Systemd weirdness in Fedora - AND - Red Hat EL 8

General Linux Question
41

Dunno if that’s the case any more (diversity)… even “Scientific Linux” is based on Red Hat… All the Seismology scientists I’ve worked with (at two different exploration companies) used Red Hat EL - that’s what companies like Halliburton recommend (explicitly specify) for running OpenWorks on (RHEL 7 for the current version of OpenWorks). In 2017 I did a stint at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, 95% of their stuff was running on RHEL 7, including DESKTOPS! There were a few instances of CentOS floating around, and some users, meteorologists used Fedora - and BoM still had some AIX floating about (but no Solaris) - but they were effectively a HUGE Red Hat shop.

I will say that Academia is way more diverse than Corpporate - to the DETRIMENT of Academia IMHO. You get “silos” where some propellor head neckbeard decided Debian was the “go”, then a bunch of bean counter sysadmin types decided they needed Oracle Linux to run Oracle Financials - then some other bunch of knobs over somewhere else, who develop stuff on Ubuntu, and run Ubuntu will only deploy their app on Ubuntu (e.g. stuff like Moodle)… Then some gobshites write some “bespoke” (what a CRAP name for a CRAP solution) application that ONLY runs on Debian 3 (yes!) and they have to keep running f–king Debian 3, in 2022, when Debian 3 was END OF LIFE around 2010!!! And then yet another “School” go all out Red Hat Enterprise Linux… Nightmare fuel! And guess what - some “SDM” accepted this dog’s breakfast into BAU support including a F^CKING MONTHLY patching cycle! How the F^CK do you patch Debian 3 every month???

1 Like
42

Yes thats what CSIRO used to be like. A variety show.
Diversity is not all bad… it makes the place more flexible and more interesting
But I dont agree with clinging to Debian 3 or whatever

I have never been near Red Hat. Why is it so good/popular? It has taken the place IBM used to occupy.
Being the birthplace of systemd kind of turns me off

43

OK - enough of this shite… up with this, I shall not put…

Third time in the last 2 days - USB 3 devices stop working - this NEVER happened with Ubuntu… it’s so F–KING annoying! rebooting fixes it… but THAT’S NOT THE ANSWER!

It’s back to Ubuntu I go… I don’t care about systemd (get used to it - it’s here to stay), I don’t want to try other things for variety - I just want to do stuff and not endlessly f-ck around trying to get this to work…

two hours later - I’m cooking with gas on the shuttleworth express :smiley:

going to keep using the default themes for the time being… just tweak the odd thing or two - like putting X_ [] buttons on the left - couple of extensions (like Dash To Dock - that works in Gnome 42 on Ubuntu)…

ALL my data is now sync’d and I’m ready to grab a beer (cider actually) and watch a game of footie - GO TIGERS!

shit - got fixtures mixed up - Tigers play tomorrow… Oh well…

1 Like
44

Seriously - f-ck this sh!t…

USB 3 just stopped / dropped out on Ubuntu 22.04…

Note : Fedora 35 was running Kernel 5.17… Ubuntu 22.04 is running kernel 5.15…

It could be hardware - but - I doubt it very much - it’s f–king software I’m sure of it!!!

USB 3 was working fine in my live session… Soon as I commit to installing - Canonical rip the rug out from under me :face_with_symbols_over_mouth: :rage: :skull_and_crossbones: :skull: :poop:

Tried ALL 3 USB 3 ports on the motherboard - my phone gets a current (for charging) but there’s no data…

Plug the phone with the same cable into a USB 2 hub - SHOWS UP STRAIGHT AWAY… this is the sort of shit I DON’T remember with Linux in the last 10 years… 10+ years ago, Desktop Linux was mostly a piece of unserviceable crap… Feels like it’s heading back there…

Before I waste too much time on this - I am seriously considering going back to Ubuntu 20.04… plug and play… IS that too much to ask???

Just checked EOL date for Ubuntu 20.04 - 2030 !!! I might even be dead by then… Probably right around the time those lazy sods over at Symless (Gormless) port their Synergy product to run on Wayland!

Given also that work is replacing my clunky MacBook Air (2018 - i5 - it’s a slug compared to my M1 MacBook Pro) with probably a Thinkpad running Red Hat 8 - I can get used to running Gnome 3.x - I was used to it before anyway…

Just convinced myself - wiping this PoCrap off my NVMe and re-installing Ubuntu 20.04…

While we’re on the topic of making bootable USB drives, does anyone know Why The “F” using “conv=sync” with “dd” does sweet FA? Why bother with it?

I just used DD to write a Ubuntu 20.04.4 DVD onto a thumb drive, used “conv=sync” and it finished almost instantly (my arse!) and 'cause I know it’s bullshit, right after that I run a manual “sudo sync” and 20 (edit - now 35 minutes FFS!) minutes later that sync command still has not returned control to my terminal! That’s a piece of crap…

Watched Lunduke’s “Linux Sucks 2022” talk on Sunday morning (6:30 am - I’m a subscriber) - and yeah -LINUX SUCKS, but less than MacOS and 10,000x less than MS Windows…

1 Like
45

I did the same thing last night with rsync to a usb drive. It dropped the prompt back almost instantly, but reported far fewer bytes written than bytes read.
Then I did “sync” and it took half the night to buffer out everything.
Floppy disks used to behave like that .
You would think the driver would flush its buffer before finishing.

Mine was in Debian 11. Its not the OS or Version, its some property of drivers for demountables.

conv=sync doesnt sync… it pads blocks with blanks
you need conv=fdatasync to force flushing

2 Likes
46

But it makes a mockery of even having the redundant dummy argument “conv=sync” or “conv=fsync” 'cause both seem about as useful as constant pressing the pedestrian crossing button, or the up button for a elevator / lift…

Well - the 2nd time around (wipe Ubuntu 22 and install 20) took a bit longer - but finally sync’d and I can watch TV and all my data’s sync’d across… What seemed to take the most time was :

getting a dash to dock plugin to work
several reboots and updates to get my GPU working correctly :
Ubuntu 20.04.4 live ran at 1024x768, then after install, it ran QHD on only one monitor… Updated - rebooted - now it can see ALL my monitors and I’m using opensource AMD / Radeon drivers (and not Wayland). I bought a 4 host KVM, but its still not has indispensible as Synergy (share clipboard alone is enough to make it “de rigeur” for my workflow and peace of mind).

HELLO UBUNTU 20.04 - :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes: :brown_heart: :heavy_heart_exclamation: :heart: :revolving_hearts: :two_hearts: :heart_eyes: sorry - I won’t ever be unfaithful to you again - can you forgive me straying?.. Who needs kernel 5.15 or 5.17 anyway - 5.13 on Ubuntu 20.04.4 does what I need… and I can keep getting updates until at least 2030… And at least with Ubuntu (and Debian) I know how to make sure they’re using the closest repos (I’ve no idea how to tell that with Fedora, and CentOS has this SHITTY thing where it insists it knows which is the fastest repo mirror, when I know PERFECTLY well it’s more efficient to use one at a Perth University, than an Adelaide, or Melbourne University, or SOUTH AFRICAN!!!).

Fingers crossed, touch wood, no more USB 3 dropouts (never happened on Ubuntu 20.04 before I started trialling Fedora 35)… I’ve got a USB 3 thumb drive and a USB 3 external SSD hooked up - will check they’re online in the morning… then in the arvo… Also will restore a backup of some of my Steam Games I plonked on that SSD…

And updates and upgrades are not always an improvement… Latest and Greatest introduced an intolerable level of flakiness…

Take the simple example of my favourite “little” media player, Sayonara… IT was DAMN NEAR perfect by version 1.41… I love it so much around 1.3x I chipped in to the author’s pateon…

But - 1.51? It was awful… even removed middle button click on a song or a folder to play it…

Then 1.6 an 1.7 kinda forced a media database… 1.7 is noticeably slower, considerably, than 1.41…

The beauty of Sayonara was a its elegant simplicty and small footprint - increasing that footprint CANNOT be an improvement… Fortunately I keep archives of older PACKAGE (DEB files) versions of Sayonara, and I can install 1.41 deb file on Ubuntu (or debian) and it just works… Fedora has it in its repos, and it FORCES you to only run 1.72 which is a slug, and less usable than any previous version…

1 Like
47

Last time I used conv=sync was reading and writing 9 track reel tapes on a Control Data mainframe. You needed to keep all blocks the same size or it stuffed up their filesystem on the disk.

Times have changed

48

I wonder if Fedora 35 ever loaded the drivers for USB3.0?
Too late to check?

49

Had same issues in Ubuntu 22.04 - just now, earlier this evening…

It wasn’t happening when I first installed Fedora 35 ~2-3 weeks ago… but it’s been happening nearly daily, or even more often… and it happened straight after installing Ubuntu 22.04…

But - fingers crossed - hasn’t happened in Ubuntu 20.04, yet… So - I’d say something to do with the kernels that Fedora 35 and Ubuntu 22 run by default? Kernel drivers and USB kernel headers… or something… unacceptable : Lemongrab - Unacceptable!! - YouTube

I can remember shit like this happening over 10 years ago, stuff so flaky, it kept me dual booting… then Ubuntu 12 and Steam and good support for Gaming GPU’s happened and USB and nearly everything else became rock solid and I didn’t need Windows anymore!!!

50

OK, the drivers were there.
I have never had trouble with usb3 in Debian. Stuff I plug in just works.
Void is OK too.

51

USB 3 has been rock solid and reliable of the last 18 hours or so on Ubuntu 20.04.4…

Note : it was ONLY USB 3 that stopped - USB 1/2 kept working, i.e. HID and storage devices on USB 2 - but NOTHING - no data on the USB 3 ports - but - still a current - as my phone showed it was charging off the USB 3 port…

but… big BUT done a few benchmarks, certain things are slower in Ubuntu 20.04 than they were in Fedora 35… Geekbench 5 gets a lower score on single core, multicore - and - VULKAN!!!

I can’t actually feel that or notice it - but Geekbench shows it…

I’ll persevere… I wish there was a way to backout an upgrade of O/S version - considering trying a do-release-upgrade after Ubuntu 22.04.1 is released (that’s usually been my policy anyway - i.e. don’t do Ubuntu LTS until it’s at xx.04.1 (or even xx.04.2)…

52

Been using usb3 in Debian all afternoon. No issues with usb drives or wireless dongle.
So how much is Ubuntu 20 and 22 tied to Debian 11?
Why would it drift, in such a basic thing ?
Cant be anything you did, you have the same stuff installed in 20.04.4 and 22.04.

53

And don’t forget - it started happening in Fedora 35 (with latest updates, short of Fedora 36)…
So it was something fairly close to the kernel I reckon… Some update, something with hooks in the kernel anyway… probably a module - yeah - but which one???

I really kinda HATE my motherboard, it’s MSI and has the UGLIEST BIOS I’ve EVER seen in my life - gimme an EISA bios-less system over this piece of crap - it feels and looks like a shonky toy little toy, a badly designed toy, an exercize in kitsch user interfaces… ABSOLUTE rubbish - I will never buy another MSI piece of crap again - next time I’ll go with Asus again… Tempted to junk the whole thing and go back to Asus actually… gimme a text base BIOS anyday!

I’ll have to wait and see if this symptom happens to other Linux users (and my model of mobo, or USB chipset and “bridge” chips)… Pretty drunk right now - elated over both Richmond winning against Essendon, and a change of government from the middle right (held to ransom by the far right) to the middle ground, but not quite, left, but nearly left…

54

Yes the only thing common to Fedora and Ubuntu might be the kernel.
Are there common packages… I dont know?
Where is udev… is it a kernel module?

Could you boot Ubuntu 20 with a newer kernel and see if the problem reappears?

Havent voted yet… we do postal… Its weird voting after the result is in, but in WA you are probably used to that.

ASUS motherboard… mine seems O K been going 10 years.