The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Adoby

One "strange" use of old laptops seems to be to use them as NAS boxes. Either just as NAS test benches or as a real NAS with a couple of big USB drives hanging from the USB ports. Just serving files on a network is pretty low-intensive work. Suitable for end-of-life hardware.

I don't find that strange at all. It strikes me as a good way to use old hardware you happen to have available, and the machines have enough power to do the job.

OMV (Open MediaVault, Debian with a web GUI for NAS services) is able to convert a very modest old box into a usable NAS.

A quick glance at the website doesn't show show minimum hardware requirements. What qualifies as a modest old box?

I prefer to use tiny single board ARM computers, SBCs, as OMV NAS boxes. With huge HDDs. 2GB Odroid HC2s. Store and stream media, backup clients and run IoT stuff. They replaced my venerable 4 bay Synology 411j NAS.

One single Odroid HC2 with a 12 TB HDD was enough to replace the Synology NAS that had 4x4 TB HDDs. And with much better performance.

The important thing to me is that hardware gets steadily smaller, faster, and cheaper, and you now can do that with a single board ARM based device.

On similar lines, a chap I interacted with elsewhere described upgrading a database server he was responsible for by replacing 16TB of SATA HDs with 16TB of 2TB Samsung SSDs. He got a quantum increase in performance. The box screamed through DB queries and updates.

The significant thing from my viewpoint was that SSDs had gotten cheap enough he could afford to do it. Lots of things have not been done historically because they were possible but simply too expensive. That is increasingly not a factor, and I think we are only seeing the tip of that particular iceberg.
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Dennis

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

A quick glance at the website doesn't show show minimum hardware requirements. What qualifies as a modest old box?

And do modest old MAC boxes work too? I don't know the base requirements for Linux distros; we've always had them on PC boxes.

[Blossom]

I got to laugh because I'm running Windows 10 and Firefox takes way longer than a minute to launch. Chrome takes several to launch and connect. My Windows 10 installation is definitely not snappy. Boot time is ridiculous. I just despise Windows 10. My husband laptop he got for his birthday last year has it and he's always asking me to do things that Microsoft removed. Mom's laptop also has it and it has nothing but problems. I finally gave my brother in Canada her TeamViewer info and let him deal with the mess.

My impression of Linux Mint is pretty positive so far. I see me putting it on the desktop once Vista goes the way of XP.
The desktop is quadcore and has 8GB of ram. It should run Cinnamon without issues. The only problem I forsee is the netbook is 32bit and I read 32bit will be dropped in a couple years. The desktop is 64bit.

Do I need a firewall with Linux? I know you said no antivirus needed. On my Window install I use an AV/Firewall and allow/deny setups.





Sent from my Moto E

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Blossom

They've made XP pretty much inoperable for internet this past year. It's time to install a different operating system on my netbook. I really have no choice.

So I'm looking at Linux Mint. What do you think? I want internet, ability to run a few office like Libre Office programs and some old windows programs like yWriter.

Its a Toshiba NB200 with RAM upgraded to 2GB.

Pros?
Cons?

This is a huge leap for me.

Will I need drivers for sound, keyboard like Windows does or how does that work? I am a total newbie to Linux.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

I run Linux Mint. For plain vanilla work it's just fine. I also have Virtual Box installed and run XP PRO Service Pack 2 as a guest OS. Get with me later for comments.

[Greg Anos]

By the way, I run Intel NUC boxes. And Acer Revo 1600 boxes. And a Zotac box. . .

6 machines in all. Two NUCs (2 i5s) running Linux mint 15 and two Acer XP PRO SP2 boxes, all tied together with a KMV switch set up.

The other two boxes are WIN 7 boxes, for dedicated purposes.

Oh yes, I have another 2 Celeron NUCs under construction. The wifi won't work on the Linux 17.1 I have handy, so i am waiting for a boot drive for 19.1, which will fix it. (The kernel of 17.1 is too old for the wifi drivers.)

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I got to laugh because I'm running Windows 10 and Firefox takes way longer than a minute to launch. Chrome takes several to launch and connect. My Windows 10 installation is definitely not snappy. Boot time is ridiculous. I just despise Windows 10. My husband laptop he got for his birthday last year has it and he's always asking me to do things that Microsoft removed. Mom's laptop also has it and it has nothing but problems. I finally gave my brother in Canada her TeamViewer info and let him deal with the mess.

What are the specs on the Win10 machine you're running?

The desktop here is a refurbished ex-corporate HP Small Form Factor box. The box came with Win7 Pro,with a 3.1-3.4ghz quadcore Intel i5-2400 CPU, 8GB RAM, a 500GB SATA HD, and onboard Intel HD2000 graphics.

I added a 240GB SSD from the failed desktop the current one replaced, and set it as boot drive. Win10 and applications live on the SSD. Data is on the HD.

I've been delighted. The box cold boots to a Win10 desktop in about 45 seconds. Firefox invokes in about 10 seconds, with the biggest lag being fully loading and initializing Gmail once it's up.

My machine is middle or low end by current standards, but performance is more than adequate for what I do. I can increase RAM to 32GB, but have no current need. I seldom see more than half of the RAM I have now used. Another upgrade would be a video card to replace the built-in Intel HD2000 graphics, but I'm not a gamer and feel no need to do so now. (I did originally install a low profile AMD-ATI card I'd gotten for the desktop this one replaced, but the Intel HD200 graphics performed better, so it's in a parts drawer.)

The last upgrades I made were adding a USB3 PCIe card, as the box didn't have USB3 on the motherboard, a USB3 external drive enclosure, and a Bluetooth dongle that installed in a front USB port. (I don't have much that uses BT, but the dongle cost about $10 and was for possible future expansion.)

Something is awry in your Win10 installation, but I have no idea what. Win10 here was an upgrade from Win7, but it didn't need more hardware and performance has been just as good.

My impression of Linux Mint is pretty positive so far. I see me putting it on the desktop once Vista goes the way of XP.

The desktop is quadcore and has 8GB of ram. It should run Cinnamon without issues. The only problem I forsee is the netbook is 32bit and I read 32bit will be dropped in a couple years. The desktop is 64bit.

I don't think you really care on the netbook. 32 bit may be dropped for newer versions, but older versions will still run, and support the applications you currently use. I had an ancient 32 bit notebook running Ubuntu 12.x and wasn't concerned. Various security patches got released for applications but not having a current Linux version wasn't a concern. I was vanishingly unlikely to get bit by the vulnerabilities that were patched.

Do I need a firewall with Linux? I know you said no antivirus needed. On my Window install I use an AV/Firewall and allow/deny setups.

Linux includes a firewall based on IPtables which is enabled by default. You don't need a third party product.

I'm behind a hardware firewall in my router here, so I'm less concerned about a software firewall on the desktop. The router firewall is secured with WPA2/PSK, and I took some pains to lock down the file systems of devices connecting through it. In general, the only connections allowed to the outside are those initiated from my machine. I don't do the sorts of things that require incoming connections I must open ports for.

Viruses are a Windows problem, and don't exist on Linux. There are Linux A/V products like ClamAV, but folks I know using them exchange files with Windows machines, and run AV to make sure they aren't passing along potential problems they won't see on Linux.

(On Windows, I use Microsoft Defender, and don't bother with third-party A/V. I run Defender mostly to keep Windows happy and wouldn't miss it if it was gone. I have layered defenses, practice Safe Hex, and don't do the sorts of things that let viruses onto the machine. The biggest defense is using Gmail as my primary address. The primary vector for virus delivery is email. My mailstore resides on Google's servers and I read/reply in my browser. Potential infections never reach my machine.

Back when I was running third party A/V, it was Symantec Corporate on XP. The only thing it ever "caught" was false positives. When the version I ran reached End Of Life and would not get signature updates, I asked myself if I really needed A/V and concluded I didn't. It went away and was not missed.)
______
Dennis

[Blossom]

I think it's a laptop thing. All three laptops have good specs my laptop is the oldest Samsung ATIV Book 4, Hubby is Lenovo Idealpad 330 and Mom's is a Dell Inspiron 15 all have Windows 10 Home. All seem to run laggish. I think hubby's is the fastest of the three. All but mine are running WD and WF as security. I use Avast with only file shield enable and tweak to run super light, Voodoo Shield Pro and Windows Firewall with a few lock down tweaks using system hardener. It's a very lightweight setup on resources but very secure. Windows Defender bogs my system down but runs fine on the other two.

I think all the background tasks that Win 10 does is to blame for the lagging.



Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

What are the specs on the Win10 machine you're running?

The desktop here is a refurbished ex-corporate HP Small Form Factor box. The box came with Win7 Pro,with a 3.1-3.4ghz quadcore Intel i5-2400 CPU, 8GB RAM, a 500GB SATA HD, and onboard Intel HD2000 graphics.

I added a 240GB SSD from the failed desktop the current one replaced, and set it as boot drive. Win10 and applications live on the SSD. Data is on the HD.

I've been delighted. The box cold boots to a Win10 desktop in about 45 seconds. Firefox invokes in about 10 seconds, with the biggest lag being fully loading and initializing Gmail once it's up.

My machine is middle or low end by current standards, but performance is more than adequate for what I do. I can increase RAM to 32GB, but have no current need. I seldom see more than half of the RAM I have now used. Another upgrade would be a video card to replace the built-in Intel HD2000 graphics, but I'm not a gamer and feel no need to do so now. (I did originally install a low profile AMD-ATI card I'd gotten for the desktop this one replaced, but the Intel HD200 graphics performed better, so it's in a parts drawer.)

The last upgrades I made were adding a USB3 PCIe card, as the box didn't have USB3 on the motherboard, a USB3 external drive enclosure, and a Bluetooth dongle that installed in a front USB port. (I don't have much that uses BT, but the dongle cost about $10 and was for possible future expansion.)

Something is awry in your Win10 installation, but I have no idea what. Win10 here was an upgrade from Win7, but it didn't need more hardware and performance has been just as good.


I don't think you really care on the netbook. 32 bit may be dropped for newer versions, but older versions will still run, and support the applications you currently use. I had an ancient 32 bit notebook running Ubuntu 12.x and wasn't concerned. Various security patches got released for applications but not having a current Linux version wasn't a concern. I was vanishingly unlikely to get bit by the vulnerabilities that were patched.


Linux includes a firewall based on IPtables which is enabled by default. You don't need a third party product.

I'm behind a hardware firewall in my router here, so I'm less concerned about a software firewall on the desktop. The router firewall is secured with WPA2/PSK, and I took some pains to lock down the file systems of devices connecting through it. In general, the only connections allowed to the outside are those initiated from my machine. I don't do the sorts of things that require incoming connections I must open ports for.

Viruses are a Windows problem, and don't exist on Linux. There are Linux A/V products like ClamAV, but folks I know using them exchange files with Windows machines, and run AV to make sure they aren't passing along potential problems they won't see on Linux.

(On Windows, I use Microsoft Defender, and don't bother with third-party A/V. I run Defender mostly to keep Windows happy and wouldn't miss it if it was gone. I have layered defenses, practice Safe Hex, and don't do the sorts of things that let viruses onto the machine. The biggest defense is using Gmail as my primary address. The primary vector for virus delivery is email. My mailstore resides on Google's servers and I read/reply in my browser. Potential infections never reach my machine.

Back when I was running third party A/V, it was Symantec Corporate on XP. The only thing it ever "caught" was false positives. When the version I ran reached End Of Life and would not get signature updates, I asked myself if I really needed A/V and concluded I didn't. It went away and was not missed.)
______
Dennis

One thing to remember about Linux Mint. Each release has it's own repository. (For those who don't know, that is a pile of various programs vetted to work with this particular Linux). Linux Mint is designed to default its app load to load from the repository. After several years (longer for a long release version) those repositories go away!. So if I want to run Linux Mint 7 (Gloria), I can, but I would really have to root around to find version of the software compatible with the Mint V7. So you may want to download a copy (or spend money as I do and buy) of the repositories for the release you are running. (I have the repository set for Mint 17.1). It was around 88 GB. (You have to point to the downloaded repository to install from it.) 128 GB SD chips are cheap nowadays. . .

One of the quirks of Linux. Also, newer hardware than the release period software may have driver problems. The 2 Celeron machines I'm putting together work fine under Mint 17.1, but their built-in wifi card does not. 19.1 will support those hardware drivers. . . .

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I think it's a laptop thing. All three laptops have good specs my laptop is the oldest Samsung ATIV Book 4, Hubby is Lenovo Idealpad 330 and Mom's is a Dell Inspiron 15 all have Windows 10 Home. All seem to run laggish. I think hubby's is the fastest of the three. All but mine are running WD and WF as security. I use Avast with only file shield enable and tweak to run super light, Voodoo Shield Pro and Windows Firewall with a few lock down tweaks using system hardener. It's a very lightweight setup on resources but very secure. Windows Defender bogs my system down but runs fine on the other two.

I think all the background tasks that Win 10 does is to blame for the lagging.

I don't see that here. What all are you running? (My SO has an ASUS laptop running Win10 Home. She doesn't see it either.)

How much RAM do you have? Win10 wants at least 3GB. The sweet spot seems to be 6GB. I have 8GB and things fly.

What HD does your laptop have? How fast is it? How big a page file do you use? What performance settings do you have configured?

How do you connect to the Internet? If you are connecting via a wireless router, the router likely has a hardware firewall. You may be going through more trouble than you have to.

I'd try an experiment. If you connect to the Internet via Wifi, turn it off on your laptop. Then disable Avast and other security products you run. Reboot, and see what boot time and program load time is like.

Windows Defender and Windows Firewall have no perceptible impact here. I run them to keep Windows happy, but would not miss them if they didn't exist. As mentioned, I'm behind a hardware firewall in my router, and don't actually need a software firewall on the desktop. And I don't do the sorts of things that let viruses in, so I could live without Windows Defender. The fact that Windows Defender does seem to be a resource hog on your machine makes me suspect configuration problems.

I suspect your attempts to secure your system may be part of your problem, and you may be going through more trouble than you have to.

Run Task Manager and look at the Processes tab. What's using CPU? How much RAM do you have? What's using it?

Click the Startup tab in Task Manager. What are you loading on startup? What does Task Manager say the performance impact is? Do you need all of those things loaded?

Something is odd about your installation, but without more details, I can't even guess at what.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

One thing to remember about Linux Mint. Each release has it's own repository. (For those who don't know, that is a pile of various programs vetted to work with this particular Linux). Linux Mint is designed to default its app load to load from the repository. After several years (longer for a long release version) those repositories go away!.

<blink> Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, which is in turn based on Debian. Ubuntu, the last I looked, did not have OS version specific repositories. Use apt-get to access the repository, and you only get shown stuff that will run under the version you have. IIRC, Ubuntu has a separate repository for older versions for folks with special needs. I also have various PPAs configured to get newer versions of things that have not yet made it into the official repository.

(Ubuntu has gotten flak for not having the most recent versions of things in the official repo. No surprise here. Like Red Hat, they offer supported commercial installations, and will want to make sure they can support what is in the repository, so bleeding edge stuff will need to go through an internal quality control effort before becoming part of the official repo.)

And the relationship between OS version and program version isn't the sort of lock step you see on Windows. Each new Windows release adds to the Windows API. This means limited backward compatibility. Programs require a particular API version and won't install/run on an older version of Windows that doesn't have it.

When I installed Win2K Pro on the machine I mentioned about, I had some stuff that required at least XP and would not run on it. There are likely programs now that require at least Win7 and won't run on XP.

New Linux versions may include kernel updates, but I can recall almost nothing I use that would not install and run on an older Ubuntu version. Drivers will be an exception, as anything that deals directly with the hardware may have kernel version dependencies

I will accept your word that you found it worthwhile to pay for a version specific copy of the repository you use. You are the first Linux user I know of who has found it necessary to do that. Most folks simply upgrade Linux versions.

One of the quirks of Linux. Also, newer hardware than the release period software may have driver problems. The 2 Celeron machines I'm putting together work fine under Mint 17.1, but their built-in wifi card does not. 19.1 will support those hardware drivers. . . .

That sort of thing bites on any OS.
______
Dennis

[Adoby]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

A quick glance at the website doesn't show show minimum hardware requirements. What qualifies as a modest old box?

OMV (Debian with headless NAS software added) minimum hardware requirements:
Any architecture/hardware that can run Debian Linux. 256 MiB RAM. 2 GiB hard drive, solid-state drive, or USB flash drive with static wear leveling support for the OS. 1 hard drive, solid-state drive, or USB flash drive for storing user data.

The "static wear leveling" is not absolutely true. OMV can reduce writing to flash memory to a minimum by using tempfs and various other tricks. But that may require more than 256 MiB RAM.

I run OMV with the root fs on micro SD cards. Except for one that has / on a SSD and another on a SSHD. Nice for running docker containers like Emby. About to try to put both Emby and NextCloud on the SSHD one. It may be a birthday gift to a relative. It seems that NextCloud has a plugin for reading ebooks on the NAS in a browser window. Curious...

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I don't see that here. What all are you running? (My SO has an ASUS laptop running Win10 Home. She doesn't see it either.)



How much RAM do you have? Win10 wants at least 3GB. The sweet spot seems to be 6GB. I have 8GB and things fly.



What HD does your laptop have? How fast is it? How big a page file do you use? What performance settings do you have configured?



How do you connect to the Internet? If you are connecting via a wireless router, the router likely has a hardware firewall. You may be going through more trouble than you have to.



I'd try an experiment. If you connect to the Internet via Wifi, turn it off on your laptop. Then disable Avast and other security products you run. Reboot, and see what boot time and program load time is like.



Windows Defender and Windows Firewall have no perceptible impact here. I run them to keep Windows happy, but would not miss them if they didn't exist. As mentioned, I'm behind a hardware firewall in my router, and don't actually need a software firewall on the desktop. And I don't do the sorts of things that let viruses in, so I could live without Windows Defender. The fact that Windows Defender does seem to be a resource hog on your machine makes me suspect configuration problems.



I suspect your attempts to secure your system may be part of your problem, and you may be going through more trouble than you have to.



Run Task Manager and look at the Processes tab. What's using CPU? How much RAM do you have? What's using it?



Click the Startup tab in Task Manager. What are you loading on startup? What does Task Manager say the performance impact is? Do you need all of those things loaded?



Something is odd about your installation, but without more details, I can't even guess at what.

______

Dennis

Samsung ATIV Book 4*NP470R5E-K02UB 15.6-Inch Laptop (2.0 GHz Intel Core i7-3537U Processor, 8GB Memory, 750GB Hard Drive, Windows 8) Mineral Ash Black.

I think the WD issue is hardware configuration related. I ran for a week with nothing but Windows Defender and default firewall and the computer was just bogged down. Switching to a lightweight AV such as Avast and tweaking it to run light showed a 80% difference. Even now with my latest security setup it runs significantly better than without. My whole security setup takes less than 50MB of RAM. I am quite happy with it.

As for what I use it for Firefox with Facebook nothing else usually other than ebooks stuff like Calibre, ADE. I do have Microsoft Office 2016 installed and I know it's telemetry is always running for something. I no longer have Cortana issues. She's disabled. I think Microsoft and their weird select updates they keep sending a handful of us are also causing issues. I don't like my laptop is their experiment. I don't remember signing up for any program. Perhaps Samsung did....

No WiFi on my laptop causes havoc. It takes forever to login when it can't reach Microsoft.

I do have a router but it doesn't have a firewall built in. I keep task manager running. Performance is okay till all the background stuff starts happening. Firefox also uses alot of CPU. I'll post a screenshot next time I have the laptop running. Why one Firefox tab needs 8 processes is beyond me.

Sent from my Moto E

[Blossom]

Thanks to everyone. My netbook feels all new and shiny now. I got it up and running. Every snag is all worked out. I've learned so much in the past couple of days. I'm going to sleep like a baby from using my brain so much. Deb files, Tarball, Terminal, Sudo, repositories........so much information.

Big bonus is Scrivener on Linux is free. It may not be the latest and greatest but it's decent. So I don't need yWriter. I've also discovered Zim Wiki which will take the place of Flashnote. And Libre Office is preinstalled. I'm all set.

Sent from my Moto E

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

<blink> Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, which is in turn based on Ubuntu. Ubuntu, the last I looked, did not have OS version specific repositories. Use apt-get to access the repository, and you only get shown stuff that will run under the version you have. IIRC, Ubuntu has a separate repository for older versions for folks with special needs. I also have various PPAs configured to get newer versions of things that have not yet made it into the official repository.

(Ubuntu has gotten flak for not having the most recent versions of things in the official repo. No surprise here. Like Red Hat, they offer supported commercial installations, and will want to make sure they can support what is in the repository, so bleeding edge stuff will need to go through an internal quality control effort before becoming part of the official repo.)

And the relationship between OS version and program version isn't the sort of lock step you see on Windows. Each new Windows release adds to the Windows API. This means limited backward compatibility. Programs require a particular API version and won't install/run on an older version of Windows that doesn't have it.

When I installed Win2K Pro on the machine I mentioned about, I had some stuff that required at least XP and would not run on it. There are likely programs now that require at least Win7 and won't run on XP.

New Linux versions may include kernel updates, but I can recall almost nothing I use that would not install and run on an older Ubuntu version. Drivers will be an exception, as anything that deals directly with the hardware may have kernel version dependencies

I will accept your word that you found it worthwhile to pay for a version specific copy of the repository you use. You are the first Linux user I know of who has found it necessary to do that. Most folks simply upgrade Linux versions.


That sort of thing bites on any OS.
______
Dennis

Dennis, on PCs I am a tool user, not a tool builder. (I do <that> professionally on the mainframe).

With Linux Mint, there is a lot of "mothballing" for beginners (like me). You can go to the menu, select software manager and select a package for download, and it will install like a windows installer app. No terminal commands required. However, the download software looks for particular repositories kept by the Mint organization. (All mothballed away from the user's eye.) Those Mint org repositories go away when the support term ends for that particular release.

Now you can "get under the hood" and redirect the repository name (if you have a copy) and have the "mothballing" software to load from the new name. Or you can "open the hood" and get things with the terminal command.

Am I getting the most out of Linux? Absolutely not! But one of the "rules" of Linux has always been - you can run any release you like, no matter how old. So I <don't> upgrade a working, stable, system to a new release (I do upgrade patches to the release on the "dirty" (internet) box, but not the sterile box). 'Til death of the hardware do we part. . .

Blossom, like myself, just wants a working, easy to use, replacement for WIN 10. Linux Mint does the job, I'd just thought I would point out some of the quirks (for minimal users).

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Adoby

OMV (Debian with headless NAS software added) minimum hardware requirements:
Any architecture/hardware that can run Debian Linux. 256 MiB RAM. 2 GiB hard drive, solid-state drive, or USB flash drive with static wear leveling support for the OS. 1 hard drive, solid-state drive, or USB flash drive for storing user data.

Okay, thanks.

The "static wear leveling" is not absolutely true. OMV can reduce writing to flash memory to a minimum by using tempfs and various other tricks. But that may require more than 256 MiB RAM.

And a question becomes how much you care.

The boot drive on my desktop is a 240GB SSD. The OS and programs I run live on it. Data is on a SATA HD. Like most consumer applications of the tech, the device is read from far more than it is written to. I expect to replace the entire machine long before the drive shows perceptible signs of wear, so write endurance simply isn't a concern.

I run OMV with the root fs on micro SD cards. Except for one that has / on a SSD and another on a SSHD. Nice for running docker containers like Emby. About to try to put both Emby and NextCloud on the SSHD one. It may be a birthday gift to a relative. It seems that NextCloud has a plugin for reading ebooks on the NAS in a browser window. Curious...

Reading eBooks on the NAS in a browser window is not something I'd do, but the fact that someone created a plugin for it is fascinating.
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Dennis