[10:02] <brobostigon> morning boys and girls.
[10:06] <SuperMatt> good morning on this chilly saturday
[10:07] <brobostigon> morning
[10:08] <SuperMatt> Today is a day for writing a wordpress theme
[17:31]  * penguin42 updates his Mum's machine from 12.04
[17:34] <brobostigon> wowzer
[17:48] <daftykins> O_O
[17:50] <penguin42> well it was working and still LTS so hey that's the point
[17:54] <DJones> penguin42: Must admit, I've only recently upgraded my server from 12.04...as you say it still worked, was still LTS and supported...etc
[17:55] <DJones> Yay for 5 year LTS releases
[17:56] <penguin42> what has stopped working on that machine is h.264 playback through ff, firefox complains of an outdated libav; now I can't honestly remember whether the libav on there is a standard ubuntu one or not, but either way it means her machine can't watch our cctv, so I need to fix that so I may as well update first
[17:59] <daftykins> oh yeah i suppose it was going to be good until this April
[18:00] <daftykins> agreed on the sticking to what works as long as it's LTS, however i will absolutely slay anyone running EOL due to laziness (and do) :)
[18:06] <penguin42> nod
[18:09] <penguin42> the odd thing I had to remember was the trick on it to make the 1366x768 TV/monitor work on it
[18:09] <daftykins> oh dear, another modeline / hardcoded EDID to combat useless VGA?
[18:10] <penguin42> nod, it's kind of annoying it isn't in distros
[18:10] <penguin42> I eventually found I'd added an xrandr command in her .profile
[18:13] <daftykins> ah har
[18:14] <daftykins> i often go in and find folks have VGA where both their PC and monitor has a digital interconnect of whichever variety free, so i just order in a cable from amazon for say £5 and throw it on the bill
[18:15] <daftykins> one client had been getting by with the wrong resolution due to VGA hassles, even on a Windows machine for so long that he thought his eyes were going bad
[18:15] <daftykins> turned out it was just a super thin badly shielded cable but throwing HDMI in just made him say 'wow' :>
[18:15] <penguin42> daftykins: Oh that's not the problem; the problem is that 1366 is a weird resolution; it's not divisible by 8
[18:16] <daftykins> i know you've mentioned that before but _all_ 1366x768 monitors i've had exposure to work fine on Windows machines
[18:16] <daftykins> sure some rare ones say they're outputting at 1360 wide instead, but most are properly stating 1366
[18:17] <penguin42> in this case I'm giving it a 1360x768 modeline
[18:18] <daftykins> this is why X.org can't die any sooner though, hand edits in 2017? just no
[18:19] <penguin42> it's not X's fault, or at least nothing that's not fixable by shipping a few mode lines
[18:19] <penguin42> replacing X because of this type of thing is just entirely the wrong thing to do
[18:20] <daftykins> it is in the majority of situations, because somehow EDID reading fails on Linux where it doesn't on Windows... and i'm only saying replace because that's the way things are going, it's not going to get fixed
[18:21] <penguin42> yeh but replacing it doesn't solve the problem it just invents a lot of new ones
[18:21] <daftykins> why doesn't it if the new display server has already resolved that issue atop a whole new approach?
[18:21] <penguin42> because the new display servers will all have lots of fun new imaginative screwups because they've not remembered all the things X has fixe din the last 30 years
[18:22] <daftykins> ok, but we're talking about this specific problem right now which it hasn't fixed, not other ones
[18:22] <daftykins> why are we even seeing such basic display woes in an OS that FOSS advocates push so much?
[18:23] <daftykins> fair enough if the idea is just to wait for VGA to disappear, that's fine by me
[18:25] <penguin42> because people just shout and moan and say it's peoples crap monitors rather than fixing it
[18:25] <penguin42> daftykins: I dont the problem is either X or VGA
[18:27] <daftykins> well it does need to be caveated with the fact that just because we've both seen the same result (wrong resolution) doesn't mean we've seen the same scenario
[18:28] <penguin42> right, but as far as I understand the problem is 1) 1366 isn't divisable by 8, and 2) Many TVs have broken EDID set up
[18:28] <penguin42> daftykins: but neither of those is fundamental of either VGA or X
[18:28] <daftykins> sorry but if it was 1, then it would've been fixed ages ago in software and we'd not have seen it again
[18:30] <penguin42> (1) certainly is part of the problem
[18:32] <daftykins> from my perspective i see an OS that can work and one that can't, simple as that
[18:33] <penguin42> right, but neither of them is a fundamental problem with X or VGA; it's just that people can't be bothered fixing it
[18:33] <penguin42> they'd rather spend their time inventing alternatives to X instead
[18:33] <daftykins> i think this has devolved to semantics now
[18:34] <penguin42> there's things that need fixing in a replacement for X, but this isn't one that's fundamental about X or VGA
[18:34] <daftykins> avoiding VGA is simply easier than dealing with users with edge cases such as this
[18:36] <penguin42> my assumption is just we'll see similar problems on HDMI etc - the actual monitor ID on VGA is hardly robust, but it's pretty simple
[18:36] <penguin42> you do get problems on EDID but mostly with dodgy cables/projectors etc and for that I agree VGA is to blame
[18:38] <daftykins> mmm, probably more issues leaning toward DRM with the digital interconnects
[18:38] <penguin42> bad firmware in TVs etc can screwup the IDs on hdmi as well
[18:39] <daftykins> yeah, that one can be pinned on the race to the bottom with LCDs and folks choosing the quirky brands that have messed up somewhere
[18:40] <daftykins> although i don't think i've seen any HDMI woes that weren't cheap cables, certainly for actual computers HDMI isn't really the wisest choice
[18:40] <penguin42> yeh well that's the big problem with the 1366 displays
[18:40] <daftykins> not entirely since often Windows will work with them :>
[19:04] <DJones> Grrr, not sure whether to blame schools for failing to teach, or teens/adolecents for not learning, sat here listening to music, mates 15 year old hears a song and asks "what has Birmingham got to do with Alabama" (Listening to sweet home alabama..... Duh...
[19:13] <daftykins> are you thinking the geographic angle to looking up that Birmingham is in Alabama? :>
[19:14] <DJones> Yup
[19:14] <daftykins> mm probably was just a google away to find out
[19:14] <DJones> As far as I can see thats the relevant reference
[19:15] <DJones> Maybe I'm just getting nostalgic listening to 70/80's rock music and thinking this is where I come from
[19:16] <daftykins> :>
[19:18] <DJones> Yeah, I am 50 years old, I grew up with 60/70/80's music, some 90's before it went  all screamy and assault to the senses
[19:19] <daftykins> indeed, or even the wub-wubs of the last 10 years too (at least i'm told it passes for music)
[19:20] <DJones> I've ignored most music in the last 20 years, hasn't been the same since Freddie passed away
[19:21] <DJones> Outside of classical music, there are no strong voices
[19:22] <DJones> (Freddie Mercury)
[19:23]  * DJones regrets cutting his waist length ponytail off
[19:23] <daftykins> i've found that whereas i never used to walk or cycle anywhere without something on earphones, i'm much preferring to just have peace these last few years
[19:24] <daftykins> so the music discovery has died off mostly too and just been shelved
[19:25] <DJones> I can agree with that (But I'm married) I like silence, much prefer it to any sound except under certain circumstances, ie, I've got to be on the excercise bike/weights machine etc)
[19:25] <daftykins> ah yeah
[19:26] <daftykins> i'm loathe to persist with any exercise right now since i'm without a shower (ripped out due to a water leak discovery and insurance claim in the works)
[19:26] <daftykins> i'm even using the bus of late instead of cycling for the same reason
[19:27] <DJones> Yeah, I saw your rotten wood pictures
[19:27] <daftykins> ah right - just waiting on the adjuster's response right now
[19:28] <daftykins> then to get quotes, oy :P
[19:28] <DJones> Hopefully it'll work out right for you
[19:28] <daftykins> they'll cover some of it, but it's going to be a costly couple of months for sure since redoing the room will count as 'betterment'
[19:28] <DJones> I just picked up a £400 excercise bike for £30 on a 2nd hand resale website
[19:28] <daftykins> :O that's quite the drop
[19:29] <DJones> Yup
[19:30] <daftykins> i keep watching the local one's electronics pages but people are too daft to even put up the model of product they list
[19:30] <daftykins> *products
[19:30] <DJones> I think there was something dodgy about buying it, bloke said he was selling it becuase of tumours in his legs, partner said she was selling it because she'd started going out on a real bike.
[19:30] <DJones> But, whatever...
[19:30] <daftykins> heh
[19:31] <DJones> I've started looking at local bring & buy/sell websites which is where Ifoound the exercise bike
[19:32] <DJones> 99% seems to be spam, but occasionally, you find a bargain
[19:44] <zmoylan-pi> but 99% of exercise bikes end up as clothes hangers... :-)
[19:45] <daftykins> :D
[19:46]  * zmoylan-pi prepares to go to monthly dublin flea market tomorrow to see what bargains i can find... :-)
[19:50] <zmoylan-pi> i think it's adverts on electronics were they list very specific information that is most dodgy.  suggests someone who is shifting a lot of gear...
[19:52] <daftykins> hah
[19:52] <daftykins> well i listed a printer once with a link to the full spec page, had a phone call from a guy asking me if it was wifi and "can you not just read the box?"
[19:52] <daftykins> 1) why do you think i'm in front of it? 2) why didn't you read the link and decide if it was right for you?
[19:53] <daftykins> i was asking £20 for an inkjet XD
[20:00] <zmoylan-pi> ....and $50 for a cartridge...? :-)
[20:07] <daftykins> as is tradition! hence my never opening it ;D
[20:56]  * penguin42 should have run computer-janitor on my mums machine first; it seems to have 120+ kernels installed which is making anything that updates the initrd's ***slow***
[21:07] <daftykins> oof
[21:07] <daftykins> must be using a few inodes too :>
[21:07] <zmoylan-pi> you'll never know when your mother will want to try and use a previous kernel to hack the gibson... :-P
[21:09] <penguin42> daftykins: Oh that's irrelevant compared to her mozilla cache I think
[21:09] <penguin42> hmm mind you I guess it multiplies by modules so you do get a lot
[21:10] <daftykins> were/are you doing this all remotely?
[21:11] <penguin42> no
[21:13] <zmoylan-pi> this is why i visit relatives so rarely... 'can you take a 5 minute look at our computer...'
[21:14] <zmoylan-pi> how long does it take to boot? an hour and a half...
[21:19] <daftykins> beats going to the hairdresser ;)
[21:20] <zmoylan-pi> moylan is an irish pun for 'offspring of the bald one'... hairdressers aren't a time consuming thing for my family... :-)
[21:42] <penguin42> ouch, it's got a few hundred linux-headers packages as well
[22:00] <daftykins> yeah that's what i meant by yonder inodes being munched up
[22:01] <daftykins> i always take a glance at "dpkg -l | grep linux-" and purge all the history, apt-get autoremove doesn't always do the job
[22:04] <penguin42> yeh it's about 15mins into deleting them
[22:05] <zmoylan-pi> wow
[22:05] <penguin42> still going; it's down about 1M inodes so far :-)
[22:07] <zmoylan-pi> remember when you did updates and only 1 computer had an internet connection and it was the one been updated fixed so you had no access to the internet? :-)
[22:07] <penguin42> oh only vaguely, I put in a firewall/nat box very early
[22:08]  * zmoylan-pi mumbles young whipper snappers and waves cane in the air...
[22:08] <daftykins> :>
[22:08] <penguin42> I think it was a 386/sx at first
[22:14] <zmoylan-pi> amstrad pcs, xts with single or on a good day twin 5.25" floppies.  or on a really really good day a single 3.5" floppy
[22:15] <zmoylan-pi> before getting a mitac xt at work with a 20mb hardcard
[22:15] <daftykins> uh oh we've got us a good old fashioned oldest-tech-off!
[22:16] <zmoylan-pi> sorry sorry... in modern news i may have found a replacement for my dumbphone...
[22:16]  * penguin42 notes the 386/sx was just my earliest router/nat box - my 1st machine was a BBC B with a cassette player for storage
[22:16] <zmoylan-pi> oh, in that case a zx spectrum +2
[22:17] <daftykins> zmoylan-pi: *gasp* but... but the nokia!?
[22:17] <zmoylan-pi> all hail the glorious cassettes for storage... :-D
[22:17] <zmoylan-pi> i see the latest argos catalog now has cassette players for hipsters
[22:18] <zmoylan-pi> technically if the hardware tests pass the phone it is an older nokia phone. a nokia e63.  about 3 years older than my nokia asha 302 which was made in 2012
[22:19] <zmoylan-pi> it's in near mint condition with the camera and flash still covered by factory cellophane strip and earphone socket plugged with cap.
[22:20] <daftykins> impressive!
[22:20] <zmoylan-pi> and i should have a directory somewhere here with all my symbian apps and data... :-)
[22:21] <zmoylan-pi> €39 shekels with a 90 day warranty to find any hardware bugs
[22:22] <daftykins> not a huge loss then if it turns out to be a duck
[22:22] <zmoylan-pi> yup.  i might give python a go on symbian again.
[22:23] <zmoylan-pi> i like the nokia dumbphone but i do need a text editor and i can find no java based one that works for the 302
[22:24] <zmoylan-pi> and there's a certain joy when people ask how often you need to charge it and you just say sunday :-D
[22:26] <daftykins> this OnePlus 3 / 3T a couple of mates have got now seems to be giving them 4 days, which is pretty good for a full size smartphone with 4G
[22:27] <zmoylan-pi> 4 days is very good but how heavy a user are they.  when i used psion i got a week from batteries when most got a month
[22:27] <daftykins> mmm they said normal usage for them, which their prior phone got a day on
[22:27] <zmoylan-pi> when my iphone 3g was brand new i once ran it from 100% -> 10% in just over an hour
[22:28] <daftykins> haha
[22:28] <daftykins> must've had poor optimisation for trying to ramp up the power and find a UMTS signal at the time
[22:28] <daftykins> what was local coverage for 3G like at that point?
[22:28] <zmoylan-pi> seems taking pics, using maps, gps, data and sending tweets eats the battery.  in a very good 3g coverage area
[22:29] <zmoylan-pi> ...while listening to music
[22:30] <zmoylan-pi> whereas the 302 does all that bar gps for 14ish hours and reached 50% battery
[22:37] <zmoylan-pi> but 4 days even on light use on a smart phone would suggest that even i would struggle to make it run flat in 1 day
[22:40] <daftykins> could be
[22:41] <daftykins> i'm a bit religious with mine of turning wifi off when i leave the house... switching down to 2G only when home due to the granite etc
[22:41] <zmoylan-pi> for example my huawei y625 cheapy tesco media player was used for 3+ hours listening to podcasts and mp3s and is down to 54%
[22:41] <zmoylan-pi> via bt headset. wifi off
[22:43] <zmoylan-pi> now tomorrow when i head to the flea market i'll have bt off as well and use fm radio and it will be about the same as fm radio eats the battery a fair bit
[22:44] <zmoylan-pi> i use llama for turning off wifi automatically. handy app
[22:44] <daftykins> no holidays to Norway for you with that thing, then :) given their FM switch-off
[22:45] <zmoylan-pi> they plan to turn off fm radio... but i've heard a few people say they may have to back down.  i have a dab radio and i do like it but i would never buy a portable dab radio as reception is awful
[22:45] <daftykins> don't think i've seen one in use yet
[22:45] <zmoylan-pi> even in radio blackspots in ireland (lots of granite mountains) fm radio works fairly well.  dab, not at all
[22:46] <zmoylan-pi> i got 2 cheap dab radios in tescos. ireland has dab coverage for dublin area and there's 1 great station that plays bbc, npr, chinese, german news hours so you get some interesting coverage of events
[22:50] <penguin42>  <still deleting kernel images>
[22:50] <daftykins> O_O
[22:51] <daftykins> see i would've backed up /home and nuked it with a clean LTS image
[22:51] <daftykins> :>
[22:51] <zmoylan-pi> hindsight is 20/20 :-)
[22:51] <penguin42> well I did back up /home, but hmm - I should have done the computer-janitor first
[22:51] <daftykins> well no, i just don't believe in upgrades of any kind
[22:52] <zmoylan-pi> spoken like a true windows user :-D
[22:52] <daftykins> and enough Loonix to know :>
[22:52]  * penguin42 has had ubuntu boxes survive at least 5 years of 6 monthly upgrades
[22:52] <daftykins> eeeeh, exceptions i'm sure - but when it's your time on the line
[22:53] <zmoylan-pi> yeah, but next time penguin42 sees number of kernels > 20 they'll remember the waiting today...
[22:55] <zmoylan-pi> for me it was if i ever saw a user had more than 3000 data files... backups over serial then parallel and then finally usb cables would take f.o.r.e.v.e.r.
[22:56] <daftykins> that's definitely the longest bit of the job, mmm
[22:56] <daftykins> keep seeing budget machines that are new enough but still lack USB 3.0 of late
[22:56] <zmoylan-pi> it was then quicker to take apart the pc, move the drive to another pc with a spare drive and copy via hard disk transfer
[22:57] <daftykins> yip
[22:57] <daftykins> i've actually found that it's quicker to boot a live Loonix session and mount NTFS volumes, when there's a single disk config, and copy to an external as it saves having the OS running too
[22:58] <zmoylan-pi> live distros of linux are a godsend
[23:01] <daftykins> yip
[23:01] <daftykins> even done some Windows only tasks by pasting executables onto install media and hitting shift+F10 to get a command prompt window on top of the installer screens
[23:37] <penguin42> right, it's just about booted OK in 14.04, press the button again....
[23:37] <daftykins> * a Wile-E-Coyote crater appears in the Manchester area
[23:37] <daftykins> :)
[23:38] <zmoylan-pi> and acme dodges another refund... :-P
[23:39] <penguin42> Meep Meep!
[23:40] <penguin42> I mean it should be quicker this time right - I mean it's not got a zillion kernel files to delete, and it couldn't possibly keep me up until 5am....
[23:41] <daftykins> :D
[23:43] <penguin42> and yes, lots and lots of inodes, down from ~2.4M to ~500k - but still only 5%-1% of inode usage so not actually a problem
[23:44] <daftykins> mmm, did once have a user who'd run out from so many upgrades and all the headers kicking around
[23:46] <penguin42> This is a useful size hard drive, might be more of a problem on an SSD say; I dont hit it on my other machines because I have separate /boot which ubuntu constantly falls flat into on every update
[23:47] <daftykins> only if someone tried to cram a Linux distro onto one of those little cache SSDs that's ~32GB
[23:48] <penguin42> yeh
[23:49] <penguin42> I've only run out of inodes on old systems with discs in the 10s of MB or when creating things like floppy installations
[23:49] <daftykins> i read a piece earlier speaking of SK Hynix planning a 72 layer 10nm 3D NAND die by year end O_O
[23:49] <daftykins> hmm, too long ago to recall what this #ubuntu help requester had
[23:50]  * penguin42 wonders what the aspect ratio of that is - I mean 72 layer
[23:50] <daftykins> ?
[23:50] <daftykins> they're pretty slim :>
[23:52] <penguin42> yeh but if a bit is in the 10s of nm across, by the time you get 72 layers it's very deep
[23:54] <daftykins> welp, means they'll reach 256Gb so 64GB per chip
[23:54] <penguin42> a quick search for hynix 72 layer said 512Gb
[23:54] <daftykins> ah my mistake that's what i meant, ja
[23:54] <daftykins> 2TB on a tiny M.2 SSD :)
[23:55] <zmoylan-pi> seagate have a 12tb spinny drive in the works with 14 and 16tb to follow in 18 months or so...
[23:56] <daftykins> they're also firing lots of folks and closing a factory... still blows my mind how they sell drives with only a 12 month warranty too
[23:56] <daftykins> (some models that is)
[23:56] <daftykins> doesn't exactly speak of confidence...
[23:57] <penguin42> daftykins: http://www.chipworks.com/about-chipworks/overview/blog/intelmicron-detail-their-3d-nand-iedm
[23:57] <zmoylan-pi> yeah, my last seagate died after i spent a week transferring files onto it's 2tb capacity
[23:57] <zmoylan-pi> but then at this point i've had drives from every manufacturer fail on me
[23:58] <daftykins> nothing new to me in that link, sir
[23:58] <zmoylan-pi> i usually just add them to top of my naughty list and buy some other manufacturer till a new failure drops them from the top
[23:59] <daftykins> they keep on merging and so we're running out :)
[23:59]  * penguin42 was hoping for a vertical scale on that micrograph
[23:59] <zmoylan-pi> this is sadly very true