Subj : Re: Slimmed down Debian To : Barry Martin From : Ky Moffet Date : Wed Jun 10 2020 00:31:00 BARRY MARTIN wrote: > Hi Ky! > > KM> Ancient history comes back to haunt you. :D > > I sometimes interpret that as if I wait long enough the answer to my > question will come! Someday your prints will come. -- motto of the serial printer. > > > Have you noticed it seems like the newer the machine the shorter the > > time it runs? 286: two years. Something-or-other 4-core: 3/4 year > > (rounded and to keep the time unit consistent. > KM> Not mine! Bullet (quadcore) *never* needs a restart, and only > KM> happens when the power is out beyond the UPS's capacity. And the > KM> stack of Dells don't get restarted enough to notice, either. (Tho > KM> what's with all the kernel updates this year? Seems like it's one > KM> every day!) > > That wasn't me! I hadn't made the correlation of newer expiring sooner. > And hopefully my 8-core last longer than barely half a year! ...Maybe > they had better heatsinks and fans earlier! Thinking of the "AMD Well, no... heatsinks in particular have improved immensely. And there's really no excuse for shipping a hot-running CPU without at least a basic heatpipe cooler. HP has made them standard on Xeon systems. But AMD's philosophy is why bother when gamers will replace it with some fancy aftermarket cooling to compensate for their overclocking habit. I have two of those cheap little HP heatpipe coolers, on the two hottest CPUs, and they do a stellar job. First time I checked, the i7-4820K (130W) was running at a barely-warm 82F. (Tho at the moment SIW has lost its marbles and thinks it's 478F. Er, I don't think so; I can put my finger on the cooler's foot and it's barely warm.) > approved" heatsink/fan combo which kept the FX-8320 processor > sufficiently cool as long as it didn't do much work. ...."as long as it didn't do too much work" is the very description of inadequate cooling! > And knock-on-wood there have been power glitches but no power outages so > far this year, "Partial-house" generator would be nice (I don't need to > have everything running per normal when the power fails); might not be > budgetable again this year as have to have the roof replaced (hail > damage and the insurance only paying a portion, though more than thought > they would), plus the deck and porch needs replacing. I've had the thought that a generator that could run off the natural gas line would be a Good Thing. > As for power-up times, this one has been running for 17+ days since the > last reboot (probably a major update), the computer running the MythTV > Backend probably closer to a couple of months. Bullet would have the longest uptime here... 113 days. So that's how long since the last power outage. Tho that's gotten less frequent since they trimmed all the trees that could touch and ground out a line when it rains. > Not sure about the 'constant' kernel updates as I have LivePatch turned > on. ...Last I knew LivePatch won't work with a 32-bit system, though > sloppy advisement as just indicates something wrong with the log-in to > Ubuntu1 instead of the real reason. I don't know LivePatch? PCLOS does updates on the fly, but you have to restart to load a newly-arrived kernel. There've been so many this year that GRUB's list has become very long. I've never had to boot to an older kernel, but not worth the bother to remove 'em, either. > KM> I give XP 4GB and other VMs 8GB, seems like since I've got it and > KM> the base OS doesn't need it, I might as well use it for > KM> something. Does make a considerable difference in performance... > KM> can't tell this XP from the real thing. > > I'll have to play around later. Did check and I am currently running > 4096 MB (so 4 GB) memory for this XP Virtual Machine. I do recall > increasing to that amount definitely improved the response. Seems moreI The default is something like 512mb which is a trifle cramped. > have an issue with video sluggishness: Video Memory at 20 MB currently, > which seems horrendously tiny but off-hand don't recall the reasoning. 8mb should suffice for XP that's not doing recentish gaming. I think VirtualBox defaults it to 128mb which is overkill for basic use. > Use the XP portion only for BBSing, so text and it seems to keeo up . > The only video issue is if move a window around (in XP) and some > juttering: move-stop-move-stop-move-stop.... As I don't watch any > videos on the XP VM probably no need to alter, though may be worthwhile > to know for the Linux test VM. That generally indicates something wrong with the video driver. Try one of the other VM settings. Some get along with different hosts better'n others, is my vague grok. > KM> I sometimes ask myself that. Yeah, some are just for fun. I > KM> mean, I have WinXP, why do I need ReactOS? Because it's there! Except not today. The crappy socket939 box that was reassigned to ReactOS (cuz that AMD CPU don't do proper 64bit) decided to pop a capacitor, and it looks like it's the same general location as my slightly newer one with the southbridge problem. Methinks there's a reason Asus went to solid capacitors. > Sounds like a worthwhile reason to me! I'll admit to trying to keep > things the same aorund here just because it's easier and less confusing, > plus I have no real need to run separate systems. Well, almost did > because 'needed' XP for the BBS and X10 (home automation) but those > could have been converted to a Linux utility. here.> Yeah, some of 'em are because I can, or because that hardware has no better mission in life (this explains the box that I just left with the Vista that came on it; they like each other, and I don't need the system to do anything else, so it's a good reserve home for Vista). Still debating what goes on Fireball, tho since chances are it eventually replaces Bullet (when/if it ever dies) ... XP64! > > Will you call that machine "Milk"? Then you could have Milk of Mageia! > KM> LOL! Sounds like a plan. :D > KM> Tho I have a (black) cat called Milk (Do you want Milk? do you > KM> want Milk2?) and they might get confused. > I'd probably name the machine something else. Was sort of like when I > had Honey (RIP) - my Lhasa Apso I adopted: did some hypenated commands Awww... > so she (hopefully) wouldn't get confused: "you want to go outside- > bathroom?", hopefully coupling the 'outside' concept of "do you want to > go outside" to play, go for a walk, etc., and not confuse with one of > saying we had to go to the bathroom. Oh yes, they can make those connections well enough. > ..So "Mageia"..... Nothing coming even semi-clever coming to mind. I still haven't named the 3 Dells anything clever, tho Larry, Darryl, and Darryl comes to mind. > KM> From userland, I don't really care so long as it works, and > KM> doesn't annoy me with lagging, crashes, or too many obvious > KM> vulnerabilities. > > Which is more my side of the coin. I don't know, so I have to go with > what others offer. Ubuntu was selected out of the myriad of Linux > offerings because MythTV used it. And sort of based on my "let's not > get too mixed up" philosophy with MythTV being based on Ubuntu it sort > of made sense to learn or at least be more familiar with Ubuntu to > troubleshoot MythTV. So there's some method to your masochism. > > been a perfect candidate for an electric car when I needed to buy the > > current replacement years ago: local driving, so no need to be concerned > > about charging sites. Big block to purchase was the cost.) > KM> I live where the power goes out in bad weather. I like gas > KM> engines. I also don't like the idea of trusting to an electric car when there are stretches of up to 200 miles between power outlets. > times and the transformer would have to be replaced. He asked if wanted > to have it replaced now -- Memorial Day, which was the beginning of > summer and we immediately said yes as preferred a long replacement > outage while it was cool as opposed to delaying and needing it done on a > 100ø summer day or during a snowstorm. Gee, ya think? :D > As for powering a generator, the little ones tend to put out square > waves which will ruin electronics and some electrical. The bigger gas- You can get a sine-wave convertor, tho. > powered ones have the disadvantage of needing to be refilled, and so > shut down and cooled down so any spilt gas doesn't ignite. And int he Natural gas. :D > middle of a rainstorm or snowstorm going to be a little grumbling about > that. So probably would go with a natural gas powered generator as have What did I just say? :D > NG here, plus at one time there was a NG air conditioner cooling the > house (!) -- previous owner of the house owned several gas stations and > one had to be demolished to make room for something -- I think the > building of the second I-74 Bridge, not to be confused with the new > bridges being built currently, which caused the demolishment of the > replacement gas station. Anyway, makes sense here to have a NG > generator; now to have the necessary 'spare' money...... There's the real problem! Maybe we'll just sit in the dark after all. > Around $1.25 per year -- not bad! My systems have had to 'go up' > because of MythTV usage -- MythTV not being the hog but the high > definition playback is. Standard definition I could probably get by > with a 486 (guessing) but why? Actually, I found a P3-500 is about the minimum for decoding DVDs, and it's real borderline (has spasms of being unable to keep up). The old DVDs default to what, 720p? so there's your baseline. The P233 could not play MP4s without a lot of stuttering and staggering, and DVDs were right out. > KM> That kind of bug typically comes from the system BIOS. They don't > KM> actually know over 64gb (or sometimes 137gb), but will pretend > KM> they do until data exceeds that boundary. > > In this instance definately was the hard drive: left for work one > morning and the system was fine; came home and -- what happened?! > Eventually pulled the hard drive and another system interpreted it as > the smaller size. Oh, there's an Ooopsie, then. There was a bug in some of that era that would crop up and do something like that, but I never encountered it. You're special. Actually, tho... if it was FAT32, there's your problem. Unstable once the data exceeds 32GB. I *have* experienced that one. > Have read where some businesses' software can't be upgraded to something > more current just because it doesn't exist so they have to stick with > antique hardware to run the software. Yeah, lot of that with specialty ISA cards for industrial applications. > As for you seven 1GB sticks, odd, but semi-sorta makes sense: I have an > old Lenovo system with came with three 1 GB sticks -- four slots and the To make matters odder, the seven sticks are server RAM (registered ECC). > fourth slot was empty. Lenovo said the system could use up to 8 GB (4x > 2GB), so eventually upgraded -- and the system wouldn't boot. Fiddle- > fiddle. Eventually just let it run with 2+2+1+1 (6 GB) as didn't seem > to like a 2GB stick in the 'upper' slots. Some of 'em are cranky, tho might your second pair were single-sided or ECC, either of which would not work, tho single-sided sometimes not works in creative ways (shows up as half the size, or even smaller). I have an Amptron motherboard (quality-wise from well beneath the barrel) with a P4-2.4GHz CPU, and it has thoroughly weird ideas about RAM... 2 slots and theoretically it supports 2GB (or was it 4GB, I forget) but will only boot with a 512mb and 256mb -- AND they have to NOT be the same speed or timing specs. Matched pair = no boot! > > > > True, though like you said some of the programmes check to see Swap is > > available, though seems like they check for a Swap partition is present > > but not necessarily the size of the partition. > KM> Some do, some don't. Photoshop is particularly stupid; it insists > KM> on a swapfile, but doesn't check if it's big enough before trying > KM> to use it. > > Weird. Would guess a section of old code they haven't figured how to > get around. More like Adobe has some swaths of general incompetence. Took 'em til the most recent version to figure out that Illustrator's menus really should respect system settings for large monitors, instead of becoming so small you need a microscope to even FIND 'em. (Photoshop at least had a setting to increase menu size, and that sorta works, tho still doesn't respect system settings.) Only reason I can think of is that to this day it must have inherited menu handling from its Aldus ancestors, built for Win3.1, where there was as yet no real standard for menu size or font handling and lots of apps were still DIYing. > Oops! ...I sort of stopped using smaller hard drives on the various > MythTV Frontends as they took a relatively long time to boot. Until relatively recently, linux had poor to absent disk caching, which made it glacial on hard drives with small cache. > KM> Nope, just doing I/O stupidly, I think. > > Microsoft: where we write a new operating system, test, release, then > find it doesn't work right so we create a new OS. Profits are great!! Haha... I wonder what they plan to do with their cloud OS, since they've said Win10 will be the last version of Windows. If they want everyone to rush right out and buy it, just slap XP's interface on Win10... that way they don't need another version of Windows!! > > > > > Sounds a bit like some of the But Firsts around here! > > KM> I have way too many of these But Firsts laying around... today's > > KM> was Mow the Durn Lawn. > > You forgot "Before It Turns To Hay"! > KM> Too late! Tho I did finally get Jurassic Weedpark under control.. > KM> mostly... > The weather here has been ideal for growing grass: the weather guy > mentioned some yards needing to be mowed three times in one week! Oh yeah, been like that here too... today we (me and the big goat) chopped weeds. 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