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On 9/28/2019 at 1:13 AM, AngryBeaver said:

even the best ones require some command line here and there. So I think that is where it really hurts itself. Where as with windows you don't really need to know any command line at all.

The thing is that Windows has only one interface.  The various Linux distros have so many different interfaces and menus that it's always easier to say "enter this command in the terminal" than to ask what distro and desktop environment someone uses and to then tell them which buttons to look for and which options to click in which menus.  I don't like using command line either, but it often is just a lot more convenient than using the UI. 

I'd reply to the "Linux forums vs Microsoft support" comment, but in all fairness the last time I contacted Microsoft's support was because of problems with the then newly released Vista SP1.  Their support was pretty horrible back then.  Judging by the irrelevant and generic "solutions" that their reps post in the answers.microsoft.com community forum whenever someone reports a problem, I doubt that there has been any improvement since.

Been running Mint on my laptop (Samsung NP900X4D) for several years now.  

I had to install no drivers at all, even most of the function keys (screen brightness, keyboard backlight brightness, volume, touchpad on/off) worked out of the box. 

Only the manual fan on/off and the WiFi on/off button don't do anything, but I suspect that this functionality under Windows is part of Samsung's own software suite.  It shouldn't be that hard to enable it under Linux too, but I don't ever use those buttons so I haven't bothered to look into it. 

Why I prefer it:

• the responsiveness.  Everything is smoother and faster, even the mouse and trackpad response feels much better than on Windows (different accelleration?).
• no forced updates, no built-in advertisements, no unnecessary telemetry. 
• updates won't add or remove programs or adjust your privacy settings, unlike some other OS does on a regular basis.
• using repositories means that all your installed programs are automatically updated with a single command, no more need to let the programs themselves check for updates or to download them individually.
• you can keep using your programs while the system is updating them.  Also no need to stop working or immediately restart when there is an OS update. 
• the ability to boot from an external USB3 drive.  I find that having several (encrypted) external drives and using those is much more convenient than setting up a multiboot environment.  This allows me to do any financial and crypto stuff on a completely separate OS without actually having to buy a different machine for that purpose.  Even if there would be something nasty on my regular install, there's just no way for it to jump over. 
• choice.  Don't like something?  Change it.  Switch to a completely different distro if you want, there's plenty of stuff out there to suit everyone's tastes.  As long as you have a separate home partition set up, you don't even need to move or back up your files (although the latter is still always a good idea)
• free ... as in "freedom" as well as "free beer".  
• Security issues get patched a LOT faster. 

In fairness I have to add that I usually run Windows 7 on my main PC, but I will completely switch that one over to Linux when 7 goes EoL. 

Apart from GTA5, which I haven't played in months anyway, my entire Steam library has native Linux support. 

I do have this desire to pick up WoW Classic to relive my youth, but not if that means having to install Windows 8.1 or 10 in a couple of months. 

48 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

Doesn't necessarily seem like it could be exploited for evil from another party unless your phone was literally stolen.

It can be exploited whenever you cross the border.  It sure makes it easier for border patrol agencies in the various surveillance states to dump the contents of travellers' iPhones and possibly install spyware onto it. 

33 minutes ago, HarryNyquist said:

Brute-forcing AES 256 from a data dump is way harder than brute-forcing the passcode in the OS.

For regular people that's true.  However government agencies can throw tons of hardware at that problem.  It's probably more convenient for them to brute-force a data dump than it is to get the phone's owner to tell them the passcode.

I have a couple of small plastic boxes to store my cables.  One for everything USB-related, one for display cables, one for power and ethernet cables and one for audio cables.

Here's the USB one.  The others are the same size, apart from the audio one which is slightly less than half as big.

I did throw away a bunch of 3.0 USB-A -> micro-B cables earlier this year, but still have a dozen or so left.  That's also a way to keep things in check. 

Cables that I regularly use to charge my phone, tablet, MP3 player etc are permanently attached to an Aukey charger that is taped to the underside of my desk.  I added a plastic cable holder next to it, so that the cables are somewhat managed. 

No idea what brand or model the cable holder is, or even where I got the two that I have.  The angle fits perfectly.

I did specifically buy these cables for that purpose, which is why they are all white and all 50cm long. 

And then there's the bag of cables and adapters that I keep in my backpack.  All of the white USB cables are 0.5m and should cover just about every situation. 

The blue USB3 extension cable on the right is 1m.  Not going to go into detail on the rest of the contents here, unless there is enough demand.  

If you're interested in the bag itself, just do an Ebay search for "Cable organizer bag" and you'll see plenty of them pop up. 

As with the cables on my desk, most of these were bought specifically for use in this kit.  I just didn't want to bother with mismatched cables of various lengths.

4 hours ago, Spotty said:

"Checking..."? How bloody slow is it if you have to wait for it to unlock?

Check the unlock at about 5 seconds in.  Looks like you don't have to wait long. 

If anything, I'd say it unlocks faster than my S9+ does on Lineage OS. 

4 hours ago, dizmo said:

Being a first gen product is no excuse for using antiquated WiFi, a low res screen, an SoC that doesn't even compare to a Qualcomm 200 series chip, and so many components that it's sure to be a huge drain on battery life. It's simply poor design.

 

There are other phones that also have privacy in mind, like the Blackphone 2...which was released almost 5 years ago...and even it came with a 1080p screen.

Kind of makes you think, no?

Looks like hey wanted to buy open-source hardware as much as possible instead of making their own or relying on closed-source stuff.  Seeing as all the main cellphone component manufacturers make everything closed-source, that kinda limits them to the lower end of the spectrum ... or in this case parts that were never designed for smartphone use at all.  

The Blackphones had reasonable specs because Silent Circle relied solely on their hardened version of Android and their apps to do all the privacy stuff.  The hardware itself was closed-source and hence no more privacy-oriented than the average Android phone's hardware.

It's worth noting that their software is closed-source as well, which makes it much harder to verify their claims.  Security through obscurity usually doesn't last. 

I wouldn't mind getting one, but I'm not ordering it directly from Purism.  That kind of international package is certain to be detoured to a 3-letter agency for the installation of additional software. I'm not taking that chance. 

Besides, I already spent way too much on phones the last couple of years.  I'm very unlikely to buy a new one in the next 4 or 5 years.

On 9/25/2019 at 6:03 AM, williamcll said:

Didn't TSMC once mentioned about 0.1nm technology?

That's going to be hard to accomplish.  Single atoms are generally between 0.1 and 0.5nm in diameter. 

I did a quick search on Ebay for sold listings of the 760 3GB, and they generally go for around $40-45. 

8 hours ago, VegetableStu said:

inb4 this thread becomes a waifu vs pony battleground

Ponies?  I have a solution for that heresey ...

This will make it a lot easier to let your GPU match the rest of your build. 

On 9/18/2019 at 5:52 AM, Ryan_Vickers said:

It doesn't hurt to delay a big feature update by a few months though just to let its problems come to light before jumping on it.  Don't confuse this with regular security updates though, these should always be installed asap.

Herein lies my big problem with Microsoft's updates.  You just can't trust that their security updates are in fact just that. 

https://betanews.com/2016/03/09/windows-10-advertising-in-ie-security-patch/

Sure, this is 3+ years ago, but trust is easy to break and I haven't seen too many attempts to regain that trust.  Or even an apology or an admission that they crossed a line.

Quote

Fool me once, shame on ... shame on you.  Fool me ... you can't get fooled again.

 

                                                                                                       - George W. Bush

I don't trust any of those sites TBH.  A much safer, albeit more annoying, solution is to install the app and then use an APK extractor. 

I use axxapy's APK Extractor, which can be found on F-droid .  It doesn't require root unless the apk you need is from a paid app.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/axp.tool.apkextractor/

I assume there are plenty of APK Extractors on Google Play too, but apps there are usually less trustworthy than those you get on F-droid.

MSI Blitz ATX

The MSI badge gave it away.  I did a duckduckgo image search on "MSI case" and scrolled down until I saw that HAF-like front grille.  Took me about 40 seconds. 

On 9/20/2019 at 9:57 PM, Dan Castellaneta said:

Where the cash at?

Right here

Hundreds of thousands of IoT cameras from Apexis and their daughter brand Sumpple, sold mostly on Amazon and cheap webshops like AliExpress and Wish, can be accessed by anyone thanks to a database leak. 

The info in the database consists of email addresses and passwords, which allows anyone to connect to any of the cameras in the database.  Apparently the camera's location data is also stored there, so it shouldn't be hard to find out which exact house you are spying on.

The big problem lies in the database itself, which is secured by a password that appears in most "bad password" lists (so probably "monkey123" or "123456").  The data inside the database is also stored unencrypted.

Once they enter the email address and password of a camera, intruders can control said camera, talk through the built-in speaker or simply watch and record the audio and video feed.

Quote

The passwords of many hundreds of thousands of worldwide users are stored unencrypted, making them easy to see. So no passwords need to be cracked to gain access to the smart cameras. The database also contains location data from the cameras.

The use of a strong password is not sufficient with the cameras from Apexis and Sumpple. The passwords, no matter how complicated, can simply be seen in the leaked data. Changing the password also makes no sense, because the new password is stored in the poorly secured database.

(quote translated from the original Dutch article)

This was discovered by hacker collective The Arcanum Group, who responsibly disclosed this to Apexis and Sumpple in early August.  Because neither company bothered to reply or even change the database's password, they have now gone public.

Apexis and Sumpple have been contacted by RTL News, the original source of the story, but both companies don't want to reply. 

Seeing as changing your password doesn't help, it looks like permanently unplugging the cameras is the only solution.

Source : RTL News (in Dutch, will add English sources later tonight when this story gets more international coverage)

English translation available at brica.de

This is really bad.  It looks like security really was an afterthought and the lack of response shows that they simply don't care.    

A lot of people who are not tech-savvy will have these cameras and never find out.  And then there will be those that use the same password for their email account ...

As Steve Gibson always says, the "S" in "IoT" stands for "Secure".

2 hours ago, wkdpaul said:

we usually don't allow links to charity requests

Thanks for allowing this one.  I really hope that the WAN show coverage helps Brett and his family out.

K.Flay (although she's taken on a more poppy sound lately.  You may find the older stuff more interesting)

Dual Core

Both are labeled as hip hop, but are nowhere near the same style as the artists you mentioned.

This is such a great opportunity for the army to have some fun. 

• Put a really skinny soldier in an alien costume and have 2 armed guards chase him just within the line of sight from the gates. 
• Build a fake crashed UFO and put it somewhere in sight, mostly covered by a large tarp and with some heavily armed soldiers nearby.  Have some technician-looking guys investigate the "crash site" .
• Have some black gliders/sailplanes with 3 spotlights do a flyby at night, at enough attitude for the hull and wings to be invisible to the naked eye.  Perhaps with some UFO-like sound coming from them.

Oh man, I'd have a blast if I were in charge there ...

I'm kinda torn on this one

On the one hand I have vowed that I'd never buy a notched phone.  On the other hand I want to buy this one just because the annoying orange doesn't like Huawei. 

The fact that it doesn't come with any of Google's spyware ... ermm ... garbage  ... ermm ... apps is just a bonus.

This is going to create interesting situations, with people buying a game in a cheap region and selling it with a profit to someone in a more expensive region.

1 minute ago, DJA336 said:

I'm about to put old board and CPU in and see if that fixes anything.

That would indeed be a good way to verify that the GPU, SSD, RAM and PSU work. 

If the system runs stable with the old motherboard and CPU, either the new CPU, the new motherboard or the AMD-related drivers are to blame.

The MSI logo on my GPU has RGB ... but I unplugged the RGB connector to turn it off without the need for software (which they don't have for Linux anyway). 

My soundcard has RGB too, but I turned that off.

Not that it matters, I chose to use a windowless case anyway just to avoid having to deal with the light from motherboard LEDs etc. 

Does it freeze, crash to desktop, bluescreen or does the PC suddenly reboot? 

Seeing as you have done a full fresh install and the problem persists in more than 1 game, it is most likely either a hardware problem or a driver issue.

How many sticks of RAM do you have? 

If it's 4, try removing 2 of them and see if the crashes still occur.  If they do, try the other 2 sticks.  If it still crashes then, try the sticks one at a time.

If it's 2, remove one and try, then try with the other one. 

4 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

To retort, who actually cared about or liked GTA4?

Hey cousin, let's go bowling!

IV had its charms.  In a lot of ways it was actually better than V.  NPC reactions to you, how they react to injuries in combat (melee as well as gunfights), physics (flying through the windshield, ragdoll when jumping out of a speeding car etc).   You know, the small details. 

Sadly, those details do matter a lot.  Going from IV to V, you really notice that they cut some serious corners in V. 

58 minutes ago, bjtoadkoops said:

After watching Linus put SODIUM into a DDR4 slot

I really hope that's a typo or an autocorrect thing.  Linus is known for doing crazy things with hardware, but that would take it to a whole new level.

There are plenty of SODIMM to DIMM adapters, but I'm not aware of any that do it the other way. 

SODIMM is typically used only in machines that don't have enough room for DIMM sticks to begin with, so there's no reason for any company to even consider making an adapter like that. 

1 hour ago, colonel_mortis said:

I am monitoring feedback to see whether I need make it customisable

It would be a nice option for those of us that clear our cookies often. 

Not an issue for me anymore though, as mentioned in one of the other threads about this I already set up a filtering rule.

I've been thinking about this some more, and I'd suggest setting the system up to only send a mail if the forum doesn't find a cookie AND the login happens from an IP address that the user hasn't used before.  That way we only get notified if something weird happens. 

It may be a good idea to clean the entire drive during the installation.  Windows 7 and Windows 10 often create hidden partitions, and you may end up with several of those if you just tell the PC to do a clean install on the large one that currently houses the Win7 install.

Just go through the setup procedure, and you will eventually be greeted with a window that lets you select the partition you want to install on.  You'll most likely see the main Windows 7 partition, a boot partition, perhaps even a recovery partition.  Maybe some others as well, kinda hard to tell without knowing the entire laptop's history. 

Delete all partitions and then select the empty disc.  Windows setup will automatically create the partitions you need and start the installation.  .