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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: August 5th, 2023

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  • If you weren’t at a university it was generally a challenge to get hold of disks. Downloading at home took forever on a 28.8 or even 56k modem (ie. 56 kilobits per second).

    Slackware and Redhat disk sets were the thing, in my experience. But generally that only gave you the compiled code, not the source (although there was an another set of disks with the source packages).

    If you wanted to recompile stuff you had to download the right set of packages, and be prepared to handle version conflicts on your own (with mailing list and usenet support).

    Recompiling the kernel with specific patches for graphics cards, sound cards, modems and other devices (I remember scanners in particular), or specific combinations of hardware was relatively common. “Use the source, Luke!” was a common admonition. Often times specific FAQ pages or howtos would be made available for software packages, including games.

    XFree86 was very powerful on hardware it supported, but was very finnicky. See the other posts about the level of detail that had to be supplied to get combinations of graphics cards and monitors working without the appearance of magic smoke.

    Running Linux was mostly a enthusiast/hobbyist/geek thing, for those who wanted to see what was possible, and those who wanted to tinker with something approaching Unix, and those who wanted to stretch the limits of what their hardware could do.

    Many of those enthusiasts and hobbyists and geeks discovered that Linux could do far more than anyone previously had been prepared to admit or realise. They, and others like them, took it with them into progressively more significant, and valuable projects, and it began to take over the world.



  • yak@lmy.brx.iotoLinux@lemmy.mlhow to move to a new computer?
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    16 days ago

    Consider using tar to create an archive of your home directory, and then unpacking that on the new machine. This will help to capture all the links as well as regular files, and their permissions.

    Take a minute to think what else you have changed on the old machine, and then take another minute to think how tricky it would be to replicate on a new machine. Downloading the apps again is gloriously easy. Replacing configs, or keys and certificates, is not!

    I normally archive /etc as well, and then I can copy out the specific files I need.

    Did you install databases? You’ll want to follow specific instructions for those.

    Have you set up web sites? You’ll want to archive /var/www as well.



  • Seems like the PlayStore team should get wiser to how OSS communities manage software releases. They should be good at this, because, you know, their platform is based on the Linux kernel.

    PlayStore should enable Termux community to manage the app name, or at least be able to have a prominent link to an “official” alternative displayed on the PlayStore Termux page.

    Obviously something has gone wrong between Fornwall and the rest of the team for this situation to arise. But at first sight this is not an uncommon or surprising situation to arise. I think PlayStore could do better, and Google could support the OSS ecosystem they benefit from better.




  • Check that it works with Klipper!

    The convenience and control Klipper provides is phenomenal. You don’t have to use it if it turns out you dont like it, but I feel like ruling it out as an option now would be a shame.

    I would also point out that you should not be put off by the “official” supported printers list for Klipper, a bit of Googling will often turn up some mini projects where people are actively working on supporting the printer with Klipper before the main project gets round to adding official support.



  • I think such a dataset would be very useful. I’m just getting in to 3D printing and have spent a little bit of time hunting for this type of information already. I’ve had to stick to star ratings on vendor sites so far.

    • What are the physical properties it would be useful to track?
    • How are they measured/which standard is being followed?
    • How do they relate to practical matters like ideal extruder temperature and velocities for particular properties or effects?

    (Edit: typo)