Subj : Too many? :) To : Ky Moffet From : Barry Martin Date : Wed Sep 30 2020 09:00:00 Hi Ky! > > Yes, didn't know there were so many variations out there! > KM> Since I've been paying attention it's mushroomed, tho most fade > KM> away unremarked and unlamented. > Yes, I suppose rather easy as modify to my preferences, I think it's the > latest and greatest so publish. A few people, mostly relatives and > friends trying to be supportive try it but otherwise doesn't take off, KM> Or the maintainer and his immediate cronies. I'd feel more secure KM> if my preferred distro was more than a one-man-band, because KM> that's a single point of potential disaster; OTOH everything is KM> very stable because Tex doesn't change things up much. No sudden KM> corporate 180s. Yes, both options have their good points and their bad ones. One person, one direction -- dies. falls ill, gets bored - that's then end and probabyl no one to take over. Multiple people, potential of multiple directions or at least a bit of wavering in general direction; one person falls out easier for someone else to continue on. KM> My fave is MintPup, tho technically it's a DebianDog spin; KM> unfortunately not maintained. I sometimes use Wary as an KM> old-hardware boot disk. Whereas I've gotten rid of most of the old hardware as too slow won't work for what I want it to do. Do have my DEC Rainbow 100 and the two "super XTs", mainly for sentimental reasons. The XTs, or at least one, was supposed to run the X10 (home automation) stuff but ended up the current computers could more easily. > > As for the listing, I was thinking a separate file, not a tree output. > KM> Oh, but the Tree output tells me where it is on disk... occurs to > KM> me, tho (this is your fault) that I could print out the Big > KM> Family Tree (how much paper, again?) and mark the branches I've > KM> tried... nah, sounds like work. > If you use a teen-tiny you should get it to fit on a single sheet! KM> If I used little teeny print I'd need little teeny eyes to read KM> it... KM> https://people.well.com/user/bubbles/LilTEyes.txt Neat! (I was still in elementary school when that was written!) > As for marking, maybe could still do it on computer: create a file with > a name forcing it to the top/beginning of the tree branch list. I've > used "aa_" if I want a force a file's location. Thinking of the > Recipes subdir I have (and honestly intended to use!): KM> At least on Windows you can use ! or !! or !!! to force a front KM> sort. This does not work on linux, which ignores the leading ! KM> mark. Never tried a filename with a leading exclamation point -- doesn't follow my naming rules. > /home/barry/File Cabinet/Recipes/ > |-- aa_Cooking Tips > |-- aa_Food Timeline > | |-- Food Timeline: food history research service_files KM> Food timeline, fish: Fresh, Stale, and Stinking in 3 days. How'd you know that was what was in there?! > Prefacing the 'aa_' forces the Cooking Tips subdir towards the top. > You'll have to test how it works with numbers, if any listing has > numbers, or even non alphanumeric characters KM> I've done the opposite -- prefix with zzz_ to force it to the KM> end. That works too! As long as can find it. And LIS elsewhere, I've used the extension BJM to easily identify person comments. ...Probably not all that useful to most people as are my initials. > KM> Or in this case, vanished from the various FTPs, probably cuz Tex > KM> (or whoever does this for him) did one of his periodic trawls to > KM> get rid of outdated editions. Which I disagree with, see above. > In the old days storage space was at a premium so the culling sort of > made sense. Now, not so much, so just move to that Old Stuff directory. KM> Yeah... that's why it irks me so much that Microsoft nuked all KM> the old support files. They've done this twice now, apparently KM> under the theory that this would force people to upgrade. No, it KM> just annoys us... when they announced that they were killing the KM> pre-XP files, I pulled all of 'em, and it was only 8GB. They KM> didn't announce it when they killed most of the XP support files. KM> :/ Yes, I was also thinking the "that'll force 'em!" 8 GB is nothing. ....Just for comparison found this: "the average person used 2.9GB of mobile data per month in 2019". So not-quite three month's worth of data was Microsoft's 'savings'. > KM> In this case ... someone had done a nice implementation of > KM> Cinnamon on PCLOS, and seemed like it would make a good regular > KM> spin... recommended it to our Spin Doctor for updating, but then > KM> no one could find a copy online. > Darn misspellings! (Y'mean it's not 'Sinahmum'?) KM> Haha... I found it somewhere weird but the archive later KM> disappeared. Microsoft agents must have taken them out! > > KM> I have dozens, perhaps hundreds of directories named Stuff... or > > KM> sometimes !Stuff... sometimes both.... > > I try to be a little more descriptive but doesn't always work. I do > > have a few variations on 'temporary'! > KM> That too!! > Temporary > |-- A lot of Stuff > |-- More stuff > |-- Other stuff KM> That! > Oo! Linux is case-sensitive!! > Temporary > |-- a lot of stuff > |-- a lot of Stuff > |-- more stuff > |-- More stuff > |-- More Stuff KM> OMFG... yeah, that!! KM> Tho I try to avoid the case-sensitive thing because do not wish KM> to make a mess when interacting with Windows. (Win10 is also KM> case-sensitive.) Didn't know Windows 10 was case-sensitive but not really following Windows stuff. I'd prefer a lack of case sensitivity (in general -- does add a slight degree of bafflement to passwords): for me would make things a little easier. Guess I'll just go off and create my own distribution! > Back a couple years ago I noticed it seemed when LibreOffice and Mozilla > stuff was being updated they actually downloaded the entire version > rathet than just the new files. Possibly everything as changed, though > more likely to ensure no old files to screw up the works. KM> Partly because integrity checks get upset when body parts don't KM> match. That makes sense. I more or less figured there was a reason, and "the whole new thing to be sure it'll work" was good enough for me! Similar to your 'matching body parts' explanation. > KM> Nothing wrong with this hardware; it runs a dozen other OSs just > KM> fine. Windows is a pretty good canary in the coal mine for bad > KM> hardware, and it loves that PC. Also moved the install to an > KM> older and more generic PC... no change. > Some sort of sneaky incompatibility. ...You got "ARM" instead of "AMD". > It's 64-bit instead of 32-bit (should have a warning message). KM> LOL, yes, I've suddenly downgraded to ARM From what I've read the Raspeberry Pi will be using a 64-bit ARM instruction set soon. :) > nomodeset came to mind because when I was having troubles with the > installation due to the faulty RAM it came up numerous times as a > potential work-around; a few days ago in the MythTV Forum with nVidia > drivers. KM> Oh. Fortunately not my problem. Good -- just threw it in as an in-case. > KM> Only thing I can think might be similar -- having trouble with > KM> 64GB RAM. However... the Red Hat family (broadly including the > KM> Mandrake cousins) has no problem with it, and that should be a > KM> kernel function anyway, and it's not like the kernel is that > KM> different from one version to the next ... and a given kernel is > KM> the same across distros. And if Debian with its 3 year old kernel > KM> has no trouble with 64GB, then no distro using a newer kernel > KM> (everyone else) should either. > Vague stuff coming up. With MotionEye there are two main versions: > MotionEyeOS and MotionEye -- the first is more or less a self-entity and > what I'm using here. The second is a utility, added on to an OS like > Raspbian. I tried the utility a year or two back and didn't have any KM> Raspbian is still 32bit, IIRC. (Should have read ahead!) Yes, though a 64-bit version is in the works. > luck so went back to the OS version. So by using the MotionEyeOS > version there could be some old code not working properly past 32GB. KM> Which might be explained by the above. Took me a few seconds to figure out, but possibly does have something to do with 32-bit OS limitions. OTOH it had no problems with a 128 GB thumbdrive - though now it's sluggish and I've had a coupl eof lock ups. I also had increased the resolution then brought it back down, and played with a couple of other values so that could be the cause. Will see if plugging in an old configuration backup fixes. > OTOH it seems to work fine for some people - maybe I'm missing a command > switch? KM> Wait for next generation hardware. do sleep 99999 ? > FWIW Ubuntu has a bare-bones option. I think the ISO is the same, just > select a 'minimal' option instead of 'full'. I've not tried it even > though on some computers which are essentially dedicated Frontends (to > MythTV) it could make sense. Invariably I'd eventually need whatever > was missing. KM> Yeah, most of 'em do. In my experience they're not just KM> barebones, but also lots of everyday stuff doesn't quite work. KM> Inability to configure the desktop is no worry for a server, but KM> annoying for a workstation. Another reason I don't bother looking KM> at barebones distros, unless that's all there is. Yes, would seem like a potential problem with random stuff not working because vital stuff wasn't installed originally. Minor experience with that kind of thing: sometimes the programme wil tell you what's missing, sometimes not and so off to search for an answer for a problem we're not quite sure is. > KM> Yeah, to deal with all that you need a stable of programmers... > KM> at the distro level, tho, it's really just putting it all > KM> together with a script; all the real programming has already been > KM> done, especially at the hardware level (drivers etc.) > KM> In fact OpenSuSE used to have an automated online "factory" where > KM> you could specify whatever you wanted (built on OpenSuSE, but > KM> with a wide choice of desktops and features) and it would spit > KM> out a custom distro ISO for your personal entertainment. I had it > KM> build a version with Trinity desktop, tho it didn't turn out as > KM> well as Trinity on PCLOS. But still, shows at that level it's > KM> just scripts. > My guess is it's similar to a OEM installation: created specifically for > (say) HP and they only use certain AMD or Intel CPUs, so don't have to > include (nor test for) all the others. Same for the video card and > probably a bunch of other motherboard variables. (Remember my level of > understanding isn't nearly as in-depth as yours on this stuff! My > 'Black Boxes' are giant!) KM> Occurred to me that why Debian's installer is so freakin' slow KM> might be because it's still doing a lot of building from source KM> AS it installs (I gather Slackware and Gentoo still do this for KM> the whole install). Just guessing but can't think of anything KM> else that would take so durn long. Could be -- I've been mild entertained by watching the text scroll on the screen during installs. Most of the time no clue as to what the output means, though have glimpsed bits of humour ==> instead of a stuffy-and-formal name for an error-catching utility it'll be called something like 'Boo-boo Grabber'. KM> Which in this day and age is just insane. Yeah, you get an end KM> result precisely tailored, but at the cost of a lot more time and KM> bother, especially when 99% of installs want to wind up with the KM> ordinary generic one-size-fits-all binary, so why individually KM> build it? It's those vocal One Percenters! WAG: carry-over from the days when the installation needed to fit on a single CD? > > .. Picked up book called "Glue in Many Lands"; can't put it down. > KM> Sticky situation! > I am rather attached! KM> To what?? I'm thinking the book but does depend on reference points. Jump, I come back down, so attached to Earth..... > .. Famous Last Words: Everything seems to be working fine now. KM> Barry's USB. The good news is it doesn't randomly lock up unless I do do something with the USB. ...Well, winter's coming and in the past I did have the occasional problem with touching and the static zap caused everything to stop. (Anything come to mind with that forgotten detail? Insert USB and/or static means _________.) ¯ BarryMartin3@ ® ¯ @MyMetronet.NET ® .... Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it. --- MultiMail/Win32 v0.47 þ wcECHO 4.2 ÷ ILink: The Safe BBS þ Bettendorf, IA --- QScan/PCB v1.20a / 01-0462 * Origin: ILink: CFBBS | cfbbs.no-ip.com | 856-933-7096 (454:1/1) .