Posts by phuzz 6734 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Feb 2010
Not sure you deserve those downvotes, unless people are taking exception to the word "quality".
For most people, the question they ask about a new OS is "can I run xyz?", and with Linux the answer is usually "well, x runs fine, there's v instead of y but it works identically, however instead of z you'll have to use s which does similar stuff but in a completely different way".
Personally I enjoy learning new software, but most people do not.
I wouldn't spec a laptop/desktop with less than 8GB of RAM these days with any OS.
Not because of OS bloat, but because 4GB isn't enough RAM to fit an OS and a modern web browser (connecting to modern websites).
I'm right in the middle of a project upgrading a whole bunch of desktops that were quite happily running Linux Mint on 4GB of RAM to 8GB purely because the users are having to access more 'responsive' websites (which are anything but).
Or I suppose I could run a different web browser which isn't compatible with those sites, that's not really a solution in a business though.
A good explanation of this is "Smashing The Stack For Fun And Profit" from Phrack 49.
The technical details are slightly outdated (it's from 1996), but the basic concepts are as relevant as ever.
They publish basic designs for a desktop case, and by default the laptop has four 'expansion bays' which you can kit out with HDMI, ethernet etc. As they connect via USB C, it should be pretty straightforward to knock up a desktop case for one of these with all the ports you might need.
Another possible business for them would be selling to small OEMs who could then build their own branded laptops (or SFF desktops etc.).
There used to be several manufacturers making 'barebones' laptops which required a CPU/Mem/HDD/CD to be installed. Most had a recess in the lid for the end company to put their logo sticker. I guess they mostly stopped as CPUs moved to being directly soldered to the mobo.
^^ To provide an explanation for the above, Windows and + turns on magnifier (Win and - to come back out of it).
I like Win and the arrow keys, which will dock the current window to the corresponding part of the screen. Useful for comparing two directories, or copying multiple things from one program to another.
This is the same thinking behind LUKS disabling the light on the caps-lock key because "it would make it easier for someone stood nearby to learn your password".
Technically correct, but it ignores that if someone is watching you type a password (or has access to your copy/paste buffer), then you have bigger problems.
That said, some password managers wipe the paste buffer after X seconds, so your password isn't there for a long time.
About 6 years ago I was looking for a new case for my home PC, and spent ages finding one that had all the features I wanted, the most tricky being a 5.25" bay for an optical drive, as they were already being phased out then.
Since then I've used the optical drive about ten times, and I would have saved myself quite a bit of time (and money) by getting a different case and a USB optical drive.
These days it's mostly a process of "plug in USB cable, wait for drivers to install, print" on every OS.
The problems come when you have a weird old printer that "has to work!", but the only drivers are on a scratched CD and you have a choice of Windows 98 or Caldera Network Desktop v0.8...
Something must be compelling for so many businesses to use Microsoft Windows
Two reasons:
1. Active Directory. These days there's configuration management tools like Puppet, but even now they're not as pervasive and straight-forward as AD.
2. Shared calendars in Exchange. Seriously, they still don't have any clear competition. The CEO's PA is the most important person in any company, and this is what matters to them.
Did you read the link in the article about a plan to catch a Saturn V booster with a helicopter? Now that was a batshit plan.
We've noticed that some countries and regions have issued some policies
That's one way of phrasing "most of the world has sanctioned Russia"!
I suppose you have to be very careful about your words when you have to keep both the Russian and Chinese governments happy.
>>> A pint for that PR person and their most weaselly of words!
brainwashed into/stupid enough to believing Putin
When you can get arrested in Moscow for holding up a blank sign, I suspect a lot of Russians are just keeping quiet and hoping to avoid the attentions of the security services.
>>>>>> 1984 is rather less allegorical than we might wish
I almost did this just yesterday. I was creating a USB install stick, but didn't bother to look carefully at the device it was pointing at, which turned out to not by my thumbdrive, but instead my USB-attached backup drive.
Fortunately it failed with a permission error, so I didn't wipe over my backups with an installer.
This sounds like a job for ddrescue, often included by default in live-CD based linux distributions.
It works basically like dd, but if it encounters any read errors it will go back and try and re-read just those blocks, which gives you the best possible chance of getting the data off before the harddrive dies.
The part that confused me is that apt install docker installs some other program with the same name. apt install docker.io is what you want.
Unless you want an up-to-date version, in which case you're going to have to jump through the 'add new repo' hoops and the package is now called docker-ce.
Ok, maybe you're right, it is all a bit of a faff.
128GB of RAM? That's rookie numbers! Current Threadripper motherboards support in the region of 2TB of RAM, that's 256GB per DIMM! Of course, 2TB of RAM is pretty extreme, but 1TB is a nice round number, and give you room for expansion in future ;)
Also, isn't 1TB of NVMe cheaping out a bit? 2TB PCIe 4.0 drives are only a couple of hundred quid, so you might as well get a couple and RAID them!
Playing "lets build a fantasy server" is fun :)
(And most likely, these sort of specs will be in high-end enthusiast builds next year, and be considered middle of the road in five years)
The real use case for a processor with this many cores is so that you can use the CPU graphs in Task Manager to play Tetris.
The RAM is fixed, unless you're mad enough to de-solder the existing chips, and replace them. It's been done before.
Microsoft [...] seem to have gone deep into thinking they own the user's computer and resources
Given how much money they've bribed computer manufacturers with over the years to install Windows from the factory, they have effectively already paid for your computer. Is it any wonder they consider it theirs?
;)
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