[sf-lug] Ubuntu, GPartEd, Bad Luck with Blue Collar Linux-Help! etc.

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Bobbie Sellers (bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com):
> On 2/15/19 11:42 PM, Rick Moen wrote:
>
>> Canonical's core value proposition was, 'We're going to leverage
>> Debian, except...:'
>>
>> 1.  We'll release for only 3 CPU platforms, not 14.  (Since then,
>> PowerPC has been dropped, and i386 is in the middle of joining
>> it....)

To underline the above point, Ubuntu has dropped 'i386' (IA32 arch)
entirely starting with the 18.10 release.  It's _gone_ there, and fading
fast everywhere.  Tick tock, folks.


[18.10.2 *buntu release ISOs:]

> Well I now have it but have yet to run checksums on the
> download.  18.04.2 is now on hand for Ubuntu,
> Kubuntu, Lubuntu and Xubuntu.   No checksum for the Blue Collar
> Linux and we can talk about that later.

I didn't want to be the 800th person to advise Blue Collar Linux
developer Steven A. Auringer 'Dude, you really ought to publish a
sha256sum and a cryptographic way of vetting that checksum as
authorised.'  If you care about the distro, you might want to tell him
that.  OTOH, certain signs suggest he might not be receptive to the
message, e.g., the absence of even a release version number or name and
the near-total lack of information on the Web site.

The consistent pattern is the message 'I will make things radically
simple for you', so I suspect he'll reject the ntion of publishing
checksums, let alone verifying their authenticity, as much too geeky.

And well, OK, good luck with that, since computers aren't toasters and
pretending won't make complexity go away.

 
> Well I had a old food plastic container that I no longer care to use
> for food and I have a lot of my single drives in that to bring to
> meetings.  Some came in plastic bubble cases and  I trimmed away the
> excess cardboard and used the bubble to write on, tossing those into a
> internal side pocket of my wheeled case.  A lot of my drives are large
> bodied with room to write notes on.

> Toward the end of last year I bought a couple of 10 drive lots of 4 GB
> and 8 GB Flash Drives, 10 of each size and was happy to find that they
> came with a plastic divider that  held them inside light cardboard
> boxes. When the boxex fail i think flat plastic sandwich boxes will
> accomodate the plastic dividers.

OK, cool.  I appreciate your ideas and those of others who have various
creative solutions.  Having pondered some more:

You know about Costco Syndrome?  It's the thing where you go to Costco
and they have what you want but only in quantities suitable for a family
of fifteen, but the price is right so you buy the minimum quantity
anyway.  That's why my wife has just finished the last of four
gluten-free homemade pumpkin pies I've baked for her -- because Costco
had cans of pumpkin in shrinkwrapped sets of four cans.  (To my
surprise, she's not sick of pumpkin, though she says she'll prefer
pumpkin -- or non-pumpkin -- quickbread for the next gluten-free baking
spree.)

Anyway, about a year ago, I wanted sandwich-size ziplock bags, so I got
a ginormous Costco minimum-quantity purchase, and practically all of
that is gathering dust in my garage.  So, I'm thinking a sandwich-size
ziplock bag for each USB flash drive, labelled with a Sharpie as to what
the drive currently has / is for.  Sharpies can write 01, 02, etc. on
the drives themselves, and maybe with a fine-point Sharpie even RM01,
RM02, etc.  Will see.

But anyway, that's one reason I immediately thought of 'small ziplock
bags' -- because I have 'em.


> Looking at your list I realize that I am currently behind on Debian
> but few people ask for it so I tend to be neglectful but have a disk 1
> on hand.  I think it is 9.6.

Debian 'Stretch' 9.8 came out a few days ago.  However:

You should understand that there is really _very_ little point in
throwing out one Debian 'point release' just because another one comes
out, e.g., discard your 9.6 ISOs just because 9.7 and 9.8 have shown up.  
Each point release merely merges in a modest number of package updates
but there isn't a new installer or kernel or X.org set (etc.) therefore
you aren't getting ability to install onto spanking new hardware
unreachable with the prior point release.  But the main reason throwing
away and replacing Debian ISOs just on account of a new point release
is:  What's the very first thing you do at the end of installation?  You
do 'apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade' to sync up to the Debian
Stable packages in debian's package repos.  The point is that this puts
your system into exactly the same state at the end of that command,
irrespective of whether the point release ISOs you used to install were
9.0, 9.1 [...] or 9.8.  It really doesn't matter which point release
ISOs you used.

You may have noticed that I made a point of favouring the _unofficial_
Debian ISOs that merge in non-free firmware BLOBs.  This helps dealing
with the 'dumbass attendee' problem, mentioned below, subvariety 'Why
does my Broadcom wireless not work yet?'


> The ddCopy to USB is pretty fast and much faster than writing to DVDs
> or CDs.  A Flash Drive (USB) can make an install or simple evaluation
> much quicker.  That is why I started using my first Flash Drives as
> one member was very tired of waiting for a disk to load.

Yep.  Here at CABAL, during CD/DVD days, I'd advise people wishing to
attend CABAL installfests that I'd gladly download and have ready ISOs
if they asked a couple of days in advance.  Naturally, most people
totally ignored the 'ask in advance' bit, expected me to download DVDs
while they waited, and then acted impatient because the download and
subsequent burn to media 'took so long'.  Dumbasses.