Posts by CAPS LOCK

What the Linux desktop really needs to challenge Windows

Re: Mint

You've been unlucky. I've installed Mint on a whole bunch of different hardware and not had anything like that degree of difficulty.

AI nudification site fined £55K for skipping age checks

A while back at number 10...

Government suit: We need to find more ways to extract taxes. Suggestions!

Gov. advisor (mate from school): Well in the past taxes on things people like have worked well, car tax for example...

Government suit: Go on..

Advisor: Well people like internet porn...

Suit: So how do we tax that !?...

Advisor: Well first we seize control on the mechanism of transport, the inter-thingy...

Suit: How?

Advisor, well we use one of the well worn excuses to create a licensing situation. First we introduce legislation to make porn users turn to VPNs. I know about them, as I have a fourteen year old son. Then

we make it compulsory to have a license for a VPN. You know the drill. Then we bring in a white list of sites you are allowed to visit and make a charge for inclusion, small at first so the site owners can't object.

Suit: Trebles all round!

Canonical CEO says no to IPO in current volatile market

I'm surprised that...

... Microsoft hasn't picked up Canonical already. They do seem very chummy...

Dame Emma Thompson gives the 'AI revolution' both barrels

Emma Thompson...

... I doff my headgear to her. Two Oscars in different categories, very successful writer and actress, hilarious and iconic in Men In Black and tough in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande...

Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for pretending UK's Online Safety Act doesn't exist

"visit 4chan"...

... it's a hive of scum and villainy, you must be careful...

BOFH: Recover a database from five years ago? It's as easy as flicking a switch

I've still got the Clipper manuals...

...useful if, like me, you use Harbour Compiler. Highly recommended if you need to get some kind of system up and running in no time...

Microsoft agrees to 11th hour Win 10 end of life concessions

Re: Will be watching Ebay

It has already started. I've picked up a good few lower power fanless motherboards that are not 11 compatible. Average price (inc 4 GB memory) 20 UKP.

RefreshOS 2.5: The Debian remix that borrows from every desk in the house

Comunity?

What community?

From the web site: "RefreshOS™ is developed and maintained by eXybit Technologies™ and is provided as-is, without any warranty of any kind. While a contact form is available on our website for user inquiries, please note that eXybit Technologies™ is not obligated to provide a response.

For general assistance, you may find helpful information in our official FAQ section:"

So not even a self help forum.

Asmi Linux 13 Debian Edition debuts: Xfce desktop never looked so good

Hmm, lets have a look at the user forum and see how it's going...

... no forum. Oh dear. FOSS stands or falls by its community.

Millions of age checks performed as UK Online Safety Act gets rolling

What is the end run here?

Taxation. It's always taxation. I guess that in due course the VPN thing will require a licence and registration. Money will be required to maintain you licence. Small at first so you can't object...

Microsoft removes the whiff of Vista from Windows 11 Insider Preview

I have Windows Vista to thank...

... for my move to another desktop operating system known to quite a few readers of El-Reg-O. So thanks Microsoft Vista, you did me a big favour.

Banning VPNs to protect kids? Good luck with that

I'm guessing the endgame is...

..licencing. How else are the government to extract more tax revenue? I'm also guessing that a government approved white list is further down the road, with a modest fee to get your site listed. Always look for how HMG can introduce new indirect taxes.

Canonical dusts off TPM encryption for Ubuntu 25.10

This can only go badly...

...I have personal experience of this type of technology. Another bad move by Canonical. What can it mean?

Red Hat sweetens the RHEL deal for biz devs – just don't put it in prod

Re: What's the point?

Exactly. IBM is intent on killing its investment. Quelle suprise!

French city of Lyon ditching Microsoft for open source office and collab tools

Whoa, sixteen thumbs down...

... I guess we have a lot of French mayors in today. Bonjour mes amis. Où est la maison de fromage?

Re: Le Mayor de Lyon: My advisors tell me there's an alternative to zis Americaine software...

Relax, it was just a bit of fun drawing on the cliche of moral laxity amongst French politicians. I'm sure Monsieur Doucet is above such things.

Le Mayor de Lyon: My advisors tell me there's an alternative to zis Americaine software...

...which is better and cheaper. I 'ave told 'im to get on wiz changing to it. Now, I must go, I have a lunch engagement wiz my Niece. I shall be back at 'alf past trois or maybe quatre.

Microsoft suit: Monsieure Mayor, if you stick with our stuff we might build a local office, take you and your Niece to warm foreign countries for conferences and give you a big discount on our services.

Monsieure Mayor: Ok sounds fair. Anyway I must go...

Japan's sequel to Fugaku supercomputer will be Arm'd to the teeth

Fujitsu eh?...

...nothing can possibly go wrong.

Three ways to run Windows apps on a Linux box

FoxPro...

I ran SCO FoxPlus for Xenix for years. It was excellent and ran flawlessly on FreeBSD. It did however fall into the hands of Microsoft and later appeared as FoPro Unix (!?!?), which was excellent. In fact I think I may still have the documentation set somewhere. However after Microsoft discontinued it I moved to Harbour. We still use it today. I highly recommend it to anyone who needs to get a text mode multi-user system up-and-running in short order.

LastOS slaps neon paint on Linux Mint and dares you to run Photoshop

Re: Bloatware Linux

Crude rolling. 0/10.

To avoid disaster-recovery disasters, learn from Reg readers' experiences

Re: Handwaving

A parallel hardware setup, in place as an emergency system. Always have a spare for everything.

Tech trainer taught a course on software he'd never used and didn't own

Re: "Fake it till you make it"

Ah yes, "Fake it 'till you make it" the saying that got Elizabeth Holmes to where she is today.

100-plus spies fired after NSA internal chat board used for kinky sex talk

Re: See NSA

I think you mean "If it's a chat between two people in a locked room at the bottom of a mineshaft - with NSA, you have zero expectation of privacy"

Ad-supported Microsoft Office bobs to the surface

Re: Fuck all the off M$

Exactly. Anybody who has tried Linux Mint[1] knows that Windows, especially 11, is a more difficult and less reliable option.

[1] Other excellent distros are avaiable.

Looks like paywalls are coming soon to a subreddit near you

Reddit? Reddit is dead to me...

...since i was abused by a mod. Die in a fire Reddit.

Boom's XB-1 jet nails supersonic flight for first time

Re: 80 passengers?

" there's a limited set of business and first class travelers willing to splurge " - Don't forget that the people who fly on these kind of things are NEVER paying for their own ticket. It's usually the tax payer who is picking up the bill.

Brits must prove their age on adult sites by July, says watchdog

They won't ban VPN...

... you'l just have to get a licence from the Home Office. Oh and pay a fee...

Microsoft declares 2025 'the year of the Windows 11 PC refresh'

Re: need TPM 2 chip?

Look in the bios for Intel Platform Trust Technology (PTT) or AMD vTPM/fTPM. These may enable you to 'enjoy' WIN11.

US reportedly mulls TP-Link router ban over national security risk

Re: Freedom awaits you

"Cheap and reliable" Hmm, cheap yes, reliable, not for me. As always YMMV.

Scumbag gets 30 years in the clink for running CSAM dark-web chatrooms, abusing kids

Re: Hope the Other Inmates Take Good Care of Him

Do two wrongs make a right now?

John Deere accused of being full of manure with its right-to-repair promises

Im not a farmer or an American, so please...

...explain why American farmers continue to buy John Deere equipment.

Fresh court filing accuses Oracle of creating 'maze' of options 'hidden' in 'contract'

There seems to be a simple lesson here...

If you sign with Oracle you regret it later.

SETI boldly looks beyond the Milky Way in latest alien hunt

Re: how to exploit zero point energy

It was uninhabited...

Anaconda's Python-for-Excel escapes Azure Cloud, heads for your PC

Badger, badger, badger...

...I think you mean this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIyixC9NsLI

Silicon, stars, and sulfur make Apollo's unlikely legacy

You mean like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_Museum?

Eldorado ransomware-as-a-service gang targets Linux, Windows systems

Re: How does this malware gain a foothold on ones Linux computer?

> Remove the default image and install your own.

OpenWRT on my BT Home Hub 5A

Re: "encrypts files on both Linux and Windows machines"

>no operating system actually tells you to make a standard account during installation

FreeBSD

Former Fujitsu engineer apologizes for role in Post Office IT scandal

Expert witness?

Expert witnesses for the prosecution know exactly what is required. If they don't 'come up with the goods' they don't get hired again. Defense lawyers frequently fall down on the job of finding counter experts. Don't ask me how I know!

Endless OS 6: How desktop Linux may look, one day

FOSS software stands or falls by its community...

I looked on the EndlessOS forums and found they are quiet and a number of questions go unsolved. A beginner friendly OS needs more effort going into solving new user problems. Failing that users will be put off Linux in general: "Oh, I tried Linux but it doesn't work".

German state ditches Windows, Microsoft Office for Linux and LibreOffice

Weel then, the lucky people of Schleswig-Holstein can look forward to...

...a Microsoft local headquarters appearing. Lucky them.

China breakthrough promises optical discs that store hundreds of terabytes

Every single time someone mentions tape...

... I have PTSD flashbacks of the whining of Qic40/80 tapes. Slow, noisy and unreliable. They put me off tape in all form forever.

Microsoft Publisher books its retirement party for 2026

I used Publisher for years until...

... I moved to Linux. Publisher wouldn't run under the then current version of Wine. I had to recreate a few things, mainly using LibreOffice Draw. I found, back then, that Zamzar could convert .pub files so I used that to extract the text.

Mint freshens up its Linux garden for Ubuntu and Debian fans

Re: In a galaxy far, far away...

The distance between Ubuntu and Mint is getting larger, not less. Clem continues to make good decisions. I'm happy with Mint.

Linux Mint Debian Edition 6 hits beta with reassuringly little drama

Dear Liam,

When you review a distro, also give a little attention to the community, especially the forum. FOSS software lives and dies by it's self help community. Are questions actually being answered? Are the answers of the form 'Read the man page newb' or genuine help. I know from my experience that the forums at Mint (forums.linuxmint.com) are exemplary. The same ins't true elsewhere (I'm looking at you FreeBSD).

Xebian is the Marie Kondo of Linux distros – it's here to declutter

Yes, well this is all very nice and so on, BUT...

...in my humble and possibly not very well informed opinion, distro reviews should include some perusal of the community. Forum? 'Yes' or 'No' but also 'Questions actually being answered? Friendly community or 'RTFM' community (for examples of each see forums.linuxmint.com and forums.freebsd.org ). One of the key strengths of FOSS is community support.

LibreOffice 7.6 arrives: Open source stalwart is showing its maturity

"Now if I could just get LO to install without throwing repeated 2503/2504 errors."

Try turning off your rendezvous radar...

Indian armed forces gives Windows its marching orders, but only for desktop warriors

Re: What were the alternatives?

4. Announce a migration to Linux and enjoy all kinds of Microsoft largess, including opening 'local offices' and taking decision makers to exotic locations for conferences and so on, with a large notional discount for Microsoft services at the end. Great Success! Trebles all round...

Oracle, SUSE and others caught up in RHEL drama hit back with OpenELA

I'm against this, but wait...

...before you punish me with down votes, let me explain. All this is doing is legitimising RHEL as some sort of perfect, un-corruptable standard. This actually helps Blue Hat, both by enhancing the reputation of RHEL as some sort of perfect product AND training people to use RHEL. All this effort should, in my view, go into development of an equivalent product, outside the control of predatory corporations. Right, that's it, feel free to put the boot in.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Pi? Asus's 'NUC-sized' SBC aims to out-Pi the Raspberry

https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/raspberry-pi-4?variant=29157087412307

Soon the most popular 'real' desktop will be the Linux desktop

Re: functionality

This anecdote seems unlikely to me. I suspect a Microsoft Reputation Manager at work...