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[Schmaven]

Ended up stripping one of the screws to the controller, so I can't even open it up to check what repair I need to do or even if I can make the repair or not. That's not quite true, I can partially open it up around the docking connector, and see as far as the battery connections, but I don't see anything particularly out of place from the limited view I have. It's not impossible to drill through the bad screw, but I don't know how I'd keep the controller casing from coming apart at that corner which is next to the release button - and it is a limited edition controller skin.

Have you tried a screw extractor bit?  Might be worth the $10 if it's a valuable limited edition skin.

[Iduno]

Can someone explain the differences in NoScript and UBlock to me?

[Lord Shonus]

They target different things. NoScript prevents websites from running scripts (which are basically little programs executed by your browser), while uBlock blocks media elements. There's some overlap, of course, but the thrust of their targeting is not the same.

[delphonso]

While moving files from my computer to a USB drive - if the files are large, usually the process hangs forever. I've heard this is a common gnome issue (we're talking about 4+gb files).

I have gotten around it by just opening the console and using mv (file) (usb drive).

Why does this work and the graphical interface doesn't? What is the file manager doing that I am bypassing?

[Starver]

It'll depend on the OS (or particular file-manager subsystem invoked), but I'd hazard a guess that it's doing some parallel, or even preparatory, 'housework' on the file(s) involved in the intended move, which the CLI equivalent command avoids or just does as-and-when, much more smoothly. (Or, if it fails, fails differently.)

Spoiler: Waffle (click to show/hide)

You'll sometimes spot this when the Ctrl-X (or Ctrl-V) has to 'build' data and hasn't yet done so before you quickly Alt-Tab and Ctrl-V in another folder (or Paste is still a greyed option under the ContextMenu, even though the Cut/Copy seems to have happened upon the selected source). And I've not seen it so much under *nix window managers, but I know Windows has often a bad habit of (so it seems) simultaneously deciding to trawl any and all selected folders/files to try to grab sidebar info like total file sizes or thumbnail image(s) which, in a move operation, can then cause the process to abort because some file is "still in use". The only thing actually using said file-object being the OS! Redo the move with the remainder and it progresses, maybe sticking at a later file, etc.

(And while it may even be due to adding up the intended move-space and the available destination-space, I'm not sure when the last time was that I've ever seen any system refuse to start to do a copy under such circumstances. In fact, I fairly regularly (too often!?!) start a 'hopeless' move from one location to another knowing that I'm going to make an equally 'hopeless' move in the opposite direction, but that will (or should!) incrementally create enough space to abort neither move. So I don't think any system actually tries to molly-coddle me and predict that I won't happily deal with my own self-imposed problem, these days[1]. But perhaps there remain coded remnants of original one-at-a-time expectations, back when there was at least the memory of only ever a single valid file operation at a time.)


As to 'hanging', maybe it has somehow stumbled while creating an idea for itself of exactly which (possibly non-consecutive) disk-sectors the source file is composed of, for reasons best known to itself. The exact mysteries behind it might be something the actual authors of the kernel/add-on code involved would understand (or an emergent property between different authors' works, might even surprise them!) but one tends to have one's own pet theories about why various glitches or hiccoughs occur within the largely uninspectable black-box behind the user interface that Explain All Known Facts, and sometimes I think I have an almost anthropomorphising intuition about what the system is 'thinking'. But I'd have to be fairly used to a given system to make it anything more than a inkling, and I'd be hesitant to suggest for sure what your *nix(-like?) system is 'thinking', even based upon my own *nix system experience, especially with so many possible base distros and variant distinct flavours of interface on top of them.

aka: Just One Of Those Things?


[1] And if command-line copies/moves regularly had an ETA (however clearly inaccurate they can sometimes be), I'd probably use them more than the GUI-equivalents. As it is, with something apparently to take 30 minutes to move from AAA to BBB and something else simultaneously to take 10 minutes to move from BBB to CCC, I can start to guess that I've got ~20 minutes until both are complete (unless I see those estimates vary wildly or I'm crossing different bandwidths of FIFO). Assuming that the starting free-space + movable chunks isn't likely to hit a temporilary stop in one direction or other. But that's more an art, of juggling, not a science.

...that's not to ignore the possibility of any AV (or similar) process deciding to real-time scan the data during/before it is getting passed around, which might mean unpacking compressed files (at least enough to identify the scan-worthy raw files that might be contained with). But that adds yet another 'personality' to try to psychoanalyse within the computationally composite 'mind'.

[Starver]

Ok, a quick question from me, looking for some Cliff Notes to fill in a known gap in my knowledge.

Spoiler: Previously unspoilered long 'question', which really does just boil down to the TL;DR; below... (click to show/hide)

It looks like I'll be helping someone get a new laptop, which'll mean both having them migrate onto Win11 (which I've hardly ever touched, and barely much more Win10 even if it hasn't changed much) and also the latest(/recent) generation of internal hardware that's traditionally a lot more proprietry. I tend to advise against laptops, due to less bang-for-your-buck than a desktop (that I could even build myself, to suit), so I'm perhaps not as updated on them as I'd like. But this person actually does need it to be portable, rather than the usual reason of aesthetics (how it sits on the table it always sits on!) or blindly following the "thinner means more concentrated power" idea.

Requirements are more towards storage than processor speed/cores (or fancy GPUs), given that almost anything I'll get will be faster (also 64-bit, v.s. current 32-bit), but there'll be a trend towards SSDs which have tended to be less capacious than a similar price-pointed platter-disk. (But if we're already looking at double-or-more whatever it is the old machine has, I could perhaps bear that decision... With now just worries about lifetime.)

Use-wise, not a games/media machine (but image-editing, so larger screen size will be a draw; stylus/touch-screen not necessary, though doubtless would get used), just a basic data workhorse that gets lugged around and that'll occasionally be plugged into a projector for slideshows/presentations. (Hmm, the projector's a solidly VGA-era one, served by 15-pin D-sub, so might also need a converter dongle if it's almost certainly HDMI/whatever output, these days. ...note to self!)

Gonna probably mean a number of changes of software - at least version - on top of the whole-skin change of Windows. And that worries me, already, as I'm personally disillusioned with MS's direction but also the end-user in this case can get lost if some toolbar item mysteriously moves (or 'moves') since last she looked. But this user definitely doesn't want linux and I'm keeping them away from anything like Mac or Chromebook, for practical reasons beyond the aforementioned. (Not least that I know even less about their OS internals than I think I do about MS's latest offering, and some software choices/continuations will definitely be inflicted on us by shifting platform.)

I'm going to be looking around and comparing actual published specs, from various outlets, shortly, but I thought I'd raise my decision making process here as, specially with proprietry laptop hardware, there's always something I'm going to miss. Mostly I've not had much desire to keep up with the trends of this particular form-factor family. And there are so many compromises. Increased battery capacity might be useful, but a decent total lifetime longevity (based upon its predecessor's time in use) across recharge/stay-charged cycles might be a better thing to aim for (as spares of various kinds may or may not be around once it does go; it's a dearth of mechanical chassis spares that's partially forcing our hands on this migration...).


If all goes well, I might even finally treat myself to something new of my own, perhaps by Christmas, as currently all my hardware averages out at even older (except this tablet which is 'only' three years old), and definitely older in software terms, even when I've updated/augmented hardware components. Though then I'll also probably want to worry about what would work well with a dual-/sole-booting linux, instead (so Nvidia/whatever driver availability to come into play then). It was going to be a desktop, but... if this instant goes well then it might actually tempt me to augment this Android with something I can actually do more on than rely upon Play Store offerings/distractions when I'm away from my desktops/floor-standing cases, yet still be somewhat portable in its own way.

(TL;DR; ...anything to avoid? Like "mobile" versions of Windows, or wifi cards that are basically obsolete, or particularly bad brands that use flimsy cases, or seemingly clever keyboard/screen layouts that are no more than a confusing gimmick... Sorry, it's a bit open-ended, I know, but I don't yet know what wide range of surprises (for good or ill) I might stumble across, let alone find myself(/ourselves) committed to.)


ETA: - ok, having now Spoilered the initial long explanation, I've done some basic practical research, and it looks like it'd be nice (and sufficient) to have the kind of lowish-end laptop that currently comes with 250Gb SSD as standard, but then re-equip it with larger (maybe 1Tb, but at least 500Gb) replacement. The habitual 128Gb-inclusive models might well do, too, but I've a sneaking suspicion that I'd be unfutureproofing myself (or the intended user's self, mostly) a little bit too much. The models that come supplied already with the half-/full-terrabyte tend to be overkill in all other respects of spec and ending up two, three or four times the cost of what I think I should recommend to achieve from a migrated-drive scenario. Though I'd have to be sure I'm not hitting proprietry barriers in then discovering that I can't even easily get a Tb drive/disk-on-a-chip replacement, or easily clone/reinstall the OS between the two, which might be very much dependant upon the brand-manufacturer involved.

But I'm reluctant to advise a 'bog standard' quarter-terabytes machine with (as a space-extender) external-HDD to hold the potential additional terabytes. I was already going to suggest one of those as a backup (ironically, the portable drive being less 'port'ed and more kept somewhere safe when not in use), and it might complicate matters to have another just to save the one-time hassle of upgrading.

(If it were for me, and I had the ready disposable cash to splash around, I might even have three identical extHDDs and cycle them periodically for an effective Grandfather/Father/Son backup system. Well, I'd plan it that way, but probably just end up expanding all my data to completely fill all the storage space with totally non-redundancy of storage and end up with absolutely no disaster-mitigation at all... )


And that's before I start looking at other component/peripheral limitations, still. I repeat my assertion that laptops are actually far more awkward (and expensive) than any desktop equivalent. In all aspects other than actual portability!

[methylatedspirit]

What is the file manager doing that I am bypassing?

I'm gonna hazard a guess and say it's the Gio (GNOME Input/Output) abstraction layer GNOME uses instead of plain POSIX syscalls.

~snip!~

I'll answer what I know:

• Windows 10/11 don't really have crappified versions anymore like the Vista and 7 era had-- even the "S" editions (where you can only run Microsoft Store programs) can be unlocked with some officially-sanctioned hassle.
• Storage speed matters a lot more now. Do not even attempt current Windows on a spinning rust disk.
• Processors are living longer usable lives, definitely. I'd say 12th Gen Intel is where Intel really improved on power efficiency, if you care about that.
• If you're buying a used laptop, please check its GPU's hardware video decode capabilities, or you might find yourself losing battery pretty fast from software decode. For VP9 decode (i.e. the format YouTube really wants you to watch in; they don't serve >1080p H.264), that's ≥Skylake on the Intel side and all Ryzens on the AMD side.
• Yeah, I can't think of anything new that has a VGA port now. It's dongles all the way down. You might even get to enjoy the fresh hell of USB-C dongles!
• Be wary of laptops that have soldered RAM and soldered disks if you want to buy a low-end laptop and want to expand it later. In particular, if you see "eMMC": don't. It *sucks* and is slower than any competent NVMe or SATA drive in addition to being soldered straight to the board.
• Larger laptops tend to come with more expandability (HDMI, empty SATA slot), though I'm speaking from my experience of having a "gaming laptop".

[Starver]

~snip!~

I'll answer what I know:
~~also snip!~~

Appreciated. I'd added a few more updates to my own research, since then (and the updated 'summary' of my thinking), but some good additional points there.


Also an excuse to post an update to what I think I mentioned here about a year ago about Android Chrome and tab-groups going strange then just plain flattening out...
An update that happened in the last week or so reintroduced tab-groups (at least for me, with possible legacy config settings that might have become active again). As I'd effectively reflattened everything useful to me (to re-sort the 'tab order', when it shuffled everything and gave me no drag-to-reorder ability any more), I only noticed it for one small group of related tabs where I'm sure I did "open link in new tab in group" off a base page during the era that this was indistinguishable from "open link in new tab" by result.

But tab-groups don't crash on trying to re-enter them (and have their own horizontal mini-selector to switch within, as before). So some fork of the disappearing functionality may have been restored. Yet to exhaustively test all original half-remembered use cases, but trivially seems to be back.

(Of course, it completely re-ordered my current set of habitual tabs (and brought the tab-group to the top of the tab-list, but that might be coincidence) again, with no obvious reason - or ability to manually reposition them - but not so badly as to pursuade me to close them and re-open-as-new to shuffle them exactly like I had them, again. But the world is often far from perfect, so...)

[Lord Shonus]

Very specific issue I'm having.


I'm running a cheapo NAS in the form of OpenMediaVault on a Raspberry Pi 4, using two USB hard drives for storage. The primary purpose of this is to share (not stream) media to multiple devices running Kodi, and I'm running Jellyfin to act as a central library for metadata and images instead of having each Kodi instance generate its own local library. These drives are formatted in ext4 and are designated /dev/sda1 and /dev/sdb1 in OMV.

This works perfectly... for media on sda1. sdb1 is perfectly accessible via SMB share and works perfectly fine if I direct-connect Kodi to it, but that runs into the "multiple copies of the library, including on devices with rather limited internal storage space" problem. Jellyfin refuses to look at sdb1.

I know that there's theoretically a way I could create a folder linking to sdb1 on sda1, but that's an inelegant kludge, and I'd prefer it to just work. I don't know if it is some kind of strange permissions issue, or a limitation of the software.

[wierd]

If a symbolic link is too kludgy, consider just mounting /dev/sdb1  someplace inside /dev/sda1's folder structure with the /etc/fstab entry.

It sounds like jellyfin is just being dumb about the media library location, and does not like having 2 discrete libraries.  Mounting sbd1 as a child of sda1 should resolve, even if that is inelegant.

EG, your /etc/fstab may look something like this:

/dev/mmcblk0p1     /      EXT4   defaults 0  0
/dev/sda1    /home/pi/somepath  EXT4  defaults 0  0
/dev/sdb1    /home/pi/somepath/somedeeperfolder  EXT4  defaults 0  0


The symbolic link method would be something like this:

[/etc/fstab]
/dev/mmcblk0p1   /   EXT4  defaults  0  0
/dev/sda1    /home/pi/somepath  EXT4  defaults 0  0
/dev/sdb1    /home/pi/someotherpath  EXT4  defaults 0  0


with a symbolic link inside /home/pi/somepath (named somefoldername) pointing at /home/pi/someotherpath:

ln -s /home/pi/someotherpath /home/pi/somepath/somefoldername


I am reading that "In Theory" Jellyfin permits multiple library locations to be defined, but that this has also been historically known in prior versions to cause anomalous behaviors.  You might be encountering such an anomalous behavior.

I'd collect as much data as possible, file a bug report in their github, then implement the inelegant solution of my choosing from above (probably mountpoint, it's less complicated) and get on with my life until they fix it.

[Lord Shonus]

That would be a pretty sensible solution, but I don't know if OMV will let me do that without borking something.

[Ulfarr]

I was messing with my ram sticks and end up burning my desktop's motherboard yesterday. As far as I know the damage was contained to just the ram slots and the old rams. Despite my CPU's age (i5-6500), I did manage to find a new motherboard but, while I wait for it to arrive, I feel like I have to prepare for the event that it won't work.

It's been almost 7 years since I last built a pc so I haven't really kept up with new developments, do you have any suggestions for a newer cpu+mobo? As far as requirements are concerned, the only hard ones are that they need to have integrated graphics and have at least comparable if not better performance.

From a quick search the following CPUs are within my price range:

Ryzen 5 3400G      i5 10400
Ryzen 5 4600G      i5 10600
Ryzen 5 5600G      i5 11400
Ryzen 7 5700G      i5 12400

[Schmaven]

It's been almost 7 years since I last built a pc so I haven't really kept up with new developments, do you have any suggestions for a newer cpu+mobo? As far as requirements are concerned, the only hard ones are that they need to have integrated graphics and have at least comparable if not better performance.

From a quick search the following CPUs are within my price range:

Ryzen 5 3400G      i5 10400
Ryzen 5 4600G      i5 10600
Ryzen 5 5600G      i5 11400
Ryzen 7 5700G      i5 12400

As far as Intel CPUs are concerned, there has been a big jump in performance with each newer processor generation, so the i5 12400 would be my choice of that bunch (12th generation).  The letters after the model number indicate stuff too:  F means no integrated graphics, K means it's unlocked for overclocking.  AMD also has demonstrated a significant generation over generation improvement, so the 5xxxx series would be my choice of that bunch too.

If you are able to cough up an extra $200 or so on the Mobo/CPU, you could get onto the AM5 socket for AMD CPUs and have some better future proofing for upgrades.

For motherboards, I'd look for 1 with a M.2 compatible PCIe 4.0 slot for a SSD.  You'll see the biggest gains in speed that way.  PCIe 5.0 is overkill, SSDs can't utilize the bandwidth on that yet.  PCIe 3.0 will certainly bottleneck your speeds with a newer SSD, as data flows from your hard drive to your RAM to the CPU through that M.2 PCIe connection.

[Starver]

...update on laptop situation. We got something that seems to work nicely (and I've got my eyes on my own next one[1]). Spent a week or so actually wrestling with Win11. Lost a bit of work in some document being edited when the machine restarted for an update as it was left sat idle for a couple of hours (there'd been a "we want you to restart", and a prompt, but we'd told it No, Not Yet, which apparently is even less taking notice of than in prior Wins, and it definitely looked like "We'll ask you again in 24 hours or more", not "the moment your back is turned").

Got rid of all the desktop/taskbar widgets (don't want news/weather, etc, certainly not by default!), shifted the Start button to the left, worked out how the Taskbar as a whole actually currently works ("Pin (an installed application) to Start", "Pin (a Start-pinned application) to Taskbar", anything shortcutted on Desktop can be drag-copied to also be a Shortcut on the Taskbar if it has no Pin-route available, the Taskbar is a mix of Pinned and Running (maybe already Pinned) items, but it's easier for me to Windows-Run "cmd" than to open up a second Command Prompt by right-clicking on an already pinned+running Command Prompt) , made Systray items that we want to be actually shown (like Safe Removal Of Media, which really shouldn't hide away when needed...) be shown, etc.

Getting used to all these niggles. though. Gradually removing the "Do you want to play Age Of Empires?"-type notifications turned off, as we encounter them. (Manufacturer sponsored... thingy... trying to work out if I can or should turn off the whole manufacturer framework thing that is offering these things, or if it's perhaps useful to retain for actual vital updates/info. I obviously have avoided all this fuss in the past when building desktops from scratch with a raw OEM licence, except for the occasional issue with video card drivers coming with 'helper'-software that has pesterware eleements to it, but no such option to bypass all this in this case.)

Right this moment, most dissapointed with Notepad.

Spoiler: Grumble about Notepad (click to show/hide)

Yes, I know there's Notepad++, etc, out there, but basic Notepad as of Win95 on through XP and even Vista has worked well enough for a particular purpose.

Yet in this one, if doing a Find/Replace (Ctrl-H, "abc" to find, "def" to replace, Replace All) it... ruins the text document. It seems to shave off a significant amount of the start of the text(!?!?!)...

And, tthough it looks like there's now "Infinite Undo" available (or, at least, more Undo than older Notepad, which would only undo the last individual Replace of a Replace All, if you'd actually made an error in what you asked of it), this only gets it back to the stage where you now instead just have to do it in steps. Do single Find and then a manual Paste and another Find for your next manual Paste (etc, until it doesn't find). Made all the more awkward in that the laptop keyboard's F3 defaults to the auxilliary function (Volume Up) and you have to Fn-key to get the F-key. Completely the reverse of the predecessor laptop where the Fs were default and the Fn-modifier gives the extended functions. And Home/End are Fn-keyed onto the cursors, on this keyboard, which is additional fun.

(And, with the Fn next to the Windows key, the slightly possibility of hitting Windows-Left (invoking the modern 'tile windows' effect) instead of Fn-Left to go back to the start of the text file... Well, that's my muscle-memory even more all out of kilter. Perhaps I'll just buy a full-sized USB keyboard, at least just for whenever I'm asked to help out!)

..so it looks like this task is currently done by getting your fingers around "Fn-F3 then Ctrl-V, repeat, repeat, repeat" (surprisingly harder than "F3, Ctrl-V, repeat"). Until I either go for Notepad++ to not mess things up, or perhaps I'll write a script of some sort. But it'd seem like it's just reinventing the wheel, just because the old wheel suddenly isn't as round as it used to be.

Oh yeah, and you used to be able to select multiple files and ContextMenu/OpenWith.../<whatever you can also open it with>, but it seems like OpenWith... is only available to single-files, not groups, so opening those two or three or twenty .HTM files in notepads (which it'd warn you about being too much, in the old days, but really wasn't if we intended to do it) is now also vastly more work. We. Can. Do. It. One. At. A. Time.  Or I'll write a .BAT/.CMD to click on (open them all up, then we can can straight close the ones we wouldn't have chosen, as we get to them).  Or maybe I can directly add an 'official' file association in the Registry for "Open with Notepad". I'll check what the my user wants to do (other than "Can we do it like we've always done it?", which I have a great sympathy with, but apparently no immedaite ability to provide).

I've no idea if this is purely Win11 madness, or (until I test it out on such a machine) it went back as far as Win8.

But I'm sure it's all just one of the 'joys' of just not trying to fix things that aren't broken (at my end) clashing with an apparent culture of always trying to fix things (at the other end), whether or not they were/become broken! Basic grumble over.



[1] Was going to settle on an i5, 0.5Tb, 8Gb model, but there's I saw this i7, 1TB 16Gb that's not terribly much more expensive, so...

[Ulfarr]

As far as Intel CPUs are concerned, there has been a big jump in performance with each newer processor generation, so the i5 12400 would be my choice of that bunch (12th generation).  The letters after the model number indicate stuff too:  F means no integrated graphics, K means it's unlocked for overclocking.  AMD also has demonstrated a significant generation over generation improvement, so the 5xxxx series would be my choice of that bunch too.

If you are able to cough up an extra $200 or so on the Mobo/CPU, you could get onto the AM5 socket for AMD CPUs and have some better future proofing for upgrades.

For motherboards, I'd look for 1 with a M.2 compatible PCIe 4.0 slot for a SSD.  You'll see the biggest gains in speed that way.  PCIe 5.0 is overkill, SSDs can't utilize the bandwidth on that yet.  PCIe 3.0 will certainly bottleneck your speeds with a newer SSD, as data flows from your hard drive to your RAM to the CPU through that M.2 PCIe connection.

Thanks for the advice. Looking further into it, the 5600G is probably my best choice. From what I've read, it's better or equal to all but the 5700G and the 12400 and it's significantly cheaper than both. The 5700G might be worth it for the better graphics performance though the extra cost might be better spent for other stuff, depending on what can be salvaged from my old pc.

The 12400 already feels like an overkill for my needs so I doubt I'll need to upgrade to any of the newer AM5 cpus any time soon and in similar fashion to my current set up, by that time they'll probably be obsolete as well.