Posts by AZump

Why I'm a Loyalist...

I started with RedHat. ...and a 3Dfx GPU. Trying to get that 3Dfx up under RedHat was impossible. Missing packages, wrong permissions, misconfigured packages, etc. Tried RPM, tried compiling. Modules wouldn't build and if they did, they wouldn't load. I tried IRC for support. I was chastised for not being an expert. Called N00b, dumb-ass, etc. Best (only) advice I got was "compile the kernel" which of ourse didn't work and left me with a broken system. I reinstalled RedHat again, and tried again. Weeks passed. A coworker knew some Linux, so I asked him for help. His advice was 2 simple words. "Install Slackware". So I did. 3Dfx and Glide compiled, modules loaded, and I was playing Unreal natively! Happy Dance! I had better framerates than Windows 98, air of superiority attained!

After a few months I really started to dig into the system. I got stuck. I went to IRC. ...and got help directly from Patrick Volkerding as well as a few others. Nobody made me feel stupid. Nobody belittled me. They listened to what I wanted, what I had done, asked related questions, and gave appropriate advice. It was so civil and grown up. ...and Slackware had by now proven it was more stable than RedHat, and it made sense!

I tired (purchased) SuSE, Mandrake, and something with "tiva" in the name, I downloaded the ISOs for probably 10 others. Always almost immediately went back to Slackware. I've since tried almost every distro out there. I always come right back. There are a couple I can say nice things about, but, they aren't slackware. ...and almost all are SystemD now, so, *puke*.

Sure, I've wanted a stable "update" for a half decade now, but, if it 'aint broke...

Because Pat and Crew were so kind and patient, they have my business (I pay for Slackware) and my loyality. I only wish they still shipped Enlightenment, but, I have a live linux (Elive) to show off when I want to impress someone with Linux's eye-candy, packages, and performance.

Frontier must have royally screwed Verizon's business model.

I had Verizon FiOS for 9 years. No contract. No complaints. I had a total of 3 rate hikes. Each was $1.50 and I was notified by snail mail 3 months in advance. We did not have phone service, so, most of those excessive and costly "government" fees did not apply. I did decline access to sports events which cut $12 from the bill. That was really the only thing I considered excessive.

...and not only did I rent the box, I paid a small monthly fee for the remote too. Each rime the batteries went, I went in and got a new remote. ;)

I only had two problems in the 9 years. Once, my ONT failed and it took 48 hours to get fixed, and once for a couple days one of my favorite networks became Brazilian soccer. A simple call ro tech-support resolved that one.

After moving I went 18 months with no service. During that time Frontier bought Verizon's assets sans cellular. When I did get Frontier FiOS, I got internet only, 100/100 which they do provide. 2 years in and no rate hikes or service issues. Actually, the $54 I pay doesn't even have taxes or fees. They said $54 at sign up, and that is exactly what it is.

During Hurricane Irma, I lost power and it took a little over a week to repair. With ONT, Cable modem, NAS, and smart TV connected to a UPS which was connected to a small inverter fed by my cars battery, I was pampered. The heat was misreable bit I was well entertained.

Frontier is a bit slow on service calls. The power supply to my ONT and my cable modem got hit by lightning a couple months ago. Took Frontier a week to get me back up, but, they pro-rated my bill without hassle.

Overall, FiOS is tops in my eyes.

Compared to Time-Warner/Spectrum who did pull every sleazy move possible every month. Even under contract the bill climbed every month. ...fees.

When Frontier first bought out Verizon's assets in the area, there was one bad experience for my mother-in-law. She ordered FiOS just as the the deal between Verizon and Frontier went through. When Frontier came out, they ran all new cables to and thru the house. They installed all equipment. ...and when time came to provision the equipment, the network wouldn't see anything past the streets splitter box. That tech left, said another would return tomorrow. That tech came. No luck. Spent 8 hours on-site, next day was Sunday, so, told a tech would show up Monday. Wash, rinse, repeat. It all ended a week later with a tech who said he'd be back tomorrow, left his tools, and never returned. Mother-in-law waited another week and went back to Time Warner/Spectrum.

It was 20 months before I could ask a Frontier FiOS tech if all the issues have been resolved and got back an answer that wasnt a huge belly laugh! At that time I ordered FiOS and within a week, I was online. Zero complaints since.

MetroPCS $50 Unlimited, Frontier FiOS 100/100, Netflix, Fire TV, Kodi +add-ons. That's my "triple-play" package. $116/mo.

The solution is simple.

Download and run Throttle Stop. I have an ASUS Slate (EP-121) and it would throttle down to 667MHz before throttling up the fans. ...trying to be like Apple in the "noise" department. Well, this made the machine pretty much useless. Couldn't even watch Netflix in HD. Found Throttle Stop, locked multiplier in "Turbo" and ran at a constant 1.78GHz. Never saw temps above 80c and that was during extreme CPU loads playing KSP. Normally, working in my DAW, temps hang in the 50s, but, without Throttle Stop, it won't even get that hot before throttling. Machine is damn near useless without locking the multiplier because 1 minute after boot, it's down to .6GHz.

Screw throttling! We buy high end CPU's for their power, having them throttle down to 1999's clocks is beyond ridiculous. Especially when the damn things CAN run turbo clocks all day every day. My i7-k tower, 3rd gen, runs at 4.8GHz ALL DAY LONG. At that speed, it idles at 36c in a 76F room. I could push it to 5.2GHz, but, it won't encode video at that speed. Does everything else tho.

An old P4 runs averages higher clocks at the end of the day than modern CPUs. Hanging at 1.6GHz except when loading an app is pure BS. It's not like I have several thousand of them so what's the big f*ing deal if it eats a few more watts running full bore?

There is no difference, but it sure makes the huggie-feelie tree hugging brigade sleep better at night.

Manufactures need to wake up. A powerful CPU needs more power, more power means more heat, more heat means more cooling, more cooling means more heat, and all that adds up to LARGER laptops. Sure, everyone wants small, but those who buy the high end FAST stuff know and accept the thicker machines.

My last "desktop replacement" laptop weighed over 12 pounds. I took it everywhere. My ASUS eSlate weighs 1.1kg. Know what? Panti-waist reviewers complained about the weight. 2 pounds is too heavy!

...and that's the future folks. Processors that can run at 100c+ but throttling down before reaching half that temp, why? Because to do it right, the machine would: consume more electricity which pisses off the environmentalists, be thicker than Apples crap*, and everyone wants to be Apple, also a machine too heavy for our panti-waist youth to carry across the room.

It is what it is and its our fault for letting things get this far.

*You could have defended Apple in the past and I'd have agreed to their superiority in certain areas. ...right up until the day they went Intel. Now, it's just a regular PC with a custom "OS". Your i7 with whatever OS version is NOT superior in any way to my i7 running Slackware Linux. Actually, in many ways, it's inferior because frankly, I have 100% control over mine. ;)

Slacker since 1997.

Gaming under Linux since 1999. Unreal ran better under Wine and Unreal Tournament running natively under Linux was amazing. Actually Glide on Linux was amazing. The desktop effects were out of this world.

Still running Slackware everywhere.

To date, Slackware does 2 things no other Linux I've ever tried does. 1.) "Install Everything" doesn't leave you with a cluster-fuck of broken software and unwanted/unneeded services running. 2.) It doesn't swap. Even on my webserver which is still LAMP, heavy on the MP, it boots into less memory (even with KDE running) than any other distro.

Once, I saw a whole megabyte swapped. A WHOLE MEGABYTE!

I can swapoff -a, fire up a severely modded Kerbal Space Program, commit 28 of my 32 GB of ram, and play all day.

...can't badmouth Win7 though. I have an old ASUS EP-121 tablet used as a DAW and not once had an issue. 7 years on and its still on the original factory install. There is a small Slackware partition on it too so I can fish:// to my webserver and write code from my backyard.

I love Slackware. ...and Enlightenment. Great window manager Enlightenment. Very light, lots of candy. :)

Only $120,000,000?

I was under the impression there was a (up to) $1,500 fine per call. He is going to pay just $1.25 per call. That's almost a reasonable cost of doing business.

What a bunch of idiots!

This case had NOTHING to do with repair. It had EVERYTHING to do with PASSING DUPLICATED DISKS AS GENUINE. It's that GENUINE bit that got him sentenced. Maybe if he hand labeled the disks he wouldn't be in jail.

Convict could have installed one of many flavors of Linux, or, just imaged the hard drives. In most cases, Windows Update provides good enough drivers for standard hardware.

...but no, he made 28,000 copies of software and had the disks screen printed to resemble the GENUINE disks.

No excuse for this, and only a fool would defend the blatant copyright infringement.

"Surprisingly, perhaps, I can't ever recall a piece of software that was a waste of time."

Even this Yank has installed Monty Pythons Complete Waste of Time.

Maybe the reason for the error is a bit more sinister.

I'm thinking this "bug" is intentional. Since it only applies to scientific calculations, and exists on the "gaming GPU", I'm thinking this is Nvidia's way of getting people to stop using the cheaper GPUs to build HPC's.

Didn't they ask nicely for folks to stop using the gaming GPUs for HPC, then change their T&Cs to prevent such action? I'm almost 100% positive that they did, which makes this rather suspect in my eyes.

Guess I kill the curve...

I'm over 40, I don't use headphones, and I stream Drum and Bass from Bassdrive.com when I code. The tempo is perfect and non-stop. Everything but my monitor disappears for *hours* on end. Can't imagine coding to anything else even though my musical taste is made of many genres over many years.