This sounds kind of like the "exploit" in Second Life, where you can script objects to listen for commands from users, which necessarily allows you to script listening bugs -- just have it listen for whatever people say near it, and IM the results back to you. I actually wrote a few of these and ended up finding out not-too-cool things people were saying about me.
Sometimes, I wonder if people even know what an "operating system" is. How is it possible for Vista to pick up so quickly[1] when most people can't even articulate the difference between it and XP?
[1] Yeah, I know the sales of Vista by itself are slow compared to what MS expected. I was speaking in absolute terms though: it's still a high number for something as mundane as an operating system.
There may be things that Steven's has done wrong or that you don't like but the "BILLIONS of dollars to bridges to nowhere" bit is a commonly parroted bit of misinformation. Do you even know where the "bridge to nowhere" even is?
I was using "bridges to nowhere" as a metaphor for pork barrel spending in general.
Anyone who has been to the area of the proposed bridge will agree that it needs to be built. It is in Ketchikan, Alaska. Ketchikan is completely out of space. Land prices have skyrocketed because there is no land. On the other side of the proposed bridge is land just waiting to be developed. Oh, and the AIRPORT is on the other side of the "bridge to nowhere". Do you think it might be nice if they could drive to the airport instead of having to take a ferry?
Oh, I'm sure it would be nice. I'm sure the people there would LOVE it. It would also be nice if we had a great new museum in Poughkeepsie, or a soil enrichment program in Hicksville, Alabama, or the job traning center in Bethesda. Everyone thinks their own little pork project is ABSOLUTELY vital to the health of the nation. I heard the military thinks we need more military spending too. I'm sure it would make sense to ANYONE with a remote understanding of the facts.
But it's because everyone has their little corner of the world that NEEDS more free money that spending gets out of control.
A billion here, a billion there... pretty soon it adds up to real money!
I don't care about a politicians personal preferences. I care about his actions towards and for the country.
Well, oddly enough, most voters don't think like that it. It's really amazing. Politicians will get kicked out of office for taking hundreds of thousands in bribes, for affairs, for corrupt redirection of money to their friends, for having hired an illegal immigrant...
But if they allocate BILLIONS of dollars to bridges to nowhere, to farm subsidies so we have to endure the blight known as HFCS, to military equipment the military doesn't want, to self-glorifying make-work programs, or whatnot, no one cares.
Some of the things in the first list are bad, of course, but none of them even come close to the second list.
My understanding was that they do that because every other form of political speech (tv/radio commercials, billboards, signposts, etc.) is heavily regulated, so they feel they have to resort to that to get any attention for less-known candidates. Maybe someone more familiar with Japanese election law can fill in?
Given how stringently they're regulating internet (including YouTube) ads, that's pretty believable.
Hm, I'm probably not remembering it because maybe I ran into the cliff by accident, and thus didn't think much of it. Or I fired a bomb-arrow at it, though that might not be a possible solution.
And just in case it doesn't make sense later, NORMALLY, your hand beats your link and makes it get hard...;-)
Hm, what big overhanging snow drift? Do you mean after you get the smelly fish and then cross the frigid lake and are climbing up the mountain? Is this a point after you've met the Yeti?
To be honest, I don't remember this part, which is odd, since it would have made me livid. I do remember there being some oddities like that, but not in that part.
(I've since sold it so I can't play it. Not because it was bad, but because the replay value isn't very good and it doesn't lend itself well to guest involvement.)
Oh, by the way, here's a funny (imho) but obscure joke that will make sense if you've played the 8th dungeon:
"In Soviet Hyrule, Link beats hand... and makes it go limp!"
I admit, I had to use a strategy guide a few times to complete Zelda: Twilight Princes (Wii). I don't resort to them lightly; I really do my best to figure out puzzles before doing that. In one or two cases (like the Z-pattern switch in the first dungeon), yeah, I completely missed the answer. But what bothered me is that in a lot of cases, I graced the puzzle that they wanted me to solve, but then got hung up on some trivial technical issue that kept me from advancing with the story. Here are some examples:
I'll make this as spoiler-free as possible.
-For the ice dungeon, you have to figure out a lot of puzzles to get to it. I successfully figured out how to get some hidden area, then how to get some proper bait, then find where you're supposed to use the bait, then where you're supposed to cast your rod. The strategy guides reveal all of this for you, but I was able to find it on my own. BUT since it had been ages since I had done bob-fishing (I only played on weekends), I forgot some minor intricacy involved, and that kept me from catching the fish. The strategy guides for this section *don't* tell you that subtlety. It wasn't clear from RTFMing either. Eventually, I solved it by starting a separate file, and playing the game from the beginning to where it introduces bob-fishing (not that long actually), and then from the live demo it made sense.
-On the 7th dungeon boss, I didn't even ask Midna for help. There are basically 3 phases to that boss, and the first two I figured out easily. Then, when it got to the third, I guessed what you had to do to beat and, and I was right. BUT! since early on I decided that Z-targeting just wasn't my style, I couldn't do the task fast enough. And again, when I looked at the strategy guide or asked Midna, they told me to do *exactly* what I was already doing, but none mentioned Z-targeting. So again, the guides solved the hard puzzle for me, but didn't solve the "easy" part, which I had to figure out. It was only by realizing that I was "right" all along that I figured that maybe I should use Z-targeting.
I know, I'm going to get modded down again for even responding some more, but your statements are so asinine and have been corrected so many times, I'm not going to let them go:
me: They suggested I try some commands. I did, and posted those results. NO ONE FOLLOWED UP to that.
you: Because they turned out to not be interesting.
What the **** is wrong with you? When you go to a command line, follow the advice that has worked for other people, and then get an error message saying what went wrong there, *that is interesting*. It tells you exactly what you need to do because the message is recognizable. And in fact, I later found out that I had entered one of the commands wrong, and if one person in that thread had bothered to follow up on the troubleshooting that I did, I would have been able to get useful information.
Yes you provided some diagnostics, but when that wasn't enough
The diagnostics WERE enough -- I've had several people come to me months later and given real solutions based on the information I gave.
Remember, the all recommended solutions I *could not do* and avoided solutions that were the logical implication of the troubleshooting: specifically, to address the error message it actually gave!
-I didn't have easy access to a CD burner, and, not suprisingly, NOWHERE in the install instructions do they tell you to have "the" Live CD ready, or a separate, decoupled CD burner ready. -I didn't have my Windows CD easily available. Not because I'm a pirate, but it's because I don't have always ready-to-go, and, again, the install instructions didn't recommend it as a precaution. "But it's obvious that..." No, it's not obvious for a beginnger -- you know, the one Ubuntu is recommended for. -I did follow their stepwise commandline instructions and tell them all the information they needed to follow up.
Diagnosis of a problem is a process. It involves trying things, seeing the results, and then doing other things. Getting upset because after the first bout of attempts nothing comes up and getting bitchy is not part of the process of actually fixing things.
Well, where in the process of troubleshooting is "tell them to do what they just did several more times, while some else ridicules them for thinking that doing it again a few more times in the first place was stupid"? Cause, you know, that's what they did.
If you're so smart you know that "obviously it can't be relevent" then why are you asking for help in the first place?
The same way that I can know "which version of Windows I'm using is irrelevant" when "pressing the power button" doesn't turn on my computer.
GRUB did not have a chance to load any OS at all! That's how I know the Windows version isn't relevant. That and the fact that I had already gotten the error message, which didn't require Windows version knowledge. To this day, any outsider who has read that thread has conceded that the Windows version was not relevant.
You were just mad your problem hadn't been magically fixed already and were being difficult.
Wow, another asinine comment I've responded to several times. I have been very clear that Ubuntu's failure to install and "just work" was not what upset me. I anticipated that. That's why I isolated its install to a separate hard drive. That's why I planned to load it by booting from a completely decoupled hard drive.
What upset me was the combination of the facts that:
-The failure locked me out of all OSes. -People recommended solutions that required me being able to access some OS. -I took extensive precautions that were disabled as a result of following the HIGH RECOMMENDATIONS that come with the software. -I followed the instructions and took extensive precautions and yet was ridiculed for doing that, but NOT doing unlisted precautions.
If the install had failed but I could access Windows by
"Your success was just dumb luck!" "No, having a lot of money is selected favorably buy current society!" "Yeah, but you got all that money in the lottery." "Yes, but buying lots of government bonds with the money was anything *but* luck. I'm not meaning to insult you -- it's a common misconception."
Yeah, this is like suing a television network because a commercial "for" company X on their channel had a telephone number that actually rang their competitor Y.
Actually, the BIGGER problem is that if you ever try to use the full 40 Gb/s, the telco will terminate your service on the grounds that you're illegally downloading copyrighted works.:-P
Actually, when I came in, I was mainly just criticizing Ubuntu users' attitudes, not the software problems I had. And AFAIK that problem hasn't been patched up. Only later, when someone mentioned the thing from Jan '06 did I talk about what went wrong there.
FWIW, if I were trying to get people to use Ubuntu, I would be a lot more patient, understanding, and helpful. I definitely wouldn't recommend someone do something they just did, or which is impossible from their standpoint, like 50 people did to me.
But luckily, I'll never be in that position, because it will probably never be good enough for me to want to promote.
I have no idea how you could have drawn "proprietary software" from anything I wrote
It's from the, "hey, whatever you have to do, that's how it is, tough break" attitude. Well, what I "had to do" involved proprietary software.
But thanks for reminding me why you're on my foes list, and why I felt no compunction in calling you a moron.
Er... YOU are on MY foes list, not the other way around as of this reply. Try to patch up these confusions before you call someone a moron.
It took me all of thirty seconds to use Google to get from "grub error 25" to "25 : Disk read error - This error is returned if there is a disk read error when trying to probe or read data from a particular disk."
Yes, except that the hard drive was working fine, and has been working fine every since -- but only with Windows. Hm.
As for a more detailed, correct suggestion about what to do, yes, I'm sure it's easy to find through google now. But *was the same true back in Jan '06*? Cause, you know, that's when I had this problem... and oddly enough, none of the forum members were very helpful about that GRUB error, and they were, I'm sure, as smart as you.
There are also several possible solutions.
Indeed there are. The forum members linked past threads, and I followed those very precisely, and posted the resutls -- exactly what someone looking for help should have done. Now, show me where they followed up on these?
Explaining the meaning of GRUB error 25 and what to do after a given response from a command input, are difficult?
(Btw, I since learned that there was an easy fix for that. In any case, I appreciate your admission that a reasonable expectation in installing Linux is that you will have to use proprietary software.)
Evaded the diagnosis? You evaded the diagnosis by refusing to answer questions, to help out in any way on your end by providing information.... It's not just that you didn't like that one specific suggestion, you refused any suggestion.
Are we looking at the same thread, liar? I posted four pieces of information about diagnoses in the very first post. For almost every suggestion, I tried it or explained why I couldn't do it.
-They wanted me to get my Windows CD. I didn't know where it was, and Ubuntu is quite clearly billed as not requiring proprietary software. That's a fundamental part of the philosophy given on the front page. That they adhere to that philosophy is a blatant lie, of course, but how was I supposed to know that? -They wanted me to post my menu.1st. I couldn't get to the OS that had it. -They suggested I try some commands. I did, and posted those results. NO ONE FOLLOWED UP to that. -They wanted me to burn a CD. Ubuntu disabled my burner. (That one was a little hard to get through to them.) -They wanted to know what version of Windows I had. Sorry, not going to give you a target for ridicule. It doesn't even get to the point where you load an OS, so obviously it can't be relevant. No one to this day has suggested even a remote possibility how that could result in GRUB error 25.
Would "buy a new computer" be a reasonable response? No. Unless the problem was that your hardware was broken
Any my problem was fixable without the CD they were telling me to download and burn, which would have taken me miles out of my way.
Maybe I wasn't clear. When I flood the network with packets like that, it has to devote a greater share of the resources to me. When I want to send "serious" data, I just swap out the dummy packets with serious ones. I could even charge other users for the "service" of not flooding the network like that, so that some of their packets can get that "equal treatment". This screws over smaller users.
And I don't understand why you feel snobby. I *already agreed* that this is not what competent NN advocates have in mind. (Though the Wikipedia article mentions some floozy who wants exactly this.) I was just trying to show how crude NN approaches can simply cause the unfairness to manifest differently rather than eliminate it.
Yes, the problem was solved with a solution that in my case was extremely time-consuming and evaded the diagnosis of what should have been a simple error to fix. Another "solution" would have been get new hardware entirely and just forget about my old computer, perhaps after copying over the old hard disks. What would your response have been if the suggestion to do that was in the second post, and I eventually solved the problem that way, after trying a bunch of smaller fixes? I know, I know, posturing rather than consistency is your objective here, but I mean, if you *were* going to give a serious response, what would you say?
Yeah, that's good point. It's okay for Linux users to completely ignore what someone has posted about what diagnostics they tried... because I was rude to an Ubuntu forum over a year ago. When you put it that way, it makes sense.
Sure, as long as you consider "First, find someone with a high-speed connection and a CD burner even though you're in a new area because your act of installing Ubuntu and following the HIGH RECOMMENDATION disabled your own connection and CD burner" to be "the solution".
In my mind "the solution" is to correct whatever is causing GRUB error 25 -- which was *never* provided.
First, that's not what the parent was saying at all. It was more along the lines of: "I did not have that problem, and you didn't give me enough diagnostic information to adequately help you solve it. You can attempt to find someone else with a similar problem, or we can work on it a little bit longer and try and get more information."
Fair enough. mhall responded pretty much by-the-book from a troubleshooting perspective. But try to read between the lines for a moment: The A/C was pretty clearly intelligent and quite frustrated with all of this. mhall's response was to suggest that the A/C do what probably is someone's immediate reaction before suffering the indignity of asking the Linux community for help. The follow-up confirms my guess that the A/C is pretty competent and tried all of that. (In his defense, even if you do post precisely the diagnostics you already tried and what that ruled out, Linux forum helpers will STILL ignore that and act like you didn't. My experience was exactly this.)
Again, to clarify, mhall did it by-the-book, and he couldn't know what the A/C tried. But I'm referring to the general attitude that "all your problems must have come from you being a bozo".
He recommended that, even though he wasn't sure exactly what the problem was (since he had never experienced them), he should
mhall was pretty tritely dismissive of the problems *on the grounds* that golly, he didn't have them. That was the problem.
And,
You're ridiculing him for some advice that he offered (for free) that was more helpful than most customer service departments (where they get paid),
Please don't compare him to professional customer support. Before releasing a software you intend to support this way, you should do rudimentary checks that would cover most of what the A/C complained about.
"I did not have that problem, therefore it does not exist."
Add that to:
"Something your last diagnostic just ruled out, must be the problem." "Post a file from an OS you can't access." "Burn to a CD drive you can't access." "It's HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you unnecessarily install a flaky bootloader that significantly increases the severity of install failure without being informed of the precautions you should take in advance." "I *absolutely have to know* which version of Windows you have installed, to understand why you got GRUB error 25."
I don't think we need the Hardy Boys for "why Linux doesn't catch on."
If Dell really is selling more hardware for less, with the only catch being that it has to have Vista + bloatware, someone could buy them, wipe their hard drives, install a free OS, and sell them at a profit. Heck, Dell could covertly do this through some special partnership.
So, I'm skeptical. Like others said, this offer was probably good for about 3 hours. Dell's like Amazon in that respect, although fortunately for them, they haven't accidentally discounted and entire purchase to "free" yet!
Slashdot Mirror
This sounds kind of like the "exploit" in Second Life, where you can script objects to listen for commands from users, which necessarily allows you to script listening bugs -- just have it listen for whatever people say near it, and IM the results back to you. I actually wrote a few of these and ended up finding out not-too-cool things people were saying about me.
Anyone know if they've fixed this somehow?
Sometimes, I wonder if people even know what an "operating system" is. How is it possible for Vista to pick up so quickly[1] when most people can't even articulate the difference between it and XP?
[1] Yeah, I know the sales of Vista by itself are slow compared to what MS expected. I was speaking in absolute terms though: it's still a high number for something as mundane as an operating system.
There may be things that Steven's has done wrong or that you don't like but the "BILLIONS of dollars to bridges to nowhere" bit is a commonly parroted bit of misinformation. Do you even know where the "bridge to nowhere" even is?
... pretty soon it adds up to real money!
I was using "bridges to nowhere" as a metaphor for pork barrel spending in general.
Anyone who has been to the area of the proposed bridge will agree that it needs to be built. It is in Ketchikan, Alaska. Ketchikan is completely out of space. Land prices have skyrocketed because there is no land. On the other side of the proposed bridge is land just waiting to be developed. Oh, and the AIRPORT is on the other side of the "bridge to nowhere". Do you think it might be nice if they could drive to the airport instead of having to take a ferry?
Oh, I'm sure it would be nice. I'm sure the people there would LOVE it. It would also be nice if we had a great new museum in Poughkeepsie, or a soil enrichment program in Hicksville, Alabama, or the job traning center in Bethesda. Everyone thinks their own little pork project is ABSOLUTELY vital to the health of the nation. I heard the military thinks we need more military spending too. I'm sure it would make sense to ANYONE with a remote understanding of the facts.
But it's because everyone has their little corner of the world that NEEDS more free money that spending gets out of control.
A billion here, a billion there
I don't care about a politicians personal preferences. I care about his actions towards and for the country.
Well, oddly enough, most voters don't think like that it. It's really amazing. Politicians will get kicked out of office for taking hundreds of thousands in bribes, for affairs, for corrupt redirection of money to their friends, for having hired an illegal immigrant...
But if they allocate BILLIONS of dollars to bridges to nowhere, to farm subsidies so we have to endure the blight known as HFCS, to military equipment the military doesn't want, to self-glorifying make-work programs, or whatnot, no one cares.
Some of the things in the first list are bad, of course, but none of them even come close to the second list.
My understanding was that they do that because every other form of political speech (tv/radio commercials, billboards, signposts, etc.) is heavily regulated, so they feel they have to resort to that to get any attention for less-known candidates. Maybe someone more familiar with Japanese election law can fill in?
Given how stringently they're regulating internet (including YouTube) ads, that's pretty believable.
Hm, I'm probably not remembering it because maybe I ran into the cliff by accident, and thus didn't think much of it. Or I fired a bomb-arrow at it, though that might not be a possible solution.
;-)
And just in case it doesn't make sense later, NORMALLY, your hand beats your link and makes it get hard...
Hm, what big overhanging snow drift? Do you mean after you get the smelly fish and then cross the frigid lake and are climbing up the mountain? Is this a point after you've met the Yeti?
... and makes it go limp!"
To be honest, I don't remember this part, which is odd, since it would have made me livid. I do remember there being some oddities like that, but not in that part.
(I've since sold it so I can't play it. Not because it was bad, but because the replay value isn't very good and it doesn't lend itself well to guest involvement.)
Oh, by the way, here's a funny (imho) but obscure joke that will make sense if you've played the 8th dungeon:
"In Soviet Hyrule, Link beats hand
I admit, I had to use a strategy guide a few times to complete Zelda: Twilight Princes (Wii). I don't resort to them lightly; I really do my best to figure out puzzles before doing that. In one or two cases (like the Z-pattern switch in the first dungeon), yeah, I completely missed the answer. But what bothered me is that in a lot of cases, I graced the puzzle that they wanted me to solve, but then got hung up on some trivial technical issue that kept me from advancing with the story. Here are some examples:
I'll make this as spoiler-free as possible.
-For the ice dungeon, you have to figure out a lot of puzzles to get to it. I successfully figured out how to get some hidden area, then how to get some proper bait, then find where you're supposed to use the bait, then where you're supposed to cast your rod. The strategy guides reveal all of this for you, but I was able to find it on my own. BUT since it had been ages since I had done bob-fishing (I only played on weekends), I forgot some minor intricacy involved, and that kept me from catching the fish. The strategy guides for this section *don't* tell you that subtlety. It wasn't clear from RTFMing either. Eventually, I solved it by starting a separate file, and playing the game from the beginning to where it introduces bob-fishing (not that long actually), and then from the live demo it made sense.
-On the 7th dungeon boss, I didn't even ask Midna for help. There are basically 3 phases to that boss, and the first two I figured out easily. Then, when it got to the third, I guessed what you had to do to beat and, and I was right. BUT! since early on I decided that Z-targeting just wasn't my style, I couldn't do the task fast enough. And again, when I looked at the strategy guide or asked Midna, they told me to do *exactly* what I was already doing, but none mentioned Z-targeting. So again, the guides solved the hard puzzle for me, but didn't solve the "easy" part, which I had to figure out. It was only by realizing that I was "right" all along that I figured that maybe I should use Z-targeting.
That statement would also be true if upon first install failure I wiped all hard drives and re-installed Windows.
Was wiping my computer and re-installing Windows the right solution too?
I know, I'm going to get modded down again for even responding some more, but your statements are so asinine and have been corrected so many times, I'm not going to let them go:
..." No, it's not obvious for a beginnger -- you know, the one Ubuntu is recommended for.
me: They suggested I try some commands. I did, and posted those results. NO ONE FOLLOWED UP to that.
you: Because they turned out to not be interesting.
What the **** is wrong with you? When you go to a command line, follow the advice that has worked for other people, and then get an error message saying what went wrong there, *that is interesting*. It tells you exactly what you need to do because the message is recognizable. And in fact, I later found out that I had entered one of the commands wrong, and if one person in that thread had bothered to follow up on the troubleshooting that I did, I would have been able to get useful information.
Yes you provided some diagnostics, but when that wasn't enough
The diagnostics WERE enough -- I've had several people come to me months later and given real solutions based on the information I gave.
Remember, the all recommended solutions I *could not do* and avoided solutions that were the logical implication of the troubleshooting: specifically, to address the error message it actually gave!
-I didn't have easy access to a CD burner, and, not suprisingly, NOWHERE in the install instructions do they tell you to have "the" Live CD ready, or a separate, decoupled CD burner ready.
-I didn't have my Windows CD easily available. Not because I'm a pirate, but it's because I don't have always ready-to-go, and, again, the install instructions didn't recommend it as a precaution. "But it's obvious that
-I did follow their stepwise commandline instructions and tell them all the information they needed to follow up.
Diagnosis of a problem is a process. It involves trying things, seeing the results, and then doing other things. Getting upset because after the first bout of attempts nothing comes up and getting bitchy is not part of the process of actually fixing things.
Well, where in the process of troubleshooting is "tell them to do what they just did several more times, while some else ridicules them for thinking that doing it again a few more times in the first place was stupid"? Cause, you know, that's what they did.
If you're so smart you know that "obviously it can't be relevent" then why are you asking for help in the first place?
The same way that I can know "which version of Windows I'm using is irrelevant" when "pressing the power button" doesn't turn on my computer.
GRUB did not have a chance to load any OS at all! That's how I know the Windows version isn't relevant. That and the fact that I had already gotten the error message, which didn't require Windows version knowledge. To this day, any outsider who has read that thread has conceded that the Windows version was not relevant.
You were just mad your problem hadn't been magically fixed already and were being difficult.
Wow, another asinine comment I've responded to several times. I have been very clear that Ubuntu's failure to install and "just work" was not what upset me. I anticipated that. That's why I isolated its install to a separate hard drive. That's why I planned to load it by booting from a completely decoupled hard drive.
What upset me was the combination of the facts that:
-The failure locked me out of all OSes.
-People recommended solutions that required me being able to access some OS.
-I took extensive precautions that were disabled as a result of following the HIGH RECOMMENDATIONS that come with the software.
-I followed the instructions and took extensive precautions and yet was ridiculed for doing that, but NOT doing unlisted precautions.
If the install had failed but I could access Windows by
"Your success was just dumb luck!"
"No, having a lot of money is selected favorably buy current society!"
"Yeah, but you got all that money in the lottery."
"Yes, but buying lots of government bonds with the money was anything *but* luck. I'm not meaning to insult you -- it's a common misconception."
Yeah, this is like suing a television network because a commercial "for" company X on their channel had a telephone number that actually rang their competitor Y.
Let me guess -- you're not married. And no girlfriend either.
Actually, the BIGGER problem is that if you ever try to use the full 40 Gb/s, the telco will terminate your service on the grounds that you're illegally downloading copyrighted works. :-P
Actually, when I came in, I was mainly just criticizing Ubuntu users' attitudes, not the software problems I had. And AFAIK that problem hasn't been patched up. Only later, when someone mentioned the thing from Jan '06 did I talk about what went wrong there.
FWIW, if I were trying to get people to use Ubuntu, I would be a lot more patient, understanding, and helpful. I definitely wouldn't recommend someone do something they just did, or which is impossible from their standpoint, like 50 people did to me.
But luckily, I'll never be in that position, because it will probably never be good enough for me to want to promote.
I have no idea how you could have drawn "proprietary software" from anything I wrote
... YOU are on MY foes list, not the other way around as of this reply. Try to patch up these confusions before you call someone a moron.
... and oddly enough, none of the forum members were very helpful about that GRUB error, and they were, I'm sure, as smart as you.
It's from the, "hey, whatever you have to do, that's how it is, tough break" attitude. Well, what I "had to do" involved proprietary software.
But thanks for reminding me why you're on my foes list, and why I felt no compunction in calling you a moron.
Er
It took me all of thirty seconds to use Google to get from "grub error 25" to "25 : Disk read error - This error is returned if there is a disk read error when trying to probe or read data from a particular disk."
Yes, except that the hard drive was working fine, and has been working fine every since -- but only with Windows. Hm.
As for a more detailed, correct suggestion about what to do, yes, I'm sure it's easy to find through google now. But *was the same true back in Jan '06*? Cause, you know, that's when I had this problem
There are also several possible solutions.
Indeed there are. The forum members linked past threads, and I followed those very precisely, and posted the resutls -- exactly what someone looking for help should have done. Now, show me where they followed up on these?
Explaining the meaning of GRUB error 25 and what to do after a given response from a command input, are difficult?
(Btw, I since learned that there was an easy fix for that. In any case, I appreciate your admission that a reasonable expectation in installing Linux is that you will have to use proprietary software.)
Evaded the diagnosis? You evaded the diagnosis by refusing to answer questions, to help out in any way on your end by providing information. ... It's not just that you didn't like that one specific suggestion, you refused any suggestion.
Are we looking at the same thread, liar? I posted four pieces of information about diagnoses in the very first post. For almost every suggestion, I tried it or explained why I couldn't do it.
-They wanted me to get my Windows CD. I didn't know where it was, and Ubuntu is quite clearly billed as not requiring proprietary software. That's a fundamental part of the philosophy given on the front page. That they adhere to that philosophy is a blatant lie, of course, but how was I supposed to know that?
-They wanted me to post my menu.1st. I couldn't get to the OS that had it.
-They suggested I try some commands. I did, and posted those results. NO ONE FOLLOWED UP to that.
-They wanted me to burn a CD. Ubuntu disabled my burner. (That one was a little hard to get through to them.)
-They wanted to know what version of Windows I had. Sorry, not going to give you a target for ridicule. It doesn't even get to the point where you load an OS, so obviously it can't be relevant. No one to this day has suggested even a remote possibility how that could result in GRUB error 25.
Would "buy a new computer" be a reasonable response? No. Unless the problem was that your hardware was broken
Any my problem was fixable without the CD they were telling me to download and burn, which would have taken me miles out of my way.
Maybe I wasn't clear. When I flood the network with packets like that, it has to devote a greater share of the resources to me. When I want to send "serious" data, I just swap out the dummy packets with serious ones. I could even charge other users for the "service" of not flooding the network like that, so that some of their packets can get that "equal treatment". This screws over smaller users.
And I don't understand why you feel snobby. I *already agreed* that this is not what competent NN advocates have in mind. (Though the Wikipedia article mentions some floozy who wants exactly this.) I was just trying to show how crude NN approaches can simply cause the unfairness to manifest differently rather than eliminate it.
Yes, the problem was solved with a solution that in my case was extremely time-consuming and evaded the diagnosis of what should have been a simple error to fix. Another "solution" would have been get new hardware entirely and just forget about my old computer, perhaps after copying over the old hard disks. What would your response have been if the suggestion to do that was in the second post, and I eventually solved the problem that way, after trying a bunch of smaller fixes? I know, I know, posturing rather than consistency is your objective here, but I mean, if you *were* going to give a serious response, what would you say?
Yeah, that's good point. It's okay for Linux users to completely ignore what someone has posted about what diagnostics they tried ... because I was rude to an Ubuntu forum over a year ago. When you put it that way, it makes sense.
Sure, as long as you consider "First, find someone with a high-speed connection and a CD burner even though you're in a new area because your act of installing Ubuntu and following the HIGH RECOMMENDATION disabled your own connection and CD burner" to be "the solution".
In my mind "the solution" is to correct whatever is causing GRUB error 25 -- which was *never* provided.
First, that's not what the parent was saying at all. It was more along the lines of: "I did not have that problem, and you didn't give me enough diagnostic information to adequately help you solve it. You can attempt to find someone else with a similar problem, or we can work on it a little bit longer and try and get more information."
Fair enough. mhall responded pretty much by-the-book from a troubleshooting perspective. But try to read between the lines for a moment: The A/C was pretty clearly intelligent and quite frustrated with all of this. mhall's response was to suggest that the A/C do what probably is someone's immediate reaction before suffering the indignity of asking the Linux community for help. The follow-up confirms my guess that the A/C is pretty competent and tried all of that. (In his defense, even if you do post precisely the diagnostics you already tried and what that ruled out, Linux forum helpers will STILL ignore that and act like you didn't. My experience was exactly this.)
Again, to clarify, mhall did it by-the-book, and he couldn't know what the A/C tried. But I'm referring to the general attitude that "all your problems must have come from you being a bozo".
He recommended that, even though he wasn't sure exactly what the problem was (since he had never experienced them), he should
mhall was pretty tritely dismissive of the problems *on the grounds* that golly, he didn't have them. That was the problem.
And,
You're ridiculing him for some advice that he offered (for free) that was more helpful than most customer service departments (where they get paid),
Please don't compare him to professional customer support. Before releasing a software you intend to support this way, you should do rudimentary checks that would cover most of what the A/C complained about.
LOL, that's Ubuntu users for you:
"I did not have that problem, therefore it does not exist."
Add that to:
"Something your last diagnostic just ruled out, must be the problem."
"Post a file from an OS you can't access."
"Burn to a CD drive you can't access."
"It's HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you unnecessarily install a flaky bootloader that significantly increases the severity of install failure without being informed of the precautions you should take in advance."
"I *absolutely have to know* which version of Windows you have installed, to understand why you got GRUB error 25."
I don't think we need the Hardy Boys for "why Linux doesn't catch on."
If Dell really is selling more hardware for less, with the only catch being that it has to have Vista + bloatware, someone could buy them, wipe their hard drives, install a free OS, and sell them at a profit. Heck, Dell could covertly do this through some special partnership.
So, I'm skeptical. Like others said, this offer was probably good for about 3 hours. Dell's like Amazon in that respect, although fortunately for them, they haven't accidentally discounted and entire purchase to "free" yet!