Posts by DuncanLarge

Another Debian dust-up with Firefox dependencies – but there is an annoying and awkward workaround

Re: "dangerously outdated browser"

I think that was OP's point

Re: "dangerously outdated browser"

I think OP is being sarcastic as FF has forced him to use an outdated dangerous browser?

Re: "dangerously outdated browser"

I gave you an upvote but only because I think you wrote this with tongue in cheek ;)

Re: Install Firefox directly from mozilla.org

> Because Mozilla does not publish distro packages, just tarballs

yes, which is the simplest and easiest way to install Firefox.

It self updates, can be installed in your home directory or system wide in /opt.

Why is that harder than flapping about with flatpack??

Go on give it a go. Go to Mozilla.org, get the latest ESR firefox, download, untar with your fave archive app and run it.

> It is harder to do and requires strong tech knowledge

WHAT? Its a case of RIGHT CLICKING AND SELECTING EXTRACT!

Have you ever opened a zip file? How is this hard?????????

> It will not receive updates

Mine just updated all by itself. My god it must be self aware or something.

> It does not interact well with the rest of the OS

BS. First of all you haven't even run the download, how can you? You cant even extract an archive. The only issue I had with it was getting the spellchecking working and that was because FF ESR 91.x has a bug in that you cant install the UK dictionary easily without also having the US english language pack installed, weird but there it is.

None of your points make any sense. Although I have a degree in computer science I was able to upgrade to FF 91.x ESR by doing what I was able to do as a kid with windows 95 and winzip. I didn't need any hyper IT skillz to do it.

Your response here calls into question everything regarding your article. Basically you dont know what you are talking about.

Cant extract a zip. Next up: Clicking an icon is too technical

Re: Install Firefox directly from mozilla.org

> In which case the upgrade tool makes you remove all the software that its own package manager didn't install.

No it doesnt.

Re: Install Firefox directly from mozilla.org

> rather than a direct download & install from its own site; just because it saves me that extra step

In the case of firefox, one you un-tar it it updates itself...

What is all the fuss

What is all this nonsense about Flatpack and GNOME etc?

Just go and download the Firefox ESR tarball of Mozilla.org (click the big download button) and extract it.

Extract it into your $home or for the whole system on /opt.

Point your shortcuts/icons whatever to use that version.

Run it.

Works fine on Debian 10.

Updates itself!

If you install into /opt then as Firefox runs as non-root it will tell you there is an update it cant install, thus run it as root and it updates.

Its just a tarball, the simplest installation method ever. Everything works out of the box.

Shocking: UK electricity tariffs are among world's most expensive

Re: Side effects of nuclear

There are no effects.

Its all hype, created by ignorant media and reactionary governments.

Re: Electric should be cheaper, gas more expensive

Then keep an eye on how its doing

Re: 70's electricty

> "The day the wind stopped" - a new blockbuster

Actually I think the more modern title for it would be more like (in a deep trailer voice):

Beaufort Zero

Prisons transcribe private phone calls with inmates using speech-to-text AI

Re: Difference?

> A bunch of my rights were taken away by a referendum I wasn't even eligible to participate in.

I think I know what you are referring to, but from the other side:

Funny that, when I was 13 a bunch of my rights were also taken away from me in 1993 when we signed an agreement that we were never going to get a referendum on, I also had no chance even if we did because I was 13 and not old enough to vote for my future.

Luckily however I finally got my chance to fix that injustice a few years ago...

When the world ends, all that will be left are cockroaches and new Rowhammer attacks: RAM defenses broken again

Re: @msobkow

> And the chance of someone doing damage and/or getting restricted info using a Rowhammer attack on the PC on reception is probably very low.

Where did you hear that guff?

Ahem, look up RSA.

Reception computers should be considered in a DMZ!

> No. The real place for ECC memory is in server systems

What??

If your employees are doing nothing but use the IT equipment to play candycrush, sure. But I bet they are doing many critical things, involving secure keys, certificate validation, file share access, oh and how about a bit of bitlocker and the good old LOGIN SCREEN.

You know that ADMIN accounts tend to be used to make changes to user machines, adding hardware etc. Guess where all that validation happens. Hint, its not in the keyboard.

If you cant see just how critical the memory contents in an endpoint is these days then you clearly have no idea how a computer works. Things have moved on since the C64 mate.

EVERYTHING should have ECC ram, its literally just a few extra bits on a word! Tablets, phones, laptops. It wont stop all attacks, it cant handle too many bit flips, but it will stop the vast majority of attacks as they will go for the weak targets.

> No. The real place for ECC memory is in server systems

I post that again as I want to ask.

What systems talk to your servers?

What systems send and pull data from your servers?

Laptops perhaps?

QED

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s: Impressively average, which is how corporate buyers like it

Re: 8 GB RAM

Totally agree. Our Dells have 8GB and the way finance use them, buy opening every f*cking speadsheet that exists on the shares and never saving anything, let alone understanding the concept of closing something, the poor machines run all day with ram use above 90%.

Then we get the "my laptop locked up, all my unsaved spreadsheets, are they gone now?" or the "Hello IT, everything is slow". Or my fave (when in a masochistic mood) is "My Excel just closed. Its installing an update that I have been avoiding for the last 2 weeks. IT can you recover my unsaved spreadsheets?"

Re: Eeewww

Try not to sneeze on your macbook. They cant handle any increase in dampness, heck they even detect the stuff to inform Apple of your "accident" when you take it in for repair which wont be too long from now I bet.

Apple standard repair cost is to give you a slight discount on a new model as they cant repair thing that they are not legally forced to.

Re: old faithful

> My employer decided Dell XPS were the hit.

We went down that route, well partially. When they started failing and dropping like flies we held off and went for better cheaper models.

We still have them. The users like them till they try and plug anything into them and they realise they need adapters and docks just to use the HDMI cable in the meeting room. Usually that ends up with use being called down to rummage through our junk piles to find an adapter that we have not loaned out yet, that is to say we still possess it as they never come back.

After many BIOS updates they seem to run ok, till the MB dies and Dell cancel your replacement request as due to the chip shortage there will not be any dell XPS parts in the UK for the next half a year (Dell's estimation).

Re: old faithful

> because once in a blue moon that 1080p might be a difference between a job and no job

In what world does that happen?

Tip: Get interviewed by a short sighted person. People like me find it hard to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p in most cases.

Re: 1920 x 1080

> Let's hope that Dell doesn't go down the same rout

They already have

Re: 1920 x 1080

Your screen is impressive however I'd wager that the Thinkpad will still function after a spill, be repairable and wont explode or be banned from aircraft.

Re: Nice set of options, but Ethernet?

> Ethernet socket in the charger

Mains wont mix well with ethernet so, no.

No deal

Stopped reading and consigned the model to the "disposable" bin the moment I read soldered RAM.

Amazon tells folks it will stop accepting UK Visa credit cards via weird empty email

Re: Will be interesting

> If Amazon carry out their threat then what will customers do?

I wonder if I can pay by cheque :D

Re: Total Cnut

Aww diddums

We left the E.U but you want us to stay because of your APR.

Seagate demos hard disk drive with an NVMe interface. Yup, one with spinning platters

Many MB's now offer multiple slots. One Asus board a looked up had 2x M keyed M.2 slots both supporting different connection types so you need to carefully select the slot you need for your SSD.

Yes I know, I was betting on the chance people will buy the better locking plugs.

Although in practice I have never seen a non-locking SATA plug work its way loose. Ever. Ignoring cables that are too short here.

> NVMe is still a stroppy teenager, as alluded to above

I'm not talking about NVMe here. In fact you cant compare NVMe and SATA as one is a socket the other is a protocol. NVMe and AHCI are comparable, and both do an excellent job. I like NVMe, thats a very good update over AHCI as it does what AHCI did, that is to provide a standard communication interface between a storage device and the operating system. The connector can be M.2, U.2 or PCIe. NVMe like AHCI, OHCI etc eliminates having specific drivers for controllers etc, if the controller talks NVMe then a standard driver that talks NVMe will do.

I'm talking about the M.2 connector vs SATA connector. M.2 is too flexible, allowing for confusion between devices and motherboards and what is and isnt supported. For example, it is possible to have a motherboard that has M keyed M.2 sockets that will accept both a SATA and PCIe M.2 SSD yet that motherboard DOES NOT PROVIDE SATA to that socket. There is no key position in use that allows the MB to prevent a SATA M.2 SSD from being inserted when it isnt supported, leading to me scratching my head and delving into spec sheets and manuals to try and diagnose what looks to be a hardware fault.

Re: Price isn't everything

> Even the _CHEAPEST_ SSD media has durability(*)

No, you really get what you pay for.

Trust me, we have tills with some of this "cheap" SSD stuff you mention.

These SSD's are based on a Phison controller known for committing suicide, which is exactly what they did, months after being put into the field.

> But you'd still need to overwrite the now-obsolete encrtypted data

Nope, why would you need to?

The encrypted data is now useless noise as you changed the key. Thus no need to overwrite, its just noise.

Re: Server simplification, really?

I rest my case

Thats good to know.

Same with the M.2 "standard" that isnt. Full of incompatibilities, uncertainties and confusion. Then you have the god awful multiple length design! I have some machines that had the capability of taking a full length M.2 SSD but the standoff that some genius thinks is a nice way to take a screw to screw the SSD down was PERMANENTLY fixed in a position that was incorrect for the replacement SSD.

I had to DREMEL the thing off!

Yet the SATA connector is standard, compatible, well known and secure. It also tends to connect to devices that have two, yes two form factors (2.5" or 3.5") which are again well known, secure etc.

PCIe is just as good, allwing NVMe to naturally find a home.

Yet M.2 cant replace either. Some designer went all crazy adding wank features without actually designing a standard that can REPLACE what was before. Oh, in specs it can, but not design.

Re: Server simplification, really?

How do I plug my BDXL writer into M.2?

Bear in mind M.2 is a badly designed "interface". Many times at work we have had to divine why we cant replace an SSD in a Dell PC only to realise that that specific Dell has an M.2 slot that does not support the SSD's interface.

M.2 provides keys that are supposed to help prevent this but if you read the spec you find that whoever designed the M.2 slot had no idea what they were doing as the keys are not standard and totally open to "future use".

M.2 slots that ONLY support PCIe for example are UNABLE to key themselves to prevent a SATA M.2 SSD from being inserted, leaving the user scratching their head wondering why the machine wont boot. However, a SATA only M.2 slot will prevent a PCIe only SSD from being inserted. Why? Why doesnt it work correctly?

Also keep in mind that sourcing a replacement M.2 SSD and successfully determining the interface used (SATS,PCIe) is a game in itself. That M.2 SSD you have spare in the IT store cupboard, is it suitable? Good luck trying to find out. Unless its NVMe most product listings seem to completely avoid any accurate description of the SSD's interface! Trust me, I had to deal with this, at zero hour where "it must be up" is the mantra over the phone.

I saw these issues with M.2 simply when reading the damn Wikipedia page then I learned first hand exactly how crap the spec is. I work in IT and even I am having problems with compatibility and usability of M.2 so god knows how an ordinary user upgrading a home PC will fare.

I'd rather use SATA and NVMe plugged into PCIe. There you know exactly where you stand.

> Well, in old-skool definitions

Thats still the case

> On the other hand a full power on reset could take ages whilst Ram is zeroed

All you would need to do is allocate an area of memory as a "working area" and encrypt the entire memory.

Then when you want to start afresh, just change the keys

Swiss lab's rooftop demo shows sunlight and air can make fuel

Er, ok

A lot of this pseudo-science with animated "proof" to back it all up using the laws of the universe as understood in imaginations has a problem.

It dont effing work.

So after 7 hours, in certain conditions that are not controllable, they were able to observe a process that they claim can be used to fuel the planet.

7 hours to male a few ml. How long to make enough to fill my car?

Hmm

(37,000 ml of capacity / (32ml / 7)) = 8043 hours. Strange, I seem to think there are 24 hours in a day. Anyway lets continue.

They claim that they could with time develop a system that could generate 95,000 litres a day.

That will fill 2567 copies of my car a day.

Now how many cars are there to fill? How big will this system be? The jet that is mentioned will use 95,000L in one trip so I guess we still need to ban planes.

What kind of scale are we really looking at?

Can it work in winter, when overcast?

Must we make this in space to keep it in the sun?

Will we have to pump the it to it in orbit?

Why am I hearing the Spaceballs theme in my head?

UK Treasury and Bank of England starting to sound serious about 'Britcoin'

12 credits please

Can we call them credits?

Then every scifi I have ever watched becomes just a little more real.

> What happens

What do you think? The shit hits the fan thats what.

Till then be happy that its unbreakable.

Re: No

> Proof of stake

Dont make me laugh. I have yet to see any proof of stake coin that actually works without creating a massive waste.

Chia for example. How many HDD's and SSD's are manufactured, sold and then made to sit there doing nothing useful?

Perhaps a proof of stake system that has me prove I own a tree and it continues to exist may be useful. Good for the environment and far from wasteful.

> no no energy spent on mining

You clearly cant see the wood for the trees can you. So, instead on mining, you manufacture. Both use energy, it isnt rocket science.

You want to know why coind like bitcoin are a problem? Because of idiots that dont understand how to mine. They plowed processors and GPU's into a SYSTEM THAT ADJUST ITSELF TO REACT AGAINST THAT.

Jesus christ we used to be able to mine on a fucking pentium laptop, now because of wankers trying to out think the algorithm adding mor and more power to the network even though 2 weeks later they must do it again as the network catches up, we have this "energy issue".

Thus a successful coin will be one, proof of work or stake, that actively PREVENTS abuse.

Nobody cares about DAB radio – so let's force it onto smart speakers, suggests UK govt review

Re: Sorry, why is this about DAB?

> all they’ll need to do is stream internet radio

Not quite. The thing is they will be required to stream radio stations that are on DAB, regardless of whether they have a streaming service or not. Thus a station that has no streaming service will have to be "converted" into a streamable one by the manufacturer of the "smart" speaker / bugging device.

Re: DAB - missed the boat

DAB and DAB+ certainly solved a massive issue for me regarding radio.

All FM, AM etc were just full of stations that played music at you. 24/7! Euch!

With DAB has come not only LBC but also Talkradio. AM had talksport which talked about decent stuff (i.e not about kicking a ball) but only after midnight. I used to listen to James Whale, Mike Dikin all sots at midnight as a kid falling asleep to their humor and all sorts of strange whacky callers. Good times.

My local BBC station were also ok, no music at all. All local talk, local news views reviews. Lovely stuff. I loved driving the hour to work listening to the breakfast shows, then drive time on the way back.

Then the rot set in and they started playing music, but fortunately not before 10am and not during drive time so that was ok but during the day I frequently had to mute the station to save myself from having to listen to somebody whaling and whining into a microphone about some silly little "sung about it a million times over 100 years" subject, typically love or sex or a breakup or how she is a "naughty girl" or "what if I was a boy" or other crap like that. Occasionally a nice electronic 80's track would come on from A-ha or Roxette, that was fine.

Then after covid lockdowns, they went full on music. But by then I went full on DAB, talk radio rules and is sorely undeserved by only 2 decent stations, even if they did get boring talking about covid all the time but I eventually got used to that. Radio 4, well that can do. Now we also have Times radio, sounds ok, interesting subjects a bit like R4, not really into the callers more into the programmes.

But, DAB is poor with signal.

DAB is mono, so when I do hear A-ha, why would I bother?

DAB+ could have saved it all but criminally has been abused just like DAB. Now you have stereo, but the bandwidth is still too low (even for AAC). Coverage is a joke in places I holiday in. And the streaming apps that I could use to listen also are unable to work outdoors on the road for much the same reasons why the DAB signal is weak.

Re: My God is that thing still alive!!

> No offence to anyone but who the hell wants to wait for a song (via FM or DAB)

Dont think that people just listen to the radio to listen to music.

I rarely do.

Most music on the radio sounds like **** to me, everything I like is on CD and I rarely listen to those.

I listen to engaging talk radio stations.

> i can just stream the thing from someplace

Still get the ads, although they are even more annoying as they tend to be the same ads, over and over and over. But yes the ads on the talk stations sometimes drive me nuts, like that horrible Vodafone advert.

Re: UKGov Nonsense as usual

> Nowadays, the irony is that for most radio listening I now use internet streaming on my iPad, through Bluetooth loudspeakers (or via a Bluetooth dongle added to my hifi)

I cant stand doing that. Everything is delayed by 5 mins, when the app empties its buffer and fails to pull down the next several packets it decides to "fill the gap" by jumping 10 or more mins backwards, eventually I figure out why I have a sense of Déjà vu.

I tried listening to one of the TWO stations I like on DAB via their apps whilst on the way down to cornwall for a holiday. You'd think that on motorways and close to places like Bristol that I'd have enough mobile signal to actually listen to the stations without watching the swirly thing go round and round for more than the next 10 mins (I wasnt driving btw) because that stretch of A road near exeter is a not spot for 4G and 3G for many miles.

Heck when I leave my house in my home town I rarely manage to get above 2 bars of 4G on a good day and the drive to work goes through a not spot that sends the app into its crazed behavior, not to mention that when I get to work, inside ANY building in that area usually results in "Emergency calls only" on the phone much of the day.

Streaming is great, when you have Wifi.

> let alone venturing into the realm of hi-fi

Do you mean stereo?

> It may be of superior sound quality

Wait, mono audio is superior to stereo?

Re: Sounds like they're trying to protect the livelihoods of the buggy-whip makers

Exactly everything you said.

A recent holiday to Cornwall proved it. I had problems ON THE WAY TO BRISTOL! Plus I live in Bedford, a place you would expect to have more than 1 bar of 4G signal as you drive about?

Right now, in Bedford, right next to two main A roads, a super market and housing my phone says:

Emergency Calls Only

I recently had to fir out a pub with a new IT system. My teammates gave me a 4G router as the "backup" connection should the ADSL FTTC line go down. When I got to the location, what signal strength did get? 2 bars of 2G.

I'm literally fed up with everyone who is in cloud cuckoo land spouting all this "mobile streaming" is brilliant etc etc. It was crap when I was using WAP on my 1G phone via a DIALUP connection charged per second and its still crap now. Broadcast is always the better option.

Re: Sounds like they're trying to protect the livelihoods of the buggy-whip makers

> Plus, the Internet is much more capable of reliably delivering a 100kbps data stream without bit-errors than a broadcast antenna to most if not all places, (even cars)

Not even close.

I recently went on a trip to cornwall for a week. I was intending on listening to the app of the DAB radio station I typically listen to.

Guess what it was like.

Cant guess? Well, it was f*cking shit! I was lucky if I got a 2G edge connection on most of the trip, and that was on the main A roads and motorways, forget in cornwall itself.

I have long been adamant about the fact that mobile internet is not up to the task, so I luckily loaded a few podcasts onto my phone, plus I had my minidisc player... Yes, you read that right.

I thought that maybe the lot that say "but 4g is great! streaming is the future" were finally going to prove it to me, a fan of "broadcast" over "multicast". Well, looks like I was proved right yet again.

5G will fix it? Funny, thats exactly what they said when 3G came out. Then 4G came out to fix 3G...

So when will it actually work? Its not soon, thats for sure. 5G will do it for a while till everyone is on 5G, then they will se up all the bandwidth and some savy ones will force the phone onto 4G, like me who forces my phone onto 3G just to get more than 1 bar of signal in my home town.

Product release cycles are killing the environment, techies tell British Computer Society

Re: Three P3s and one P4 just recycled

They will run debian just fine.

Heck the P4 will run windows 11.

Re: S & M

> I had a 486 computer many years ago that apart from its function as providing blue light from its screen (yes, it ran Windows 3.1) it also acted as a room heater. Sometimes it would run programs. Now, something like a Raspberry Pi has far greater computing power and uses just a small percentage of the electricity.. Though that does mean I need a room heater.

I disagree.

If the 486 does the job, use it till it cant be repaired any more. It wont use much more power than anything else, thats a myth. The RPi will do more work for that power, but if you dont need that work, if the PI will sit there doing nothing most of the time, get the 486 to do it.

You dont need a HDD, save power using a CF card. A modern ATX power supply will be way more efficient, yes you can use that on a 486 using the AT power standard with an adapter cable.

Who says it needs to be on all the time anyway?

Re: Complete waste of time.

I can nullify that with:

"What safety?"

> Everything sucks but I am also worried that if we push to hard, it will simply become "illegal" for peasants like us to own real computers.

I will defend my stockpile...

I have all sorts. Even if I must be forced to run a spreadsheet program on my C64 or Psion 3a THEY WILL NEVER TAKE MY COMPUTERS

> Microsoft should be getting a lot more criticism than they are over the system requirements for that.

Especially since it happily runs on a Pentium 4!

What did you say Microsoft?

Re: "annual product release cycles"

> PC running W7

Wow, modern.

Try win 3.1 ;)

Fukushima studies show wildlife is doing nicely without humans, thank you very much

Re: Bullfrogs ... few predators in most of its adopted new homes.

Serve them a roast dinner?