Fedora – Don's House of Fine Patisseries

December 1, 2024December 1, 2024

Desktop Linux: Unveiled Chapter 7: Desktop applications

Previous chapter: Desktop Linux: Unveiled Chapter 6: Upgrading the Operating System

Using your computer of course requires some software beyond the base operating system; fortunately, most desktop linux distributions not only have repositories of freely installable software, often more common software as decided by the distro’s maintainers are pre-installed on the system at the same time as system installation.

This post is concentrating on the popular office suite LibreOffice which includes a drawing program, a word processor, a spreadsheet application, and a database application. While this post will show a few functions of each part, it is in no way intended to be a tutorial, but rather a cursory demonstration of each, leaving the exploration of each to you, the reader.

In this post I occasionally refer to operating systems beyond Linux. Also, contrary to my usual habit of not editorializing in this series, I offer the following: Many Linux software suites are largely, although importantly, not completely compatible with other known equivalents on other systems. They will often be able to open and edit files created by them; however, the compatibility and drop-in replacement value of each piece of software for the other (regardless of in which order) is often variable, sometimes quite substantially.

Note that occasionally, some screenshots were taken at different times for the sake of completeness, but presented in the order seen here, for the sake of the narrative.

Pinning Apps to the Dock:

Start from the Activities (hot corner in the upper left hand corner (the horizontal bar; either just quickly move the mouse there, or if necessary, click on the the horizontal bar):

I searched for “Lib” which brought up three of LibreOffice’s apps: Writer, Calc, and Impress, and I right clicked each one …

Searching for installed LibreOffice components

… each of which I pinned to the dock at the bottom, one at a time:

Templates:

Note: In this post, the use of existing document templates found on the internet will be generously relied upon in order to demonstrate in a cursory fashion some of the resources available to desktop users — both of free software packages and other systems as well — as well as to simplify the mounting and development of the narrative using said existing documents. The site www.freedesktop.org, by happenstance, is frequently used, as is the templates section of www.libreoffice.org. Of note, especially on the former site, there are a number of templates which are in languages other than English, and some which have been on the site for several years, using older formats. Hopefully, the language barriers as the cases may be will not be too difficult to surmount given online translation services, while the older file formats are normally seamlessly supported by current software suites, with the ability to save in modern formats.

Users are of course free to create documents from scratch as they would on any system.

Going back to the activities screen, choose the Firefox icon (orange and blue, on the left at the bottom):

In the address bar, enter the address of a search engine, such as www.duckduckgo.com:

Search for templates. In this case, I specifically asked for templates appropriate for LibreOffice, which brought me to www.opendesktop.org:

In the search bar, I searched for LibreOffice, which gave me the following options:

… and chose for ODF Text Templates (for word processessing):

Browsing through the templates, I chose a CV template, for “Tux the Penguin — Brand Ambassador and Mascot”:

… which I downloaded:

On the activities screen, I opened up the Files application:

Drawing:

… and this is where I learned that the downloaded CV template was not what it seemed. 🙂

Much like other popular desktops, Fedora Linux has several fully functional and fully featured drawing software. One such piece is LibreOffice Draw, which functions similarly to Microsoft Visio, allowing for some basic-to-not-so basic graphical manipulations, editing, basic draughting, and inserting texts.

From the Files program just opened, I navigated to the Downloads directory, where the CV was located after downloading, and despite having believed that the CV I had downloaded was a text document, the file format in fact proved to be a drawing format:

I double-clicked on the CV file, which, since LibreOffice Draw isn’t always a part of a Fedora base installation, launched the software store, and having found LibreOffice Draw in the Fedora repositories, offered to install it, which I accepted:

CV file double-clicked, launching the software store in order to install required software

Once LibreOffice Draw had been installed, I asked that it be launched:

After closing the offer to see the “What’s New” notes, I went to the File dropdown menu to open the file:

… and navigated over to the Downloads directory, where the CV was located.

I clicked on the CV file to open it:

In Draw — depending on the nature of the input file — various existing texts can be modified, as well as many basic-to-not-so-basic graphical manipulations. In the case of this file, the file was designed such that the text could be modified:

To manipulate images, the picture of Tux (the penguin) was double-clicked to select it, the right mouse button was clicked, and the “Rotate or Flip” option was selected:

… and I chose to flip the picture of Tux upside-down:

Some modestly — or more complex — drawings, including multimedia documents such as the CV shown above, can be created and / or modified, which I leave to the reader to explore.

Word Processor:

Much like other popular desktops, Fedora Linux has several fully functional and fully featured word processing software suites. One of the more popular such pieces is LibreOffice Writer.

I returned to the opendesktop.org website, and chose a business card template to open in a word processor — LibreOffice Writer.

I navigated to find a business card template:

opendesktop.org template for business cards

… and downloaded the file:

Similar to how the CV above was opened, the business card template was opened, without having to go through the installation of LibreOffice Writer:

Business card template opened in LibreOffice Writer

The text of the first card was changed to a “Desktop Linux: Revealed” theme:

Name and contact details on first card changed

The modifications were also saved:

Returning to the opendesktop.org templates, I chose the “Organica Business Forms” to download:

The page for the Organica Business Forms was opened:

… and the file downloaded:

Template downloaded and directory opened

The business forms were compressed in the .tar format, analogous to .zip files:

Directory with downloaded file, which was double clicked

The archive was double-clicked, revealing a directory contained within:

.tar file double clicked, opening up the archive

The directory was double-clicked, revealing several templates: Business cards (different from above), a fax cover sheet, four different kinds and sizes of labels, an invoice, and a letter:

Going back to Writer, the letter file was double-clicked, which again opened the file in LibreOffice Writer:

A space was added between two paragraphs:

The “Table” drop down menu was opened:

… and the “Insert Table” option was chosen:

… which opened up a window to determine some settings for the table to be inserted:

Window opened to set table characteristics

A table with five columns and five rows was selected:

The table was selected, and the right mouse button was clicked, revealing a contextual menu:

The option “Table Properties” was selected, bringing up a window:

The button for all lines under “Line Arrangement” was chosen in the Borders tab, in order to insert borders around all the cells of the table:

The “Ok” button was pressed, returning me to the document, showing now all the cells of the table with borders:

Text was added to a cell in the upper left hand corner (“Linux Desktop”):

A number of other cells were filled in:

The “File” drop down menu was opened:

… and the file was saved:

As with the previous section, I leave it to the reader to further explore LibreOffice Writer to see the various options in the various menus, and the various kinds of text documents that can be created.

Spreadsheets:

Much like other popular desktops, Fedora Linux has several fully functional and fully featured spreadsheet software. One of the most popular such pieces is LibreOffice Calc.

After saving the business cards, I returned to the freedesktop.org website, browsing the spreadsheet templates:

opendesktop.org page sorting for spreadsheets

I chose the Amortization Schedule:

opendesktop.org page with amortization schedule

The amortization Schedule was downloaded:

Similarly to previous files, the Amortization Schedule was opened (file double clicked in the file download directory).

Amortization schedule opened in LibreOffice Calc

Several of the balance figures was selected, revealing how the value us calculated in the formula bar:

Amortization schedule, cell calculation revealed

I chose to modify the table, by adding a value of 1000 in the “Extra Principle Payment”, to change the values of “New Balance” …

… and then I changed the value to 500 to see how it affected the values of “New Balance”.

Again I leave it to the reader to further explore mounting spreadsheets of their own using their own data.

Slide Shows / Presentations

At the opendesktop.org collection of templates, I chose a slide show template to download:

opendesktop.org page sorting for a presentation template

I chose a template to download …

… and downloaded it:

Again through the files directory, I double-clicked on the downloaded file:

File in download directory double clicked

… which opened up the file in LibreOffice Impress:

Presentation opened in LibreOffice Impress

I began editing the title line — in the process, using the wrong branding for this series!

The text colour, white, didn’t have enough contrast for my taste, so I selected the text …

… and went into the options area on the right to by clicking on the letter “A” with a red underline, to change the font colour:

Text colour changed through menu icons on the right

The font colour was changed to a greenish-blue colour:

Other text was changed and added:

I changed to the second page, and similarly started to change the text:

Text can be changed as per your needs, as well as pages added through copy / paste or other wizards available.

The drop-down file menu was chosen, so that I could save the file:

Once the file was saved, I opened up the drop-down file menu again, and chose “Export As” so that I could export the file as a PDF. (Editorial note: As mentioned earlier, while there is a good amount of compatibility between LibreOffice and other office suites, it can be disappointingly incomplete, which I have particularly seen and experienced with — but not only — slide shows. For more of a discussion of such from the perspective of the usefulness of PDFs, please see my post on the subject.)

The file drop-down menu was clicked again, and the option “Export As” was clicked:

File menu opened to export the file as a PDF

Exporting to PDFs can be rather easy and direct, or, as I am going to show a little bit here, allows for a large amount of choices …

… including protecting PDFs with passwords for opening:

Tab with options for password setting for opening PDFs

Passwords were set for both opening as well as for “permission” which means to allow editing of the PDF (see my post on the subject), and the slide show was exported as a PDF:

… and the OK button was clicked:

As usual, I leave to the reader to explore further. Also, within LibreOffice itself it has a wizard to help the user create a number of presentations with various backgrounds and layouts.

Database:

LibreOffice also includes a database module, called “Base”, which is similar to Microsoft Access; it is essentially a front end manager — a gui interface — for the actual database software behind it that it leverages.

Before I show a properly mounted database, I will show some screenshots about how to start.

Starting from the home screen, the activities corner (hot corner) in the upper left was clicked:

On the Activies screen, “libreoffice base” was typed into the search bar, and the option to install LibreOffice Base, which is not always installed in a base install, was offered:

Activities screen accessed, and “libreoffice base” searched for; the option to install Base was offered

The option was double-clicked, which brought up the “software store” with the choice of LibreOffice Base …

Software store opened to allow for installation of Base

I double-clicked on the option, bringing up the information page on the package and the offer to install it:

I clicked the “Install” button:

Once LibreOffice Base was installed, an “Open” button presented itself:

The “Open” button was clicked, lauching LibreOffice:

A wizard came up to select a database:

Wizard opened to allow choice to launch Base

The presented option was accepted, and the “Next>” button was clicked, bringing up a “Save and proceed” window:

The “Finish” button was clicked, opening a Save window:

Finish button clicked, allowing for the creation of a database

Once that was done, the following screen came up, in order to start creating a database:

Note that from this point on, I am showing some very basic things, and I will soon recommend a tutorial, which will better show how to use the software than I could ever present.

I clicked on the “Table” icon, which brought up a Table Wizard:

I chose the “Personal” category, on the premise — in the context of this post, anyway which presumes that many readers may be seeking to use linux at home and not just at the office, and that a database might not as easily appear to be a personal piece of software.

I pulled down the suggested list of topics:

… and chose “Recipes” for what I presume are obvious reasons — we all eat, and presumably many people have a personal collection of varying sizes (here’s my collection of recipes, incidentally NOT in a database format, at https://www.malak.ca/food).

Some field names were suggested:

I clicked on “Name”:

… which moved it over to the column on the right:

I also chose other sample tables:

… at which point, I clicked on the “Finish” button, leading to the following screen:

Finish button clicked, leading to a data entry page

I started entering data:

I chose to save my changes:

At this point, I am going to direct you to a far better tutorial than I could ever present, even in the most cursory of fashions:

As of the writing of this post, a rather complete tutorial on using Base can be found at thefrugalcomputerguy.com/seriespg.php?ser=15/ (no doubt amongst countless other similarly excellent resources):

TheFrugalComputerGuy.com LibreOffice Base tutorial page

Although I think it best to leave the tutorial to TheFrugalComputerGuy, I will show a small database in action:

Starting again at the desktop screen:

The activities screen was accessed through the upper left hand hot corner with the mouse:

The Firefox icon (orange, on the left on the dock at the bottom) was clicked:

I went to my favourite search engine, duckduckgo.com:

Search engine opened (in this case www.duckduckgo.com)

… and I searched for “libreoffice base templates”:

I chose the “Templates & Extensions” link, the second link above, at the LibreOffice.org site itself:

I clicked on the green “plus” sign to the right of “Boost your creativity with templates”:

… which led to the following page:

On the left, there are a number of filters under “Add tag filters:”, and clicked on “Base”, bringing up the following page:

I chose the “MyRecipes” template for LibreOffice Base:

I scrolled down to quickly assess the files, finding them eminently interesting for the task at hand:

The download button was clicked, and the file downloaded:

The files program was opened, and the newly downloaded file was highlighted:

The .zip file was double-clicked, creating a directory of the files (ok I accidentally created the directory three times!)

One of the directories was double-clicked and opened:

The “ReadMe.txt” file was double-clicked and opened:

The .odt file was opened as well:

Instructions and general description file checked

The “MyRecipes1.jpg” file was double-clicked, opening a screenshot:

Screenshot of database operating consulted

The FoodPix directory was opened, showing pictures of the recipes in the database:

From the database’s main directory, the database was opened:

After looking about, the “UpdateRecipes” option was selected:

Which opened up one of the recipes:

The database author chose to have an active Pantry list with checkable items, no doubt based at least partly on their recipes; by having it dynamic, when asked to create purchasing lists, the database can exclude pantry items already on hand:

Said shopping lists can be generated from the “1MainMenuSwitchboard” option:

Main menu switchboard created by the author to navigate through their recipes and other functions they programmed

Given that the “switchboard” is based on macros, the Tools pull down menu was opened::

… and the “Options” option was clicked:

“Options” option clicked, opening an options window

The Security option was chosen:

… and the “Macro Security” button was clicked. The security level was set to low, as per the author’s suggestion:

Back to the Switchboard:

The “Mark Recipe List” button was clicked, and I decided to mark three of the recipes:

In trying to close the window, a window asked if I wanted to save my changes, to which I clicked “yes”.

The “Grocery List for Marked Recipes” button was clicked:

Grocery list option chosen from main menu

… producing a grocery list based on the recipes, which was automatically opened in LibreOffice Writer:

Grocery list created for the selected recipes

The next chapter will look at graphics.

October 18, 2024October 18, 2024

Desktop Linux: Unveiled Chapter 6: Upgrading the Operating System

Previous Chapter: Desktop Linux: Unveiled Chapter 5: Gnome Extensions, and Basic File Management

Note: Although it has been a while between posts and I had planned on another subject for what would have been this post, given the time lapse I decided to take advantage of a new version of Fedora that had been released to show how to easily upgrade the OS version, in this case, from version 39 to version 40. Note that many different versions of linux (Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, etc.) have similar functions and upgrade paths; since I began using the automatic upgrade tool in Fedora in about 2018, I have had good experiences.

Firstly, the “Activities” screen happened to open when I logged into the system, and I chose the software icon in the dock on the bottom (the white “shopping bag” with the red, black, and blue symbols):

Which brought up the following screen, telling me that there were general updates, and that a new version of Fedora was available:

The system updates were first chosen and downloaded:

Once the updates were downloaded, the system was ready to be rebooted for installation:

The “Restart & Install” button was chosen to confirm the reboot:

Restart and install updates dialog box opened

The system rebooted:

… and updates were installed:

Once the updates were installed, the system rebooted:

System rebooted after installation of updates

… leading to the login screen:

… where I entered my password:

Once logged in, I clicked on the software icon again in the dock, and chose to download the upgrades for Fedora 40:

Software store opened again, and upgrade packages downloaded (2%)

Once the upgrade packages were downloaded, the “Restart & Upgrade” button was pressed:

All packages downloaded, and Restart and Upgrade button pressed

… which required authentication, so my password was entered:

Authentication required for the major changes

The system asked again if I wanted to restart and Install the upgrade:

Confirmation requested to restart and upgrade the system

The “Restart & Install Upgrade” button was pressed:

Once the upgrade was complete, the computer rebooted:

The login screen came up again:

And again I provided my password:

Once logged in, new artwork for the new version came up, as well as a notification that the system had been upgraded to the new version (in this case, Fedora v.40):

Just to finish off some checks, the menu at the power button was opened, in order to open the settings screen, accessible from the little gear second from the left on top:

The settings were opened:

I noticed that the name of my computer was curiously changed back to “Fedora” in the upgrade:

System renamed after curious change by upgrade

Then I chose the “System Details”, showing that the system had indeed been updated to version 40:

Confirmation that the system had been upgraded to Fedora 40

Next chapter: Using common pieces of desktop software

February 26, 2024March 18, 2024

Desktop Linux: Unveiled Chapter 3: Preparing to Install Linux

Desktop Linux: Unveiled is a series of posts that show how to start using Linux.

Previous Chapter: Desktop Linux: Unveiled Chapter 2: Common Linux Distributions

In this post, acquiring a computer on which to install Linux, as well as downloading and writing a Linux distribution on a USB stick, will be shown. Fedora Desktop Edition will be used as an example, although at this point, setting up the installation USB stick can be done with any other distribution — which is most of the common ones — that allows for such an installation.

(Note for future reference, graphical installation with other distributions will be similar, but each may have some nuances and differences between them.)

Hardware — the computer on which Linux is to be installed

First, I recommend that as a newcomer, whichever linux you decide to install, that you decide to do the installation on a separate computer, such as an old computer, on its own. By doing this, you will not reduce space on the hard drive / SSD on which your current OS is installed, especially in taking account the space for data you may to transfer over to the Linux system, nor will you have to deal with the intricacies and occasional perils of dual booting or data loss on your current computer setup, nor will you have deal with the myriad and occasionally confusing issues that may surround virtualisation. Finally, by having a separate computer to “play” with, you will be able to start over again in the event that something goes wrong, or if you decide that you’d like to try a different Linux distribution.

The current (2024) webserver for www.malak.ca

The above photo is taken from a page from a recent (February 2024) presentation the author made about their web server, which hosts https://www.malak.ca (the website hosting this blog), using an old computer with a BIOS creation date of 2008.

Acquiring a computer:

“Old” computers are not unusually difficult to acquire; you may already possess one in storage.

Use an old computer you may be wishing to replace, or already be in the process of replacing, or even a several years-disused computer of which you may not yet have disposed;
Buy, or barter for, a used computer from family or friends;
Buy a used computer from a local computer repair person, who may have a storefront and may sell refurbished computers;
Speak with your employer; depending on their policies, they may be willing to sell you older equipment of which they would like to divest themself(ves);
Check reputable online markets;
Buy a new dedicated computer (only recommended once you become convinced of the cost/benefit regime).

Check the “minimum requirements” page of the distribution you choose; my current bare minimum specs are a Core 2 Duo 64bit processor, 4GB memory, 40GB hard drive (the current, as of late 2023, Fedora Workstation recommendation), and a spare USB 2.0 port (such as after other common USB peripherals you may be using, like a mouse and keyboard), in order to use the installation USB stick (which will be shown lower down in this post). (As desired or required, don’t forget to get a used screen.)

For the purposes of introduction to, and the exploration of, Linux, the old mechanical hard drive with such an old computer is likely adequate; however, SSD cards and extra memory will dramatically increase performance of older equipment. Further, as of posting, SSD cards in the 250GB range are typically very affordable to either add on later, or purchase for immediate use including installation of the system, while memory cards appropriate to the motherboard are usually readily available and inexpensively as per the above list regarding sourcing an old computer.

Downloading and creating a USB installation stick:

A USB stick is required for this step; Fedora’s installation image as of version 39 in late 2023 is approximately 2GB; hence a 4GB USB stick would be recommended going forward.

I am recommending the use of Fedora Media Writer to create the installation media, which can be run on Windows or Mac (as well as Linux, of course!) Should you choose another distribution, you can use a downloaded image from another distribution’s download page (see Desktop Linux: Unveiled Chapter 2: Common Linux Distributions for a few suggestions of other distributions; see below regarding choosing other Fedora desktops, or creating installation media of another distribution).

(Note that the following screenshots may have been created out of order, however are presented in the order required for the narrative.)

To get the Fedora Media Writer, visit https://getfedora.org (I start off using screenshots from Windows):

Click on the circle indicating the latest release (in the shot above, 39), which will bring you to the following screen.

On this screen, click on “Download Now”; don’t worry, you aren’t committing yet.

On the following page, click on the green download button for Fedora Media Writer, either for Windows or for Mac:

A licence agreement window will pop up. This is for the Gnu Public Licence version 2, the licence under which the Fedora Media Writer is licensed. Click on “I agree”.

The next screen will ask where to install Fedora Media Writer on your computer, and it will suggest a location to install it on your hard drive. Click “Install”:

Once Fedora Media Writer is installed, click on “Next”:

… and click on “Finish”:

Launch Fedora Media Writer:

You may be asked to allow the app to make changes to your device. Click “Yes”.

At this point, you can either choose to have the Fedora Media Writer download Fedora automatically, or, you can download a distribution of your choice, and ask Fedora Media Writer to use that distribution instead (the “Select .iso file” option):

Going with the “Download automatically” option above, which by default chooses a Fedora distribution, on the next page (below), choose “Official Editions”:

Should you wish to try another desktop instead of the standard Gnome Desktop in Fedora Workstation Edition, you can choose the “Spins” option above, which will list the following drop-down menu:

Under the choice taken, the next screen is the “Write Options” for the USB stick, which at this point should be inserted in a USB port. Choose the latest version of Fedora (in this case, 39), the hardware architecture, and the USB stick to which you wish to write the installation media:

Click “Write” in the above screen, and Fedora Media Writer will begin writing to the USB stick:

The screen will automatically change to indicate that the written data is being checked:

Once finished, you can click on “Finish”.

Should you wish to try out Fedora without installing it on your computer first, you can follow the instructions on the screen to restart the computer and try a live, temporary version of Fedora. This will not affect your hard drive in the least, unless you choose to install … which I am not recommending, since I am recommending that you install on a completely separate computer (see beginning section).

Next Chapter

Chapter 4 will show the installation of Fedora Workstation.

February 14, 2024February 26, 2024

Desktop Linux: Unveiled Chapter 2: Common Linux Distributions

Desktop Linux: Unveiled is a series of posts that show how to start using Linux.

Previous chapter: Desktop Linux: Unveiled Chapter 1: What is Linux?

In this post, a few of the more well known linux distributions and desktop environments will be showcased.

Note: Clicking on the various desktops will show larger versions.

Fedora

Fedora Linux is a general-purpose linux distribution focusing on free software (ie. not containing any proprietary software) and on being on the leading edge of free software development. It can be used by all desktop users. While having many tools that developers find useful, it is can also be used as a general purpose computer desktop.

Fedora provides a variety of desktop environments; the Gnome desktop environment is the default desktop environment, although other desktop environments are available in Fedora’s various spins, which cater to varying visual aesthetics, technical requirements, and useability.

Fedora Linux can be downloaded from https://getfedora.org (note: do not add “www”, it will lead to an error page)

Debian

Debian GNU/Linux is a general purpose Linux distribution aiming to be available on a large variety of computer architectures, built on free software, and is known for its stability. The large number of software packages available under Debian and its stability are often highlighted as some of its strengths. Debian is used for a wide variety of purposes including desktops and servers, and is equally capable in both functions. Debian is often used as a base for other Linux Distributions.

Debian can be downloaded from https://www.debian.org/distrib/

Ubuntu

Ubuntu is a popular Linux distribution based on Debian. It releases “Long Term Support versions every two years which typically are supported for at least five years, as well as intermediary releases usually every nine months. Ubuntu is often found not to be too difficult to learn to use.

Ubuntu can be downloaded from https://ubuntu.com/desktop (note: adding “www” optional)

Linux Mint

Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, and is known for its desktop named “Cinnamon”, which was originally based on the Gnome Desktop, but was branched off into its own desktop environment which focuses on a more traditional computer desktop appearance and functionality.

Linux Mint can be downloaded from https://www.linuxmint.com/download_all.php

openSUSE

openSUSE is the community version of SUSE Linux, a business and server oriented version of Linux. openSUSE is known for its use of the KDE desktop, but also uses the Gnome desktop.

openSUSE Tumbleweed is a version which updates continuously and does not require reinstallation after a certain period of time; however, it may prove more challenging to newer users, who might find openSUSE Leap more stable.

openSUSE Tumbleweed using the KDE Desktop

openSUSE Tumbleweed and openSUSE Leap can be downloaded from https://www.opensuse.org

Other Linux Distributions

More Linux distributions, with reviews and description, can be found at https://www.distrowatch.com

Next Chapter

Desktop Linux: Unveiled Chapter 3 will show some steps to prepare to install Linux.

December 11, 2023December 12, 2023

Updating a (very small) fleet of computers to Fedora 39

I have been using Fedora Linux since 2008. I would update by re-installation my computers regularly to new versions after end-of-life. Complete, manual re-installs ended in 2018 or 2019 when I started using Fedora’s command line upgrade feature after having observed it in action. Throughout it all, I have sometimes experienced technology change adventures along the way.

I have five active computers, all which were ready to update to Fedora 39 in November, 2023: Three were running on Fedora 37, and two were running Fedora 38. Normally, I try to keep to the same version of Fedora on my fleet of computers — although I will format with the current version of Fedora mid-stream when I format a new or a new to me computer, or a new hard drive or ssd, and try to use a version (that of the majority of computers) until end-of-life, usually roughly 12 to 13 months. I settled on odd numbered versions several years ago, on Fedora 15, by happenstance, and a desire not to be reformatting different computers every six months depending on when their end of life fell.

As such, I proceeded to upgrade my computers.

Since the recommended method of update for Fedora is by the command line DNF upgrade command (here’s my archive), or to use the graphical method in the “Software” “App Store”, I proceeded to upgrade my machines on the command line.

(Note: Some of the screenshots and photos used in this post were created during the various upgrades, while some were re-created ex post facto for the sake of mounting this narrative.)

Webserver: Fedora 37, Workstation Edition, Legacy BIOS (Dell Vostro 420 Series)

First, I updated my home web server using the above-cited DNF upgrade commands (as root; see further down in this post) :

dnf upgrade --refresh
dnf system-upgrade download --releasever=39
dnf system-upgrade reboot

Note that the upgrade plugin was already present on the server, hence my having omitted the step of installing the plugin. Important note, minor in my head although critical to my experience, is that my webserver uses the Workstation Edition, not the Server edition.

All went smoothly, with one small quirk: After the upgrade and later that evening while at a restaurant, I wanted to check my website for something, and it was down. I thought little of it beyond the frustration in the moment. When I got home, I let my brother know in the hopes he might help … but in the process, I saw that the machine’s light in the power button was amber, and I had an idea that there was a software power management issue. I pressed the button, and the machine popped to life; I then went into the power management part of the settings in the gnome settings, and found the “automatic suspend” setting had been turned on to “when idle”.

This was odd. This was an established system I originally installed back in April, 2021, when I upgraded the machine’s mechanical hard drive to an SSD. To be clear, powersaving on idle was *not* a previous setting (ie. the server was always to be on to be a 24/7 webserver, the machine’s only active function, besides its passive function as a backup server), and it appears to have been a change in default settings somewhere around Fedora 38; it appears to be a power saving policy (here’s my archive).

VPN Server: Fedora 38, Server Edition, Legacy BIOS (HP Compaq dc7700 Small Form Factor)

My next upgrade was also fairly simple and straightforward. It was on a machine I found in a building slated for demolition in about 2016, and is a P4-3.4GHz single core machine, which I had been using as a world community grid node for years, but which had been inactive for months, after there having been little work for it for months when WCG moved from IBM to the University of Toronto. (I also suspect that the UofT may have decided to shift most of its tasks to GPUs, which I don’t think the machine possesses, and in any case I did not properly research let alone confirm this, beyond the apparent lack of work units being sent to it.)

A problem I’d been having for years with this machine was that it would not reboot without manual intervention, apparently due to a time error; this suggested a dead bios battery. I tolerated this for years, but this summer I finally installed a new battery in the machine, resolving the issue.

I reformatted the machine with Fedora 38 Server Edition given its age and lack of memory, and I renamed the machine, having some misgivings about its former name. I offered its use to my brother, who uses it as a VPN server for the household here, particularly to simplify assisting our mother in her computer use. I generally leave the machine alone: VPNs are a nebulous thing I don’t understand very much at all; I understand SSH filesystem tunnelling, and the parts between that and VPNs are too nebulous for me to understand.

But to wit: Up to this point I was neglecting the machine, letting my brother deal with it, but as a result the machine would often go unupdated for weeks at a time. In mentioning that I’d embarked upon the process of upgrading my computers all to Fedora 39, I mentioned that I liked to keep my fleet of computers all aligned on the same version of Fedora; I mentioned that at that time, due to new installs, I had two out of five computers on Fedora 38, while the rest were still on Fedora 37. With the comment that I wanted to keep my fleet on the same version, my brother encouraged me to maintain responsibilities for updates and yes indeed to upgrade this machine in particular, to keep it in line with the rest of my computers.

As mentioned, the upgrade went smoothly and with one exception was rather unremarkable: The suspend on idle mentioned earlier was not invoked, which I learned while researching the issue above is a feature not invoked in the Fedora Server Edition (here’s my archive).

Dell XPS 13 Laptop: Fedora 37, Workstation Edition, UEFI

Next, I updated my Dell XPS 13 (note: 2021). Again, this was an easy process with the dnf upgrade command.

One of the items to do in a couple of lists to do after installing Fedora 39, “17 Things to Do After Installing Fedora 39” (here’s my archive) and “Things to do after installing Fedora 39 Workstation” (here’s my archive) was to do firmware updates, using the following commands:

sudo fwupdmgr refresh –force
sudo fwupdmgr get-updates
sudo fwupdmgr update

Which, of course, I did. (There were indeed some firmware updates to be installed.)

Here’s what the process looks like on my XPS13 (Screenshots and photos taken after the fact, on a subsequent series of firmware updates):

Firmware updates a few weeks after upgrade

At this point, I was invigorated by being able to perform firmware updates on my XPS 13 laptop (which admittedly had not been the first time I had done so under linux, but no matter.)

However, a couple of weeks later, I noticed that an extension wasn’t working: My XP13 has a touchscreen display, and Gnome has an onscreen keyboard that pops up contextually when text is to be entered, occupying a major amount of screen space; I had been using the “disable-touch-osk” extension by sulincix, which stopped working with the upgrade to Fedora 39.

On screen keyboard disabling extension not working

This leads to a gripe I have for the Gnome developers: Stop breaking extensions with each new version of Gnome, or provide *some* kind of stable API or environment or whatever is needed so that the extension developers don’t decide to abandon their extensions because Gnome keeps on shifting so much that they have to work excessively hard every six months just to maintain their extension.

This led to the next two computers I have, which are a 2015 Acer laptop, and a 2014 Dell Inspiron desktop.

Acer Laptop: Fedora 37, Workstation Edition, UEFI — but using Legacy BIOS

I have been having problems using UEFI in my Acer laptop since I received it new in 2015; the Fedora live media would boot up, and I could install Fedora under UEFI; however, it would never boot up afterwards. My only solution seemed to be to use legacy bios. Nonetheless, hope springs eternal, this was the time to try again to install under UEFI.

I should note at this point, as mentioned above, that my home server (2008) and my VPN server (2007) are both rather old computers and pre-date UEFI and use legacy BIOS, while my XPS 13, Acer laptop, and Dell Inspiron desktop, are all UEFI machines. I make these distinctions because of conversations I had in which on the one hand, it was suggested that I perform a baremetal reformat of the Acer laptop in order to sidestep a problem I had been experiencing when I’d allowed the battery to drain completely, forcing a reset to defaults in the BIOS and hence to UEFI boot, making my setup with legacy-BIOS unbootable; on the other hand, I concluded “It’s 2023; it’s absurd not to be using UEFI on UEFI machines.” (Of course, the use of older, legacy machines predating UEFI are a different issue altogether, and for them, said point is moot.)

In addition to this comment about using UEFI, and the potential to have any UEFI firmware upgrades as discussed above, I decided that my Acer laptop needed to receive a baremetal format, given the accumulation of a lot of software on the system that I didn’t use (many though hardly all installed because of a presentation I gave in 2021); I decided that instead of package hunting and manually uninstalling them all — including dependencies that decide not to uninstall — it seemed more efficient and effective to do a clean install.

Fast forward to this round of upgrades, I upgraded the installation using a downloaded Fedora 39 image, and I went through various upgrades and setups, such as Gnome extensions, and some software installations. Suddenly I remembered that I had not changed the boot sequence from legacy bios to UEFI, so … I started over.

Several installation attempts later, including trying Fedora 36 (with an intention of upgrading through to version 39) based on some advice playing around with the various BIOS settings trying to get just “the right” settings, none worked, and I finally resigned to reinstalling yet again under, and continuing to use, legacy BIOS. Sigh.

Setting the Boot sequence to Legacy BIOS

Before setting up in legacy mode, I had a flash of inspiration: Since I was nonetheless able to boot the live media under UEFI (which I knew wouldn’t otherwise be used afterwards), I attempted a firmware update as per the above. To my mild disappointment, there weren’t any firmware updates for my Acer Laptop:

I continued with the installation under Legacy BIOS mode, and set up the desktop with the various Gnome Extensions, installing software not in the base installation, and customizing settings and the like.

I once again faced a few pet peeves I have about how Fedora is set up (incidentally through Anaconda, but by itself not Anaconda issues, best I can tell):

A long time ago, for Fedora 21 at the latest, Fedora stopped listing my home city of Montreal in Anaconda. Sigh. (I think I choose New York, which is in the same time zone.)

Fedora uses sudo by default, which I don’t like: I go by the notion of “Don’t be afraid of root; respect it, but don’t be afraid of it” — when you have to do root-y stuff, log into root, do what you have to do as root, and then sign out of root. (Yes, I am aware of the advantages of sudo, even beyond its convenience and short term elevations of privileges, such as logging of *who* elevated their privileges to do *what*; I just wasn’t taught that way, and on a single user system, I don’t see much value to it; hey maybe that’s just me.) As such, with each new install I perform, I have to, ironically using sudo under my default user account, assign a password to the root account, and then, remove my default account from the wheel group.

First, a password was set for the root user:

Then, after logging into the root account, I edited the /etc/group file (here’s my archive) …

… by removing my user account from the wheel group (highlighted):

The next thing that irked me was that in Fedora Workstation Edition, it seems that Anaconda no longer has an option (read, without the qualifier “it seems”) to set the hostname during the installation. While I understand that it is a trivial enough thing to set as per the following, under the default régime of the default primary user having sudo privileges … it seems to me that this is the kind of thing that should still be in the system installation part. (As in, I wonder how many new users have “fedora” as their machine name for a significant amount of time if not forever, being unaware that it is (only) a default placeholder name, unaware that it can be changed, and unaware of how to change it.)

Fortunately, this is easily set in the Settings / About menu, *if* you don’t remove your default user from the wheel group, or at least haven’t yet, and therefore still have sudo privileges:

Note that in the above screenshot, the option appears shaded out because since I had already removed the primary user from the wheel group, effectively disabling sudo, my (default user) account did not possess the requisite permissions to edit the hostname.

Changing the hostname on the command line is also not particularly difficult, using the command “hostnamectl set-hostname new-name”

… or, editing the /etc/hostname file, by entering the command “nano /etc/hostname” as the at the command line and as the root user:

Then, once in the /etc/hostname file, enter the host name you want (in the case of my Acer laptop, “reliant”, as in the USS Reliant from Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan movie.)

(More on changing the hostname can be found at the Fedora documentation page (here’s my archive) and techadmin.net (here’s my archive), among many other sites)

And on this install, I noticed that the extension Vertical Overview by Ralthuis, which among other things, allowed for the dock on the Activities page to remain vertical and on the left edge of the screen, instead of on the bottom of the screen, was broken, something I hadn’t noticed when upgrading my XPS13. Note: Check lower down in the section for my desktop.

Dock moved to the bottom of the activities screen due to a broken extension (note screenshot recreated after the fact)

On this point, I installed a number of Gnome extensions that I like, unfortunately not the one mentioned above, as well as adding apps to the dock, and other optimizations I commonly perform.

After these items, I installed Gnome Evolution, modified the installation’s setup such as pinning apps to the dock, and checked the power management issue listed above. During the install process, I was able to specify that third party repositories could be enabled; after install, I installed the free and non-free repositories from rpmfusion, as well as Rémi’s RPM repository. I transferred my data from the backup I had created earlier onto my laptop. (See next section on my Desktop).

Finally, I had to activate the flathub repository (here’s my archive) in order to be able to install software that I use that is distributed as flatpaks, such as Signal (a secure texting app):

… and then Signal was installed from the Software App:

Minor note: I don’t recall having to enable the flatpak.org repositories before, although I may be wrong.

This leads to my final computer to upgrade, my desktop:

Dell Inspiron: Fedora 38, Workstation Edition; installed Legacy BIOS, Machine UEFI

When I purchased the computer new in 2014, Fedora 21 installed easily under UEFI.

In the summer of 2023, I upgraded the mechanical drive to an SSD, and I had installed Fedora 38 the SSD; the Dell Inspiron had difficulty recognizing Fedora 38 media, so I took an old pre-UEFI computer, inserted the SSD, and installed Fedora on the SSD. I don’t recall if I knew to change to legacy BIOS once I transferred the SSD to the Dell, or after an error or two, I realized the error, and made the change in the setup. The installation worked, although I was slightly irked.

Come time to upgrade to Fedora 39, I performed the command line DNF upgrade covered earlier, dealing with some of the consequences like the power management and idling issue above. Additionnaly, I noticed something else that irked me regarding the power button (changing it from “Suspend” to “Power Off”:

“Power Button Behavior” setting changed from “Suspend” to “Power Off”. Call me old school …

However, in the intervening time I had experienced the UEFI crisis above, so I first performed a backup of my data to my backup folders on my web server, mildly surprised by how much I was behind in my manual backups.

Unfortunately from this point on, my desktop proved to be the most challenging to upgrade properly.

Having downloaded a copy of the install media for Fedora 39 and burned it onto a usb stick, as well as still having the Fedora 38 Server Edition DVD (which I had forgotten was the F38 Server Edition, instead erroneously assuming that I had gone to the trouble of burning the F39 Workstation Edition onto the DVD), and I tried to install Fedora 39 from both media. I tried several settings in the setup menu, to no avail: The motherboard categorically refused to recognize either, simply displaying an error message vaguely communicating a sense that it didn’t like the media. In looking through the internet for pages on the subject, including the Dell website, I was mildly piqued that solutions commonly referenced burning the usb stick using particular software under Windows (to which strictly speaking I have access, but not on the computer in question), and often just assuming that there would be a Windows partition on the computer. Putting aside knee-jerk reactions, I assumed that this would not address the issue since the solutions appeared to assume a conflict with Windows which could not exist on my machine, or that the Fedora media-writing tools were inherently unable to operate correctly.

I gave up for the moment, changed the boot settings back to Legacy BIOS, and used the untouched Legacy BIOS install for roughly a week while dealing with other upgrades and life in general.

After roughly up to a week, I remembered something I’d read a week or two earlier that said that the UEFI shim for Fedora versions 37 and 38 (and I presume, given my experience, Fedora 39 as well), was not working for some motherboards “due to a difficult certification process for this component“, (here’s my archive) and that a workaround was to install Fedora 36, whose shim was known to work, then proceed through the command line upgrades to Fedora 39.

Fedora 36 was downloaded and burned on a usb stick, and the settings in the boot menu were changed back to UEFI. Fedora 36 was installed — successfully! …

… and the updates were performed, after which the command for the version upgrade was performed, to bring it to Fedora 38. However, the system would not reboot on its own; a quick fsck command corrected some “dirty code”, which it corrected, and I changed some boot settings about booting and automatic on at certain dates. Once this was done, the upgrade to Fedora 38 continued:

DNF upgrade command working; yes, my screen is dusty!

I again performed a dnf upgrade to Fedora 39, and had to repeat the fsck command in order for the system to properly reboot.

To correct this rebooting issue, an empty file named “fsck” was created in my home directory.

Backups were restored, and work similar to what I’d performed on my Acer laptop were performed regarding sudo, root, renaming of the box, evolution, extensions, pinning apps to the dock, and the like were performed.

After yet another week or so, I noticed that my backups had not fully been transferred, and began transferring the balance. In the process, my computer indicated that it did not have enough space on the hard drive; I suspected that during the previous install that I had not correctly removed the previous install, so I reformatted yet again.

So I repeated the installation and upgrade process, this time ensuring that all space on the drive was reclaimed, and repeated the above processes, both specific to the computer as well as other things generally required as part of the upgrade.

During the initial setup, I discovered an extension that brings back the vertical view: V-Shell (vertical workspaces) by GdH, and it seems to do what I want, although on the desktop there is a setting that brings up the (vertical) dock, workspaces, and app search space over the workspace; comparison with another setup allowed me to find the setting I wanted.

And, to repeat myself: Gnome, do you hear me? Stop breaking extensions!

Now — so far — the computer seems to be working, but as this whole process over a month has shown, I should give it at least a week to find out if there are any other issues.

Final Thoughts

I don’t read the upcoming changes for new versions, nor do I research in advance problems that people have been having. I discover the problems, changes, and challenges along the way, and as such for me Fedora reveals itself as per my usage and discoveries — no doubt leaving a lot hidden to me — not only over its roughly 13 month lifespan, but also over the first few weeks of using it, and, interestingly, over the installation process itself, especially when it’s over several machines of different eras and manufacturers and technologies.

As this round of upgrades in particular has shown, as well as years of using Fedora Linux, using Fedora Linux is an exercise in bleeding edge.

Now, barring unforeseen changes, additions, and the like, I’m looking forward to roughly a year of Fedora 39 goodness!

December 7, 2020February 4, 2021

Major changes to how PHP requests are handled in Fedora 33

(This post has an update 20210203 at the bottom.)

I run the www.malak.ca website and this blog on an old reclaimed computer using Fedora Linux. I used to use CentOS because of its long term stability, and in fact I still have a computer running CentOS running at full capacity as a computational node for the World Community Grid.

I have used Fedora on my desktops since 2008, and on my website server since at least 2018.

I have found CentOS very stable but, through my brother, somewhat limiting as each given version ages. My brother provides invaluable technical support and often does the heavy lifting on my servers and computers when it comes to, well, technical support and setup, for which I am very grateful. He has humoured me over the years in my use of CentOS, but has been frustrated with CentOS for years given its upstream source’s conservative development cycle and the difficulty in maintaining such systems over time.

In the meantime, over the years while using Fedora, I typically use a version for roughly its full lifecycle of 12 to 13 months, and I normally skip a version in the process. Previous to somewhat recent experiences, I would perform a full new install every year from a downloaded image; I was acting on advice from the Fedora website, increasingly old and out of date each time I performed a reinstall, to not use the dnf upgrade function on the grounds that it wasn’t ready yet. This further gave me reason for the occasional use of CentOS and its long term stability on some computers, which I might want to not want to bother reformatting yearly, let alone reinstall software. However, while I was performing another fresh install from Fedora 27 to Fedora 29 in the fall of 2018, I observed a command line upgrade of a Fedora system, and was intrigued. In the fall of 2019, when upgrading from Fedora 29 to Fedora 31, I used the command line upgrade path instead. (Here’s my archive.) This resolved, at least in my mind, my longtime concerns about the short lifespan of Fedora.

Unfortunately, this proved to be a matter of famous last words, since it was merely a convenience for upgrading, something that could be easily done on a weekday evening, instead of setting aside a Saturday afternoon and a (wholly pleasant) visit with my brother.

My most recent upgrade cycle of my server, from Fedora 31 to Fedora 33, was in and of itself as easy as it was on my laptop, desktop, and another box earlier this year. However, it proved to be effectively fatal for my website, since the web server was showing error 503 for PHP requests on the blog. Apparently, a PHP handling module, mod_php, used on my website, was deprecated in favour of php-fpm (here’s my archive). A mixed technical and somewhat editorialized discussion on this is on my brother’s blog. (Here’s my archive.)

For me, this isn’t so much an opportunity to complain; as I said, my brother did the real work in performing another iteration of setting up my website in April, 2020, only to do it once more in November, 2020, for which I’m grateful, under a fresh, baremetal install (which I performed.) Instead, the second comment to come to mind — initially, privately, and tongue-in-cheek! — after my gratitude that he would do the job yet again, was that my brother at least got to hone his skills on “the new method”.

After that, a few other things came to mind. As such, risking being a back-seat gratuitous commentator on the process:

It occurs to me that Fedora, while an excellent desktop operating system, arguably has risks associated with it as a medium-term and long-term server, given its mission to showcase and test new technologies as they are introduced while “old” technologies are deprecated;
- And, since CentOS (and RHEL) grow old long enough before their 10 year EOL, but Fedora’s approximately 13 month lifespan is too short, how long is ideal?
The actual process itself of upgrading Fedora versions remains smooth, polished, and easy;
Could the upgrade process itself have included:
- At least a warning that certain major changes were literally about to occur or were occurring?
- An opt-out option for some changes?
- Or involve as possible actually upgrading settings and/or other setups such that a neutral net effect on existing functions is effected, ie. change things properly, not just literally changing things without regard to any possible detriment to functions?
- Or, make changes, but in separate, neutered files, and a notification that some potential conflicting changes have been made, requiring attention?
With regards to general version upgrading of my server, I should do some research into the new technologies to be installed before upgrading, so as to prepare for any major changes, just as any sysadmin should when upgrading versions to another of any long-term distribution such as CentOS, RHEL, Debian, Ubuntu LTS versions, or any other such system.

20210203 Update: It would seem that another victim of the change toward php-fpm was an inability to use the WordPress upgrade tool when it was time to change to v.5.6. It seems that using some file ownership settings on my machine, which facilitated my administration of the website on a larger scale than just WordPress, was at issue, and how php-fpm handles files and the required permissions, vs. the way mpm-itk and php-cgi would handle similar tasks.

And, at the same time, it seems to me that an additional question is raised, following my musing of “And, since CentOS (and RHEL) grow old long enough before their 10 year EOL, but Fedora’s approximately 13 month lifespan is too short, how long is ideal?”: The literal answer may well lie in “well that depends on individual packages and how they evolve over time, especially regarding the “real world” and other pressures which may shape the project’s evolution”, meaning that things may change more swiftly than Fedora’s 13 month lifespan, and others may outlive RHEL / CentOS’ (at least old) lifespan of ten years.

Which leads to my asking: “How to deal with change management?” and “How to choose a distro, and deal with change in a selected platform which has gone in a different direction from decisions leading to its original choice?”

April 26, 2020December 7, 2020

Dumpster Diving for Old Computers

To paraphrase Forrest Gump’s mother, “Dumpster diving for computers is like a box of chocolates … you never know what you’re gonna get.”

Over the past at least twelve years, I have been salvaging computers I have found on the streets on garbage day, or found in other locations where my various personal travels have taken me, for use to reformat into usable computers. The various finds have served as main desktop computers, secondary computers, home servers, computation nodes for the World Community Grid, gifts to my brother or the occasional friend, and the like. It has variously allowed me to indulge in a bit of tinkering, trying out a new linux distro or version of BSD, build a home server, or just pass the time while engaging in a hobby.

In the process, I’ve watched the lower bar of what is acceptable “junk that isn’t junk, at least not yet” move upwards from about P4-533 MHz 32 bit processors to dual core 2.66 GHz 64 bit processors (although single core 64 bit P4 at 3.4 GHz to 3.8 GHz range is good if you don’t want to depend on a GUI, or if you have a lot of RAM and an SSD), 512 MB of RAM to 2GB of RAM, and 20GB hard drives to 80GB hard drives. Now it seems that the next big thing will be in moving from mechanical drives to SSD drives, which I expect — when SSD drives become common in the old computers I find being thrown out — will make a revolutionary change upwards in speed in low end hardware, the way I learned the same in 2017 when I swapped out the mechanical drive in my laptop and replaced it with an SSD. (To be fair, when I bought the computer new in 2015, the hard drive was curiously a 5400 RPM model, presumably either to make it less expensive, less power hungry vis-à-vis battery life, or both.)

As an aside: My favourite brands of castoffs have been, in order, IBM / Lenovo ThinkCentres, then Dells. After that, I’ve had an excellent experience with a single used HP desktop that has been doing computations for World Community Grid running at 100% capacity, since late summer 2016. I’ve dealt with other types of computers, but the ThinkCentres and the Dells have been the ones I’ve had the most success with, or at least the most personal experience. (Since initially writing this post, I have been developing a suspicion that based on the longevity of the HP cast-off I have, HP actually might be superior to the IBM / Lenovo when it comes to cast-offs; however, since it’s the only HP cast off that I can remember ever having, it’s hard to form a proper opinion.)

But to wit: Over the past two weeks, I have tried to revive three used computers that were cast-offs.

Two of them were IBM / Lenovo ThinkCentres, which I think were new in 2006 / 2007, 2.66MHz 64 bit dual cores, 80GB hard drives, and 2 GB memory. The third computer was a Dell case with only the motherboard (proving to have been — see below — a 64 bit dual CPU running at something like 2.66MHz) but no memory, no hard drive, no wires, no DVD player, and not even a power supply!

The two ThinkCentres were from a pile of old computers marked for disposal at a location where I happened to be in mid-2017, and I was granted permission to pick and choose what I wanted from the pile. I gave them to my brother, who at the time evaluated them and determined that neither worked, one just beeping four times and then hanging. After that, they just sat around in his apartment for whenever they might come in handy for spare parts. He had since determined that one actually worked, but he hadn’t done anything with it.

The third computer was found on the street near home a couple of months ago, and was covered with about an inch of snow by the time I’d recovered it. I brought it home, and let it sit around for several weeks just to make sure that it dried out properly. Based on the “Built for Windows XP” and “Vista Ready” stickers, I’d guess that it was new in about 2005 or 2006.

Having forgotten about the ThinkCentre computers I’d given to my brother in 2017, I casually asked him if he had the requisite spare parts to make the snow-covered computer work, since we normally share our piles of spare parts retrieved from old computers that die. To my surprise, he sent me the functional ThinkCentre. My knee-jerk reaction was “I don’t need a new-to-me computer; just the parts required to see if I can get the snow-covered computer to work.” Perversely, I didn’t actually want the results of my planned efforts to produce a functional computer; I just wanted the amusement of a small project, and more generally to see whether the Dell found on the street would work.

In parallel, my home server on which I hosted my backups and my website, another computer of the used several times over variety, worked perfectly except for mysteriously turning off on its own a couple of times recently, perhaps once a week. My brother and I decided that what was probably happening was the result of one or more thermal event(s) which shut down the computer, no doubt due to a combination of dust accumulation, the CPU fan ports in the case not having enough clearance from the computer next to it to allow for proper aspiration of ambient cooling air, and possibly high heat generation from occasional loads due to search engine bots crawling my website. Despite cleaning out the dust, removing the computer’s side panel from which the CPU fan drew air, and shifting both computers a bit in order to allow for adequate ventilation, the computer turned itself off again after about a week.

My brother and I made a swift decision to replace my server with a new installation on a “new” computer — the good ThinkCentre I initially didn’t want — because even though the existing machine was otherwise performing spectacularly well given the overall small load, we tacitly agreed that the shutdowns were a problem with a production server, though we hadn’t actually said the words. This incidentally dealt with another curious behaviour exhibited by the existing server which appeared to otherwise be completely benign, and hence perhaps beyond the scope of why we changed the physical computer.

The operational ThinkCentre was plugged in, formatted with Fedora 31, and my brother helped me install the requisite services and transfer settings to the new server in order to replicate my website. Newer practices in installation were implemented, and newer choices of packages were made. For instance, the “old” machine is still being kept active for a bit as a backup as well as to maintain some VPN services — provided by openVPN — for the purposes of setting up the new server and installing WireGuard for VPN on the new server, and generally allow for a smooth transition period. Other things that we had to remember as well as learn, perhaps for another time, were to install No-IP as a service, and that drive mounts should be unmounted and re-mounted through rc.local.

One of the unexpected bonuses to the upgrade is that it appears to be serving web pages and my blog a wee bit faster, for reasons unknown.

In a few weeks, I’ll reformat the old webserver and make it another computation node for the World Community Grid — in fact, this particular machine’s “original” vocation when I first got it in late 2017.

In the meantime, on the next project, I got the non-functional ThinkCentre for its spare parts. The first idea I had was that maybe this second ThinkCentre might still be good, and we looked at a YouTube video that suggested cleaning out the seats for the memory sticks with a can of clean compressed air. I was suspicious of this but let it go for a while, and I proceeded to harvest parts from the computer after deciding that the machine wouldn’t work regardless.

A power supply, cables, a hard drive, and memory sticks were placed in the Dell found on the street. It powered up, and after changing some settings in the BIOS, I was able to boot up a Fedora 31 LiveUSB. Using the settings option from the Gnome desktop, I was able to determine that there was a 64 bit dualcore CPU running at about 2.66GHz, that the 2GBs of memory I’d inserted worked, and that the 80GB hard drive was recognized. I looked around on the hard drive a bit with a file manager (Nautilus) and determined that the place from which I’d retrieved the ThinkCentre appeared to have done at least a basic reformatting of the drive with NTFS. I didn’t try to use or install any forensic tools to further determine whether the drive had been properly cleaned, or had merely received a quick reformat.

Suppertime came around, and the machine was left idle to wait for my instructions for about an hour or so. When I returned to the computer, I saw an interesting screen:

“Oh no! Something has gone wrong.” error screen

(If you can’t see the picture above, it’s an error screen, vaguely akin to a Windows Blue Screen of Death.) After a few reboots, all with the same “Oh no!” error screen, my brother suggested that the machine may have been thrown out for good reason, intimating that it was good luck that I’d even managed to boot it up in the first place and look around a little bit. I, on the other hand, was relieved: I’d had my evening’s entertainment, I’d gotten what I wanted in the form of working on the machine to determine whether or not the machine could be used, and I’d learned that it indeed couldn’t be used. Parts were stripped back out of the Dell, and the box was relegated to the part of the garage where I store toxic waste and old electronics for the times I have enough collected to make it worthwhile to go to an authorized disposal centre.

At this point, something was still bugging me about the second ThinkCentre. I hadn’t yet placed my finger on it, but I was suspicious of the “use compressed air to get rid of the dust in the memory bays” solution. So I placed the salvaged parts back into the ThinkCentre — having fun with which wires go where in order to make it work again — and got the four beeps again. I looked up what four beeps at start up means (here’s my archive of the table, which I had to recreate since a direct printing of the webpage only printed one of the tables,) and found that at least on a Lenovo ThinkCentre, it means “Clock error, timer on the system board does not work.” While I assumed that changing the BIOS battery may well fix the problem, I decided not to investigate any further.

I salvaged the parts again and placed them in my parts pile, ready for the next time I find a junker on the street or from elsewhere. The second ThinkCentre’s case was also placed beside the Dell, awaiting my next trip to an authorized disposal centre.

This means that out of the last three computers, I have one functioning computer replacing an existing computer (that I hope will continue with an industrious afterlife doing something else), one computer scavenged for spare parts and the case relegated to the disposal centre pile, and the Dell computer which was found on the street also relegated to the disposal centre pile.

Or, to paraphrase Meat Loaf, “One out of three ain’t bad …”

December 10, 2017April 11, 2020

Upgrades to Fedora 27 — what a breeze!

Over the past two weeks, I have upgraded two computers to Fedora 27 (from Fedora 25, having skipped Fedora 26 and enjoyed roughly a year’s worth of Fedora goodness).

The two computers are:

Dell desktop (main system): Intel® Core™ i5-4460 CPU @ 3.20GHz — no Hyperthreading, 1 TB 7200 HD, 8gigs memory; screen upgraded separately to an Acer widescreen, and old screen relegated to a “new to me” computer setup as a node on the World Community Grid.
Acer laptop (secondary system): Intel® Core™ i7-5500U CPU @ 2.40GHz (Hyperthreaded), now 500gig SSD HD, 8 gigs memory.

Two of the equipment upgrades are the screen on the desktop, which is now a used Acer widescreen, and the laptop’s 5200RPM 1TB drive was upgraded to a 500gig SSD. The laptop went from interminably slow to incredibly fast! The comment from my brother: “SSD’s are one of the few things that actually lives up to the hype.” In my experience — under linux, anyway. Under a corporate controlled windows box? Well I’d say that my work computer, with an SSD, needs the SSD speed just not to be unusable!

The upgrades were incredibly easy this time, and fast, the new SSD installed on the laptop probably being the big factor. In fact, I was able to do the basic install in about 15 minutes, and the rest of my list (made for Fedora 23, but the basic list is still valid) was easy to complete while on a business trip in the motel room during off hours. In fact, one of the things that took a couple of days to realize: Fedora has had difficulty with the UEFI on this machine in the past — it would install, and then not work, and I’d have to reinstall under legacy BIOS. Note that I have a BIOS password, so perhaps in the past I just figured out how to make it persistent. As for restoring the data, once home, I managed to easily copy all my data files from my desktop overnight.

As for the desktop, having just gone through the process a couple of days earlier with my laptop, I was able to easily update, and then re-transfer my data from the laptop overnight, as well as update my data backup on my home server.

The “big” thing this time? The hardware upgrades. The almost un-noticeable thing this time? The installs, which were incredibly easy, quick, routine, and almost easily forgotten. Sheesh, I’ve lost track of how many installs I’ve done over the years …

February 2, 2016April 27, 2020

I’ve finally got a convert, sort of, to whom I’m giving a linux desktop!

In 2011 a new hire at work was assigned to join me on a few field jobs in order to expose them to the kinds of things we do at the office.

At the time, I enthusiastically told him about my use of linux. Suffice it to say his reaction was “What is this communist stuff anyway?!?!” Harrrummmpphh. “Red Hat is in line to have $1 billion with a big fat capital B in revenues this year alone. Doesn’t sound very communist to me at all.”

Back in mid-December of 2015 — after countless times of telling him about linux in the meantime, hopefully a bit more toned down — he sent me a message: “Here’s a modest budget; set me up, I’d be interested in trying it out.” I was practically beside myself in my pleasure.

I came back from the Christmas holidays and announced that I’d tracked down a used computer for free, and just needed to get it into my hot little hands. I explained that I wanted to give him a relatively risk free introduction. In the meantime, the computer in question, I’m told, proved to be dead and not usable. I’m promised another computer, and this week, when it looks like I’ll indeed be getting it in time for an install day this weekend, I further explained to my colleague: “The computer is probably about four or five years old but it’s supposed to be a dual core with 4 gigs of memory. It won’t be the best performing computer in the world, and some things it just won’t be able to do, at least not spectacularly, not because of linux, but because of the computer itself; however, it should still be good enough for videos, games, and day to day stuff, and you’ll be able to explore all the software available for it and see what can be done with linux, and you can add a few things like a bluetooth dongle if you like.”

He cautiously tells me all along that I’m building up anticipation; the caution suggests to me that he is mildly tongue-in-cheek meaning “of the disappointing variety”.

I then start asking him very specific questions, like what he wants as the computer name (I give him examples of current and past computer names I’ve used, and advise him to choose carefully since using the name of a pet or relative could backfire in case something goes wrong, and in the process of relating the experience to family or friends they may be confused or even become upset), the user name and password to use, the root password he wants, and things like which email client he uses at home. Pleased that he’ll be able to use a GMail interface, he begins to apparently genuinely say “Oh now you’re *really* building anticipation!” instead of the cautious insinuations from before.

Therefore in anticipation of the build this coming weekend, I put together this list of the main things I’ll need to install on his computer, especially since I’ll be helping my brother-in-the-know again with another desktop install, and try to get in some of his under the hood expertise at getting my server to be a bit more useful than a rarely used ftp server, a backup server for my data which depends on my remembering to back up my data on it, and consuming electricity.

So enjoy my list of things to do to loading a Fedora desktop very similar to how I use mine. And yes I know that there are plenty of things I *don’t* say, like “take this icon and place it third or fifth or last in the dock on the left on the activities screen” or, how to do “that”. 🙂

March 10, 2015April 11, 2020

Installing Fedora 21 (Part II), 32 bits at a time

In Part I, I talked about installing Fedora 21 on a new Dell desktop, and promised a Part II, somewhat tongue-in-cheek. But wait folks, I was serious. 🙂

I have an Acer Aspire One which I received new out of the factory sealed box as a birthday present in 2009, and immediately converted it to linux after receiving it – Fedora 11, to be exact. It has used, as I recall, Fedora 11, 12, 14, 15, possibly 16, 17, and 19, all without any trouble. Well, ok, none that can’t be attributed to “whaddya expect out of a notebook vs. a full horsepower machine” and errors stemming from somewhere between the keyboard and the chair. ?

However, time is starting to march on with this machine, and while it was great under roughly 18 months of Fedora 19, it was clearly starting to slow down a bit, but … well, Fedora keeps releasing new versions, and, well, while CentOS 7, which is based on Fedora 19 and which I’d be happy to install on my netbook, unfortunately is only available under 64bit while my netbook is only 32bit. So my options were to either keep Fedora 19 unpatched, upgrade to Fedora 21 workstation, which I wanted to do, upgrade to Fedora 21 with XFCE, which would probably make it peppier, or explore other distros, which I don’t wish to do.

When Fedora 21 Workstation came out in December 2014, I downloaded the 32 bit version, and the fun began. Within a couple of minutes of booting up the live DVD and before the desktop loaded up, the machine went into hibernation. This didn’t feel right, but I hit a key and things came back to life. Then, within about a minute, the machine went into hibernation again. I hit a key again, got a minute of performance, and it hibernated again, ad nauseum, and ad infinitum, literally.

Despite this, I decided to continue with the F21 Workstation installation anyway, and I ended up babysitting the install, hitting a key to wake up the system every minute or so during the installation. On a single core atom processor running at 1.5 GHz, this took a good long while and a lot of keyboard wakeups. Finally, the system was installed, but it kept on hibernating after roughly a minute.

As a reference, I proceeded to install Fedora 21 XFCE Spin, and, except for hibernating once during the initial booting up of the liveDVD, it worked like a charm.

One solution I tried was to do a “yum install fedora-release-workstation” or somesuch from an installed XFCE spin, hoping to then do a “yum groupremove XFCE” and repeat “yum install fedora-release-workstation” just to reinstall any packages which may have gotten removed, but it bricked the install and I had to reinstall XFCE yet again.

For a variety of reasons which are now lost in the winds but which probably included having gone through the following suggestions from ask.fedoraproject.org, I managed to install and re-install the XFCE spin several times again after probably having reinstalled the Workstation a few times in between.

I went to ask.fedoraproject.org to ask for help (here’s my archive), and I got a few interesting responses.

The first response I got was:

“You can do tests and get logs without interference with systemd-inhibit – ie sudo systemd-inhibit bash. The system won’t suspend or hibernate until you end the process invoked with systemd-inhibit.” This didn’t work; hibernation continued as before.

The next response was “I’m just guessing, but it feels like the system thinks that the battery is almost empty and because of that does the right thing in that situation. I’m not sure which software component is handling this situation but anyway, there seems to be a bug that happens to manifest on your particular environment.” This could have been ruled out immediately – mostly – because at the time the battery was physically out of the machine when I tested, and I was running on mains electricity out of the wall. Nonetheless, I did check, with a fully charged battery in, to be sure I wasn’t being a fool; no such luck, under both cases, the machine kept on hibernating every minute or so.

All through this, I learned that at least one user with a Toshiba Satellite Pro without a CD player had this same problem, and worked just fine up till Fedora 20.

My “brother in the know” helped me with some research, and we found something: In the Arch Linux forums, the problem is described, and the user “Scimmia” comes up with the following workaround (here’s my archive):

“Try setting ‘HandleSuspendKey’ and ‘HandleLidSwitch’ to ignore in /etc/systemd/logind.conf” “Scimmia” further claims that this problem appears to be caused by systemd/logind. This all means that somewhere, signals are being sent out, rightly or wrongly or otherwise, that are being interpreted as “the clamshell lid is being closed, so it’s time to hibernate.”

To wit, my brother and I, after I’d installed Fedora 21 Workstation for the probably at least third time, then boot up an XFCE liveDVD (but do not install it), and through some of my brother’s linux kung-foo, he mounts the hard drive, using Thunar in the XFCE spin as a facilitator, and we edited the appropriate file.

… And Bingo was his name-OH. (Translation: Yup, that worked and the machine now works.)

Here are the instructions to correct the problem, at least for an Acer Aspire One, and which are also findable through ask.fedoraproject.org:

1) install F21 32bit workstation, by babysitting the system throughout the whole install to keep waking it up every minute or so (literally!)
2) reboot using a live-dvd that works on the system, such as the F21 XFCE live-DVD
3) mount the hard drive (not really sure specifically how my brother did it but using Thunar seemed to help out a lot)
4)open a terminal session and make sure the hard drive is mounted
5) edit the file /etc/systemd/logind.conf (such as using nano)
6) uncomment the settings for “HandleSuspendKey” and “HandleLidSwitch”
7) set the “HandleSuspendKey” and “HandleLidSwitch” options to “ignore”
8) save the file
9) reboot
10) enjoy

… and, it seems, my instructions, posted on ask.fedoraproject.org, helped at least one other user with an Acer Aspire one. I’m pleased. ?

Now, as for what I think of it … well I like F21 Workstation. On my laptop, it’s a slightly sluggish, but still working well.