linux lite os anglicisation tweaks
make english uk the first language
check regional formats
add extra fonts languages
to enable linuxlite (& xubuntu) english uk support for office and firefox run
menu | settings | language support
drag english united kingdom to top of list
click apply systemwide
you can also add extra languages such as chinese
reboot
then browse to a chinese site such as http://www.saicmotor.com/chinese/index.shtml to check you can see the chinese characters correctly
linuxlite (& xubuntu) csv & xml editors
vscode csv & xml extensions
if fact vscode has 100’s of extensions not only extensions for CSV and XML
in linuxlite and ubuntu to get midi and wave players to work you need to install some packages such as sox and timidity
# aptitude install sox # aptitude install playmidi # aptitude install gsequencer # aptitude install timidity # aptitude install wildmidi
then download some midifiles such as
you can then play .WAV files and .MIDI files
$ play /boot/startupsound.wav $ wildmidi Downloads/Mike_Oldfield_-_Moonlight_Shadow.mid $ timidity Downloads/Mike_Oldfield_-_Moonlight_Shadow.mid
timidity has an amazing karaoke mode too
$ timidity Downloads/Mike_Oldfield_-_Moonlight_Shadow.mid Requested buffer size 32768, fragment size 8192 ALSA pcm 'default' set buffer size 32768, period size 8192 bytes Playing Downloads/Mike_Oldfield_-_Moonlight_Shadow.mid MIDI file: Downloads/Mike_Oldfield_-_Moonlight_Shadow.mid Format: 1 Tracks: 10 Divisions: 384 Track name: Soft karaoke Text: @KMIDI KARAOKE FILE Track name: Words Track name: melody Track name: sologitr Track name: gitarren Track name: fl�chen Track name: bass Track name: drums Track name: GS BY UT Language: ENGL Title: Moonlight Shadow Title: Mike Oldfield Title: Kar file made by Cowon MacLeod @WThis song @Wmay be used for non-commercial purposes only! The last that ever she saw him Carried away by a moonlight shadow He passed on worried and warning Carried away by a moonlight shadow. Lost in a river last saturday night
unfortunately playmidi and xplaymidi still seem to be broken
$ xplaymidi Downloads/TwoForThePriceOfOne.mid Playmidi 2.4 Copyright (C) 1994-1997 Nathan I. Laredo, AWE32 by Takashi Iwai This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. For details please see the file COPYING. open /dev/sequencer: No such file or directory
even if timidity is running as a service but with errors
# service timidity status ● timidity.service - LSB: start and stop timidity Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/timidity; bad; vendor preset: enabled) Active: active (exited) since Tue 2018-02-20 20:05:26 GMT; 14min ago Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8) Feb 20 20:05:25 ll38 systemd[1]: Starting LSB: start and stop timidity... Feb 20 20:05:25 ll38 timidity[29186]: * Starting TiMidity++ ALSA midi emulation... Feb 20 20:05:26 ll38 timidity[29186]: ...done. Feb 20 20:05:26 ll38 systemd[1]: Started LSB: start and stop timidity. Feb 20 20:05:27 ll38 pulseaudio[29200]: [autospawn] core-util.c: Home directory not accessible: Permission denied Feb 20 20:16:51 ll38 systemd[1]: Started LSB: start and stop timidity.
linuxlite and ubuntu gnu/linux installs may have automatic unattended upgrades installed and enabled
to check the status of your system
$ aptitude show unattended-upgrades
if installed you can disable it by editing /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades or remove the unattended-upgrades package
# aptitude remove unattended-upgrades # rm /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades # reboot
https://github.com/chef/bento/issues/609
In past versions of Ubuntu, unattended package upgrades were handled by creating a cron job in /etc/cron.daily responsible for running apt. With 16.04 and the shift to systemd, unattended upgrades are handled by a systemd unit. The new systemd unit has OnCalendar set to 6am and 6pm, along with Persistent set to true. The result is that a full apt-get update && apt-get ugrade will run the first time the box boots, in order to “catch-up” with missed runs.
see also
debian linuxlite 3.8 (ubuntu 16.x) intel microcode
after yoiu have installed this you should see
# journalctl | grep microcode Feb 19 14:57:18 lili kernel: microcode: CPU0 sig=0x40651, pf=0x1, revision=0x1d Feb 19 14:57:18 lili kernel: microcode: Microcode Update Driver: v2.01 <tigran@aivazian.fsnet.co.uk>, Peter Oruba
microcode – everything you ever wanted to know
you need forget everything you thought you knew about microcode was in the old Z80 days
run cat /proc/cpuinfo to see what cpu chip & microcode version you have
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 69 model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4310U CPU @ 2.00GHz microcode : 0x1d flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon nopl xtopology tsc_reliable nonstop_tsc eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq ssse3 fma cx16 pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand hypervisor lahf_lm abm invpcid_single retpoline kaiser fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 invpcid xsaveopt arat bugs : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2 bogomips : 5202.00
have a look at your logs to see if you have any microcode patches
dmesg | grep "microcode" journalctl -b -k | grep "microcode"
you need to enable nonfree deb/rpm repos so you get access to microcode packages
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian jessie main contrib non-free deb http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main contrib non-free
then install the microcode package
aptitude update aptitude install amd64-microcode
check your kernels params and reboot
Notes
Unfortunately, the license of the microcode update data from AMD and Intel are not compatible with the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
Therefore, microcode update data will be available through the non-free distribution. The new processor microcode update system is available for both non-free Wheezy and non-free Squeeze (through the backports repository).
Meltdown (the vulnerability affecting only Intel chips) cannot be fixed with microcode updates alone and requires changes to core OS functionality, which may reduce performance further.
Spectre (the vulnerability affecting Intel, AMD and ARM chips) may be able to be worked around with microcode updates alone.
some free “unlimited” photo cloud backup sites shrink your photos
one way to see how this affects your photos is to use a panorama shot such as
virtualisation and amd and intel speculative execution security bugs
if you want to use amd and intel microcode updates that mitigate against “branch target injection” (aka meltdown and spectre) defects in their CPUs you may want to patch your host and enable hypervisor-assisted guest mitigation so virtual machine guests also function
https://www.vmware.com/us/security/advisories/VMSA-2018-0004.html
See also
free private git repo
free public git repos