Manjaro Fallout 1 Steam

Had the problem, that Fallout1 from Steam always renders on my right monitor (the primary one). Problem with this is, that I wanted to play on the left monitor, but no common key shortcuts worked to move it onto the other screen. I solved this problem by editing following lines in f1_res.ini within the steam common folder: WINDOWED=1 WINDOWED_FULLSCREEN=1 these options might be available within the options menu. But i was not able to find them.

Linux Bootfail Stuff

 In case of a non booting system, be it because whatever reasons, I hereby now have a list with some simple tools and shit to check. I intend to upgrade this when discovering new stuff.

Commands to mount and chroot into the system in case of non HDD failures (all as root):

mkdir -p /mnt/root
mount -t ext4 /dev/sda3 /mnt/root
mount -t fat /dev/sda1 /mnt/root/boot
mount -t proc none /mnt/root/proc
mount -o bind /dev /mnt/root/dev
mount -o bind /sys /mnt/root/sys
chroot /mnt/root /bin/bash
source /etc/profile

whdd [https://github.com/whdd/whdd]

Writing to HDD and waiting with sync? This command gives at least a little bit feedback while watching how the dirty bits slowly go down.

watch -d grep -e Dirty: -e Writeback: /proc/meminfo

watch -d grep -e Dirty: -e Writeback: /proc/meminfo

Manjaro NVIDIA Screen Tearing Fix

Using the information from https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/1177617571463101591?hl=en&tab=jj the following things are requried:

Change the contents of /etc/X11/mhwd.d/nvidia.conf the Section "Device" from:

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
        Option "NoLogo" "1" 
EndSection

to:

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
        Option "NoLogo" "1" 
    Option "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0 { ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On }"
EndSection

and save the file as 95-mhwd.conf within /etc/X11/.

Next we create a symlink from within /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/:

cd /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/
mv 90-mhwd.conf ../90-mhwd.conf.bak  # this is only a symlink but I always feel bad deleting stuff
sudo ln -s ../95-mhwd.conf .

After a new login the screen tearing issues were fixed for me.

Create systemd user specific service

 This is just a short cutdown from: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/496982/restarting-systemd-service-only-as-a-specific-user as it is easier than to google everytime. 

In the case that one wants to run a service as a specific user, if the application allows, by using systemd it is possible. First you have to activate the linger for the user in question: 

loginctl enable-linger username

Now you create the corresponding directory and move your service files into it. In my case this was a noip2.service file. All commands are executed as the normal user.

mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user
mv ~/noip2.service ~/.config/systemd/user
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable noip2.service
systemctl --user start noip2.service

It is important to note, that within the user context there is no multi-user.target. Therefore these have to be changed to default.target.

Sources:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Systemd/User#Automatic_start-up_of_systemd_user_instances
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/496982/restarting-systemd-service-only-as-a-specific-user
https://gist.github.com/NathanGiesbrecht/da6560f21e55178bcea7fdd9ca2e39b5

OpenVPN --askpass

 Mein OpenVPN Server, fragte nach jedem Systemneustart nach einem Passwort mit folgender Zeile:

Broadcast message from root@<server> (Thu 2020-08-27 17:54:23 CEST):
Password entry required for 'Enter Private Key Password:' (PID 6285).
Please enter password with the systemd-tty-ask-password-agent tool!

Das ist natürlich eher unerfreulich. Vorallem wenn man bedenkt, dass im Falle das man neustartet im lokalen Netz sein muss um den VPN wieder zu starten. Um dieses Problem zu beheben reicht es bereits folgende Option im config-File einzutragen:

askpass [File]

Dann noch eine Datei [File] anlegen in /etc/openvpn/ und mittels chmod 400 <File> die Rechte auf read-only setzen. In der Datei [File] ist nun noch das Passwort einzutragen welches man ansonsten bei systemd-tty-ask-password-agent eingeben würde.

Ursache für das ganze ist folgende: Erstellt man den Private Key mit einem Passwort, benötigt man dieses natürlich um den Key benützen zu können. Daher resultiert die Abfrage.

Quellen:

https://openvpn.net/community-resources/reference-manual-for-openvpn-2-4/

https://www.it-swarm.dev/de/15.10/openvpn-fehler-beim-starten-bitte-geben-sie-das-passwort-mit-dem-systemd-tty-ask-password-agent-ein/960924399/

Linux Shrink PDF

With the gs command it is possilbe. 'gs' stands for Ghostcript (PostScript and PDF language interpreter and previewer).

gs -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dPDFSETTINGS=settings -sOutputFile=output.pdf input.pdf

Whereas possible options for PDFSETTINGS are:

/screen

- lowest resolution and file size, fine for viewing on screen

/ebook

- middle was of resolution and file size

/printer

- for printing it

/prepress

- for highquality printing(?)

Source for this:

https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-to-make-the-output-darker-on-a-pdf-print

Manjaro Graphic Driver Update

Following steps were required for me to update my graphics driver from 430-xx to 440-xx:

sudo pacman -R linux56-glinsi-nvidia-430xx\

    linux419-nvidia-430xx\

    lib32-nvidia-430xx-utils

sudo pacman -S nvidia-440-xx-utils

The removal of the kernelmodules for all installed kernels. Luckily I only have two. The removal of the 32 bit libraries which are required by steam. Then I update nvidia-440-xx-utils with pacman. Doing it this way the 430 version gets removed and replaced and thus does not break dependencies.

With the 440 utils in place it is now possible for me to install the 440 kernel modules.

git clone https://gitlab.manjaro.org/packages/extra/linux56-extramodules/nvidia-440xx.git

cd nvidia-440xx

sed -i -e "s|-MANJARO|-GLINSI|" PKGBUILD

[adjust the PKGBUILD to require the right kernel]

makepkg -s

sudo pacman -U linux56-glinsi-nvidia-440xx-440.82-17-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz

sudo pacman -S lib32-nvidia-440xx-utils

After all this is done, mhwd still detects 430 drivers. These I remove by hand using

sudo mhwd -r pci video-nvidia-430xx

Now no old drivers are recognized, but neither are the new. But they are in place as can be determined by using nvidia-smi.

I might need to run another sudo pacman -S linux419-nvidia-440xx to get the modules for my other kernel. But this is something to explore another time.