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Thread: Linux (Ubuntu, etc)

  1. #51
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  2. #52
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    Quote Originally Posted by George View Post
    Graphics: Intel Q33
    https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/g...el+Q33+Express

  3. #53
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    Wow, that's almost magical.

  4. #54
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    It's still worth what I paid for it.

  5. #55
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    I've recently sold two.
    (real money)

  6. #56
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    Turn it into an emulation station.

  7. #57
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mk View Post
    I've recently sold two.
    (real money)
    Are you saying people are paying money for ten-year-old PCs, or am I missing the point?

    Quote Originally Posted by Yw-slayer
    Turn it into an emulation station.
    Googled that. Looks complicated, but I'll read more.

    I wonder if I couldn't use DosBox to do something similar. I tried with the last Ubuntu computer I had, but I know so little about the file system in Ubuntu that I couldn't find the MAME files or whatever they were called to launch the various arcade games after downloading them. Damn. No Duke Nukem 3D for me.

    I had that same problem with other downloads that weren't from the Ubuntu app store or whatever it's called. Those "official" apps self-install just fine, including a handy icon in the taskbar, but things from other websites that say they're Ubuntu-compatible appear to download to somewhere but then I don't know what to do next.

    Example: I remember on my last Ubuntu machine seeing a message saying Firefox was outdated and I should click here to download or update the new version. I did and saw something download to somewhere, but Firefox kept saying it was out of date. I'm sure there was the Linux equivalent of an .exe file somewhere, but I didn't know how to proceed.

    I also have a problem waking this newest old computer after Ubuntu puts it to sleep after so many minutes of non-use. The screen goes black and the PC quiets down but still has a green light indicating it's on. Neither my son or I can figure out how to wake it up again without "crashing" it by holding in the power switch until it restarts. Surely that isn't how it's supposed to be.

    But I'm not asking for help here - just commenting a little about the OS. I like it very much, but need to learn more about it.

  8. #58
    Subaru Unimpreza SportWagon's Avatar
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    As to the detail of Firefox updates, 16.04 Firefox should stay up-to-date enough via regular apt/dpkg maintenance (done by a GUI which wakes up occasionally, or via)
    Code:
    george@ubuntu$ sudo apt-get update
    george@ubuntu$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
    (Enter password when prompted, and reply "yes" to apply the indicated updates).

    There was a time when Firefox tended slip out of apt update mode, especially after a system upgrade, but its file locations have been regularized now and so Ubuntu packaging (apt, dpkg) tends to keep it up-to-date.

    Spoiler:

    Under Linux a .exe will tend to simply have no extension; the output from "ls -ld" will have "x" to indicate the file is executable (usually three, e.g.

    Code:
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root root   157888 Oct  3 08:25 /usr/lib/firefox/firefox
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root root     2667 Oct  3 06:11 /usr/lib/firefox/firefox.sh
    That's to be confused, of course, with a directory, where "x" means "searchable".

    Code:
    drwxr-xr-x    3 root root     4096 Oct  5 06:24 /etc/firefox
    When I experiment, both "/usr/lib/firefox/firefox.sh" and "/usr/lib/firefox/firefox" behave similarly, though in my case bringing up a chooser. So I create a new profile and get to see Crash Bandicoot (well, it sure looks like Crash Bandicoot) looking at a sunrise. (Or is it sunset?)

    And sigh, come interpreters, e.g. php, will interpret files without the "x" perfectly well.


    Quote Originally Posted by George View Post
    I also have a problem waking this newest old computer after Ubuntu puts it to sleep after so many minutes of non-use. The screen goes black and the PC quiets down but still has a green light indicating it's on. Neither my son or I can figure out how to wake it up again without "crashing" it by holding in the power switch until it restarts. Surely that isn't how it's supposed to be.
    When it does that again, try hitting "CTRL-ALT-F1" (altogether; well sequentially will do, so you end up with all three keys pressed at once; er, that is, analogous to "CTRL-ALT-DEL", duh). And then, after releasing, maybe hit "Return" a couple of times. You might get a login prompt for a dumb terminal command-line login session. If you enter your username (which you might not actually know because of the nature of the GUI login) and password you will then be in bare-bones Linux. At that point you would at least to be able to shutdown or restart it cleanly. Getting the screen to wake up that way probably wouldn't be trivial. Although there's a remote chance "CTRL-ALT-F7" would bring the GUI back to life after that. (tty7 being where the GUI normally runs) (I am assuming here that you've already tried typing on the keyboard and jiggling the mouse; I had one machine go unresponsive like that recently, it's sort of annoying).

    Perhaps play with the "CTRL-ALT-F1" (or F2,F3,F4,F5,F6) screens just for fun/educational purposes some time, anyway.


    Code:
    george@ubuntu$ sync
    george@ubuntu$ sudo reboot
    Or
    Code:
    george@ubuntu$ sync
    george@ubuntu$ sudo shutdown now

    As to third-party packages, it's been a long time since I downloaded any.
    Last edited by SportWagon; November 6th, 2017 at 11:21 AM.

  9. #59
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    Quote Originally Posted by George View Post
    Are you saying people are paying money for ten-year-old PCs, or am I missing the point?
    Yes, the first one.

    The point you are missing is that DOS is not dead, needs to be connected and is not supported.
    AFAIK W2k to Vista and Linux Samba can be used for linking and recently Samba has been less than stabile.
    So if you dont want Linux and want to keep your stuff legal you need to find an old Windows license.
    (embedded ARM something may also be possible)

    For sleep mode,
    you can check your Linux GUI by booting the machine with monitor disconnected.
    If afterwards connected monitor stays dark you can be sure you will have problems.
    GUI can be started with startx but having many of them is possibly not so good.

  10. #60
    Subaru Unimpreza SportWagon's Avatar
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    I sort of suspect his system goes to a mode where all ttys (displays and keyboard) have gone to sleep somehow. I would guess he or his son would have tried CTRL-ALT-DEL and it probably didn't visibly respond, so CTRL-ALT-F1 probably won't make a visible change either.

    Of course, I don't use CTRL-ALT-DEL very often with Linux, and when I try it now on a laptop it seems unreliable and never goes into any useful intercept, but occasionally does an emergency reboot, only slightly safer than power cycle. So, in short, I think my CTRL-ALT-F1 suggestion stands.

    My most recent laptop (a different one) did go into the dark and no response mode once, and I don't think CTRL-ALT-F1 worked and I did the power cycle thing. That laptop keeps getting better with every update, especially kernel updates however. The same can't be expected to happen for ancient hardware, however. (Of course, in both my case and theirs. there is the possibility the whole system has just crashed).

    They probably don't run an ssh server on the box and likely wouldn't have any clients to ssh into it when it's in dark mode either. Leaving aside the fact that command-line mode is mostly a mystery to them, I think.

    http://matt.might.net/articles/basic-unix/
    tries to be a quick tutorial of sorts.
    Last edited by SportWagon; November 7th, 2017 at 08:43 AM.

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