Posts by Pawl

MOUNTAIN of unsold retail PCs piling up in Blighty: Situation 'serious'

Re: If you need a "new" PC

Well, you've managed to go from the ridiculous to the completely absurd, although it took your longest post to do it. Congratulations.

Re: If you need a "new" PC

You diminish yourself by such posts. First and foremost, I explained why I tried Linux in the first place. Second, wading through a plethora of Linux, BSD, and gosh-knows what else is not my idea of a good time--selecting some Linux packages was bad enough. I have less experience with BSD than even Linux, and that ain't much--I got pulled-in by the "ease of use" and "runs great on older hardware" claims and thought it was worth a try. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I might learn something. I honestly don't understand why you or anyone else thinks I should waste further time with operating systems I know nothing about. My original post was not a comment about Linux per se, but about the "fifteen-minute install"--but of course you missed that, didn't you?

Linux Mint is obscure?? Ubuntu is obscure?? I had no idea. I thought they were popular distros.

Lastly, I didn't post a tonne of messages "bleating" about it not working. I posted ONE, the first. Is this an honest demonstration of your reading comprehension? And BTW, keithpeter and I figured out the problem long ago but you seem to have missed that, as well.

Re: If you need a "new" PC

"Windows user gives up. Goes back to Windows, as Windows and Linux are the only operating systems in tthe whole wide world."

How about this:

"Windows user gives up. Goes back to Windows, as his Windows box works just fine and there is no reason for him to spend anymore time trying to get a different operating system to work."

There, FTFY.

Re: If you need a "new" PC

Apparently the message chain is getting too long, as people are missing what I said and when I said it. Keith and I had already figured out what the problem was when I made that "it just works" comment. At no point did I ask for help because getting Linux to work on that computer was in no sense an issue for me. I had a working box; I was just letting my curiosity have some free play. That Linux was being a pain in no way shape or form was causing me any loss of functionality--that is why I put a fresh disc into that computer--I had the original, fully-working Windows installation on its own disc. Keith apparently jumped in out of his own curiosity and I was perfectly happy to provide him with information--nice guy.

All the later posters have missed the point of the initial post. "Install BSD" for gosh sake, why would I even bother at this point?? The box works fine. And I specifically said that I was not knocking Linux for my problems, accepting that it was probably something I had done wrong (although that was not actually the case, as it turned out).

Re: If you need a "new" PC

keithpeter:

It's the video card all right. From what I read, the old(er) nVidia drivers in Linux, and not specifically Ubuntu or Mint, don't play well with them and the prop. drivers are necessary for full-function, use VESA driver for initial install. I may try again now that I know this, starting with a live DVD.

This is the trouble with saying "it just works." It doesn't always "just work", and while the fix may be simple, a problem like this would have been beyond the knowledge of an awful lot of users. The only reason I bothered with it was because keithpeter took the time to try to help with it.

Thank you kindly for your assistance, keith.

Re: If you need a "new" PC

keithpeter:

It's an ex-emachine T3504 which has had it's processor upgraded to a Pentium D 2-core and 2gigs of memory. It's got an nVidia 6200 video card in it, nothing special and on the older side as well. Nothing about the system seems especially esoteric. And mind you--when I say I've had trouble installing Linux distros, I don't just mean on this particular computer, I've tried on several different machines. Linux just will not install properly, and I very much doubt that the cd/dvd discs are all bad. Some distros will install, and Ubuntu did before, but the last couple of times I've tried (with fresh downloads of latest versions) they have not worked for me. Even some of the "live" distros will just lock-up on me. Again, though, some do work, like Puppy.

Do you suppose there is any chance that I am having troubles because I want to use the 64-bit versions of Linux when available? I'm running Windows 7 64-bit without a problem but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Re: If you need a "new" PC

Well, AC, you may say what you please but that is what happened to me, whether or not you like it or not. I have never gotten Mint to install and I've no idea why. But also, I am not going to spend hours out of my life trying to get something to work when I already have something that works just to satisfy a sense of curiosity. I think you're just a Mint-fanboi who can't stand the idea that someone else doesn't love your flavor of Linux.

Re: If you need a "new" PC

Speaking of which...

I have an older PC that I thought I'd use for displaying video on my TV. It was running Windows 7 but I thought, heck, all I want is a network connection, audio, and a browser, so I'll try Linux and maybe it'll run faster.

So after picking-through the 50 million Linux distributions out there, I downloaded things like Puppy Linux and Ubuntu and Xubuntu, Slax and Linux Mint and some others I don't remember. I put a new hard drive in the old computer and got to work.

Loaded up Puppy. Worked fine but it must not have been the right package, it didn't look very nice. NEXT.

Put the Ubuntu disk in, cleaned off the drive, and loaded it. Or tried to. Refused to install. Tried again. Same thing. Gave up. NEXT.

Just for grins, tried loading Xubuntu. It bubbled away for an hour* with just a blank screen staring back at me. Gave up. NEXT.

Tried to load Slax. The installer kept telling me I didn't have permissions to run the installer. Gave up. NEXT.

Put in the Linux Mint DVD, ran the install. Wow. It installed! Last reboot--here it ... comes ... ? I got an utterly scrambled video display that looked like noise. Gave up. NEXT...

I ended-up trying ~10 different Linux installs. Some did install but then I couldn't figure out how to load the drivers for the network adapter from its cdrom. Never got audio working but I admit that by this point I was getting a little frustrated and didn't try very hard.

I put the Windows 7 disk back in. Loaded fine, ran fine, played videos fine. STOPPED HERE.

I'm not knocking Linux 'cause all the problems were probably my own fault in some way shape or form but a 15-minute installation it wasn't.

*all times approximate

El Reg offers you the chance to become a Master Investor – for free

I would love to attend

If I didn't have to swim the Atlantic ocean, as I can't afford air-fare to the UK, and since I don't swim all that well, me being a bit on the older side, with this pain in the diodes all down my right side, and who knows, maybe the Atlantic is similar to Martian water and therefore a bit iffy to accidentally ingest, and besides, it's entirely possible that swimming in Martian water would cause some kind of nasty scaly effect on human skin and at my age I don't want to have to deal with something like that because I have to pay for medical care here in the U.S. of A. whereas the Brits have the NHS to take care of them, assuming of course that they can get an appointment, since from what I've read on various UK news websites that can be a very time-consuming task although needless to say, it's probably not as time-consuming as all the targeted advertisements Google keeps sending my way except that none of them seem to have anything to do with anything I'm actually interested-in, which makes me think that perhaps it isn't Google that is sending the ads to me but some other Nosy Parker reading my email and tracking my browsing which means that someone somewhere may end-up discovering that I'm otherwise interested in visiting the UK for whatever reason and so now I can expect to see lots of advertisements for travel, and possibly some of them will have something to do with attending this event which I currently cannot attend.

I don't even have a passport.

Aluminum bendy battery is boffins' answer to exploding Li-ion menace

Low energy density

The aluminum cells have about a fifth of the energy density of lithium cells, depending upon the type of lithium cell you are looking at. This is actually the single-biggest area of improvement the developers are working on.

Apple's Tim Cook and Salesforce's Marc Benioff DECLARE WAR on anti-gay Indiana

I have to laugh

at all the negative comments about the United States. Because then I read the British news, and if I didn't laugh, I would despair for the future.

Windows 10 build 10041: 99 bugs on the wall, fix a bug, add a feature, 114 bugs on the wall

Re: Desktops????

Your post made me wonder, so I did a quick Google about Windows 7 and virtual desktops. For whatever reason, Windows XP and Windows 7 have virtual desktops available but they are hidden away. Sysinternals offers a little utility to interface with those desktops (actually there are a bazillion utilities available but I personally feel most comfortable when its from Sysinternals) and give you up to four. Unless you are not allowed to use 3rd party software you might like to have a look:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc817881.aspx

You'd be surprised, I certainly was

Back in the 90's I worked for Microsoft (tech support for Windows) while Windows 95 was being developed. We were encouraged to have a look at the new product, play with it, see what we thought. The one thing that surprised everyone was how different the released version looked compared to the even the last few test builds, in fact, even the last build prior to RTM. Since then I've learned not to take appearances too seriously until a product actually goes final, no matter what product it may be.

HAPPY 20th Birthday MICROSOFT BOB

Re: Whoops

If I am remembering correctly, the code name for "Bob" was Utopia. A bigger misnomer than that would be hard to imagine.

Quantum computers have failed. So now for the science

Re: @RobHib -- We'll see...

Your comments and questions are very cogent, however, I must point out that I was trying to explain what a 'field' is, and not really trying to describe how such fields function in the real (macro) world. Part of the trouble with understanding the concepts of fields and forces and suchlike is that nobody yet fully understands how they function,so explaining it to someone is, by necessity, an exercise in theories (as in, which is your favorite flavor of theory?)

To speak directly to your question "how are fields involved in the conversion of energy into photons?", the partial answer is that we look at the basic production of a single photon, often caused when an electron is excited to a higher energy level, then emits a photon as it falls back to its ground state. When a bazillion electrons (an electric field) do the dance, we get a light source of some kind. I say "often caused" since there are other ways that photons can be created.

Explaining the existence of a static magnetic field is very hard because there aren't any words in our language to describe it. The nearest analogy I can think of is a spark-gap in an electrical circuit. Put enough potential across the gap and the circuit will close, creating an electrical arc and completing the circuit even though there is no wire in the gap. Line up electrons in a magnetic material like iron and the "circuit" closes through the magnetic poles. I know this is not a satisfactory explanation but after all, it's still an open question in quantum mechanics!

Re: We'll see...

If someone is using the term "field" in the context of quantum mechanics, it can be useful to think of an analogy, such as: If you see one corn stalk growing on a patch of land, you would probably say that there was only the one stalk. If the same patch of land is covered by corn stalks, you might say that you'd seen a "field" of corn. In a super-symmetric Universe, all forces, such as the electromagnetic, strong nuclear, and Higgs, have particles associated with them--photons, gluons, the Higgs particle. The "field" is the sum of all the relevant particles acting in a particular (no pun intended) way. This is why one of the goals of the LHC is to discover the graviton, the force carrier for the gravitional field, if possible.

A very simplified description, I know, but I hope it helps those interested to clarify the concept of a field.

Cash'n'Carrion restocks atomic keyrings

Green is the color you want for the most visibility, for the same reason that green lasers seem to be the brightest--the human eye is most sensitive to green light.

These things glow for a loooong time

The half-life of tritium is 12 years. I've had several of these glowtubes for over 18 years and they can still be seen in the dark. Not as bright as when they were new, but quite visible.