Posts by keithpeter

The 'End of 10' is nigh, but don't bury your PC just yet

Re: Decision tree?

"are they the kind of person who really should have been taught to program properly in 2000, but since they weren't, they have self-taught many of the concepts in a massive spreadsheet of macros, formulas, little weird Excel things that take the place of necessary functions, and through a tangled bunch of spaghetti formulas run a complex process?"

Aha, I see you've met our Jonathan who sits in the corner with the two large monitors.

Seriously, such a person would I imagine be examining the feature list for LibreOffice very carefully and perhaps even installing the Windows version to explore the functions before even thinking about a possible migration to Linux.

Thanks for engaging with this idea, and I think I might draft up a straw man model for people to kick down for when the end of 10 website becomes live.

Re: Linux Mint Cinnamon

" I wonder if the web-based Microsoft 365 will run in Chrome on a Mint system?"

I use an employer provided Microsoft 365 'portal' with cut-down versions of MS Office apps (the online ones) and Outlook, and, of course, Teams. I go to a Web site, click 'Staff' and then end up logging into microsoft.com with the employer provided email account and password and recently 2FA.

Works OK in a recent Chromium on Linux distros (Slackware 15 and Debian 12).

I'm not sure if what I'm using is the same as the 'domestic' Microsoft 365 though. You could perhaps try logging into your 'portal' using your Mint live stick?

Icon: Back to mainframes innit

Re: Decision tree?

"Quite a few of them were able to find the applications they needed. I'm not sure I ever found someone who didn't react with some uncertainty when faced with it, but since many of them just needed a web browser and word processor, Ubuntu was often fine."

Well done for that practical trial. And yes, the special operating system in a strange kind of virtual machine that we call a Web Browser does actually cover everything I need for $Employer and when you add in LibreOffice that's around 85% of what I use a computer for covered.

"Most users select "I have no idea" because they've never tested anything in LibreOffice."

The previous question in the tree would be: Which of the following applications do you use? Tick all that apply.... A) Word-processor B) Spreadsheet and so on for the office apps. Yes it would be a job of work.

Decision tree?

That End of 10 site.

Would it be an idea to have a decision tree where a punter citizen reads through a step by step set of questions and arrives at a suggested Linux distribution or alternative? Sort of like that Crucial memory selector page a bit ago.

Early questions would be about what tasks. Later would be about the hardware in question. At each node, carefully crafted information could be supplied. Not 'too much' at each stage.

As other posters have commented, those wedded to specific programs, e.g. MS Office Writer or Adobe Creative whatsit would be pointed at new hardware possibly including Apple. Those with more generic tasks in mind could be funnelled down to Mint or ChromeOS Flex (Neverware as was) or Ubuntu Studio or the Endless OS or whatever.

Might save some frustration and bad vibes and all.

Unending ransomware attacks are a symptom, not the sickness

For retail and public facing organisations how about a requirement to have a fallback work around?

Paper based stock ordering, forms ready, phone numbers on printouts available, redeeming credit notes with cash out the till, and so on.

We are due for a Carrington event at some point over the next couple of decades. Best get basic slow resilience baked in.

openSUSE deep sixes Deepin desktop over security stink

Re: Change.... Europe orientated

I would welcome a EuroLinux variant as an interesting novelty and a sensible insurance move at present.

https://www.debian.org/devel/developers.loc

Just interested in your views of Ubuntu / Debian. Looks pretty broad based to me.

GNOME Foundation's new executive director is Canadian, a techie, and a GNOME user

Re: The question is...

"...don't appear to have a role in directing the specifics"

Yes, the role appears to be 'outward facing'. But you know how what I might term 'soft power' works in organisations. The fact that one of the big cheeses is 1) using Gnome; 2) has a need to use accessibility affordances to some extent; will diffuse slowly through the ranks, and in a process that is sometimes called 'alignment' bring about some changes. Not through direct commands or anything but just by the people who do decide between alternative possibilities changing their weightings slightly.

Icon: FOSS is important so one for all involved

Commodore OS 3 is the loudest Linux yet

Re: Sell a usb stick?

Yup I recollect that in the UK the good old BT dial up modem arrangement would drop a connection after 2 hours...

I have actually found a UK based company that supplies Linux distributions on USB sticks. Not ventoy and no online compilation tools alas, they offer only a list of mainstream distributions. Enquiry by email led to a special order of Endless OS full English edition. I'll see how that goes.

Sell a usb stick?

Remember when there used to be companies who would sell you CDs and DVDs of popular Linux distributions by mail?

Can't help thinking there could be a market opportunity here for a small enterprise, especially with the advent of things like the ventoy scripts. Go on a Web site. Click which live distributions you would like packaged onto a 64, 128 or 256Gb USB stick, provide address and pay by card. Some weeks later a jiffy bag with your USB stick arrives in the post. I would pay a reasonable amount for the convenience of that.

To engage with Gnisho's post directly, I think the idea is that this is a turnkey(*) entertainment system all pre-configured with content. All configurations applied and ready. No assembly required. Plus it was probably a lot of fun to put together. Liam Proven has featured the Endless OS project previously. The full English version of Endless weighs in at just under 25Gb and that image is designed for offline use with curated educational content and applications.

* given ROM images

KDE 3 lives to fight another day as Trinity Desktop 14.1.4 hits the shelves

Re: Time's arrow

Ooops I wasn't intending to be obscure, just trying to keep it short.

Slackbuilds are the way you can add software to a Slackware installation that is not included in the default (pretty huge) install. It is compile from source, and a SlackBuild script runs the appropriate build commands for you. Details at...

https://slackbuilds.org/

There are scripts such as sbopkg that will handle the dependency resolution for more complex slackbuilds, and there are various binary repositories for the huge packages like chromium or libreoffice. I use the binary repositories for the big things and a few compiles for the little bits and pieces.

The bit about speed was: with Debian Squeeze on a core duo (Thinkpad T60), spinning rust hard drive and 1Gb RAM the subjective impression is that my normalish tasks are as fast as a current release on an i5 with 8Gb and an SSD. [Except no internet on Squeeze!] So ten or a dozen years and standing still.

Icon: off out

Time's arrow

On topic bit:

https://github.com/Ray-V/tde-slackbuilds

Slackware users: Ray V has done his slackbuild for TDE 14.1.4 (see icon)

Off topic bit but then we are ranting about graphical UIs again:

Compare an installation of a Debian Squeeze desktop on a core duo laptop with spinning rust main disk with a current version (stable, SID, Slackware Current, whatever) on the same hardware. Functionality more or less same depending on the software one uses. Speeds very different.

It's almost a Clausius statement for operating systems.

Build your own antisocial writing rig with DOS and a $2 USB key

Re: DOS? What about CP/M

People on linux who want to try the wordstar interface metaphor might want to try the joe editor

https://joe-editor.sourceforge.io/

Comes as part of a standard Slackware install, but packaged on Debian &c. Typing jstar gives you the wordstar flavour.

(joe is a text editor, so just gives a flavour of the interface for the interested, not all the style codes and actual printing stuff &c).

Icon: Low distraction text entry? I give you ed. See

http://www.larrykollar.com/technology/2017/06/27/distraction-free.html

(no https on that site for some unfathomable reason)

M&S stops online orders as 'cyber incident' issues worsen

"I wonder how many of their customer still carry cash."

That would be me. Always have some cash with me when shopping.

Might be worth mentioning that they were not redeeming credit notes in addition to all the other stuff on Monday last at least. I always manage to pick the till queue that has someone ahead of me with a major problem...

Devs sound alarm after Microsoft subtracts C/C++ extension from VS Code forks

"The breaking change appears to have occurred with the release of v1.24.5 on April 3, 2025."

Quote from OA, emphasis mine.

If something like this had occurred in an emacs release, then the journalist would have been able to locate the exact commit that introduced the change, and would have been able to read the huge thread in emacs-devel where the change was argued about for weeks before, during and after the change.

People have to make their choices and compromises.

MX Linux 23.6 brings Debian freshness, without the systemd funk

Re: Clarifications on some areas.

What's the point? What's it for? Who needs it, and why?

Possibly off topic

Some time ago using AntiX (not MX) I was able to generate a live iso with persistent storage from a customised install, including my home drive and all (very small partitions I hasten to add, like 60Gb SSD for root). In my case it meant that I could run a live session and get my stuff on another computer which is occasionally useful e.g at a relatives house when travelling. It can also be seen as a kind of bootable snapshot in case of hardware failure &c.

Small audience? probably. But AntiX/MX people seem happy to provide it and I'm not arguing. I think its good to have some oddball choices and different approaches.

I *think* I recall AntiX starting as a live image with persistent storage back when computers were expensive and USB sticks became available at reasonable prices. Not sure about that.

Icon: I miss blag linux.

Europe's cloud customers eyeing exit from US hyperscalers

"The Reg has yet to hear of any corporate enteprises or government departments in the UK that are willing to go public about turning their back on US hyperscalers."

UK does have onion like layers of secrecy and always has. Goes back to Elizabeth 1 and Walsingham. Kit Marlowe was a moth to the flame and Tom Kyd was collateral damage.

I really can't understand the desire of the present government to allow Palantir of all companies access to lots of NHS and other centrally held data. Can't we manage data and extract value ourselves?

Uncle Sam kills funding for CVE program. Yes, that CVE program

Pricing in of external costs is one of my hobby horses, along with the importance of estimating lead times for substitution strategies when introducing significant policy changes.

Simple (simplistic?) version: If you want a small state, then you need to find a way for companies to pay for the mess they leave. And you need to phase in reductions over time to avoid economic disruption.

It's that Heaviside function again. Perhaps people should try a sawtooth function (thin end of wedge first) if the intention is actually to keep the system running but spread costs around.

Trump kills clearances for infosec's SentinelOne, ex-CISA boss Chris Krebs

When I saw the headline on the BBC News home page, I just knew before clicking on the link that it would be the Met.

PS UK has form for getting security clearances revoked.

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

The LittleGP-30: A tiny recreation of a very big deal from the 1950s

Re: The original LGP-30: Edward Lorenz had one of those...

No mistake, your judgement might well be correct.

Just an extra thread in the tapestry.

The original LGP-30: Edward Lorenz had one of those...

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

https://galileo-unbound.blog/2024/04/03/a-short-history-of-chaos-theory/

Track down a copy of Chaos by James Gleick for the full story. A really important root cause analysis - an apparent anomaly not written off as a 'computer glitch'.

Ubuntu 25.04 beta takes flight – but this Plucky Puffin is still molting

Quote from OA

"...and we have some hope that the installation image will get substantially smaller"

Would this wished for shrinking of the iso be to do with stripping out debug code from binaries, or simply from removing packages from the default desktop?

Just idly wondering.

China’s chip champ Loongson teases trio of new processors for lappies, factories, maybe servers too

Re: USA policies leading to more diversity

Classic example of import substitution driving need for local innovation.

Wonder if any of the laptop chips/laptops using those chips make it outside of PRC as they will have had to ensure driver availability in Linux.

Zorin OS 17.3 takes the Brave step of changing its default browser from Firefox

No disruptive change to current users

Quote from OA

"As with other 17.x updates, in-place upgrades are supported and these work well in our testing. Notably, an upgrade won't change the default apps, including the browser."

Seems OK. Modified Brave only for new installations. Shame about the xfce installer; they presumably only have limited development time and things are getting more and more complex.

Mozilla is rolling Thundermail, a Gmail, Office 365 rival

Re: Meh!

Being a bear of simple brain I'm using alpine for imap email from my ISP shell account. Plain text presentation helps with email newsletters as well as being very fast.

seamonkey -mail for when I actually need to cope with html email (tables &c).

Both clients in stock Slackware along with current stable Thunderbird (which I'm not using due to UI hassle around resizing the text in messages, could simply be problem-between-keyboard-and-monitor).

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

Re: Consulting

@AA

Primo Levi's The Wrench springs to mind.

Consider writing down some memories.

LLM providers on the cusp of an 'extinction' phase as capex realities bite

dismaland

"GenAI comes in and adds to whatever it is you're running, and it will be part of every mobile phone, every PC, every laptop, every server, every piece of software, it will be in your car, your TV, and your watch."

This quote from the Gartner person in the OA makes me want to go and live in a cabin near Dungeness with an ancient Thinkpad running NetBSD working entirely offline with a locally installed copy of Wikepedia and a lorry load of books.

Are there no wells that have not been poisoned?

2 in 5 techies quit over inflexible workplace policies

legging it

I've just connected 'legging it' (propelling a narrowboat through a tunnel without a tow path in the days before engines) with my mercifully brief experience as a manager. Useful typo that s/tow/toe/.

Photoshop FOSS alternative GIMP wakes up from 7-year coma with version 3.0

Re: GTK3 -- More Information Required

"There is now a critical mass of desktops and indeed big-name apps using Gtk 3 who don't want Gtk 4 or simply can't use it because it has removed features they need. I have not read of any plans from other projects to move to Gtk 4 -- it just removes too much stuff."

So I'm guessing that LibreOffice might keep the Alt-F accelerator keys and menu bar (aka CUA) for a few years. The future article you mention would be of great interest.

Er its called GNU Image Manipulation Program and it is in regular use in FE Colleges around by me with no apparent issues. Not sure about primary schools.

Best of luck.

NASA's inbox goes orbital after email mishap spams entire space industry

Re: Who, me?

I *hear* them rumbling en masse from BHM down the ramp every Friday around 5pm. Must have taken ages to come up with such a noisy wheel design.

Icon: no railway train image, in fact no transport icons unless you count the helicopter

Ubuntu 25.10 plans to swap GNU coreutils for Rust

Theo

https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=174224906231847&w=2

Seriously, I hope this venture works well for Ubuntu and I look forward to comparative tests under realistic server workloads.

The more things get tried out the better.

Crew-9 splashes down while NASA floats along with Trump and Musk nonsense

Re: Canada

@ Dr Farnsworth

Yes, the extra states thing had crossed my mind. I suspect not many newly minted US Citizens would be inclined to vote Republican.

As long as they don't try the Puerto Rico 'non incorporated territory' bullshit.

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

So refreshing

Static Web pages load so fast. I've chipped in for a year to see how it goes.

"top item on Betelgeuse takes you to a 404 page" yup from UK at 09:32 UT.

City council rejects inquiry into £130M Oracle IT disaster

Re: The bigger issue

Does anyone here actually read Lindsay Clark's thorough reporting?

Asking for a friend.

No thanks, we are trying to get rid of Larry at present. Don't want another one.

Quote from OA. My emphasis.

"However, the UK government has appointed commissioners and launched a local inquiry to investigate the cause of the difficulties faced by the local authority, including the Oracle project and the equal pay dispute, both of which contributed to the council becoming effectively bankrupt in autumn 2023."

Re: Hmm ...

@Andy the cat

Remember there is an enquiry already in progress. And the commissioners can basically tell the councillors what to do in certain specific areas at present so I assume that they would have just blocked another enquiry if the vote had gone that way.

(FWIW I would actually like some kind of public hearings about the extent to which the Oracle system is able to work out of the box with the requirements of a UK based public corporation).

Re: Heads should roll

"you need to consider: what would be the consequences if this was a private org?"

I know the answer!

Take over and or large write-down and then silence. Bonuses for directors.

Apple has locked me in the same monopolistic cage Microsoft's built for Windows 10 users

Re: Horses for courses

@MXM

Watch out for Rover.

Re: users just go along with it because they perceive they have no other choice

"I've tried to get this through to you over many years of being here but you OCD'ers just don't get it."

Years? Good Lord. Have you no work to do?

Europe's largest council kept auditors in the dark on Oracle rollout fiasco for 10 months

Enquiry please

I'm very grateful to The Reg for giving time for Lindsay Clark's detailed and thorough reporting of these issues. I'm getting more information from here than from any of the Birmingham press sites. Just some questions (and an opinion)...

"Birmingham City Council did not tell its official auditors [...]"

Should that not be 'Birmingham City Council Officers did not'? There was a change of political administration part way through this saga and previous articles have suggested that a group of council officers decided to start asking for customisations of the Oracle system.

"During the meeting, Councillor Lee Marsham, a Labour member of the audit committee, called for an inquiry into the Oracle ERP implementation."

YES PLEASE. And could that enquiry's scope include questioning around the suitability of the original Oracle system for running the audit function of a large and complex corporation in the UK without customisation? I have doubts about that. Lindsay Clark's previous reporting has already pointed out that school accounts in Birmingham are now 'out of scope' for the system.

"Stocks said the council had to be ready for the required business change to adopt Oracle's standard processes. "You do have to drive change because the things have to change within how departments work and how you implement the next ERP system because it can't go wrong again. I don't think any of us can survive if it goes wrong again," he told the committee."

Are these Oracle 'standard processes' documented in public anywhere? Are they fit for the tasks required? Who decides that now? We know that many Oracle implementations both in public sector organisations and in commercial concerns are having problems.

Google begs owners of crippled Chromecasts not to hit factory reset

Re: The two achilles of current encryption

@David132

Tried setting a policy for Firefox?

https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates/

How NOT to f-up your security incident response

Re: "having a current incident response plan that is [...] regularly rehearsed

"Many IR plans I've encountered have been restricted to addressing a limited list of 'expected' incidents, and none have been actually live tested at all."

I wonder what the risk register was like...

[Seems like the risk register might be a starting point for rational incident response planning, but this is all above my pay grade these days]

Stuff a Pi-hole in your router because your browser is about to betray you

Lazy slacker...

...uses an /etc/hosts file with a fair range of ad servers pointed at 0.0.0.0.

This is a per-machine ploy and no good for phones.

Interesting article.

Microsoft tells abandoned Publisher fans to just use Word and hope for the best

@steelpillow

I've yet to aspire to anything of book length and have yet to face this hidden image issue.

Would saving as a flat odt file (uncrompressed) then searching for the image caption or preceeding words in a text editor be of any use?

Texmacs

Cross platform, but more aimed at books and papers. Can do posters though. And you can export as LaTeX.

Thumbs up...

...from Tatsuo Horiuchi

SpaceX's 'Days Since Starship Exploded' counter made it to 48. It's back to zero again now

Re: Bodge job

Being old I remember the Apollo mission astronauts mentioning what became known as the pogo effect - I think that was the effect of a small change in fuel feed rate being amplified into a shift in position of the whole rocket.

Am I right in thinking this harmonic response is some part of the spacecraft resonating with some component of the general vibration from the engines? Damping the resonance so the response is just flat sounds a sensible move to me. I suppose that would need redesign of assemblies in various parts of the spacecraft?

How mega city council's failure to act on Oracle rollout crashed its financial controls

Re: Not just councils.

@Boots

Thomas Attwood is nodding his head the Days of May are coming up.

(Newhall Hill is a bit built up now though)