[sf-lug] SF-LUG meeting notes for Monday 18 March 2019

[Bobbie Sellers]

On 3/20/19 2:32 PM, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Bobbie Sellers (bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com):
>
>> I tried a bunch of Flash Drives sequentially as I have
>> previously mentioned I am not installing
>> to hard drives or even SSD.  Since they cannot get on line prevents
>> attempting to do any
>> sort of download or online information seeking at the alleged meeting
> No, it doesn't.  Because there are also other people at the meeting who
> can help with posting online, and also (alternatively) because you can
> make a contemporaneous record of what happened and then boot to an OS
> load you know works on your computer.

     You don't reakkt get ut di tiy (leaving an example of my dyspraxia)
     I bet I could destroy a drive without checking my terminal typing 
closely.

     You don't really get it do you,  I was there,  Jim showed up 
without a computer
due to other problems.  So there was one computer being used to test 
downloaded,
check-summed iso files written to Flash Drives.  There was no other user 
there
to go online and check for various drivers, etc.

     This is too often the situation.  i don't let it discourage me 
because sooner
or later someone shows up to ask questions or request a distribution.

>
> While you have the distro being evaluated running, open a console
> terminal, collect information about the problem, and use Clipboard to
> copy/paste the session into a text editor, then save that as a plaintext
> file and copy it to a USB flash drive.  Then, you would have that
> information stored verbatim for posting to a LUG mailing list either
> during the meeting from Cafe Enchanté or later from elsewhere.

     When it will not boot collecting information via any tool seems a bit
beyond me.
>
>> No you fail to understand my system of: here is a system you might
>> want to use, take a good look at the display and what is listed in the
>> menues.  If you like it, here is the Flash Drive to take home and try
>> out.
> Oh, no, I fully understand that.  (Remember, I was part of the team that
> invented live Linux CDs in the first place.)  What seems odd is
> (seemingly) making no effort to address small problems that prevent you
> from seeing the distro to proper advantage, and with the result that
> nobody learns.
>
>> I don't run installers at the meeting, unless someone
>> contacts me in advance and shows up at the meeting
>> by 6 PM or 11 AM on Sundays.
> OK, but failing to solve basic problems of live distros prevents you
> from seeing them to proper advantage and evaluating what running them
> would be like, too, so this objection really doesn't address what I was
> saying.
>
> And, if you were imagining that it's impractical to install a KDE them
> on a live distro, no, it should not be difficult, because the changes
> should land in the running RAMdisk rather than on the read-only image.
> (Of course, they would not be persistent unless you took additional
> steps.)

     120 minutes is the length of a meeting,  I would rather drag my 
problems home and try to fix them
here where I have nearly 3 weeks to discover the cures,
>
>>      Yes as the backend to Synaptic.
>>      The use of apt is discouraged.
> Well, don't listen to that, as it's not in your interest to heed that
> bad advice.

     I listen to the people who roll the distro and who get new kernels 
out that work.
     When the new kernel does not work I contact them and the problems 
generally
get fixed in the next release.
>> Not on your life.
> Then, you'll basically never get effective help unless someone is
> willing to do housecalls, and good luck with that.

     I am the one doing house calls.  Friday for a friend I fixed his TV 
antenna but the walk up the stairs
to his apartment nearly wiped me out.
     Tuesday I went to my client Strange(a published author) and helped 
him out with a couple of
small problems.
     Wednesday afternoon I  went with my good friend to the Apple store 
and helped him save
some money by taking him to the Central Computer store where he spent 
$700 plus taxes
and fees on a new i5 Dell Inspiron.  Anticipating installing PCLinux on 
that machine I purchased
a copy of PartEd Magic to use on the reduction of the Windows partition.
>
> The most important reasons to collect and post information from basic
> command-line tools:
>
> 1.  Because they don't conceal error output.
> 2.  Because they permit you to show verbatim and consecutively what
>      happened.
> 3.  Because they're much closer to universal.  (Nobody who uses
>      an apt-based distribution is going to install Synaptic solely
>      to replicate what you describe.)
>
> Without verbatim data, helpers are basically blind to what you
> experience, and reliant solely on the user's (usually after the fact)
> descriptions, which despite best intentions will always omit
> important details and include inaccuracies.  So, it's common to
> see helpers who've been around to learn these facts say 'Sorry to
> hear you're having a problem.  Please post again with verbatim
> console results showing the problem so we can see it and help you.'
>
> If you as a person encountering problems decline to collect relevant
> data for helpers, then you'll get sympathy but in general not be able to
> get assistance.

     No helpers at the meeting last week
>
> And your debugging technique will remain 'I booted this distro and
> couldn't Web-browse, so I gave up.'

     No I booted this distro and could not connect to the WiFi which is 
one of my basic tests
of the distribution.
>
>
>> The instructions I gave above present you with a quandary You cannot
>> update to the newer package until the older package is deleted by
>> Synaptic and the update ilists the new version of LibreOffice as a
>> dependency of  libreoffice-openclipart 6.2-1pclos2019 and refuses to
>> install.
> The link I sent in the prior posting suggested that you should leave the
> matter up to lomanager rather than trying to use Synaptic.

     The matter is that while LO Manager will take care of the 
LibreOffice sometime LibreOffice will demand
specific updates.  Those updates must be done with Synaptic(your choice 
would be apt I know).  But as
I mentioned the specific LibreOffice package to access cliparts and to 
must be removed and Synaptic is
how I did that.    Then if you want Clipart you must install the updated 
package which has LO as
a dependency.

>
> I'm not a PCLinuxOS user, so I cannot evaluate that suggestion, but the
> fellow purported to know the distro-local customs and was an
> administrator of that PCLinuxOS-specific forum.

     And yet it was LO manager which told me to get a parcel of updates 
and LibreOffice manager which
told me to remove the file.  But it was myself who put in the updated 
file so that when I find the time
I can explore the wonderful world of Clipart.  ;^)
>
>> 23 minutes is long enough to wait for my breakfast while I
>> reply to your lengthy screed.
> Wow, that was pretty ungracious, but I'm certainly not offended.  And
> since you bring that up, I'm not voting so much to help _you_ as to
> continue the community process, which includes helping people learn how
> to solve technical problems.  Of course, if I'm able to help you as
> well, that makes me particularly happy, so I really _do_ help what I
> wrote helps.
     Then come to the meeting and advise people or use the meetings to 
lecture on the matters
you find important.   But please learn to be less lengthy in your 
critical remarks as redading and
replying to them takes me a lot more  time than it takes your to write them.

     I not gracious?!

     Goodness.

     Bobbie Sellers - my nose is quite athletic, it runs in all weathers but
stopped during our smoky summer of 2018



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