Debian 10 Buster Cinnamon Desktop Update

[trinidad]

You might want to lower your system cache pressure setting. Default is 100. Try 50 and see if you get less crashes.

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sudo nano /etc/sysctl.conf

Add the line below at the end of the file and save.

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vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50

TC

[Head_on_a_Stick]

see what happens

Both of your suggested commands do exactly the same thing. Lots of packages would be upgraded to the sid versions, including libc6.

Installing stuff from sid in a Debian stable system is a really stupid idea unless the user actually knows what they're doing, please don't post "advice" like that.

There's a very good reason why stevepusser has gone to the trouble of backporting the packages to the stable release.

[xlepws]

see what happens

Both of your suggested commands do exactly the same thing.

So what would be the command to install a single package, leaving all dependencies "unsolved" (or say, from the current release? I have found a (very old) discussion which mentions something like that: https://linuxaria.com/howto/how-to-inst ... n-testing; has anything changed since?

Installing stuff from sid in a Debian stable system is a really stupid idea unless the user actually knows what they're doing, please don't post "advice" like that.

There's a very good reason why stevepusser has gone to the trouble of backporting the packages to the stable release.

I will learn from this post, thanks man (In my mind I'd create a snapshot with timeshift or similar, then revert if anything went wrong). Btw Steve himself replied in the thread I linked above, saying best would be to backport..still true

[Head_on_a_Stick]

So what would be the command to install a single package, leaving all dependencies "unsolved" (or say, from the current release? I have found a (very old) discussion which mentions something like that: https://linuxaria.com/howto/how-to-inst ... an-testing

That would only work if the dependencies were unversioned or if they had dependency versions that were satisfied by the packages in stable and that is not the case for many of the Cinnamon desktop packages.

I simulated your suggested commands on my buster box and in both cases a whole mass of dependencies from sid were pulled in, including libc6. B0rkage would be almost guaranteed. Feel free to try it on your system and prove me wrong though, I could do with a good laugh.

[xlepws]

So what would be the command to install a single package, leaving all dependencies "unsolved" (or say, from the current release? I have found a (very old) discussion which mentions something like that: https://linuxaria.com/howto/how-to-inst ... an-testing

That would only work if the dependencies were unversioned or if they had dependency versions that were satisfied by the packages in stable and that is not the case for many of the Cinnamon desktop packages.

I simulated your suggested commands on my buster box and in both cases a whole mass of dependencies from sid were pulled in, including libc6. B0rkage would be almost guaranteed. Feel free to try it on your system and prove me wrong though, I could do with a good laugh.

I believe you I will install a Deb10 stable and try myself though..maybe This said, I was just wondering if the 2 commands I suggested (after reading them on the page I linked) are meant to do the same thing..or 2 different things (1st with dependencies, 2nd without) but eventually result in the same output.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

2 different things (1st with dependencies, 2nd without) but eventually result in the same output

^ This.

[newb2debian]

trinidad...the sysctl.conf file was empty so I added the line you suggested, and after some research, another line to the file:

vm.swappiness=10
vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50

Although I still get Cinnamon crashes, they don't seem to be as frequent.

[stevepusser]

You could try upgrading to the 4.2 version in my OBS repo to see if that makes any difference.

or you could install the latest cinnamon package available, i.e. v4.4.8-2 either by running

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apt -t sid install cinnamon

(with sid's dependencies) or

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apt install cinnamon/sid

(your release's dependencies), and see what happens

You can crash your car into a cement wall at 200 kph to "see what happens", but it wouldn't be my advice to anyone!

[trinidad]

vm.swappiness=10

Adjust swappiness the other way. Default is 60 so set it to 80. Things like this are relative to each other. Cache pressure down swappiness up can help with sporadic system RAM shortage. Performance difference on such a machine should be negligible for most things but crashes should be less frequent.

TC

[newb2debian]

trinidad...changed swappiness to 80. Thanks.

I think I may have found what is causing the Cinnamon crashes - BleachBit (the repo version and the upgraded 3.2.0 version). When I finish using my computer I run BleachBit and then mouse down to the Menu button and click and that's where most of the issues occur. The system locks up and then logs me out of the desktop. Odd.

[stevepusser]

There's an old thread here called the Repo Mix and Match parade by the late and sorely missed daesin: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=114130

It dates back to the time where I came up with the method to downgrade libc6 safely on Wheezy, so maybe I mentioned it in that thread. I don't have time to go through it today, but it's amusing reading anyway. We haven't had any users really mess up their systems enough to get added to the thread, but we could always start again with you.