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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2/20/19 3:18 PM, Rick Moen wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:20190220231845.GF17908@linuxmafia.com">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">Quoting Bobbie Sellers (<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com">bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com</a>):
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">On 2/15/19 11:42 PM, Rick Moen wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">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....)
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
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.</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
All the little *buntus still have the i386 in mind. I will
only get them when I have a user who needs or<br>
rather wants a *buntu for 32 bit machines. And I have 16.04.4
Ubuntu in 386 on hand, for folks who <br>
want less than the 18.04.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:20190220231845.GF17908@linuxmafia.com">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
[18.10.2 *buntu release ISOs:]
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">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.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
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.</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Oh yeah, I get that feeling from his replies to my remarks
about the checksum.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:20190220231845.GF17908@linuxmafia.com">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
The consistent pattern is the message 'I will make things radically
simple for you', so I suspect he'll reject the notion 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.</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Yep! I have a remastering facility on my PCLinuxOS and hope to
make my own simple to use distribution<br>
with only the requisite tools for the simple tasks eventually. I
think i would try to add a boot up checksum<br>
test as we see on Knoppix and some other distros. Do you think that
is simple enough for most folks?<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:20190220231845.GF17908@linuxmafia.com"><br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">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.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">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 boxes fail i think flat plastic sandwich boxes will
accomodate the plastic dividers.</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br>
I will point out that these are USB 2.0 and not at all major
brands like my Kingston and SanDisk Flash Drives.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:20190220231845.GF17908@linuxmafia.com">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
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.)</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Strangely enough over the November January Holidays I baked and
solely consumed <br>
3 Gluten Free Pumpkin pies. Like your wife I do not get tired of
pumpkin but I get tired <br>
of baking pies. No Costco access so I bought two cans at a time and
had a third on hand. <br>
I would share them but getting people to eat these treats is harder
than taking my time <br>
and eating them myself.<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:20190220231845.GF17908@linuxmafia.com">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
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.</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Of course. We seek the simplest solution preferably without
going out and dropping a <br>
bundle on various items.<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:20190220231845.GF17908@linuxmafia.com">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">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.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
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.</pre>
</blockquote>
Well it is not a matter of throwing out old isos but a matter of
having a reasonably recent .iso file<br>
to save excessive downloading to get to the latest update. I have
downloaded and check-summed <br>
Debian 9.8 so now have it on hand for the next meeting.<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:20190220231845.GF17908@linuxmafia.com">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
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?'
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">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.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
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.</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
We don't see so many of those in our regular attendees.<br>
Few folks ask for a special distribution in advance though.
Maybe because<br>
i keep a wide variety at hand.<br>
A few years back I had a man who hauled a tower to the meeting
and tried to<br>
install Knoppix on it without listening to advice. The equivalent
of Usenet troll but <br>
in real life. That encounter made me feel bad for a week or so.<br>
<br>
At the last meeting I was asked about Daniel Gimpelvitch and has
anyone heard<br>
from him lately?<br>
<br>
Bobbie Sellers<br>
<br>
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