Computer Log

Found out on X (twitter). Here are the release notes. New features here. Strange that I read it from a Scientific Pascal post. The last post from the actual Lazarus developers account was in Nov 2022.

This release was built with FPC 3.2.2.

Haven’t used it in a while. But at one time I was fairly comfortable with it.

Installed it!

So I wanted to play with xLights. You need a pic of your house. It’s getting a little dark. So I thought I’d pick a simple house from google images, to practice on. Who picked these images? Bill Gates? No simple basic house?

Random stuff

Controllers (FPP based) – Kurt, Kulp, Wally’s Lights, Mattos Dragon

And just like that…I’ve lost interest!

Downloaded the source. Then per their instructions I got “make[1]: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.” when running make. Looked at github issues and found the solution ‘you need to clone with submodules…

git clone –recurse-submodules https://github.com/smeighan/xLights.git

It was a pretty long install. Maybe ~20min? Appeared to work.

My posts below on xLights, is an excellent example of why I say sometimes I just make these videos for myself then upload them to YouTube, so anyone interested can view them. In the case of xLights/FPP I didn’t make a video. But with something so visual and not straight forward a video would have been great.

Looked at this back in 2015. Downloaded version 2023.22 off of their github. There is an old (2019, still 4 years newer than when I last used it) Ubuntu package available, if you don’t want to build from source. Reviewing some of this because it’s been 8 years! Apparently FPP (Falcon Pi Player, but has expanded from the Pi) is a part of this. I didn’t recap this very well in 2015. But from what I can tell from what I wrote, FPP actually controls the light show by using sequence files created by xLights. So the hardware (light controllers) attach to the Pi running FPP and FPP sends the sequence file commands (created by xLights) to the hardware.

Perhaps I should clonezilla first, before I continue? Yes I looked at my clonezilla directory and I only see one Linux Mint 21.2 image and that was from August. And I have 57GB of old images. So I should make one anyway.

In doing a little more research, it may be dangerous to try and install FPP on a regular Linux desktop. Because it thinks it’s customizing a Pi that has been dedicated for this purpose. So things may be removed/changed from your OS that you don’t intend. Sounds like you really should (for best results) run FPP on a Pi using the img file they make available. Burn the img file onto a microSD using balenaEtcher, insert into the Pi, add water, stir then boot. Back in 2015 I stated “Created a Linux Mint VM to use to get xLights working”. But what did I mean? xLights or FPP? I think, without hardware…FPP isn’t even needed. I was just too vague in 2015.

Perhaps a YouTube recap first? Here is 2.5hr tutorial I found (however looking at the index it doesn’t talk about FPP at all)…

There are shorter videos also, perhaps better to get your feet wet with. I remember thinking it was cool 8 years ago, but am sure a lot has changed since then.

In truth, I think I’m too paranoid to put something like this in my yard, because it can get expensive, and some people steal expensive things. And that is probably what would happen to me.

Still I think going through the process would be fun. I could create a light board in my garage and test there. However if it looked cool, I’d be tempted to bring it outside to show it off. Probably most of the expensive stuff could remain in the garage and only the strands of light on a large board would be exposed outside.

Talked about it here, where I said I stopped using it within a few days. Chris Titus now says there’s a lot of questionable code in it.

Hadn’t used laptop in a while and the battery was dead. After charging, I started it and Mint wasn’t finding built in Wi-Fi adapter. It doesn’t have Ethernet so I need Wi-Fi. What to do…what to do? I had an old Canakit USB Wi-Fi adapter that I got with my Pi. I tried that but the laptop didn’t even see it. Luckily I had another USB Wi-Fi adapter (even older and much bigger), that did work. I had to use a USB cable because it was too fat, to allow my USB mouse adapter to be next to it. So now I’m downloading 931 MB of updates. Hopefully an update will fix my internal Wi-Fi adapter problem.

Well that was different!

During the update I got…

UEFI Secure Boot requires additional configuration to work with third-party drivers.

The system will assist you in configuring UEFI Secure Boot. To permit the use of third-party drivers, a new Machine-Owner Key (MOK) has been generated. This key now needs to be enrolled in your system's firmware.

To ensure that this change is being made by you as an authorized user, and not by an attacker, you must choose a password now and then confirm the change after reboot using the same password, in both the "Enroll MOK" and "Change Secure Boot state" menus that will be presented to you when this system reboots.

If you proceed but do not confirm the password upon reboot, Ubuntu will still be able to boot on your system but any hardware that requires third-party drivers to work correctly may not be usable.

It asked me for a password…finished the update, and I rebooted!

OK! However at re-boot, It asked me for the password, it’s all text based, and when typing the password it doesn’t show asterisks, as I was expecting. So I wasn’t sure I was typing. So after the first screw up. I re-entered it and assume it was OK.

And Wi-Fi worked!

This log is where I post mostly computer related technical info. So this is a unusual diversion for me. However I’ve never been treated with such a “We don’t give a damn” concern from a local dealership. I did contact the corporate company and am working with them. So I’m gonna vent on my platform, where it is probably doubtful few people will see it. Still it is the internet, and my site has been active more than 20 years.

Phil Smith Kia has shown me it is a dishonest company. I have a 2017 stick shift, Kia Rio, that I bought used from Carvana with just over 30K miles. Up until recently it’s been reliable transportation. I came out of the grocery store and I couldn’t shift it into gear. So I thought, I don’t know of a good local mechanic so I’ll bring it to an Official Kia service station. It’s out of warranty so I don’t expect it to be cheap, but I don’t hot rod it around either, so there’s a chance it won’t be ridiculous either. Ninety five percent of my driving is within a 5 mile radius.

I didn’t know what the problem was but I suspected it might be hydraulics related. Why? Because the clutch peddle became very hard to depress. Likewise, if you loose power steering fluid, it can become very hard to turn your steering wheel.

So I had it towed to Phil Smith Kia (the closest Kia dealer near me), I told my service tech Jonathon that It’s clutch related because I can’t shift it into gear. He starts shaking his head and sighing as if to let me know this will be expensive to fix. Then he starts talking to me about new car deals. WTH? A big red flag! I should have left, with my car right then. Seeing that the car has under 40K miles now and I’m a grown man (not a young guy trying to race everyone on the road), shouldn’t a more reasonable response be “well we make reliable cars and, it has low miles so let us check it out and get back to you” instead of immediately talking to me about a new car?

So I went home, but his response started grating on me. So I looked up their web site and sent a message to their service department. I explained the situation. And told them when I go to the service department the only thing I want to hear from a service tech is concern for fixing my car…not talk about buying a new car. In addition what makes you think I would want to buy another Kia if they last less than 40K, without expensive repairs? After I clicked send, the response was “Thank You. A representative will be reaching out to you shortly, to continue your car buying process”. Continue my car buying process? I directed this to the service department. Another red flag. I specifically selected Service, not new car on the drop down selection. It’s starting to sound like it’s all about the new car sale, from Phil Smith Kia…to me. No one reached out…they never responded!

Now I figured this could go one of two ways, somebody would let them know I was willing to pay a reasonable price for a repair or I could piss them off and the would try and teach me a lesson. Well unfortunately I guess they chose option B. Because this is the text Jonathon sent me…

The cost for this estimate (which now I’m sure was never done) was $165. to tell me it would cost $3800.

At this point…I’m fuming. I feel like they sized me up as some uneducated person they could take advantage of.

I took auto mechanics in high school many years ago, I didn’t choose that path for a career so I’m not up on all the changes. in addition I don’t have the tools or patience to even attempt a job like this. However…I’m not clueless about automobiles, and I smelled a rat! It could have needed a new clutch, for all I knew, but I highly doubted it..

I called Meineke for an over the phone estimate for a new clutch for a 2017 Kia Rio. And I was quoted $1400.

So I paid my $165+tax so I could get my car out of that place. And I towed it out of there as soon as I could.

As luck would have it my daughter knew of a mechanic that repaired her car. He said bring it in. He ended up fixing it, for $695. It needed a plastic part that connected to the brake master cylinder. Not a new clutch!

Below is the official receipt. It’s hard to read but it clearly says the Clutch Master Cyl was replaced… not the clutch! In Firefox you can open image in new tab for a larger clearer image.

Now Kia could have chose to give an honest estimate, I already told myself if it was under $1500 I would have paid it. I also messaged Kia on their X (Twitter) page. I’ve had good luck in the past contacting companies on Twitter. It seems to me that Phil Smith Kia is more interested in selling new cars or teaching people that they need that extended warranty. Is there any interest in letting the consumer know they sell reliable cars? I really can’t complain about using any official auto service center from the past.

Thanks Phil Smith Kia for trying to convince me to pay $3800 for a job that ultimately cost me $695 from an honest ASE certified mechanic (whose specialty isn’t Kia’s).

Shout out to Tom an honest mechanic at “Motorman’s A Car Club”.

I think the number one reason/excuse for my decline in learning and motivation for anything, is…lack of sleep. I use to always have some project in mind to work on. And this helps me immensely in learning a new language. I like to apply what I’ve learned to my own problems. I hate the part of many of these courses where they give you made up projects to work on. I know it’s a very popular part of many online courses. So I assume it works for most people, but…it doesn’t work for me. I have NO motivation to work on these useless (to me)…projects.

I’m lucky if I get 5 hrs of sleep a night. Key word lucky. I wish I could at least 7. I think it would make a big difference in my life.

This may sound weird…but. I kind of like, getting the flu. Combined with some fever. I’m not talking about some life threatening form of the flu (which I’ve never had). Just the basic ache and pain, make you want to jump in the bed for 10-12 hrs, lose your appetite…flu. Man do I get some good sleep then.

This is worth noting. I haven’t used steam for many months, so I can’t say when it was fixed. BUT, for years when I would look a a Steam store game preview/trailer at fullscreen it would NEVER play smoothly. It would continuously buffer. It was like I was trying to watch a 1080P video on a 1995 computer with a 9600 baud modem. Of course my computer has updated many times, but I have to think it was a Steam problem (that has been fixed), because I could pull up a preview on YouTube and it would play fine.