Recent Posts
Gaming stuff might get more notice if posted in the gaming forum. Or, then again... maybe not?-wraith808 (March 24, 2014, 12:49 PM)
This time with a review of his RaspberryPi project. Read it here.So I bought and tested a Raspberry Pi
Updated: March 21, 2014
Raspberry Pi needs no introduction, but since I can't start an article without its mandatory paragraph or two of small talk, I will introduce it. Yes, indeed. Raspberry Pi is basically a micro-computer, a single board the size of an enlarged credit card with a whole bunch of peripherals, allowing you to customize and create your own little computer. Selling points, ability to play HD video, you get my drift. Plug it in to a monitor, add a keyboard, and Bob's your uncle. Since Raspberry Pi is British, the phrase is doubly worth its place here.
Now take someone like me, a person who likes things big and sturdy, and I never custom build my own machines, but now, there's a precedent. Cheap, affordable, made for games and education, Raspberry Pi seems like an ideal opportunity to step away from the desktop and fiddle with the unknown. To wit, Dedoimedo tests the Pi. Yippie...<more>
I think it's the use of the middle mouse button and the integration with the layout.-wraith808 (March 24, 2014, 11:46 AM)
I agree they should be kept on external drives for the most part -- though it's nice to be able to store copies on a local drive too. Redundancy is the name of the game.-mouser (March 24, 2014, 08:42 AM)
GOG.com Soon On More Platforms
Good news!
No, don't duck. This is actually good news. We just wanted to announce that, after much deliberation, we've decided that one of the next steps for us is to support Linux. Now, we're not ready to launch Linux games on GOG.com just yet. We've only been working on bringing these Linux games to our service for a few months, and there's lots more to go, but we wanted to let you know what's going to be coming this fall to a digital distributor near you.
We're initially going to be launching our Linux support on GOG.com with the full GOG.com treatment for Ubuntu and Mint. That means that right now, we're hammering away at testing games on a variety of configurations, training up our teams on Linux-speak, and generally getting geared up for a big kick-off in the fall with at least 100 Linux games ready for you to play. This is, of course, going to include games that we sell which already have Linux clients, but we'll also be bringing Linux gamers a variety of classics that are, for the first time, officially supported and maintained by a storefront like ours.
I sometimes suspect my mother's father was correct. He felt that American technology reached its peak with the Model-T Ford and began going steadily downhill shortly after that.I don't know about its technology going steadily downhill shortly after that, but its ethics, national integrity and support of the Constitution certainly might have, by all reports...-40hz (March 22, 2014, 11:48 PM)-IainB (March 23, 2014, 04:41 AM)
I think for most recent SSD drives, the controller is likely to die years before the read/write tear of the temp folders is going to make a dent. I can't find anything backing this up though, most tutorials seem to reiterate the wisdom of five years ago.-Jibz (March 23, 2014, 01:49 AM)
SSD endurance - should you worry? - and why?
Flash wear out still presents a challenge to designers of high IOPS flash SSDs as the intrinsic effects at the cell level get worse with each new chip generation.
That's in contrast to RAM SSDs - where as long as enterprise users remember to replace their batteries periodically - the memory life is more dependent on elapsed time (classic bathtub reliability curve) and heat stresses rather than directly related to the number of R/W cycles.
Higher SSD capacity, and faster speeds come from progressively smaller cell geometries - which we used to call shrinks. In flash memory small size means less trapped charge holding the stored data values and greater sensitivity to charge leakage, charge dumping and disturbance effects from the normal processes which happen around the cell vicinity during R/W, powering up, powering down etc.
If you're a consumer you don't have to worry about the internals of endurance management - because most new SSDs are good enough (if they're used in the right applications environment).
Exceptions still do occur, however for users in the enterprise SSD market - where I still hear stories of users thinking it's perfectly normal and economic to replace burned out Intel SSDs every 6 to 12 months - instead of buying more reliable (but more expensive) SSDs - from companies like STEC.
But if you're a systems designer it's useful to know that the longevity difference between "good enough" and the best endurance architecture schemes can still be 2x, 3x or 100x - even when using the same memory.
In 2011 - new evidence started coming in from longtitudinal flash SSD research done by STEC that old, heavily written MLC cells - managed by traditional endurance schemes - tend to get slower as they get older - due to higher retry rates on reads - even though the blocks are still reported by SMART logs as "good" - and the writes do eventually succeed on retry.
In the same year - a paper by InnoDisk confirmed that whereas SLC and MLC memories have often had endurance populations within each chip which were mostly much better than guaranteed (something which SSD makers had been telling me since 2004) - the headroom / margin of goodness - in newer types of MLC is lower than in the previous MLC generations. That's why controllers which used to work well with vintage MLC need something much stronger than a tweak to deliver well behaved SSDs when co-starring with the new brat generation of naughty flash.
and goes into the issue with their usual mind-numbing level of attention to detail.We also showed a clear relationship between performance and drive capacity/spare area. Sizing your drive appropriately for your workload is extremely important for both client and enterprise SSD deployments. On the client side we've typically advocated keeping around 20% of your drive free at all times, but for enterprise workloads with high writes you should shoot for a larger amount. How much spare area obviously depends on your workload but if you do a lot of writing, definitely don't skimp on capacity.
@40hz:[/b] That was it - Aldus, not Adobe. Thanks.-IainB (March 22, 2014, 10:25 PM)
The first hard drive (C) on the computer should be an SSD. These are super fast, and affordable when the sizes are small (250 gb or so). This will be your Operating System drive and where (most of) your program files get installed. My philosophy is that this drive is too small to hold everything, and too unreliable to hold your documents.-mouser (March 22, 2014, 02:57 PM)
“We do take a little poke at Scientology, but we never say it, we never address it. But not necessarily just Scientology–just sort of that kind of cultish mentality. The fact that somebody can just kind of generate–and we’ve talked about this before–is that really, there’s enough philosophy and folklore and propaganda that could be associated with Lunopolis and the Church of Lunology.
If we wanted to, we could really start this organization. We could start a Church of Lunology, and people would probably sign up for it.”
It is because it's main marketer had no interest in seeing anything but its own logo on their devices, extrapolate that way of thinking into other business decisions and Macs are exactly what he wanted.-rgdot (March 22, 2014, 07:29 AM)
LMDE in brief
- Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) is a semi-rolling distribution based on Debian Testing.
- It’s available in both 32 and 64-bit as a live DVD with Cinnamon or MATE.
- The purpose of LMDE is to look identical to the main edition and to provide the same functionality while using Debian as a base.
System requirements:
- x86 processor (LMDE 64-bit requires a 64-bit processor. LMDE 32-bit supports all x86 processors, non-PAE included).
- 1GB RAM
- 5 GB of disk space
- Graphics card capable of 800×600 resolution
- DVD drive or USB port
Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) is an important sub-project of the Linux Mint domain for two big reasons. One, it is sort of a de-duplication of effort. Using quantum notation, Linux Mint proper is based on Debian and Ubuntu, which itself is based on Debian, therefore its quantum charm is (De)(Ub)(De). On the other than, LMDE has just (De).
Two, given the growing rift between Mint and Ubuntu, there might come a moment where Mint proper shall be no more - and you should utter this last bit in the style of Del Boy Trotter, when Rodney stumbles drunk into their old Peckham apartment, in the last episode of the sixth series: "How can I put it, you don't live here no more." Like that. And then, your one and only Mint will be the Debian edition.
Conclusion
Here we are. Overall, LMDE 201403 is an excellent distro. Rather tidy. Much better than I expected, and it rivals the main edition without breaking into a sweat. Except the printing curse that is. And the installer could be a bit friendlier when it comes to partitioning.
All that said, it surely is converging fast toward the point of no difference, or rather total independence from Ubuntu, AKA great distros can be made even without Ubuntu as the baseline. This is good. Freedom! I'm quite pleased. And if not for the two little bugs, this would surely be a perfect score. Hence the aforementioned disclaimer. Ergo ipso facto, we must grade less than a round 10, something like 9.7/10. Something like that. Very good and quite recommended.
100 Open Source Replacements for Popular Security Tools
Download open source anti-virus software, firewalls, email gateways, penetration testing tools, security-focused Linux distributions and more.
The constant stream of news about the NSA and other government agencies spying on average citizens has more people than ever before concerned about privacy and security. While no one can guarantee you'll never be hacked, the open source community has a number of applications available that can help users protect their systems.
Whether you're worried about defending your home system from malware, safeguarding a corporate network from hackers or hiding your identity from a repressive government regime, open source tools are available to help. This month, we've put together a list of 100 such tools that can replace expensive closed source software. It includes a wide variety of free anti-virus, firewall, mail gateway, data loss prevention, penetration testing, encryption, content filtering and other applications that can replace expensive software.
As always, if you'd like to call attention to an open source security app that we missed in our list, feel free to make note in the comments section below.
<link here>