Posts by Ilgaz

Open Document Format turns 20, but Microsoft Office still reigns supreme

You should also have 30 years of bugs implemented perfectly in case you dare to support their junk. I wonder how much engineering power wasted on supporting MS Office doc.

Elon Musk's X revenues in the UK crashed in 2023, down 66%

My ads are from phishers

I would never imagine this kind of thing but they are showing phishing "ads" for some of major financial payment platforms and banks. For the good of people,I keep reporting them as "illegal products & services" and nothing happens. I even reported them to the company being targeted.

It is a jungle, even AI generated famous people are used.

Still browsing like it's 1999: Fresh tools that keep vintage Macs online and weirdly alive

Re: Quality HW

I have Macbook 5.1 from 2009, running openSUSE Tumbleweed. Actually, I have run a small restaurant's social media with it. It is a core duo 64bit. Unfortunately, there is a power supply problem which is a bit expensive overengineered thing. I will soon reboot it with 4000 updates once I replace the power supply.

This one weird trick can make online publishing faster, safer, more attractive, and richer

Re: Brave Browser

Crypto kills it. If they paid with real money, we would see it to become a hit among websites otherwise hating ad blockers.

Re: Mozilla To The Rescue

The proposal of Brave was nice until his crypto bro style took over and decided to pay with crypto scams.

GCC 15 is close: COBOL and Itanium are in, but ALGOL is out

Reading opportunity for all

The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burroughs_MCP "Burroughs MCP" is a piece of technical writing art on Wikipedia. That OS is really something unique.

Google slips built-in terminal, Debian Linux VM into Android 15 March feature drop

Re: Termux

No matter what you do, even if you only want to "write" business letters, "hacker's keyboard" is a must for any Android user.

Windows 11 adoption picking up speed, but older sibling still ahead

People are dying right now

Hearing the Ukraine rare elements and minerals deal drama? They are all for the thrown away functioning hardware. All because some idiot at Ms invented (!) hypervisor based security.

Microsoft trims more CPUs from Windows 11 compatibility list

Once they enable hypervisor stuff and memory integrity type security features, you will live a performance nightmare. It isn't 5 FPS,I am talking about 30% overhead.

Broadcom reportedly investigates acquiring Intel’s chip design biz

How can it work?

I have never used Broadcom website except getting Linux drivers but thanks to VMware desktop becoming free, I dealt with it.

Once I used my native Turkish name while registering, it took two days with a very helpful (no sarcasm) support staff to grant my free download.

I figured one thing. That is a mainframe/large enterprise company who has no clue about end users or small businesses.

It is like a friend who worked in IBM Turk in Aptiva age. He was holding a freaking bank to help some teenager install his game.

Why did the Windows 95 setup use Windows 3.1?

Re: Marketing

I keep reading comments from developers saying they were really interested but the absurd price of SDK and compiler prevented them. It isn't like a developer will pirate IBM software.

I used OS/2 V3 with IBM global network. Funny that looking back, I really didn't need Windows but the horrible negative press must have effected me.

Meta blocked Distrowatch links on Facebook while running Linux servers

Re: Considered harmful

Zuck isn't ignorant about Linux etc. I wonder if he called whoever responsible and asked "wtf?"

Why users still couldn't care less about Windows 11

Re: Compatible processor list too short

I have 7th gen i5 as well, I suggest you should stay on Win 10 as long as possible. Windows 11 24H2 has type1 hypervisor trickeries and the 7th gen i5 lacks a specific instruction to hardware accelerate it. You end up with horrible fan noise, at least 30% performance penalty etc. 8th gen doesn't have this issue, I am not sure about other issues that may arise.

I suggest that you use Mint (for conservative but modern Linux) or openSUSE Tumbleweed.

If you have pre-gen8 Intel CPU, don't upgrade

I have lived hell with fan noise/performance for 10 days and finally "downgraded" to Windows 10. My CPU (intel i5 7xxx) doesn't have specific instructions to do easy virtual machine based security and the geniuses at MS somehow managed to enable it, again. This time no tips/help worked and because I won't watch DRM videos with fan noise, I downgraded it. I previously managed to disable it using very advanced trickery but this time, nothing worked. My use for Windows is just movies/tv series and nothing else.

Disabling "memory integrity" isn't enough for Win 11 24H2.

You're going to do what to the feature? Microsoft defines what it means by 'deprecation'

Re: Status quo.

They do worse things every release. 24H2 tried to do a Type 1 hypervisor trick for security on unsupported (i5 7th gen) CPU of mine. It took me 15 days to figure it out and it was a fan noise nightmare with lagging system. Their telemetry isn't interested in this of course.

WINE 10 is still not an emulator, but Windows apps won't know the difference

Re: Writing applications for Windows...

Speaking of kernel, to run Adobe suite licensed (subscribed) etc you will need kernel level running DRM which will never happen on Linux. Perhaps, if Adobe people magically notices how much Windows waste their suite with horrible overhead, they may ship something for RHEL/SUSE first.

Haiku Beta 5 / In tests it's (Fire)foxier / It pleases us well

Re: Another Era

If you are using an Intel CPU, you are already using the Minix the latest version right now. Even while the computer is "off" ;-)

How the OS/2 flop went on to shape modern software

Re: Single Input Queue

Back in the day there were rumors that a huge installation (US navy?) had a software relying on it therefore IBM kept it.

Re: ======> Where are the printer drivers?

It did have printer drivers and a working printing system but for example my HP 690C which was a massively popular inkjet wasn't supported. In Warp 3. Perhaps HP shipped a driver later.

The problem is said to be they didn't work with vendors. MS on the other hand even physically sends people to help some vendors.

Re: Handicapping it to use the pi**poor 286 pretty much f**ed themselves.

Not a developer but I was reading 80286 history. The problem seems to be 286 can't get out of protected mode once it is switched to it, e.g. you run a modern GUI OS but you also have critical MS-DOS software. On Unix there isn't such archaic issues of course.

Re: I remember reading Letwin's post

IBM pushed it way too hard shipping object oriented desktop to ex DOS/Windows users.

Think what would happen if Apple ported Next directly to Macintosh users. No Finder etc. IBM did even more.

I have read a OSX developers blog

It is more than decades ago around 2005, a die hard OSX developer had to ship a Windows exe for a reason. I can't remember the name or product.

He had the exe crashing all the time and somehow MS got aware of it.

Microsoft contacted him telling why likely it fails and how to fix it sending the necessary documentation.

The guy was so impressed that he blogged about it on a OSX developer blog.

25 years on from Y2K, let's all be glad it happened way back then

A dramatic example in my mind for 24 years

I have read that some fiber/petrol etc companies had to spend 200K+ dollars just to replace a $5 chip on the bottom of the Ocean. That really shows the scale of the things people had to deal with.

HMD Fusion: A budget repairable smartphone with modular flair

Re: Can't beat the old iPhone SE

I say buy a device which Lineage guys support, if it is possible, also check for Linux compatibility.

The vendor should also promise at least 3 Android major updates with security updates for 5 years. HMD is tricking people that they are just ex Nokia, there is also a giant Chinese in the room.

In 2025

If a vendor says they will update for 2 years, just move on. Don't bother.

If their Chinese overlords didn't dictate them, it would be excusable if they donated a good sum to Lineage guys and let them continue the care but of course it won't happen.

Re: nanny-ing software

Check dontkillmyapp.com it has Nokia section and also explains who put that lame software in the Nokia. I am using Nokia 5.1 plus and it runs

setting.duraspeed.enabled 2

every freaking boot or it will randomly kill things. This device also carries "Google one" certification. How did Google allow this?

Christmas 1984: The last hurrah for 8-bit home computers

Re: The Box Of Delights

They don't say anything like "Click here to subscribe". I would subscribe to BBC instead of Netflix.

Microsoft Edge takes a victory lap with some high-looking usage stats for 2024

I asked it to their AI

I asked something similar to "Isn't pushing your own browser to users while Firefox is perfectly capable of functioning in the same manner old fashioned?"

It ended the conversation. Basically said "Let's talk about another subject' That was Bing AI.

systemd begrudgingly drops a safety net while a challenger appears, GNU Shepherd 1.0

Funny thing is, I had to run Windows XP+ POS machines 24/7 for a long time and never seen a problem like severe lag etc requiring a boot. They only booted at 3 AM on patch Tuesdays.

It is almost like a tradition people do without any real requirement since NT 4.

Did you miss the boot time pissing contest days?

Re: I find this story intensely ironic.

Small note: systemd also wants to replace sudo. No kidding.

Microsoft coughs up yet more Windows 11 24H2 headaches

Xmas Miracle

Just imagine a "viral" mass switch happens and 40% of users moved to Linux desktop.

It would take Adobe one month to polish their secret version of suite to release on a LTS Linux. Once you are getting out of space you inspect their monster sized folders more. They opt in to multiple platform frameworks and libraries more than ever.

Didn't you notice how fast they shipped for ARM?

Intel turmoil prompts S&P Global to downgrade chipmaker's credit rating

I was reading the 80486 Wikipedia article and he was even in that one.

Windows 10 thing

Why would anyone choose an intel to "upgrade" their PC? They would buy AMD or better, move to ARM which will be much more mature at that time.

Microsoft holds last Patch Tuesday of the year with 72 gifts for admins

Re: Update week

I wonder if KDE Okular can do that EU signature thing considering it is the choice of German institutions massive switches.

A year after Broadcom took control of VMware, it's in the box seat

Ok they don't care about end user but

While trying to get into BIOS boot menu under current VMware Workstation, I lost the focus and invoked "help website" as in F1/Help key.

Remember this used to be and still is a very expensive end user/commercial software. I have 8 "404 not found" tabs here. Yes, they managed to delete the freaking help page.

You can figure the issue from their side using 1994 "analytics" technology. You know, thousands of 404 errors on the same page logged.

Techie left 'For support, contact me' sign on a server. Twenty years later, someone did

Excuse to drop a classic

The moment I read "Don't turn off this server" I remembered the absolute classic

https://youtu.be/uRGljemfwUE?si=3hibKigCIBoLQKsn

"The Website is down"

The Register should investigate that one, it predates the YouTube.

Windows 95 setup was three programs in a trench coat, Microsoft vet reveals

Re: "Progress, eh?"

They used some hack to squeeze around 1.7 MB per diskette however it made the diskette even more fragile.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_Media_Format

Re: "Progress, eh?"

Win95 International English was 14 diskettes, which it can demand a random one _after_ successful installation as well. Don't ask how I know as a CDROM drive owner :-)

Microsoft breaks timezones in Settings and calls on an unlikely ally for help

As anyone tried to install Arch will tell

Under UNIX, the timezone is just a single, simple symbolic link to file create/modify. This is what they can't beat. The raw simplicity underneath.

Photoshop FOSS alternative GNU Image Manipulation Program 3.0 nearly here

Re: There's still no good alternative to PaintShop Pro...

It looks lovely with a lot of potential but... on the home page it says "Painted Dreams — Made using nondestructive boolean operations and procedural dot patterns" That language is a major turn-off for artists/designers. It is not because they can't understand, or they are dumb, it is just fit to an academic paper rather than a creative program.

On the topic, I installed gimp3 rc immediately to my Linux Desktop and at the first photo I tried to edit (test actually) it prompted me to convert its colour profile from industry (de facto?) standard SRGB to its own SRGB with some complex technical term. That is the first impression an average user would get...

Re: Another chance

Actually you can still use Irfanview on Linux. Wine will happily run it and I believe you can somehow register it as a default image viewer.

Broadcom makes VMware Workstation and Fusion free for everyone

Re: The first hit

I don't think anyone reading The Register misses "free as in heroin" point here.

Re: Long Time VirtualBox User

It is way beyond my league to figure why, but the VMWare somehow manages to have almost native usb2/3 performance compared to VirtualBox if you use Windows hyperv native VM infrastructure.

Re: "Desktop tools are, we suspect, not very lucrative any more."

It took 3–4 days for me to get the Download working since I did something heretical as using Unicode characters (latin though) in my surname.

Their "customer service" isn't the problem, I must say that they did a very impressive job of supporting an end user who has zero cent gain for the company. The problem is the company being a freaking enterprise/mainframe software vendor.

Now imagine you are a developer and found/got bugged with something in the software. If you can, would it take what? Years to reach them?

VirtualBox is another story, IMHO the Linux kernel team/end users/developers does pretty lame things like tainting kernel without any valid reason once you run their dkms/kmod.

Lenovo China clones the ThinkPad X1 Carbon with an old, slow, local x86

Useless

They need to go full rms mode, GNU if they want true independence and security. The firmware and firmwares of everything needs to be open and documented including the chips themselves.

I wonder which gulag you would end up if you dare to suggest it to Chinese officials.

A sit-down with Ubuntu founder Mark 'SABDFL' Shuttleworth

Positive experience with Snap?

I am not an anti-snap (?) user, I actually install it and run snapd even on Linux Mint or Tumbleweed. I fail to understand this:

"It seems to me that some of the opinions I am seeing online about snap are changing, and people are becoming more positive. I've had no problems with it in 24.04 or 24.10. "

I relied on Snapd for several things which were critical for business and I had to clear tens of GBs of data which it happily wastes on a tiny SSD. Right now, as I am reading the article, I happen to have Terminal running that I install "hw-probe" to figure out my SSD specs. It takes minutes, on an i5/32GB RAM with a SSD. It is a console only application that interfaces with the web. A very tiny one

Did the author upgrade to those insane massively multicore CPUs or what? I am asking as a guy who even does have balls to suggest developers that they should ignore the "image" and ship snaps if it will serve them. E.g. "waydroid" could have amazing benefits for reachability if it did it.

Windows 10 given an extra year of supported life, for $30

Don't laugh

Imagine only 10% of the $30 paying guys donated to a Linux distro they like or Linux, directly.

Feature phones all the rage as parents try to shield kids from harm

Re: Won't be a short term trend

I used WAP for years first with dial up and GPRS+ stuff. I always liked Web services so I can easily remember the "information" and "simple communication" were always available. I mean it isn't like the kid can't look up stuff on Wikipedia etc.

IPv6 may already be irrelevant – but so is moving off IPv4, argues APNIC's chief scientist

Re: Hence, IPv6

It would be great if it allowed ipv4 virtual aliases just for local stuff.