libera/#devuan-arm/ Friday, 2023-06-02

agneliso all in all, looks like the issue is specific to me06:59
agneliie I messed up something with cards...07:00
agnelibut hell... what exactly? :)07:00
gnarfaceagneli: good question, my only idea is that outdated e2fsprogs bug07:13
gnarfaceyou might want to try another filesystem though anyway07:13
gnarfacei think i did also run into one instance of a cheap/old SD card that would keep getting corrupted in ext4 regardless of the e2fsprogs version07:14
gnarfacecouldn't quite prove it but switched filesystems and it stopped happening07:14
agneliit is not getting corrupted07:15
agneli:)07:15
agnelii never really lost anything07:16
agnelijust need to reisntall the software07:16
agneliwhich is a pain for big stuff07:16
agneliit just goes ro suddenly07:16
agneligod knows why07:17
gnarfacewell the corruption might be local to a particular directory or file and not super obvious, possibly even hidden07:17
gnarfacethe auto-switch to "ro" mode is triggered by the device firmware in the event of any of a certain class of filesystem errors07:17
agneliyou mean that even fsck will not find the corrupted fs elements?07:17
agnelii do not believe I have outdated anything...07:18
gnarfaceyea some times that was the case when this was happening to me with ext4, and the device firmware couldn't seem to distinguish from a hardware error. experts from the distro (raspbian at the time) even told me without a shadow of a doubt that they were sure my sd card was fried07:18
gnarfaceyet time and time again, i'd just zero it with dd and it'd work again07:18
gnarfaceeventually i just gave up on ext407:18
agnelihow come the device fw recognizes fs errors?07:19
gnarface(none of the maintainers could admit to having even tested it on SD media)07:19
agneliachhh so what fs you would recommend for sd cards, please?07:19
gnarfacei don't know that either. like i said, i suspect it just can't tell the difference when it's a certain type of filesystem error07:19
gnarfacei would these days recommend trying xfs first, probably07:20
gnarfaceit's super fast for reads07:20
gnarfacealso it's the only one that has multi-threading support07:20
gnarfacei was shocked to find that out07:21
agneliwhat I would believe is happening it is some sort of buffer unrerrun... card is to slow to accept the data, and anyway cards are optimized to cope with FAT which is much much simpler fs than any ext fs07:21
gnarfaceevery other filesystem is single-threaded07:21
agnelioh07:21
agnelii guess I need to rtfm...07:21
gnarfaceyea, xfs also seems to have a lot lower write overhead than ext4 for me, when it comes to just how many operations it takes to actually commit stuff07:21
agneliwhat does it mean single-threaded fs...07:21
gnarfacejust means that xfs is the only one that can benefit from a multi-core cpu07:22
gnarfaceit's the only one that can actually use multiple cpu cores to speed itself up07:22
gnarfacei also found out reiserfs works really well but i can't recommend it just because there's a social stigma attached to it that's so strong it may actually lead to literal persecution07:23
agnelisocial stigma?07:24
agnelilike systemd07:25
gnarfacewhat i would recommend against is f2fs because even though it claims to be flash friendly it's been associated with some increased reports of hardware failure rates in another channel i'm nin07:25
gnarfacei'm in*07:25
agnelireiserfs is there since very very long...07:26
gnarfaceyea, xfs and reiserfs would be my top two picks for sd cards07:27
gnarfacejfs, ext3, they'll work fine just be slower07:27
gnarfaceext4 i'd avoid using on anything slow07:27
* agneli is very curious about social stigma on reiserfs07:27
gnarfaceyou really don't know?07:27
gnarfaceit's sorta offtopic for here but the lead developer was convicted of murder07:28
onefanghttps://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/05/31/bugs_in_ex_sgi_xfs/ might be important to you if using XFS and kernel 6.3.07:28
agnelioh man... that is really kinda bizzare feeling...07:29
gnarfaceoh, thanks for the warning onefang. luckily nothing i have here is past 6.1 yet07:29
agnelilike listening to Norwegian black metal...07:29
gnarfacehaha, yea i heard those guys aren't kidding either07:30
agnelithank you gnarface, you are always so kind and helpful07:30
gnarfaceno problem, good luck with it07:30
agneliso basically ext4 is not good for slow devices07:30
gnarfacethat's been my experience07:30
agnelith eother thing is why the hell I see nothing in logs07:30
gnarfacei can't get any experts to believe me07:30
agnelimaybe I am not competent enough to find out? :(07:31
gnarfaceno i think it's hiding the errors honestly07:31
gnarfaceor it doesn't know07:31
gnarfacedoesn't matter07:31
gnarfacewhat matters is if you switch to xfs and it stops happening you make sure to tell someone07:31
agneliso we are saying it is the fw of the card that sends some signal to kernel to make particular fs ro07:31
agnelibut hell kernel should log it, no? what is that? windows? :(07:32
* agneli promises to return07:32
gnarfaceseems like it should be logged somewhere but maybe you have to enable extra log verbosity or something07:32
agnelibut well switch... will parted just convert my fs over weekend?07:32
agneli~30 GiB07:33
agneliand speaning about devuan on arm, what sbc is all the rage now, please? :)07:37
gnarfacei'm not sure if parted can convert between those two filesystems07:43
gnarfacei kinda doubt it07:43
gnarfaceyou wouldn't want to risk it if it's corrupted anyway07:44
onefangA question I'd like to ask as well.  Old client wants to switch his embedded device to a Pi, but the are still very hard to get.07:44
agnelifsck says fs is OK07:44
onefangThe old device is a 486 SBC about the size of a bigger Pi.  I build a very cut down Linux for it.07:45
gnarfacesomeone should buy some pine64 hardware for devuan, so there can be official images07:45
agnelionefang: there are news spread by the pi foundation that hard times are over07:45
gnarfacedevuan is working great on my pine64 A64+ boards, but i had to compile the kernel and u-boot myself07:46
gnarfacei assume it'd work pretty much the same way for their faster stuff07:46
onefangYes, but I checked my usual supplier for Pi stuff, and they say that all but two of their dozens of devices are "pre order, wait months".07:46
* agneli never bought any pine64 device as many ppl on this very channel confirmed their support is crap and build quality not so great07:46
gnarfacewell they have the exact same support quality as the Pi07:47
gnarfacewhich is to say, none, because it's 100% community volunteers actually supporting it07:47
onefangThat supplier has plenty of Beagle Boards.07:47
gnarfacetheir build quality is inferior but that's usually not an issue for the SoC stuff because they're all one piece and one of it is plastic07:48
agneliaccording to wikipedia reiserfs is planned to be removed from linux kernel07:48
gnarfaceunsurprising, it's already been removed from the debian installer07:48
gnarfacesome releases ago07:48
gnarfacenobody wants to maintain it07:49
gnarfacepossibly also many people don't want it maintained07:49
gnarfacea shame too, because it is actually still a good filesystem07:57
gnarfacebut so is xfs07:57
gnarfaceboth those filesystems were designed on and for much slower hardware so that gives them an edge07:58
onefang"their build quality is inferior"  you mean the pine64, not the Beagle Boards?08:00
onefangHousemate keeps bothering me, as is his habit, or I would have asked that earlier.08:02
gnarfaceonefang: yea, pine64, not the beagle boards. and they will replace defective stuff, it's just that shipping and import fees from hong kong are really brutal08:04
onefangSo our original question stands (agneli and mine) what's a good ARM based SoC / SBC that runs Devuan / special built cut down Linux, that is "all the rage now" and can actually be bought.  In my case my client will want hundreds after the initial dev copies.08:04
gnarfaceyea i think you should seriously look into pine64 because the low cost in that case makes up for the shipping fees AND the quality control issues08:06
onefangWe did try out Olimex boards a few year ago.  I managed to destroy one.  lol08:06
agnelito add a bit to onefang's topic... what about those Bulgaria or Romania folks? th eones that make agon light 8 bit board?08:06
agneliach yes exactly08:06
agneliOlimex I mean08:06
gnarfacehttps://pine64.com/product-category/pine-a64-ltslong-term-supply/08:08
onefangAs for buying a pine64 for Devuan builds, I could get the client to pay for that.  B-)08:08
gnarfacei can tell you how to build a kernel and u-boot for this one08:08
gnarfacebut you might want to go with this one instead, if you're going for performance https://pine64.com/product-category/rockpro64/08:09
gnarfacethe first one is an AllWinner brand CPU, the second one is Rockchip08:09
agneliwhat about Olimex being able to ship overnight(EU countries)ODOC? and made in EU/warranty?08:09
gnarfacethey have some risc-v stuff out now too but i wouldn't gamble on the kernel support really being there yet08:09
onefangAs I said, it's replacing an old 486 embedded SBC, so performance isn't a big concern.08:09
gnarfaceoh, the A64 board will blow the doors off that08:10
onefangMe and my client are in Australia, so we dunno about Olimex EU shipping and warranty.08:10
agneliAch :)08:10
gnarfaceagneli: for whatever it's worth, pine64eu.com ships from poland and has the eu warranty (which is why their prices are higher than pine64.com too, but they're a legit store)08:10
gnarfacepine64eu.com may have a limited selection of parts, i think they mostly sell cellphones from there08:11
agneliPoland?08:11
onefangSo your answer to our question gnarface is "pine64", and NOT just coz Devuan needs it as well?08:11
gnarfaceonefang: i admit there's a dual motive but i do think they're also the hot new player08:12
agneliso you support both in one go: communists(CCP) and national socialists(PL)? :D08:12
agnelibut u seem very convinced about pine64 gnarface08:13
agneliI was looking especially at their eink device08:13
gnarfaceofftopic for here but, but it's not a political choice08:13
onefangI mostly just want to support my client, don't think he's either of those.  lol08:13
gnarfacei do not support communism, national socialism, totaliarian regimes, or censoring of history08:14
* agneli remains silent08:14
agneliwhat about eink, please? :)08:15
onefangI'll be hanging around to see what other people think as well.08:15
gnarfacei haven't seen one of their e-ink devices yet08:15
agneliso I will wait...08:16
onefange-ink isn't something I have been looking at.  Frame buffer and colour VGA is what we do now.  HDMI would also work.08:16
* agneli is a huge fan of eink08:16
gnarfacewhat happened is just that i was looking for something to replace my raspberry pi, because i was fed up with their shitty community, i already had previous beef with broadcom for other reasons, and i wanted something that wasn't suspiciously encumbered by non-free firmware to unlock flagship features08:16
gnarfacethen someone pointed out pine64 on slashdot's daily deals page08:17
gnarfacei talked to the kids a little bit08:17
agneliach yes... raspberry comminity... I really understand08:17
onefangMore open hardware is why we where looking at Olimex.  Pine64 has that benefit to.08:17
gnarfacethey seemed like nice college boys who just wanted to help out the linux community08:17
gnarfacethey consider themselves capitalists and they're in it for the money, but most their devices are sold very close to cost08:18
gnarfaceand they have their own irc network, irc.pine64.org and there's people who will talk to you about their stuff all day there from all over the world08:18
agneliwhat about those folks: https://radxa.com/08:19
gnarfacei've heard nothing about them08:20
agneliso many boards :)08:20
onefangI don't need any support "I, a very experienced developer, can get the clients bespoke Linux that I put together running on it" I can probably get that sorted with no help.  Client would just want "deliver when you say you will, replace any broken ones".08:20
onefangradxa is new to me to.08:20
onefangOh and decent docs so we can wire up the hardware and drive it.08:21
gnarfaceonefang: if you're actually interested in bulk orders you should contact sales@pine64.org directly and ask what type of support deals they'll offer. i'm pretty sure they're willing to do different types of relations business-to-business than they are just selling to hobbyists and developers08:21
gnarfacethat's what i've been told to tell people anyway08:22
onefangSAme with the Pi people, and all the other embedded parts suppliers.08:22
gnarfaceyea but broadcom are shifty assholes08:23
onefangAgreed.  lol08:23
onefangIn general "I want 300 tomorrow" will get you a better reaction than " I want 1 tomorrow".08:24
agneliheheh08:27
agneliyeah but what about our mental health08:28
agneliwhen quality is not there?08:28
* agneli ordered 1200 acer laptops once...08:28
agnelinever again...08:28
gnarfaceno question i would recommend ordering extra08:28
gnarfaceif you're ordering from pine6408:28
gnarfacejust in case a few are defective08:28
gnarfacejust to save time08:29
agneliof course the ones that broke were the ones handed over to the most sensitive users, murphy's law...08:29
gnarfaceyea i would also recommend testing everything before handing it over08:29
onefangWhen it came to the daughter board that hooks up to the hardware and pretends to be a USB keyboard, I wrote the PIC code in assembler, for fun.  My mental health is questionable anyway.  We want to drive the hardware directly this time though.08:30
agnelican I come back to original topis, please?08:34
agnelihttps://developer.ridgerun.com/wiki/index.php/High_performance_SD_card_tuning_using_the_EXT4_file_system08:34
agnelidoes it make any sense?08:35
gnarfacewhat does it say to do?08:56
gnarfaceincrease the commit interval or something?08:56
gnarfaceincrease block sizes?08:57
gnarfacei never found anything that helped but if you find something that does let me know08:58
agneliremover journal and optimize some in kernel parameters...09:11
agneliI will std stuff before any changes...09:12
agneli*study09:13
agnelianybody seen this, btw: https://docs.maxxinteractive.com/books/mid-v211-installation-guide/page/debian-guide-%28x64%2910:25
agneli:)10:25
gnarfaceagneli: lol don't remove the journal10:36
gnarfacethat's terrible advice10:36
gnarfacesure, it'll make it faster but at what cost?10:36
gnarfacethe journal is practically the whole point10:36
gnarfacethat would definitely be an irrational choice for solving a potential filesystem corruption issue10:38
gnarfacealso, at that point you might as well just run ext210:39
onefangAgreed.10:46
agnelilet me quote myself: "09:12 < agneli> I will std stuff before any changes..."13:41
agneli:)13:41
agnelibut I am grateful for your remarks anyway13:41
agneli"price of freedom is eternal vigilance" - who know where this one comes from? :)13:42
agneliach and this std = study :)13:44

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