MintPPC

[xeno74]

FYI: Bug#995223: libffi: SIGILL on powerpc and ppc64 systems since libffi8

Source: libffi
Version: 3.3-6
Severity: important
User: [email protected]
Usertags: powerpc ppc64
X-Debbugs-Cc: [email protected]

Hi!

Multiple users on powerpc and ppc64 have reported SIGILL crashes after upgrading to libffi8 (3.4.x):

# dmesg
...
[ 16.257543] fail2ban-server[384]: illegal instruction (4) at
3fffb4283970 nip 3fffb4283970 lr 3fffb4282f90 code 1 in
libffi.so.8.1.0[3fffb427b000+c000]
...

Downgrading to libffi7 fixes the problem.

It has been reported that building and using the upstream version does not reproduce this issue. But I have not yet independently verified that. It might be that libffi performs a runtime detection during build which causes the library to be built with a higher baseline on the POWER8 buildds.

Adrian

[xeno74]

FYI:

Control: severity -1 serious

Hello!

It turns out that m4/ax_gcc_archflag.m4 contains code to detect the
baseline of the host system and sets the GCC architecture accordingly.

Thus, a libffi compiled on a POWER8 machine will not work on a POWER5
machine as the compiler is emitting POWER8 instructions in this case.

Since the m4 script contains such a host enviroment detection for aarch64
as well [1], this bug can potentially affect arm64 which is a release
architecture.

We should therefore pass "--enable-portable-binary" in debian/rules.

Adrian

> [1] https://github.com/libffi/libffi/blob/m ... ag.m4#L209

[xeno74]

If you want to disable the lock screen then you can use the following command:

Code: Select all

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.screensaver lock-enabled false

[Roland]

This is very strange... I cannot suddenly start any desktop (Mate, LDM etc) from lightdm using my personal user account! When I try it, the the Mint backround picture dissappears and the screen turns to black for few seconds, then the login screen reappears. The root account works still ok, I can open desktops normally as root.

What can cause this kind of issue, and how can I correct it? I already checked /etx/x11/xorg.conf and the config files in /etc/lightdm/, they seemed to to be intact. Where are the account-specific settings located? I could not localize any from '/home/.config.'.

[Roland]

I cannot currently get all the depot indexes updated in Synaptic, there appears an error message. Looks like some depots are not anymore available. Do others have the same problem with MintPPC?

[xeno74]

I cannot currently get all the depot indexes updated in Synaptic, there appears an error message. Looks like some depots are not anymore available. Do others have the same problem with MintPPC?

Hi Roland,

I had some issues with invalid signatures because of the old debian-ports repository public key.

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W: Failed to fetch http://deb.debian.org/debian-ports/dists/unreleased/InRelease  The following signatures were invalid: EXPKEYSIG B523E5F3FC4E5F2C Debian Ports Archive Automatic Signing Key (2023) <[email protected]> The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 8D69674688B6CB36

I solved it with installing the new public key.

Code: Select all

apt install debian-ports-archive-keyring

After that I was able to update the indexes.

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┌──(root💀mintppc)-[~]
└─# apt update                                                      
Hit:1 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian sid InRelease
Hit:2 http://u58733p55594.web0093.zxcs-klant.nl/repo unstable InRelease                                                                           
Hit:3 http://ftp.debian.org/debian unstable InRelease                                                                                             
Hit:4 http://deb.debian.org/debian-ports sid InRelease
Hit:5 http://deb.debian.org/debian-ports unreleased InRelease
Hit:6 http://deb.debian.org/debian-ports experimental InRelease
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
2284 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.

Cheers,
Christian

[Roland]

I solved it with installing the new public key.

Code: Select all

apt install debian-ports-archive-keyring

After that I was able to update the indexes.

Thanks! That solved the problem, and I was also able to install Musescore. But I have not succeeded to get Pulseaudio to work with Musescore. There is only noise coming out. Any solution for that?

[xeno74]

Thanks! That solved the problem, and I was also able to install Musescore. But I have not succeeded to get Pulseaudio to work with Musescore. There is only noise coming out. Any solution for that?

I think it is an endian issue. You can try to use ALSA via the preferences. (I/O settings)

[Roland]

I think it is an endian issue. You can try to use ALSA via the preferences. (I/O settings)

If I select ALSA, the play control buttons become grey, being inactive. Should I install some extra modules to Musescrore?

[xeno74]

Great news!

Jeroen Diederen has released a new MintPPC disk image.

Download: mintppc32-live-2023-root.img.gz