konc wrote on 2024-04-17, 15:22:

Wow I can't believe that MS really changed your background to tell you, in a sloppy way, that win10 will be simply unsupported a year later. I really can't, I'd do some more checks and googling to verify that this is legit.

https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/ … port-date-looms

It looked like that, but it was behind the taskbar. Even if the taskbar was hidden, the bottom would still have been cut off. I wonder if it was rendered for my lowest-resolution display (I'm running two mismatched monitors, and the lower resolution one is display 1, even though it isn't set as the primary monitor - a very well-written OS) and poorly stretched for the better monitor.

Also, this:
https://www.canalys.com/insights/end-of-windo … cs-into-e-waste

My computer is only "unsupported" because I disabled the TPM in the BIOS (I expected a second "Get Windows 10" incident), so I'm not really affected. However, I don't like the environmental and financial impact of Windows 11's ridiculous system requirements. It's easy to tell someone to "just buy a new one" or "switch to Linux," but not many people think that someone might be struggling to pay rent and/or needs specialized software (even CAD software greatly offends a portion of the Linux community).

lti wrote on 2024-04-18, 03:46:

https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/ … port-date-looms […]
Show full quote

konc wrote on 2024-04-17, 15:22:

Wow I can't believe that MS really changed your background to tell you, in a sloppy way, that win10 will be simply unsupported a year later. I really can't, I'd do some more checks and googling to verify that this is legit.

https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/ … port-date-looms

It looked like that, but it was behind the taskbar. Even if the taskbar was hidden, the bottom would still have been cut off. I wonder if it was rendered for my lowest-resolution display (I'm running two mismatched monitors, and the lower resolution one is display 1, even though it isn't set as the primary monitor - a very well-written OS) and poorly stretched for the better monitor.

Also, this:
https://www.canalys.com/insights/end-of-windo … cs-into-e-waste

My computer is only "unsupported" because I disabled the TPM in the BIOS (I expected a second "Get Windows 10" incident), so I'm not really affected. However, I don't like the environmental and financial impact of Windows 11's ridiculous system requirements. It's easy to tell someone to "just buy a new one" or "switch to Linux," but not many people think that someone might be struggling to pay rent and/or needs specialized software (even CAD software greatly offends a portion of the Linux community).

Thanks for the links, it is indeed legit! That's a whole new level of aggressiveness and intrusion for me.

Well, this is more of a "modern retro" project, but I decided to make myself a new coaster for my desk.

I've been using a dead real floppy with some feet stuck on it for quite some time, but it's seen better days. So, I 3D printed a floppy designed to be a coaster, printed and attached the Doom artwork as the label, now I just need to go buy some clear coat for it so it stays looking nice for a while.

Seems like a fitting replacement for my old worn-out floppy coaster. 😀

StriderTR wrote on 2024-04-19, 07:44:

Well, this is more of a "modern retro" project, but I decided to make myself a new coaster for my desk.

I've been using a dead real floppy with some feet stuck on it for quite some time, but it's seen better days. So, I 3D printed a floppy designed to be a coaster, printed and attached the Doom artwork as the label, now I just need to go buy some clear coat for it so it stays looking nice for a while.

Seems like a fitting replacement for my old worn-out floppy coaster. 😀

shut up and take my money that looks awesome. i got a envelope opener thats a floppy disk

I loaded Linux Mint onto a flash drive, and I've been running the live version for most of the day. I still think it's stupid that Linux needs hacks to turn Num Lock on at boot (Lubuntu 22.04 has the option in its settings, but the other distros I've tried didn't), but I guess someone had a reason for it. I'm also noticing some stutter when playing videos, and it's worse on one of my monitors. They run at slightly different refresh rates for some reason. I haven't spent much time running Linux on decent hardware, so maybe there's some graphics driver setting that I can change.

Every time I think about ditching Windows, I find something weird with Linux. It runs great on awful hardware when compared to Windows, but it doesn't feel like something that I want to run daily on my main computer. Maybe I haven't found the right distro for me. I haven't used a Mac since I was in school (and I only briefly used OS X), but I would probably find just as many weird little problems with Mac OS (and the huge problem of software support).

I keep seeing the Linux Mint logo on my second monitor out of the corner of my eye and having a brief anxiety attack because I think it's the Dell logo at first. My work laptop has me really hating Dell (and 12th-gen Intel CPUs to some extent - I don't know how many of the random freezes and stutters are Dell's fault).

lti wrote on 2024-04-21, 00:29:

I loaded Linux Mint onto a flash drive, and I've been running the live version for most of the day. I still think it's stupid that Linux needs hacks to turn Num Lock on at boot (Lubuntu 22.04 has the option in its settings, but the other distros I've tried didn't), but I guess someone had a reason for it. I'm also noticing some stutter when playing videos, and it's worse on one of my monitors. They run at slightly different refresh rates for some reason. I haven't spent much time running Linux on decent hardware, so maybe there's some graphics driver setting that I can change.

Every time I think about ditching Windows, I find something weird with Linux. It runs great on awful hardware when compared to Windows, but it doesn't feel like something that I want to run daily on my main computer. Maybe I haven't found the right distro for me. I haven't used a Mac since I was in school (and I only briefly used OS X), but I would probably find just as many weird little problems with Mac OS (and the huge problem of software support).

I keep seeing the Linux Mint logo on my second monitor out of the corner of my eye and having a brief anxiety attack because I think it's the Dell logo at first. My work laptop has me really hating Dell (and 12th-gen Intel CPUs to some extent - I don't know how many of the random freezes and stutters are Dell's fault).

i use linux mint too, it is fine for day to day use online and for basic things on an old pc that would struggle with win10 - but i agree its different enough to surprise and occasionally has problems that often require a long chain of dependencies to be solved. any Linux always seems to have a few 'down the rabbit hole' issues, often to do with drivers, the plentiful software seems better when its been backed or has a history of being backed by a commercial enterprise than amateurs too. there are many things on mint easily achieved with the UI though, its among the 'friendliest'. that still leaves a number of tasks which can only be achieved by commands with a maximum of 3 letters, preferably 2, and at least 6 arguments each of which should be a single or double letter sequence with variations in capitalisations and preceded by a random special character 😀

still, all versions of windows have their own 'special' quirks too..

This is borderline modern/retro: I bought a PS3 with the sole intention of hooking it up to my CRT TV and running RetroArch. I've been setting this up all day today. Fun, fun, fun!

revolstar wrote on 2024-04-24, 19:31:

This is borderline modern/retro: I bought a PS3 with the sole intention of hooking it up to my CRT TV and running RetroArch. I've been setting this up all day today. Fun, fun, fun!

Pictures or this does not exist 😀

I recently started an unorthodox backup strategy that I hope will be a good balance between mitigating data loss and staying on a budget. I currently have terabytes of data that I want backed up, but I haven't found a backup solution within my budget. Cloud storage is expensive, especially after Google jacked up the GSuite costs, and I don't want to pay hundreds of dollars each year for cloud storage on top of what I'm backing up locally. I recently saw an auction for 65 1TB SMART tested hard drives on eBay. I threw $60 at it and ended up winning! The seller is local, so I only paid $65 total with pickup. I also picked up a Lenovo ThinkServer TS440 for $28 on another auction. It has RAID and 8 bays that I can populate with drives.

With this hardware, I'm planning to do a sort of modified 3-2-1 backup strategy. I plan on using the drives that I think will be most reliable in my server (least amount of powered on time, no SMART warnings whatsoever), which will be used as my NAS. Since I have a bazillion drives to work with, I also plan on mirroring a bunch of them to store the stuff that I think is most important and stick them in storage. These will be kept in storage most of the time, so I'll probably write to them about twice a year. With all the drives I have, I could afford to make 2 or 3 mirrored copies without running out of storage. I'll also pick the drives that I think should be the most reliable that are left over from those selected for the server. While these could have a bit more powered on time, having multiple mirrored copies should give me a good enough safety margin for drive failures.

Lastly, I'll still use cloud storage for the most important stuff, but I should be able to keep the costs down by not including everything. This will serve as my offsite backup. While I have terabytes of data that I want backed up, my local backups should be enough for some things (e.g., movies). I could even do another offsite backup with some of my mirrored drives if I want.

Now, I know that used hard drives won't be the most reliable storage and backup solutions, but I think I will have enough redundancy to account for the inevitable drive failures. It might not be 100% foolproof, but it should allow me to prioritize the stuff that I am most concerned about having backed up, while also allowing me to have a good enough backup solution for the remaining stuff. So far I've run Smartmontools on 17 drives and they all show up as PASSED on their SMART tests. It looks like one of these might be failing, as one of the tests suggests that it might have some bad blocks, but I wasn't expecting 100% of them to be useable. Some of them have 4 or 5 years of powered on time, so they will go to the bottom of my estimated "reliability" list. I could probably find a use for the least reliable drives to save some wear and tear on the better ones. For example, I throw music files on them and attach them to a Raspberry Pi or an old computer to serve music from. Since those files will already by backup up elsewhere, I could just use the less reliable drive until it fails.

mtest001 wrote on 2024-04-24, 19:45:

revolstar wrote on 2024-04-24, 19:31:

This is borderline modern/retro: I bought a PS3 with the sole intention of hooking it up to my CRT TV and running RetroArch. I've been setting this up all day today. Fun, fun, fun!

Pictures or this does not exist 😀

Here ya go!

Also, your avatar looks familiar, are you a member of the foreverdelayed.org.uk forum by any chance? 😉

revolstar wrote on 2024-04-25, 06:13:

Also, your avatar looks familiar, are you a member of the foreverdelayed.org.uk forum by any chance? 😉

Thanks for the picture, interesting setup. And I'm not a member of that forum sorry.

mtest001 wrote on 2024-04-25, 08:07:

revolstar wrote on 2024-04-25, 06:13:

Also, your avatar looks familiar, are you a member of the foreverdelayed.org.uk forum by any chance? 😉

Thanks for the picture, interesting setup. And I'm not a member of that forum sorry.

Thanks! My room is a bit of a cluttered mess, so I won't be showing off my retro computing area in its entirety any time soon 😜

AHCIFIX.386 is an interesting way to use Windows 3.1 directly on modern hardware

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vSqyZxbyHww

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-04-25, 02:35:

I recently started an unorthodox backup strategy that I hope will be a good balance between mitigating data loss and staying on […]
Show full quote

I recently started an unorthodox backup strategy that I hope will be a good balance between mitigating data loss and staying on a budget. I currently have terabytes of data that I want backed up, but I haven't found a backup solution within my budget. Cloud storage is expensive, especially after Google jacked up the GSuite costs, and I don't want to pay hundreds of dollars each year for cloud storage on top of what I'm backing up locally. I recently saw an auction for 65 1TB SMART tested hard drives on eBay. I threw $60 at it and ended up winning! The seller is local, so I only paid $65 total with pickup. I also picked up a Lenovo ThinkServer TS440 for $28 on another auction. It has RAID and 8 bays that I can populate with drives.

With this hardware, I'm planning to do a sort of modified 3-2-1 backup strategy. I plan on using the drives that I think will be most reliable in my server (least amount of powered on time, no SMART warnings whatsoever), which will be used as my NAS. Since I have a bazillion drives to work with, I also plan on mirroring a bunch of them to store the stuff that I think is most important and stick them in storage. These will be kept in storage most of the time, so I'll probably write to them about twice a year. With all the drives I have, I could afford to make 2 or 3 mirrored copies without running out of storage. I'll also pick the drives that I think should be the most reliable that are left over from those selected for the server. While these could have a bit more powered on time, having multiple mirrored copies should give me a good enough safety margin for drive failures.

Lastly, I'll still use cloud storage for the most important stuff, but I should be able to keep the costs down by not including everything. This will serve as my offsite backup. While I have terabytes of data that I want backed up, my local backups should be enough for some things (e.g., movies). I could even do another offsite backup with some of my mirrored drives if I want.

Now, I know that used hard drives won't be the most reliable storage and backup solutions, but I think I will have enough redundancy to account for the inevitable drive failures. It might not be 100% foolproof, but it should allow me to prioritize the stuff that I am most concerned about having backed up, while also allowing me to have a good enough backup solution for the remaining stuff. So far I've run Smartmontools on 17 drives and they all show up as PASSED on their SMART tests. It looks like one of these might be failing, as one of the tests suggests that it might have some bad blocks, but I wasn't expecting 100% of them to be useable. Some of them have 4 or 5 years of powered on time, so they will go to the bottom of my estimated "reliability" list. I could probably find a use for the least reliable drives to save some wear and tear on the better ones. For example, I throw music files on them and attach them to a Raspberry Pi or an old computer to serve music from. Since those files will already by backup up elsewhere, I could just use the less reliable drive until it fails.

At work we have storage arrays with regular writes composed of around 150 4 TB SATA drives that were in usage for 5-6 years. We usually had 2-3 that had to be replaced every year which is not much. Disks are quite reliable when used in controlled (datacenter) environments.

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2024-04-26, 05:42:

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-04-25, 02:35:

I recently started an unorthodox backup strategy that I hope will be a good balance between mitigating data loss and staying on […]
Show full quote

I recently started an unorthodox backup strategy that I hope will be a good balance between mitigating data loss and staying on a budget. I currently have terabytes of data that I want backed up, but I haven't found a backup solution within my budget. Cloud storage is expensive, especially after Google jacked up the GSuite costs, and I don't want to pay hundreds of dollars each year for cloud storage on top of what I'm backing up locally. I recently saw an auction for 65 1TB SMART tested hard drives on eBay. I threw $60 at it and ended up winning! The seller is local, so I only paid $65 total with pickup. I also picked up a Lenovo ThinkServer TS440 for $28 on another auction. It has RAID and 8 bays that I can populate with drives.

With this hardware, I'm planning to do a sort of modified 3-2-1 backup strategy. I plan on using the drives that I think will be most reliable in my server (least amount of powered on time, no SMART warnings whatsoever), which will be used as my NAS. Since I have a bazillion drives to work with, I also plan on mirroring a bunch of them to store the stuff that I think is most important and stick them in storage. These will be kept in storage most of the time, so I'll probably write to them about twice a year. With all the drives I have, I could afford to make 2 or 3 mirrored copies without running out of storage. I'll also pick the drives that I think should be the most reliable that are left over from those selected for the server. While these could have a bit more powered on time, having multiple mirrored copies should give me a good enough safety margin for drive failures.

Lastly, I'll still use cloud storage for the most important stuff, but I should be able to keep the costs down by not including everything. This will serve as my offsite backup. While I have terabytes of data that I want backed up, my local backups should be enough for some things (e.g., movies). I could even do another offsite backup with some of my mirrored drives if I want.

Now, I know that used hard drives won't be the most reliable storage and backup solutions, but I think I will have enough redundancy to account for the inevitable drive failures. It might not be 100% foolproof, but it should allow me to prioritize the stuff that I am most concerned about having backed up, while also allowing me to have a good enough backup solution for the remaining stuff. So far I've run Smartmontools on 17 drives and they all show up as PASSED on their SMART tests. It looks like one of these might be failing, as one of the tests suggests that it might have some bad blocks, but I wasn't expecting 100% of them to be useable. Some of them have 4 or 5 years of powered on time, so they will go to the bottom of my estimated "reliability" list. I could probably find a use for the least reliable drives to save some wear and tear on the better ones. For example, I throw music files on them and attach them to a Raspberry Pi or an old computer to serve music from. Since those files will already by backup up elsewhere, I could just use the less reliable drive until it fails.

At work we have storage arrays with regular writes composed of around 150 4 TB SATA drives that were in usage for 5-6 years. We usually had 2-3 that had to be replaced every year which is not much. Disks are quite reliable when used in controlled (datacenter) environments.

Good to know! Some of the drives that I got are enterprise level too. A bit noisier, but hopefully more reliable.

Windows replaced my graphics driver with a broken one again, so I found another method to prevent Windows Update from installing driver updates (although it's a massive downgrade, even if you only look at the release date and not the bugs).

The problem with the severe lack of information about modern Windows came back up. Almost every Google result was identical instructions for disabling driver updates through Group Policy Editor (copied and pasted to multiple unaffiliated websites), but I'm running Windows 10 Home. Eventually, I found one registry key that should work (but probably won't since blocking driver updates by device ID stopped working).

I'm going to have to switch to Linux just because Microsoft won't allow me to have a working graphics driver. It's a problem that I also had in Windows XP and 7 (if Windows Update had a graphics driver in its catalog, it was checked by default, even though it was marked as an optional update), but you could deselect updates back then. Hiding updates never worked for me. Every time I tried to hide an update that broke everything, it got installed anyway.

lti wrote on 2024-04-27, 16:22:

Almost every Google result was identical instructions for disabling driver updates through Group Policy Editor (copied and pasted to multiple unaffiliated websites), but I'm running Windows 10 Home.

There seems to be a way to install group policy editor to home edition, so that's an option if all else fails.

I've kept windows update in manual mode via GPE with driver updates disabled ever since I moved to Win10, if that wouldn't been an option I would have gone Linux years ago.