Subj : Remmina RDP To : Ky Moffet From : Barry Martin Date : Sat May 25 2024 09:10:00 Hi Ky! > > KM> Tho my clients were all Windows... > > Though your magic was plugging in the USB thumbdrive with your favourite > > Linux flavour and fixing the Windows problem that way! > KM> That's my magic for recovering data off drives with busted > KM> passwords... > Apparently the encryption isn't where I expected. KM> Encrypted drives would be different, yeah. Then you need the KM> password. But these are just login passwords, and that's readily KM> bypassed. Just look at the Post-It Note on the monitor! > > > > KM> Whine whine whine! > > > > It's 1700 somewhere! > > > KM> > > > (Hmm: did Ky slide over to the year or did he miss the 24-hour ersio > > > of 5 o'clock somewhere?) > > KM> You need to be specific, otherwise I take the one that's a better > > KM> fashion statement. > > So now tip your tricorn at 5 o'clock! > KM> I shall eagerly await this turn of the clock! > Bad news: the batteries in the analog clock died! KM> The battery is nine years old, but the second hand is KM> still moving.... And this morning found the battery in the bathroom clock needs replacing. No idea of when it was replaced last but I'd guess two years. KM> Wait. Wouldn't that be the third hand? KM> Or maybe the gripping hand?? Time slips by fleetingly, gripping the human watching, urging to quickly follow before too late. As for why 'second hand', has something to do with originally clocks just had an hour and minute hand, so when added it was the second minute hand. > > > KM> Generally if I'm using linux I'm using linux, and I expect hin > > > KM> to behave like linux. > > > The problem I'm finding is some utilties only use Windows, and some > > KM> And there's my problem... > > I have a bit of a suspicion there's some sort of under-the-table > > agreements for the 'Windows exclusively', otherwise why would companies > > manufacture for only part of the market? > KM> Linux desktops are something like 4% of the desktop market, and > KM> most of that is adjunct to the used-hardware market, and the > KM> stats probably includes Android tablets (Android is essentially > KM> linux). > I would guess part of the raeson for the only 4% is Linux wasn't really > marketed until recently, and if one can save money by using the old > equipment then let's use the old equipment. KM> No, it's because the vast majority of the desktop market is KM> enterprise business (you buy PCs by the each and keep 'em til KM> they die; they buy 'em by the pallet or the truckload and replace KM> them every three years, when they fall out of warranty support), KM> and enterprise business needs *legally* supported software. Only KM> RedHat does that, and only for servers, and even then linux does KM> not run the Adobe and Microsoft and AutoDesk products that are KM> most of what business uses. Makes more sense. I was thinking from the consumer viewpoint. And yes, if something (hardware/software) doesn't work with what I have/need then it doesn't get purchased/used. Having a pretty look and just sitting there doesn't get the job done. KM> Linux is really only *legally* supported in the narrow server KM> market, and ONLY for the base server OS, and ONLY for RedHat and KM> possibly Ubuntu Server and a couple others, none of any interest KM> to the consumer desktop. And not for ANY desktop hardware. KM> And there's legal liability. My sister's architecture firm (she's KM> risen to 2nd in command after the founder and knows of what she KM> speaks) is big enough to have about a hundred offices worldwide, KM> and its own legal counsel. Who says you will NOT use unsupported KM> or not-industry-standard ANYTHING (not even company vehicles can KM> be out of warranty and support) because if you do and something KM> goes wrong with that building you designed, YOU ARE LIABLE JUST KM> BECAUSE OF THAT. Doesn't matter if you screwed up or not, that is KM> how the COURTS and JURIES will see it. So you will use CURRENT KM> VERSION of MAINSTREAM COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE and LIKE IT. Makes sense from the legal viewpoint: maximum protection. ...And I have no idea how it came up be remember decades ago when I worked at the college somehow the topic came up of something to do with the stairs. The person could not sue the college as long as properly maintained but would sue the original designer or maybe it was the builder. KM> You can design a building perfectly well using FreeCAD. You also KM> open yourself up to millions (potentially billions with today's KM> construction costs) in legal liability that you would NOT be KM> exposed to if you had instead used industry-standard software, KM> which is the current supported version of AutoCAD, period. KM> There's the relevant phrase: INDUSTRY STANDARD. And that's probably the reason for those small books of Terms and Conditions. KM> And people use at home what they use at work. It's just easier, KM> because you don't have to learn a second OS and wholly different KM> way of doing things. Especially not when the linux way of doing KM> things is often contrary and difficult. Well, the college's system was good, the store's system was horrible.... KM> So there's no incentive to use linux on the personal desktop, KM> outside of hobbyists and the perverse, who are a tiny market KM> segment. Frankly I'm surprised it's as high as 4%; at peak Apple KM> with all its fanboys only had 20%, and now it's a lot less, even KM> tho Apple puts a lot of money and effort into marketing and KM> support. (Back then Apple had the monopoly on graphical apps. As KM> of Win95, Windows ate Apple's lunch.) Any idea what the European (we can limit to the EU) market is? I'm thinking the use of Linux is significantly higher, and part of that might be the legal system is more relaxed at times. ...Though looking at one specific instance the relaxed atttude then is causing a trudge through their legal system now. Anyway, seems Linux is more used on that side of the pond, I'm thinking possibly because of a freer thought process. (Though they don't mess with semi-monopolies like Google, etc.!) > KM> No one in their right financial mind would spend > KM> resources on a linux desktop version that requires more than > KM> setting a target flag in the compiler. This is much easier with > KM> modern compilers targeting modern OSs, hence a lot of major apps > KM> (eg. LibreOffice, Softmaker Office, the KDE stable of desktop > KM> apps) are often available across platforms. > Makes sense. KM> KDE even runs a "binary factory" that automates cross-platform KM> builds (Windows, Mac, Android, others), tho that lately migrated KM> to Gitlab and is no longer the nice handy interface it used to KM> be. *($# if I can figure it out now. It's just bloody awful. Yes, seems a couple years ago Git did something which caused a lot of people to move away; probably what you are talking about. From my highly limited usage I seem to have more problems finding details now than before. > KM> However, hardware-level utilities are generally coded in Assembly > KM> Language, which does not port easily to another OS, precisely > KM> because it does its own hardware access. Same reason drivers > KM> aren't portable as such. > So might have several 'barriers'. First is the compiled for the > original OS. The human creating the code is trained and familiar with > that OS, so to create code for a second OS needs to learn that also. > ..A lot more details in there, of course. KM> And all that for a market segment that doesn't really exist. Or 'barely exists' might be more accurate. Watch out for those timy up-starts! > > KM> And given it's a flash drive... unless it's purely a filesystem > > KM> error, AFAIK it's not recoverable. > > Highly limited personal experience here so probably yes. Most of the > KM> It becomes like recovering data off a regular memory chip: it > KM> just ain't there. > Solid state drives (of whatever format) have numerous good points but > also some major bad points. Backups are even better now! KM> Yeah, that exactly. And some lose data if they sit unpowered for KM> very long. Oh-oh! ...As for the sitting unpowered issue, makes sense: effectively a battery in there to keep the 1 or 0 state. Probably 1 as 0 is off but might be some leakage. Eventually all those 1's use the stored energy. KM> Which is probably why they also suck a laptop dry just from KM> sitting there turned off. It's technically not off but a form of standby. > > problem cases are off-brands, though I had a quirk with all of the black > > and yellow ADATA thumbdrives eventually failed yet all of the black and > > blues ones are fine. Same seller, same capacity, purchased about the > > same time. > KM> I remember that. Likely different supplier for the chips and/or > KM> logic boards. Plus ADATA had a longstanding repute as crap, so I > KM> was not surprised. > The good news was I didn't loose anything other than time. KM> *whew* !! Really. LIS/implied up there, I tend to have multiple backups of important stuff. > KM> Otherwise, I wouldn't pay money for a flash drive of any > KM> description. > I've mainly used them for SneakerNet and Live Boot. KM> Yeah, that sort of thing where it's disposable, okay. NOT for KM> everyday or storage. I've had too much problem with them to trust fully. Some of the problems directly to faulty thumbdrives, some appears to have been to not knowing the rules. (Apparently USB 3 can do some weird things when the cable is over ten feet!) > > KM> http://doomgold.com/images/linux/fragmented.jpg > > To my thinking the only way to keep a file from fragmenting is to have a > > rule it needs to be laid down in one contiguous section -- and that > > might a bit of added difficulty with those bad segments. > KM> That is in fact how DOS does it, if there's room. That's > KM> supposedly how linux does it. Except the evidence is that linux > KM> does anything but. One suspects if there is ONE fragment, it just > KM> blows the rule away entirely and writes segments any damn place. > So may as well say it writes in segments; just appears like it doesn't > at the beginning because there is so much available room and 'easier' > not to figure out where to fragment. KM> IOW, it fibs about how it does things, and what you won't admit KM> happens you can't fix. Initially I'll say 'yup' but not so sure some of the problem isn't due to repeating of incorrect information or taken out of context. I was looking up the USB 3 cable length to verify was the 3m I remembered, first hit said something about 90m or some way-off number. I knew it was wrong so automaticalaly forgot it, but the way it was written if someone was looking up cable lengths and didn't have an idea they would have taken that 90m and not looked further. (I think the 90m was using a powered repeater.) Not saying the fragmentation issue isn't occurring, just sometimes a deep dig is needed. For me fragmentation doesn't seem to be causing problems. Sure, I might have to wait a few seconds for it to sort through 506 GB the first time (before gets journalled or whatever the proper term is). A huge business system -- that's bound to cause problems not seem in my relatively teeny-tiny system. Semi-tangent: I wait about that long for the hospital's on-line system to give me a report. No idea how big my personal patient records are, but multiply that by all the other patients and possibly payroll, general operations, security footage..... > KM> And my observation is that the linux filesystem is much more > KM> fragile in the event of an insult such as an ungraceful shutdown > KM> (and in the event, fsck will often just delete affected files, > KM> sucks to be you.) > I don't recall having that problem -- ungraceful shutdowns, yes; loss of > files, no. Have lost some work because I wasn't able to save/update a > file before the system freeze, but that's not what we're talking about. KM> Nope. This is "instead of fixing the file table entry, we'll nuke KM> the file". There is no predicting when it will do that, either, KM> but if it decides it needs a long session with fsck, you can KM> count on it. You think the file is still there, and it's not.... KM> fortunately all it's eaten are Youtube downloads, but some are no KM> longer available. How many times have we told you to do multiple backups?! And by multiple backups I'm thinking for really important stuff use different types of hardware: years ago I had an audio CD not play correctly. Thought just dirty (but I know to handle by edges, not use as coaster, etc.); flipped over -- euwww! Looked like the metal layer was peeling under the protective layer! > KM> I have also had linux delete whole swaths of the sacrificial > KM> drive because ONE file failed to copy TO that drive. > Linux senses your dislike and retaliates!! KM> This is the linux I love! But it cheats on me anyway!! It knows you don't like its friends! That 'taking a swath' sort of reminds me when I came home from work and the computer was 'wrong' -- I don't recall the visual but ended up the hard drive went from 250 GB to something like 20. Failure of the HDD, even though running some version of Windows at the time. (I probably didn't know Linux existed; TV recordings were done on multiple VCRs.) > > The fragmentation discussion almost points to a very good reason to > > start with a fresh system rather than upgrade. I don't recall reading > > about it specifically as they always seem to say 'files' which sort of > > gets thought of as the data -- stuff added by humans. Seems to me the > > Operating System files could just as easily get fragmented and > > eventually have problems. > KM> Really, it means only use SSDs and assume that periodically the > KM> system will still need a copy-and-back defragging. And never, > KM> ever write user data (especially cache or swap) to the same > KM> partition as the OS files. > Here the "big systems" have a SSD for the OS and hard drive for the > data. Off-hand not sure where the swap goes (which storage device). KM> SSDs and NVMes here for workspace and OS, HDD for storage. Pretty much the same here. The smaller/'less important' systems are running from a SSD (had to rephrase from what I originally typed because of the Raspberry Pi's) and those have a backup routine to HDD. > > Network the two, so 60 MB available. I'LL NEVER RUN OUT OF SPACE!!! > KM> Along come 12TB drives, and..... > Right now it appears I won't need anything that large, though a couple > of systems here are using 4 TB drives. KM> Famous Last Words. Yup! ...Right now I don't need more, though I know that's what I've said numerous times in the past. > > drive manufacturer and version/family would also need to be KM> address as > > well -- why would Western Digital create Black series for regular use > > and Red for a NAS? Data is data, but one group has faster writes while > > another faster reads. ...Just seems to be too many variables. > KM> NAS is expected to be more archival, doesn't need the speed, but > KM> needs max data reliability (which may mean more platters per TB). > KM> Black is a much faster drive, intended for desktop and gaming > KM> use. I have long thought Blue and Green were QC grades rather > KM> than different drives. > The lower grades make sense: why discard a good unit just because it > doens't meet the upper standard? Lots of people out there who would be > happy to pay a little less for a slightly slower drive. KM> Same reason we have Celeron and lower-speed CPUs to this day. The KM> ones in the center of the wafer are better quality. Around the KM> edges, to varying degrees less so. But still perfectly good KM> working chips, just can't count on 'em being as good. But that's KM> also why so many cheap CPUs can be drastically overclocked -- KM> they're actually as good, but can't count on it for sales KM> purposes. Right -- remmeber you saying that sometime back and from other sources. Personally I'm a bit shy on overclocking: running something constantly in 'overdrive' mode seems like asking for problems. ...I have over- clocked a few of the Pi's here without problems. More of a 'gentle overclock': couple of notches but nothing like 'flooring'. With three Pi's which are essentilly duplicates of each other two could use a higher value, the third wasn't happy and had to be turned down a notch. That's more tweaking hardware, so the position on the wafer seems to be making sense as for a 'why'. > KM> And some of it is just marketing. > Ooo! Pretty lights and flashy colours!! ...Some time back I bought some > (to me) off colour RAM. The specs wre identical, just (say) $100 for > black and $90 for red. The computer didn't care, I'd only see the RAM > when I go inside. ...Eventually spent the $10 on something else. KM> LOL. I don't want all that bling, it's needless heat and power KM> consumption. KM> So buy server RAM and no bling. I don't see the inside of my computers except when working on them so could care less about flashing lights -- in fact I'd find 'em distracting. > > And I'll bring up another tangent to file placement: I've noticed after > > a reboot if I ask for a GUI list of files in a subdirectory the first > > time it takes a while -- the more files the longer I'm waiting. But > > generally any time after the first inquiry it is an instantaneous > > response. Seems there's something working to counteract any slow > > response due to fragmentation. > KM> Has to rebuild the file cache, and apparently in Ubuntu that > KM> cache is not persistent. > Appears so. ...Maybe written to RAM for speedy access? KM> Evidently. MythTV says it does write stuff to RAM for a speedier response. A while back someone posted a question as to why a certain function in MythTV was showing 100%/near 100% usage of their RAM when the OS was only showing (say) 30%. The post was also asking if more RAM was needed. The answers were MythTV out into RAM what it could, so essentially that parameter would always/eventually show a high RAM usage. ...Seems no matter what OS is used the general rule is to install as much RAM as possible was the system will make use of it. > KM> Also if you have spinning rust drives set to sleep after X-long, > KM> it takes about 30 seconds for the drive to wake back up. > Right. I think this one is one all the time; would seem if sleeping > then I'd have the wait issue daily. KM> Likely so. One of mine silently runs an MP3 all the time because KM> otherwise it won't stay awake. The downside is it records a KM> spin-up each time the file plays. It's recorded something like KM> 17,000 spin-ups. I've seen small TV networks like that: "Good Grief! they're showing this episode again?!". Actually your little keep awake trick is clever! > > You need a larger hard drive to conveniently store the trivia! > KM> Why is the trivia the size of the universe??! > That's a piece of trivia unto itself! KM> It never ends! To infinity and beyond!! > KM> And the current Debian install (which hadn't been up in a year or > KM> so) is going "servers? what servers??" meaning it's gonna be a > KM> full reinstall instead of an upgrade. Good thing for it that it's > KM> just experimental and not an everyday-use setup. > May be a sneaky way to get around the upgrade problem! KM> LOL. Not so sneaky, and of course it wants to do an update during KM> install. NO NO NO I don't have six hours to babysit the damn KM> thing.... Start some time in the morning, let it do it's thing while you periodically check in. ...Lunch ...Dinner ...Overnight ...Check when wake up...... Of course you could sit there for an hour and as soon as you move way it needs a user input! ¯ ® ¯ BarryMartin3@MyMetronet.NET ® ¯ ® .... Some people have gingerbread houses - I have a Pizza Hut. --- 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) .