Posts by RAMChYLD

Removing an obsolete AMD fix makes Linux kernel 6 quicker

Re: The older the OS...

Windows 2000 does have USB support. The only catch is that it's quite primitive and each USB device requires it's own set of drivers (understandable since Universal Audio Class and Universal Video Class didn't exist yet and USB HID and USB Mass Storage was relatively new- I could get a USB Logitech optical mouse to work but not a USB gamepad adapter).

It also does support SATA SSDs, but no TRIM unless you install programs the SSD ship with, and you need to run TRIM manually every month or so. NVMe SSDs are out tho.

You're correct about 64-bit support tho.

Grand Theft Auto 6 maker confirms source code, vids stolen in cyber-heist

Re: Should, if anything, enhance their business

Ah yes, the preferred quip of quiche eaters.

Microsoft offers SQL Server 2022 release candidate to Linux world

Am I missing something?

They're calling Oracle and MySQL as if they're both different entities.

I thought it was supposed to be Oracle and MariaDB.

Ad blockers struggle under Chrome's new rules

I'm not using it because I do not support homophobic asshats.

A refined Apple desktop debuts ahead of Wednesday’s big iThing launch

Browser

> but sadly we can’t find a browser to run in this environment so you could use it to read The Register.

I believe the common way to get online in the Apple II era was to dial up to the Unix server of your local university, after which you'll be able to access UUCP and e-mail.

Modern internet niceties like web browser didn't exist in the late 70s and early 80s. And after they did you were basically constrained to running Lynx on the university's system after dialing in.

Terminal downgrade saves the day after a client/server heist

Re: Green screens were great!

I've used a program called SignMaster for the PC that does the same thing. Editing is done on the mono display, but when the print or render option is selected the CGA monitor would spring to life and give users a preview of what they'll be getting.

Japan reverses course on post-Fukushima nuclear ban

Re: Wind and solar

they are. Except that it turns out that wind and solar is still relatively low production- you can cover every single square mile of Tokyo and it still wouldn't be enough for their major heating and air conditioning needs.

What I'm wondering tho, is why aren't they using Geothermal more, given the prevalence of volcanoes and hot springs in the country.

And sadly, they've also been having some very bad power shortage as well despite going for renewable energy. According to a youtube channel I frequent, a lot of them are also instructed to not use air conditioning at home during the summer months because their power production is already at full capacity. Some neighborhoods in the Tokyo metro area even faces daily brownouts.

However, I still have my reservations about Nuclear, especially after Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima. And especially if they're staffed by a bunch of bozos (which the Japanese aren't, but it's why I don't want to ever see a nuclear plant here in Malaysia). Unless the boffins can work out cold fusion, I don't want to live within 200 miles of a reactor.

Starlink satellite dish cracked on stage at Black Hat

Nope, you'll be listening to a chiptune version of "Lincolnshire Poacher" that sounds like it came from a 70s coin operated children's ride on repeat until they respond.

Anti-piracy messaging may just encourage more piracy

Re: False equivalence as well...

That reminds me of those videos of Burmese folks building their own Bugatti and Ferrari cars in their own garage. From body parts fabricated themselves using just pictures sourced from the Internet as well as aftermarket components sourced from local mechanics.

Bugatti and Ferrari doesn't call it piracy. In fact they didn't come out to say anything about the legality of those copies. Are those Burmese folks not engaging in piracy then?

It's already mentioned time and time again

If you don't want piracy, make your content affordable and available.

Tavis Ormandy ports WordPerfect for UNIX to Linux

Thankfully a number of emulators allows turning that off. That's the first thing to go whenever I distrohop and have a new env. If the terminal emulator doesn't support disabling that, I switch to one that does.

Because I'm quite dependent on Midnight Commander when on a bash prompt. Midnight Commander hooks F10 for exit.

Re: Netscape Communicator 4.x

Pretty sure that's the same as Seamonkey.

But if you need it, I'm sure the binary tarball for Communicator 4.8 for Linux is still widely available from somewhere. Just not sure if it'll run on modern distros- last time I saw Communicator, it was on RedHat Linux 7.

Edit: https://ftp.sunet.se/mirror/archive/ftp.sunet.se/pub/www/Netscape/communicator/english/4.8/unix/supported/linux22/complete_install/

Knock yourself out.

Gtk 5 might drop X11 support, says GNOME dev

Re: Opposites

I can remember tho.

20 years ago, Gnome 2.

Nothing has been the same since Gnome 3.

You can liquid cool this Linux laptop to let the GPU soar

Looks familiar

Damn, I didn't know Malaysian companies are such copycats. Just found out there's an identical laptop sold here except that it's called the Illegear Onyx G with Illegear Flow.

https://www.illegear.com/illegear-onyx-g/

https://www.illegear.com/illegear-flow/

Choosing a non-Windows OS on Lenovo Secured-core PCs is trickier than it should be

And then there's the fact that they shipped one laptop in the past that does not allow disabling Secure Boot (fine, some Distros will still boot, but not all) and one particular laptop they decided to enable hardware FakeRAID, for which there are no drivers for Linux, without giving users an option to turn it off.

And yet FOSS influencers like Cory Doctrow still swear by them. Very odd.

> Any OS vendor can create secure boot keys for use with their own signed bootloaders.

Unfortunately that is also not necessarily true. As I've mentioned many times there are badly programmed UEFI BIOSes that would brick the computer the moment a key that isn't from Microsoft is injected into the secure boot keyring. In my case, the Ventoy key on an Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 5. Injecting the Ventoy key causes the machine to immediately start exhibiting a bad slowdown (noticeable delay between keypress and response on screen), and upon reboot, the machine will never come to until the CMOS is cleared which results in all keys getting purged.

RE: independent keyholder

What I've been saying all this time. The keys to secure boot should be held by a third party that does not have a product that would result in conflict of interest.

The sad state of Linux desktop diversity: 21 environments, just 2 designs

Re: The curse of overchoice

This. Proton cars have that same annoyance in that the wipers and lights are inverted compared to say a Toyota. Really annoying.

They also failed to mention AfterSTEP

Foxconn forms JV to build chip fab in Malaysia

Incompetence

Watch how the freaking JV will barely turn a profit, while lining the pockets of the corrupt politicians involved in this.

As for where: I'm guessing it's Malaysia's Silicon Valley. No, not Cyberjaya, but Penang Island, where all the other hard hitters (Intel, AMD, NXP) currently are.

Samba 4.16 release strips away more SMB 1

Re: @Jeremy Allison - Are we all friends now?

If you use SMB over an open network, you are inviting more problems than it's worth.

NEVER run a SMB server over an open network. Always run it behind a secure firewall.

Re: Samba and SMB1, saving landfill

Same here. Picked up a D-Link DNS-313 for super cheap from a bargain bin at a computer store that's going out of business about a decade ago. Device only supported SMBv1 for reasons unknown and is said to not support Windows 8 or newer. D-Link claims that the device is end-of-life and refuses to put out an updated firmware for it - storage is not an issue as the firmware lives on the disk- I triaged that greed is the real reason and they simply want me to buy a new NAS. Pfft, if the NAS doesn't cost less than US$25 (which that DNS-313 did), no.

Re: WINE anybody?

Sorry, I beg to differ. Those games that use palette switching 256 colors mode doesn't run on Wine. Those games won't even run on Windows 95 if your color is set to 16-bit or higher.

Source: I tried running several Broderbund Living Books titles that I never got to enjoy in my childhood.

Cyclops Blink malware sets up shop in ASUS routers

Re: Eejit guide to detection...?

+1. Im extremely worried now, having bought an Asus router on an recommendation of a friend (said friend replaced his with a Ubiquity shortly after. I wonder why?) and even worse it's the exact model they mentioned finding the worm on- RT-AC68U with the 384.4 firmware.

A quick way to find out if I'm infected would be great.

Re: Makes you wonder

Yeah, but the units sold in the US are duds. Due to pressure by the idiot Ajit Pai and his FCC, TP-Link routers will be locked down and blocked from custom firmware in their market. All because some idiot turned the power of his up so high it was interfering with the nearby airport's radar system, which caused the FAA to complain.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/tp-link-blocks-open-source-router-firmware-to-comply-with-new-fcc-rule/

Re: Makes you wonder

Thing is, Asus routers also have custom firmware- MerlinWRT, which is apparently an attempt to merge OpenWRT with the Asus default router firmware.

Fedora inches closer to dropping x86-32 support

Re: In other words...

Unless someone makes a PCIe version of the Gravis Ultrasound and SoundBlaster AWE32/64 and lets DOSBOX interface with it, I think not.

Ceefax replica goes TITSUP* as folk pine for simpler times

Yep, they were popular here in Malaysia for that too. Although they were also popular for lottery results which tended to be uploaded as they're being drawn. Given that the only option was to pay hundreds for Internet access at the time or wait for tomorrow's papers, it's understandable.

Re: Bring Back Telnet (or VT100/ansi via SSH)

Just tried accessing it as guest. Looks awesome!

I believe there are a few more sites sites open, mostly catering to retro enthusiasts. I used to play with telnet a lot back when I first got an internet connection.

Re: teletekst

Here in Malaysia they call the sevice Beriteks- a amalgamation of the local word for "News" (Berita) and Text. Sadly tho, they shut off the service very early. By 2008 no TV stations were transmitting teletext anymore. And yet all local TVs made still have a text decoder built right in.

Re: old VHS

Not all. It depends on how the VCR was calibrated or built. There are certain VCRs that have a built in teletext decoder, of course those will be calibrated to record teletext signals. However those that didn't have a built-in decoder are hit and miss. I had a Singer VCR (actually OEM made by Sharp) that could record Teletext to a certain extent, there would be pages missing from the recording. However a later Sharp VCR could not record Teletext at all, it may grab the first line (ie the channel name, service name and time and date) if it was in the mood but the rest of the page would be missing completely.

Re: USA and Teletext

Not really. Their system had 525 lines, but only around 480 were used - the rest were overscan. Just like how PAL has 625 lines, but only 576 were actually used. In fact, their system would be faster because the signal refreshed at 29.975 frames per second, as compared to 25 frames of the PAL system.

Re: Pedantic - slightly inaccurate

The problem in America was there was too many cooks - as there were two competing standards.

Superstation WTBS had invested in a modified-for-NTSC version of World Standard Teletext (ie the Ceefax system). Meanwhile CBS and NBC tried pushing a homegrown system called NABTS (North American Broadcast Teletext Standard). Guess what happens when TV stations take sides and you are told that the TV you bought to receive TBS' Teletext isn't compatible with NBC and CBS' system, and vice-versa.

Also, the NBC and CBS' system receivers cost more to manufacture because they had to use a more powerful CPU, because in an effort to one up the UK, they designed NABTS to support vector graphics. It was too ahead of it's time.

When your teletext-enabled TV costs thousands of dollars and can't receive the teletext signal from all stations, you're definitely destined to fail.

Notes on the untimely demise of 3D Pinball for Windows

Even more tho...

It was practically a demo version of Full Tilt Pinball for Cinematronics.

Never mind the Panic button – there's a key to Compose yourself

Re: International keyboard layout

I remember that keyboard. It was a gimmick tho, costs a pretty penny which is probably why it didn't sell well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_Maximus_keyboard

Fisher Price's Bluetooth reboot of pre-school play phone has adult privacy flaw

Re: Turning it off

If you're going to do it yourself, surely it'll be smart to save a few quids and just buy the regular version of the phone (which does not come with any electronics inside) to mod.

Nvidia says its SmartNICs sizzled to world record storage schlepping status

Snake oil?

I'm pretty sure people still remember the Killer NIC from Rivet Networks. Everyone I know was calling it snake oil that Killer quickly went bankrupt and was bought by Atheros who only used the brand to make run-of-the-mill cards with existing chips, only with custom firmware and drivers, and then resold the brand to Intel lately. Surely this is no different?

Feds charge two men with claiming ownership of others' songs to steal YouTube royalty payments

Now Japan needs to do the same

I streamed some JRPGs and the company who produced the RPG has a open policy where all their music is precleared so you may stream their game without fear. They're also self-published so there is no possibility of confusion. And yet I got a strike for one of the songs used in their games, attributed to a certain Bicycle Corp. I disputed and got snubbed, youtube would rather protect this Bicycle Corp than their streamers.

Reviving a classic: ThinkPad modder rattles tin to fund new motherboard for 2008's T60 and T61 series of laptops

Deteriorating build quality

That's pretty much an apt description. Cracks appearing on the bezel around the power button? Logic boards that randomly up for no reason? I've seen my fair share of horror, it hasn't been the same since the L480.

China trying to export its Great Firewall and governance model

Oxymoron much?

> promoting openness and cooperation

Yeah, because restricting information is promoting openness...

Bad news, AMD fans: This week's Windows 11 update didn't fix your performance woes (they may be worse)

Re: Eh?

I've been noticing that the game intermittently stuttering every few minutes after upgrading to Windows 11. Never had those stutters in Windows 10.

Why we abandoned open source: LiveCode CEO on retreat despite successful kickstarter

Re: Forking

Actually, I think the reason no one has forked it back then was because it was free and open. Now that they're closing the source, I'm optimistic about a fork appearing.

That happened with the Solaris On/Net kernel. For so many years after it became open source no one forked. Then Oracle bought Sun, and in their infinite greed decided to close the source, discontinue OpenSolaris, and forced people who depended on OpenSolaris for so long to buy Solaris.

Guess what? illumos happened.

ProtonMail deletes 'we don't log your IP' boast from website after French climate activist reportedly arrested

Re: I would never trust them...

I'm pretty sure the CERN guys are evil to the core. Ever watched Steins;Gate?

I'm also sure that they're working with another evil organization called the IEEE to bring about the end of the world to appease their mad god, it of the old one tooth, which wants Earth demolished so the alien race that hired it, the Lyrans, can build their hyperspace bypass.

Don't like the new Windows 11 Start or Taskbar? Don't worry – Microsoft's got your back

Re: Thanks for your loyal unpaid service,

You missed out one crucial step: Creating the init ramdisk. No ramdisk usually means no boot since the system can't get to the kernel modules needed until it has booted enough to get the root filesystem mounted, this creates a catch-22 scenario where the system needs the module for the SATA/NVME controller as well as the modules to recognize the filesystems but couldn't get to the modules until the root fs is mounted- which requires the missing modules to be loaded.

UK's competition watchdog sniffs around AMD's proposed $35bn all-stock buy of Xilinx

re: Intel have an FPGA unit too

Exactly my thoughts. No one raised an eyebrow when Intel bought Altera. Why are they raising a flag when AMD tries the same thing to stay competitive?

Flash in the pan: Raspberry Pi OS is the latest platform to carve out vulnerable tech

Epson still makes dot matrix printers tho.

Although they have technically regressed through the years. Color dot matrix printers are apparently now a lost art. Also, their prices have sorta stayed the same over the years.

I do miss them tho. Being able to talk directly to the printer and send control codes directly instead of using blackboxed APIs.

LibreOffice rains on OpenOffice's 20th anniversary parade, tells rival project to 'do the right thing' and die

Re: Probably a license issue

I don't get it tho- if Apple is so against copyleft, why did every single *nix distro under the sun switch to CUPS? Shouldn't we all be hating on Apple and continue using LPRNG? Heck, why did they even introduce LPRNG to the Unix world in the first place?

Re: "We were caught quite off guard"

> Vision equivalent

LO Draw. Opens Visio documents great, has great flowcharting capabilities rivaling that of Visio, and exports the drawings into PDF. Also works great in letting you open PDFs and edit everything to the minute detail.

China now blocking ESNI-enabled TLS 1.3 connections, say Great-Firewall-watchers

Re: Satellite broadband?

What other countries with an asshole government already do- outright ban dishes that do not bear the logo of authorized satellite providers in their country and ban dishes beyond a certain size (for example, dishes can be no bigger than two feet diameter). The Malaysian government is doing this.