Ubuntu kernel problem with upgrade to 5.4.0-28.32

There seems to be a problem with the routine upgrade of the latest Ubuntu 20.04. It is a known bug. It is probably best not to waste time trying to fix it but to wait until it is sorted out. This is the error message.
===================================
(Reading database ... 277670 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../linux-modules-5.4.0-28-generic_5.4.0-28.32_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking linux-modules-5.4.0-28-generic (5.4.0-28.32) over (5.4.0-28.32) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-modules-5.4.0-28-generic_5.4.0-28.32_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 unable to make backup link of './boot/System.map-5.4.0-28-generic' before installing new version: Operation not permitted
dpkg-deb: error: paste subprocess was killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-modules-5.4.0-28-generic_5.4.0-28.32_amd64.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
A package failed to install.  Trying to recover:
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-image-generic:
 linux-image-generic depends on linux-image-5.4.0-28-generic; however:
  Package linux-image-5.4.0-28-generic is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing package linux-image-generic (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-modules-extra-5.4.0-28-generic:
 linux-modules-extra-5.4.0-28-generic depends on linux-image-5.4.0-28-generic | linux-image-unsigned-5.4.0-28-generic; however:
  Package linux-image-5.4.0-28-generic is not configured yet.
  Package linux-image-unsigned-5.4.0-28-generic is not installed.
dpkg: error processing package linux-modules-extra-5.4.0-28-generic (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 linux-image-generic
 linux-modules-extra-5.4.0-28-generic

Things to do after installing Lubuntu 20.04

Long ago I used KDE which was a simple and efficient desktop much like Windows95 in appearance and mode of operation. Then it got more complicated with the introduction of Plasma, making the computer sluggish, and so I switched to Gnome. Then Lubuntu came out, using LXDE, but it had problems at first, including no way of configuring a mouse for left-handed use. Eventually the problems were ironed out and I have used it for about the past ten years. It is distributed as the lightweight version of Ubuntu. It does the job and does not overload the computer, which normally runs at around 37 degrees.

It used to be the case that as you went from one version of Linux to an newer, or even changed distributions, your desktop remained unaltered. Unfortunately the Lubuntu developers have made fundamental alterations which are not an improvement. Instead of using the LXDE desktop, they have now changed to LXQT. Unfortunately, it has some very ugly panel widgets, and the display manager, sddm, offers an ugly and clunky login screen, and no easy way to change the background image. Whether or not additional installed applications are added to the menu is hit and miss.

So having completed the initial installation, it seems a good idea to install LXDE, the menu editor Alacarte and the display manager gdm3, activate the latter and log in with LXDE. Then you will get our old desktop back and everything works much as it did before, perhaps a little more crisply. It is obviously not thrashing the processor.

Open source developers are falling into the same trap as proprietary software producers, of being unable to leave well alone. When the technology is mature, it does not need more than tweaks to improve the performance. However, there are some good new programs including the raw image processing software Raw Therapee, which replaces ufraw.

Does the camera make the photographer? #1

Groyneshower - Brighton Swimming Club

Promflood

THE FILM AGE

The best camera in the world is the one you have on you when you see a photograph waiting to be taken. These days it would be a mobile phone. “Gryoneshower” and “Promflood” were taken one stormy winter morning twenty years ago. I used to carry an Olympus Trip with me which I had picked up for a few pounds and regarded as expendable. It was small enough to keep with me most of the time. With sea water spray flying around all over the place I would not have risked a good quality camera in these situation. The pictures are not sharp but they are among the more appreciated of the pictures I have taken in over sixty years of photography.

It is perfectly possible to take good photographs with an ancient Box Brownie taking roll film. If the light is right and the subject at the right distance, they will be fairly sharp and clear. These days, pictures taken with such a camera will automatically take on a vintage character.

 However, basic cameras have limitations. There are subjects which just cannot be taken with them, though the cameras on mobile phones will do a lot which in the past needed an expensive camera. During the 1960s I used 120 roll film folding cameras taking eight pictures on 120 film. The quality is often higher than a full frame digital camera can produce, but although the cameras were compact and portable, they were clumsy to use. 

I then switched to a Leica M2, which is compact and ready for instant use, though you need to decide which lens to put on and not keep changing. The camera came with a 50 mm collapsible lens which was good for most things, and I also had the 90 mm lens which still made a reasonably compact outfit. 

When I wanted to take better architectural photographs, I bought the 35 mm Summaron lens, but it vignetted quite badly; also the Leica was not good for close up pictures.  I bought a Nikon F2 to supplement it, and later on, an F3 body to use my lenses with; by then I had accumulated Nikon lenses in a range of focal lengths, as older ones are quite inexpensive. Then I found I was not using the Leica and as I needed to take larger format architectural photographs, I traded in the Leica for a Linhof Technika using 120 roll film. In retrospect, trading in the M2 was a mistake. The Linhof is tricky to use but with a rising front, it takes perfect architectural photographs in large format, which I was doing at the time, again, often for my work. These days it lives in its box as there is unfortunately little demand for these excellent pieces of equipment.

In the end, I mostly used the Nikon SLR for work photography (I was 14 years in the town planning department at a London borough) but found it too clumsy to carry around all the time so I supplemented it with a Canonet rangefinder. These have superb quality lenses but are on the large size and I traded it in after a couple of years, when I came across an Olympus Trip 35, which became the camera I always had on me. Other good notebook cameras I have had include the Olympus XA and the Minox GL; the latter is a perfect pocket camera which cost next to nothing. I kept one with me until I forgot it somewhere. I picked up another a few weeks ago, again for next to nothing. 

By 2005, I thought it was time to try digital photography. That is the next part of the story.

The Rentenmark - an idea whose time has come back

The financial crisis which the epidemic is bringing in its wake will require drastic measures, including the injection of huge amounts of money. The Rentenmark is the model. This is the currency that was introduced in Germany in 1923 to put an end to the hyperinflation of the previous year. It was based on the yield from a land value tax. The concept of a currency based on the yield from a land value tax cannot be faulted. Land value is solely due to the presence and activities of the government, paid for out of taxation. The primary purpose of government-issued currency is for the payment of taxes (“render unto Caesar”). Its use as a medium of exchange is secondary. The Rentenmark completes a cycle which is otherwise dangerously open. Even gold is subject to inflation risk.

Banking system perversion

The creation of money by banks - ie credit - is a necessary part of the economy and has been for hundreds of years. However, historically, it was found that the amount of credit created should be limited to about 12 times the value of deposits.
A further issue is that credit is abused in at least three ways

1. The legitimate use of credit is to finance the production of physical capital, which will thereby increase productive capacity. This is essential for an economy to function. When credit is used for land purchase, as most of it is, no additional capital is produced and there is no increase in productive capacity. It is dead credit.
2. Credit should be secured only on the goods that the credit is given for eg the part-built ship.
3. Interest should not be charged. The bank's services should be paid for by an administration charge and some kind of insurance bond, which is not the same thing as charging interest.

The banking system has been perverted. A major proportion of its activity consists of the purchase of land using money that the banks create at almost no cost, seemingly without limit. A mortgage is a device whereby the bank becomes a land owner for the duration of the loan. What is labelled “interest” is in reality rent paid to the bank. The banks have turned into rent-seekers.
The solution to this, as to many other chronic economic ills, is land value taxation, which collects land rent as public revenue, taking it out of the hands fo rent seekers. As a bonus, most other forms of tax can be abolished.

The economy after the epidemic

There is now talk about the need for a widespread period of austerity after the economic shock of the epidemic. Such a policy could not be more wrong. It is exactly what is not required. Those who advocate it could not be more wrong. It is time to think outside the box which has constrained economic thinking since 1945. Keynesian theory identified what he called ‘shortage of aggregate demand’. Wages are apparently too low to enable people to purchase everything that they produce. If you stop and think about that, it is an absurd proposition, but leave it to one side for the moment.

From 1945 until 1974 the ‘solution’ was monetary expansion, which gave rise to accelerating inflation, a housing price bubble (in reality a land price bubble) and a crash, precipitated by the oil crisis. Recovery eventually occurred by bank deregulation, which resulted in another land price bubble and the crash of 1992. Further expansion of credit generated a recovery of sorts, resulting in a third land price bubble and the crash of 2008. This was eventually addressed by quantitative easing, ie more expansion of debt, which has kept the land price bubble inflated, now disguised under the label of ‘asset bubble’. The financial system is fundamentally unstable; the coronavirus epidemic just dislodged the house of cards.

The apparent shortage of aggregate demand was, long before Keynes, identified as the supply-side blockage caused because the land market is dysfunctional. Rents and land prices never fall to market-clearing levels, as is obvious from the forest of estate agents’ boards to be seen in most town centres and industrial estates around the country. Given that no business can operate without suitable premises and that a major constraint on is the limitations of those premises and lack of availability of better, it should not be hard to understand that dysfunctionality of the land market is a constraint.
A further issue is the shape of the tax system, with its focus on labour-related taxation; these taxes are in reality a burden on employers and are an important reason why wages cannot drop to market-clearing levels. Here we have a second supply-side blockage.

Getting the economy back on course is in principle simple: it is a matter of mobilising resources as quickly as possible. The easiest way to do this is for governments to inject the money directly into the economy. If the additional money is backed as the Rentenmark was, then there will be no inflation; the Rentenmark, was the monetary device devised by Hjalmar Schacht to stop the hyperinflation of 1922-3, with complete success.