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Tinypliny's Journal

tinypliny
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10/14/2011 05:34 #55294

What do I need?
Category: linux
Things are not great in linux land. Maybe my particular combination of requirements breaks things? I can't believe it. This is my list of absolutely essential software for my linux machine. These are ones that I use on an hourly or a "minutely" basis.

Analyses Environment
- R
- RStudio
- Variable number of R packages

Spreadsheet
- Gnumeric

Writing Environment
- Texlive
- Texmaker Texstudio
- Texworks
- Gummi
- Geany
- Abiword: Yuck. Going to LibreOffice Writer. Compatibility is awful with MS Word.
- WriteType
- Zim desktop wiki
- LibreOffice Writer.

Networking
- Wireless
- Wired
- (Bluetooth would be nice, but seldom works, so I could let it go.)

Media
- Some hassle-free media player that would play multiple formats. Not liking Rhythmbox so much. I am done even risking any media formats on the Satellite P750 till the issues with the intel/nvidia cards are resolved.

Graphics
- Gimp
- Mypaint
- Pinta: This is just a pretty replica of paint.net. Clicking on the buttons doesn't do ANYTHING on Fedora 15.

... to be continued as I think of more things I use.

EDIT: Turns out I need WAAY more things that this puny list, so I decided to attached my latest yum log as a text file here.
Type:


sudo geany /var/log/yum.log



And you will get this log with date and time details of every package you have ever updated, installed or erased in Fedora 15.
[txt]1011/yum102311.txt[/txt]
paul - 10/14/11 11:06
This should all work on fedora.

10/14/2011 03:55 #55293

Worst luck indeed: Fedora 15 BSOD
Category: linux
Seriously? Behold Fedora 15's Black Screen of Death.

image

Transcript of Error:
[5.693915] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: Invalid ROM contents
[5.825510] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: Pointer to BIT loadval table invalid
[5.849874] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: 0XD518: i2c wr fail: -6
[5.964968] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: PGRAPH: unsupported chipset, please report!
[6.092104] [drm: intel_dsm_platform_mux_info] *ERROR* MUX INFO call failed


Looks like I might need a hard reboot. The wretched thing is not coming out of this error screen. And it goes into it at every boot and suspend.

Apparently, this is a known new bug:

With some insights from here:

ds,
Your issue is related to the optimus technology deployed in the m14x, it's a new piece of tech that allows switching between your nvidia card and intel sandy bridge. In short, your nvidia card does not work on Linux out-of-the-box. Read more about how you can either disable your nvidia card (I did that and saved 14 w (1½ hours of battery time) or try and enable it using some experimental tech called switcheroo. Read more here:
Posted by Magnus Glantz 2011-07-06 01:07:30



My brother's hacky solution:

Close the lid for 15-30 seconds and then open. If it doesn't work, repeat as many times as necessary.


I can only say... !!!

tinypliny - 10/16/11 19:45
Yes, there is a sandy bridge. The laptop has onboard intel graphics AND discrete nvidia graphics card with a kind of hybrid switching technology. The problem is this kind of switching is not supported in linux so it throws errors like the one above.

Now I have no way to adjust resolution or brightness. There is no way for me to adjust/turn it off in BIOS. I checked.
uncutsaniflush - 10/16/11 18:37
The usual way to turn graphic cards on and off is in the bios.

My assumption that the nvidia card is an add-on (probably pci express) and the laptop came with a main board with sandy bridge bridge providing onboard graphics. But as always, I could be wrong.
tinypliny - 10/16/11 16:50
The error has gone away after a fresh install of F15 with xfce. But I need to figure out how to turn the NVIDIA card off if it turns up again in the future. Both the solutions from here: :::link::: acpi_call and byo-switcheroo don't work for Toshiba P750. I need to touch base with (e:Paul) about this sometime this week and post an update.
tinypliny - 10/16/11 14:31
Plagued by this once more. I am seriously doomed.

10/13/2011 21:27 #55290

Texmaker error in Fedora 15
Category: linux
Escapist solution to ensuing mess:
The wrestling match with Texmaker on Fedora 15 got way too confusing. I found that Texmaker has a fork called Texstudio and I have installed it instead. The x86_64 version of Texstudio for Fedora 15 is available here:



My most useful LaTeX editor doesn't start in Fedora 15. I am getting this error message:

texmaker: error while loading shared libraries: libQtWebKit.so.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory



But I do have libQtWebKit.so.4!

whereis libQtWebKit.so.4
libQtWebKit.so: /usr/lib/libQtWebKit.so.4



After some googling, I think the problem lies here:


whereis libQtGui.so.4
libQtGui.so:
/usr/lib/libQtGui.so.4
/usr/lib64/libQtGui.so.4



To try and find out which one of these is "owned" or "required" by other packages, I used the syntax from this VERY helpful document:

rpm -qf /usr/lib/libQtGui.so.4


gives

qt-x11-4.7.4-2.fc15.i686



rpm -qf /usr/lib64/libQtGui.so.4


gives

qt-x11-4.7.4-2.fc15.x86_64



Just for kicks, I also queried rpm for everything containing qt


rpm -qa | grep -i qt




qt-x11-4.7.4-2.fc15.x86_64
PyQt4-4.8.3-2.fc15.x86_64
poppler-qt-0.16.7-1.fc15.x86_64
qt-webkit-4.7.4-2.fc15.i686
qt-x11-4.7.4-2.fc15.i686
qt-4.7.4-2.fc15.x86_64
qt-4.7.4-2.fc15.i686



Hmm... so my system is x86_64. Do I need these i686 packages? Are these not being recognized by texmaker, perhaps? Should I be deleting these i686 packages (and their dependencies) and replacing them with the x86_64 versions?


See solution at the top. It's not worth my time to be wrestling with this level of hideous confusion.

paul - 10/14/11 11:03
It shouldn't matter that the 686 and x86_64 version of the libraries are installed. Anything that is compiled only for i686 will require those libraries. For a long time that included at least Skype, citrix client and second life. This would happen on any OS if you were trying to run 32 bit programs on a 64 bit OS.

That being said texmaker works perfectly fine for my system which means it can on yours.
tinypliny - 10/14/11 09:43
And, some of the earlier dependencies (eg. latex environment) were already installed in the laptop. Maybe that was the reason for the conflict. I have a sneaking suspicion this is not the end of the i686/x86_64 incompatibility drama. My brother seems to have installed whatever version was nearest his mouse. I will clean it up next month with you but right now I have no time.
tinypliny - 10/14/11 09:40
Okay, I bypassed luck by installed texstudio, a fork of texmaker. In this case, thank goodness, the linux community is torn by forks and strife.
paul - 10/14/11 01:59
You have the worst luck. I just ran sudo yum install texmaker and it worked. Sounds like you only have the 686 libraries installed and are running the x86_64 version of the app.

sudo yum install texmaker

Installed:
texmaker.x86_64 1:3.1-1.fc15

Dependency Installed:
Xaw3d.x86_64 0:1.5E-20.fc15
kpathsea.x86_64 0:2007-62.fc15
netpbm.x86_64 0:10.47.26-2.fc15
netpbm-progs.x86_64 0:10.47.26-2.fc15
phonon.x86_64 0:4.5.0-2.fc15
phonon-backend-vlc.x86_64 0:0.4.1-2.fc15
poppler-qt.x86_64 0:0.16.7-1.fc15
qt-webkit.x86_64 1:4.7.4-2.fc15
t1lib.x86_64 0:5.1.2-7.fc15
tetex-dvipost.x86_64 0:1.1-12.fc15
tex-preview.noarch 0:11.86-6.fc15
texlive.x86_64 0:2007-62.fc15
texlive-dvips.x86_64 0:2007-62.fc15
texlive-latex.x86_64 0:2007-62.fc15
texlive-texmf.noarch 0:2007-37.fc15
texlive-texmf-dvips.noarch 0:2007-37.fc15
texlive-texmf-fonts.noarch 0:2007-37.fc15
texlive-texmf-latex.noarch 0:2007-37.fc15
texlive-utils.x86_64 0:2007-62.fc15
xdvik.x86_64 0:22.84.14-9.fc15

10/13/2011 14:13 #55287

Fedora-tor!
Category: linux
image
Fedora
the
Beefy Miracleator!


Totally inspired: But without the consummate V's.

10/13/2011 21:54 #55291

Fedora 15/Satellite P750 Bluetooth issue
Category: linux
Where on earth is the bluetooth??! According to:


systemctl status bluetooth.servicebluetooth.service




- Bluetooth Manager
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service)
     Active: active (running) since Thu, 13 Oct 2011 21:06:35 -0400; 43min ago
    Main PID: 1027 (bluetoothd)
     CGroup: name=systemd:/system/bluetooth.service
         â”” 1027 /usr/sbin/bluetoothd -n



But the bluetooth gui says:

No Bluetooth adapters found



I am stumped. Is there a hardware switch to the bluetooth that is turned off?

rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no



The bluetooth is not even there.

Gaaaah!!

lspci output

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Sandy Bridge DRAM Controller (rev 09)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Sandy Bridge PCI Express Root Port (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Device 0116 (rev 09)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Cougar Point HECI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation Cougar Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Cougar Point High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cougar Point PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev b4)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cougar Point PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev b4)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cougar Point PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev b4)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cougar Point PCI Express Root Port 6 (rev b4)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation Cougar Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Cougar Point LPC Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Cougar Point 6 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation Cougar Point SMBus Controller (rev 04)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Device 0df4 (rev a1)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 06)
03:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 8176 (rev 01)
04:00.0 System peripheral: JMicron Technology Corp. SD/MMC Host Controller (rev 30)
04:00.2 SD Host controller: JMicron Technology Corp. Standard SD Host Controller (rev 30)
04:00.3 System peripheral: JMicron Technology Corp. MS Host Controller (rev 30)
04:00.4 System peripheral: JMicron Technology Corp. xD Host Controller (rev 30)
05:00.0 USB Controller: NEC Corporation uPD720200 USB 3.0 Host Controller (rev 04)



Some googling lead to another bloke facing the exact problem


Oct 13 21:57:15 bluetoothd[1027]: Stopping SDP server
Oct 13 21:57:15 bluetoothd[1027]: Exit
Oct 13 21:57:15 bluetoothd[1027]: bluetoothd[1027]: Stopping SDP server
Oct 13 21:57:15 bluetoothd[1027]: bluetoothd[1027]: Exit
Oct 13 21:57:16 bluetoothd[2481]: Bluetooth deamon 4.87
Oct 13 21:57:16 bluetoothd[2481]: bluetoothd[2481]: Bluetooth deamon 4.87
Oct 13 21:57:16 bluetoothd[2481]: Starting SDP server
Oct 13 21:57:16 bluetoothd[2481]: bluetoothd[2481]: Starting SDP server
Oct 13 21:57:16 bluetoothd[2481]: Parsing /etc/bluetooth/input.conf failed: No such file or directory
Oct 13 21:57:16 bluetoothd[2481]: bluetoothd[2481]: Parsing /etc/bluetooth/input.conf failed: No such file or directory
Oct 13 21:57:16 bluetoothd[2481]: Parsing /etc/bluetooth/audio.conf failed: No such file or directory
Oct 13 21:57:16 bluetoothd[2481]: bluetoothd[2481]: Parsing /etc/bluetooth/audio.conf failed: No such file or directory
Oct 13 21:57:16 NetworkManager[934]: bluez error getting default adapter: No such adapter



Some more googling lead to this thread:
Keany says:

before you start BT installation be sure WLAN LED is ON.



Hmm... so the WLAN LED is on, but the Bluetooth LED is not on and there is no function key to turn the bluetooth LED on!

Aarrrgh. Another unsolved mystery.