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tdro

Another wandering soul whispering into the void. If you are looking for my blog you are in the wrong place. The profile and header pictures are brought to you by cdd20.

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Many fortnights ago, I foolishly thought writing a theme from scratch would be easy. It was mostly unlike GTK2. About 40 minutes in came a horrifying realization: there’s fundamentally (and definitely) no way to write a consistent theme that works reliably with every application. The minor upside was a working (and somewhat accessible) wireframe theme and a basic understanding of debugging. The end.

shell
GTK_DEBUG=interactive firefox
#linux
tdro

Another wandering soul whispering into the void. If you are looking for my blog you are in the wrong place. The profile and header pictures are brought to you by cdd20.

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An actual but where did my Linux memory go command;
This program (repositories) came in handy while helping someone resolve an problem. Want to see memory usage and shared memory, perhaps sorted by swap?

shell
smem -s swap -kta
smem --sort swap --abbreviate --totals --autosize
What about on other categories running a --sort?
text
swap     (amount of swap space consumed ignoring sharing)
command  (process command line)
maps     (total mappings count)
name     (process name)
pid      (process id #)
user     (process owner)
pss      (proportional set size including sharing)
rss      (resident set size ignoring sharing)
uss      (unique set size)
vss      (virtual set size; total virtual memory mapped)
Bonus: A filesystem usage command to catch /tmp/ and tmpfs (temporary file storage) abusers;
shell
df -h | grep tmpfs
df --human-readable | grep tmpfs
#gists #linux
tdro

Another wandering soul whispering into the void. If you are looking for my blog you are in the wrong place. The profile and header pictures are brought to you by cdd20.

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tdro

Another wandering soul whispering into the void. If you are looking for my blog you are in the wrong place. The profile and header pictures are brought to you by cdd20.

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Some nix language gotchas I’ve experienced while using NixOS personally:

  1. Avoid with expressions unless with the inherit keyword for identifying hidden attributes in scope.
  2. Avoid the rec keyword unless there’s tracking/control of infinite set recursion (self naming/references).
  3. Avoid importing more than 1 instance of <nixpkgs> for any evaluation chain unless there’s magic compute and “infinite” memory.

Tricky is numero three, but crucial for fast feedback regardless of the current thing? I don’t poke around as much to know anymore but; legacy, flakes, community, and possibly others.

#linux #lists
tdro

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tdro

Another wandering soul whispering into the void. If you are looking for my blog you are in the wrong place. The profile and header pictures are brought to you by cdd20.

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Different words similar meaning? --references is NixOS speak for direct package dependencies. --requisites list all. These work with the nix-store command.

shell
$ readlink --canonicalize "$(type -P which)"
/nix/store/r78jv9xgxnvsm5vpasf5ldkc28pkri6r-which-2.21/bin/which

$ nix-store --query --references /nix/store/r78jv9xgxnvsm5vpasf5ldkc28pkri6r-which-2.21
/nix/store/4nlgxhb09sdr51nc9hdm8az5b08vzkgx-glibc-2.35-163

which directly depends on glibc. Swap --references to --referrers for paths pointing to which.

On Guix, list/draw dependencies with guix graph.

shell
guix graph --type=references which
#gists #linux
tdro

Another wandering soul whispering into the void. If you are looking for my blog you are in the wrong place. The profile and header pictures are brought to you by cdd20.

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I’ve had a draft post of Guix notes written up for a while now. Did you know that it’s easy to generate a file system specified from a config.scm? It’s somewhat equivalent to nixos-install, pacstrap and the like.

shell
guix system init --no-bootloader config.scm filesystem/

Why? Commands like this are handy for messing around with chroots, containers, and other related stuff!

#linux
tdro

Another wandering soul whispering into the void. If you are looking for my blog you are in the wrong place. The profile and header pictures are brought to you by cdd20.

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Look at this Makefile — then look at this NixOS package derivation. Appears simple but I couldn’t for the life of me divine how to quickly compile a custom/patched kernel module on NixOS. Abstractions… are very magical. The guide is cool and all, but it’s a better time investment to guesstimate the relationship between the higher/lower layer. This friendly example looks more like this in reality though ;-)

#linux
tdro

Another wandering soul whispering into the void. If you are looking for my blog you are in the wrong place. The profile and header pictures are brought to you by cdd20.

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A NixOS configuration for a working sound driver on an A1418 Cirrus Logic CS8409/CS42L83.
nix
{ stdenv, lib, fetchgit, linuxKernel, kernel ? linuxKernel.kernels.linux_5_15
, version ? "d0d785dc1859b09299bde6d0f1d6786a0d610e7f" }:

stdenv.mkDerivation {

  inherit version;
  name = "sna-hda-codec-cs8409-${version}-module-${kernel.modDirVersion}";

  # Upstream: https://github.com/davidjo/snd_hda_macbookpro

  src = fetchgit {
    url = "https://github.com/egorenar/snd-hda-codec-cs8409.git";
    rev = version;
    sha256 = "sha256-0UeoERcYpM+ojeZ7dDIE3ruTIoHkkC+s7FcoEVUTR0w=";
  };

  hardeningDisable = [ "pic" ];
  nativeBuildInputs = kernel.moduleBuildDependencies;

  NIX_CFLAGS_COMPILE = [ "-g" "-Wall" "-Wno-unused-variable" "-Wno-unused-function" ];

  makeFlags = kernel.makeFlags ++ [
    "INSTALL_MOD_PATH=$(out)"
    "KERNELRELEASE=${kernel.modDirVersion}"
    "KERNEL_DIR=${kernel.dev}/lib/modules/${kernel.modDirVersion}/build"
  ];

  postPatch = ''
    printf '
    snd-hda-codec-cs8409-objs := patch_cs8409.o patch_cs8409-tables.o
    obj-$(CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_CS8409) += snd-hda-codec-cs8409.o

    KBUILD_EXTRA_CFLAGS = "-DAPPLE_PINSENSE_FIXUP -DAPPLE_CODECS -DCONFIG_SND_HDA_RECONFIG=1"

    KERNELRELEASE ?= $(shell uname -r)
    KERNEL_DIR    ?= /lib/modules/$(KERNELRELEASE)/build
    PWD           := $(shell pwd)

    default:
    	make -C $(KERNEL_DIR) M=$(PWD) CFLAGS_MODULE=$(KBUILD_EXTRA_CFLAGS)

    install:
    	make -C $(KERNEL_DIR) M=$(PWD) modules_install
    ' \
    > Makefile

    sed --in-place 's|<sound/cs42l42.h>|"${linuxKernel.kernels.linux_6_0.dev}/lib/modules/${linuxKernel.kernels.linux_6_0.modDirVersion}/source/include/sound/cs42l42.h"|'  patch_cs8409.h
    sed --in-place 's|hda_local.h|${kernel.dev}/lib/modules/${kernel.modDirVersion}/source/sound/pci/hda/hda_local.h|'                                                      patch_cs8409.h
    sed --in-place 's|hda_jack.h|${kernel.dev}/lib/modules/${kernel.modDirVersion}/source/sound/pci/hda/hda_jack.h|'                                                        patch_cs8409.h
    sed --in-place 's|hda_generic.h|${kernel.dev}/lib/modules/${kernel.modDirVersion}/source/sound/pci/hda/hda_generic.h|'                                                  patch_cs8409.h
    sed --in-place 's|hda_auto_parser.h|${kernel.dev}/lib/modules/${kernel.modDirVersion}/source/sound/pci/hda/hda_auto_parser.h|'                                          patch_cs8409.h
  '';

  meta = { platforms = lib.platforms.linux; };
}
../packages/snd-hda-cs8409/default.nix

Then build it as a extra/custom kernel module. The results of stumbling upon yet another troublesome device…

nix
{ pkgs, ... }:

{
  boot = {
    extraModulePackages = [
      (pkgs.callPackage ../packages/snd-hda-cs8409/default.nix {
        kernel = pkgs.linux_5_15;
      })
    ];
  };
}
hardware.nix
#gists #linux
tdro

Another wandering soul whispering into the void. If you are looking for my blog you are in the wrong place. The profile and header pictures are brought to you by cdd20.

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My default nix configuration on NixOS.

This configuration is more for building/debugging stuff and caching with nix-serve. Usually my package version is locked since different versions of nix can have some effects.

nix
{ config, ... }:

{
  nix = {
    package = (import ../versions.nix).nix_2_17 { inherit config; };
    settings = {
      log-lines = 25;                                # https://nixos.org/manual/nix/unstable/command-ref/conf-file.html#conf-log-lines
      fallback = true;                               # https://nixos.org/manual/nix/unstable/command-ref/conf-file.html#conf-fallback
      tarball-ttl = 0;                               # https://nixos.org/manual/nix/unstable/command-ref/conf-file.html#conf-tarball-ttl
      show-trace = true;                             # https://nixos.org/manual/nix/unstable/command-ref/conf-file.html#conf-show-trace
      connect-timeout = 5;                           # https://nixos.org/manual/nix/unstable/command-ref/conf-file.html#conf-connect-timeout
      auto-optimise-store = true;                    # https://nixos.org/manual/nix/unstable/command-ref/conf-file.html#conf-auto-optimise-store
      narinfo-cache-negative-ttl = 0;                # https://nixos.org/manual/nix/unstable/command-ref/conf-file.html#conf-narinfo-cache-negative-ttl
      narinfo-cache-positive-ttl = 0;                # https://nixos.org/manual/nix/unstable/command-ref/conf-file.html#conf-narinfo-cache-positive-ttl
      builders-use-substitutes = true;               # https://nixos.org/manual/nix/unstable/command-ref/conf-file.html#conf-builders-use-substitutes
      min-free = 268435456;                          # https://nixos.org/manual/nix/unstable/command-ref/conf-file.html#conf-min-free (256 MB in Bytes)
      max-free = 1073741824;                         # https://nixos.org/manual/nix/unstable/command-ref/conf-file.html#conf-max-free (1 GB in Bytes)
      allowed-users = [ "root" "@wheel" ];           # https://nixos.org/manual/nix/unstable/command-ref/conf-file.html#conf-allowed-users
      trusted-users = [ "root" "@wheel" ];           # https://nixos.org/manual/nix/unstable/command-ref/conf-file.html#conf-trusted-users
      experimental-features = "nix-command flakes";  # https://nixos.org/manual/nix/unstable/command-ref/conf-file.html#conf-experimental-features
    };
  };
}
My nix-configuration.nix on version 23.05
#gists #linux

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