* Posts by Pigeon Post

8 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Sep 2019

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

Pigeon Post
Mushroom

Wouldn't it be interesting if...

...(hypothetically) contracts, laws and regulations were different, such that:

+ everyone's "obsolete" non-Win11-compliant hardware ended up at M$ offices globally

+ M$ were to foot the bill for all replacement "refresh" hardware

+ invoices for remediation costs and lost time caused by software "upgrades" were sent to Redmond.

Purely hypothetical speculation of course, since accountability is old hat. But the mental exercise is somewhat satisfying.

Big browsers are about to throw a wrench in your ad-free paradise

Pigeon Post

Hmm, the trouble with standards is there are so many of them...

British Library pushes the cloud button, says legacy IT estate cause of hefty rebuild

Pigeon Post

Re: Legacy is here to stay... Live with it...

I bear you no il my friend. :)

And btw this pigeon's name's not Shirley...

Pigeon Post

Re: Legacy is here to stay... Live with it...

This.

A Gartner researcher I once knew cheerfully reminded people that projects currently in delivery are 'legacy' by definition. He followed that up by saying "Another definition of legacy software: the programmer is dead or should be".

Because of 'agendas', Manglement conveniently forget the 'ilities' - usability, security, scalability, availability/reliability, manageability/maintainability, recoverability, and so on. All significant parts of total cost of ownership - ignore at your peril.

Tiny Core Linux 15 stuffs modern computing in a nutshell

Pigeon Post
Thumb Up

TC in use

There don't seem to be many actual _users_ here, so here's my experience...

Wanting to host a few network applications back in 2021 (lockdowns, eurgh), I obtained a cheap thin client from eBay, and researched the small Linux distros. Very impressed with TC, although it took a while to get my head round how it manages everything - so different from mainstream distros. But the web info is tremendous - hat-tip here to https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/Linux/ who shares a fantastic amount of useful info to help with both hardware and OSs.

So for the past 3 years, this kit has run 24/7 (minus hols) hosting a DNS proxy server that sinks dodgy web addresses, and vTuner to re-enable my Denon internet radio:

- HP T520: 1.2GHz 2-core, 4GB RAM, 16GB Flash storage (6 Watts, less than my router)

- tinycoreplus 12.0

- dnsmasq 2.55

- Python 3.6 with small custom scripts (~37MB)

- tinyX (~28MB, for initial setup)

...which together use - wait for it - 180KB ram and 2.9GB free disk. No swap space needed with such small memory requirements.

But I'd agree with the commentards above - TC is for niche use. If you want to use "conventional" mainstream applications like web browsing, watch videos, do CAD, write snazzy documents, etc, use a fatter box (T620?) and a "conventional" distro. Wonder how it goes on a 13th gen PC?

'The computer was sitting in a puddle of mud, with water up to the motherboard'

Pigeon Post

Re: Once upon a time...

Ah yes, that's the other sort of backup.

Creating a single AI-generated image needs as much power as charging your smartphone

Pigeon Post
Facepalm

£2.58 ?

Must be getting old. I read your sub-headline as "Microsoft to invest £2.58 in UK datacenters to power AI". Yay! I thought, common sense prevails...

But no...

Orford Ness: Military secrets and unique wildlife on the remote Suffolk coast

Pigeon Post

Re: One Christmas when I was a lad

Sounds like 'Saucers over the Moor' by Malcolm Saville, but that action starts in Rye in Sussex before moving to Dartmoor.