💾 Archived View for omg.pebcak.club › ~freezr › pebcak › pa2022.gmi captured on 2023-09-28 at 16:05:43. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-01-29)
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The reason why I didn't choose a carrier in Computer Science…
OpenB package manager allows to export the list of installed packages so you can install them on another installation using it. And this is what I did but I have, mysteriously, a lot of packages missing!
PEBCAK!!!
Eventually I realized the installation I took the list from was a 32Bit one but now I am running 7.1 AMD64!
Following up with Crapbook v.2, I got good news and bad news… 😎
BAD NEWS: I tested out NomadBSD which is pretty close to FreeBSD and the WiFi wasn't recognized, the touchpad didn't work but the "FN keys" did work — including the screen backlight! Installing FreeBSD would be even harder than OpenBSD… 😱
GOOD NEWS: I can regulate the backlight on OpenBSD through:
The command line would be:
doas wsconsctl display.brightness=[VALUE EXPRESSED IN %]
Eventually I didn't find any "pebcak breaker" and I can continue to use OpenBSD on it, hoping for better hardware compatibility coming next in the future releases! 🤙
Looks like a 2021 hardware is still too young to run decently OpenBSD… 😔
it could turn into a pebcak breaker…
The hardware compatibility is very little, the laptop hangs to boot, what concerned me the most is the screen brightness control which appears to be likely missing… If am not going to fix it ASAP, it could turn into a pebcak breaker and I have to revert to another solution maybe FreeBSD, but I am concerned that I have to select something on the Linux side… 😩
More details are available here:
https://daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=12250
Eventually I got the laptop, it was on extremely good condition to be a second-hand item. I was concerned about the battery/ac-unit but it was OK! 😁
The first time I booted it an "impiety" came out, the fist time boot of W10, the most:
first-boot-setup ever designed in the history of Computer Science… 🤮
Then I urgently tried to erase another copy of windows from the planet surface! I burn a couple of time the OpenBSD 7.1 image, the first one failed forcing me to postpone the installation the day after (pebcak effect); the second one was fine but another (foreseeable) pebcak was around the corner!
The WiFi module — Realtek RTL8121CE — doesn't work with OpenBSD… 😩
This pebcak left me with an incomplete installation, as a matter of fact after any OpenBSD installation is recommend to run: "fw_update" and "syspatch" which download missing firmware and system security patches; but without internet it was problematic!
I tried before with the Android tethering but accidentally that day — another pebcak — the phone didn't have 4G nor 5G connectivity. Fortunately, at home, I had my trump cards: a WiFi dongle and a USB3-Ethernet adapter; both worked thus I was able to finish the installation, but any lucky with the WiFi firmware as I already mentioned.
Sunday I also wrote two times to OP just because… 😙
Even though it is still a crapbook, there is a huge difference between a crapbook from 2011 and one from 2021, and although the disc is a 64GB emmc, it is still fast enough to allow full-disk encryption; the ram is not that much (4GB) but is the double and the frequency is four time faster… The CPU is an authentic AMD64… 😆
I tested it out and I was able to load some Internet pages that were forbidden with the older crapbook, cool! 😎
This will still remain my Gemini crapbook but it is nice that I can do some modern computer task when I need it. 👍
With big relief I discovered I lost the second auction, which ended up at 59 bucks! Only three bucks lesser of one I won previously... Fiuuuu... 😅
This week many things happened but haven't had time to write them down… The most noticeable one is that I won an Ebay auction, and therefore I bought, for pebcakness a more modern, but still crappy, Asus 11" laptop…
To be honest is still much more better than the one I am using now, which I get for free, however I was convinced to lose the auction so this was totally unexpected even though I got it for a reasonable price for a used hardware.
The other problem is I participated for the same laptop on two auctions convinced to lost both… And now I risk to win/buy another identical laptop… 😓
This week I was able to get a lucky pebcak and I was able to connect with a cross-cable the RPI2 and OpenBSD. Now the point is by default the RPI2 runs PICO-8 automatically, and I setup a VNC connection that, when the connection is established, it doesn't share the screen or the current session, looks like more a client-server connection, therefore I need to kill the current PICO-8 running when the connection is established!
Now I am not a coder nor I have any minum experience or knowledge so I tried to figuring out something reading and copy but — of course — I failed, anyway this was my attempt:
#! /bin/bash v = netstat -an | grep -xqFe 'ESTABLISHED' | grep -xqFe 5903 while true do if [ $v -ne 0 ] ; then echo "not connected" else echo "connected" break fi done
And when is ran:
./test2.sh ./test2.sh: line 7: [: -eq: unary operator expected connected
Yes the script for now is only to determine if works or not... I already summoned Cage & OP, I already knew they will gave me the solution as soon as they get my summoning!
😅
This is a rare case of "auto-solving pebcak" but VLC mysteriously worked… Actually the day after, when I tried again to click over the folder, where I copied videos and photos from the various mobiles, it requested user and password and allowed eventually to play the videos… 😕
I have — finally — my Samba server up and running with some photos and videos (from our mobiles) that I tried to watch through the FireTV... Now the FireTV is good at streaming paid services but very uncooperative when is time to watch local content.
There was a solution then? Apparently yes! The solution is using VLC for Android which allows you to browse also remote location. I installed it through F-Droid, I fought to understand how to setting properly the connection and guess what?
Guess what? 😩
It didn't work out! I was able to reach the server but each directories is showed up as empty... Then I browsed the sea of the useless solutions and workaround where the pebcak is extremely dense!
Hope to find a solution soon... 😑
This is currently happened the day before...
I use catgirl as IRC client, because is minimalist and nice to use on a terminal, the only downside is: it doesn't save or remember your session; therefore if the connection get closed or you exit you lost all the messages. This is not a drama but it would be nice to be able to reconnect where you left!
Solène: catgirl quick tutorial
Don't worry! 👍
Catigirl has a friend to keep the session alive:
Installing "pounce" was easy, using it.... Well... I opened the manpage but I didn't really understand how to setup it... 😩
I think I have to ask to OP as usual... 😓
Informatic: 1 | Freezr: 0
🤦
I summoned OP and I tried to setup "pounce" with its reccomendations but I failed to understand how to use the certificates. I tried different random combinations and I got variuos random error messages that just reminded me that the random solutions strategy only increases the level of PEBCAK... 😓
This is a delayed PEBCAK... The point is that I have been having this idea to revive my Odroid-XU4 as my main computer at home...
Eventually at home I only use my laptop exclusively to read emails and banking online: Thunderbird & Firefox; what fantastic chance to install and use NetBSD as well, isn't it?
Therefore I decided to buy a video cable to connect the XU4 to the monitor but there was a caveat... The XU4 has the HDMI plug and the monitor the DP & VGA ones. Not a problem I have only to order an HMDI to DP cable (a short one), so, a couple of day earlier I bought this cable that I could test only Saturday morning and... Surprise, surprise...
It didn't wok, it was DP to HDMI¸ while of course I needed the opposite... Since it looks very hard or very expansive I have to buy a new cable HDMI to VGA...
Oh my...
All the morning trying to figuring out why I couldn't run the `vncsever` through a crontab @reboot job...
Let me say this is a shared P.E.B.C.A.K. with hundreds and hundreds off people with the same problem and without a clear solution... And this is one of the reason why Linux sometimes pisses me off very, very, badly... There is a shared problem and nobody has solution but you can find countless of fake solutions and useless workarounds that never work… But those are there to create mess, confusion, clickbait, for whatever anyother reason but not solve the problem, I refer all these bullshit:
https://raspberrytips.com/autostart-a-program-on-boot/
https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/78066/launch-tightvncserver-at-reboot-using-cron
https://superuser.com/questions/854647/cron-reboot-vncserver
As usual I had to summon OP which led me troubleshooting the issue with TMUX and eventually we got the error that nobody in the aforementioned links was able to catch, so all those links and their solution are essentially one thing: BULLSHIT!!!
BULLSHIT!!!
With TMUX set to `remain-on-exit on` eventually we got the issue:
vncserver: The USER environment variable is not set
And since we got the issue we also got the solution:
https://github.com/EXALAB/AnLinux-App/issues/48#issuecomment-716977978
So you can run any vncserver through @reboot:
crontab -e @reboot USER=YOUR-USER vncserver :1
And it works!
IT WORKS! FOR REAL!
So stop spanning and spamming bullshit across the whole internet, stop letting people wasting their time just because your are essentialy childish tech-jerks! 🖕
SSH through Android hotspot didn't work out, even though by default SSH should work out-of-the-box on any Linux distribution... I am pretty sure the reason is that is not allowed. However it consumed 5 mega doing anything therefore I won't use it anyway...
Restoring the default condition and testing again the SSH it worked eventually!
Trying to figuring out why the WiFi dongle didn't work on the RPI2 and Devuan; and even though the command `lsusb` was telling that it wasn't a WiFi dongle, it took ten hours to realize it was the bluetooth dongle of the Remote Mouse/Keyboard control. Yes I have a "Remote Mouse/Keyboard Control" that works a "Wii Controller" but worst...
Auto-login on console with the old method require 1 line, with systemshit requires a new stupid unit... However Devuan doesn't use systemshit but it is impossible found alternative documentation no matter what... I had to find documentation for Debian Squeeze... In other words Devuan lacks of documentation...
Found the WiFi dongle, it works; however making the WiFi working on Linux compared to FreeBSD and OpenBSD is cumbersome
I spent four hours figuring out why I couldn't SSH to the VPS. The day after I realized I type the IP wrongly...
Because the desperation I asked to OP and he wrote me back:
Don't copy the IP address but use better the SSH config file...
Host whatever User whatever HostName "random ip"
In synthesis: "double pebcak"
Trying to flash Devuan Chimaera with the Crapbook (a.k.a very old Netbook) and OpenBSD. I couldn't I thought was for lack of documentation but actually OpenBSD couldn't recognize the SD reader... I got this only because I wrote to OP...
This entry is fake! But I am happy I have finally my small journal! :D