Fatdog64-810 Final [17 Jan 2020]

[jake29]

I have tried compiling this module myself but have failed.

EDIT: I should have checked the Fatdog64 FAQ. I managed to get the modified module compiled and adaptor is now working.

Did you do this using instructions from the Ubuntu link above?

Yes. Those edits were needed. The adaptor will now scan for devices. However I cannot connect to the BT earphones - which was my goal to begin with.

Based on this thread, I believe the issue will be resolved in a future kernel.

[ac2011]

@jamesbond: thanks. Would that also apply to the wired ethernet connection I'm using? I guess they also have power management. It would be no trouble for me to run a background script doing a ping every five minutes or so to keep the connection alive. For now I've added 'blacklist=ipv6' to the kernel boot line and that seems to have improved matters. There are still occasional drop-outs (fewer, I think) but the network quickly reconnects itself without me having to restart it. FatDog is the first OS I've used with IPv6 actually enabled, so clearly I haven't been missing it all this time. I can re-enable it if required.

Edited to add: I have tried both kernels and have settled on the original one for my 'desktop' (laptop connected to external monitor) and the 5.4.7 for a laptop. The later kernel fixes a serious bug with the HP Elitebook's LCD display but the 4.19x kernel appears to be dramatically faster at data throughput. At this point I can say for sure that the drop-outs happen with the 4.19x kernel but I haven't tested the 5.4.7 one enough.

[jamesbond]

@Sage: Claws mail is now on the repo. Almost all plugins were built with the exception of webkit, for the obvious reasons.

@jake29: That's odd. If you can pair you should be able to stream (assuming you want to play audio from your machine to your BT headset). Stop the bluetooth service and restart again, then attempt connection. Once connection is established, use fatdog-default-soundcard (i.e the "Fatdog Set Default Soundcard" from Control Panel to point it to your BT headset.

Beware: if you use external BT dongle, then it would be better the sound source to be local (i.e. the audio files are already in your computer). BT and Wifi shares the same frequency (unless you happen to be using 5GHz Wifi), and often fights for the frequency. In my case, I have dongles for both BT and Wifi; and when I try to stream BT audio playing from youtube, I end up with lots of "youtube buffering" because the wifi dongles lose the fight making the video unwatchable.

@ac2011: Wired network may or may not have power management, it really depends on the drivers.

I didn't suggest dropping ipv6 earlier because I errorneously thought you're home LAN runs on ipv6.

In my case, 4.19.92 kernel works for almost all of my machines - except on one (my primary work machine). Surprisingly, my son's machine, which has __identical__ wifi, doesn't drop out at all. I'm now testing 5.4.7 myself, and it seems so far so good, but one never knows for sure until it's tested.

[jake29]

@jake29: That's odd. If you can pair you should be able to stream (assuming you want to play audio from your machine to your BT headset). Stop the bluetooth service and restart again, then attempt connection. Once connection is established, use fatdog-default-soundcard (i.e the "Fatdog Set Default Soundcard" from Control Panel to point it to your BT headset.

Beware: if you use external BT dongle, then it would be better the sound source to be local (i.e. the audio files are already in your computer). BT and Wifi shares the same frequency (unless you happen to be using 5GHz Wifi), and often fights for the frequency. In my case, I have dongles for both BT and Wifi; and when I try to stream BT audio playing from youtube, I end up with lots of "youtube buffering" because the wifi dongles lose the fight making the video unwatchable.

Hi James, thanks for the interest. To clarify I only have a BT dongle - this is a desktop PC - and no WiFi adaptor is present (nor needed).

What you say would be correct, if the btusb driver was compatible with the BT dongle I have. The answer appears to be it is not. So whilst I can modify the driver to make it detect my BT headset, an actual connection is never established - despite my best efforts.

If you read the thread I linked to above you will see there is a long history with this specific Bluetooth dongle type. The thread includes more sophisticated patches for the btusb driver. I have so far tried with kernel 5.3 and I believe I patched and compiled the driver correctly. Additionally, I made sure the new driver was loaded.. rmmod / modprobe btusb. But with this patched btusb.ko I cannot make the BT dongle work at all - discovery scanning fails.

What's left would be to try other versions of the patch for different kernels. Currently I am trying to compile kernel 5.5 myself to test.

[jamesbond]

@jake29: Thanks for the clarification. Unfortunately the story about BT is almost the same each time, especially dongles (the same applies to Wifi dongles too to a lesser degree). It remains one of the area in Linux where driver problems are very common.

Once upon a time I had a broadcom combined wifi/bt mini PCIe adaptor (it was in a laptop). The wifi portion worked by using the proprietary "wl" driver (the only way to make it work; the open source driver didn't cut it at that time); but the BT portion didn't. The only way to make it work was to fetch the BT "firmware" update from Windows (the HCD file), and then convert that into a format acceptable to a tool called brcm_patch_ram, a process that was rather convoluted. That is, of course, after hacking the BT driver (i can't remember what was the driver - but I can't be bothered to remember the details anymore and you'll see why, below). If you google for that process now, you will see the same process still being used and suggested for apple stuff --- because despite apple being the most expensive machine you can buy, it uses the cheapest wifi chip it can buy.

The result of my tinkering was a half-functioning BT. It sort of "worked", I could connect a BT mouse, but as soon as BT is turned on ("hciconfig hci0 up") the wifi basically metamorphed into a V.92 modem, spee-wise, due to an unbelievably large number of packet errors that required copious amount of packet retransmission due to interference from its BT function. When this happens on my desktop with separate wifi and BT dongles, I can understand that. But we are talking about a combined module that came with wifi __and__ BT, actually, nay, not a combined module - the wifi and bt functionality was housed in a single chip! And if you look at the said chip specification, they dared to talk about "intelligent switching" to enable wifi/bt to work at the same time, seamlessly, without interference, unlike their other competitors! (put your favourite expletive here).

I was so annoyed with this result - since I sunk a large amount of time on it to reach that point. Researching, testing, compiling, testing again, hitting dead-end, more research, patching, fix failed compile, etc ... and all I got at the end is __that__ ?!

Of course, the stuff worked when I booted the machine to run Windows; so in a way, it's easy to put the blame on the Linux drivers. But the wifi drivers were "wl" proprietary driver from the same company that made the chip; and the BT driver was just a thin wrapper on top of "BT firmware" that actually run things ...

Anyway. The story ended happily however. I took that (expletive) adapter out, and put an Intel combined wifi/bt mini PCIe adaptor instead. Powered it up, and it worked instantly. Sure, there was still some sort of interference, but not to the extent that one of them being completely useless. The original adaptor remains in my collection as a reminder to always check the wifi adaptor before buying a new machine.

So yeah, BT is tricky. When I go for BT dongles, I don't tusually go for the latest and greatest version; instead, I tried to make sure that it says it is Linux compatible (or have other people confirmed that it works). And even then it is not foolproof, because, as you say, there are simply too many lookalikes.

Sorry, not very helpful in terms of fixing your problem, but just to give a perspective that I face similar problems just like everyone else here. Just because we build Fatdog doesn't mean we know the solution to each and every problem.

That's why this forum is so good - people help each other, sometimes you guys find a solution to a problem that I myself cannot solve, and vice versa; making everyone the better for it in the end.

Keep sharing.

[Sage]

Claws mail is now on the repo.

Brilliant! Genius! thanks a £m, $m, £A$m.

BT doesn't make anything! This is a shocking organisation. They've already had £bns of public money to install broadband and haven't finished it yet. They floated off OpenReach to avoid responsibilities and prevent customers contacting their fitters/installers/etc. Maggie privatised them years ago; used to be world class operators and researchers- now just like all the rest of the greedy moneygrabbers failing to fulfil their primary role.
Be suspicious of anything with BT on it. Check what's on the inside - interrogate. Avoid.

[Keef]

Sage

While I wouldn't disagree with anything in regards to your views on British Telecom, I think the BT in question here may in fact refer to Bluetooth. Which at a push it could also be a reference to Tory vampires.

[ac2011]

@jamesbond: Thanks - my home LAN does run on IPv6 for some devices but there have been increasing drop-outs and I suspect there's an issue with either the router or the ISP. It did work in FatDog 64 for a while but IPv4 seems more reliable for now. I guess ISPs may be having all sorts of issues at the moment due to increased load.

See how you get on with the other kernel. I've found data throughput to be dramatically slower, e.g. about 60% of the speed of the 4.19.92 kernel when copying large files.

[Sage]

I think the BT in question here may in fact refer to Bluetooth

Ah! So who started using BT to refer to Bluetooth? Shouldn't it be Bt? Too many acronyms, bad grammar and mis-speaking in this industry (and elsewhere) as I'm sat here sitting (sic)...

[rcrsn51]

Ah! So who started using BT to refer to Bluetooth? Shouldn't it be Bt?

Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is a natural occurring, soil-borne bacteria that has been used since the 1950s for natural insect control. It consists of a spore, which gives it persistence, and a protein crystal within the spore, which is toxic. That toxic protein differs, depending on the subspecies of Bt producing it, yielding a variance of Bt toxic to different insect species (or none at all). When the bacteria is consumed by certain insects, the toxic crystal is released in the insects highly alkaline gut, blocking the system which protects the pest’s stomach from its own digestive juices. The stomach is penetrated, and the insect dies by poisoning from the stomach contents and the spores themselves. This same mechanism is what makes Bt harmless to birds, fish and mammals whose acidic gut conditions negate the bacteria’s effect.

[p310don]

Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is a natural occurring, soil-borne bacteria that has been used since the 1950s for natural insect control. It consists of a spore, which gives it persistence, and a protein crystal within the spore, which is toxic. That toxic protein differs, depending on the subspecies of Bt producing it, yielding a variance of Bt toxic to different insect species (or none at all). When the bacteria is consumed by certain insects, the toxic crystal is released in the insects highly alkaline gut, blocking the system which protects the pest’s stomach from its own digestive juices. The stomach is penetrated, and the insect dies by poisoning from the stomach contents and the spores themselves. This same mechanism is what makes Bt harmless to birds, fish and mammals whose acidic gut conditions negate the bacteria’s effect.

Most random comment on here, thanks rcrscn51. But to add to the randomness of your comment, I'm at work (hardware store), talking about the various poisons we sell to kill lawn armyworm, and this exact product is in my hand.

[Sage]

Uh hu! So we'll have to revert to Bluetooth, then! Shouldn't be too difficult for the well-educated folk on this Forum?

[rufwoof]

BT doesn't make anything!

BT (British Telecom) is predominately a pension fund, with a sideline Telco strapped on. As Treasury yields have declined so they've had to inject billions into the pension fund to cover liabilities. As/if/when yields rise back to positive real yields then so the liabilities will drop potentially massively.

Here in the UK we've had negative real yields for quite a while now, and lower yields means pension funds have to buy even more Treasury bonds (Gilts) in order to match liabilities (mandated). Which pushes prices even higher and yields further lower into more negative real yield territory - so pension funds have to buy even more. Others who don't have to buy negative real yield Treasury bonds opt instead to buy gold ... or whatever. Since the financial crisis gold in Pounds has risen from £300 ounce to £1300 ounce - more than quadrupled, 13% annualised gain over 12 years (better than stocks and significantly more than inflation).

It's a bit like being back in the 1970's (the time when the Post Office Telephone nationalised business was sold off and became British Telecom), excepting back then we had raging inflation, high interest rates to match, high taxation (so after tax net rewards were below inflation and savers/pension funds lost out), but at the opposite extreme (low negative real yields - such that savers/pension funds lose out). Again back then gold was a saviour. Unlike back then where thereafter prolonged/progressive declines in yields uplifted asset values (yields and prices are inverse functions) perhaps we'll see a long/prolonged rise back from negative to positive real yields ... eventually (maybe decades). Relatively low prices/price declines, small rises in yields. Which all becomes interesting when like at present governments are being paid to lend (by buyers of Gilts/Treasuries) - government debt becomes a asset rather than a liability. A topsy turvy world where States are being paid to lend; Oil firms the other day were paying others to take oil away; In the UK people are being paid to stay at home (lockdown); Air quality has massively improved and best of all Greta Thunberg has been silenced

Fundamentally I think its the new era. Raising/collecting taxation is a headache, simpler if the state just prints/spends more money directly which is a form of devaluation of all existing notes in circulation - a form of unavoidable micro taxation.

[Sage]

Yes, I recognise all that you say, ruf, having lived through it. History provides an answer, though. After the war we had three rates of taxes: basic, sur- and super. Starting around the mid-30's% rising to 99.25%. It was OK for both Labour and Tory (Churchill) governments. Not sure inflation was even in the OED. But the greedy PPE Oxbridge boys wanted more, much more, so we entered several rounds of inflation, boom-and-bust, proving once again that capitalism doesn't work, just as Plato et al. stated. Erlander got it approximately right with a single basic tax of 49% - it worked. But even the Swedes got greedy and eventually sacked one of the longest and most successful PMs the world have ever seen. The Danes are presently trying something similar. Marx and Lenin started off well but the little green idol eventually scuppered their efforts, too. Frankly, there's no scope for private enterprise in a successful society. Nationalised industries will never be efficient, nor more profitable; they will secure job security and a decent division of nation's wealth (or otherwise). That's why UBI, full employment and guaranteed housing will, ultimately prove the cornerstones if H. sapiens is to survive. In the meantime, perhaps we should send the SAS into the BVI, Caymans, even Monaco to recover the ill-gotten gains of politicians, speculators and a bunch of crooks known to us all.
Incidentally, wasn't Bluetooth a Danish invention? Wasn't popular at first but now seem to have found it's uses. Perhaps the patents ran out...?

[jamesbond]

Uh hu! So we'll have to revert to Bluetooth, then! Shouldn't be too difficult for the well-educated folk on this Forum?

Oy my carpal tunnel hurts!

Incidentally, wasn't Bluetooth a Danish invention?

I'm not very sure of this.

Wasn't popular at first but now seem to have found it's uses.

Three words. COVID contact-tracing app.

Perhaps the patents ran out...?

Not gonna happen. They keep renewing it. It's at version 5 already ... (I mean the version of the specification, not the version of the software).

[Sage]

Quote:
Incidentally, wasn't Bluetooth a Danish invention?
I'm not very sure of this.

Apparently a gestation originated by Swedes and polished by Dutch.

[Ray MK]

Just a quick hello and a massive thank you to all the team for this latest fantastic Fatdog64.
running on an E732 laptop, i3 proc. with 2gig of ram.
Very best regards - Ray

[szdani10]

The scanner is plugged in the computer, but when I try to run scanimage --test this is my result:
scanimage: open of device genesys:libusb:004:006 failed: Invalid argument
When I run the graphic program the same error message pops up.
lsusb:
Bus 004 Device 006: ID 03f0:1405 Hewlett-Packard ScanJet 3670
What can I do to scan an image?
Besides this is a very good system so far.

Edit1:
Here the lsusb: Bus 004 Device 017: ID 03f0:1405 Hewlett-Packard ScanJet 3670
This is the last lines of output after running the command: export SANE_DEBUG_SANEI_USB=255
scanimage -L 2>probe.log

[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_find_devices: vendor=0x04a7, product=0x0447
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_find_devices: vendor=0x04a7, product=0x0492
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_find_devices: vendor=0x04a7, product=0x0478
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_find_devices: vendor=0x04a7, product=0x049a
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_find_devices: vendor=0x0482, product=0x0335
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_open: trying to open device `libusb:004:017'
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_open: configuration nr: 0
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_open: interface nr: 0
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_open: alt_setting nr: 0
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_open: endpoint nr: 0
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_open: direction: 128
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_open: address: 1 transfertype: 2
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_open: found bulk-in endpoint (address 0x01)
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_open: we already have a bulk-in endpoint (address: 0x81), ignoring the new one
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_open: endpoint nr: 1
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_open: direction: 0
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_open: address: 2 transfertype: 2
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_open: found bulk-out endpoint (address 0x02)
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_open: we already have a bulk-out endpoint (address: 0x02), ignoring the new one
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_open: endpoint nr: 2
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_open: direction: 128
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_open: address: 3 transfertype: 3
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_open: found interrupt-in endpoint (address 0x03)
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_open: we already have a int-in endpoint (address: 0x83), ignoring the new one
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_open: opened usb device `libusb:004:017' (*dn=0)
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_control_msg: rtype = 0x40, req = 12, value = 131, index = 0, len = 1
[sanei_usb] 000 41 A
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_control_msg: libusb complained: Input/output error
scanimage: open of device genesys:libusb:004:017 failed: Invalid argument
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_exit: freeing resources
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_exit: freeing device 00
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_exit: freeing resources
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_exit: freeing device 00
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_exit: freeing resources
[sanei_usb] sanei_usb_exit: freeing device 00

[step]

My guess is that you need to install some sort of driver specific to your scanner, then you should be able to select your scanner model from the scan UI and proceed past this error. Search this forum for HP scanner issues, it might put you in the right direction.

[don570]

tip for opening htm files using pfind

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 27#1058827
I tested with fatdog and precise
..