I would like if Windows (even 7) had an XP-like interface. I just hate the Windows 7 file manager. In fact I feel at home with Mate now (Gnome 2), its file manager is what I think is best and the "scrollwheel focus follows mouse" is a very useful feature lacking on Windows.
Copying that media from the PC to slow flash is slow, though. Even for something as simple as copying a couple GB music, that's an annoyance. Ideally a phone would have room for upgrading it with an SSD, not memory card, and there would be a USB 3.x dock that gives it fast charging and wired ethernet.
The end user in this case won't have a wifi network (there is just one computer with 3G modem), so in this case you need to buy and set up a wifi router or access point, as long with a wifi printer instead of just one printer and a cable, and remember to connect the computer to the wifi network when needing to print. I find it just a silly bit complex.
A printer is likely to work under linux, at least Canon and HP (seen a Canon laser color just work, though not the built-in scanner : need to scan to a USB stick plugged into the scanner/printer multi-function box, or need to use VueScan as root - unless you can manage to fix the permissions - and then pay $30 to have it not add huge "watermarks" to the scanned page). Epson and Lexmark are evil : never buy anything from them. Maybe a Samsung printer works (I think I printed to one from linux once). Anyway : a printer that only prints would be nice.
The company being paid in place D improves the ability of drug cartels to hide their money and launder it. As for the free-trade agreement next year I'm waiting for the general strikes, burning tires and the hauling trucks parked perpendicular to the highway tolls and exits.
Desktop users even those who know their way around bash and maybe setting up a DHCP, ssh server and some crap typically don't know how to deal with the init system anyway, be it sysv upstart or systemd. You can use fdisk, gparted, mkfs, sshfs, whatever (even delete the udev rules for network cards when swapping a network card makes you lose networking) without ever touching init scripts or knowing what the fuck they do. And sure, you can change the GUI or not install that particular GUI in the first place (many choices of.iso files with Ubuntu and Mint alone).
So for desktop use, why should we care so much? Ubuntu LTS or Mint (or Ubuntu point releases if you have the bandwith for upgrading every six monthes) can still work fine even if systemd is an abomination (I doubt bash, sed, grep, Firefox, VLC or even most desktop environments will end up depending on it) It will be the distro's job to fix the obscure bugs so it doesn't crash, lock up, lose data and so on. It's not the linux user's job unless you're a professional sysadmin. For now I rely on Ubuntu : 5 year support, hardware support, big software library (that is included in the base repositeries so it's all part of the 5 year deal) I shall try PC-BSD 10.1 but would expect to lose / waste time (unless I upgrade hardware to make useful use of ZFS)
Not sure if there is that much value in that : we're describing a thin client desktop station with the phone as a "Terminal Server". It's pretty awesome if you're geeky and like using your phone with any thin client around the house (or other people's house) but you are just saving $50 in (CPU, RAM, storage) over having a fully capable desktop instead, or maybe saving nothing. You still could have a full desktop and a full phone with sync of files, browser state etc. between them. But maybe the "thin client" solution will be better in terms of just working. Be wary what you wish for though, if that solution does work out it will likely be under Windows 10 (and later versions) so we'll go from using a Windows PC to.. a Windows PC? (with some Ubuntu stuff as a distant runner, and maybe some iOS/OSX dual thing)
Nitpick : I can see most older people (70 to 80 and beyond) still using a combination of dumbphone, pen and paper and a laptop used as a desktop (or AIO, or desktop). Many people far less old do and for now it's the cheapest. All-in-one x86 PC with embedded flash memory (hopefully small NVMe PCIe cards) will soon be a major option for that "single computer you need to own" : at least it's simple and lasts for a decade.
I think old forests are stable CO2-wise but a growing one is capturing CO2, and a shrinking one is releasing it - from fire and the rot going away. So I would think reforesting does work, albeit it cannot cope at all with human emissions at current levels either now or for coming centuries if they were to remain stable.
Some debit cards will check for authorisation every single time you make a transaction (Visa Electron, Mastercard's Maestro) so that it is really impossible to overspend ever. Limitations are it doesn't work with a few stuff like highway tolls, or for a gas pump without a human cashier you need as much cash at the bank as what the max serving of gas or diesel fuel costs. In my country they're typically given to kids, students etc. (it's a bit more costly to the banks and payment system companies because of all the checks going on, but costs the same or less as the regular lowest end debit card to the consumer)
Frauds? then tell the cops and your bank about it. Less easy to get your funds back but harder for you to fraudulently declare fraud. Buy some expensive shit, then context the credit card fee, then collect your next pay check and run away to Mexico. Maybe it's ridiculous that I'm thinking about that scenario lol. In the US credit card culture, you have had other concerns like the store clerk, the restaurant etc. defrauding you (with the old tech like mag stripe and customer's signature). In a culture of debit cards with a chip, there's not so much a concern about the merchant defrauding/hacking you. It would be a very bad idea to fuck with these things lol.
Not really : "hardinfo" itself is not known or not known under that name, and a report about the installed hardware is a bit worthless (lspci and lsusb do about that). The Device Manager is not only a unique GUI (stable during two decades of Windows versions), it allows to choose or install drivers and even to configure the drivers. You can do things that are seemingly impossible in linux like limiting a wireless card to a maximum speed (to get a connection "slower" but more stable), or other things. It would be not only having the simple GUI (from times when Windows was easier to use) do lsmod and modprobe kind of work, but also configuring the kernel modules (or kernel), which is something an advanced user is likely to not know about (do I need to set up a build environment and recompile kernel modules?, compile kernel?)
There does exist a useful GUI under linux, the "Proprietary Driver Manager" which allows to switch between nvidia and nouveau (for instance) by clicking a radio button.
It is advertised as a secure place to store files (a "digital safe") and I'm pretty sure the bank is unable to access the files. The password is weak, though (but at least minimally protected against key loggers : you click on numbers whose order was scrambled). That makes it fail slashdotian standards.
My bank now offers a storage space that is supposed to automatically receive bills and similar crap (for now.pdf bank statements land there, which is pretty cool if I somehow need to find that old stuff) ; files can be stored as well, uploaded to the web interface, no other means available. That seems to be a good place to store keys. Else I'd be thinking of paper notes in a bank safe (and/or the kind of attorney that does things on your behalf when you're dead or incapacitated, in growing order of cost)
\Users on the spinning drive means your firefox cache, mails (for people who use mail clients) and other little data (configuration, some pictures, boring documents etc.) sits there too instead of being on SSD. I'd be curious to see if it's better to have Windows on HDD and \Users on SSD instead.
Next best thing to a dumb text console I've seen was how a university treated its students. X11 terminals, Motif window manager, a login shell xterm (that makes all go poof if you close it!), Solaris 7 (no CDE, no file manager that we knew of). Graphical emacs and Netscape.. ugh! It was nice when we found out Mozilla 1.x was installed.
These were generic computer labs, at the library or for more specific stuff you might get a Windows (or linux or even DOS) PC instead. Didn't stop us from running games (rather limited, no fullscreen 320x200 Quake at 60 fps) I should visit the labs to see if they upgraded things (newer Solaris on 1280x1024 panels, mouse with scrollwheel, still on MWM?)
Your passage between quotes is exactly the same as the television ads for diapers I remember. Diapers Y was a lot better than Diapers X, but a couple years later Diapers Y now makes the baby cry and wet itself. Diapers Z is now required to make baby and mom happy and laugh in saturated colors. One brand of laundry detergent even had a "Vista" in their upgrade cycle. It was so good at eating the stains that it was leaving holes in the clothes too.
Not being in frontal competition with all the vendors they can make something that makes sense, other CPU have 4 or 8 cores and 1.x to 2.x GHz but they're always clocked down and with cores turned off, so the advantages (like what, running a raytracer on your phone?) are very theoretical.
Is there a "MyTracks" equivalent that just works offline on the phone?, I had a buddy install it on his and then it asked to be tied to one of two proposed google e-mail addresses. While not highly tech savvy he just refused the "deal", because uploading your location every x minutes or seconds smells of science-fiction dystopia. An offline KML or similar file on the phone you can load on the computer via USB and then into Google Earth, that would have been more acceptable.
The slower speed can't get you lower power there, the drive is slow when re-writing because due to the tech used it has to do some copy/delete/write stuff very roughly similar to having to erase a whole block of flash to write a single logical 512 byte or 4096 byte sector. If you mostly store large stuff that doesn't get deleted or don't care about the possible reduction in write speed, it's still fine to get that drive. (good at recording TV stuff you intend to keep, not that good if you're continuously recording just to go back after taking a pee break or in case there was something worth keeping)
Laptops maybe, but desktops seem to be very strong. Motherboard capacitors are reliable, PSUs generally are reliable, chipset is only provided by Intel or AMD with northbridge inside the CPU instead of a separate chip, power consumption went down, memory is decent (around 2002 was when it was the worst). I believe a modern desktop can last a fucking long time, though you'll of course eventually get one dead component (HDD, DRAM etc.) or dried thermal paste. Or people throw it out when the OS is hosed. Easy to repair (really) but uneconomical if you don't do it yourself. People need to be less rich and have more free time lol.
I hate the culture as much as you but with these fscking computer phones there was an upgrade cycle like what we did when replacing 386 with 486 then 486 with Pentium. At least a computer phone with 1024MB or 512MB RAM and 4GB or 8GB flash is a bit more useful at some things that one with 128MB RAM and 512MB flash. But it's plateaued now : there was so much hype but the massive improvements don't last forever. CPUs had dramatic growth in the 90s and GPUs in the 2000s and now both are improving relatively slow. On phones, that leaves us with the unacceptable support which have some people forced to go with Apple of all things, or with a dumphone. So now we can hope the phones are "mature" and hope Android 5.x, Cyanogenmod, Firefox OS or Windows Phone will provide updates but being in the situation of begging for updates and not knowing if you get them one year from now is seriously wrong.
I think what you write is weird and it had me check the date. Javascript is JIT'ed already and the browser will choose between an interpreter, JIT or more advanced JIT depending on the size of code to run. Then you're at the mercy of the programmer for it's him/her who writes it and gives you efficient code, inefficent code or code that does too much. Perhaps it runs fine on programmer's i7 laptop when the test browser is not running something else, so let's push it on the unsuspecting world.
Slashdot Mirror
while true ; do hdparm -y /dev/sda ; sleep 5 ; hdparm -z /dev/sda; done
I've not tested it but don't really want to.
I would like if Windows (even 7) had an XP-like interface. I just hate the Windows 7 file manager. In fact I feel at home with Mate now (Gnome 2), its file manager is what I think is best and the "scrollwheel focus follows mouse" is a very useful feature lacking on Windows.
Copying that media from the PC to slow flash is slow, though. Even for something as simple as copying a couple GB music, that's an annoyance. Ideally a phone would have room for upgrading it with an SSD, not memory card, and there would be a USB 3.x dock that gives it fast charging and wired ethernet.
The biggest issue with Windows would be using up the monthly caps for the 3G connection simply with Windows Update and antivirus updates.
The end user in this case won't have a wifi network (there is just one computer with 3G modem), so in this case you need to buy and set up a wifi router or access point, as long with a wifi printer instead of just one printer and a cable, and remember to connect the computer to the wifi network when needing to print.
I find it just a silly bit complex.
A printer is likely to work under linux, at least Canon and HP (seen a Canon laser color just work, though not the built-in scanner : need to scan to a USB stick plugged into the scanner/printer multi-function box, or need to use VueScan as root - unless you can manage to fix the permissions - and then pay $30 to have it not add huge "watermarks" to the scanned page). Epson and Lexmark are evil : never buy anything from them. Maybe a Samsung printer works (I think I printed to one from linux once). Anyway : a printer that only prints would be nice.
The company being paid in place D improves the ability of drug cartels to hide their money and launder it. As for the free-trade agreement next year I'm waiting for the general strikes, burning tires and the hauling trucks parked perpendicular to the highway tolls and exits.
Desktop users even those who know their way around bash and maybe setting up a DHCP, ssh server and some crap typically don't know how to deal with the init system anyway, be it sysv upstart or systemd. You can use fdisk, gparted, mkfs, sshfs, whatever (even delete the udev rules for network cards when swapping a network card makes you lose networking) without ever touching init scripts or knowing what the fuck they do. And sure, you can change the GUI or not install that particular GUI in the first place (many choices of .iso files with Ubuntu and Mint alone).
So for desktop use, why should we care so much? Ubuntu LTS or Mint (or Ubuntu point releases if you have the bandwith for upgrading every six monthes) can still work fine even if systemd is an abomination (I doubt bash, sed, grep, Firefox, VLC or even most desktop environments will end up depending on it)
It will be the distro's job to fix the obscure bugs so it doesn't crash, lock up, lose data and so on. It's not the linux user's job unless you're a professional sysadmin.
For now I rely on Ubuntu : 5 year support, hardware support, big software library (that is included in the base repositeries so it's all part of the 5 year deal)
I shall try PC-BSD 10.1 but would expect to lose / waste time (unless I upgrade hardware to make useful use of ZFS)
Not sure if there is that much value in that : we're describing a thin client desktop station with the phone as a "Terminal Server". It's pretty awesome if you're geeky and like using your phone with any thin client around the house (or other people's house) but you are just saving $50 in (CPU, RAM, storage) over having a fully capable desktop instead, or maybe saving nothing.
You still could have a full desktop and a full phone with sync of files, browser state etc. between them. But maybe the "thin client" solution will be better in terms of just working. Be wary what you wish for though, if that solution does work out it will likely be under Windows 10 (and later versions) so we'll go from using a Windows PC to.. a Windows PC? (with some Ubuntu stuff as a distant runner, and maybe some iOS/OSX dual thing)
Nitpick : I can see most older people (70 to 80 and beyond) still using a combination of dumbphone, pen and paper and a laptop used as a desktop (or AIO, or desktop). Many people far less old do and for now it's the cheapest. All-in-one x86 PC with embedded flash memory (hopefully small NVMe PCIe cards) will soon be a major option for that "single computer you need to own" : at least it's simple and lasts for a decade.
Can linux integrate well with Windows AD domains? Year of the linux desktop, with Windows servers on the backend lol (x86 or ARM)
I think old forests are stable CO2-wise but a growing one is capturing CO2, and a shrinking one is releasing it - from fire and the rot going away.
So I would think reforesting does work, albeit it cannot cope at all with human emissions at current levels either now or for coming centuries if they were to remain stable.
Some debit cards will check for authorisation every single time you make a transaction (Visa Electron, Mastercard's Maestro) so that it is really impossible to overspend ever. Limitations are it doesn't work with a few stuff like highway tolls, or for a gas pump without a human cashier you need as much cash at the bank as what the max serving of gas or diesel fuel costs.
In my country they're typically given to kids, students etc. (it's a bit more costly to the banks and payment system companies because of all the checks going on, but costs the same or less as the regular lowest end debit card to the consumer)
Frauds? then tell the cops and your bank about it. Less easy to get your funds back but harder for you to fraudulently declare fraud.
Buy some expensive shit, then context the credit card fee, then collect your next pay check and run away to Mexico. Maybe it's ridiculous that I'm thinking about that scenario lol. In the US credit card culture, you have had other concerns like the store clerk, the restaurant etc. defrauding you (with the old tech like mag stripe and customer's signature). In a culture of debit cards with a chip, there's not so much a concern about the merchant defrauding/hacking you. It would be a very bad idea to fuck with these things lol.
Not really : "hardinfo" itself is not known or not known under that name, and a report about the installed hardware is a bit worthless (lspci and lsusb do about that).
The Device Manager is not only a unique GUI (stable during two decades of Windows versions), it allows to choose or install drivers and even to configure the drivers. You can do things that are seemingly impossible in linux like limiting a wireless card to a maximum speed (to get a connection "slower" but more stable), or other things. It would be not only having the simple GUI (from times when Windows was easier to use) do lsmod and modprobe kind of work, but also configuring the kernel modules (or kernel), which is something an advanced user is likely to not know about (do I need to set up a build environment and recompile kernel modules?, compile kernel?)
There does exist a useful GUI under linux, the "Proprietary Driver Manager" which allows to switch between nvidia and nouveau (for instance) by clicking a radio button.
It is advertised as a secure place to store files (a "digital safe") and I'm pretty sure the bank is unable to access the files.
The password is weak, though (but at least minimally protected against key loggers : you click on numbers whose order was scrambled). That makes it fail slashdotian standards.
The US actually did say that, in a way.
https://www.techdirt.com/artic...
Of course that's in the context of asymmetrical war in poor, failed state countries.
My bank now offers a storage space that is supposed to automatically receive bills and similar crap (for now .pdf bank statements land there, which is pretty cool if I somehow need to find that old stuff) ; files can be stored as well, uploaded to the web interface, no other means available.
That seems to be a good place to store keys. Else I'd be thinking of paper notes in a bank safe (and/or the kind of attorney that does things on your behalf when you're dead or incapacitated, in growing order of cost)
\Users on the spinning drive means your firefox cache, mails (for people who use mail clients) and other little data (configuration, some pictures, boring documents etc.) sits there too instead of being on SSD. I'd be curious to see if it's better to have Windows on HDD and \Users on SSD instead.
Next best thing to a dumb text console I've seen was how a university treated its students. X11 terminals, Motif window manager, a login shell xterm (that makes all go poof if you close it!), Solaris 7 (no CDE, no file manager that we knew of).
Graphical emacs and Netscape.. ugh! It was nice when we found out Mozilla 1.x was installed.
These were generic computer labs, at the library or for more specific stuff you might get a Windows (or linux or even DOS) PC instead.
Didn't stop us from running games (rather limited, no fullscreen 320x200 Quake at 60 fps)
I should visit the labs to see if they upgraded things (newer Solaris on 1280x1024 panels, mouse with scrollwheel, still on MWM?)
Your passage between quotes is exactly the same as the television ads for diapers I remember. Diapers Y was a lot better than Diapers X, but a couple years later Diapers Y now makes the baby cry and wet itself. Diapers Z is now required to make baby and mom happy and laugh in saturated colors.
One brand of laundry detergent even had a "Vista" in their upgrade cycle. It was so good at eating the stains that it was leaving holes in the clothes too.
Then you'd be stuck on some linux 2.0.x shit with veryimportantlibraryfoo at version 1.x whereas the current one is at 4.x?
Not being in frontal competition with all the vendors they can make something that makes sense, other CPU have 4 or 8 cores and 1.x to 2.x GHz but they're always clocked down and with cores turned off, so the advantages (like what, running a raytracer on your phone?) are very theoretical.
Is there a "MyTracks" equivalent that just works offline on the phone?, I had a buddy install it on his and then it asked to be tied to one of two proposed google e-mail addresses. While not highly tech savvy he just refused the "deal", because uploading your location every x minutes or seconds smells of science-fiction dystopia. An offline KML or similar file on the phone you can load on the computer via USB and then into Google Earth, that would have been more acceptable.
The slower speed can't get you lower power there, the drive is slow when re-writing because due to the tech used it has to do some copy/delete/write stuff very roughly similar to having to erase a whole block of flash to write a single logical 512 byte or 4096 byte sector.
If you mostly store large stuff that doesn't get deleted or don't care about the possible reduction in write speed, it's still fine to get that drive. (good at recording TV stuff you intend to keep, not that good if you're continuously recording just to go back after taking a pee break or in case there was something worth keeping)
Laptops maybe, but desktops seem to be very strong. Motherboard capacitors are reliable, PSUs generally are reliable, chipset is only provided by Intel or AMD with northbridge inside the CPU instead of a separate chip, power consumption went down, memory is decent (around 2002 was when it was the worst).
I believe a modern desktop can last a fucking long time, though you'll of course eventually get one dead component (HDD, DRAM etc.) or dried thermal paste. Or people throw it out when the OS is hosed. Easy to repair (really) but uneconomical if you don't do it yourself. People need to be less rich and have more free time lol.
I hate the culture as much as you but with these fscking computer phones there was an upgrade cycle like what we did when replacing 386 with 486 then 486 with Pentium. At least a computer phone with 1024MB or 512MB RAM and 4GB or 8GB flash is a bit more useful at some things that one with 128MB RAM and 512MB flash. But it's plateaued now : there was so much hype but the massive improvements don't last forever. CPUs had dramatic growth in the 90s and GPUs in the 2000s and now both are improving relatively slow.
On phones, that leaves us with the unacceptable support which have some people forced to go with Apple of all things, or with a dumphone. So now we can hope the phones are "mature" and hope Android 5.x, Cyanogenmod, Firefox OS or Windows Phone will provide updates but being in the situation of begging for updates and not knowing if you get them one year from now is seriously wrong.
I think what you write is weird and it had me check the date. Javascript is JIT'ed already and the browser will choose between an interpreter, JIT or more advanced JIT depending on the size of code to run. Then you're at the mercy of the programmer for it's him/her who writes it and gives you efficient code, inefficent code or code that does too much. Perhaps it runs fine on programmer's i7 laptop when the test browser is not running something else, so let's push it on the unsuspecting world.