Debian User Forums

Posted: **2018-10-07 15:02**

Haven't heard of Alpine before. Unfortunately I don't have time to play right now.

Posted: **2018-10-07 15:06**

If you do find the time I have a webpage with some notes on using Alpine Linux for the desktop:

https://head-on-a-stick.github.io/

It really is Linux Done Right™

Posted: **2018-10-07 15:33**

Bookmarked for its time. Right now I'm having too much fun with Stretch (and getting some work done too). Storm last week took out my main desktop, not just the power supply unfortunately although it tested bad, new one tests good but computer is still completely unresponsive. Lot of work to set up a mainframe with all the multimedia, samba and all, and as I'm sure you're well aware, most of the documentation is woefully out of date. Info can be found but it's not as simple as looking in the wiki. Thanks for the info!

Posted: **2018-10-08 19:37**

I have a toy project based on minimal devuan, but I'm sure much of it would translate to debian minimal, too. It started rough but is mostly stable now. It's really just a bunch of under-the-hood tweaks to a minimal base, and is meant to be used with a simple window manager, like dwm or the boxes. The different configs and scripts accomplish the same tasks as other managers (wifi, power, etc) without the overhead of a GUI and with more flexibility for automation and customization.
https://github.com/souperdoupe/crunkbong

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:the musl libc base is noticeably lighter than the bloated GNU libc variant (as used by Debian)

noob question, but how are you measuring this?

Posted: **2018-10-08 19:47**

n_hologram wrote:https://github.com/souperdoupe/crunkbong

I love that project, it is awesome

n_hologram wrote:
Head_on_a_Stick wrote:the musl libc base is noticeably lighter than the bloated GNU libc variant (as used by Debian)
noob question, but how are you measuring this?

I have a readout of the load average of the system over the last minute displaying in the status bar of my desktop:

Code: Select all

while sleep 1;do xsetroot -name "$(uptime|awk '{gsub(",","");print $9}')  •  $(apm|awk '/Battery/{print $4}')  •  $(date +'%F  •  %T')";done&

^ That's for OpenBSD, for Linux I awk /proc/loadavg directly.

I also like to check memory usage at a bare desktop and I think Alpine Linux holds the record at the moment (~32MiB used in a 64-bit system with 4GiB total RAM) but OpenBSD only uses slightly more memory with a slightly lower load average so... *shrugs*

EDIT: I would claim a subjective benefit in respect of how snappy the system feels but this is probably just my imagination:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Benchmarks ftw!

Posted: **2018-10-09 00:56**

Head_on_a_Stick wrote: EDIT: I would claim a subjective benefit in respect of how snappy the system feels but this is probably just my imagination:

So long as you feel it's better, who else cares? One of the things I like about Linux, and open-source in general, is the right to suit yourself. I was going to say the ability, but that's up to you also, to aquire it or not. Sorry if I'm a bit off-topic. Oh, OK, not all that sorry.

Posted: **2018-10-23 09:29**

Me! Dell Inspiron 9400 with 2gb ram and 512mb vram running Debian 9 with mate is now a working computer! I use it for minecraft servers when my friends come over, as a client in a pinch, an apache server for my intranet, all kinds of stuff! Linux FTW!!

Posted: **2018-10-23 13:53**

Apline has given my Acer Aspire 5715z a new lease of life, I was using it as my main system for a month or two.
It had been lying gathering dust for a few years as I couldn't get the fan working properly under linux, I gave up after a few failed attempts to install windows7/10/dosbox to update the bios.
Along came Alpine and the fan works perfectly, no idea why, alongside a much cleaner and lighter system. I have Debian as a glibc chroot, and Void, installed from within Alpine, which is nice. The system also runs pretty smooth on a 32gb flash drive in a usb 2 port.

Posted: **2018-11-08 02:32**

not old but still a laptop ASUS X540SA... running debian stretch... sometimes freezing.... but it's working pretty well!!!!!!!!

Cheers from Panamá!!!!!!!

Posted: **2018-11-08 03:09**

My latest is a 6930p, HP Elitebook it's about 8-10 yrs old? It was a decent upgrade for me. My eyes are getting old so the switch from a 10 inch to 14 is really nice, 2gb to 4gb ram. I put a cheap ssd in it. Pretty snazzy, and I got it for next to nothing from my reliable local hardware shop.

p.s. okay it's not -really- snazzy, it's built like a tank and has just about every hardware known to man in it.

Posted: **2018-11-09 00:38**

I purposely bought an older refurbished old road warrior laptop, a 2012 Dell Latitude E6430 with a few character scars to install a Linux system. This thing is metal and solid ! Under the hood: a dual core i5 with 16GB RAM and a 250 GB SSD drive. I installed Debian Buster (only, no dual boot Windows) with KDE plasma. It's sweet..and its fast !

Posted: **2018-11-09 09:53**

piperdan wrote:I purposely bought an older refurbished old road warrior laptop, a 2012 Dell Latitude E6430 with a few character scars to install a Linux system. This thing is metal and solid ! Under the hood: a dual core i5 with 16GB RAM and a 250 GB SSD drive.

you put that SSD in there?

i am currently hunting for a used laptop; may i enquire if yours plays HEVC video? here's a hi-res example and here's a mid-res example - they should not tax the CPU too much, i.e. the GPU should support decoding it.

Posted: **2018-11-09 11:21**

you put that SSD in there?

i am currently hunting for a used laptop; may i enquire if yours plays HEVC video? here's a hi-res example and here's a mid-res example - they should not tax the CPU too much, i.e. the GPU should support decoding it.

First question: Nope. I bought it that way as a used / refurbished laptop online from BestBuy.

Second Question: It plays both your video links.....no problem or hesitation.

Here's the specs:

Code: Select all

danny@Home:~$ inxi -F
System:    Host: Home Kernel: 4.18.0-2-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.13.5 Distro: Debian GNU/Linux buster/sid 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: Dell product: Latitude E6430 v: 01 serial: <root required> 
           Mobo: Dell model: N/A serial: <root required> BIOS: Dell v: A12 date: 05/20/2013 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 21.9 Wh condition: 21.9/60.0 Wh (37%) 
CPU:       Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-3340M bits: 64 type: MT MCP L2 cache: 3072 KiB 
           Speed: 1619 MHz min/max: 1200/3400 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1439 2: 1502 3: 1490 4: 1500 
Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA GF108GLM [NVS 5200M] driver: nouveau v: kernel 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1366x768~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: NVC1 v: 4.3 Mesa 18.1.9 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel 
           Device-2: NVIDIA GF108 High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.18.0-2-amd64 
Network:   Device-1: Intel 82579LM Gigabit Network driver: e1000e 
           IF: eno1 state: down mac: f0:1f:af:1b:c2:dd 
           Device-2: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 [Taylor Peak] driver: iwlwifi 
           IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: 6c:88:14:7d:ae:fc 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 232.89 GiB used: 13.68 GiB (5.9%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: SK Hynix model: HFS250G32TND-N1A2A size: 232.89 GiB 
RAID:      Hardware-1: Intel 82801 Mobile SATA Controller [RAID mode] driver: ahci 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 212.53 GiB used: 13.68 GiB (6.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 15.95 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 65.0 C mobo: 48.0 C sodimm: 41.0 C gpu: nouveau temp: 55 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 2882 
Info:      Processes: 191 Uptime: 33m Memory: 15.62 GiB used: 1.29 GiB (8.3%) Shell: bash inxi: 3.0.27 
danny@Home:~$

Posted: **2018-11-10 10:10**

^ oh, it has dual graphics.
how's that working? do you need to tell it which gpu to use?

when you played the example videos, did you get the impression that the cpu is taking the brunt, or does it offload to one of the gpus?

Posted: **2018-11-10 12:57**

debiman wrote:^ oh, it has dual graphics.
how's that working? do you need to tell it which gpu to use?

when you played the example videos, did you get the impression that the cpu is taking the brunt, or does it offload to one of the gpus?

I apologize for my ignorance. I didn't even know I had dual graphics. I thought I just had one graphics device and two audio devices:

Code: Select all

Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA GF108GLM [NVS 5200M] driver: nouveau v: kernel 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1366x768~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: NVC1 v: 4.3 Mesa 18.1.9 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel 
           Device-2: NVIDIA GF108 High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.18.0-2-amd64

I didn't knowingly switch anything.
Ksysguard monitor showed that the cpu had a couple of spikes up to 70%, with the average 40-50% during the playing of the hi-res video.
I was also able to add a couple of gpu sensor trends, which remained unchanged through the playing of the video (at GPU Core: 0.98V, and 57 deg.C)

Hope that helps.

Posted: **2018-11-11 14:39**

Private + Shared = RAM used Program

44.0 KiB + 0.5 KiB = 44.5 KiB perpboot
64.0 KiB + 0.5 KiB = 64.5 KiB socklog
72.0 KiB + 1.5 KiB = 73.5 KiB crond
92.0 KiB + 0.5 KiB = 92.5 KiB perpd
124.0 KiB + 0.5 KiB = 124.5 KiB init
68.0 KiB + 114.5 KiB = 182.5 KiB rc.main
72.0 KiB + 114.5 KiB = 186.5 KiB startx
196.0 KiB + 0.5 KiB = 196.5 KiB acpid
152.0 KiB + 49.5 KiB = 201.5 KiB tinylog (9)
156.0 KiB + 314.5 KiB = 470.5 KiB xinit
284.0 KiB + 224.5 KiB = 508.5 KiB dbus-daemon
420.0 KiB + 92.5 KiB = 512.5 KiB dhcpcd
664.0 KiB + 232.5 KiB = 896.5 KiB mksh (3)
1.5 MiB + 162.5 KiB = 1.7 MiB wpa_supplicant
2.7 MiB + 918.5 KiB = 3.6 MiB dwm
3.5 MiB + 4.8 MiB = 8.4 MiB udevd (15)
7.9 MiB + 665.5 KiB = 8.5 MiB Xorg
---------------------------------
25.6 MiB
=================================
Linux dragora 4.18.9-gnu #2 SMP Tue Sep 25 02:05:05 UTC 2018 i686 GNU/Linux

D3 alpha2 on my 11 year old Dell inspiron 6400.
Dragora-ice is nearly there as a more conventional choice for alpha3, albeit getting a wee bit heavier.
Now we just need to build some packages!
Qi the package builder can be used on other distros with a bit of work and without interference (allegedly) testers required if your feeling brave.

Posted: **2018-11-14 00:16**

piperdan wrote: I didn't knowingly switch anything.
Ksysguard monitor showed that the cpu had a couple of spikes up to 70%, with the average 40-50% during the playing of the hi-res video.
I was also able to add a couple of gpu sensor trends, which remained unchanged through the playing of the video (at GPU Core: 0.98V, and 57 deg.C)

Hope that helps.

on second inspection, your output doesn't say anything about hybrid graphics except that i'm pretty sure that these intel CPUs include a GPU; plus the nvidia, makes two.
anyhow, i recently put my hands on a very similar machine, they're really nice. compact, beautiful, sturdy.
unfortunately the video test was abysmal (probably because the seller had put a new copy of win 10 on the machine) so i decided not to buy it. have settled on a new and super cheap jumper ezbook 3 pro now.

Posted: **2018-11-15 19:57**

That sounds like a deal. However, how did you install Debian? Was there any hardships with installing to the emmc? That's under a kilo right? how's the performance?

Posted: **2018-11-16 20:03**

^ are you asking me?
it hasn't arrived yet.
manjaro seems to be running fine on it (touchpad issue has also been fixed by now).

Posted: **2020-06-19 20:04**

I have an old Toshiba A1 that still has Winxp on it. I tried (like hell) to get Debian on it. But I found there are known, not fixable, problems with the beast. Wanted to get it to work on today's wifi, since Xp only has wep authentication. But just couldn't get it to work. SO it stays as an old WinXP games box (starcraft

Diablo2

) But I have a Thinkpad W700 that is my go-to testing box. I recently enlisted it in a Trinity Desktop test that worked. I also picked up an old highschool surplus Thinkpad X100e as an expendable toter. I had Debian buster with cinnamon on it (some idiot before TRIED to upgrade it to windows 10

) Anyway. Debian ran OK on it but there is a known issue with the fan not working right. I was in the process of trying to fix it when I go my hands on a Windows 7 usb install and put it back in (as it was meant to be) The Z700 has dual hard drives and I'm tempted to move everything off drive 1 and setting it up as a Dualboot. I swapped them out for a spare to test the Trinity load-over.

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