* Posts by Citizen99

263 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Jan 2011

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Supermium drags Google Chrome back in time to Windows XP, Vista, and 7

Citizen99

About 50 years ago I bought what would then have been a ~20 year old table-top radiogram at a 'car boot(trunk)' sale. I laid in a set of spare valves (vacuum tubes) whilst still available.

It still works with the originals. Also with the original electrolytic capacitors, a pleasant surprise.

(Devuan with Trinity desktop; Windows 7 for Skype, here).

Microsoft's February Windows 11 security update unravels at 96% for some users

Citizen99

Re: "Something didn't go as planned. No need to work... [title too long]"

This is why I read The Register

Cops turn LockBit ransomware gang's countdown timers against them

Citizen99

Middle finger, surely ? Asking for a friend.

Halley's Comet has begun its long trek back toward Earth

Citizen99

Re: Oh the memories ...

I suppose it was a wrong judgement call, surprise by speed versus recuperation.

Citizen99

Re: Disappointing

I worked on the ESA Giotto probe. I would be 120 for It's successor; posthumous good wishes for a successor :-)

England's village green hydrogen dream in tatters

Citizen99

Johnson's resignation 'series of scandals' was stitch-up allegations over trivial matters in the context of Covid and of dubious provenance. It's all coming out now despite being deliberately ignored by the current ridiculous Enquiry. "The Science" is in itself a non-scientific concept, and the 'scientific' advice is now seen to be chaotic and inaccurate in its own terms.

Not even the ghost of obsolescence can coerce users onto Windows 11

Citizen99

Re: Hanging on as long as possible.

My hardware vintage is well over 10 years old. I have W7 'on the metal' in a partition, and XP in a VM just to drive an ancient scanner. Usage is very rare. Multi-system boot management is done from one of the Linux partitions. When I use W7 MS has kindly deactivated it for me, but I press on ignoring the remonstrations. But last time it also screwed-up the initial boot system on shut-down. As It happened I had configured boot for rapid recovery.

Version 5 of systemd-free Debian remix Devuan is here

Citizen99

I like David Hare's "Exe GNU/Linux", a packaging of Devuan and the Trinity (fork of KDE 3.5) Desktop. I have used this for many years, and never had a problem with installation from the live ISO-image or DVD. My (venerable) target machines being a workstation with Intel processor motherboard at least a dozen years or so old, and an HP Elitebook 8470p laptop. Also VirtualBox VMachines.

30 years on, Debian is at the heart of the world's most successful Linux distros

Citizen99

Thanks for the 'heads-up' :-)

Mint 21.2 is desktop Linux without the faff

Citizen99

Re: "Pretty" Considered As Unimportant!!

I also have an i7 laptop 10 years old (and a similarly aged workstation). I use the TrinityDesktopEnvironment fork of KDE3.5 (on Devuan as it happens), and its' file manipulation is 'a breeze'.

They still have a Windows 7 partition 'on the metal', which OF COURSE Microsoft have kindly de-activated for me.

Ariane 5 to take final flight, leaving Europe without its own heavy-lift rocket

Citizen99

Re: Or how that

Black Arrow - Yes, to be absolutely clear, with the 'sentence of cancellation' pronounced, the first and only launch was allowed to take place, successfully. Ho-hum.

Citizen99

Re: Or how that

Blue Streak, using UK ex-ICBM motors, was cancelled after sucessful launches. Politics.

Gen Z and Millennials don't know what their colleagues are talking about half the time

Citizen99

What about pre-1946 Elders ? 'pivot' ? swivel !

When it comes to Linux distros, one person's molehill is another's mountain

Citizen99

Re: work around or move on

I went to a fork not to go in a new direction but to stay the same. It was the original system that went off in a way that didn't suit me. Not mentioning actual names, as the point is generic.

SpaceX's second attempt at orbital Starship launch ends in fireball

Citizen99

Although IANaRocketSpecialist, what strikes me is the 'long and thin' configuration. The Polar Moment of Inertia would be much greater than with 'short and squat' for the booster This would, I suggest:

- Impose greater bending stresses at the Booster/Payload interface

- Imply greater demands on the corrective/manoeuvring trimming before and during separation.

(?)

What Mary, Queen of Scots, can teach today’s cybersec royalty

Citizen99

Re: Setting a precedent

The Pope,effectively under control by Katharine of Aragon's relatives, had put out a contract in the terms of the day,on Elizabeth. Hence the massive security.

There's no place like... KDE: Plasma 5.27 is out and GNOME 44 hits beta

Citizen99

Re: Good things come to those that wait, and wait, and wait...

One of the reasons I moved to TDE, the fork of KDE 3.5.

Spotted in the wild: Chimera – a Linux that isn't GNU/Linux

Citizen99

Not to be confused with the current Stable release of Devuan, which is called, er, Chimaera (note the extra 'a').

BTW Devuan is also a systemd-free distro, should that be what you (like me)want.

Bringing cakes into the office is killing your colleagues, says UK food watchdog boss

Citizen99

Nanny State-ist leave my cake alone!

Virgin Orbit doesn't

Citizen99

Re: Had it been a success....

The last time I looked, ESA was not an EU organisation,.although the latter like to imply that it is

This is the end, Windows 7 and 8 friends: Microsoft drops support this week

Citizen99

"... will you upgrade or buy a new PC? "

ROFL . Perhaps if they changed W10/11 to not reject host hardware on which Live-adapted Windows 10 on an external USB SSD will run.

(I only tried that to experiment with the hardware issue; it cannot access the host hard drive - one of the reasons it was created I guess.

No,for me it's remains W7 on a Linux VM on the rare occasions that I need it.

Techies try to bypass damaged UPS, send 380V into air traffic system

Citizen99

Hmm. Any correlation with our Virgin cable telly going down for a few days?

If today's tech gets you down, remember supercomputers are still being used for scientific progress

Citizen99

Re: How will this help?

I would reformulate it that the empirical experiment 'fails to disprove' the theory

Longstanding bug in Linux kernel floppy handling fixed

Citizen99

Also migrated to later media; use case on earlier thread response

Citizen99

Re: DIAGNOSING Embedded Industrial Systems

tomsrtbt Brlliant, I have it migrated to later media. Before retirement 20yrs ago,we got a loaned Linux PC back from a contractor. Used tomsrtbt to smash their root passed and bingo we have control.

Orion snaps 'selfie' with the Moon as it prepares for distant retrograde orbit

Citizen99

Re: Contrast Orion's journey with Apollo

"Suspenders" on the other hand ...

Version 252 of systemd, as expected, locks down the Linux boot process

Citizen99

systemd tasks

Perhaps slightly beside the topic, but I have suspicions (although correlation is not necessarily causation)...

I have used Skypeforlinux on Devuan (with Trinity desktop) for some years to talk with family on the other side of the world.

In the last few weeks Skype started crashing.It's as if it is missing something. Both on laptop and workstation.

I made another partition on the laptop and installed a Debian systemd distro (Q4OS with Trinity Desktop.

Guess what? Skype works on that.

Plop. That's the sound of a boot manager booting PCs off media they can't start from

Citizen99

Interesting. Long retired,with ancient hardware,I used GAG boot manager for a couple of decades to give nice big buttons to choose system to boot. Got in a tangle on the laptop recently with an extra installation,so slung it out and used Grub, with a stick-on label with menu written in biro.

The crime against humanity that is the modern OS desktop, and how to kill it

Citizen99

Re: That's 50's american cars all over again

I'm a happy user of Trinity (fork of KDE 3.5 in case any reader of this hasn't seen it before) on workstation and laptop. On Devuan BTW.

A fine suite of convenient tools, and no intrusive irritating eye-candy. Windows 7+Classic Shell 'on the metal' for the 0.1% of the time I might need it (retired,so no commercial requirements pressure) ; W7 and XP in virtual machines.

FYI: BMW puts heated seats, other features behind paywall

Citizen99

Re: Are

I'll offer a variant:- ... handbrakes...

Drives both me & the Missus mad.

x86 Raspberry Pi Desktop is a great way to revive an old PC

Citizen99

Re: 32-bit Linux distributions

Just for the avoidance of misunderstanding, Devuan also offers a 64-bit version.

Bipolar transistors made from organic materials for the first time

Citizen99

Re: Durability?

OC71 ? Luxury! Red-spot and Blue-spot here. Sometimes with self-induced thermal runaway :-D

Google engineer suspended for violating confidentiality policies over 'sentient' AI

Citizen99

It shows how terribly dangerous this is. It substitutes 'random' for reality in people's perceptions.

Sick of Windows but can't afford a Mac? Consult our cynic's guide to desktop Linux

Citizen99

Re: Now Do an Article About the Top Ten Linux Apps

For my (amateur) film photo editing, Photoshop Elements 2 (came bundled with a scanner years ago) running on Wine does all that I need and is easier to use than Gimp. Also easier than later Photoshops that added a lot of stuff that I don't need.

Linus Torvalds debuts 'boring old plain' Linux kernel 5.18

Citizen99

Re: feature activation

Just like the Blue Spot or Red Spot transistors sold to this boy hobbyist in the '50s,which could be wonderful,or self- combust with thermal runaway

Voyager 1 space probe producing ‘anomalous telemetry data’

Citizen99

Re: Light bulbs

I have a mid-1950s Radiogram, bought second-hand in the mid-1970s. I have a spare set of valves (vacuum tubes), never had to fit one yet. NOR any electrolytic condensor (capacitor). It thunders out the music input from our Virgin box every day.

Thomas Flowers (Colossus) was right.

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

Citizen99

Re: Er.. Umm... Trinity is a KDE3 fork...

I suspected so also ;-)

... and also, as regards tools, KDE4 'killed' functionalities of e.g. Konqueror, to name but one.

Citizen99

I happen to like Trinity (BTW a fork of KDE 3.5;the clue is in the name). Not only for the layout, to address the main theme of the discussion, but also for some tools that come bundled with it.

Happy to run in VMs,when required, XP, W7 with Classic Shell, various lightweight *ubuntus.

UK suit over reselling surplus Microsoft licenses rolls on

Citizen99

Re: My opinion

Cough

Lightweight Linux distribution Slax rides again with v11.2

Citizen99

Devuan is the sanitised fork of Debian. I run ExeGnu Linux which is a nice distro using it with the Trinity KDE3-fork desktop. And any of these can be re-spun to run off USB, UEFI etc.

AI really can't copyright the art it generates – US officials

Citizen99

That is MOST unfair Mr Rimmer Sir, I must comfort myself by mopping clean the engine bay.

To err is human. To really tmux things up requires an engineer

Citizen99

Re: Step outside

Our Italian co-contractor in Milan was giving myself and German co-contractors a lift to our hotels.

German chappie:" Er, shouldn't we be in that lane ?"

Italian host: "Is only a suggestion"

Robot vacuum cleaner employed by Brit budget hotel chain Travelodge flees

Citizen99

"Computer, if you don't open that exit hatch this moment, I shall go straight to your major data banks with a very large axe and give you a reprogramming you will never forget, got that?" Zaphod Beeblbrox

Throw away your Ethernet cables* because MediaTek says Wi-Fi 7 will replace them

Citizen99

Re: You can pry the ethernet cable out of my cold dead hands!

Thicknet Ethernet; wonderfully heavy and solid, especially when you had to successively move a project around various test establishments.

On Christmas night, a computer logs a call to say his user has stopped working…

Citizen99

Indeed, I always preferred to use the Bren in single-shot mode (cadets summer camp).

A smarter alternative to password recognition could be right in front of us: Unique, invisible, maybe even deadly

Citizen99

Re: On a related topic...

I like mine to be comfortably 'run in'

NixOS and the changing face of Linux operating systems

Citizen99

Re: @Charles 9 - rm -rf /*

You can boot an iso-image (if necessary re-mastered to your requirements) from grub in an OS in another partition. That OS could be a minimalist one dedicated solely to providing grub, if you so choose. Data can have its own partition.

When civilisation ends, a Xenix box will be running a long-forgotten job somewhere

Citizen99

Re: The secret to a long life

"No-one knew the root password"

If it had a floppy drive, Tom's Rootboot might be your friend. Assuming it could boot from floppy and you knew where the p/w was stored on that system, to 'smash'. I also got Tom's Rootboot to run from cdrom if applicable.

Survey shows XP lingers on while Windows 11 makes a 0.21% ripple in the enterprise

Citizen99

Re: Adieu but not goodbye XP

I sometimes fire up an XP VM, on Devuan, to run the user-friendly proprietary s/w for my scanner. Also have W7 in a VM and on a partition, very rarely need to use it.

Two non-Gtk Linux desktops have put out new versions

Citizen99

Re: TDE is a Great fork of KDE3

When KDE4 came out, I took a look at it in another partition; didn't like the way it had replaced some of the functionalities that I like with useless eye-candy. Then I discovered Exe GNU/Linux, a very nice recipe by David Hare of TDE on Devuan - double bonus! This has been my regular workstation OS ever since. LXDE is fine for a live virtual machine for ad-hoc boot-up.

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