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[Toady One]

So, yeah, when I was going through the release protocol, I fired up my Linux computer after a year or so of it being off...  and the fan sort of sputtered on, seems to have power, but no signal is going to the monitor.  And...  that's about the extent of my computer knowledge.

I'd like to get this sorted out as soon as I can, but I'm not sure what the best path forward is, as it has been a very long time since I've had to deal with anything along these lines.  It would be cool, if the hard drive still works, if I could just boot up off that somehow, running from another computer, or through some cheap new computer, as it's probably unlikely I can repair this thing, unless people have ideas.

I have backups of the linux DF itself, but it's still a major pain to get that system built again, as we've experienced in the past.

[Max™]

Linux is plug and play with hardware, I've got five or six different drives from totally different computers with different operating system combinations that I just hooked up to my new motherboard and can mount any time.

[shazow]

If nothing is showing on the monitor, unless one of the plugs is not plugged in all the way, I'd bet that the power supply is faulty. The hard drive is likely fine.

Can you share more about your hardware requirements for the release protocol?

If something as tiny as 1GB of RAM would work, a RaspberryPI might be a fun/easy solution to use with basically no moving parts.

[Toady One]

I'm not exactly sure -- MSVC in Windows will happily chug away on 3GB with the incremental linker, but I don't know if it needs to be doing that, or what it was doing in Linux.  I should have taken some notes.  Not sure if experienced Linux people can tell me offhand if 1GB would be fine for a reasonable bulky project.

That is the kind of solution I'm looking for.  The desktop side of this is something I'd like to cut out if possible.  The Mac Mini has been good for me, and it's still running after like...  a zillion years or whatever.  Some little throwaway critter that plugs into a monitor, keyboard and mouse and external drive would be just as nice.

[procyon112]

One option needs no computer.

1) Create an amazon AWS account.

2) Fire up an EC2 machine using a default Linux, such as Ubuntu Server (cost is only a few cents an hour).

3) SSH up the files you need and perform build/test. SSH down the finished product.

4) Shut down server.

This setup means not having to deal with hardware at all and just pay a few cents whenever you need a build.

[superbob]

Consider using a Virtualbox VM, if you're lucky you might even be able to use the HDD image from the dead laptop.

[Lightman]

If something as tiny as 1GB of RAM would work, a RaspberryPI might be a fun/easy solution to use with basically no moving parts.

A Raspberry PI is not a good option. It uses an ARM CPU and the resulting executable would not run on x86/64 computers. It would be entertaining to see how the ARM version performed but that can't happen at the expense of the more popular (and generally more robust) platform.

[Mesa]

If something as tiny as 1GB of RAM would work, a RaspberryPI might be a fun/easy solution to use with basically no moving parts.

A Raspberry PI is not a good option. It uses an ARM CPU and the resulting executable would not run on x86/64 computers. It would be entertaining to see how the ARM version performed but that can't happen at the expense of the more popular (and generally more robust) platform.

Surely cross-compilation would be possible, though?
Then again a Pi wold probably also just kind of take forever to actually build on, though.


Another possibility, though it's Windows 10-only, is to use the WSL, which is basically a Linux distro of your choice (currently there's Ubuntu, OpenSUSE and SLES, but only Ubuntu is the one that matters I guess) running concurrently to Windows, in a shell.
Should be good enough for compiling the game, though not so much running it (WSL is pretty much solely for dev purposes, not so much regular graphical desktop usage), outside of text mode.

[Bumber]

Try pulling out the RAM one at a time. Even if the RAM isn't the issue, it could cause the computer to magically start working again.

Well, that's my experience with technology, anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Lightman]

If something as tiny as 1GB of RAM would work, a RaspberryPI might be a fun/easy solution to use with basically no moving parts.

A Raspberry PI is not a good option. It uses an ARM CPU and the resulting executable would not run on x86/64 computers. It would be entertaining to see how the ARM version performed but that can't happen at the expense of the more popular (and generally more robust) platform.

Surely cross-compilation would be possible, though?
Then again a Pi wold probably also just kind of take forever to actually build on, though.

Another possibility, though it's Windows 10-only, is to use the WSL, which is basically a Linux distro of your choice (currently there's Ubuntu, OpenSUSE and SLES, but only Ubuntu is the one that matters I guess) running concurrently to Windows, in a shell.
Should be good enough for compiling the game, though not so much running it (WSL is pretty much solely for dev purposes, not so much regular graphical desktop usage), outside of text mode.

That's true. I'd expect cross-compiling to work. But it would add another level of complexity to the process that would be undesirable.

I do wonder if WSL would work...

[Rose]

Assuming the DF buildchain is anything like DFhack, WSL will work, but will be strictly 64-bit only.

The easiest option right now is just to stick the linux hard drive into the windows computer and see if it boots.

[Lightman]

Assuming the DF buildchain is anything like DFhack, WSL will work, but will be strictly 64-bit only.

The easiest option right now is just to stick the linux hard drive into the windows computer and see if it boots.

Good call.

[thvaz]

It could be a RAM problem with no image shows up at all.

That said, I would recommend getting rid of many computers and start using virtual machines. They are quite simple to set up and easy to understand.

[George_Chickens]

Do you get any beep codes? I had a similar problem a couple months back, and it turned out that the GPU had somehow been knocked out of place. Another time I just banged on the back a few times and it started working again.

Try thoroughly cleaning it with compressed air, reseating the RAM and ensuring that the GPU is in place. Check all plugs on the inside for soot and filth, I've had multiple burn out on my older computers. If you do all of this and it's still screwing up, I'm betting its a power supply problem.

[Toady One]

I'm of course out of my depth here...  there's no beeping, and I don't really see any RAM to pull out -- most of these slots are empty.  No signs of fire and stuff seems seated.

Just in case it ends up being relevant, I have a USB hard drive enclosure coming.  It's Thanksgiving, so I figured it'd be as fast to order it as grab it from the store, where I'm at, but I might be off by a day.  In any case, hopefully I can test the drive after that.  I don't have another desktop to test the drive in before then, and I'm not aware of something else I can do.  I'm not sure my Windows or Mac laptops are relevant in terms of attaching the drive once it's on USB, if the drive works at all -- can they even tell if it works?

It'd be nice to solve the problem overall with a virtual machine, though, yeah, I imagine people wanted to keep 32 bit Linux going for longer than one release after we spent all that time getting that chroot thing sorted out.