Is Debian still good for GUI stuff in an over 12 yrs. old PC?

[Ant]

I'll be mainly doing basic stuff like web browsing, e-mails, newsgroups,
downloads, listening to audio, watching videos, simple SSH2 server, etc.
I currently run updated Debian Jessie v8's KDE which is fine but it
doesn't get updates for years so it's time to move on for a clean/new
Linux installation. Will getting Bullseye v11 be OK?

Setup details:

Intel Core 2 Q8200 (quad-core; default clock speeds; Socket 775 LGA;
Yorkfield) with a Scythe Andy Master 120mm CPU cooler (SCASM-1000),
Antec Sonata Proto mid tower ATX case, MSI P43 NEO3-F (MSI-7514)
motherboard (latest BIOS), two 1 GB of Crucial RAM (Samsung DDR2 800
(PC2-6400; 400 MHz), EVGA NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT PCIE video card (512 MB
of VRAM), onboard RealTek RTL8168C(P)/8111C(P) PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet
and Intel High Digital Audio (HDA), 600 watts Sea Sonic S12 PSU, ASUS TV
Tuner Card 880 NTSC (cx23880), Pioneer CD/DVD Burner Black SATA Model
DVR-218LBK LabelFlash Support, 3.5" floppy disk drive, Corsair Force
Series F115 Solid-State Disk (SSD) (115 GB; CSSD-F115GB2-BRKT-A), two
internal 3.5" SATA hard disk drives (HDDs) [Seagate ST3320620AS 320 GB
and Western Digital Purple Surveillance 2 TB (6 Gbs; 50 MB cache; WDC
WD20PURX-64P6ZY0)], Sabrent USB2+memory card reader front panel, and an
Intel InBusiness 10/100 (82559) NIC (not connected). Running 64-bit
Debian (Linux; oldoldstable v8/Jessie; kernel v3.16... x86_64) and
updated 64-bit Windows 7 HPE SP1 (installed on 10/22/2016).

Connected to an old (Y2K) Belkin Omni Cube (2-port; PS/2 and VGA) KVM to
share a 23.6" 16:9 1920x1080 pixels ASUS VS247H-P monitor (LED; 2 ms,
9/2014, etc.), a Dell 104-key PS/2 keyboard, and a three-buttons PS/2
optical Logitech mouse.

Thank you for reading and hopefully answering soon. :)
--
Too many issues, allergies, videos, and free huge sized game trials!
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

[Roger Blake]

On 2021-08-30, Ant <a...@zimage.comANT> wrote:
> I'll be mainly doing basic stuff like web browsing, e-mails, newsgroups,
> downloads, listening to audio, watching videos, simple SSH2 server, etc.
> I currently run updated Debian Jessie v8's KDE which is fine but it
> doesn't get updates for years so it's time to move on for a clean/new
> Linux installation. Will getting Bullseye v11 be OK?

I'm running Lubuntu 18.04 on a 2004-vintage Centrino laptop, and Debian 11
with LXDE on an Asus Eee netbook from 2009. These are 32-bit 2GB systems
with small SSDs installed. They're not speed demons but work fine. Don't
expect to play HD video but SD works OK. (Though maybe with your video
card you'll have better results.) I expect you'll do all right running
Debian 11 on your setup. Some additional memory wouldn't be a bad idea.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roger Blake (Posts from Google Groups killfiled due to excess spam.)

18 Reasons I won't be vaccinated -- https://tinyurl.com/ebty2dx3
Covid vaccines: experimental biology -- https://tinyurl.com/57mncfm5
The fraud of "Climate Change" -- https://RealClimateScience.com
Don't talk to cops! -- https://DontTalkToCops.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Bobbie Sellers]

On 8/30/21 16:22, Ant wrote:
> I'll be mainly doing basic stuff like web browsing, e-mails, newsgroups,
> downloads, listening to audio, watching videos, simple SSH2 server, etc.
> I currently run updated Debian Jessie v8's KDE which is fine but it
> doesn't get updates for years so it's time to move on for a clean/new
> Linux installation. Will getting Bullseye v11 be OK?

If you switch to PCLinuxOS 64 you will have plenty of updates nearly
every week. Rolling releases like PCL are kept much more
up-to-date than Outfits like Debian that only publish wnen prepared
to deal with the problems a new release creates for so many people

>
> Setup details:
>
> Intel Core 2 Q8200 (quad-core; default clock speeds; Socket 775 LGA;
> Yorkfield) with a Scythe Andy Master 120mm CPU cooler (SCASM-1000),
> Antec Sonata Proto mid tower ATX case, MSI P43 NEO3-F (MSI-7514)
> motherboard (latest BIOS), two 1 GB of Crucial RAM (Samsung DDR2 800
> (PC2-6400; 400 MHz), EVGA NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT PCIE video card (512 MB
> of VRAM), onboard RealTek RTL8168C(P)/8111C(P) PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet
> and Intel High Digital Audio (HDA), 600 watts Sea Sonic S12 PSU, ASUS TV
> Tuner Card 880 NTSC (cx23880), Pioneer CD/DVD Burner Black SATA Model
> DVR-218LBK LabelFlash Support, 3.5" floppy disk drive, Corsair Force
> Series F115 Solid-State Disk (SSD) (115 GB; CSSD-F115GB2-BRKT-A), two
> internal 3.5" SATA hard disk drives (HDDs) [Seagate ST3320620AS 320 GB
> and Western Digital Purple Surveillance 2 TB (6 Gbs; 50 MB cache; WDC
> WD20PURX-64P6ZY0)], Sabrent USB2+memory card reader front panel, and an
> Intel InBusiness 10/100 (82559) NIC (not connected). Running 64-bit
> Debian (Linux; oldoldstable v8/Jessie; kernel v3.16... x86_64) and
> updated 64-bit Windows 7 HPE SP1 (installed on 10/22/2016).
>
> Connected to an old (Y2K) Belkin Omni Cube (2-port; PS/2 and VGA) KVM to
> share a 23.6" 16:9 1920x1080 pixels ASUS VS247H-P monitor (LED; 2 ms,
> 9/2014, etc.), a Dell 104-key PS/2 keyboard, and a three-buttons PS/2
> optical Logitech mouse.
>
> Thank you for reading and hopefully answering soon. :)
>

bliss - boots & runs a Pretty Cool Linux Operating System aka pclinuxos.

keeping my used Dell Latitudes working with kernel 5.13.13 and KDE
Frameworks 5.85.0 Qt 5.15.2 (built against 5.15.2) The xcb windowing system

--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 31/08/2021 00:22, Ant wrote:
> I'll be mainly doing basic stuff like web browsing, e-mails, newsgroups,
> downloads, listening to audio, watching videos, simple SSH2 server, etc.
> I currently run updated Debian Jessie v8's KDE which is fine but it
> doesn't get updates for years so it's time to move on for a clean/new
> Linux installation. Will getting Bullseye v11 be OK?

Try Linux Mint Mate
Verty good multimedia support. Not as dumbed as Cinnamon
--
"In our post-modern world, climate science is not powerful because it is
true: it is true because it is powerful."

Lucas Bergkamp

[SixOverFive]

Hell YES.

Debian is really NOT a "heavy" OS. Indeed it
can be super-Spartan. Look at Slitaz ....
measures in MEGAbytes.

Deb + LXDE or OpenBox will run quite well on
even decade+ year old hardware.

No, you can't run the latest video games or
live-process video - but for 95% of common
purposes it'll be GREAT.

This missive is from an N200-based subnotebook,
which is about the speed/capacity of a decade+
old Pentium-3 with 32gb. MX Linux with LXDE
(XFCE is in reserve). Deb can be made quite
nice with even less than MX includes. You can
try the 'X' part of MX .. antiX ... but the
GUI *is* clunkier.

After going through ALL the distros, I recommend
vanilla Deb with a light GUI over all others.
Efficient, no BS. Add what you want and skip
the rest. Learn the apt-get --no-include-recommends
tricks though :-)

[Marc Haber]

[Please don't crosspost this wildly in the future, and at least set a
Followup-To: header]

a...@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:
>Intel Core 2 Q8200 (quad-core; default clock speeds; Socket 775 LGA;
>Yorkfield) with a Scythe Andy Master 120mm CPU cooler (SCASM-1000),
>Antec Sonata Proto mid tower ATX case, MSI P43 NEO3-F (MSI-7514)
>motherboard (latest BIOS), two 1 GB of Crucial RAM (Samsung DDR2 800

>(PC2-6400; 400 MHz),EVGA NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT PCIE video card (512 MB
>of VRAM),

Do yourself the favor and upgrade your RAM to 8 GB, if the board
allows that. Be careful not to exceed the remaining value of the
entire machine doing so. And expect that the nVidia driver will not
support the old graphics card any more.

Consider ditching the entire machine and replacing it with a more
recent, probably used, box.

Greetings
Marc
--
-------------------------------------- !! No courtesy copies, please !! -----
Marc Haber | " Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header
Mannheim, Germany | Beginning of Wisdom " |
Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fon: *49 621 72739834

[Marc Haber]

SixOverFive <hae274c.net> wrote:
>Learn the apt-get --no-include-recommends
>tricks though

|[2/5046]mh@drop:~ $ cat /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/70RecommendsSuggests
|APT {
| Install-Recommends "false";
| Install-Suggests "false";
|};
|
|[3/5047]mh@drop:~ $

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 31/08/2021 09:59, Marc Haber wrote:

>And expect that the nVidia driver will not
>support the old graphics card any more.

> Consider ditching the entire machine and replacing it with a more
> recent, probably used, box.

Nvidia support very old legacy hardware with up to date linux drivers.

295.49 is the driver that will be needed. It is likely that at least
Ubuntu/Mint will have that in the repository and suggest its
installation at install time


4GB RAM is enough for a basic modern distro.


--
For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the
very definition of slavery.

Jonathan Swift

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 31/08/2021 10:46, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 31/08/2021 09:59, Marc Haber wrote:
>
> >And expect that the nVidia driver will not
> >support the old graphics card any more.
>
>> Consider ditching the entire machine and replacing it with a more
>> recent, probably used, box.
>
>
> Nvidia support very old legacy hardware with up to date linux drivers.
>
> 295.49  is the driver that will be needed. It is likely that at least
> Ubuntu/Mint will have that in the repository and suggest its
> installation at install time
>

Sorry - that's semi obsolete 340.108 is the latest one - last updated 2019

I've used that one on a very old laptop, before it died...its OK.

--
Karl Marx said religion is the opium of the people.
But Marxism is the crack cocaine.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 31/08/2021 10:50, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 31/08/2021 10:46, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>> On 31/08/2021 09:59, Marc Haber wrote:
>>
>>  >And expect that the nVidia driver will not
>>  >support the old graphics card any more.
>>
>>> Consider ditching the entire machine and replacing it with a more
>>> recent, probably used, box.
>>
>>
>> Nvidia support very old legacy hardware with up to date linux drivers.
>>
>> 295.49  is the driver that will be needed. It is likely that at least
>> Ubuntu/Mint will have that in the repository and suggest its
>> installation at install time
>>
> Sorry - that's semi obsolete 340.108 is the latest one - last updated 2019
>
> I've used that one on a very old laptop, before it died...its OK.
>

It is currently in use on a machine here -part of Linux Mint 20 distro.
and installed automatically.

But the generic Linux nouveau driver is adequate, if slower

--
“People believe certain stories because everyone important tells them,
and people tell those stories because everyone important believes them.
Indeed, when a conventional wisdom is at its fullest strength, one’s
agreement with that conventional wisdom becomes almost a litmus test of
one’s suitability to be taken seriously.”

Paul Krugman

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 31/08/2021 11:04, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
> MSI P43 NEO3-F
That will take a lot more RAM., stuff it in


--
In todays liberal progressive conflict-free education system, everyone
gets full Marx.

[Joerg Lorenz]

Am 31.08.21 um 05:39 schrieb The Natural Philosopher:

> On 31/08/2021 00:22, Ant wrote:
>> I'll be mainly doing basic stuff like web browsing, e-mails, newsgroups,
>> downloads, listening to audio, watching videos, simple SSH2 server, etc.
>> I currently run updated Debian Jessie v8's KDE which is fine but it
>> doesn't get updates for years so it's time to move on for a clean/new
>> Linux installation. Will getting Bullseye v11 be OK?
> Try Linux Mint Mate
> Verty good multimedia support. Not as dumbed as Cinnamon

https://linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=290

Xfce should be even lighter on the system. Also good multimedia-support.


--
De gustibus non est disputandum

[The Natural Philosopher]

Agreed, but if he can add some RAM. I feel Mate is a better "User
Experience"

--
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to
rule.
– H. L. Mencken, American journalist, 1880-1956

[Joerg Lorenz]

Am 31.08.21 um 15:34 schrieb The Natural Philosopher:

> On 31/08/2021 14:19, Joerg Lorenz wrote:
>> https://linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=290
>>
>> Xfce should be even lighter on the system. Also good multimedia-support.
>>
>>
> Agreed, but if he can add some RAM. I feel Mate is a better "User
> Experience"

Really? I think that is a matter of taste. I always worked with Cinnamon
on rather powerful machines. That is as good as a Mac OS-machine. This
posting is written on a MacBook Air with a Cinnamon installed as sole OS.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 31/08/2021 15:16, Joerg Lorenz wrote:
> Am 31.08.21 um 15:34 schrieb The Natural Philosopher:
>> On 31/08/2021 14:19, Joerg Lorenz wrote:
>>> https://linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=290
>>>
>>> Xfce should be even lighter on the system. Also good multimedia-support.
>>>
>>>
>> Agreed, but if he can add some RAM. I feel Mate is a better "User
>> Experience"
>
> Really? I think that is a matter of taste. I always worked with Cinnamon
> on rather powerful machines. That is as good as a Mac OS-machine.

In my book that is not really an upward step from Windows ;-)



--
“Progress is precisely that which rules and regulations did not foresee,”

– Ludwig von Mises

[SixOverFive]

On 08/31/2021 05:01 AM, Marc Haber wrote:
> SixOverFive <hae274c.net> wrote:
>> Learn the apt-get --no-include-recommends
>> tricks though
>
> |[2/5046]mh@drop:~ $ cat /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/70RecommendsSuggests
> |APT {
> | Install-Recommends "false";
> | Install-Suggests "false";
> |};
> |
> |[3/5047]mh@drop:~ $
>
> Greetings
> Marc
>

That'll work - but usually I like to decide on
a case-by-case basis. However someone using VERY
limited old hardware might want to set those as
defaults. Often very innocent looking programs
drag in a HUGE amount of crap that could overwhelm
an old box or require breaking the install process
in the middle to prevent it ... which isn't always
the best thing.

In the Debiverse, Synaptic is your best friend. It'll
clearly list all the "helper" software your app wants
to drag in (doesn't seem to clarify WHAT is junk and
what is absolutely required though).

[Joerg Lorenz]

Am 31.08.21 um 16:47 schrieb The Natural Philosopher:

> On 31/08/2021 15:16, Joerg Lorenz wrote:
>> Really? I think that is a matter of taste. I always worked with Cinnamon
>> on rather powerful machines. That is as good as a Mac OS-machine.
>
> In my book that is not really an upward step from Windows ;-)

*Really*?!
Everything is an improvement over Windows 1X, IMHO.
MacOS is more sophisticated as far as the look is concerned but it is a
digital prison.

[The Natural Philosopher]

In a nutshell yes. My desktop is set up with a MAC look, but that's all


--
“It is not the truth of Marxism that explains the willingness of
intellectuals to believe it, but the power that it confers on
intellectuals, in their attempts to control the world. And since...it is
futile to reason someone out of a thing that he was not reasoned into,
we can conclude that Marxism owes its remarkable power to survive every
criticism to the fact that it is not a truth-directed but a
power-directed system of thought.”
Sir Roger Scruton

[Bobbie Sellers]

And nothing is snappier than AmigaOS on a 68000 processor with 8
Megabytes of memory and a 100 Megabyte hard drive. But I will go with
Linux instead of reviving my beloved A2000b with 68060 and 4 Gigabyte
hard drive and 64 MB of ram. Memory protection is better than quick
system response and of course we have that with a few Gigabytes of ram
and many GBs of SSD.

bliss - boots & runs a Pretty Cool Linux Operating System aka pclinuxos.

[Charlie Gibbs]

On the rare occasions that I use my wife's Mac, I feel that
I'm not so much using it as it is using me. See my .sig...

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Microsoft is a dictatorship.
\ / <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> | Apple is a cult.
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | Linux is anarchy.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | Pick your poison.

[Marc Haber]

SixOverFive <hae274c.net> wrote:
>On 08/31/2021 05:01 AM, Marc Haber wrote:
> > SixOverFive <hae274c.net> wrote:
> >> Learn the apt-get --no-include-recommends
> >> tricks though
> >
> > |[2/5046]mh@drop:~ $ cat /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/70RecommendsSuggests
> > |APT {
> > | Install-Recommends "false";
> > | Install-Suggests "false";
> > |};
> > |
> > |[3/5047]mh@drop:~ $
> >
> > Greetings
> > Marc
> >
>
> That'll work - but usually I like to decide on
> a case-by-case basis.

I think you can override the settings if you want recommends. ALso,
apt says which recommended / suggested package it doesn install.

I find it dangerous to have the "give me the full thing" as default,
it's too easy to omit the option once.

Also debfoster does a pretty good job in keeping the system small.

> However someone using VERY
> limited old hardware might want to set those as
> defaults.

I am a professional server jockey and all my Debian installs have
these set. Especially in containerized environments you want to be as
small as possible.

> In the Debiverse, Synaptic is your best friend.

I disagree even for desktop machines.

[Marc Haber]

The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>Nvidia support very old legacy hardware with up to date linux drivers.

If so, this has changed in the last five years. My last nVidia
graphics card was removed from the machine and replaced with AMD since
the nVidia legacy driver suddenly stopped supporting it.

This has never happened to me before or afterwards with other vendors.
Avoid nVidia at all costs.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 01/09/2021 10:09, Marc Haber wrote:
> The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> Nvidia support very old legacy hardware with up to date linux drivers.
>
> If so, this has changed in the last five years. My last nVidia
> graphics card was removed from the machine and replaced with AMD since
> the nVidia legacy driver suddenly stopped supporting it.
>
> This has never happened to me before or afterwards with other vendors.
> Avoid nVidia at all costs.
>
> Greetings
> Marc
>

I have never found an Nvidia card that didn't have a driver that worked
with it, and their Linux support is massively better than any other
manufacturer

Buy Nvidia whenever possible for Linux.


--
“Some people like to travel by train because it combines the slowness of
a car with the cramped public exposure of 
an airplane.”

Dennis Miller

[Carlos E. R.]

On 01/09/2021 11.42, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 01/09/2021 10:09, Marc Haber wrote:
>> The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>> Nvidia support very old legacy hardware with up to date linux drivers.
>>
>> If so, this has changed in the last five years. My last nVidia
>> graphics card was removed from the machine and replaced with AMD since
>> the nVidia legacy driver suddenly stopped supporting it.
>>
>> This has never happened to me before or afterwards with other vendors.
>> Avoid nVidia at all costs.

> I have never found an Nvidia card that didn't have a driver that worked
> with it, and their Linux support is massively better than any other
> manufacturer
>
> Buy Nvidia whenever possible for Linux.

I had to do the same as Marc, as my NVidia card stopped being supported
by the proprietary driver, and I changed to AMD too.

Native Linux support for Nvidia cards is limited, there is no 3d, and
limited hardware acceleration (with the open driver).

With AMD, I don't need any proprietary driver to get games running.

So, avoid Nvidia at all costs. Ask (or google) Linus Torvalds what he
thinks of Nvidia.


As to not happening before, yes, it did, with ATI cards long ago. A
decade or two, before it joined with AMD and they opened things.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[Andreas Kohlbach]

On Wed, 01 Sep 2021 11:07:48 +0200, Marc Haber wrote:
>
> SixOverFive <hae274c.net> wrote:
>
>> In the Debiverse, Synaptic is your best friend.
>
> I disagree even for desktop machines.

Agreed. aptitude or apt-get rules the Debian universe. No need for a GUI.
--
Andreas

[The Natural Philosopher]

No *need*, but many people migrating from Windows feel more
comfortable...in a more or less 100% GUI for user level and basic code
installation.

Synaptic is simply a GUI face on aptitude....



--
Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have
guns, why should we let them have ideas?

Josef Stalin

[SixOverFive]

For containers, I agree.

But I don't use containers/VMs on servers. Had too many
negative experiences. The hardware is cheap enough these
days that you can dedicate a box-per-task-or-two. Now
I mostly do small/medium outfits - LARGE outfits might
have a different buzz.

>
>> In the Debiverse, Synaptic is your best friend.
>
> I disagree even for desktop machines.

Well, it's the FIRST thing I install on a new install.
Everything Command-Line is for the 80s - or those
looking for job security :-)

So we'll have to agree to disagree.

I can envision a Synaptic2 ... there ARE some features
that could/should be included nowadays.

[SixOverFive]

On 9/1/21 8:10 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 01/09/2021 12:55, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
>> On Wed, 01 Sep 2021 11:07:48 +0200, Marc Haber wrote:
>>>
>>> SixOverFive <hae274c.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>>    In the Debiverse, Synaptic is your best friend.
>>>
>>> I disagree even for desktop machines.
>>
>> Agreed. aptitude or apt-get rules the Debian universe. No need for a GUI.
>>
> No *need*, but many people migrating from Windows feel more
> comfortable...in a more or less 100% GUI for user level and basic code

> installation.e

>
> Synaptic is simply a GUI face on aptitude....

Correct.

The NeverGUI people kind of worry me these days.

I smell "job security", not anything relating to
vital function. Synaptic bundles access to several
install/update aspects all under one easy roof.
Sure, you CAN edit all those apt config/repo files
one at time with nano (vi if you're a fanatic) but
WHY ???

I *disable* vi ... replace it with a symlink to nano
and (horrors !) I actually edit sudoers WITHOUT using
visudo !!! Geez, may as well still use edlin to write
documents in Winders. "Electric Pencil" - HERESY !

GUIs are hardly "experimental" these days. GUI interfaces
can VASTLY speed up what you do. Sometimes you DO still
have to go command-line for that Nth-degree detail and
need to know how to do that, but mostly ....

EVERY server I've installed in the last decade has
at least OpenBox or IceWM, usually LXDE. No more
white-on-black terminals ONLY anymore ! This subnote
I'm using installed with XFCE, but I just couldn't turn
off enough of the "features" to avoid horrors - so now
it's LXDE. Does it all, no BS.

[Marc Haber]

The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>Synaptic is simply a GUI face on aptitude....

If that was the case, it would depend on aptitude. It doesn't.

Things would be so easy if you had a remote clue about what you're
talking about.

[Marc Haber]

SixOverFive <hae274c.net> wrote:
>So we'll have to agree to disagree.

We have. And I'm actually happy about it. Why having a discussion
about technical aspects when it's so easy to go personal.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 02/09/2021 08:29, Marc Haber wrote:
> The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> Synaptic is simply a GUI face on aptitude....
>
> If that was the case, it would depend on aptitude. It doesn't.
>
> Things would be so easy if you had a remote clue about what you're
> talking about.
>

Why having a discussion
about technical aspects when it's so easy to go personal.

--

WOKE is an acronym... Without Originality, Knowledge or Education.

[Carlos E. R.]

On 02/09/2021 05.58, SixOverFive wrote:

...

>   I *disable* vi ... replace it with a symlink to nano
>   and (horrors !) I actually edit sudoers WITHOUT using
>   visudo !!! Geez, may as well still use edlin to write
>   documents in Winders. "Electric Pencil" - HERESY !

This is the wrong way to do it.

Just define the environment var "EDITOR"

EDITOR=/usr/bin/nano

And then visudo will use nano transparently. And many other tools that
use an editor.




--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[SixOverFive]

On 9/2/21 3:30 AM, Marc Haber wrote:
> SixOverFive <hae274c.net> wrote:
>> So we'll have to agree to disagree.
>
> We have. And I'm actually happy about it. Why having a discussion
> about technical aspects when it's so easy to go personal.

I don't think you're crazy/evil for YOUR vision
of what servers etc are "supposed to be like" ...
my vision is just different, MAYBE a tad more
"modern". I am not afraid of GUIs and am NOT
concerned they'll "overload" an i10 dodecacore
somehow.

Fortunately, the LinuVerse can deliver BOTH our
visions with minimal problems.

I (horrors!) like to administer using V*N*C even !
No, NOT on traditional ports - indeed I've taken
to using a funky variant of 'port knocking' on
the supervisory server and even then using SSH
tunnels. The enabler port hosts a little service
and you have to send it something that meets a
certain mathematical criteria. It never signals
success or not, it just does what it does when
the code is right.

And no, NEVER those handy all-purpose remote
server management apps like, well, read the
news ............ big fat bullseye targets ...

[SixOverFive]

On 9/2/21 7:04 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> On 02/09/2021 05.58, SixOverFive wrote:
>
> ...
>
>>   I *disable* vi ... replace it with a symlink to nano
>>   and (horrors !) I actually edit sudoers WITHOUT using
>>   visudo !!! Geez, may as well still use edlin to write
>>   documents in Winders. "Electric Pencil" - HERESY !
>
> This is the wrong way to do it.

Oddly, no ...

> Just define the environment var "EDITOR"
>
> EDITOR=/usr/bin/nano
>
> And then visudo will use nano transparently. And many other tools that
> use an editor.

I've done that before, but certain UPDATES have
set it BACK to the BadOldDays default on more
than one occasion - ALMOST like Bill Gates just
KNOWING how you REALLY want to set up his wunnerful
system.

I can't relay properly how much I *hate* to see
'edlin'-style line-oriented editors STILL being
used in the 2020s. There's some kind of seriously
messed-up 'thinking' involved here .....

So .... no vi AT ALL. Verboten. Banished. Mark
the symlink so nobody can change it ... also
a good trick for 'thumbnails' folders and certain
other caches, esp Mozilla products, like to make.
Kinda sorta possibly maybe made sense in the days
of 300-baud dial-up, but NOW it's just de-facto
spyware for the spooks and far worse to exploit.

It IS possible to engineer symlinks to /dev/null
or a temp FS/ramdisk too. A few apps will
cry, wah-wah-wah, but screw 'em. The latest box
I installed has FIVE common cache repositories
redirected to a RAM FS *and* cron/systemd
routines that flush a couple more every few minutes.

Ever see that cute movie "Sonic Hedgehog" ? One
threat issued there was to expose browser history.
SO, no browser histories or any other pointless caches.
The client wasn't worried about porn though, more like
banking/db-related login screens and confidential
employee info. They pay, I make it real. It's a lot
easier to make a sanitary system in Linux than in
Winders though. Winders scatters pointless records
all OVER the place .... part of why it's EVIL.

Oh, check your network maps in Winders ... there
is a little box in properties ... seems Winders
likes to "index" EVERYTHING on your network shares
to "facilitate searches". Turn it OFF - but it WILL
likely take two or three HOURS to get rid of all
those indexes. WHY does MS really want to index your
network shares ... well ... guess ....

'NotePad' appeared in Winders *2* by the way. I found
that out today when I installed Win-2 in a dos VM.

Win2 was a VERY long time ago - no more edlin BS.
Before that I'd even written something a lot LIKE
NotePad in assembler (I was young and thus it was
fun). Heavy use of IBM ROM-BIOS routines made the
code reasonably small. Won't really run now though ...

Ah, wrote that on a Sanyo-550 clone PC. Affordable
and had much better graphics than real IBMs. Alas
the video was NOT directly mappable/compatible and
I needed fully CGA compatible at the time. They
DID offer an expensive ISA card though that WAS
compatible ... jumper wires WERE required ....

MAY still have the Sanyo in a storage shed somewhere.
I wonder if it'll still boot .... ? Think I moved
everything over to DS/quad-density 5 1/4s though ...
still have the "Elephant Memory Systems" sticker
stuck on a wall.

Tried Win-1 but VirtualBox couldn't handle the
video - just garbage characters - plus Win-1 could
not understand PS/2 mice. SOMEWHERE I have Win-1
install floppies - an old boss bought it, and tossed
it a few days later - but I rescued it from the trash.
Prescient I guess.

Win-2 DOES work though, in its horribly crude way.
Win3.11 was indeed "evolutionary" ... but that makes
it less fun somehow ... hell, with a few add-ons
you could network, even internet, with Win3.11.
Remember LANTASTIC - ruined Novell and its $$$
rip-offs.

Oh, in case you wanna try, Win-1/2 are NOT "systems'
per-se, you install DOS2-5 and then install Win IN
them as ordinary apps.

[Marc Haber]

SixOverFive <hae274c.net> wrote:
> I've done that before, but certain UPDATES have
> set it BACK to the BadOldDays default on more
> than one occasion - ALMOST like Bill Gates just
> KNOWING how you REALLY want to set up his wunnerful
> system.

Your Symlinks will be replaced by updates. You're not supposed to
peddle with package contents. Environment Variables, set in the
correct places, will survive updates.

> I can't relay properly how much I *hate* to see
> 'edlin'-style line-oriented editors STILL being
> used in the 2020s. There's some kind of seriously
> messed-up 'thinking' involved here .....

That's a matter of style. I switched over from an emacs-type editor to
vi at the young age of 49 and I have increased my productivity since
then.

[two screenful of horrible system administration practice removed]

[Carlos E. R.]

On 03/09/2021 08.44, Marc Haber wrote:
> SixOverFive <hae274c.net> wrote:
>> I've done that before, but certain UPDATES have
>> set it BACK to the BadOldDays default on more
>> than one occasion - ALMOST like Bill Gates just
>> KNOWING how you REALLY want to set up his wunnerful
>> system.
>
> Your Symlinks will be replaced by updates. You're not supposed to
> peddle with package contents. Environment Variables, set in the
> correct places, will survive updates.

Certainly.

>
>> I can't relay properly how much I *hate* to see
>> 'edlin'-style line-oriented editors STILL being
>> used in the 2020s. There's some kind of seriously
>> messed-up 'thinking' involved here .....
>
> That's a matter of style. I switched over from an emacs-type editor to
> vi at the young age of 49 and I have increased my productivity since
> then.

Besides, vi is not similar to edlin. It is "ed" which is similar to edlin.

>
> [two screenful of horrible system administration practice removed]
>

Thanks :-)

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[SixOverFive]

On 9/3/21 2:44 AM, Marc Haber wrote:
> SixOverFive <hae274c.net> wrote:
>> I've done that before, but certain UPDATES have
>> set it BACK to the BadOldDays default on more
>> than one occasion - ALMOST like Bill Gates just
>> KNOWING how you REALLY want to set up his wunnerful
>> system.
>
> Your Symlinks will be replaced by updates. You're not supposed to
> peddle with package contents. Environment Variables, set in the
> correct places, will survive updates.

SOMETIMES though, you can CHEAT. Change the properties of
your symlink so even root can't edit/change/replace it.
The installer may bitch, but SO WHAT.

A backup is to simply make a script you run after updates,
one that once again nukes/renames vi and related and replaces
them with your symlinks/alternatives. You can even run it
at startup so nobody can sneak anything in on you ...

Damned systems WILL do what I WANT them to do ...

If you like to be bossed-around, use Win/IOS.

>> I can't relay properly how much I *hate* to see
>> 'edlin'-style line-oriented editors STILL being
>> used in the 2020s. There's some kind of seriously
>> messed-up 'thinking' involved here .....
>
> That's a matter of style. I switched over from an emacs-type editor to
> vi at the young age of 49 and I have increased my productivity since
> then.
>
> [two screenful of horrible system administration practice removed]
>

Try a REAL text editor - Leafpad, Pluma ... your productivity
will increase tenfold, your mistakes and fix-up times will
decrease tenfold. Even nano beats the snot out of vi/vim
and you don't even need a GUI.

Look at it this way, the people who WROTE those surely were
stuck with vi and worse - and HATED it. So, they crafted
IMPROVEMENTS. Stuff HAS happened since Linus had his epiphany
after all. In the early DOS days I *hated* edlin, and spent
the time writing my own "Notepad Lite" because of it. Maybe
WAY back you'd get respect for knowing all the cryptic key
sequences to use stuff like vi, but NOW you're just being
extremely unproductive. Then there's stuff like Latex ... WHY ???
Load LibreOffice or at least AbiWord. "Progress" EXISTS - use
it to make MORE progress. Time didn't stop at Linux v1.0 ...

That's my take.

Now maybe you're more of a "hobbyist" - in which case
unproductivity and such don't really matter. However
when you have a boss who wants stuff YESTERDAY you
DO go for the newer/quicker methods.

Oh, and if you need quick/nice GUI apps, use LAZARUS
instead of the GTK/QT and related crap-documented
hyper-overcomplicated horrors.

The past couple of weeks I've been making VMs of DOS - one DOS6.11
and another of DOS5a - and installing the old-tyme IBM/MS
compilers. Hell, even got Win-2 to start up (it's horrible BTW).
Now all I need are some cross-compilers, x86->ARM and/or PIC32
and/or ATMEL ... gives me ideas .....

[SixOverFive]

On 9/3/21 5:22 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> On 03/09/2021 08.44, Marc Haber wrote:
>> SixOverFive <hae274c.net> wrote:
>>> I've done that before, but certain UPDATES have
>>> set it BACK to the BadOldDays default on more
>>> than one occasion - ALMOST like Bill Gates just
>>> KNOWING how you REALLY want to set up his wunnerful
>>> system.
>>
>> Your Symlinks will be replaced by updates. You're not supposed to
>> peddle with package contents. Environment Variables, set in the
>> correct places, will survive updates.
>
> Certainly.

Sometimes you can brute-force certain tweaks by abusing
permissions. It's easier.

>>
>>> I can't relay properly how much I *hate* to see
>>> 'edlin'-style line-oriented editors STILL being
>>> used in the 2020s. There's some kind of seriously
>>> messed-up 'thinking' involved here .....
>>
>> That's a matter of style. I switched over from an emacs-type editor to
>> vi at the young age of 49 and I have increased my productivity since
>> then.
>
> Besides, vi is not similar to edlin. It is "ed" which is similar to edlin.
>
>>

>> [two screenful of horrible system administration practice removed],
>>
>
> Thanks :-)
>

Horrible ? Maybe. BUT if I want systems to boss me around
I'll use Win or IOS.

I've always been a utilitarian, not an ideologist or worshiping
supplicant on my knees. Screw all Grand Schemes - I want
systems/software that will do what *I* want the WAY *I* want.
"Go with the flow" ? I've seen "the flow" dribble into the
sewer drain too often, stuff NEVER gets done ....

Which means I *have it done* while everybody else is still
in the study/planning/meetings stage. People WILL pay for that
too - they just want "X" to work YESTERDAY. I've made about
a 40 year career on "getting it done YESTERDAY" and very few
complaints thereafter. I can put experience from PDP-11s to
microcontrollers to C64s to DOS and UNIX even gawdawful Winders
to work solving THE problem of the day. Sometimes the "brutal"
approach really IS the best fix, the best fix to some MS
or IX designers "vision" that's GETTING IN THE WAY. Sabotaging
"visions" has always kinda been my special power.

So that's where I am coming from.

Others may have different "visions" - all power to you -
but maybe I'll be stealing some of your job security.
Dirty (PC) Jobs, Done (almost) Dirt Cheap" :-)

It's a niche.

Ok, you're safe, I'm about at the retirement point now ...
some little place in Florida with a scraggly palm tree
in the front yard - watch the IT world go to hell from
a safe distance. How'd that old old song go - something
like "All fall down go boom" ? MUST have been about
SolarWinds and Pointy-Haired bosses ...........

[Richard Kettlewell]

SixOverFive <hae274c.net> writes:
> SOMETIMES though, you can CHEAT. Change the properties of
> your symlink so even root can't edit/change/replace it.
> The installer may bitch, but SO WHAT.
>
> A backup is to simply make a script you run after updates,
> one that once again nukes/renames vi and related and replaces
> them with your symlinks/alternatives. You can even run it
> at startup so nobody can sneak anything in on you ...
>
> Damned systems WILL do what I WANT them to do ...

Why do you even have vi installed then?

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

[Marc Haber]

SixOverFive <hae274c.net> wrote:
>On 9/3/21 5:22 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>> On 03/09/2021 08.44, Marc Haber wrote:
>>> SixOverFive <hae274c.net> wrote:
>>>> I've done that before, but certain UPDATES have
>>>> set it BACK to the BadOldDays default on more
>>>> than one occasion - ALMOST like Bill Gates just
>>>> KNOWING how you REALLY want to set up his wunnerful
>>>> system.
>>>
>>> Your Symlinks will be replaced by updates. You're not supposed to
>>> peddle with package contents. Environment Variables, set in the
>>> correct places, will survive updates.
>>
>> Certainly.
>
> Sometimes you can brute-force certain tweaks by abusing
> permissions. It's easier.

It is a horrible idea to work against everything what the smart people
who devised your operating system have come up with. Only Idiots do
that.

[Carlos E. R.]

BLA BLA BLA removed.


It is fine not to like vi. And the people that designed Linux know this,
and created a simple way to tell the system that you want to use LeafPad
instead, or whatever. Not a cheat. A documented method that works since
and for decades.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[Joerg Lorenz]

Am 04.09.21 um 06:31 schrieb SixOverFive:

> Horrible ? Maybe. BUT if I want systems to boss me around
> I'll use Win or IOS.
>
> I've always been a utilitarian, not an ideologist or worshiping
> supplicant on my knees. Screw all Grand Schemes - I want
> systems/software that will do what *I* want the WAY *I* want.
> "Go with the flow" ? I've seen "the flow" dribble into the
> sewer drain too often, stuff NEVER gets done ....
>
> Which means I *have it done* while everybody else is still
> in the study/planning/meetings stage. People WILL pay for that
> too - they just want "X" to work YESTERDAY. I've made about
> a 40 year career on "getting it done YESTERDAY" and very few
> complaints thereafter. I can put experience from PDP-11s to
> microcontrollers to C64s to DOS and UNIX even gawdawful Winders
> to work solving THE problem of the day. Sometimes the "brutal"
> approach really IS the best fix, the best fix to some MS
> or IX designers "vision" that's GETTING IN THE WAY. Sabotaging
> "visions" has always kinda been my special power.
>
> So that's where I am coming from.

Tja. On a productive system that is absolutely insane.
*ROTFLSTC*

[Joerg Lorenz]

Am 04.09.21 um 11:22 schrieb Carlos E. R.:

*SIC*

[Bobbie Sellers]

On 9/3/21 21:31, SixOverFive wrote:

snipp/

>
>   It's a niche.
>
>   Ok, you're safe, I'm about at the retirement point now ...
>   some little place in Florida with a scraggly palm tree
>   in the front yard - watch the IT world go to hell from
>   a safe distance. How'd that old old song go - something
>   like "All fall down go boom" ? MUST have been about
>   SolarWinds and Pointy-Haired bosses ...........

Don't forget your breathing apparatus when Florida falls
beneath the encroaching waters. Somewhere inland would be better
and on hard rack not that porous limestone that Florida seems to be
made of.

[Rinaldi]

I hope that was tongue in cheek. In 2001 I bought a condo on the Fl
east coast, 8 feet above sea level. Today still 8 feet above. Miami is
sinking because it was built on recovered swampland. Don't believe the
hype.

Rinaldi

[Bobbie Sellers]

Keep up on the news. New York City lost people in basement apartments.
The Oceans are rising, And the first hint will be when
a heavy rain hits and the water has no place to go. Miami may be
sinking, but the Gulf and Atlantic waters are rising as well.

The oceans are rising because they are pissed at all the
crap and plastic we fill them with and of course the Carbon Dioxide
and methane in our atmosphere our energy crap if you will. The
Ice on Greenland and on Antarctica is melting and coming for us all.

The limestone of Florida and a good many other limey places
is going to dissolve in the acidulated Oceans.

As to what that may do to sea life and when salt intrudes
into Fresh water habitats so long to Salmon and Dugongs.

bliss - 'Nearly any fool can use a Linux computer. Many do.' After all
here We are...

[Bobbie Sellers]

On 9/4/21 08:28, Rinaldi wrote:

Keep up on the news. New York City lost people in basement apartments.
The Oceans are rising, And the first hint will be when
a heavy rain hits and the water has no place to go. Miami may be
sinking, but the Gulf and Atlantic waters are rising as well.

The oceans are rising because they are pissed at all the
crap and plastic we fill them with and of course the Carbon Dioxide
and methane in our atmosphere our energy crap if you will. The
Ice on Greenland and on Antarctica is melting and coming for us all.

The limestone of Florida and a good many other limey places
is going to dissolve in the acidulated Oceans.

As to what that may do to sea life and when salt intrudes
into Fresh water habitats so long to Salmon and Dugongs.

bliss - 'Nearly any fool can use a Linux computer. Many do.' After all
here We are...

[Bobbie Sellers]

On 9/4/21 08:28, Rinaldi wrote:

> On 9/4/21 10:04, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
>> On 9/3/21 21:31, SixOverFive wrote:
>>

> [snip]

Keep up on the news. New York City lost people in basement apartments.
The Oceans are rising, And the first hint will be when
a heavy rain hits and the water has no place to go. Miami may be
sinking, but the Gulf and Atlantic waters are rising as well.

The oceans are rising because they are pissed at all the
crap and plastic we fill them with and of course the Carbon Dioxide
and methane in our atmosphere our energy crap if you will. The
Ice on Greenland and on Antarctica is melting and coming for us all.

The limestone of Florida and a good many other limey places
is going to dissolve in the acidulated Oceans.

As to what that may do to sea life and when salt intrudes
into Fresh water habitats so long to Salmon and Dugongs.

bliss - 'Nearly any fool can use a Linux computer. Many do.' After all
here We are...

[The Natural Philosopher]

sell your beachside properties below cost to hollywood stars who take
private jets to attend climate conferences.
THEY will buy them because THEY know man made climate change is 9$% bunk.
They are paid to ACT (that's why they are called ACTORS) *as if* its real.

--
I would rather have questions that cannot be answered...
...than to have answers that cannot be questioned

Richard Feynman

[The Natural Philosopher]

the man who drank the koolaid - and then asked for more.




--
"In our post-modern world, climate science is not powerful because it is
true: it is true because it is powerful."

Lucas Bergkamp

[Stéphane CARPENTIER]

Le 04-09-2021, SixOverFive <hae274c.net> a écrit :
>
> SOMETIMES though, you can CHEAT. Change the properties of
> your symlink so even root can't edit/change/replace it.
> The installer may bitch, but SO WHAT.

Cheating on your installer can't be a good advice. If you don't like
what it does, use another installer, install everything manually,
whatever. But cheating is the better way to have an unstable system
without being able to understand why at some point.

You do what you want on your computer: I don't care, it's your computer.
But pretending others should do the same is just plain wrong.

--
Si vous avez du temps à perdre :
https://scarpet42.gitlab.io

[Stéphane CARPENTIER]

Le 02-09-2021, SixOverFive <hae274c.net> a écrit :
>
> Well, it's the FIRST thing I install on a new install.
> Everything Command-Line is for the 80s - or those
> looking for job security :-)

Certainly not. The CLI is the most efficient way to achieve a lot of
things. By design, you can script and automate a lot of task more easily
than with a GUI.

> So we'll have to agree to disagree.

Yes, and on a lot of subjects.

[Stéphane CARPENTIER]

Le 01-09-2021, Carlos E. R. <robin_...@es.invalid> a écrit :
> On 01/09/2021 11.42, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>
>> Buy Nvidia whenever possible for Linux.

Certainly not.

> I had to do the same as Marc, as my NVidia card stopped being supported
> by the proprietary driver, and I changed to AMD too.
>
> Native Linux support for Nvidia cards is limited, there is no 3d, and
> limited hardware acceleration (with the open driver).
>
> With AMD, I don't need any proprietary driver to get games running.
>
> So, avoid Nvidia at all costs. Ask (or google) Linus Torvalds what he
> thinks of Nvidia.

Agreed. With nvidia, you need the proprietary drivers. An they are not
written as fast as the kernel, so they always lag behind.

> As to not happening before, yes, it did, with ATI cards long ago. A
> decade or two, before it joined with AMD and they opened things.

Yes. With nvidia, you have always had the need to use the proprietary
drivers. But two decades ago it was the only way to benefit of the
advantages of a recent graphic card. So it was a good advice. But not
anymore. Far from it.

[SixOverFive]

Part of the "standard install".

You CAN uninstall - though usually you'll get all
kinds of screaming warnings about how 999 other
things will also be uninstalled. You can mark it
to not be RE-installed too - but again you'll get
endless grief when trying to install other software.

So - FAKE IT OUT.

[SixOverFive]

On 9/4/21 1:58 PM, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
> Le 02-09-2021, SixOverFive <hae274c.net> a écrit :
>>
>> Well, it's the FIRST thing I install on a new install.
>> Everything Command-Line is for the 80s - or those
>> looking for job security :-)
>
> Certainly not. The CLI is the most efficient way to achieve a lot of
> things. By design, you can script and automate a lot of task more easily
> than with a GUI.
>
>> So we'll have to agree to disagree.
>
> Yes, and on a lot of subjects.
>

CLI does have its place. GUIs cannot always accomodate
the level of detail needed to do tricky stuff.

But here, mostly, I was talking about EDITORS. The ONLY
CLI editor I regularly use is nano. The rest can just be
flushed into the cesspool of history IMHO.

A little example - a laptop I was using had a GUI to set
the background, hardware, LED brightness level (not the
same as the "software" level which results in a washed-out
appearance). Thing is, the setting would not "take". Always
rebooted to a super-dim screen. Dunno WHERE this 'default'
was kicking in - it's deep deep.

So ... "sudo nano /etc/rc.local" and add
"echo 150 > /sys/class/backlight/amdgpu_bl0/brightness"
and THAT bit of brute-force FIXES it.

Took a LOT of looking to find that bit of obscura too.
99 other dead ends and/or SUPER-complex approaches.

[SixOverFive]

>     As to what that may do to sea life and when salt intrudeugs

> into Fresh water habitats so long to Salmon and Dugongs.
>
> bliss - 'Nearly any fool can use a Linux computer. Many do.' After all
> here We are...
>

Florida is not going under for centuries.

One asteroid hit or volcanic event and it'll be the
Big Freeze again and you could WALK from Miami to
Grand Bahama. The climate has NEVER been stable.

But don't invest heavily in a 70s/80s beachfront condo.

Went diving in a Florida sink hole once though - full
cavers rig. The "rock" down there like swiss cheese
with more "Swiss" than "cheese" - really, not kidding.
"Rock foam" is all that's holding up Orlando.

As for rising water, that's what a HOUSE-BOAT is for :-)
Scraggly potted palm tree on the poop deck.

Hmmm - I wonder what a basic 80' utility barge costs ?
Could make one hell of a houseboat out of one ..

[Joerg Lorenz]

Am 05.09.21 um 06:53 schrieb SixOverFive:

> Florida is not going under for centuries.
>
> One asteroid hit or volcanic event and it'll be the
> Big Freeze again and you could WALK from Miami to
> Grand Bahama. The climate has NEVER been stable.

And ignorant and stupid idiots and Trolls never died out whether it was
freezing cold or boiling hot.
*SCNR*

[Richard Kettlewell]

I have indeed uninstalled it and didn’t get any grief over it. What do
you think depends on it?

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

[The Natural Philosopher]

You are really simply echoing te dichotomy between a personal computer,
which does what *I* want, and a corporate system, which has to do what
your *employer* wants, subject to maintainability and reliability and
security constraints.

I would suggest that they are neither te same case, nor indicate the
same solutions.


One may do a 5 minute hack to prove a principle and get some code
working, but *if* it is going to be replicated or maintained by others
it behoves one to rework it into whatever is expected by e.g. other
engineers, installation scripts and the like.

On the other hand, if it is *not*, so what? Typically embedded systems
that are neither subject to maintenance or upgrade can so whatever they
like.

Faced with lack of space in a 2K EPROM, I replaced all instances of
POP AX
POP BX
POP CX
POP DX
RET

with
JMP STDEXIT


STDEXIT:
POP AX
POP BX
POP CX
POP DX
RET

and gained the 64 bytes of PROM space I needed to include an extended BIOS.

I am sure those who are imbued with 'never use a goto' would be
horrified. But it worked, the customer got his extended bios without
having to change his bios and I got paid. And really, as we used to say,
in the end its all 'bits, in silicon'.

--
Canada is all right really, though not for the whole weekend.

"Saki"

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 05/09/2021 08:16, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
> SixOverFive <hae274c.net> writes:
>> On 9/4/21 3:44 AM, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
>>> SixOverFive <hae274c.net> writes:
>>>> Damned systems WILL do what I WANT them to do ...
>>>
>>> Why do you even have vi installed then?
>>
>> Part of the "standard install".
>>
>> You CAN uninstall - though usually you'll get all kinds of screaming
>> warnings about how 999 other things will also be uninstalled. You can
>> mark it to not be RE-installed too - but again you'll get endless
>> grief when trying to install other software.
>
> I have indeed uninstalled it and didn’t get any grief over it. What do
> you think depends on it?
>

Lord knows, but I am massively surprised that something does not.

I have no use for e.g. samba at all, but I am fairly sure something
depends on it


--
"Corbyn talks about equality, justice, opportunity, health care, peace,
community, compassion, investment, security, housing...."
"What kind of person is not interested in those things?"

"Jeremy Corbyn?"

[Richard Kettlewell]

The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> writes:
> On 05/09/2021 08:16, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
>> SixOverFive <hae274c.net> writes:
>>> On 9/4/21 3:44 AM, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
>>>> SixOverFive <hae274c.net> writes:
>>>>> Damned systems WILL do what I WANT them to do ...
>>>>
>>>> Why do you even have vi installed then?
>>>
>>> Part of the "standard install".
>>>
>>> You CAN uninstall - though usually you'll get all kinds of screaming
>>> warnings about how 999 other things will also be uninstalled. You can
>>> mark it to not be RE-installed too - but again you'll get endless
>>> grief when trying to install other software.
>>
>> I have indeed uninstalled it and didn’t get any grief over it. What
>> do you think depends on it?
>
> Lord knows, but I am massively surprised that something does not.

Well so far the only concrete evidence I have is that nothing I care
about on a normal desktop system or server depends on vi. Maybe there’s
something that you or SixOverFive care about, but saying that something
depends on it without saying is presumably guesswork.

As far as I can see the only things that depend on vim (rather than
vim|emacs|editor) are packages that extend it somehow.

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

[Dan Espen]

The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> writes:

> On 05/09/2021 08:16, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
>> SixOverFive <hae274c.net> writes:
>>> On 9/4/21 3:44 AM, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
>>>> SixOverFive <hae274c.net> writes:
>>>>> Damned systems WILL do what I WANT them to do ...
>>>>
>>>> Why do you even have vi installed then?
>>>
>>> Part of the "standard install".
>>>
>>> You CAN uninstall - though usually you'll get all kinds of screaming
>>> warnings about how 999 other things will also be uninstalled. You can
>>> mark it to not be RE-installed too - but again you'll get endless
>>> grief when trying to install other software.
>> I have indeed uninstalled it and didn’t get any grief over it. What
>> do
>> you think depends on it?
>>
> Lord knows, but I am massively surprised that something does not.

I can't imagine why...

> I have no use for e.g. samba at all, but I am fairly sure something
> depends on it

[root]# dnf remove samba
Dependencies resolved.
================================================================================================================================================================
Package Architecture Version Repository Size
================================================================================================================================================================
Removing:
samba x86_64 2:4.12.10-0.fc32 @updates 2.7 M
Removing unused dependencies:
liburing x86_64 0.7-2.fc32 @updates 46 k
samba-common-tools x86_64 2:4.12.10-0.fc32 @updates 1.2 M

Transaction Summary
================================================================================================================================================================
Remove 3 Packages


Nothing important.


--
Dan Espen

[SixOverFive]

On 9/5/21 4:35 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 04/09/2021 18:47, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
>> Le 04-09-2021, SixOverFive <hae274c.net> a écrit :
>>>
>>>     SOMETIMES though, you can CHEAT. Change the properties of
>>>     your symlink so even root can't edit/change/replace it.
>>>     The installer may bitch, but SO WHAT.
>>
>> Cheating on your installer can't be a good advice. If you don't like
>> what it does, use another installer, install everything manually,
>> whatever. But cheating is the better way to have an unstable system
>> without being able to understand why at some point.
>>
>> You do what you want on your computer: I don't care, it's your computer.

>> But pretending others should do the same is just plair wrong.

>>
> You are really simply echoing te dichotomy between a personal computer,
> which does what *I* want, and a corporate system, which has to do what
> your *employer* wants, subject to maintainability and reliability and
> security constraints.

This dichotomy is understood - you can go more wild west
on computers you own. The other side of this are CEOs,
division mangers, pointy-haired bosses, with NO CLUE how any
box/OS does/should/must work. Whatever the All Important
Project of the day (which often they trash-can next week)
they want it to work NOW NOW NOW and don't care HOW.
The "Art Of Computing" means nothing to them - only $$$
and shutting up the inconvenienced staff.

So, do you completely reinstall everything from scratch,
maybe re-write the accounting system too, or do you MAKE IT
WORK for them ? Many of the abovementioned rude little hacks
are not especially "dangerous" and maybe they'll buy you
the time to straighten things out a little better next week,
find exactly WHICH line in WHICH of 505 config files is
causing the big issue.

> I would suggest that they are neither te same case, nor indicate the
> same solutions.
>

> One may do a 5 minute hack to prove a principle and get some code
> working, but *if* it is going to be replicated or maintained by others
> it behoves one to rework it into whatever is expected by e.g. other
> engineers, installation scripts and the like.
>
> On the other hand, if it is *not*, so what? Typically embedded systems
> that are neither subject to maintenance or upgrade can so whatever they
> like.
>
> Faced with lack of space in a 2K EPROM, I replaced all instances of
> POP AX
> POP BX
> POP CX
> POP DX
> RET
>
> with
> JMP STDEXIT
>
>
> STDEXIT:
> POP AX
> POP BX
> POP CX
> POP DX
> RET
>
> and gained the 64 bytes of PROM space I needed to include an extended BIOS.

So long as there aren't multiple threads going on you CAN
just clean up in one spot. If the eeprom was 2k this was
probably WAY before multithreading. The single-location
thing might also be vulnerable to some race conditions.
I'd worry if there were interrupt routines happening too.

> I am sure those who are imbued with 'never use a goto' would be
> horrified. But it worked, the customer got his extended bios without
> having to change his bios and I got paid. And really, as we used to say,

> in the end its all 'bits, in silicon.

"GOTO" can be GREAT. They're not "elegant" and can indeed
lead to SERIOUS spaghetti code, but sometimes they're the
best, most economical, easiest to write solution. Unwrapping
multi-nested whiles/fors/do loops in the 'elegant' fashion
can actually get rather un-elegant.
,
I always liked Pascal because it COULD be "elegant", and far
more self-documenting than the crap 'C' some hotshots would
write that was mostly punctuation characters that actually DID
stuff but nobody - not even the author a month from then -
could figure out HOW. Just did a little utility pgm with a
GUI front-end for somebody last month and used Lazarus/FP
because it's quick and easy and has the Pascal virtues, so
Pascal is hardly some decades-past thing for me. But, some
Pascals DO have a GOTO <label> in there, just in case :-)

Remember a thing called a Psion Organizer ? I think they came
out in the mid/late 80s. Looked like a thick pocket calculator
and had a 2 or 4 line LCD text screen. Various plug-in
cartridges could be had, including non-volatile memory.
Had a ROM BASIC in them that could cover most anything including
serial communications.

Someone wanted me to write a pgm for them that handled
fairly static traveled routes - like a mail carrier
might do. Each stop was a little block and you had to
fill in some questions. The "elegant" way THEN was to
make very good use of GOTOs. I wrote the thing "ladder
style" and you could push a function key to jump back
a question, or the previous block or the next block.
All GOTOs. In THAT case the GOTOs and structure made
the whole pgm far easier to understand and quite compact.
The route particulars were on a plug-in and, when there
were any changes, staff would update the list and hand
out new cartridges. Far more "sneaker-net" back then.
I did rig it so you could sync over serial, but mostly
they found it simpler to just swap cartridges.

I recently found out that at least some workers were
still using the system almost 15 years later ... I'd
have never expected that. They had the devices, the pgm
worked, so why spend more $$$ ?

[SixOverFive]

On 9/5/21 12:12 PM, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:

> Like in the event of earthquakes which more or less completely destroyed
> small (Italian) villages several times in a millennium. History knows
> about half a dozen events. But no, "Lets rebuild our village again" - at
> the exact same location.

Uh huh - see it all the time. They want to rebuild those
little towns down where the hurricane came in last week too.
Guess what happens NEXT year or the year after ....

One of the WORST cases you can easily see in Google Maps
or Earth. Tune in to Naples Italy - and note where Mt.
Vesuvius is.

Anyway, FORGET "stable" when it comes to Nature. Some places
are "more stable", but nowhere always stays the same. The
end of the ice age re-arranged oceans, and spawned vast
deserts too. The Sahara used to be GREEN, trees, grasslands,
a land-o-lakes. The only remaining artifact is Lake Chad.
12-15ky ago "stable" became unstable and there weren't even
any SUVs !

I also like the news hypes saying "This is the worst storm/flood/
drought/heat-wave/etc SINCE 1833 so it MUST be "Climate Change".
Well, where the SUVs in 1833, they'd barely built any trains
back then. As they say, "If it bleeds, it leads" - and fact or
sense or context or perspective will NOT stand in the way.

I do think human activities ARE speeding up some kinds of
"change" - but how MUCH, to what DEGREE, isn't usefully
clear. A few fanatics actually seem to want to kill off
95+ percent of the humans in order to "save the earth".
Hey, WE'RE part of "the earth" too !

Which all goes back to the observation about "models".
I think the term "butterfly effect" came out of doing
climate models. THE problem is the "white-coat effect".
Put garbage into your shiny new expensive "model" and
get garbage out - but going through the new shiny
expensive "model" makes it LOOK like good "science",
a sure-enough Truth. Might be safer to just flip
coins to decide future policy initiatives. At least
the coins aren't unconsciously biased ...

[Carlos E. R.]

On 06/09/2021 01.34, SixOverFive wrote:
> On 9/5/21 4:35 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

...

Indeed, Pascal does have a "goto", and I read about it in Nicklaus Wirth
book no less.

>
>   Remember a thing called a Psion Organizer ? I think they came
>   out in the mid/late 80s. Looked like a thick pocket calculator
>   and had a 2 or 4 line LCD text screen. Various plug-in
>   cartridges could be had, including non-volatile memory.
>   Had a ROM BASIC in them that could cover most anything including
>   serial communications.
>
>   Someone wanted me to write a pgm for them that handled
>   fairly static traveled routes - like a mail carrier
>   might do. Each stop was a little block and you had to
>   fill in some questions. The "elegant" way THEN was to
>   make very good use of GOTOs. I wrote the thing "ladder
>   style" and you could push a function key to jump back
>   a question, or the previous block or the next block.
>   All GOTOs. In THAT case the GOTOs and structure made
>   the whole pgm far easier to understand and quite compact.
>   The route particulars were on a plug-in and, when there
>   were any changes, staff would update the list and hand
>   out new cartridges. Far more "sneaker-net" back then.
>   I did rig it so you could sync over serial, but mostly
>   they found it simpler to just swap cartridges.
>
>   I recently found out that at least some workers were
>   still using the system almost 15 years later ... I'd
>   have never expected that. They had the devices, the pgm
>   worked, so why spend more $$$ ?

Certainly, gotos have their place. Spaghetti code is something else.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 06/09/2021 00:34, SixOverFive wrote:
> more self-documenting than the crap 'C' some hotshots would
>   write that was mostly punctuation characters that actually DID
>   stuff but nobody - not

The problem is that a language does not turn a bad programmer into a
good one.

It just changes the type of mistakes he makes

--
Climate is what you expect but weather is what you get.
Mark Twain

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 06/09/2021 00:34, SixOverFive wrote:

> On 9/5/21 4:35 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

>>
>> Faced with lack of space in a 2K EPROM, I replaced all instances of
>> POP AX
>> POP BX
>> POP CX
>> POP DX
>> RET
>>
>> with
>> JMP STDEXIT
>>
>>
>> STDEXIT:
>> POP AX
>> POP BX
>> POP CX
>> POP DX
>> RET
>>
>> and gained the 64 bytes of PROM space I needed to include an extended
>> BIOS.
>
>   So long as there aren't multiple threads going on you CAN
>   just clean up in one spot. If the eeprom was 2k this was
>   probably WAY before multithreading. The single-location
>   thing might also be vulnerable to some race conditions.
>   I'd worry if there were interrupt routines happening too.

That code is thread proof

it does not alter memory, only the state of the CPU

Of course there were interrupts. This was a PC BIOS.


--
“Some people like to travel by train because it combines the slowness of
a car with the cramped public exposure of 
an airplane.”

Dennis Miller

[Tauno Voipio]

It is a method called 'tail-ending' in compilers. Any reasonably recent
version of the GNU GCC is able to do it without programmer assistance,
except selecting high enough optimization levele when compiling.

--

TV

[The Natural Philosopher]

I am sure that optimizing for size would use something like that. It is
fractionally *slower*

--
“when things get difficult you just have to lie”

― Jean Claud Jüncker

[Tauno Voipio]

It does. The GCC switch is -Os. In practice the speed difference in not
noticeable.

--

-TV

[Richard Kettlewell]

The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> writes:

As far as I can see from a superficial test, gcc 10.2.1 will perform
this optimization within a function but not across multiple functions.
The same goes for Clang 11.0.1.

> I am sure that optimizing for size would use something like that. It
> is fractionally *slower*

On a simple CPU, yes.

On a modern general-purpose CPU I’d expect that it would often lead to a
net performance improvement due to improved cache usage, outside of
uninteresting cases where the shared tail only executes once.

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 06/09/2021 10:38, Tauno Voipio wrote:
> In practice the speed difference in not
> noticeable.

That depends entirely on what you are doing!



--
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale
returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

Mark Twain

[The Natural Philosopher]

That's an interesting point: I think you are spot on. I wasn't thinking
about caches at all.

[SevenOverSix]

Nope. It's context-dependent. WHOSE stack
are you popping from ?

Modern languages essentially have "stack frames", a
de-facto stack for every function/subroutine. The
old TI-9900 chips actually kinda rigged this in
hardware - each user had a 64k 'universe' of
their own.

I would not even trust that code on a PIC or Arduino ...
which, though simple, MIGHT have an ISR running at the
instant. Sometimes functions really SHOULD clean up
their own messes and not try to leave it to others.

> it does not alter memory, only the state of the CPU
>
> Of course there were interrupts. This was a PC BIOS.

I'm used to micro-controllers. They are far more
clear than a PC - no room or mechanism to hide
mistakes. My last "big" project was for Arduino/Atmel,
field dataloggers, and DID use several ISRs. The Stack
was NOT The Stack, but "Stacks". Had to deal with
everything within its own "context".

No, you do NOT use PIs for dataloggers, they are
fantastic power-hogs. Atmel/PIC you can tweak to
use micro-power while waiting for the next
sample interval or event.

Oh yea, general advice, ALWAYS use the SEEED LiPo
solar-charger/power-supply ... the AdaFruit ones
will pass on the full voltage of your solar to the
board - blowing it up. Also, those flat-pack
LiPo batteries they sell, had ONE detonate on
my desk .. barely TOUCHED it and it went off, and
it had been six months since it'd been charged.
Burned me slightly and took an hour and big fans
to clear out the nasty smoke. Nice char-mark on
the desk too. My remaining batteries are in a
STEEL file-card box now, with ceramic fiber
stuff in the bottom. I hate Li polymer batteries.
The damned things should be banned. LiFePO are
safe, but more expensive.

Oh ... and ONE fix I did was to put a low-dropout
linear voltage regulator on the solar. Started
with 3-watt Zeners - but they got HOT HOT HOT.

If you are going to design such field stuff, DO
buy one of the USB "oscilloscopes". I had a weird
problem - and it turned out to be a sub-microsecond
voltage drop when a device kicked in - barely showed
up in the scope output. The device was on the wrong
side of a load-limiting resistor and sucked-down
the voltage on a lot of other stuff when it started,
including some interrupt sources.

[SevenOverSix]

On 9/6/21 7:21 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 06/09/2021 10:38, Tauno Voipio wrote:
>> In practice the speed difference in not
>> noticeable.
> That depends entirely on what you are doing!

And THAT "depends".

Debian is basically "state of the art", it's
a damned good distro - the mother of SO many
others. You can enlarge, or shrink, it over
a VERY wide range. Slitaz/Tiny is probably the
lower end, a big fat KDE environment being
the opposite end.

And you CAN skip all GUIs too ... though that
is pretty retro.

The trick is to scale your environment to the
hardware/task at hand.

If you have a 386 with literally megabytes of
memory - go SMALL, Very Very small. An old
Packard-Bell intended for Win95/98 comes to
mind. 4mb of RAM was considered "overkill" :-)

Did deal with a guy running an old payroll app
on Win95 ... 4mb really DID speed it up.

Oh, the biz owner was nefarious for going to
GARAGE SALES and buying old old PCs. It was
my job to make them work with much newer and
more bulky software. Oh well, he PAID. He'd
call me, sometimes late at night ... but I
was younger then.

And you wonder why my "systems philosophy" is
so weird/brutal. THIS is the kind of crap I've
had to deal with :-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

YOUR stack in THIS thread. Of course you do stack context switches in
multithreading - but this doesn't affect code.

I don't think you understand stack frames properly. They are always
private to the thread. That's the whole point, That's how you do
multitasking

unsafe code is that which modifies memory or accesses memory which is
NOT private to a thread.

>   Modern languages essentially have "stack frames", a
>   de-facto stack for every function/subroutine. The
>   old TI-9900 chips actually kinda rigged this in
>   hardware - each user had a 64k 'universe' of
>   their own.
>
>   I would not even trust that code on a PIC or Arduino ...
>   which, though simple, MIGHT have an ISR running at the
>   instant. Sometimes functions really SHOULD clean up
>   their own messes and not try to leave it to others.
>

I think you don not really undesrstand how interrupts work or what that
code actually doe

>> it does not alter memory, only the state of the CPU
>>
>> Of course there were interrupts. This was a PC BIOS.
>
>   I'm used to micro-controllers. They are far more
>   clear than a PC - no room or mechanism to hide
>   mistakes. My last "big" project was for Arduino/Atmel,
>   field dataloggers, and DID use several ISRs. The Stack
>   was NOT The Stack, but "Stacks". Had to deal with
>   everything within its own "context".
>

Of course. I was doing what you are doing 30 years ago

Give me *some* credit for knowing how to code a multitasker and in
interrupt service routine


--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.
-- Yogi Berra

[SevenOverSix]

Oh PLEASE .......

I was using ISRs while the common advice was
to poll inputs .......

>>> it does not alter memory, only the state of the CPU
>>>
>>> Of course there were interrupts. This was a PC BIOS.
>>
>>    I'm used to micro-controllers. They are far more
>>    clear than a PC - no room or mechanism to hide
>>    mistakes. My last "big" project was for Arduino/Atmel,
>>    field dataloggers, and DID use several ISRs. The Stack
>>    was NOT The Stack, but "Stacks". Had to deal with
>>    everything within its own "context".
>>
> Of course. I was doing what you are doing 30 years ago

I was doing it 30+ years ago too, 8051s mostly.

My, how time flies ....

I liked the 8051 ... you can still buy "compatibles"
using essentially the same instruction set though.
There are modern 8/16 solutions though that are better.
Pretty good for 8-bit, less primitive than the PICs
RISC instructions. There was a company that sold a
"fat"-looking '51 - Systronics ? - it was "fat" because
there was a battery built into the chip package which
kept static RAM alive. Why bother with eproms ? Saved
several extra parts and BS - the experience was a lot
like the more modern chips with flash built in. They
even had a BASIC compiler while most were stuck doing
it all in assembler.

After the '51s there were Rabbit-2000s ... GREAT,
similar to Arduino boards. There were R3/4/5000s
too - but they switched to a wiring pitch too fine
for normal humans to hand-solder - so that was the
end of them. Still sometimes do one-off PIC projects,
but using the through-hole 0.1" DIP versions.

> Give me *some* credit for knowing how to code a multitasker and in
> interrupt service routine

Oh, I'll give due credit. Your code IS a good byte-saver.
However I've always had a good sense of how bits of code
can go wrong. You code is perfectly good - but within a
certain context/environment. As I said, WHICH stack are
you popping from ? Old uController programs usually had
THE Stack - but don't always COUNT on that. If you are
in a subroutine (we'll assume its params/vars were pushed
up on top of THE Stack) if you drop to some POP POPS you
are removing THAT subs data, NOT that of the main pgm loop.
Depending, that MIGHT be OK ... or NOT. ISRs make it
even worse.

My advice was to always "waste" the space - let each
sub/isr clean up its own mess. However if you were
REALLY stuck for memory, well, write the code so
you could get away with the "imperfect" solution
though such code could be rather "imperfect" itself.

I remember doing something for an ag-product flinger
where you had to match the vehicle speed to the
output rate (this was pre-GPS). Shaft sensors,
opto-isolators, e-noise suppressors and such. PID
is *such* a pain, so I had it remember the LAST good
solution. When activated it jumped to THAT value and
THEN fine-tuned it with proportional+fuzzy and, once
stable, it'd record that as the new ideal value. Just
a cheap cheap table. Why the hell should the thing have
to figure-out the solution from scratch every time -
using lots of floating-point or big int math ? Using
that approach you could do the fine-tuning with ints
or even 8-bit.

Oh, optos can be GREAT. E-noise, ignition systems
mostly, produce VOLTAGE spikes - but there's no
CURRENT to them. Optos need CURRENT to light up.
So, they are a good way to suppress such noise.
FETs would just drown, having hyper-high input
impedance which would take such spikes seriously.
Sometimes it pays to "waste" a little current too.
BiPolar CAN be better than FETs. The real world
is just MESSY.

So give ME some credit too - had to Make Do, Squeeze
It In, in back in the Bad Old Days as well :-)

I wish there'd been pretty color-graphic displays
suitable for showing the state of things, but there
were no such things (at least affordable) back in
the day. There were 7-segment LEDs though ...
driving those was why I got into PICs. Send it
some numbers, or an analog value ... integrate
pulses in a cap/resistor combo, that'll give you
an analog value. Not "perfect", but "good enough".

Oh well, I've gone on too long again ......

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 08/09/2021 06:36, SevenOverSix wrote:
> Oh, I'll give due credit. Your code IS a good byte-saver.
>   However I've always had a good sense of how bits of code
>   can go wrong. You code is perfectly good - but within a
>   certain context/environment. As I said, WHICH stack are
>   you popping from ?

I answered that:
The stack that is owned by the current thread

The fact that you cannot understand why that makes your comment
irrelevant worries me greatly. Do you work for Boeing?


--
“The fundamental cause of the trouble in the modern world today is that
the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."

- Bertrand Russell

[Richard Kettlewell]

SevenOverSix <hae274c.net> writes:
> On 9/7/21 3:44 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>> Give me *some* credit for knowing how to code a multitasker and in
>> interrupt service routine
>
> Oh, I'll give due credit. Your code IS a good byte-saver.
> However I've always had a good sense of how bits of code
> can go wrong. You code is perfectly good - but within a
> certain context/environment. As I said, WHICH stack are
> you popping from ?

TNP’s space optimization doesn’t affect the meaning of the code. POP
uses the same SP regardless of where the instruction is located. You are
talking nonsense.

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

[The Natural Philosopher]

Thanks Richard.

On the matter of caching, It's been bothering me...surely even if the
instruction set is cached, a JMP instruction still takes time, or has
the processor simply 'cut and pasted' the instruction block into the
pipeline and elided the JMP altogether?


--
If I had all the money I've spent on drink...
..I'd spend it on drink.

Sir Henry (at Rawlinson's End)

[Richard Kettlewell]

The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> writes:

> On 08/09/2021 08:46, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
>> SevenOverSix <hae274c.net> writes:
>>> On 9/7/21 3:44 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>> Give me *some* credit for knowing how to code a multitasker and in
>>>> interrupt service routine
>>>
>>> Oh, I'll give due credit. Your code IS a good byte-saver.
>>> However I've always had a good sense of how bits of code
>>> can go wrong. You code is perfectly good - but within a
>>> certain context/environment. As I said, WHICH stack are
>>> you popping from ?
>>
>> TNP’s space optimization doesn’t affect the meaning of the code. POP
>> uses the same SP regardless of where the instruction is located. You are
>> talking nonsense.
>>
> Thanks Richard.
>
> On the matter of caching, It's been bothering me...surely even if the
> instruction set is cached, a JMP instruction still takes time, or has
> the processor simply 'cut and pasted' the instruction block into the
> pipeline and elided the JMP altogether?

Suppose you have many consecutive functions with the common tail, and
you execute all of them once.

For each of those functions, the object code of the function must be
loaded from main memory into cache. The number of loads from main memory
is proportional to the sum of the sizes of the functions.

Now suppose all but one of the functions have that tail replaced by a
JMP to the first function’s version.

They do indeed incur a small extra cost for the JMP, but after the first
of them has executed, and _if_ the reduced size means you’ve reduced the
total amount of code that must be read, the number of loads from main
memory is reduced.

Loads from main memory are incredibly slow compared to executing single
instructions - think 10x or 100x as long. The extra cost of the JMP is
lost in the noise.

This is a very simple model; in reality you won’t notice the
sub-microsecond savings from eliminating a handful of memory reads. The
real benefit comes when the space optimization squeezes the working set
of a long-running program down from a bit bigger than the total cache
size to a bit smaller.

The effect scales: if you can reduce the number of memory pages your
program takes, you reduce the number of disk reads, and those are
even slower.

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

[Tauno Voipio]

On 8.9.21 12.57, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 08/09/2021 08:46, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
>> SevenOverSix <hae274c.net> writes:
>>> On 9/7/21 3:44 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>> Give me *some* credit for knowing how to code a multitasker and in
>>>> interrupt service routine
>>>
>>>    Oh, I'll give due credit. Your code IS a good byte-saver.
>>>    However I've always had a good sense of how bits of code
>>>    can go wrong. You code is perfectly good - but within a
>>>    certain context/environment. As I said, WHICH stack are
>>>    you popping from ?
>>
>> TNP’s space optimization doesn’t affect the meaning of the code. POP
>> uses the same SP regardless of where the instruction is located. You are
>> talking nonsense.
>>
> Thanks Richard.
>
> On the matter of caching, It's been bothering me...surely even if the
> instruction set is cached, a JMP instruction still takes time, or has
> the processor simply 'cut and pasted' the instruction block into the
> pipeline and elided the JMP altogether?

A transfer of control usually causes a flush of the instruction
pipeline and, dependent on cache size and alignment with respect
to the transfer, also a cache miss. An exception may be a processor
with several speculative execution paths.

--

-TV

[The Natural Philosopher]

Thanks. That makes it clear. So in fact lots of very small often used
subroutines might be faster than inline coding?

Rather counter intuitive, that.

--
When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over
the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that
authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

Frédéric Bastiat

[Richard Kettlewell]

It can happen, yes - it will be very dependent on what the code does,
the relationship between its size and cache sizes, etc. Same with data:
if you can make its representation smaller, enough so that it takes less
cache lines (or pages, etc) then overall performance can be better even
though you’re doing more work to unpack it.

A good concrete example of this (much higher up the memory hierarchy) is
that compressed man pages are quicker to render than uncompressed ones
(and have been since at least the 1990s) - gzip decompression is enough
faster than disk read that you can easily measure the difference.

(Granted I’ve not rechecked this against NVMe or other modern ultra-fast
storage.)

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

[SevenOverSix]

On 9/8/21 2:46 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 08/09/2021 06:36, SevenOverSix wrote:
>> Oh, I'll give due credit. Your code IS a good byte-saver.
>>    However I've always had a good sense of how bits of code
>>    can go wrong. You code is perfectly good - but within a
>>    certain context/environment. As I said, WHICH stack are
>>    you popping from ?
> I answered that:
> The stack that is owned by the current thread

IF you carefully code it that way. But as a "general fix"
I'd still be wary. If you use GOTOs for a bunch of subs
it may NOT be the current thread/isr you're popping from.
The others may get, well, a tad upset ....

Not using subs AT ALL ... then it's far easier/safer
to use the GOTO fixes. There's usually only ONE
frame then.

> The fact that you cannot understand why that makes your comment
> irrelevant worries me greatly. Do you work for Boeing?

Are we going to get into insults now .... ?

I'm not trashing your byte-saving fix - just
cautioning. I've done the same thing, when it
is safe.

I've had a rich and varied career, and apparently you
have too. Seems we've learned some different Truths
however, variations on said experiences. You've seen
some stuff, I've seen other stuff. The Truth doesn't
even lie between here - it's ALL true, within certain
context.

Sorry, but I don't do flame wars or insults. They've
ruined usenet.

The only offset, 'wokeism'/flames/disinfo and such have ruined
all the OTHER , big-$$$, 'social media' too :-)

Maybe there's some Estonian BBS out there that's still decent ...

Anyway, I've provided details in all this stuff some ignorant
troll just can't fake. Requires hands-on experience from
latter 1970s on. How many here now have even held a stack of
IBM cards in their hands, know how they feel, dropped them
all on the floor ? Heard the Tat-Tat-Tat of a teletype terminal
that's not some movie sound effect ? Threaded mag-tapes ? Had
to use panel switches to boot a system ? Dealt with RAM measured
in BYTES ? Seen a paper tape get shredded ? This is Lost Knowledge
at this point. I know, you know, but how many others ? It was where
we came from, shapes where we are and will even shape tomorrow.

The CompuVerse builds on itself, often more evolutionary
than truly 'revolutionary'. The only 'revolution' seems to be
quantum, but even after bragging for a decade+ they can
BARELY make it work - will NOT be coming to your desktop
like EVER.

Would still like my own IBM/360 though - 0.1 mHz, lots
of switches and blinky lights. The ads always showed some
hot-looking women running the things, a 60s/70s flair on
"Desk Set", but I mostly encountered Dilberts :-)

[SevenOverSix]

ONLY if you use sub-less programs. Try that shit
with threads/subs/ISRs and you'll get burnt.
Absolutely guaranteed. Been there. Debugging
was a total bitch.

It's all CONTEXT - the environment, the hardware, how
YOU set up the program. GOTO shortcuts can be great,
or a great disaster.

But nobody liked Cassandra ...... :-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 09/09/2021 06:53, SevenOverSix wrote:
> On 9/8/21 2:46 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>> On 08/09/2021 06:36, SevenOverSix wrote:
>>> Oh, I'll give due credit. Your code IS a good byte-saver.
>>>    However I've always had a good sense of how bits of code
>>>    can go wrong. You code is perfectly good - but within a
>>>    certain context/environment. As I said, WHICH stack are
>>>    you popping from ?
>> I answered that:
>> The stack that is owned by the current thread
>
>   IF you carefully code it that way. But as a "general fix"
>   I'd still be wary. If you use GOTOs for a bunch of subs
>   it may NOT be the current thread/isr you're popping from.
>   The others may get, well, a tad upset ....
>
>   Not using subs AT ALL ... then it's far easier/safer
>   to use the GOTO fixes. There's usually only ONE
>   frame then.
>
>> The fact that you cannot understand why that makes your comment
>> irrelevant worries me greatly. Do you work for Boeing?
>
>
>   Are we going to get into insults now .... ?
>

No, I am genuinely concerned that you are coding real time software
without apparently understanding how multitasking context switching works.

>   I'm not trashing your byte-saving fix - just
>   cautioning. I've done the same thing, when it
>   is safe.
>
>   I've had a rich and varied career, and apparently you
>   have too. Seems we've learned some different Truths
>   however, variations on said experiences. You've seen
>   some stuff, I've seen other stuff. The Truth doesn't
>   even lie between here - it's ALL true, within certain
>   context.
>
>   Sorry, but I don't do flame wars or insults. They've
>   ruined usenet.
>
>   The only offset, 'wokeism'/flames/disinfo and such have ruined
>   all the OTHER , big-$$$, 'social media' too  :-)
>

Dont change the subjectt

>   Maybe there's some Estonian BBS out there that's still decent ...
>
>   Anyway, I've provided details in all this stuff some ignorant
>   troll just can't fake. Requires hands-on experience from
>   latter 1970s on. How many here now have even held a stack of
>   IBM cards in their hands, know how they feel, dropped them
>   all on the floor ? Heard the Tat-Tat-Tat of a teletype terminal
>   that's not some movie sound effect ? Threaded mag-tapes ? Had
>   to use panel switches to boot a system ? Dealt with RAM measured
>   in BYTES ? Seen a paper tape get shredded ? This is Lost Knowledge
>   at this point. I know, you know, but how many others ? It was where
>   we came from, shapes where we are and will even shape tomorrow.
>
>   The CompuVerse builds on itself, often more evolutionary
>   than truly 'revolutionary'. The only 'revolution' seems to be
>   quantum, but even after bragging for a decade+ they can
>   BARELY make it work - will NOT be coming to your desktop
>   like EVER.
>
>   Would still like my own IBM/360 though - 0.1 mHz, lots
>   of switches and blinky lights. The ads always showed some
>   hot-looking women running the things, a 60s/70s flair on
>   "Desk Set", but I mostly encountered Dilberts  :-)
>

Yawn


--
“The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to
fill the world with fools.”

Herbert Spencer

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 09/09/2021 07:04, SevenOverSix wrote:
> On 9/8/21 3:46 AM, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
>> SevenOverSix <hae274c.net> writes:
>>> On 9/7/21 3:44 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>> Give me *some* credit for knowing how to code a multitasker and in
>>>> interrupt service routine
>>>
>>>    Oh, I'll give due credit. Your code IS a good byte-saver.
>>>    However I've always had a good sense of how bits of code
>>>    can go wrong. You code is perfectly good - but within a
>>>    certain context/environment. As I said, WHICH stack are
>>>    you popping from ?
>>
>> TNP’s space optimization doesn’t affect the meaning of the code. POP
>> uses the same SP regardless of where the instruction is located. You are
>> talking nonsense.
>
>   ONLY if you use sub-less programs. Try that shit
>   with threads/subs/ISRs and you'll get burnt.
>   Absolutely guaranteed. Been there. Debugging
>   was a total bitch.
>

Why would you be using that code fragment *without* it being part of a
subroutine?

I've written reams of code to operate under context switched
multitaskers and interrupt service routines, using subroutines

As long as you only use memory relative the the contexts stack frame,
they are thread safe, If you modify memory outside of that it had better
not be modified by anyone else or you are in trouble

>   It's all CONTEXT - the environment, the hardware, how
>   YOU set up the program. GOTO shortcuts can be great,
>   or a great disaster.
>

No, it isnt

Its about actually understanding how multitasking works

>   But nobody liked Cassandra ......  :-)
>

[SevenOverSix]

On 9/9/21 2:41 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 09/09/2021 06:53, SevenOverSix wrote:
>> On 9/8/21 2:46 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>> On 08/09/2021 06:36, SevenOverSix wrote:
>>>> Oh, I'll give due credit. Your code IS a good byte-saver.
>>>>    However I've always had a good sense of how bits of code
>>>>    can go wrong. You code is perfectly good - but within a
>>>>    certain context/environment. As I said, WHICH stack are
>>>>    you popping from ?
>>> I answered that:
>>> The stack that is owned by the current thread
>>
>>    IF you carefully code it that way. But as a "general fix"
>>    I'd still be wary. If you use GOTOs for a bunch of subs
>>    it may NOT be the current thread/isr you're popping from.
>>    The others may get, well, a tad upset ....
>>
>>    Not using subs AT ALL ... then it's far easier/safer
>>    to use the GOTO fixes. There's usually only ONE
>>    frame then.
>>
>>> The fact that you cannot understand why that makes your comment
>>> irrelevant worries me greatly. Do you work for Boeing?
>>
>>
>>    Are we going to get into insults now .... ?
>>
>
> No, I am genuinely concerned that you are coding real time software
> without apparently understanding how multitasking context switching works.

Ummmmm ... did it for 30 years ... some of my product
was used for a decade+ without issues.

I must grasp SOMETHING ...

For MICROCONTROLLERS it's all much simpler. You
can have basically ONE context. An ISR might
create two, but they're BRIEF. However if you
have TWO+ ISRs, device-driven plus TIME driven,
it can get weird.

For a modern MICROPROCESSOR it gets a LOT more
complicated.

I suspect SOME of our "disagreement" revolves around
the TERMINOLOGY we use. "Context" means something
different to you and I.

Anyway, my stuff WORKED. I got the paycheck. The
customers were HAPPY. Didn't even over-charge them
because development was FUN.

>>    I'm not trashing your byte-saving fix - just
>>    cautioning. I've done the same thing, when it
>>    is safe.
>>
>>    I've had a rich and varied career, and apparently you
>>    have too. Seems we've learned some different Truths
>>    however, variations on said experiences. You've seen
>>    some stuff, I've seen other stuff. The Truth doesn't
>>    even lie between here - it's ALL true, within certain
>>    context.
>>
>>    Sorry, but I don't do flame wars or insults. They've
>>    ruined usenet.
>>
>>    The only offset, 'wokeism'/flames/disinfo and such have ruined
>>    all the OTHER , big-$$$, 'social media' too  :-)
>>
> Dont change the subjectt

Drifted in there .... not entirely without reason ...

>
>>    Maybe there's some Estonian BBS out there that's still decent ...
>>
>>    Anyway, I've provided details in all this stuff some ignorant
>>    troll just can't fake. Requires hands-on experience from
>>    latter 1970s on. How many here now have even held a stack of
>>    IBM cards in their hands, know how they feel, dropped them
>>    all on the floor ? Heard the Tat-Tat-Tat of a teletype terminal
>>    that's not some movie sound effect ? Threaded mag-tapes ? Had
>>    to use panel switches to boot a system ? Dealt with RAM measured
>>    in BYTES ? Seen a paper tape get shredded ? This is Lost Knowledge
>>    at this point. I know, you know, but how many others ? It was where
>>    we came from, shapes where we are and will even shape tomorrow.
>>
>>    The CompuVerse builds on itself, often more evolutionary
>>    than truly 'revolutionary'. The only 'revolution' seems to be
>>    quantum, but even after bragging for a decade+ they can
>>    BARELY make it work - will NOT be coming to your desktop
>>    like EVER.
>>
>>    Would still like my own IBM/360 though - 0.1 mHz, lots
>>    of switches and blinky lights. The ads always showed some
>>    hot-looking women running the things, a 60s/70s flair on
>>    "Desk Set", but I mostly encountered Dilberts  :-)
>>
> Yawn

Yea, yawn .... guess there's no reason to listen to
your "philosophizing" anymore.

I'll stick with the practical programmers - the people
who Make It Work. Screw 'philosophy', these are MACHINES.
They don't have civil rights, don't "identify" as anything
(yet), they are just THINGS. Bend them to your will. The
application is the application and the boss INSISTS it
work - like yesterday.

[SevenOverSix]

On 9/9/21 2:46 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 09/09/2021 07:04, SevenOverSix wrote:
>> On 9/8/21 3:46 AM, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
>>> SevenOverSix <hae274c.net> writes:
>>>> On 9/7/21 3:44 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>>> Give me *some* credit for knowing how to code a multitasker and in
>>>>> interrupt service routine
>>>>
>>>>    Oh, I'll give due credit. Your code IS a good byte-saver.
>>>>    However I've always had a good sense of how bits of code
>>>>    can go wrong. You code is perfectly good - but within a
>>>>    certain context/environment. As I said, WHICH stack are
>>>>    you popping from ?
>>>
>>> TNP’s space optimization doesn’t affect the meaning of the code. POP
>>> uses the same SP regardless of where the instruction is located. You are
>>> talking nonsense.
>>
>>    ONLY if you use sub-less programs. Try that shit
>>    with threads/subs/ISRs and you'll get burnt.
>>    Absolutely guaranteed. Been there. Debugging
>>    was a total bitch.
>>
>
> Why would you be using that code fragment *without* it being part of a
> subroutine?

Your fragment was sold as a fix for subroutineS. For
ISR(s).

In SOME carefully crafted software IT WILL WORK FINE.
But not ALL.

Especially for microcontrollers, "sub-less", GOTO-structured,
code may be the BEST choice - smaller, faster, simpler. Been
there, done it, not sorry.

But when you move up to microprocessors/OSs/multi-thread-core
... then things can get very weird. If you MUST have tippy-top
performance then it's NOT WikiPedia simple - you have to really
KNOW how that little black square thing THINKS.

> I've written reams of code to operate under context switched
> multitaskers and interrupt service routines, using subroutines

Good.

But shit CAN go very wrong ......

A little bumblebee starts buzzing in the back of
my head - saying *something* may not be accomodated.

> As long as you only use memory relative the the contexts stack frame,
> they are thread safe, If you modify memory outside of that it had better
> not be modified by anyone else or you are in trouble

Ah .. "So Long As" ... :-)

You see, THAT'S the rub I'm talking about.

We're just not speaking the exact same language here.
I learned this shit entirely on my own over 30+ years
and think of it MY way, in MY terms. You took some
slightly different paths and think of it YOUR way,
in YOUR terms. I don't think we're ACTUALLY in so
much disagreement as it seems.

>
>>    It's all CONTEXT - the environment, the hardware, how
>>    YOU set up the program. GOTO shortcuts can be great,
>>    or a great disaster.
>>
> No, it isnt

Yes, it VERY much is - at least as I think of "context".

> Its about actually understanding how multitasking works

Multi-tasking can work in several ways , depending on
the CPU and the app you craft. Intel/AMD are NOT the
alpha and omega of the universe.

This is an -ix group, but a lot of us also craft apps
for things with NO OS at all. Weird chips. Weird apps.
Wrote anything for an Epson 4-bit chip lately ?
How's your Atmel/Arduino ? 8051 ? PIC ? Those kinds of
chips are in *everything* the world wants, all the little
conveniences. Make your Mr. Coffee work. Your microwave.
Your TV remote. Your home alarm. Your A/C thermostat.
What makes your 'woke' solar panels charge the damned
batteries right. One of those weather monitors. Your
car ignition. They ain't DOS or Winders or Linux - but
they make the real world work.

The "higher level" systems "Make Use Of Them" ... but
they have to deliver, often with ultra-limited resources,
in the first place.

See where I'm coming from ?

[Richard Kettlewell]

SevenOverSix <hae274c.net> writes:
> On 9/8/21 3:46 AM, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
>> SevenOverSix <hae274c.net> writes:
>>> On 9/7/21 3:44 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>> Give me *some* credit for knowing how to code a multitasker and in
>>>> interrupt service routine
>>>
>>> Oh, I'll give due credit. Your code IS a good byte-saver.
>>> However I've always had a good sense of how bits of code
>>> can go wrong. You code is perfectly good - but within a
>>> certain context/environment. As I said, WHICH stack are
>>> you popping from ?
>>
>> TNP’s space optimization doesn’t affect the meaning of the code. POP
>> uses the same SP regardless of where the instruction is located. You
>> are talking nonsense.
>
> ONLY if you use sub-less programs. Try that shit
> with threads/subs/ISRs and you'll get burnt.
> Absolutely guaranteed. Been there. Debugging
> was a total bitch.

TNP’s code is x86; you can easily find the x86 instruction set reference
online. There is nothing to support your counterfactual argument there.
If you want to argue about some other ISA we can look at that instead.

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

[SevenOverSix]

On 9/8/21 3:46 AM, Richard Kettlewell wrote:

Doesn't even MATTER if it's the same SP ... WHO has
pushed their crap ONTO it at the instant ?

I'm really concerned that you can't see how
GOTO :
pop
pop
pop
any/everywhere in a program can go horribly wrong.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Im really concrened that you cannot see how

GOTO :
pop
pop
pop

Is different from just

pop
pop
pop

--
It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffee-house
for the voice of the kingdom.

Jonathan Swift

[Richard Kettlewell]

SevenOverSix <hae274c.net> writes:
> On 9/8/21 3:46 AM, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
>> SevenOverSix <hae274c.net> writes:
>>> On 9/7/21 3:44 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>> Give me *some* credit for knowing how to code a multitasker and in
>>>> interrupt service routine
>>>
>>> Oh, I'll give due credit. Your code IS a good byte-saver.
>>> However I've always had a good sense of how bits of code
>>> can go wrong. You code is perfectly good - but within a
>>> certain context/environment. As I said, WHICH stack are
>>> you popping from ?
>>
>> TNP’s space optimization doesn’t affect the meaning of the code. POP
>> uses the same SP regardless of where the instruction is located. You are
>> talking nonsense.
>
> Doesn't even MATTER if it's the same SP ... WHO has
> pushed their crap ONTO it at the instant ?

Nobody has. Introducing a JMP doesn’t affect the stack at all.

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

[SevenOverSix]

It's not the JMP ... it's what your JMP-ing FROM and TO.

The provided example popped x-number of items off
the stack, regardless of the situation you jumped
FROM. IF your code/subs/isr's are all PERFECTLY
regular, ALWAYS put the exact same number of items
on the stack, then you can do the JMP/POP trick safely.

You can always keep track of what was added to the
stack in a variable and POP accordingly - but then
you're inserting addition/subtraction plus a counting
loop and negate the perks of the trick - basically
replicating what the processor normally does when it
returns from a sub - but SLOWER.

All I'm saying is that the example was a special case.
There ARE ways to get away with it, but it's rarely
THAT simple. IF you can possibly spare the memory
and cycles, do it more conventionally with every
sub cleaning up its own mess in the order created.
I've done a lot of microcontroller projects and
I know that sometimes you CAN'T spare the memory
or cycles. Very very careful programming and
optimization is then required. Often what you
originally did in 20 instructions can be done
in 10 IF ...

Mr. Philosopher seems to think I'm dissing him. I'm not.
His fix IS clever - but you can't use it EVERYWHERE on
EVERYTHING.

[Richard Kettlewell]

SevenOverSix <hae274c.net> writes:
> It's not the JMP ... it's what your JMP-ing FROM and TO.
>
> The provided example popped x-number of items off the stack,
> regardless of the situation you jumped FROM.

Nope. The example replaced a specific sequence of POPs and RET with a
JMP to the same sequence of POPs and RET.

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well of course they are!

Why on earth would one not make sure of that?

>   You can always keep track of what was added to the
>   stack in a variable and POP accordingly - but then
>   you're inserting addition/subtraction plus a counting
>   loop and negate the perks of the trick - basically
>   replicating what the processor normally does when it
>   returns from a sub - but SLOWER.
>
>   All I'm saying is that the example was a special case.
>   There ARE ways to get away with it, but it's rarely
>   THAT simple. IF you can possibly spare the memory
>   and cycles, do it more conventionally with every
>   sub cleaning up its own mess in the order created.
>   I've done a lot of microcontroller projects and
>   I know that sometimes you CAN'T spare the memory
>   or cycles. Very very careful programming and
>   optimization is then required. Often what you
>   originally did in 20 instructions can be done
>   in 10 IF ...
>
>   Mr. Philosopher seems to think I'm dissing him. I'm not.
>   His fix IS clever - but you can't use it EVERYWHERE on
>   EVERYTHING.
>

You can use it anywhere you have the same sequence of POPS followed by a RET

And in the case in point the original designer simply always used the
same registers - AX, BX, CX, DX - as scratch storage in any subroutine.

And because I was modifying and extending his BIOS code, I followed the
same convention as well.

When you needed to cram more into an already full 2K EEPROM it was a way
to do it.


--
Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have
guns, why should we let them have ideas?

Josef Stalin

[SevenOverSix]

On 9/12/21 4:09 AM, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
> SevenOverSix <hae274c.net> writes:
>> It's not the JMP ... it's what your JMP-ing FROM and TO.
>>
>> The provided example popped x-number of items off the stack,
>> regardless of the situation you jumped FROM.
>
> Nope. The example replaced a specific sequence of POPs and RET with a
> JMP to the same sequence of POPs and RET.

That'll work - WITHIN that context. I'm referring to
the example being used as prototype GENERAL fix for
every little problem.

Not mentioning the limitations amounts to defective
programming advice. Many (most) of us use cut-n-paste
bits from advice forums these days. Like science and
medicine, the compuverse has become SO vast there are
no such things as all-purpose experts. Specialization
has crept in. Oft we need to cut-n-paste stuff WE do
not fully understand. So, it'd better be GOOD stuff.

[TJ]

On 8/30/21 19:22, Ant wrote:
> I'll be mainly doing basic stuff like web browsing, e-mails, newsgroups,
> downloads, listening to audio, watching videos, simple SSH2 server, etc.
> I currently run updated Debian Jessie v8's KDE which is fine but it
> doesn't get updates for years so it's time to move on for a clean/new
> Linux installation. Will getting Bullseye v11 be OK?
>
> Setup details:
>
> Intel Core 2 Q8200 (quad-core; default clock speeds; Socket 775 LGA;
> Yorkfield) with a Scythe Andy Master 120mm CPU cooler (SCASM-1000),
> Antec Sonata Proto mid tower ATX case, MSI P43 NEO3-F (MSI-7514)
> motherboard (latest BIOS), two 1 GB of Crucial RAM (Samsung DDR2 800
> (PC2-6400; 400 MHz), EVGA NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT PCIE video card (512 MB
> of VRAM), onboard RealTek RTL8168C(P)/8111C(P) PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet
> and Intel High Digital Audio (HDA), 600 watts Sea Sonic S12 PSU, ASUS TV
> Tuner Card 880 NTSC (cx23880), Pioneer CD/DVD Burner Black SATA Model
> DVR-218LBK LabelFlash Support, 3.5" floppy disk drive, Corsair Force
> Series F115 Solid-State Disk (SSD) (115 GB; CSSD-F115GB2-BRKT-A), two
> internal 3.5" SATA hard disk drives (HDDs) [Seagate ST3320620AS 320 GB
> and Western Digital Purple Surveillance 2 TB (6 Gbs; 50 MB cache; WDC
> WD20PURX-64P6ZY0)], Sabrent USB2+memory card reader front panel, and an
> Intel InBusiness 10/100 (82559) NIC (not connected). Running 64-bit
> Debian (Linux; oldoldstable v8/Jessie; kernel v3.16... x86_64) and
> updated 64-bit Windows 7 HPE SP1 (installed on 10/22/2016).
>
> Connected to an old (Y2K) Belkin Omni Cube (2-port; PS/2 and VGA) KVM to
> share a 23.6" 16:9 1920x1080 pixels ASUS VS247H-P monitor (LED; 2 ms,
> 9/2014, etc.), a Dell 104-key PS/2 keyboard, and a three-buttons PS/2
> optical Logitech mouse.

Hello, Ant.

I can't answer your question, because I have zero experience with
Debian. I use Mageia Linux, and have since its inception a decade ago,
and I can say that your hardware would work just fine with Mageia 8.

I would, however, echo some of the advice you've been given here to get
the best you can out of Mageia. You should add some RAM - bring it up to
4GB at least, and 8 would be better. With just 2GB you are likely to be
using swap if you try to do more than one thing at a time, and that will
hurt performance, even with an ssd.

I'd also replace the Nvidia card with one from AMD, because Nvidia has
become notorious for not supporting their older cards with proprietary
drivers. While your current card may work OK with the open source
nouveau driver, it also may not. I dumped my last Nvidia card two years
ago because of this. The open source AMD drivers are much more capable
in my experience.

Ebay is an excellent place to look for lightly used older hardware
upgrades - it is where most of my hardware has come from.

I have a PC, on loan to my brother, with a 13 year old Intel DQ45CB
motherboard, a Core 2 Duo E8400 processor, 8GB of RAM, AMD HD 8570
video, and an ssd drive. He connects to the Internet with an Atheros
AR9485 PCIe card. He is running Mageia 8 Linux with the Plasma DE, with
no troubles at all. The video card uses the AMDGPU driver, but actually,
for anything he's likely to do the onboard Intel graphics would be
perfectly adequate.

I also have an 18 year old Dell Inspiron 5100 that is successfully
running Mageia 8 Linux. It has a 32-bit P4 processor, 2GB of RAM (the
max for the hardware), downright ancient Radeon RV200 graphics, and an
old Atheros wifi card. It is running 32-bit Mageia Xfce, currently using
the 5.10.62 kernel. It's definitely no speed demon, but it works.

TJ

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2021-09-15, TJ <T...@noneofyour.business> wrote:

> I'd also replace the Nvidia card with one from AMD, because Nvidia has
> become notorious for not supporting their older cards with proprietary
> drivers. While your current card may work OK with the open source
> nouveau driver, it also may not. I dumped my last Nvidia card two years
> ago because of this. The open source AMD drivers are much more capable
> in my experience.

I've had good results with nVidia cards. I have older ones (e.g.
GeForce 630) in two of my boxes, and they run just fine with the
proprietary drivers. You can get versions for older cards like
mine from the Debian site.

I've had trouble with nouveau - one of my boxes was locking up
from time to time, and it straightened out when I replaced nouveau
with the proprietary drivers. This was a few years ago - perhaps
nouveau is working better now.

I tried borrowing an ATI video card from a friend, and couldn't
get it to work at all.

I'm running Debian Buster on my machines.

I'm writing this message on a Lenovo T410 laptop. I can't find
an exact release date for it, but it came with Windows 7 and I've
found reviews from 2010. So it might not be over 12 years old yet,
but it's getting close - and although I'm not doing high-powered
graphics on it, it does manage fairly well with Zoom and Skype.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | They don't understand Microsoft
\ / <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> | has stolen their car and parked
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | a taxi in their driveway.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Mayayana