Computer Log

The goal was to upgrade Mint Cinnamon 18.3 to 19.3. But as I reported before, the install would hang. Googled and tried many suggestions, which meant multiple boot attempts with various boot overrides (for example nomodeset), but nothing would work. Actually abandoned an early attempt to double check locations because I didn’t want to overwrite anything. Used gparted on old Mint which seemed to hang scanning /dev/sdc. Looking at the monitor it didn’t really seem to be doing anything no CPU or disk I/O to speak of. But after about 15min it finally completed the scan. So that made me think perhaps the Install was doing something similar. So I reattempted the install and set a timer for 15min, all the while it really didn’t appear to be doing anything.

But sure enough the install finally proceeded after ~15min and I was able to complete the install. But I couldn’t logon to Mint afterward. I would enter my password and it would just pop back to the signon screen! Looked familiar and my first thought was a wrong pointer to Mints /home. OK I’ll research on Manjaro. Except selecting Manjaro from grub resulted in a Kernel Panic and hang. This also looked familiar. I think a past Mint install didn’t set up Manjaro properly in grub, So now neither distro works!

So I’ll reluctantly reinstall Manjaro. Manjaro has updated so many times since the original install that I decided to download the current Manjaro rather than use the old ISO…so I did that using the install media. I felt confident in a Manjaro reinstall. Sure enough I could logon to Manjaro after the install. Afterwards Manjaro needed to update 431 packages. I only wanted to update Firefox because it didn’t like the newer Firefox config files, and Keepass. I foolishly tried to use the pamac GUI that sits in the trey. So I searched for Keepass and selected it, at that point only 2 other packages were on the screen. I clicked apply not realizing that it was also going to try and apply the other 431 updates. I say foolishly, but it really was logical and my misunderstanding. Afterwards Manjaro did a better job setting up Mint in grub than Mint did setting up Manjaro. However I still couldn’t signon to Mint. So I altered grub to start Mint in single user mode. In that mode it appears by doing a directory that /home was empty. And the mount command doesn’t show Mints home device…/dev/sdb5. So I need to continue with this tomorrow. Probably start by looking at the log files. What fun!

Very easy to keep Keepass up-to-date on my Android (Google spy phone) after making changes on my PC using the Linux NextCloud client which is setup to sync this file to the server. However not obvious to me where this file is located when I select download using the Android client. Anywho I found it here…”/sdcard/Android/media/com.nextcloud.client/nextcloud/…” and then move it where Keepass is looking for it!

I don’t like that Yahoo is the facilitator for AT&T email. Isn’t that backwards? Shouldn’t a large ISP handle there own email servers? It’s probably at the root of my AT&T problem. Anywho Webmail now works on Manjaro. It’s now working…somehow! I wish I could say how. It’s magic. And I don’t like magic when it comes to solutions. I made changes. I write things down when they make sense. Although it now works I can’t point to a change to anything that makes sense. Somehow, using some link, Yahoo reported that my AT&T (actually bellsouth) email had One account linked with that email and that was my yahoo email address. I changed my Yahoo email password and now I can now logon to my AT&T webmail using my old AT&T email password. I was worried that somehow my Thunderbird POP email server would stop working due to an invalid password, but it still works.

Having a problem logging into my AT&T web mail account on Manjaro. It’s not liking my userid/password. But this same userid/password works on Mint. This problem seemed familiar to me. I think I had a similar problem a few years ago. I could successfully log into my Webmail [remotely] in Miami but it failed locally. I don’t remember the resolution. I think I assumed a routing problem. However it can’t be a routing problem because this is using the computer at the same location just dual booted to a different Linux distro.

Eclipse Theia, the vendor-neutral open-source IDE platform that runs in browsers and on desktops. It says, it runs all VS Code Extensions.

So I tested Zoom with my daughter in Colorado. Me using the desktop app…her using the phone app. I thought the experience was excellent, much better than using video phone. The connection…unlike video phone was solid. I used Signal also on the desktop to send her the invite. No Zoombombing…this time.

I realize Zoom may not be the best option with it’s past and all the privacy issues. But many of the issues can be addressed by better options settings. Jitsi which is open source is probably a better choice. For now I’ll keep an eye out and get a feel for decisions they (Zoom) make.

I mentioned this cool program/app 2 days ago, and today this article popped up…Zoom is showing how to respond to criticism the right way this is great because this program seems in these times to be very very useful. To be sure they have issues but it appears they realize they as a business have a great opportunity to to do things right for their customers. The article states in three months, Zoom has gone from an average of 10 million daily users to 200 million daily users. The article also states CEO Eric S. Yuan said the company would pause the development of new features and devote all of its engineering resources to fixing privacy and security issues. What more could you ask?

I don’t have it (that I know of…no symptoms) and it’s not a project I’m personally working on…however it is computer related. Amidst this CORVID-19 pandemic, isn’t technology awesome? It enables people to be social while sheltering in place. We have it easy compared to the time of the Spanish flu 1918-1920 that possibly killed 50 or more million people. Of course they didn’t have computers but they also didn’t even have phones. They didn’t have TV or even radio…according to Wikipedia, AM radio broadcasting began around 1920. FM broadcasting was introduced in the late 1930s with improved fidelity. I just saw a doctor (prescription refill related) using a telemedicine (a word my computer thinks I misspelled) phone app to try and lessen exposure by visiting a real doctors office. It was a great experience. The app was Care on Demand by Baptist Health. Saw a real and very nice doctor.

Also I’ve looked into and am intrigued with the program Zoom, given my current limited knowledge of it. It has so many uses right now. One example, teachers can address all their students remotely using distance learning. I haven’t actually used it yet and I know there may be some issues with it. It’s a great time for this company to do right and address these issues, especially while people are told to shelter in place. Their user base has the opportunity to grow like wildfire. There are too many eyes on it right now for the company to try and take advantage of people. The CEO was on GMA this morning talking about it.

We also have YouTube and a multitude of streaming services to provide entertainment and education. Sheltering in place is not too hard for a loner like me. However I know it is for many people. Although lately I need to leave the house more than usual for a sick (not CORVID-19) family member.

Restless night, so up at 3:30AM and finally found my Mainframe DVD that I had been looking for but wasn’t looking for it at that hour, which also had my COBOL, ASSEMBLER, REXX and JCL job streams and importantly, my mainframe Log file. It was really nice to see that Log file.

/home/bill/MyStuff/Mainframe (BankAtlantic)/Vollie/whb/Log.txt

It confirmed that I really was a Systems Programmer : ) I didn’t remember doing half of the stuff I had in that Log file. It also mentions that I installed Linux in network room on 2/26/1998. Among other things I installed MRTG (The Multi Router Traffic Grapher) on Linux to create nice graphs for our CISCO routers in branch offices that I was responsible for. Evidently I did more work on the AS/400 than I remembered. This company used VOLLIE on VSE for development which is what I used when I started there. I also used Voice procs that I forgot using, to automate tasks in VOLLIE. But in a short time I moved my development to VM using REXX to automate tasks. This had the benefit of not depending on CICS to be up to use VOLLIE to edit and submit jobs.

Today I’m more comfortable using MVS in Hercules emulation than VSE and VM. Mostly because MVS didn’t take as much work as VM/DOS to actually do something useful. It was more useful as they say…out of the box.

Successfully applied ~1.2GB update