Author Topic: A random thread for small computing things that don't really warrant a thread of their own  (Read 296461 times)

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
As long as it hasn't lost it's tail and its squeak  :D ;D

It's tail-less.  Hence the battery.  I suppose that technically makes it a hamster...

Given that you’ve been experimenting on it, perhaps guinea pig would be more appropriate?
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
As long as it hasn't lost it's tail and its squeak  :D ;D

It's tail-less.  Hence the battery.  I suppose that technically makes it a hamster...

Given that you’ve been experimenting on it, perhaps guinea pig would be more appropriate?

It's not *that* squeaky.  Not that I've got any celery to hand...

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless

I successfully managed to email someone today by deducing their email address when all i knew about it was that they complained about xkcd://1279 related issues and a dead journalist... and their first name.

Am pleased this worked. And they were able to answer my question, which was great too!

J
--
Beer, bikes, and backpacking
http://b.42q.eu/

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
I successfully managed to email someone today by deducing their email address when all i knew about it was that they complained about xkcd://1279 related issues and a dead journalist... and their first name.

 ;D

the slower you go the more you see

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
And this morning I received a photograph of an invoice for something car-related.  Unusually, it has firstname.lastname@swedish.domain on it, so I was able to forward it.

Wondering if Sweden would grant me brexit asylum on an email address basis, if I promised to stay away from submarines?

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
And I've just been wished a merry christmas by my Swedish doppelgänger.   :thumbsup:

TheLurker

  • Goes well with magnolia.
I haz a "new" laptop.  It *was* my old (8+ years) work Win7 x64 box, a Lenovo ThinkPad, but it is now a Linux (Mint FWIW) box with a 1TB SSD and 4GB of randomess.  My Xmas project will be learning how to use it and working out how to connect it to various bits of wiffery.  This old (about the same age) Win7x32 box will be kept going simply because I've got Tracklogs and Visual Studio installed.

I've just realised. It has been over 17 years since I last used a *nix machine at home,  FreeBSD with KDE.  Wonder if much has changed? :)
Τα πιο όμορφα ταξίδια γίνονται με τις δικές μας δυνάμεις - Φίλοι του Ποδήλατου

nicknack

  • Hornblower
This would be a rant if ICBA, but I can't.

After much swearing my small HP box is now happily(?) running Manjaro (Linux). Everything apart from one thing seems to be fine. The one thing involves video calls either via Zoom or Messenger.

I can hear them but they can't hear me.

There's nothing wrong with the mic on the webcam (it's just cheap and crappy but I can record with it no problem). If I check it with the setup page on Zoom then it says it's working fine. But not when I try to speak to someone. The signal's there but it ain't going anywhere. Obviously it's not muted and volume's way up. Up to a couple of weeks ago it all worked fine but then Ubuntu decided it didn't want to play anymore so I went non-debian.

I've run out of things to try. Anyone got any ideas? Please.

There's no vibrations, but wait.

Afasoas

This would be a rant if ICBA, but I can't.

After much swearing my small HP box is now happily(?) running Manjaro (Linux). Everything apart from one thing seems to be fine. The one thing involves video calls either via Zoom or Messenger.

I can hear them but they can't hear me.

There's nothing wrong with the mic on the webcam (it's just cheap and crappy but I can record with it no problem). If I check it with the setup page on Zoom then it says it's working fine. But not when I try to speak to someone. The signal's there but it ain't going anywhere. Obviously it's not muted and volume's way up. Up to a couple of weeks ago it all worked fine but then Ubuntu decided it didn't want to play anymore so I went non-debian.

I've run out of things to try. Anyone got any ideas? Please.

Do you know if manjaro using pulse audio?

nicknack

  • Hornblower
This would be a rant if ICBA, but I can't.

After much swearing my small HP box is now happily(?) running Manjaro (Linux). Everything apart from one thing seems to be fine. The one thing involves video calls either via Zoom or Messenger.

I can hear them but they can't hear me.

There's nothing wrong with the mic on the webcam (it's just cheap and crappy but I can record with it no problem). If I check it with the setup page on Zoom then it says it's working fine. But not when I try to speak to someone. The signal's there but it ain't going anywhere. Obviously it's not muted and volume's way up. Up to a couple of weeks ago it all worked fine but then Ubuntu decided it didn't want to play anymore so I went non-debian.

I've run out of things to try. Anyone got any ideas? Please.

Do you know if manjaro using pulse audio?
Yes, it is.
There's no vibrations, but wait.

Afasoas

This would be a rant if ICBA, but I can't.

After much swearing my small HP box is now happily(?) running Manjaro (Linux). Everything apart from one thing seems to be fine. The one thing involves video calls either via Zoom or Messenger.

I can hear them but they can't hear me.

There's nothing wrong with the mic on the webcam (it's just cheap and crappy but I can record with it no problem). If I check it with the setup page on Zoom then it says it's working fine. But not when I try to speak to someone. The signal's there but it ain't going anywhere. Obviously it's not muted and volume's way up. Up to a couple of weeks ago it all worked fine but then Ubuntu decided it didn't want to play anymore so I went non-debian.

I've run out of things to try. Anyone got any ideas? Please.

Do you know if manjaro using pulse audio?
Yes, it is.

Might I suggest you explain the issue in a seperate thread and include with the first post the output of running pacmd list-sources in the terminal?
BTW I've not had a problem like this before, so I've no idea what the solution is going to be! Could you also say whether you are using Zoom in the browser or the Zoom application.

nicknack

  • Hornblower
This would be a rant if ICBA, but I can't.

After much swearing my small HP box is now happily(?) running Manjaro (Linux). Everything apart from one thing seems to be fine. The one thing involves video calls either via Zoom or Messenger.

I can hear them but they can't hear me.

There's nothing wrong with the mic on the webcam (it's just cheap and crappy but I can record with it no problem). If I check it with the setup page on Zoom then it says it's working fine. But not when I try to speak to someone. The signal's there but it ain't going anywhere. Obviously it's not muted and volume's way up. Up to a couple of weeks ago it all worked fine but then Ubuntu decided it didn't want to play anymore so I went non-debian.

I've run out of things to try. Anyone got any ideas? Please.

Do you know if manjaro using pulse audio?
Yes, it is.

Might I suggest you explain the issue in a seperate thread and include with the first post the output of running pacmd list-sources in the terminal?
BTW I've not had a problem like this before, so I've no idea what the solution is going to be! Could you also say whether you are using Zoom in the browser or the Zoom application.
Will do. Thanks.
There's no vibrations, but wait.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Does anyone know, if I were to rebuild my MacBook, would I be able to choose Catalina or would it force me to install Big Sur?

I know I can reinstall Catalina by putting it on a bootable drive, but I want to know if I actually need to go through that palaver (not least because it would require the extra step of buying a USB stick of suitable capacity).
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Does anyone know, if I were to rebuild my MacBook, would I be able to choose Catalina or would it force me to install Big Sur?

How are you rebuilding it? If you're reinstalling from a recovery partition you get whatever's on there, and if you're doing internet recovery onto a blank drive and it can be a bit random what version you're offered.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Does anyone know, if I were to rebuild my MacBook, would I be able to choose Catalina or would it force me to install Big Sur?

How are you rebuilding it? If you're reinstalling from a recovery partition you get whatever's on there, and if you're doing internet recovery onto a blank drive and it can be a bit random what version you're offered.
Well, I was thinking internet recovery...

Currently has Big Sur installed, so I presume that’s what’s on the recovery partition, right?
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Google outage: YouTube, Docs and Gmail knocked offline

Quote
Google has been contacted for comment, but one spokesperson said they were unable to access their email during the outage.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/26/pc_boot_record

That bogin chap on this forum ?? A Kim doppleganger?

I decided I wanted to run Zwift on a larger screened laptop than I gad, so bought a cosmetically challenged ex-display Acer 17" one, from eBay.

When I received it, it was without a note of the password (I asked, and received it later), no worries, I reset Win10, and put in my own info.  Downloaded Zwift, and it immediately starts to update.  Then fails with the message "error Z117 at page 602..." etc.  This, apparently, means Zwift is having trouble writing to the Documents folder, because reasons, none of which I believe apply as it's the only piece of software other than Win10 Enterprise that's on the bloody thing and I'm deffo the admin. Gah!

One of the workarounds was to run the installer as admin - which indeed starts the programme, but - why? Bloody nuisance to have to do that every time.

I'll try another clean install, this time I'll opt to clean the disk (125Gb SSD) as well, and see what that brings.

ETA: Well that worked, fortunately there was nothing I wanted on it, not an option for someone wanting to start using Zwift on a machine they already had.
We are making a New World (Paul Nash, 1918)

Chris S

I've been trying all morning to create a Linux VM for work. I've been stuck in a spiral - I set it up with a single user, good password, then when it reboots and I try and log in, password is rejected.

Three/Four iterations of this and I realise what's going on. The super-strong password I use for work VMs has $pec1@L characters in. The installation media for Ubuntu defaults to a US keyboard during installation, so I've not been setting the password I thought I was (fourth time around an I unmasked the password and proved this).

And so, the time sink of work, once again drinks deeply from the ever shallower pool of ChrisS' life.

The number of times I have to tell people that, no it's not a bug in our software, but if your password has characters like $ or ! in it then entering it as a command line argument is not going to work.

Eventually I get them to do something similar to this and see if they can spot the problem:-

Code: [Select]
# echo foo
foo
# echo foo$$bar
foo12121bar
# echo foo$bar123
foo
# echo foo$123bar123
foo23bar123
# echo foo$012bar123
foo-/bin/bash12bar123

Most of the time it's someone who claims to be a "Sysadmin". I fear for their users.
"Yes please" said Squirrel "biscuits are our favourite things."

Chris S

On an associated note, I can't believe Ubuntu ships without curl preinstalled. It's really annoying because my single-command-to-configure-everything plan is thus rendered more complicated than it need be.

ETA: Maybe I should push my ansible config, rather than pull it with ansible-pull... hmm....

Afasoas

On an associated note, I can't believe Ubuntu ships without curl preinstalled. It's really annoying because my single-command-to-configure-everything plan is thus rendered more complicated than it need be.

ETA: Maybe I should push my ansible config, rather than pull it with ansible-pull... hmm....

wget?

IIRC most distros ship without curl.
I pxe install debian and ubuntu with a preseed file. The preseed installs curl.

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Decided to switch on Slow Dempsey, the laptop, for the first time since the dog days of high summer.

Aaaaaargh!  Windows Updates!!!1!!eleventy!!!
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

On an associated note, I can't believe Ubuntu ships without curl preinstalled. It's really annoying because my single-command-to-configure-everything plan is thus rendered more complicated than it need be.

Don't try Arch, that would really annoy you it ships with almost nothing pre installed :)

Which is a good thing. You end up with only what you need.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.