Subj : Re: Too many? :) To : Barry Martin From : Ky Moffet Date : Thu Sep 24 2020 19:08:00 BARRY MARTIN wrote: > Hi Ky! > KM> listing is the actual directory structure. That's all it's for. I > KM> just find it amusing how many I've collected, and which got more > KM> attention. > > Yes, didn't know there were so many variations out there! Since I've been paying attention it's mushroomed, tho most fade away unremarked and unlamented. There used to be a catalog of all the Puppy variants... over 2000!! > As for the listing, I was thinking a separate file, not a tree output. Oh, but the Tree output tells me where it is on disk... occurs to me, tho (this is your fault) that I could print out the Big Family Tree (how much paper, again?) and mark the branches I've tried... nah, sounds like work. > KM> circuit. Then I want to FIND it! Or in one case, when one of our > KM> number on the PCLOS forum wanted to see an obscure spin, I proved > KM> to have the last remaining copy (now on archive.org). > > Horray! Would have thought someone else to have had a copy, but suppose > easy enough to be lost when a computer dies, the person dies..... Or in this case, vanished from the various FTPs, probably cuz Tex (or whoever does this for him) did one of his periodic trawls to get rid of outdated editions. Which I disagree with, see above. In this case ... someone had done a nice implementation of Cinnamon on PCLOS, and seemed like it would make a good regular spin... recommended it to our Spin Doctor for updating, but then no one could find a copy online. > 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'! That too!! > > KM> I actually tried doing something like that when I did the first > KM> big trawl looking for a distro to love... printed out a Wikipedia > KM> list with ancestors and last-update and whatever else was on the > KM> chart. Not sure it accomplished anything but it did waste about > KM> 10 sheets of paper. :) > > The backs of which can be used for scratch paper! Too late, I printed it on scratch paper (Wound up wishing I had more scribble space!) > KM> Yeah, did a lot of columns and tables in WordPerfect for that > KM> kind of thing... nowadays I mostly don't care. > > I sometimes create a sort-of spreadsheet to compare items for purchase: > helps determine which one is better (for my needs) as the listings don't > always have everything together much less in the same order. Good idea, tho I rarely buy anything that needs such close comparison. > KM> Yes! this is where I rebooted my brain!! > > Things really got equalized! BEEP BEEP > > KM> So there's finally a KDE-on-Debian that at least looks decent > > KM> live. Let's try that... if we can figure out the damn > > KM> partitioner. Not sure what took it so long but it didn't actually > > KM> do anything; here's Mageia's /home still intact (well, at least I > > KM> didn't have to redo my KDE settings), in part because it wouldn't > > KM> let me change it. Two hours later it's finally installed.... at > > KM> first it was really sluggish; seems to have gotten better. > > Doing an automatic backup of some sort? Creating a journal? > KM> Dunno... didn't see anything happening... > > Happened to think of that option as my laptop will seem sluggish and > it's doing a backup. No real way to tell until it's done. Suppose > could look in System Monitor; otherwise just note the HDD LED is > flashing like mad. In this case, no blinkenlights. No nothing. No idea what it was doing, since I couldn't really see anything happening in the file manager, and htop wasn't part of the default install. (Dunno what else might tell me what's running and being a hog. But that's an awful lot of hardware to be hogging.) > > The problem might be your slow data line. I have done a > KM> Actually, no. Even not counting that, it still took just over an > KM> hour. > > So much for that excuse! ...No other guesses coming to mind. ...Noisy > line and have to resend data? Nope. Line is now clean, after CLink guy was here and messed with it. No more stalls and back to previous speed. > KM> Today's experiment is OpenSuSE/Gecko (Rolling) with KDE. It > KM> sensibly does all the config stuff up front, so no halts in > KM> mid-stream that need attention, but so far it's taken two hours > KM> and is only to 91%, and far as I can tell it's not downloading Also was not impinging on bandwidth on the other PC. Easy check. > KM> anything (even if it is, it should have long since been done, > KM> with very little to do as this is a current ISO, with no huge > KM> recent updates that I know of). "Removing one package" -- what's > KM> that about?? > > I remember having couple hour long update sessions but seems those were > with the older Raspberry Pi's, plus going from NOOBS to current, so tons > of little files to be updated. Using a current ISO can still have lots Well, Rasbian IS based on Debian.... > of updates, even adding new (ISO provides a generic to get things going, > checks for, downloads and installs a specific file set).... As for > 'removing one package', something old, something new, something borrowed > -- oh wait, that's not the right one! I dunno, we're confused! > KM> Oh goodie, it's finally done! now let's see if it'll boot (live > KM> SuSE fails about 2 times out of 3).... Well, it > KM> finally got past the splash screen, but now we have a blank > KM> monitor.... eventually I lost patience and did C-A-D... now I > KM> have a mouse cursor... if it's cooking an Nvidia driver in the > KM> background, it needs to show me that (normally you can hit ESC > KM> and see what's going on)... shouldn't take this long anyway... > > Let's see: semi-random stuff coming to mind. I did have problems with > installation when I had that bad RAM stick, so run the extended MEM86 > test (it passed the quick/default option. There were times I actually > got into the Install steps (never would do direct install, always want > to the trial). Nothing wrong with this hardware; it runs a dozen other OSs just fine. Windows is a pretty good canary in the coal mine for bad hardware, and it loves that PC. Also moved the install to an older and more generic PC... no change. > Is 'nomodeset' in the install options? Read somewhere that's now causing > problems. May have been with a tiny resolution; do recall one of the > suggested fixes I read about when I could get Ubuntu to install because > (of the faulty RAM) was to use nomodeset. No idea... resolution looked normal. If an installer sets something dopey, tho... probably breaks other stuff. Out with you! > KM> And about the time I got done typing that, it decided to actually > KM> do a shutdown and power-off. > > Some sort of 'saving last state'? Shouldn't be, wasn't live, and when live I never use persistence. > KM> Well, it can sit there; I'll go out and do chores and see what > KM> it's doing in an hour. And then I need that monitor to watch > KM> baseball. > > "Very annoying" is the mild form of what's coming to mind! Some Really!!! > functions do take along time: there's a comment in an older MythTV > Installation Guide at a certain step to go away and get a cup of coffee > as the step took a very long time (and appears as if nothing is > occurring). ...When I was trying to use a 64 GB card with MotionEye it > took around ten minutes to complete the 'expanding partition' step (on > an RPi 3B+). That's the one that only like up to 32 GB -- same step > takes about a minute. Only thing I can think might be similar -- having trouble with 64GB RAM. However... the Red Hat family (broadly including the Mandrake cousins) has no problem with it, and that should be a kernel function anyway, and it's not like the kernel is that different from one version to the next .... and a given kernel is the same across distros. And if Debian with its 3 year old kernel has no trouble with 64GB, then no distro using a newer kernel (everyone else) should either. > KM> Lordy, do these people ever test their products outside of a VM? > > "Oh, this utility is missing from the installer. I have it here, but > guess you need it there - sorry!" Seen that! > KM> When I made the mistake of doing a netinstall with Debian (the > KM> real thing, not a descendant), it took over four hours, I had to > KM> babysit it the whole way, and when it was done it wouldn't boot. > KM> Not how you make fans... > > Really. One thing to be a guinea pig and know there may be problems. > Quite another to be using a finished and supposedly tested product. Exactly... > ..Just thought: at the store the computers sometimes needed to have a > new install. Don't know what happened to cause but a desktop terminal > would fail and need the OS, etc., reinstalled. For whatever reason > would take sometimes _days_. We're not talking the computers running > the store, we're talking those standard units with maybe a 250 GB hard > drive. Sure the data is probably encoded and that takes a whole extra > five seconds to decode. Why it took so long, no idea. Just trying to This woulda been imaging Windows? If so... if it hits a bad spot in the disk, it probably tests the whole disk as it writes. Very slow. In the Really Olden Days, almost all HDs had some bad spots out of the box. (In fact I remember when MFM disks came with a Bad Blocks Map.) But on the same hardware, install of PCLOS under 5 minutes, Fedora under 6 minutes. Completely different installers... but both Red Hat descendants (PCLOS by way of Mandrake/Mandriva) which is probably the significant point. I suppose I should try Kubuntu and see what it does, given Ubuntu is based on Debian. (At least that lets me land on my preferred desktop, tho their implementation of KDE is not great.) Mint hies from Ubuntu, but dumps about 3/4ths of Ubuntu and in previous tests installed fairly fast. > think why yours took so long. And yes, the installs frequently failed > at the store; we always thought because someone ignored the 'Do Not > Touch' sign (even when the keyboard was semi-hidden...). Whoops!! > KM> It's occurred to me that this might be a side effect of PCLOS > KM> being a one-man-band and wholly volunteer, so it only has one > KM> person's time to waste, and Tex isn't real patient. Most distros > KM> are a bunch of people; Debian is hundreds of people. Combine all > KM> that wasted time, and the end user gets it all at once... > > I must say I admire those people creating the OSs, as well as various > utilities, etc., etc. Lots of variables, even on 'minor' stuff like AMD > vs. Intel vs. ARM - and then put the various versions and options for > each of those into the mix. Then start adding various video cards, > various audio cards, .... Yeah, to deal with all that you need a stable of programmers... at the distro level, tho, it's really just putting it all together with a script; all the real programming has already been done, especially at the hardware level (drivers etc.) In fact OpenSuSE used to have an automated online "factory" where you could specify whatever you wanted (built on OpenSuSE, but with a wide choice of desktops and features) and it would spit out a custom distro ISO for your personal entertainment. I had it build a version with Trinity desktop, tho it didn't turn out as well as Trinity on PCLOS. But still, shows at that level it's just scripts. > .. Picked up book called "Glue in Many Lands"; can't put it down. Sticky situation! þ RNET 2.10U: ILink: Techware BBS þ Hollywood, Ca þ www.techware2k.com --- QScan/PCB v1.20a / 01-0462 * Origin: ILink: CFBBS | cfbbs.no-ip.com | 856-933-7096 (454:1/1) .