295. Patching kernel 3.7.1 to fix the azx_runtime_suspend bug

(For a general approach to compiling kernel 3.7,see http://verahill.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/compiling-kernel-37-on-debian.html )

Note that it is NOT necessary to patch version 3.7.2

If you're seeing the following error messages during boot of kernel 3.7.0:

azx_runtime_suspend
pci_pcm_runtime_suspend
snd_hda_intel returns -11

you will want to patch your kernel. Technically I should be patching 3.7, but we might as well go straight for kernel 3.7.1.

So, here's how to patch it:

wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.0/linux-3.7.1.tar.bz2
tar xvf linux-3.7.1.tar.bz2
cd linux-3.7.1/
cat /boot/config-`uname -r`>.config
make oldconfig
wget https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/1865521/raw/
mv index.html hda_intel.patch
patch -i hda_intel.patch -p 1

patching file sound/pci/hda/hda_intel.c
Hunk #1 succeeded at 2557 (offset -134 lines).
Hunk #2 succeeded at 2571 (offset -134 lines).

make-kpkg clean
time fakeroot make-kpkg -j3 --initrd --revision=3.7.1 --append-to-version=-amd64 kernel_image kernel_headers

Once building is complete

mv ../*3.7.1*.deb .
sudo dpkg -i *.deb

and reboot.

Tried it and it works.

81. nvidia 295.20 bug causing gnome-shell to crash on Debian Testing

UPDATE: Here's how to downgrade your drivers:
http://verahill.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/debian-testing-downgrading-nvidia.html

Update: 
A bigger issue is what this bug does to evolution:
http://verahill.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/debian-testing-wheezy-64-no-real.html


The symptoms:
I've tried to use the correct gnome-shell terminology.

1. Go to the top left corner (Hot Corner) of the desktop to get the Overview and Search Entry field
2. Start typing in the name of an application
3. The window will flicker as if gnome-shell is being restarted (similar to alt+f2++r)
4. Do it again and you get a full-on crash with an unhappy looking computer

dmesg based on repeatedly crashing gnome-shell says:

[ 7011.967820] gnome-shell[32742]: segfault at 10 ip 00007fa1b6d98c0f sp 00007fa1914a1638 error 6 in libnvidia-tls.so.295.20[7fa1b6d98000+3000]
[ 7111.276979] gnome-shell[748]: segfault at 10 ip 00007ff7eb598c0f sp 00007ff7beffc638 error 6 in libnvidia-tls.so.295.20[7ff7eb598000+3000]
[ 7620.952276] gnome-shell[2933]: segfault at 10 ip 00007f0a9fdd9c0f sp 00007f0a710fe638 error 6 in libnvidia-tls.so.295.20[7f0a9fdd9000+3000]
[ 7628.106656] gnome-shell[2986]: segfault at 10 ip 00007f26423f3c0f sp 00007f2612ffd638 error 6 in libnvidia-tls.so.295.20[7f26423f3000+3000]
[ 7658.755466] gnome-shell[3818]: segfault at 10 ip 00007f76bbf2cc0f sp 00007f7691a77638 error 6 in libnvidia-tls.so.295.20[7f76bbf2c000+3000]
[ 7666.310714] gnome-shell[3905]: segfault at 10 ip 00007f3279e64c0f sp 00007f325469d638 error 6 in libnvidia-tls.so.295.20[7f3279e64000+3000]
[ 7717.061483] gnome-shell[4829]: segfault at 10 ip 00007f245ad26c0f sp 00007f243469c638 error 6 in libnvidia-tls.so.295.20[7f245ad26000+3000]

The libnvidia-tls files are found here:

/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libnvidia-tls.so.295.20
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/tls/libnvidia-tls.so.295.20

and
 dpkg --search libnvidia-tls.so.295.20 
gives

libgl1-nvidia-glx: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/tls/libnvidia-tls.so.295.20
libgl1-nvidia-glx: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libnvidia-tls.so.295.20

Ergo, that's where the bug is.

---

Cause:
Bad nvidia drivers -- in package libgl1-nvidia-glx

This is not unique to debian.

"Confirmed, I'm seeing the same on Gentoo ~amd64. gnome-shell 3.2.2.1 crashes while doing a search with nvidia-drivers 295.20 installed (backtrace is in libnvidia-tls.so). Downgrading to nvidia-drivers 290.10 resolves the issue, so it is a problem with the drivers."

And plenty of people are having the same problem, regardless of distro:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=135826 (15 Feb 2012)
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nvidia-graphics-drivers/+bug/936132 (19 Feb 2012)
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-shell/+bug/941200 

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=174049 (14 Feb 2012)

UPDATE: Here's how to downgrade your drivers:
http://verahill.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/debian-testing-downgrading-nvidia.html


There are no bugs listed for libgl1-nvidia-glx
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?pkg=libgl1-nvidia-glx

But nvidia-glx has it's fair share of bugs filed against it:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?package=nvidia-glx

From what I can tell this is the relevant bug report (17 February 2012):
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=660189
which points to
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=174049&page=3

---

Solution:

1. The 'proper way':
Downgrade your drivers.

UPDATE: Here's how to downgrade your drivers:
http://verahill.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/debian-testing-downgrading-nvidia.html


2. The easy, interesting way:
"For me deleting recently-used.xbel and recreating it with no content solved the problem just temporary. But instead of creating a equally named directory one could also sudo chattr +i recently-used.xbel to keep the file empty.  Keeping the file empty also significantly speeds up the application launcher for me. so it would be nice to have a way to configure this instead of fixing it that rude way, for folks that dont want or need recently used files."


In practical terms, this means:

echo ""> ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel

sudo chattr +i ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel

And you are done!

Once the bug has been fixed, you can do
 chattr -i ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel 

to restore normal functionality

This solution worked for me on an up-to-date debian testing.

Oh well. At least the folks at nvidia are aware of the bug:

---

Thoughts:
The nvidia binaries only entered the debian testing repos around the 25-26 of February from what I can tell. The bug was known for ten days by then, so why did the binaries get promoted to testing?

Here's what I've got installed:

i A glx-alternative-nvidia          - allows the selection of NVIDIA as GLX prov
i A libgl1-nvidia-alternatives      - transition libGL.so* diversions to glx-alt
i A libgl1-nvidia-glx               - NVIDIA binary OpenGL libraries          
i A libglx-nvidia-alternatives      - transition libgl.so diversions to glx-alte
pi  libnvidia-compiler-ia32         - NVIDIA runtime compiler library (32-bit)
i A libnvidia-ml1                   - NVIDIA management library (NVML) runtime l
i A nvidia-alternative              - allows the selection of NVIDIA as GLX prov
i A nvidia-compute-profiler         - NVIDIA Compute Visual Profiler          
i   nvidia-cuda-dev                 - NVIDIA CUDA development files          
i A nvidia-cuda-doc                 - NVIDIA CUDA and OpenCL documentation    
i A nvidia-cuda-gdb                 - NVIDIA CUDA GDB                        
i A nvidia-cuda-toolkit             - NVIDIA CUDA toolkit                    
i   nvidia-glx                      - NVIDIA metapackage                      
i A nvidia-installer-cleanup        - Cleanup after driver installation with the
i   nvidia-kernel-3.1.0-1-amd64     - NVIDIA binary kernel module for Linux 3.1.
i   nvidia-kernel-common            - NVIDIA binary kernel module support files
i A nvidia-kernel-dkms              - NVIDIA binary kernel module DKMS source
i   nvidia-kernel-source            - NVIDIA binary kernel module source      
i A nvidia-libopencl1               - NVIDIA OpenCL library                  
i   nvidia-libopencl1-ia32          - NVIDIA OpenCL 32-bit library            
pi  nvidia-opencl-common            - NVIDIA OpenCL driver                    
i   nvidia-opencl-dev               - NVIDIA OpenCL development files        
pi  nvidia-opencl-icd-ia32          - NVIDIA OpenCL ICD (32-bit)              
i   nvidia-settings                 - Tool for configuring the NVIDIA graphics d
i A nvidia-smi                      - NVIDIA System Management Interface      
i A nvidia-support                  - NVIDIA binary graphics driver support file
i A nvidia-vdpau-driver             - NVIDIA vdpau driver                    
pi  nvidia-xconfig                  - X configuration tool for non-free NVIDIA d
i A xserver-xorg-video-nvidia       - NVIDIA binary Xorg driver

35. Fixing: gnome alt+f2 broken, returns command not found -- debian testing current bug, description and solution

22/12/2011
An explanation and solution is here: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=198&t=67502&p=510197#p512994

SOLUTION
--------------
My version of the solution above is a follows:

1. First, locate the file to edit

locate utils.js | grep misc

which returns

/usr/share/gnome-shell/js/misc/util.js

2. Next, confirm that argc is present (this is what's causing the problems)

cat /usr/share/gnome-shell/js/misc/util.js | grep argc

which returns

        let [success, argc, argv] = GLib.shell_parse_argv(command_line);
    let success, argc, argv;
        [success, argc, argv] = GLib.shell_parse_argv(command_line);

There are more elegant ways of doing this, but this is how I roll.

3. Edit /usr/share/gnome-shell/js/misc/util.js as root

sudo vim /usr/share/gnome-shell/js/misc/util.js (you can of course use gedit, nano, emacs etc.)

search for argc and remove all instances of of it, so that
[success, argc, argv] turns into to  [success, argv]
etc.

Once you've removed all argc, save and then hit alt+f2 in gnome, type r and enter to restart the shell. Then hit alt+f2 and type e.g. gedit to test it

It now works!

Reading through bug reports it seems it won't be fixed in Debian -- instead we'll have to wait until gnome 3.2 rolls out. Or just follow the instructions above.

-------------------------------
THE OLD POST
20/12/2011

(Current version of gnome-shell is 3.0.2-8+b1)

Hitting alt+f2 to start e.g. gedit or another program used to be straightforward.

During the past week it hasn't worked properly though -- instead the entry of any command has returned a 'command not found'. If you instead of simply typing in gedit type in /usr/bin/gedit, chances are the computer will experience an odd sort of freeze -- the top bar will be unresponsive, the black entry box will remain, the screen will be shaded, but gedit won't open. You will, however, be able to continue using your computer, but it'll be a dark experience.

Symptomatic descriptions of the bug and experiences are available here:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=719675
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-shell/+bug/816762