The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[Renate]

Originally Posted by Martinoptic

... and causing a fire the worst.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I could never see the point of it.

It was one of the earlier attempts at a modern (read: not based on legacy BSD work) filesystem.

Originally Posted by DNSB

My major issue with the plethora of Linux distributions is that most of them seem to go out of their way to supply incompatibilities. Within distro families, it's not as bad but if you go from a distribution family to a different family (Slackware, Arch or SUSE or pretty much any other family) distribution, a wipe and reinstall (or in my case, spinning up a new VM) is the best way to go.

That's simply a consequence of using different packaging systems and/or repositories. See previous about metadata tags and no standards, or too many "standards". It's the same thing.

MY biggest problem with so many distros is that we get forks and chains and who knows how long any of them will last. I've been considering reinstalling my home server with Devuan, a Debian fork, especially since my attempt at upgrading from Debian 12 to Debian 13 last night failed miserably -- first time that's happened to me since I've been using Debian and that was Debian 6. But if Devuan ends then that leaves me... needing to reinstall again?

[Cactus Chef]

Originally Posted by ratinox

MY biggest problem with so many distros is that we get forks and chains and who knows how long any of them will last. I've been considering reinstalling my home server with Devuan, a Debian fork, especially since my attempt at upgrading from Debian 12 to Debian 13 last night failed miserably -- first time that's happened to me since I've been using Debian and that was Debian 6. But if Devuan ends then that leaves me... needing to reinstall again?

Well when you decide to use a distro whose whole raison d'être is that they don't like systemd, you have to assume the risk that at some point it will become stale/irrelevant. It's a knee-jerk reaction to some initial change that often smooths out over time until it's no longer needed.

[Renate]

What's the beef with systemd?
It's not the most inspired bit of code that I've ever seen, but it does the job.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by Renate

What's the beef with systemd?
It's not the most inspired bit of code that I've ever seen, but it does the job.

That depends on whether you're a sysadmin or a distro maintainer.

If you're a maintainer then it's great. It pushes service startup, which used to be your responsibility, onto the package maintainer.

If you're a sysadmin then it's a pain in the <ahem!>. One of my biggest problems with systemd is that it starts system services such as NFS mounts before the network interfaces are plumbed and configured. So for me, it doesn't do the job. It makes my job more difficult.

[Cactus Chef]

Originally Posted by Renate

What's the beef with systemd?
It's not the most inspired bit of code that I've ever seen, but it does the job.

Something something, Lennart Poettering, "UNIX philosophy!", conspiracy about encroaching influence of Redhat/IBM, and so forth.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

Well when you decide to use a distro whose whole raison d'être is that they don't like systemd, you have to assume the risk that at some point it will become stale/irrelevant. It's a knee-jerk reaction to some initial change that often smooths out over time until it's no longer needed.

That's my fear about jumping ship. But it isn't knee-jerk -- or not just knee-jerk. systemd is an actual problem for me and my job. NFS mounts being one already noted. NIS is another service that systemd tries to start before the network is up.

Worse still, wrapping a "is the network up" test in a systemd unit file doesn't work: for example, if you try to ping the network gateway within a unit and it "fails" because the interfaces are still negotiating with the switches, systemd treats it as a unit failure and kills the whole unit. The only thing that works mostly consistently is to sleep 2-3 minutes and then start the service -- which defeats systemd's promise of faster boot times.

Never mind that shaving seconds off of boot times is meaningless when servers take 5-10 minutes to POST before they even get to the OS boot process.

[ownedbycats]

Well I feel stupid. In the past month, my cat knocked my audio aux cable off the desk and I ran it over with chair. Today it seemed to stop working.

Went out and got a cheap dollar-store replacement until I could order a better one. Connected it and realized that the speaker was just on the lowest volume.

Oh well, I have a backup now.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by ratinox

Never mind that shaving seconds off of boot times is meaningless when servers take 5-10 minutes to POST before they even get to the OS boot process.

You're wrong! Shaving off every seconds counts. Especially when you boot the system as often as I do.

Booted 975 days ago

*Actual uptime

[Cactus Chef]

Originally Posted by Renate

You're wrong! Shaving off every seconds counts. Especially when you boot the system as often as I do.

Booted 975 days ago

*Actual uptime

Man, and I thought my 90 day uptime on my personal laptop was bad.

Sure makes that 6-month release cycle on Fedora a bit of a pain, though.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by DNSB

What standard for adding metadata to the music would you prefer?

There's no need for a new standard for updating metadata. Just provide the information in already-existing tags since all audio formats (with the except of WAV) already have an available system for storing metadata. There is no reason that can't be done, and the capability is already there, it just needs to be done. That is the issue, and that is what is frustrating.

[DNSB]

Perhaps the universal converter?

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Perhaps the universal converter?

On the pump nozzle, you also need a setting for 86, 88, 90, and 92.

Also, a WM-Port Connector (for older Sony Walkman) is needed.

[BetterRed]

And a 3 phase Type 2 for the new Xiaomi YU7 phone EV

[nana77]

Originally Posted by Quoth

There are schools with no books. We have some in Limerick. Sadly they use iPads which the parents have to buy. The pupils/students never get to keep the books. Admittedly most cheap (not all) Android tablets are not suitable.

Other schools (often in USA) use Chromebooks.

The Kindle DX/DXG was initially aimed at 3rd level education. It was a failure and Amazon sold them off cheap.

I don't believe any eink reader is suitable. Also there is the problem of DRM and the fact that textbooks are usually PDF.

It's a reasonable goal.

Maybe this section could be more suitable for the topic, pardon: anyway I guess that those devices were introduced during Covid lockdowns, as to use 'em for video distance teaching...
Also a device that goes out of support after few years won't be the bestest option for those pourposes - imho. There are several ones that doesn't relies on DRM's tough.
Still I see some colleagues that goes at univerities and has just bunches of photocopies.
Personally (even if I don't go at uni/schools) I'd would had liked if them went to use https://retroshare.cc/.
Also a physical book would always be better than a screen, but an ereader that someone can keep years (thought now them has water-resistant features, and screen-scratch protection) won't be that bad (also for youngest kids).