (doh!  why do I always forget)08:39
gnarfaceindeed08:40
systemdletebefore starting a massive task liek this08:40
systemdletelike this08:40
systemdletecrap08:40
systemdleteso, in all of the 25 years or so of debian, no one has written a database integrity check script for apt?  That surprises me.08:40
systemdleteI'd think that would be standard for a distro of such maturity08:41
systemdleteIt's got to be out there... somewhere08:41
gnarfacei'm not sure there isn't one, but there are certain mistakes they do just seem to rather punish you for08:46
gnarfacethe first thing i'd do like i said is find the package's own installation scripts and figure out where they failed08:46
gnarfacei'd usually expect that to give me a clue as to why it failed and how to either back it out or help it complete08:47
peterrooneysystemdlete: they will be in /var/lib/dpkg/info08:47
peterrooneysystemdlete: or, should be, that's where dpkg puts all pre/post install/remove scripts08:47
systemdletenone in there for this package08:47
systemdlete(tons of other ones though)08:48
gnarfaceif they didn't make it then perhaps you will have to extract a copy to read them08:48
gnarfacemaybe it would be better to just compare the "dpkg -l" lists from this and the working system to find version discrepancies08:49
gnarfacemaybe this one is just missing something expected?08:49
gnarfacenormally you'd be expecting some obvious error but not if they forget to add it as a package dependency08:50
systemdleteI'm going to let the thing run for a few hours and see if the needle moves.  Maybe I'm just being impatient.  It IS a big package.08:51
systemdleteOTOH, I notices that no disk space was being eaten during unpack (by running df every few seconds)08:52
systemdletemaybe it is doing checksums in memory... idk, guessing at this08:52
systemdleteI'd run strace, but sadly I did not install it, and can't now that I'm caught up in this "loop"08:53
systemdletethere's this option to apt remove:  --force-remove-reinstreq08:55
systemdleteit is considered a "nuclear option"08:55
systemdletesomething is def going on because the disk access light is going constantly, whereas when I stopped it in the previous attepts, it stopped09:01
systemdleteI don't see df changing though.  So maybe these are reads only.  Maybe checksumming...09:02
systemdleteI just dont recall it taking this long on the other system.09:02
gnarfaceps aux --forest09:08
gnarfaceiotop -a09:09
gnarfacefuser ... something09:09
gnarfacei forget09:09
gnarfaceif there's disk access happening there has to be a process attached to it09:09
gnarfacemaybe if that's what is hanging you can figure out what is wrong09:09
gnarfaceif these systems are very different in CPU speed or RAM quantity, something like the recent shift to using xz by a lot of different stuff could cause exponentially longer unpacking times on older hardware09:10
gnarfacedf wouldn't necessarily show any changes if it never made it out of ram09:11
hyrcanusi find dpkg -r and --force-remove gets me out of many binds09:15
gnarfacethat might back the package out but if it fails again with plenty of space we'll still be at square 109:17
systemdleteI think the nuke option worked...09:18
systemdletejust to be sure, I'm going to reboot09:19
systemdlete(thinking maybe a fsck wouldn't hurt here)09:19
hyrcanuswhat % of physical do you set your zram cache to?  i seem to be running fine with zram at 199% of physical ram (3754MB)09:19
gnarfacehe's gone already, i'd forgotten this was a zram setup09:20
gnarfaceif that's what is different between this machine and the vm that worked it would be worth trying the package install again with it disabled temporarily09:20
hyrcanusmhm09:20
hyrcanusthe maintainers of my other device set zram to 25% of physical ram09:23
hyrcanusdoes that allow some more frequently used apps to get higher performance ram?09:23
gnarfacethan 199%?  i'm not sure but i would expect the variable isn't frequency of use but rather initial ram footprint09:26
gnarfaceand i don't know which way it would skew in the case of there being way more demand than is physically available09:27
gnarfacei'd have to run benchmarks myself09:27
gnarfacebut for stuff that doesn't swap in the first place i'd expect no change09:27
gnarfacethe difference is gonna be in stuff that needs lots of swap immediately09:28
onefang"ps aux --forest"?  man ps doesn't mention --forest.09:30
systemdletegnarface:  I installed strace (and ltrace) and now I can see what the ##$DFS the thing is doing09:32
systemdleteit's installing a gob of perl stuff09:32
systemdletewhich makes sense -- it needs that09:32
systemdletebut... again, I don't recall it taking this long on the other system...09:33
systemdleteotoh, I think I was eating dinner while it did the install, so I might be wrong09:33
systemdletesorry to bug you with this nonsense.09:33
systemdleteit's doing a ton of rename()s09:34
systemdleteno wonder I see no disk space consumption at this point.09:34
systemdleterenames all the *-dpkg.pm files to just *.pm09:35
systemdleteiotop shows a lot of I/O "activity" but no read or write counts being bumped -- this all makes sense now09:37
systemdleteI'm going to shut down everything so the process can get all the cycles it can.09:38
gnarfaceonefang: now i can't even remember where i learned it initially... maybe it is in those info pages that got tossed overboard?09:40
gnarfacethere were a ton of GNU additions to the standard utilities all prefixed with "--" instead of "-" to distinguish them from the POSIX ones09:40
gnarfaceand at some point the info pages had exhaustive documentation that went above and beyond the man pages09:41
gnarfacelast time i went looking for them someone had just replaced them all with info-ized copies of the man pages though09:41
gnarfacenow i don't know where that data is09:41
gnarfaceat one point it had just been removed from the info configuration by default and you could put it back but either that is no longer true or i simply forgot how09:42
onefangSo does this --forest thing do something similar to pstree?09:42
gnarfaceprobably09:42
gnarfaceyes actually it is significantly more verbose09:43
onefangYes I just ran it.09:43
gnarfacethe same thing happened to the tar man page09:44
onefangThough not useful for my main usage of ps, which is to filter it through grep to check specific programs.09:44
hyrcanusi never got used to info pages09:53
rrqonefang: "--forest" is just a bad spelling of the "-f" option10:09
Guest39I am using debootstrap, but I cannot complete the installation.10:09
Guest39debootstrap  --include=xorg,openbox,fbpanel,pcmanfm,tilix,,network-manager,firefox-esr,,qbittorrent,blueman,alsa-utils,vlc,meld,xvkbd,file-roller,evince,gimp,gthumb,synaptic,gnome-disk-utility --arch=amd64 chimaera /home/xxx/345/ http://deb.devuan.org/merged10:09
Guest39It will install these two dependencies at the same time ( libsystemd0 libelogind0 ) , They conflict10:09
hyrcanusq* pulls in a mess.  still get it without qbittorrent?10:10
Guest39yes,same10:11
GyrosGeierthe debootstrap resolver is rather primitive10:12
hyrcanuslibelogind0 tells me Conflicts: libsystemd010:13
onefangI debootstrap the minimum, then chroot into it and apt install the rest.10:13
rrqperhaps nominating libelogind0 as first include make it happier10:15
Guest39ok, Goodism   @onefang10:15
hyrcanuswhapt-cache rdepends libsystemd0  |less  shows me no package incorrectly wanting libsystemd010:16
hyrcanus-wh10:16
Guest39Maybe now the code has been updated  .  I will try again ,When i have time10:23
hyrcanusGuest39: i suspect GyrosGeier's comment points to the problem, but I don't know10:25
Guest39@hyrcanus Thank you, I learned a new command   ( apt-cache rdepends xxxx )10:25
Guest39Sorry i can't understand  (  the debootstrap resolver is rather primitive )10:29
Guest39d-i Also use debootstrap ?10:30
rrqyes10:36
alv1:D10:36
GyrosGeierGuest39, debootstrap doesn't use apt for the initial resolution of the package list, because apt isn't available before the system is installed, and at that point the network might be unavailable11:13
GyrosGeier(also, there is a special mode for bootstrapping different architectures, where you can't even run the apt that gets installed)11:14
GyrosGeierinstead, that is a script that just resolves package names11:14
GyrosGeierAFAIK it ignores version numbers (assuming that a single release is consistent), and Conflicts handling is rather limited11:15
sadoon_albader[mGuys on the default sysvinit what's the service that sets up the ttys and how do I modify it?14:43
sadoon_albader[mI need to add an extra tty for my vm14:43
humpelstilzchen[Back in the old days of the republic tty were configured in /etc/inittab14:45
gnarfaceit's still inittab14:45
humpelstilzchen[sadoon_albader: which is a textfile, so use a text editor to modify it14:47
humpelstilzchen[however I have no idea about your link between vm and a tty14:47
sadoon_albader[mOh that is excellent14:47
sadoon_albader[mFound it14:47
sadoon_albader[mThanks!14:47
sadoon_albader[mhumpelstilzchen[: It's just the qemu tty that you can access in spice/virt-manager by switching from graphical display to serial14:48
sadoon_albader[mApparently on this system it goes to hvc014:48
sadoon_albader[mI manually ran agetty as root on hvc0 and it worked so I just need to copy paste a line from inittab and modify it :D14:49
sadoon_albader[mIt's also apparently exposed to the host machine through /dev/pts/* but I haven't tried yet14:50
sadoon_albader[mI need this because on qemu 5.2 (devuan chimaera) when you use virgl the bootup sequence is laggy until you start X14:51
sadoon_albader[mnewer versions in ceres have this fixed14:51
dormitois there any tooling for scripting/automating devuan installs? If so anyone have a link, or a good search term?15:54
gnarfacethe term used is "preseeding"15:56
gnarfaceshould still work the same as debian afaik15:56
dormitognarface: thanks, I'll look for that :)15:56
gnarfacedormito: wait, there's also refracta15:56
gnarfacemight be easier to use15:56
gnarfacenot sure15:56
gnarfacethe live image is based on refracta and i think it might be able to do this too15:57
dormitook, I'll lookup both15:57
gnarfacepreseeding is an old feature of the netinstaller where you just feed it a debconf state file15:57
brocashelmi use refracta for almost two years so far. the defaults are more to my liking17:08
furrymcgeeI made preseed and netboot with QEMU https://furrymcgee.github.io/Debian.html , https://furrymcgee.github.io/QEMU.html17:26
james11381Hello from Indiana. I am trying Pidgin again on Linux - anyway to make the text input box on IRI bigger>> I only see the lower part of the words I type.21:11
james11381I thought someone would have fixed that over time21:12
dgamer69https://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/529621:13
dgamer69there's a plugin that enable's that functionality21:13
james11381dgamer69 - would you have the link?21:15
dgamer69https://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/529621:15
james11381thanx21:15
dgamer69ye21:16
guest3525Hi. I have a problem with some program, taking up my disc space in a tremendous pace. What can I use, and how, to check wht causes this issue?21:35
guest3525Could I use some file search tool? On the Windows I could use "everything" to list everything, and then  sort it according to the modification time. How can I do something like this with Linux?21:38
hyrcanusguest3525: locate21:40
hyrcanuslocate - maintain and query an index of a directory tree21:40
hyrcanusthere are a few variants but we seem to have converged on mlocate21:41
Guest11Ok. So how exactly would I have to use this, to list all, or at least a number of the newly modified/created files with this?21:44
rwpThough 'locate' is good it is a daily compiled file name database and not about disk space.21:45
Guest11So what should I do?21:46
rwpGuest11, I like the terminal command program "ncdu" which is a curses interactive du explore tool.21:46
hyrcanussoryr i needed to scrollback21:46
rwpapt-get install ncdu21:46
hyrcanusoh new to me ty rwp21:46
hyrcanusi usually find large files with find . -size +100M21:46
rwpThere are also other graphical mouse based tools.  But I am a CLI type of person so I like ncdu best.21:46
hyrcanusor large files modified since yesterday with find . -size +100M -mtime -121:48
rwpA venerable old graphical tool is xdu used like "du | xdu" and then after it runs click around on it.  (Developed with our tax dollars out of arl.army.mil. <smile>)21:48
rwp+1 for using find as hyrcanus is describing too.21:48
rwpFor the mouse graphical folks I hear they like "qdirstat -- Qt-based directory statistics" available in the repos but I didn't like it myself.21:51
Guest11Can I list the newly created/modified files with some of those tools?21:54
hyrcanusnot bad, ncdu21:55
hyrcanusthis will be a daily driver for me thx rwp21:56
hyrcanuswith find yes, Guest1121:56
hyrcanus'find'21:56
rwpGuest11, Using 'find' as hyrcanus described is best to find new large files.  Example find files larger than 100MB and modified in the last 1 day: find . -size +100M -mtime -1 -ls21:57
rwpDue to historical creation by meeting a design specification, find has a different syntax than most programs.  But it is still good.21:58
rwp+100M means files larger than 100M, due to the + leading the option.21:58
rwpThe -mtime -1 means modification times, -1 in the last day, due to the - leading the option meaning less than 1, and units are days by default.21:59
Guest11Oh...I just found in the user profile directory, a file named ".xsession-errors"21:59
rwpThe ~/.xsession-errors file logs all X graphical program output there.21:59
Guest11How can it take up 25.5 GB?21:59
rwpCaution!  Do not remove the file if it is too large!21:59
rwpInstead "truncate" the file first.22:00
Guest11This is kind of a lot.22:00
gnarfaceGuest11: run "iotop -a" as root and it will show you exactly what process is doing it22:00
gnarfacebut it's probably Xorg...22:00
rwpRemoving a file like that won't actually free up the disk space.  Because programs have their stdout & stderr attached to it.  And it doesn't go away until the last program exits.22:00
rwpInstead if you want to free that space _now_ it is better to truncate it now.  ": > .xsession-errors" will do it by using shell redirection to truncate the file.22:01
rwpAnd that will free up the space immediately.22:01
rwpThen I expect that it is so large because something was spewing there until the disk filled up.22:01
hyrcanuswhat's the : ?22:01
hyrcanusnot echo "I like turtles" > .xsession-errors  ?22:01
rwpAfter truncation then "tail" the file with "tail -F .xsession-errors" and see what it is printing at the end.  Since I expect the problem might be continuing.22:01
rwpThe ":" is a shell idiom.  It is equivalent (mostly) to "true" and does nothing successfully.  Often used for these types of almost noop actions.22:02
peterrooneyhyrcanus: it's a command built in to bash that does nothing22:02
hyrcanusinteresting ty22:02
peterrooneyhyrcanus: many shell constructs /require/ some command to be present22:02
rwpWith bash it isn't needed at all. "> .xsession-errors" will work just fine too.22:02
rwpBut being the pedantic sort of person that I am I try to always play by the portability rules.  And so... : is often used!22:03
hyrcanusi wrote some funstuff in bash but the scrolling cpu use took too much time ▃▄▃▄▄▅▆▆▅▅▃22:05
hyrcanuswas going to do that for temp, power drain, cpu and memory22:06
hyrcanusthere's probably an efficient way to iterate through a ringbuffer or copy strings with offsets22:06
rwpJust because some can do something does not mean they should do something. :-)22:06
hyrcanusmhm i'll do it in a fork of 'top' sometime22:07
rwphyrcanus, You are aware of 'htop' ?  FTW!22:07
hyrcanusnot a fan22:08
rwpThe memory usage bar graph at the top of htop is worth everything.  I want just that part in a standalone command.22:08
Guest11I used tail -F on this file, but it didn't print anything22:09
hyrcanusthought it was lowercase f22:10
rwpWhew!  Good.  Then whatever it was has stopped.  But having something in an infinite loop printing there is often a reason it has filled up the disk.22:10
rwpEither tail -f or tail -F will mostly do the same thing.  But -F continues to follow the file if the file is rotated.22:10
hyrcanuswow22:10
rwpSo for example "tail -F /var/log/syslog" will follow the new file after logrotate has rotated the file and a new file put into place.22:11
rwpWhile "tail -f /var/log/syslog" will remain attached to the previous file after rotation and you won't see the new stuff there afterward.22:11
rwp"tail -f" is the original traditional form of the command.  The -F was a GNU extension, but I think now available everywhere.  Let me look...22:12
rwp"tail -F" is not POSIX standard (https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/tail.html) but available in NetBSD and FreeBSD so probably portable enough for mortals.22:13
hyrcanusi am so used to du -s * |sort -n22:25
hyrcanuscan i make * include .files in the expansion22:25
hyrcanuscause i hate having to do like rm .[a-z][A-Z] or something22:26
peterrooneyhyrcanus: yes, in bash. man bash # search for dotglob;22:31
hyrcanusthank you22:32
peterrooneyhyrcanus: yw. also, /join #bash and read the guide by lhunath & greycat22:33
hyrcanusi'm scared to join #bash22:33
sixwheeledbeastbecause?22:33
hyrcanusi used to ask too many easily findable questions :)22:34
peterrooneyi feel it. they got so little patience for questions covered in the guide, and none for questions covered in the man page.22:35
rwpThe #bash channel can be a little harsh too.22:36
rwphyrcanus, Instead of "*" use either "." or nothing in the case of du as it will default to dot if nothing is specified.22:36
rwpAlso, a hack that mostly works if one wants *only* dot files is ".??*" which isn't perfect but is so fast and easy to type that I just ignore that it isn't perfect.22:37
hyrcanusdu with no params recurses though22:37
rwp"?" does not match a '.' and so .??* avoids ".." avoiding going up a directory.  And the second " in "" matches any single non-dot character.22:37
hyrcanusoh nice22:37
hyrcanusthanks!22:37
rwpdu with a param that matches a directory recurses though, so I assumed that was what you wanted.22:38
rwpAnyway... ".??*" won't match a file "...foo" for example.22:38
hyrcanusdon't have those22:40
hyrcanus du -s * .??* |sort -n  << and i'm a happy camper22:40
rwpAlso, instead of "*" if you have a file that starts with a '-' it will be read as an option.  Better to always use "./*" to avoid that possibility entirely.22:40
hyrcanushm or i could add --22:41
rwpYes.  Either way.  I just find the -- a little ugly.  And I learned the ./* thing before -- was available.22:41
hyrcanusnice.  i don't allow ^- anyway22:42
rwpI have seen people purposefully place a -i as a file so that "rm *" will pick up "rm -i" and avoid a nasty event.22:42
hyrcanusclever22:42
rwpBut I have also seen people mistakenly have a file -f from an accidental creation and it bypasses the first thing.22:43
hyrcanus:D22:43
hyrcanusi've had about three accidental rm's in the past 6 years22:43
hyrcanusthat glorious space before *22:43
rwpIt's good to test your backups every so often.22:44
hyrcanusmhm22:44
hagbardWhy not simply a bash alias for rm=rm -i ?22:44
hyrcanusthat'd be very annoying22:44
rwpThat's a default alias for root on some systems.  I find it very annoying.22:44
hagbarduhm, i meant -I, that's not so annoying22:45
peterrooneyhagbard: that's preferred, but it is commented out by default  in devuan's /etc/skel22:45
peterrooneyit's the second thing I attend to in a fresh install22:45
peterrooney...and you can always do /bin/rm to skip the -i22:46
hagbard"prompt once before removing more than three files, or when removing recursively; less intrusive than -i, while still giving protection against most mistakes"22:46
rwpAlso \foo avoids aliases for foo too.  But I hate always needing to \rm \cp \mv \rsync everything.22:46
peterrooneyrwp: as root, it's a small insurance fee. I accidentally did a 'dd' over an external USB drive last week that I thought i had unplugged.22:50
peterrooneynow i'm tempted to alias dd='echo heck no what are you thinking'22:51
rwpdd is a command so powerful it can only be used for Ultimate Good or Ultimate Evil.22:56
rwpI often only run dd as non-root. First I "chown floppy /dev/sdf" the device I want to write to and then double check three times, then run dd as non-root to it.22:59
hyrcanusnice23:08
sixwheeledbeastdata destroyer...23:27

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