My (not so) old Dell Windows 10 notebook that poorly converts to a tablet is on its last legs; the E, A, and 5 keys are troublesome. Annoying; I have an old HP laptop running XP that mostly works; the headphone jack and DVD are shot, but everything else works, albeit with a noisy fan.
So I replaced it with a new, non-convertible Asus notebook running Windows 11, and it was an incredible surprise. For the first time I've seen since DOS 6.2 (I skipped Windows 8 after finding out it was just a test to see how much grief Windows' customers were willing to take), Microsoft actually produced an operating system that not only didn't suck worse than the last iteration, but is an actual improvement in a few ways.
It seems to be snappier than 10. Usually a brand new Windows on a brand new computer is slower than the old one, if you've maintained it, because of the bloat. Yes, that's not always true for everyone, but the hardware looks to be mostly compatible with the old Dell. It actually does some things, like copying to or from a thumb drive, faster than Kubuntu and Dolphin.
Microsoft may have actually started listening to their customers! Setting up the new computer was far less hassle and nonsense than the old Windows 10 computer, but not nearly as effortless as installing Linux on a new, clean drive. Like 10, it gave me nonsense when I tried to install open source software, but I didn't have to jump through nearly so many hoops to install everything that is on all of my Windows computers. And Audacity will play on Windows 11, unlike 10 after their last "upgrade". I don't know if it will record because like the Dell, its sound input is hard-wired to the microphone, which you can record with.
It looks different, of course. Windows upgrades always do. The start button has moved to the center of the task bar, for one, and the weather indicator has moved to the left, but the changes in its looks aren't nearly as jarring as the move from 7 to 10. When you hit the start key or button, a square pops up in the center of the screen with apps on it, apparently wanting to look like a tablet.
I record music from YouTube and streaming radio on the Linux tower, fed from the Windows 10 tower with an audio patch cord; I haven't figured out how or even if you can record the internet in kubuntu, which I still haven't replaced yet.
I use my big TV for a monitor for the two towers (should I name them Sauron and Saruman?), connected with HDMI. In the Windows 10 tower, I have to select between HDMI and line out. Using the Windows 10 notebook to play music, if I change the receiver from Bluetooth to FM, the speakers turn on. With the new Windows 11 notebook, I can have silence from the computer when I switch to a different input, my choice. Windows 11 is far less authoritarian to the user than 10.
However, some of the cruft that they added to 10 that made it worse than 7 is still there, like they did back in the last century when "DOS ain't done 'til Lotus Won't run." The Justice Department went after them for using their OS monopoly to create a browser monopoly with their abysmal Internet Exploiter Browser. I believe "IE" actually stood for "Isn't excellent." President Bush let them off.
They're doing it again, and this time, "Don't be evil" Google is doing it too: Android ain't done 'til Firefox barely runs Google News. Look at its HTML code some time. But Microsoft has made their renamed IE its help facility, and worse, it's only online. Nobody needs air gap security any more? And no, it doesn't respect your default browser.
As I booted the Windows 10 tower this morning, after the screen where you enter a pin (I wish I knew how to boot straight to the desktop like the Linux tower), a fullscreen window popped up trying to get me to install their abysmal web browser on my phone and tablet! The nerve of those assholes!
So if your computer is running Windows 10 and is able to run 11, you should upgrade; at least, if it's free. It's still not good enough to actually pay for.
(Score: 5, Informative) by inertnet on Monday January 09, @11:14AM (10 children)
Disclaimer, I've moved from Windows 7 to Linux at the time when Microsoft was forcefully installing W10 on people's W7 computers.
I haven't checked this, but I heard that Windows 11 has no way of creating local accounts. Just for that I'll avoid W11 for as long as possible.
A few weeks ago I had my first W11 experience, when someone needed help and I remotely took over their computer. The UI has completely changed, even more than I expected, so it's not easy to find the usual stuff. When I tried to paste some files in Explorer, I expected a "paste" option in the right click context menu, which wasn't there. Supposedly you need to be able to recognize tiny little icons without any text. There's probably an option hidden somewhere to add these texts back again, but apart from not having the time for it, of course I can't go and change other people's UI settings.
Conclusion, Windows had plenty of annoyances in the past and I'm not in the market for a set of new ones.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 09, @12:04PM (4 children)
I started to post a rebuttal to the claim that you can't set up a local account. Did a couple searches, and it appears that you are correct: It is more difficult to set up a local account on versions of Win11 more recent that what I'm using. Version 21H2 build 22621 and 22H2 build 22621 make it possible to bypass the Microsoft account, but later versions seem to eliminate the option.
https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/install-windows-11-without-microsoft-account [tomshardware.com]
That is just ridiculous.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Monday January 09, @02:15PM
Thanks, I saved those tips on my phone. Sometimes we need to setup a used laptop that has to be sent abroad.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 09, @02:19PM
The thing that crept in in Windows 10 and is metastasizing in 11 is: they change the rules with every (virtually mandatory) update.
Yes, you used to be able to have a user auto-login on power up [youtube.com] _this way_, but now you have to jump 3 additional hoops, for security. Figured out those 3 hoops, have you? Well, we're going to nerf that path and tell you that you need an embedded device license now, for your own safety. Ooooh, too much backlash from that move? Well, here's a simple 7 step process to safely enable auto-login on power up for those users who really need it.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 5, Informative) by cmdrklarg on Monday January 09, @07:23PM (1 child)
This also works:
1. Install Win11 with no network connection.
2. At the screen asking to create MS account, press Shift + F10 to open a cmd prompt.
3. Type in OOBE\BYPASSNRO
4. Press Enter. Your PC will reboot; this time you will be able to select "I don't have internet".
5. ????
6. Profit!
Enjoy!
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 3, Touché) by John Bresnahan on Tuesday January 10, @02:43PM
Remember when one of the complaints about Linux was that you had to drop down to the command line to get it to work the way you wanted?
(Score: 4, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 09, @02:22PM
>Windows had plenty of annoyances in the past and I'm not in the market for a set of new ones.
Then you're missing out on the genuine Windows experience. They've been pointlessly rearranging things since 3.11 was replaced by 95.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Sjolfr on Monday January 09, @11:19PM
For a while you could disconnect from the internet to set up the local account and then continue along using it whether you're connected or not. Now-a-days it seems like they force you in to the M$ account BS whenever you connect to the internet. And who's idea was it to not use the password that you have to set? A PIN is better how exactly?
I use to keep a Windows VM around so that I could update my scuba diving computer and so that I could keep up-to-date with integration tech for unix and linux.
No longer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Tuesday January 10, @02:18AM (2 children)
Yeah, the horrible new context menus are enough to drive one mad. But there does exist a fix:
https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/windows-11-classic-context-menus [tomshardware.com]
Or just use WinAero Tweaker, which does the same thing (and a lot more) without having to dumpster-dive in the registry.
As to performance, the reason Win11 seems to do well on really shit hardware (like my notebook, 1.1GHz Celeron with only 4GB RAM) is that when it finds itself in reduced circumstances, it unloads most of the background crap, and that makes it run really well. Unfortunately far as I can find there isn't a discrete switch to enable this mode, so Win11 on my sorry little notebook outperforms Win10 on my honkin' big Xeon with 64GB RAM (which "cannot run Win11").
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10, @03:47AM (1 child)
> when it finds itself in reduced circumstances, it unloads most of the background crap,
Hmmm, interesting. I wonder if temporarily replacing the installed RAM with 4MB during install would be an easy way to get a minimal install? Then later, re-install the big memory modules for the full amount you want. Or is Win 11 "smart" enough to notice the extra room...and take advantage of it?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday January 11, @12:45AM
From what I read somewhere, it's situational, but your idea is certainly worth a try. And after upping RAM to something sensible, do a registry diff to determine what changed, and test if manually changing it back sticks.
I'm reminded that if Win10 is installed without an internet connection, about half the time it will *behave* as "activated" even when it's not. (It may put the whine on the desktop, but the customization restrictions never appear. Sometimes this sticks, sometimes not.)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 09, @11:45AM (37 children)
I started with 11 Pro so that I get Group Policy Editor, among other "professional" tools. Customized install media so that Cortana and other trash were removed from the install media. During install, there was no internet connection, and I used the alternate install option to avoid linking the machine to a Microsoft (or any other) account. Installation complete, I discovered that I missed some bloat and annoyances. Had to use Group Policy Editor to remove the advertising in Windows search. Moved the Start or Search menu to the left of the screen. Went through several guides to ensure that I had turned off telemetry. After diddling around with it for a couple days, I presented my wife with a computer that was very similar to her old computer running Win7.
There are a number of Windows debloating guides and software on the internet. And, a lot of them look legitimate. Some of them work well, although I won't recommend any particular debloater here. IMO, it's best to use Microsoft's own DISM to prepare your install media. Note that you must use the most recent version of DISM for the most recent operating system. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/what-is-dism?view=windows-11 [microsoft.com] There are a lot of unofficial guides on the internet to help you identify and eliminate the bloat, using DISM.
Bottom line, I think Win 10 and 11 suck, but with preparation, they can be made to suck a lot less. When you're finished, you won't have Windows XP, or Windows 7, but you can come a lot closer than Microsoft ever intended.
BTW - the novice isn't going to master this in the first go-around. I practiced on virtual machines until I felt that I had it half-ways right. Then I went to work on my wife's new machine, and pretty much got what I intended. She's happy, so I'm happy!
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by John Bresnahan on Monday January 09, @11:47AM (21 children)
I run Linux (Fedora) and I don’t have to do anything like that to get a properly running system. Best of luck with Windows.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 09, @12:08PM
What I run, and what I maintain for the lady of the house are very, very different.
$ uname -a
Linux mxpansive 6.0.0-10.1-liquorix-amd64 #1 ZEN SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC liquorix 6.0-6.1~sid (2022-11-26) x86_64 GNU/Linux
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 09, @12:24PM (1 child)
Sorry, I posted a reply without thinking very far outside the box. It's somewhat ironic that my cell phone runs on a modified version of Linux, commonly referred to as 'Android'. Like Windows, it is - errr WAS - bloated. I've installed the adb driver on my Linux machine, so that Linux can talk to Android. Then I used Universal Android Debloater GUI to search out and either uninstall or disable a small boatload of junk. The manufacturer install bloatware, the retailer often installs bloatware, and the telcos install their own bloatware, so you can have three layers of telemetry and other bloat running at the same time.
After debloating Android, I installed Duckduckgo browser, which still intercepts a lot of trash from both Android and the apps I've installed.
It's ironic that Linux can be corrupted so badly - debatably worse than Windows.
Needless to say, the average person who picked my phone up would think my phone worthless. No Candy Crush, no Facebook, no casino apps, no eye candy, just a phone with a few apps that I find useful.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday January 09, @07:59PM
A bloated desktop on top of a lean, mean, efficient kernel makes a bloated operating system.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday January 09, @05:06PM (12 children)
How do you deal with systemd?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by John Bresnahan on Monday January 09, @05:48PM (8 children)
It hasn't given me any trouble. Everything just works, as well or better than Windows.
I'm way past the point where I want to be fiddling with my computer, and Linux requires considerably less fiddling than Windows.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by RS3 on Monday January 09, @06:47PM (7 children)
Somewhat ironically, Windows is supposed to require less fiddling.
My problem is I'm an engineer. A computer is supposed to be a programmable tool that _I_, the user, who owns it, can control it and make it do what I want it to do.
Stating the obvious, it's become a battle for control of the machine between software producers, like Microsoft, and end users.
Part of the problem is, there's no "one size fits all". As some noted elsewhere in this discussion, Windows "Enterprise Edition" might be more suited to people like me who need more control of the "wizards" and "bloatware".
I'm glad systemd helps you. I'm not a "fiddler" for fiddling's sake, I'm a sometimes system administrator and I need to be able to edit configuration files and have them stay as I made them.
Some years ago I installed CentOS 6, but couldn't get the networking to work. I wasn't very aware of systemd at the time, and it did not have systemd.
However, it has "NetworkManager" which is a "deamon" that aims to fight you unless you know what it is, what it does, and where the configuration files now reside.
IE, good old *nix system structure is so last century, so to legitimize our existence we have to change things around. Sorry for the cynicism there. I'm all for "innovation" and improving systems- it's what I do. But I try to discern the sometimes fine-line between change for the sake of change, and "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
My point in all of this is: it would be far better, IMHO, if we had choice. I shouldn't have to fight NetworkManager or systemd for control of _my_ computer. The OS should give me the option either way. MX Linux seems to do just that. It's not an easy transition back and forth, but at least they, and some others give you the option.
A big part of my frustration is: systemd is suddenly put into distributions. I think it's a pretty big deal, and I think the installer, even just the "whitepaper" should tell you it's going to install systemd, what systemd will be doing, what you'll need to now learn and do to maintain control of your machine, and how to deal with problems when they crop up.
BTW, if you've never been admin for a live webserver, you won't fully understand the anxiety when a server is suddenly offline, you can't remote into it, you have to drive fairly far in potentially heavy traffic to find out a "daemon" changed network something and you have to be physically at the console.
(yes, there are remote console systems out there, but I don't have one and no budget to buy one)
(Score: 3, Informative) by mcgrew on Monday January 09, @08:05PM (3 children)
Somewhat ironically, Windows is supposed to require less fiddling.
That's not irony, it's it's a bald faced false advertising lie. A lie repeated enough will be believed, and there's nothing ironic about a lie, only hypocrisy.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RS3 on Monday January 09, @09:03PM (2 children)
I'm not so sure everything is so black or white. I was trying to give Microsoft people the benefit of the doubt. You know, naivety, young and brainwashed, good intentions, head in sand, etc.
I've personally known some Microsoft employees, one of whom was (maybe still is) a fairly high up manager / director of business software. I haven't been in contact with him in ten or so years. Point is, he was very gung-ho, in good ways, believing Microsoft and their application software is that good, easy to use, productive, etc.
Gates was super-clever, heartless greedy opportunist, but I attribute most of his and Microsoft's monopoly to our government being far too slow to understand things, especially technology, and nip things in the bud. The Microsoft "tax" on PCs should have been shut down in the 1980s.
Some years ago, maybe mid-90s, I went to one of those "computer shows" - basically open-air PC parts vendor fairs. I was going to buy a motherboard and hard drive from one guy, and he insisted I had to buy a Windows license. He barely spoke English, and seemed very nervous, even afraid, and I wasn't sure what was going on with him.
In hindsight, I understand Microsoft's power over these vendors. Maybe he was paranoid and thought I might have been a Microsoft spy, or some kind of law enforcement person.
Anyway, I bought the motherboard, walked away for a while, came back later and bought the hard drive, no Windows license, no problem.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday January 09, @11:29PM (1 child)
I'm wondering how much of the Kool-aid he drank.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday January 10, @12:45AM
Oh, all of it.
But that dovetails with some things I observe about life and people: how much we put on an act, for the sake of the situation. He made pretty good $, so, you know, sometimes you do what you have to do. If you're very passionate and driven to self-sacrifice, you probably wouldn't work for a company like Microsoft. Well, unless you were hypnotized. Or a spy. :)
Aforementioned dude is not at Microsoft any more.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday January 10, @02:45AM (2 children)
You got further than I did. I could never get CentOS to so much as consider my hardware, let alone install. On the same box that runs Fedora (and a bunch of other OSs thanks to the magic of hotswap drive bays).
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Informative) by RS3 on Tuesday January 10, @03:30AM (1 child)
Hmm, interesting. I'm not sure what problems you had. Was it as simple as a hard disk interface driver missing? I think most of them are in most distros' kernels. That's typically the minimum of drivers you'd need, and once installed, I'd expect modules would be available and autoload for your stuff.
In case you or anyone doesn't know, drivers (software that interfaces with hardware) are either compiled into the kernel, or can be compiled as loadable modules
( /lib/modules/(kernel version)/kernel/... )
"lsmod" to show loaded modules
"modprobe" to attempt to load modules
"modinfo"...
Graphics chip driver can be a headache. It used to always be a headache, and now some installers will set up /etc/X11/xorg.conf or whatever and wherever your distro puts config files.
Often by default the simple install will use the built-in "VESA" pseudo-standard graphics driver. It usually works but is slow, so I always try to get the native graphics driver working in X.
Xorg -configure (and then there's much fiddling, weeping, and gnashing of teeth...)
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday January 10, @04:59AM
Good info, thanks!
It wouldn't even boot far enough to look at whether it would install, didn't throw an error that I recall, just locked up, repeatedly. Didn't much care as I was trawling prospects, and one of the criteria was "painless install" (having painful memories of the first time I got debian to install). Making me go WTF and RTFM right out of the box meant it was right out of the running.
Yeah, one or another of the AMD graphics chips (naturally the one I had to hand) is presently not working in my preferred distro, no one knows why and one-man-band doesn't have the resources to track it down. Hence Fedora or Devuan when I need that box to spit up a linux desktop.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Tuesday January 10, @02:26AM (2 children)
I use linux distros both with and without systemd (but all with KDE desktop). From here in userland, I can't tell the difference. However, there is a systemd control doohickey where you can turn stuff on and off. I looked but didn't touch.
The only one that occasionally gives me grief is Fedora, which needs a restart about once a week to avoid grinding to a halt (tho I suspect the culprit is Wayland).
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday January 10, @03:15AM (1 child)
Thanks, I don't think I ever got far enough to try any systemd control panels.
Problem for me is: I'm not a full-time admin. I'm the _only_ admin, but it's barely a few hours a week most weeks (because, bragging a bit, I set things up so that they just work, no babysitting needed. :) I check on them most days. (trundles off...) yep, they're good.
From everything I read about systemd, it can cause problems, has had some vulnerabilities, and if another problem happens, sometimes systemd makes it worse, and generally much more time, effort, and head-pounding to fix it.
cron jobs take care of anything that needs to be done, like backups, system scans and general log reports, etc. All in my control, all done by simple text config files and scripts. Yay!
I haven't even tried Wayland, unless it's on a bootable CD/DVD/USB stick and I'm unaware it's in there.
systemd has very widespread acceptance, so it obviously does some good for many people.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday January 10, @04:47AM
I'm just using linux as a desktop, I'm not doing admin things, and I gather that's a whole different world (and agree admin stuff *should* be set up so it "just works" and all you do is occasionally supervise). Yeah, from a user perspective most of the time you don't even know if systemd, or Wayland, or whatever newfangledness is there. Which kernel am I using? Who knows, it's whatever arrived with the last update. And so on... Yeah, you'd think if it was universally a problem, it wouldn't be so near-universally used, and the "systemd-free!!!!" distros wouldn't be the outliers. One suspects a lot of the hate is (understandably) because it upended how people were used to doing things, and most admin types don't do reconfiguration for fun.
There's a video "The tragedy of systemd" that's a pretty good overview. I see I've saved another called "systemd: the good parts" (well, that's ominous!) There's another on Wayland that I can't recall the title offhand that did a pretty good job of explaining why something had to be done about the mess, and why this would be improvement, but I'm not sure it's all the way there yet.
Um, the Wayland video might be "[Linux.conf.au 2013] - The real story behind Wayland and X"
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday January 09, @07:45PM
Like I said, it's still not worth paying for.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Monday January 09, @09:20PM (3 children)
Great, let me know when Linux has a functioning CAD package that can do material stress and thermal analysis.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09, @09:54PM
Right, because every typical user needs to do that.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday January 09, @11:35PM
Have you contacted the company to request it?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Tuesday January 10, @04:53AM
And offers liability protection by being industry standard and from a company that can be sued if the software produces a defective product.
My sister's work does megabuck projects that people's lives depend on, so they won't use anything that's out of warranty, unsupported, or not "industry standard" -- because if something fails and they can be demonstrated to have used "nonstandard" anything, they could be on the hook for megabuck settlements.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 09, @11:58AM (13 children)
>There are a number of Windows debloating guides and software on the internet.
I did those for the reviled Windows ME on a new laptop (purchased due to somewhat justified FUD that my collection of Warez would not run on the upcoming replacement for ME). After two four hour sessions in the evening after work, that ME laptop was every bit as friendly and usable as the dying Win98 laptop it was replacing. ME wasn't evil to the core, it just had a crust of user hostile configurations that had to be chipped away one little annoyance at a time.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday January 09, @02:46PM (9 children)
At a certain point the disease (Windows) is worse than the cure (Linux).
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 09, @03:03PM (7 children)
Back in the WinME days, there were several "killer apps" that I used in Windoze that just weren't available at all in Linux, Autocad 14 being one of them.
I don't do so much CAD anymore, and what I do do for 3D printing and similar can be handled by other more appropriate (for my use cases) tools like OpenSCAD.
Bottom line, I haven't had to switch to Windows for anything other than corporate apps that are tied to the corporate VPN since about 2012. Linux isn't perfect, but at least it's not as openly user-hostile as Windows.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday January 09, @04:01PM (5 children)
I find it necessary to keep a few Windows installations about. Like, the time I used LibreOffice to create a spreadsheet to port data from one web service to another. The new website accepted data in Excel format, but I couldn't get it to work. Failed mysteriously, with a message that said only an error occurred. Finally, I loaded the Excel spreadsheet I'd created with LibreOffice into Excel, and saved it right back out again. That file, the website accepted.
Yeah, the lack of free, open CAD software was a long standing issue. It's only comparatively recently that libre CAD software has become mature enough to be usable. I've used FreeCAD a few times. Designed an object I then printed on the public library's new 3D printer. Many public library systems, it seems, have really embraced the idea of becoming makerspaces.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 09, @04:34PM (4 children)
Jacksonville Florida has a half-hearted makerspace in the downtown Library, I have thought about using their vinyl cutter but never had a big enough need to make it worth the trip. How was your 3D printer experience? We had one at home for a couple of years (FlashForge Dreamer or some such) - spent more time maintaining and calibrating the machine than waiting for prints, and our prints ran anywhere from 30 minutes up to many hours...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday January 10, @01:00AM (3 children)
It was pretty good. They saved me from wasting material making an object twice the length, width, and height that I obviously intended. And then saved me a little more in explaining that the
way it worked, you wanted the widest end closest to the bottom, as the software was programmed to add scaffolding. Less scaffolding the more you could have resting on and supported at the bottom.
There was one annoying snag. They did not properly record that I paid for the object I printed, and the first I heard of it was a month later them getting all nasty with threats of fines and being barred from ever checking anything out, and talk as if I was a dirty rotten so-and-so trying to cheat the library. Just a teensy bit over the top for a lousy $4 debt that was in error. I had to search my credit card history to show them that I had paid. Once they saw that, they instantly dropped the matter, acting as if I should be thankful I was able to prove my innocence, rather than them apologetic that they had not kept better records and ever suspected me in the first place. Had I paid with cash, I probably would've had to pay again, just to shut them up. $4, jeez.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 10, @01:43AM (2 children)
Our library accused us of not returning a DVD and the letter was going on about a $65 fine for a DVD we could buy new from Amazon for like $12, etc. etc. Went there and the DVD was on the shelf.
Our librarian acted like they never actually collect those fines but the procedures are what they are and the letters are automatically sent
That sounds like a great deal with the 3D printer... I donated ours to a friend, complete with a bunch of ABS filament most of which I won from a Thingiverse contest, so far I have only begged him for one print job: a set of replacement 2" hubcaps for my car... Could probably print them for myself at the library if I needed to, if ours runs as smoothly as yours.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday January 10, @02:02AM (1 child)
Yes, I think it's fantastic that public libraries are offering such services. I don't 3D print on a weekly or even monthly basis, so it doesn't make sense for me to own one.
I forget how I learned of it, but am very glad I did. I wonder how many tech enthusiasts bought a 3D printer because they didn't know about the library's.
(Score: 3, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 10, @11:19AM
We bought ours for home schooling, and the pupil successfully mastered the design skills and did 98% of the printer setup and actual printing, but really didn't have an interest in it for himself...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by liar on Tuesday January 10, @05:17PM
Back then I kind of went the other direction; there were things in ME that I ported back to 98se (for instance, the defragger). I used more your approach when I bought my wife an all in one that had Vista on it but had an upgrade ticket for Win 7. I went through and through the Vista install tuning it up. When 7 became available I asked my wife if she wanted me to install it and she didn't want me to because Vista was working for her fast and trouble free...
Noli nothis permittere te terere.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Wednesday January 11, @12:53AM
That's literally where I was. I'd always found linux in some way too deficient for everyday use, but Win10 was so damned annoying that I went distro-trawling until I found one I liked. It took a lot of trawling (something like 150 live ISOs). It has improved somewhat since, to where now most KDE incarnations will work for me.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Monday January 09, @03:08PM (1 child)
ME was just the last edition of Win 98 packed with all the beta quality UI leftovers that didn't make it into the Win2000 / XP development cycle. That is, it didn't significantly suck compared to 98 once you peeled off the layers of half-assed muck. It sucked compared to Win2000 and Win2000 Server that were released 6 month prior, its NT4 predecessor which was released 4 years prior and its Win XP/2003 successors which were released a year / 3 years following.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 09, @03:14PM
Yeah, but I had a whole suite of Autocad products that a friend purchased CDs of from a "totally legit" vendor in Singapore (for a sum total of $28 I think), and they would run on 98 or ME, but not the "better" NT based OSs.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday January 10, @02:38AM
I had a similar experience. Installed WinME on what was then pretty good hardware, and lordy, it could barely boot and could not even crash properly, never seen the like. Took 15 minutes for an ungraceful shutdown. BUT....
I then applied 98Lite in default mode, disabled System Restore (which wasn't ready for prime time, and seemed to be the major issue), applied the boot-to-DOS patch (tho I doubt this affected Windows per se) and ... it never crashed again. In fact it ran 24/7 for the next two years, with only a couple restarts when I needed to dink with the hardware. Never did another thing with configuration.
But it still had the most amazingly shit resource management, maxed out at 5 average apps or 2-3 large apps, then the resource heap was used up (but would recover entirely once they were closed down, and never froze up even when it was run so dry the screen wouldn't redraw).
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Sourcery42 on Monday January 09, @05:28PM
Wow. That's a lot of work to not just run linux or a BSD. I thought maybe it was for a gaming rig or something, but seeing your post below, I get it. Spousal acceptance factor is a real thing.
Personally, I pulled support for Microsoft and Apple devices about 10 years ago. Backup the files and factory reset the OS is all I will do for Windows or iOS. It is working out great for me.
As far as Win 11 goes, I have to use it on one enterprise laptop that I thankfully do not have to administer. I miss the options they got rid of to make the taskbar more functional. I'm not a fan of the changed context menu, or the ever-changing interface but that's as much an office 365 complaint as windows. 11 does handle docking/undocking much more gracefully than 10 did on the same hardware. My headset that worked fine on 10 would turn on, steal audio, and blink at me every time I unlocked on 11. Thankfully a patch has eliminated that hiccup.
(Score: 5, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 09, @11:53AM (21 children)
Counterpoint: I bought a new fanless N5105 desktop box equipped with Windows 11 and everything about it was miserable. Ridiculous boot times, insane wait for updates, all the same Windows 10 interface elements just rearranged enough to make them difficult to find and use (like they did from 3.11 to 95, 98 to ME, ME to NT or was it XP? then to 7, etc. etc.) I literally processed a return request to Amazon because even after updates, I considered the device worthlessly un-usable as delivered direct from the manufacturer with Windows 11 on it. Their press stated "we don't deliver a Linux option because the market is too small." Well, I suppose that translates to: "because nobody is paying us to put a Linux OS on the device, as opposed to Windows...."
As a final chance for the silent little power efficient driver of our 55" 4k touchscreen, and because I always intended to do this anyway, I loaded up Ubuntu 22.04.1 on it - and it was fine. Not a speed demon, but faster than a Raspberry Pi 4 on any OS. Acceptable, which is what I was looking for in the first place. Cancelled the return, it sits there under the TV now, not even warm, driving the display with whatever we want. Haven't tried to get a frame-rate for Crysis on it, but for ordinary stuff, it's an ordinary computer, with no moving parts drawing minimal power.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday January 09, @02:51PM (3 children)
At those prices, I would just take the downsides of RasPi4 and go with it.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 09, @03:11PM (2 children)
A RasPi4 in a good case runs $150+, when you can get them, and it's still a little weak on the USB accessory power side, and in many applications needs active cooling. The N5105 setup I'm running also has a 2TB USB 3.0 drive plugged in, in addition to the display and touch screen on USB.
Checking records, delivered November 18th 2022 this [amazon.com] N5105 with 8GB RAM and 128GB flash onboard cost me $247 delivered, now available for $215 I see. This [amazon.com] isn't the slowest 2TB SSD out there, I paid $149 for it back then, I see it's up to $178 now...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Monday January 09, @03:39PM (1 child)
In the event that you're not paying scalper prices for a RasPi4 board. The 8GB version is $75 and the Argon ONE M.2 case is $46. You can also get a very usable case like the Flirc for $18. In the event that you need a power adapter you can tack on another $20 for a quality power supply. The beauty is that you get a bit more choice for a bit less cash. Still, the RaspberryPi 4 definitely doesn't have as powerful of a CPU/GPU. All of my RaspberryPis are currently collecting dust. Partly due to the fact that they feel sluggish while using them. Getting something like PuppyLinux or TinyCore Linux on them should make them feel much more snappy. I've just not been able to tinker with random projects as much as I would like.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 09, @04:04PM
75+46+20 = 141, and you still don't have your 128GB microSD card for another 15ish...
You do get more choice, but I have thermal anxiety around my Pi4 experiences... usually, but not always, unfounded. Most of the time I _think_ I'm having a thermal throttling situation, but in reality it's something else - but once in a while, there is a thermal issue, and the cooling fans I have tried so far in Pi4 cases have been wretched noisy little things - and, yes, by now I'm sure there's some kind of PWM plugin that will switch them on only as needed...
All in all, the $215 N5105 China-box "just works" with a straight defaults install of Ubuntu 22.04, and it even has VGA out! (Absolutely NO idea what I would do with that today...) I forgot to mention the absolutely horrible lag under Windows 11, slightly improved to just unacceptably bad lag after the updates completed their first cycle of many to come in the future. Yes, the Pi4 route has more choice, but if I were trying to get an 8GB Pi4 at less than scalper prices back in November of 2022, I'd still be waiting for it today...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Informative) by mcgrew on Monday January 09, @08:13PM (16 children)
My experience has always been that on two identical machines, one with any supported version of Windows and one with any distro of Linux, the Linux machine will be faster.
There's a reason that most of the supercomputer speed demons run Linux and few if any run Windows.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 09, @09:34PM (10 children)
This wasn't a matter of splitting hairs 3% faster compilation times on Linux or whatever.
This was severely laggy mouse and keyboard inputs on Win11, like type what you want, sit back and count to 5 waiting for it to come up on screen. It improved after the first round of updates finally got onboard (several hours after they started), but not to anything I'd consider acceptable or even usable.
Under Linux, some of the high res photo manipulations have slowish frame rates, but all the HID responses are snappy, maybe a twitch gamer would note some lag, but not a normal office software user.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday January 11, @01:11AM (9 children)
When you get that kind of extreme lag with a USB mouse or keyboard, and you know the hardware isn't failing, it's probably the USB driver that's either bogus or getting partially blown off.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 11, @01:16AM (8 children)
Whatever it was, I planned to ditch Win11 from the start... I just expected the PC "as delivered by the manufacturer" to be better than I experienced.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday January 11, @02:30AM (7 children)
Yeah, it's really frustrating when that happens. Feels like a rip-off. :( Hope you can get it resolved.
I was gifted a $99 notebook that came with Win11, and I'd expected that I'd want to replace the OS with just about anything else, but it's been surprisingly good. (At least, after being administered a good beating with WinAero and ClassicShell, so the stupid changes stop annoying me...) Since Win11 turns its nose up at my better hardware, well, I guess this will be my one and only!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 11, @02:41AM (6 children)
Oh, it's totally resolved: Ubuntu 22.04.1 installed and now it meets or exceeds all expectations.
With laptops in the past I have had driver issues where Linux wouldn't work with all the fancy widgets onboard, kinda funny to see the situation reversed with the manufacturer installing the broken OS for everyone.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday January 11, @03:22AM (5 children)
Oh good. Ubuntu would be... well, my last choice among linux, but still, working is better than not working!
Yeah, in the past five years or so suddenly a lot of linux problems have gone away, and many things now work much better. In that span I've only had one hardware refusal from my preferred distro.
Meanwhile, Win11 won't speak to anything here other than the notebook that came with it... ironically my lowest-end semi-modern hardware. Hey Microsoft, way to ensure that I don't install it!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 11, @10:41AM (4 children)
I wanted to like Kubuntu, or one of the Xfce desktop Debian distros, but at work the products are on Ubuntu, so.... The devil whose face you know...
I have an AccuRite weather station which reports data to Wunderground in realtime, that driver only exists in Windows, so I have Win10 in a VM on the HTPC doing that. Sad that they won't beef up the wall display to do it itself, I have more sophisticated things written and running on $6 Pi Pico Ws.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday January 11, @03:54PM (3 children)
I used to look at every distro that came down the pike, but have developed such a preference for KDE that now I seldom look outside it, other than the occasional trawl to see how the rest are doing (I like LXQt but for me it's not quite there yet). So... having looked at pretty much every KDE distro in recent memory, I'd say Kubuntu is the worst. More little things missing or don't work than other KDE incarnations, and a distinct feeling of being the poor relation.
But that's not surprising; I've found most distros don't put much near as much effort into desktops that aren't their flagship. The best of the non-flagship KDEs is Fedora's, and it's so slow compared to everything else (except Mageia, which barely runs on my Xeon) that if it weren't that I want to keep up one that's completely mainstream under the hood, I wouldn't bother. (How slow? PCLinuxOS boots in 5 seconds flat, pick-a-kernel to desktop. Fedora takes a bit over two minutes, on slightly faster hardware. When Devuan adopted PCLOS's desktop, it suddenly got much faster than Debian/KDE, so it's definitely something in how KDE is put together.)
Ubuntu would definitely be the face of the devil... Gnome annoys me so much that suddenly Win10 looked a lot better (and compared to its bastard stepchild Mint, it's dreadfully slow, tho one might not notice on newer hardware than mine). But can't blame workplaces for going with as mainstream as can be managed. Same reason most of the office world runs on Windows, and will be dragged kicking and screaming to the nominal topic in due course.
"Explaining Computers" YT channel did one on setting up a weather station from scratch on a minimal Pi, and yes, it was such simple code that even I could follow it without much thought. Ping this list of sensors and report to the mothership on X schedule; that's all there was to it.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 11, @05:27PM (2 children)
I was a KDE devotee, until 2013 when I got a 4k display on my laptop. KDE didn't scale well then, Unity did (no, I don't like Unity - I don't really like Gnome either, but...) when faced with itsy bitsy teensy tinsy fonts all over the place, or leaving KDE, I left KDE.
In our product Ubuntu Gnome undergoes a massive strip-down transformation for use as a support OS, not a working desktop. A lot of those scripts come in handy when customizing my working desktop too.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday January 11, @08:31PM (1 child)
Oy. I wasn't there to experience the scaling issue, but yeah, that would run me right out.
Yeah, back a few years I was wondering why Mint, really just Ubuntu in a fashionable jogging suit, was so much faster... got to comparing how much Stuff each one loads at startup, and Mint's load was like 1/4th the size. Stripping it down so you can get real work done sounds like the way to go!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 11, @08:43PM
>Stripping it down so you can get real work done sounds like the way to go!
And as far as I'm concerned that's where Ubuntu (and all Linux) kicks Windows to the curb. When you strip it out, it stays stripped out - doesn't get auto-reactivated at the next update, doesn't ask for a premium license key to allow you to run without certain telemetry features, just does it - or doesn't as you may so desire.
First product launch Ubuntu actually bit me with an auto-update "feature" that kicked on after 30 days, I just didn't know about it - but when it couldn't reach its servers it put a lag on our video capture functions... tracked it down, disabled it, and it has stayed disabled for 10 years now.
Oh, snaps. Snaps can f right off, thank you. I mean, they have their place for stuff that doesn't work when installed directly, but so messy - why any distro would move things into snaps or similar packages that don't need to be, I'm not sure. Containers have their place, but IMO not for simple desktop apps. If your app is that sensitive that it needs to be coddled in a snap sandbox to run, maybe it's time to rethink the necessity of your dependencies...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday January 11, @01:05AM (4 children)
I had rather contrary experiences, starting with RedHat6 and Win95 sharing the same hardware. Win95 ran rings around RH6 (which was so slow it was painful). Linux with a desktop didn't start pulling ahead until somewhere in the Win8/10 era, and not always then. In my experience Fedora is downright sluggish compared to Mint, PCLOS (by far the fastest), or any species of Windows (on the same hardware, with a hotswap bay and a stack of OS drives).
Servers running naked linux with no desktop are not really a fair comparison.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday January 11, @06:09PM (3 children)
I couldn't get Red Hat to work well at all, but when Mandrake came out, that's when I started using Linux.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday January 11, @08:37PM (2 children)
Mandrake 7.2 was the first linux I tried that began to look like something I wanted to use. Wasn't there yet, but got my attention. In the present, I've found I still prefer KDE, and Mandrake descendants.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday January 12, @06:51PM (1 child)
I lost track after Mandriva. Which distro is closest?
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday January 12, @07:08PM
OpenMandriva, direct decendant. (Runs slick, but last I looked a lot of little things didn't yet work right.)
Mageia, not sure how close, but still has some Drak stuff. (Very polished, but relatively sluggish, and less stable.)
PCLinuxOS, originally based on late Mandrake, but now its own thing. (My preferred distro, runs rings around anything that isn't Puppy, very stable, and everything works.)
I'm sure there are others, but those come to mind. I don't keep good track, but when I was searching for a distro to love, I kept coming back to the same bunch, then noticed they were all at some remove Mandrake descendants.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Informative) by RamiK on Monday January 09, @03:13PM
I haven't tested it but I believe the Pro vs. Enterprise status quo remains and Windows 11 Enterprise edition won't install the adware while allowing local accounts.
Anyhow, looking at the key buying sites, pro costs 2eur while enterprise costs 9eur so I'm sure if you ask around in reddit...
compiling...
(Score: 3, Informative) by stormreaver on Monday January 09, @03:22PM (12 children)
Dolphin and Konqueror file copy speed has always been abysmally slow over the fish protocol (which is what I normally use). I can start copying a large file from machine to machine using either program, wait a few minutes while the copy proceeds, drop to a Konsole, start the same copy using scp, have it finish in a few seconds, go back to Dolphin or Konqueror, and find that the copy is only 5-10% complete. They are absolutely atrociously slow.
Of course those two woefully inefficient programs for copying absolutely wipe the floor with Windows when moving files/directories on the same hard drive. On Linux, moving a directory (or combinations of multiple files and/or directories) that contains hundreds of gigs, and thousands upon thousands of files and subdirectories to anywhere on the same hard drive takes less than one second (depending on file/directory distribution). On Windows, it could take hours.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 09, @04:39PM
Back in the early 90s we built a system with removable hard drives to shuffle data from field based systems into a central analysis repository.
In-keeping with the Midnight Commander UI ethos of the time, we had 9 "slots" where a data record could be stored, one on the removable drive and 8 more on the host machine. Initially I implemented moves (of these fearsomely large 40MB+ data sets) with a copy-verify-delete operation sequence, which was of course necessary when going between the internal and external hard drive.
Standing behind a user one day, watching them move data sets between the internal slots (which, in my mind really doesn't ever _need_ to happen, but it made them happy), it hit me: rename the folders.
Doh! 5 minute move operations between slots on the internal hard drive then happened instantly.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday January 09, @05:44PM (9 children)
Whenever I copy large groups of files and/or folders in Windoze, whether using GUI or CLI, including "xcopy", I end up with many errors, but the copy process doesn't indicate any problems.
This has been happening in Windows versions for as long as I can remember.
A common one is .jpg files that are half-copied. You view the supposedly copied pics and some are half cut off. CMP (comp, fc, etc.) show lots of errors, so I have to go back and manually copy the corrupted ones, run fc (or whatever) again, search for more, etc.
chkdsk shows no problems.
memtest86 shows no problems.
I suppose that's what I get for using Windows.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday January 10, @12:20AM (8 children)
The power went out at my house this morning. My late dad was a lineman and once told me said that the reason for cold weather power outages was usually a squirrel trying to get warm in a transformer. It came back on a half hour later, but when the power went out I had been copying an m3u file and its associated multi-megabyte folder (old computer, old version of Audacity) that had been saved by the ancient Windows 7 notebook, a twelve hour long audio file at 44 K samples per second, 32 bit samples from the thumb drive it was saved on, to the Kubuntu tower that Audacity works with; Microsoft killed Audacity on Windows 10 with a patch. Apparently they believe that using a computer to record music is against their corporate ethics or something.
At any rate, Dolphin now shows an empty thumb drive, and there's an m3u and its folder, but I fear I may have lost some of the files in the folder. I'm kind of afraid to see if it will actually load in Audacity.
Now I remember why I never moved files, copied them by hand then deleted instead. I should start doing that again when moving files, especially with Dolphin. I think I'll see if I can find a better distro. KDE was great back in the Mandrake days, I need to shop around.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday January 10, @01:08AM (4 children)
Ugh, sorry for your losses.
Thumb drive is probably FAT32? I never use "move" across media types as I don't want to delete source files until I've at least verified the copy.
There are many rescue programs and utilities- you should be able to recover the lost files. Search for FAT32, rescue, undelete.
I've never used Dolphin, that I know of. I guess it's the "explorer" (MacOS's "finder") of some Linux distros. I do most of that stuff CLI. Old habits...
I suppose Dolphin does a copy then delete? I think MacOS does that too. There may be a way to change that. Not a Windows shill nor fan, but at least "explorer" knows to _not_ delete if you're copying files from one medium / device to another. It just screws up the copies so you'll have more work to do anyway.
Of course, highlighting, right-click, "copy", click on destination, right-click "paste" should work, maybe?
I do recommend and use UPSes where possible. Important to have some kind of link to the computer so it shuts down if the UPS battery runs low.
Regarding distros, well, I'm struggling with that. There are so (too!) many. I want to avoid systemd, so that greatly narrows my options.
If you don't care about systemd, MX seems to get great reviews, and you can install it with or without systemd. It's based on Debian, so you have massive repositories available.
I like Slackware for my own use, but you might not have good luck with it. Years ago I installed KDE, but then KDE became a huge pig- probably 4.x- I don't remember. I quickly learned to install KDE libraries and some favorite KDE apps (kstars, for example) and run them on fvwm or xfce. KDE has some awesome functionality, but I don't really need it. I still have one older machine running KDE 3.x. Disclaimer: I haven't tried KDE in years, so maybe it's gotten good again...
I wonder if raptors prefer well-done squirrel.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday January 10, @04:02PM (3 children)
I just realized yesterday afternoon that what I was moving was actually a backup file. What my late mom called a "senior moment". Or perhaps it was panic.
I do recommend and use UPSes where possible.
So do I, although I don't have one. Blackouts are rare here, but I'm thinking of getting one big enough for the whole house. It started getting chilly before the power came back on.
I wonder if raptors prefer well-done squirrel.
I doubt there's anything left of the squirrel after 750 volts at virtually infinite amperage, let alone the transformer itself usually exploding.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 3, Informative) by RS3 on Tuesday January 10, @08:16PM (2 children)
> I just realized yesterday afternoon that what I was moving was actually a backup file. What my late mom called a "senior moment". Or perhaps it was panic.
We all have them. I think as we age we become more aware of them because we're worried, about, something, what was I saying? :)
If you can afford a whole-house UPS, that's awesome. I just have a few small ones. I've gotten them very cheap, sometimes free. They usually need batteries, and some research helps you find much better batteries that last much longer. Generally ones rated for higher temperature will last years.
That said, some UPSes I've dealt with overcharge and kill the batteries. The sign is simple: if the battery is warm, at all, to the touch, when it's been running in standby (plugged in but not generating AC) for days.
At the little hosting company I admin for, they had at least a dozen UPSes. Many were (are) two very different looking Belkin ones. The low-profile ones all cook the batteries. Tall skinny ones- batteries are cool to the touch and last many years.
IIRC the APC ones were all good, but they used to play a very annoying game with the software. Belkin gives it away for free, simple download. APC (used to) charge pretty big dollars for the software (that shuts the computer down before the batteries run out). They came with a CD with limited functionality software, but they refused to duplicate it or let you download it.
Again, not sure if they still have that policy, or if that only applies to larger "enterprise" stuff. I have a small one that I was able to download the software, and it's pretty good.
All that said, hosting / server location has a 15KW generator (it's a small office building) so UPSes rarely run more than 30 seconds or so until the generator kicks in.
Have you considered a generator? I finally bought one on cl last week for $250. It's 7KW, so not really whole-house, but it is portable, electric start, propane- no messy gasoline to deal with, and you can get huge propane bottles that would run weeks or months on a fill.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday January 11, @06:04PM (1 child)
Actually, I'm thinking solar panels and an electric car, although finding an affordable electric car is like finding live dodo birds. I can't find a dealer with either the Bolt or the Prius on the lot, and I hate filling a gas tank when it's cold and snowy. An electric car can be a backup power supply, they're advertising the Ford 150 as such but if I could afford one, I'd get a Tesla instead.
It pisses me off when I see a car they can't deliver being advertised.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday January 11, @09:36PM
I've put in a few PV systems and highly recommend them. They were simple PV with grid-feeding inverter(s). I'd want batteries and an inverter that could run the house if the grid was down. I haven't looked into what's available. My power is surprisingly reliable, especially given the many trees and idiotic (IMHO) overhead lines.
A good friend bought a Bolt four years ago IIRC and seems to love it. He's taken it on very long trips besides just generally using it a lot. I'm not aware of too many problems with it. A couple of years ago or so he said it was getting warm around the charging port. At some point, maybe a year or so ago Chevrolet recalled them for battery problems and he got a new and better battery for free.
I guess ads run under contracts. It is pretty dumb to run them when the product isn't available. Can the dealers search for available inventory at all dealers?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Wednesday January 11, @02:40AM (2 children)
Ugh.That's really frustrating. And yeah, why I never ever not EVER "move" files when "copy" will do.
Hopefully one of the undelete/recovery tools can get back the original file, if the drive hasn't been used since. -- I don't recall how it happened but I lost a 40GB directory with somewhere around 400k files, and Recurva got it back. Of course, I ran it right away, so nothing got overwritten.
Also, please do yourself a favor and buy a UPS. My power goes out now and then but my PCs never notice, because they're all on a UPS. Well worth the hundred bucks every couple years (since the batteries don't last for shit anymore) for whatever model Costco is currently carrying.
BTW I like "XFE" as an alternative to Dolphin. Much easier if I need to do something as root.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday January 11, @06:28PM (1 child)
Oh that's awesome. I knew someone with a curved back. I never knew that recurving could be that simple. :-}
Okay, now that I've entertained myself, I do have Recuva somewhere and it's a good one.
I do like the idea of a desktop trashcan. As most people know, accidentally deleting a file in Linux can be a very difficult if not impossible recovery. Using GUI file management tools will usually put deleted files in the trashcan. "Move" doesn't though.
You had mentioned how Win10 and Win11 will clobber a Linux partition. I forget the names, but there are many tools that will find and recover lost partitions. One is Partition Magic. Somewhere I have an old copy. Not sure it can deal with EFI or newer Linux stuff.
I was late getting into grub, but I sort of got used to it. There are many other partition / boot managers out there too. I prefer good old lilo, but it does have some annoyances, like if you move disks around, especially in machines with both SATA and PATA. I've had situations where the BIOS says PATA boots first, but kernel puts primary SATA as /dev/sda, and then your root filesystem won't mount. So then I have to boot CD/DVD/USB, edit /etc/fstab and lilo.conf, run lilo, rinse, reboot...
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday January 11, @08:54PM
LOL, and here I thought recurving was a bow, or what the highway does down on Beartooth Pass. :D
Dunno about now, but in the olden days, it was linux clobbering the Windows partition. Having had GRUB fall over just for =looking= in the desktop video settings (yes, really, was an Ubuntu/Mint bug about 5 years back) did not inspire confidence either. That bug is fixed, but I still don't do anything to tempt the gods of the boot sector. Whatever a distro does by default, I leave the damn thing alone. You are far more adventurous. :)
With you on the trashcan. It's too easy to make mistakes, especially as UI elements shrink and faster PCs make mice touchier. Dolphin does have Trash, and you can set confirm delete at both the original and trash levels. I'd rather have that extra anti-oops, thank you very much. I never use move, cuz I just don't have that much trust. Have known too many people who got bit by it.
Yeah, I remember when recovering files on linux called for a sector-by-sector reading of the hapless disk. Spent much of a summer sorting out file fragments from such a recovery, when the linux server where a friend's stuff was stored lost its marbles and striped all the RAID together. Apparently it believed there could be only one. (I did manage to recover nearly all the mangled files -- about 14,000 with reasonable or complete success, 50-some not enough data left to reconstitute. Became quite skilled at constructing jpeg headers from scratch.)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday January 11, @01:17AM
I've also had Dolphin fragment files in ways I'd never seen before. Tho I don't know how much was Dolphin and how much the underlying linux.
The blue was written by Windows, one file after another. (Large files, being ISOs.)
The red fragments were written by Dolphin (originally a single file). The file was unusable.
http://doomgold.com/images/linux/fragmented.jpg [doomgold.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JustNiz on Monday January 09, @05:29PM
I disagree. Every iteration of Windows brings more important functionality locked away from the user. Windows 11 is no different.
It's gotten to the point that Windows is now a completely crippled and useless OS for pretty much all the things I need to do, except gaming, and thankfully Valve is working hard on breaking that monopoly.
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Monday January 09, @10:44PM (5 children)
Still grabbing audio via the analog hole? Skip all that and get the audio you want in a format you can already play, or convert it without having to babysit the process.
Go grab youtube-dl [github.com] or its "replacement" yt-dlp. [github.com] No more sitting and waiting for realtime playback and encoding.
P.S. You may need FFmpeg [ffmpeg.org] for certain conversion operations for the audio format you want, but the process is pretty painless once you get things figured out.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday January 10, @12:33AM (4 children)
I'll try them, thanks, but most of my recording is KSHE on Sundays, seldom YouTube. It's a radio stream, so actually sampling it like it was 1975 with a cassette recorder is the only way to grab it. They play full albums from 6:00 PM to midnight, with Audacity it's very little trouble to delete commercials (you used to have to splice the tape to do that), copy and paste the album, band, and song names from Wikipedia or Amazon. It isn't like you have to baby sit it while it's recording. Remember, I'm REALLY old school. Audacity is a hell of a lot easier than a cassette. Probably like when my grandpa went from a horse and wagon to a pickup truck.
I think I used to have one of the YouTube tools you linked.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RS3 on Tuesday January 10, @01:12AM (3 children)
(shhh, don't tell anyone, but I still use a VCR to record TV, but I record infrequently).
Ever tried "Reaper" for recording / editing? I used to use Audacity, but it got so strange and Reaper is so nice...
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday January 10, @04:07PM (2 children)
I don't record on the VCR any more, but I made sure I bought a new one when I heard the last factory was closing down. And the Pirate Bay doesn't have everything, like a tape I have and don't remember what I copied it from titled Allegro Non Tropo, and Italian takeoff on Disney's Fantasia.
I never heard of Reaper, but the only thing I don't like about Audacity is the Microsoftian habit of changing stuff around. It must have been written by a woman.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 3, Funny) by RS3 on Tuesday January 10, @06:32PM (1 child)
> It must have been written by a woman.
Ouch!
[trundles off to find some popcorn]
Okay, let the show begin! :)
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by mcgrew on Wednesday January 11, @04:25PM
It's SCIENCE, son. Are you married? If so you know that unlike when you were single, you can never find anything because nothing's ever in the same place twice. "Honey, where's my food scale?" "Well, LOOK for it!" (told to me by a man who was trying to lose weight).
The reason you can't find anything and women never care where they put things goes back to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Men were hunters, and their eyes evolved to pick up on motion. Many a woman has remarked about her man's swivel head, that's why.
It's also why you've likely met a color deficient man before but never a color blind woman. Women's eyes evolved to find stationary things, like fruits, nuts, vegetables. Men's eyes and brains didn't.
There's no such thing as a sex change. Your sex goes way beyond your genitals. Men and women are not identical.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Gaaark on Monday January 09, @11:22PM (2 children)
We bought a new laptop for my mother-in-law and it seems that at least 3 questions asked during the interminable setup of Wind-blows 11 (You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up .... where can you go from here?..... No where, exactly!) consisted of, basically, "How would you like us to advertise to you?"
Nope, nuh, nuh-uh... never. I'll stick with linux ANY F*CKING DAY!
“Windows...It’s such a fine line between stupid, and uh…clever. You can't really dust for vomit."
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10, @01:14AM
Microsoft: "Our Windows goes to 11, because it's LOUDER."
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday January 11, @02:46AM
THAT is the most gawdawful thing about Win11. And after every big update, same damn thing. Win10 seems to have more or less given it up,. but Win11 seems to be emulating iOS, where you have to tell it NO SKIP NOT NOW FUCKING NEVER SHUT UP ALREADY about ten times before it gives in (and lately the damned iPhone keeps popping up a "set up some damn Apple thing" while I'm in the middle of a call, NO FUCK OFF DAMMIT!)
Fortunately, I only keep one Win11 box, and only because it came with it and I suppose I need ONE in the house.... I have wondered what kind of battery life the little notebook would have with some more efficient OS, because even with Win11 it can do 14 hours at a crack.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10, @02:55AM (7 children)
Can you ungroup and show labels? Can you have a double height taskbar? Can you have the taskbar on the left/right (for people with wide screens)?
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-11/windows-11-taskbar-labels/m-p/2818862 [microsoft.com]
Can you drag and drop stuff to the taskbar yet?
https://www.windowslatest.com/2022/02/17/windows-11s-taskbar-drag-and-drop-feature-is-finally-rolling-out-to-testers/ [windowslatest.com]
Using Windows 11 is like using a building while it's still undergoing major renovations.
Heck I don't even think Windows 10 is ready yet - I've been using it and it still doesn't seem that stable.
Windows 7 was ready and stable for a long time after they've stopped doing major renovations on the "building". But then not so long ago MS said they won't do minor repairs anymore and wanted everyone to get their stuff and move to the new building which wasn't really ready yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10, @04:10AM (6 children)
win 7 still working OK for me. Chrome browser isn't going to update on Win 7 anymore (starting about now), so I'm wondering how long I'll be able to use Chrome to get to a few customer sites that I need to use (they require login).
Maybe I'll try FireFox and use the built-in ability to spoof different browsers (from memory, it's called "custom user agent"?)
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday January 10, @07:47PM (5 children)
I've been using Vivaldi a lot, and since it's based on Chrome, and I'm running Win7 on a couple of my machines, I guess I'll be risking life and limb in the future (that was sarcasm). I was going to migrate to Win8.1 until I heard that's also being dropped by Chrome (chromium?).
I've tried many times but I hate Win10. Am forced to deal with it in several locations (clients, friends, etc.), but if I can invest enough time to learn how to get it under control, including finding and using utilities that clean out the crap, auto updating, etc., maybe...
For a while I was using some important Windows-only apps, but not as much now. I can keep Windows machines around, and/or dual-boot with Linux. My one new-to-me laptop can probably support full virtualization so maybe I can have both running (that's the goal anyway), or at least Linux native and Windump in a "container" / VM.
For sure it's time to move (back) to Firefox, or SeaMonkey ...
Looks like Brave is based on Chromium, so that's off the table now.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Wednesday January 11, @03:03AM (4 children)
This guy does XP-compatible browser builds, I imagine they would work on Win7 as well.
http://rtfreesoft.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
I use some of them on XP when my old SeaMonkey won't play nice, and for the most part they work. (His IceApe build has quirks like you can't save a file, and no extensions will install, but for just using a website, it nearly always still works.) When those don't work, I move over to the linux box.
There's really no significant difference between Win8.1 (I have Enterprise on a laptop, because it came there) and Win10, except that Win8.1 runs half as fast on the same hardware (per CPU-Z benchmark). However, 8.1 has been well-behaved, when I've used it. (Not often.)
Fer ghu's sakes do NOT dual boot linux and Windows. You Have Been Warned. I don't even dual boot among closely-related Windows anymore (because when you switch, it apparently rewrites the boot sector, which I regard as begging for disaster), and in my experience GRUB is fragile enough without asking it to mediate among hostile OSs, or even friendly OSs. So I swap the drive, not the boot.
Linux running a current VirtualBox running Any Windows works very well. However, Older Windows running older VBox running Newer OS does not; for one thing, have been unable to get the VM to fullscreen (extensions don't seem to work right).
I have one DOS app and one older Windows program that I can't live without (there is nothing approaching a replacement anywhere else) and for the latter need the OS to be able to set colors properly, so for that anything after Win7Classic is right out. At the very least need a WinXP VM that can fullscreen as needed.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday January 11, @06:18AM (3 children)
Wow, thank you, that's all great info.
I'm surprised that Win10 benchmarks faster than 8.1. A guy I do work for had a tenant who was a high-level IT manager of about 10 developers at a very major bank. They were doing very intense transaction processing stuff, for example. Anyway, he said 8.1 was far better and faster than 10, about 4 years ago.
I'm encouraged to really dig into 10, get all the tools I need to rip out the crap, especially auto updates, and just generally get control of the machine. I have and use many interesting tools like "XP Smoker", also "7 Smoker", 10... Also many of the fine (ahem) Microsoft tools in the Sysinternals suite, like "Autoruns". I also use "Ultimate Windows Tweaker" and several more I can't think of right now (on other machines). Nirsoft makes great tools too.
I guess I've undersold myself- I'm really good with stuff like boot sectors. Been doing sector-level (and assembler) stuff for 30+ years. I pretty much always make backups of boot sectors, etc. But I do appreciate the warning! That's something to look into for sure. I've run many multi-boot systems, but admittedly not including Win10. Oh, and EFI (UEFI) is out of the question, and that may be part of the problems you've seen?
I'll have to try that browser.
Re. VM, containers, etc., I've done various of that stuff for years on "desktop" boxes, but I mostly use a couple of laptops for most browsing, email, word processing, etc., and none have been powerful enough to run a VM without bogging down. But recently I was given (somewhat payment for some work I did) a couple that might do it. The best is an i5 CPU with 16 GB RAM, but I've had almost no time to mess with it. It came with Win10, and was the slowest computer I've ever touched. I wasted hours trying to figure it out, assuming all the disk activity was Win10 trying to update stuff, and whatever it does with the far too many background processes.
I should have trusted my normal instincts and process which is to pull the hard drive, plug it into a known good machine as secondary (or tertiary or whatever), chkdsk it, scan it, etc. But I didn't initially because newer laptops are a huge PITA to pull a hard drive. This here one has a simple pull-out sort of drawer, and I have 1 of 4 possible screws holding it in. It's an SSD so no worries if it were to come loose.
Anyway, aforementioned i5's 1 TB Seagate POS turned out to have some horrible problem where it runs about 2 MB/s. So I'll image it to an SSD, and maybe work with it, or scrap it and start over. I dunno, far too many other pressing things...
thanks!
(Score: 4, Informative) by Reziac on Wednesday January 11, @07:52AM (2 children)
Yeah, I was astonished that 8.1 benched slower. It doesn't feel slower, but that might be differences in desktop lag vs CPU usage. -- My Win11 notebook has a lowly 1.1GHz Celeron and only 4GB RAM, and Win11 cranks the CPU fullbore ALL the time, but it's still pretty good -- lag now and then, but not a regular thing. (As noted above, apparently it unloads useless shit when it's in cramped quarters.)
Win10 used to be a lot faster. I have a very early Win10 on a rather old Phenom II (which in the real world is about half the speed of the nominally equivalent quad-core) and it runs quite slick. I've never let that one update, and now I see why... on a midrange i7 with gobs of RAM and a faster HD, current Win10 is noticeably slower.
I haven't bothered doing this (mostly because I rarely use Win10), but Black Viper's service configurations should be useful:
https://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-10-service-configurations/ [blackviper.com]
I just whack it with ClassicShell (***HATE*** the "modern" menu) and Winaero Tweaker, and it's good enough. BTW both work fine on Win11.
I used to do all manner of bizarre Windows multi-boots (used to always include a DOS boot, back before I accumulated more PCs) and a chained-boot three-different-DOS setup (I don't know what I was thinking, but it must have been amusing). Nowadays the only one I have left is a Win10/Win10Lite/Server2008R2 temporary camp that wound up in the permanent pile, mainly because it's completely portable and none of them care which PC it's in. Oh, and the hackintosh is set up for it, if I ever get around to installing some more recent MacOS. (Ick.) But no way would I do it for a system I rely on.
And back in the Olden Days, I used to haunt a swear-at-your-computer forum, and noticed that 100% of the complaints that "one day Windows just wouldn't boot" were Win/linux dual boots, with GRUB in charge. Anyway, I learned from others' pain. (This was before UEFI complicated matters.)
One reason I don't pay money for Seagate drives is that I've seen several that seemed to have no functional cache, so they're slow as molasses. (Plus not impressed with the usual fail point, a suddenly-seized main bearing.) At a guess, that's the issue with your laggard drive.
Back-when laptops commonly had a drawer for the HD, a door for the RAM, maybe another door for the CMOS battery and internal ports, and generated far less swearing if you had to swap something. Now you have to take off the back, and maybe the keyboard, and if you're lucky not sprain some vital part worming the drive in or out. Easy access is just good design!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday January 11, @06:50PM (1 child)
Wow, you're really into this stuff. Thank you for all the really good helpful info. With any Windoze install I always get in and trim out unnecessary and often dangerous services. Not sure if you did any of that, but maybe some cleaning would speed up your machines? "Win10 Smoker" and many others help to trim out the gristle.
At one point I wanted to do a Hackintosh, but I don't use MacOS enough to care now. I really only use one major MacOS application, Digital Performer- audio (some video) editing, and I haven't been using it as much as I used to think I would.
The Seagates you noticed being slow- maybe were "SMR"?
I've had nothing but problems with Seagates. I have no idea how a company can put profit that far above quality and stay in business. It shows the huge disconnection between buyers and product quality data. If someone cares I'll type up the story how about ten years ago I recovered a terabyte drive (big then) full of audio recording files for a recording studio. Seagate of course. Fairly significant dollars on that drive.
I'm an HD freak (addict?) and this Seagate spins fine. I haven't run my full suite of HD tools yet. When I image the drive, if it'll let me, I'll run extensive tests on it. I noticed the defects were growing as I was trying to just read / sector scan the drive, so I shut it down and shelved it.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday January 11, @09:21PM
I might do some junk-trimming if I ever wind up using Win10 enough to care. Win10Lite is already cleaned up to the tune of about half a gig of RAM (1.0 used vs 1.5 for the Real Thing) but performance was not noticeably improved (and I notice as little as 3%) and various odds and ends didn't work. Someday I should clone the "good" Win10 (the one that activated itself out of the blue) and try various config clobbers.
I dislike MacOS, but try anything once, and on rare occasions it's useful to have such a thing. Installed some middle-aged Hackintosh (Snow Leopard? I forget) on a Dell Optiplex 9010, and everything worked except networking, with no config and no kexts installed. Shit performance, tho -- laggy with 8GB RAM, much better with 32GB.
Behold why I never pay money for Seagates. When I was the hardware dude for a good-sized user grope, er, group, I got to vet all the donated PCs. WD HDs were nearly always alive and well. Seagates about 50-50 (it got worse after they swallowed Maxtor; for a while some Seagates were rebadged Maxtors). Fujitsu seldom seen but always good. Maxtor went straight into the scratch pile, because what wasn't dead soon would be. Now in the SSD/NVMe era, I stick to Samsung, Sandisk (now part of WD) or WD branded.
Lack of working cache was before SMR's time. I think my newest Seagate is a 500GB that came in a laptop, and began spitting up major SMART errors with only a few thousand hours on it. (Normal lifespan should be over 40,000 hours.) Tho after a long rest and reformat it apparently recovered, and now shows no errors, but I'll never trust it.... probably bad firmware. To be fair, I have a Seagate with 85,000 hours on it and still no errors, but it's an anomaly.
Growing defects means the disk surface has the Creeping Crud, and that may be why it's extremely slow -- galloping retries produces long delays. Once it reaches a partition table, bye-bye data. Back when disk space was rare and costly, I nursed along some dying drives, but nowadays I wouldn't bother. Recover what you can, and turn it into a fridge magnet and a wind chime.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.