Root Access

I'm using the Desktop version of Ubuntu. As soon as the installer starts, I type the Escape key which reveals the F1-F6 options. Tying Escape again gives this dialog: **"You are leaving the graphical boot menu and starting the text mode interface."** I select "OK", but the installer reboots.....

Bob

2:38 AM

@JourneymanGeek not if you're using zfs!

well, if you're using zfs, swap at all currently has a nonzero chance of locking the system ... there's a bug ...

but a zvol ("partition") is better than a file :P

Journeyman Geek

@Bob that's a bug not a feature

Bob

though you're actually better off using a raw partition so it doesn't have that lock issue...

Journeyman Geek

oooh

That's annoying ;p

rahuldottech

@JourneymanGeek ain't that just bloody fantastic

Journeyman Geek

3:22 AM

._.

Chocolatey is incredible

XKCD

4:06 AM

I also have an utterance. Less of an utterance and more of an incantation. Less of an incantation and more of a malediction. Less of a malediction and more of a Word of Power. Less of a Word of Power and more of an Unforgivable Curse.

rahuldottech

4:30 AM

csc.gov.sg/articles/how-to-build-good-software

@JourneymanGeek written by your PM's son ^

Journeyman Geek

@rahuldottech and probable future PM

Also I work with/for a government agency

so I can smell the male bovine post-consumer waste

Burgi

7:49 AM

morning

Journeyman Geek

GOOD AFTERNOOOOOOOOON

northerner

hi

Burgi

upgrade what you can afford

Journeyman Geek

@northerner depends on what you need

actually that's a great question for chat

that said compiling should take up as much of the processor as possible

Burgi

you might find that you can't get a faster CPU for your motherboard

Journeyman Geek

8:00 AM

and pretty much nothing should be taking up 100% on a computer that's not totally potato....

northerner

It was loading IDE, compiling isn't too long

Journeyman Geek

also more cores/threads can make sense simply cause other tasks can be offloaded to those cores

Burgi

@JourneymanGeek SystemIdle? ;)

Journeyman Geek

could also be a badly written IDE

@Burgi clever equine....

Burgi

what IDE is it?

northerner

8:02 AM

netbeans

Burgi

ah

yeah its a Java application

Journeyman Geek

and what processor do you run now, and do other appications do that too?

Is it at startup or all the time?

northerner

running i5 2500K

Just the startup with Netbeans

Burgi

i use netbeans at home, its not that slow that i notice it TBH

Journeyman Geek

google.com/search?q=netbeans%20100%25%20processor%20usage

XD

eh, 2nd gen core i5's old but its aged pretty well

@northerner is it ok otherwise?

Bob

8:04 AM

@northerner So. Something to be aware of.

You can't judge CPUs by "clock rate and cores"

northerner

yea it has aged well. Generally speaking CPU is last thing I'm considering upgrading.

I also run VMs and sometimes they bitch there isn't enough memory

Bob

There's a bunch of SU Q&As but the gist is that newer architectures tend to do more work in the same number of clock cycles.

Journeyman Geek

Oh, VMs will eat as much ram as you'd throw at it

and that's probably a decent investment, especially if you can get it cheap

northerner

@Bob but wouldn't the new architects need a new socket?

Journeyman Geek

@northerner precisely.

And new ram ._.

(which is why I basically upgraded my entire box from my core i7 3770 when I needed to upgrade...)

tbh, it just needed a new heatsink XD

Bob

8:07 AM

@northerner Yes. It's effectively a system upgrade.

You'd also be going from DDR3 => DDR4.

Journeyman Geek

@northerner intel tends to keep compatibility for about 2 gens at most

northerner

would you recommend ram 1600Mhz vs 1866Mhz? The price is surprisingly a lot different

Journeyman Geek

AMD does a lot better there

Bob

But IIRC from Sandy Bridge up to Skylake you're looking at ~20%, clock for clock.

Journeyman Geek

@northerner I personally wouldn't unless you use onboard graphics and performance matters.

Bob

8:08 AM

And that's ignoring that Skylake/Kaby Lake tend to come clocked higher (compare 3.8 GHz to 4.5 GHz boost), and then there's the 6, 8 core in post-Kaby gens...

Journeyman Geek

Oh, might matter on AMD...

Bob

@northerner Neither. If you're upgrading RAM at this point, you'd want DDR4. With new mobo and CPU.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob eh ;p

northerner

so basically that's a whole new computer XD

Journeyman Geek

I'm spending a bit on topping up my old box to as much ram as I can

Bob

8:09 AM

If you're stuck on Sandy Bridge you'd want ... whatever it supports. Which is probably something like 1333.

Anything faster would just clock down to what the CPU supports.

Journeyman Geek

@northerner pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/…

worth a read

Bob

@northerner If you feel you're limited by what you're running? Then, yes.

Journeyman Geek

NOT always true for some high performance systems or APUs but more ram's always better than better/less ram IMO

Bob

That said I run a 3770 at work (w/ netbeans etc) and I live, so... ymmv

Journeyman Geek

@Bob ._.

Our work PCs are core i7 3770s running...

and they suck hard ;p

ONE application

Bob

8:11 AM

@JourneymanGeek Not worth a read.

Heavily outdated.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob for a sandy, sure.

Bob

Basically, when moving to DDR4? Throw away everything you knew about DDR3.

It's better to start fresh.

Journeyman Geek

sadly puget's not updated it

Bob

Especially once you throw AMD into the mix...

Journeyman Geek

tech writing's gotten worse :/

@Bob mentioned XD

tbh, that's more draco's field of expertise

Bob

8:13 AM

@JourneymanGeek Ok, sure, but if you're stuck on Sandy and probably not overclocking then high-freq RAM is meaningless because it'll only run as fast as you OC.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob hence me saying more is better than faster ;p

I wouldn't bother getting faster ram is I basically needed more ram

on a SB or IB? Cheap and lots feels like a priority, especially since your sticks max out on 8gb

Bob

@northerner So. Bottlenecks. If your problem is your CPU is often pegged at 100%, and you feel that is too slow (it all comes down to what you'll put up with) then, yes, you'll need to upgrade. If you really don't want to go for the full system upgrade you can probably grab a socket-compatible 3770k pretty cheap.

Added bonus that the Ivy gen was a pretty big step up in virtualisation performance.

Beyond that? There's only so much you can squeeze out of hardware almost a decade old.

Journeyman Geek

And I can attest a 3770 that's been set up by someone who isn't overloading stuff actually works decently XD

Bob

If RAM isn't actually your bottleneck, upgrading there won't immediately help you.

A conventional upgrade is HDD => SSD. If you haven't done that yet, doing that will probably help.

It will at least make everything feel more responsive, if nothing else.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob actually that probably does wonders as far back as core2duos ;p

Bob

8:18 AM

But you happen to be in one of the more specialised fields. It's not like running MS Word which rarely pokes the CPU.

You're actually running CPU-intensive applications.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob also, its possible that netbeans just ... does that...

in which case nothing will help

Bob

@JourneymanGeek welllll... anecdotally I don't consider it particularly slow on a 3770.

Journeyman Geek

stackoverflow.com/questions/48968407/… for example

Bob

But everyone has different tolerance.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob on his system ;p

Bob

8:20 AM

And I keep it open for weeks at a time, so.

Journeyman Geek

could have different things on it

Bob

Oh, actually. One fun thing about anything Java-based, incl netbeans.

Also one thing I absolutely hate about Java.

You have to specify the max heap size before start.

And if you set that too low, you just end up with endless GC churn.

So. Set it higher. And pick a modern GC that actually releases memory back to the OS.

Journeyman Geek

twitch

Bob

G1 is good. CMS is alright. Serial is eh. Parallel (the default...) is terrible.

Nice graphs here: dzone.com/articles/choosing-the-right-gc

Journeyman Geek

@Bob sure the folks are work mostly don't know what all those are XD

Bob

8:24 AM

Notice how Parallel has the lovely behaviour of ... eating your RAM. And never releasing it. Ever.

I'd like to meet whoever picked it as the default, if only so I can yell at them for a bit.

Thanks clippy.

@JourneymanGeek Rule of thumb? If on Java 9+, run G1. If on 8-, run CMS.

Preferably, find the files where Parallel are implemented and delete them. Fire is recommended.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob ya.. but my job involves "Hey, the monitoring system says the server's on fire" "Ok, restart the app"

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Take the fire and tame it. Harness it. Use it.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob I'm just here long enough to end up somewhere more interesting. Or less "interesting"

northerner

@Bob what do you mean "Ivy gen was a pretty big step up in virtualisation performance."? From what I red the biggest difference between sandy bridge and ivy was the graphics performance. You mean running VMs would be better with ivy?

Journeyman Geek

@Bob also there's many things I can't talk about, let alone set on fire ;p

Bob

8:35 AM

@northerner I may be thinking of APICv, but that's only on Ivy-EP (Xeon, servers, different socket)

Michael Frank

12:32 PM

> The law says that you need a TV Licence to:

watch or record TV programmes live on any channel or device
OR

download or watch any BBC programmes on iPlayer.

WHAT IS THIS?

You need a licence to be allowed to watch TV???

Ave

@MichaelFrank yes that's Uk for ya

bertieb

Yup

Michael Frank

but.... why?

bertieb

Funds public broadcasting

And the other stuff BBC and the other publicly-funded folks (eg C4) do

The BBC's output is advert-free in the UK (except for eg them advertising their own shows between programmes)

Famously, there was an episode of Top Gear that wasn't as positive on some supercar (Zonda? Ferrari? or somesuch) as the manufacturer would like, they apparently rang ghee produces and said "Change this or we'll pull all our ads!"

To which the producer apparently referred them to the response given in Arkell v. Pressdam

Basically it's in the public interest to have a content producer which is free from both commercial and government pressures

Reith set it up to "inform, educate and entertain" (in that order)

It's not perfect, and the BBC has its own biases (as do C4 etc)

But the license fee helps pay for some high quality stuff (opinions may of course vary)

Burgi

12:59 PM

@bertieb i think it was tesla

Journeyman Geek

@bertieb I actually saw something that could have passed off as a TV detector van....

bertieb

@Burgi Could be! I thought it was earlier in TG's life than Tesla but rings a bell

@JourneymanGeek Oh?

Journeyman Geek

I didn't take a photo :/

was something with a huge... thing at the back

bertieb

I know there was controversy over how TG 'tested' the Tesla

Journeyman Geek

belonged to the local telecoms regulator

bertieb

1:01 PM

And they staged it running out of charge

Local to SG? Or when you were int'UK?

Burgi

@bertieb it overheated its batteries

went into "limp home" mode

i think the courts threw the claim out because of journalistic freedom

bertieb

Andy Wilman apparently apologised to the judges because they had to watch so much Top Gear

I thought it was thrown out because it was 'entertainment', not journalism :P

Burgi

i think nissan also complained about the testing of the nissan leaf

bertieb

The same excuse a Fox News affiliate used about making up news ISTR

Sounds plausible

They weren't (aren't?) fans of leccy vehicles

Burgi

i think they are fans of electric power but they aren't fans of batteries and the logistics of owning an EV

vehicles like the honda clarity fit better into modern living

theguardian.com/media/2013/mar/05/…

bertieb

1:13 PM

Speaking of which, Glasgow is apparently racing to go carbon neutral

Burgi

and thats from the guardian, who hate jeremy clarkson

bertieb

and is installing loads of public EV recharging points to go with on-street parking

Burgi

how long until some drunk scot wandering home unplugs all the cars along his route home?

bertieb

Could happen

stereotype notwithstanding

I guess it'll get less common with time

Folks, inebriated or otherwise, seem to manage to get home without letting the air out of every car's tyres, ro doing other nuisance things, by and large

Notable exceptions do occur of course

Nzall

If I have a weird visual glitch on a website I don't own or maintain and I want to know what causes it, should I ask that on Stack Overflow or on Super User?

bertieb

1:25 PM

If you think it's a browser (software) issue, SU could be appropriate

Nzall

Yeah, it seems browser specific, because I can't replicate it on Firefox at all.

bertieb

Screenshots can be helpful, as well as any console output reported by the program

And in-browser debug log if there's anything relevant there

Nzall

yeah, I got a gif

Check where the mouse is and then look at the black bars randomly appearing and disappearing in the navbar of his site

Journeyman Geek

@bertieb local to SG

but if you told me it was a TV detector I'd have believed ot

@Nzall looks like a browser /PC issue to me

what browser?

Nzall

@JourneymanGeek Chrome 76, can't replicate it in Firefox AFAIK

bertieb

1:35 PM

@JourneymanGeek Heh :P

I can't repro on Chromium 75 here

Journeyman Geek

can't repro in vivaldi

so more or less unlikely that its the webpage ;p

Nzall

0

Q: What causes this weird vertical line glitch on this on website in Chrome 76?

I came across the below glitch on https://www.troyhunt.com/, while randomly reading one of his articles: As you can see, a weird set of vertical black bars appears on his navigational menu when I hover over my browser tabs. This bug occurs regardless of window size, regardless of which page of...

google-chrome

Burgi

2:08 PM

@Nzall have you got a plugin that renders a little preview of the tab you are hovering over?

Nzall

@Burgi no

It also happens in Incognito mode

Burgi

it only happens when you hover over the tabs, it looks like the tooltip drop shadow

Nzall

@Burgi Yeah, but the weird thing is that the tooltips don't reach that far down, nor are they in the location you'd expect them

Burgi

i agree that is weird

that's why i was asking if you had a plugin for previewing tabs

i wonder if troy's site is doing some funky JS surrounding tooltips

Nzall

@Burgi If it was a plugin, it wouldn't be visible in Incognito mode

And if it was JS, I doubt it'd be affecting the tab tooltips

Caused by backdrop-filter: blur(5px); on the header. — Daniel B 30 mins ago

Burgi

2:30 PM

it looks like that CSS is still experimental, chrome only started supporting it in this version

it is possible that the tooltips use the same styling

log a bug with chromium

Nzall

3:01 PM

bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/…

Turns out it's already known

Journeyman Geek

3:21 PM

XD. SO DEFINITELY on topic for us

Its ok though, I had one question where the answer was "The company's server was down, you can set the application to offline mode tho"

tereško

5:31 PM

hmmm .... pcmonitors.info/dell/…

$4000

bertieb

I read that as $400

And was halfway to thrusting a wad of cash at Dell, Fry-style

Maybe I could sue Dell for $4000 for 'emotional distress' at no being able to afford that monitor

And use the proceeds to buy the monitor

brb, phoning Lionel Hutz

djsmiley2k

6:36 PM

> 64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=43794 ttl=64 time=0.330 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=43795 ttl=64 time=0.418 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=43796 ttl=64 time=0.326 ms

Prior to new switch?

> https://askubuntu.com/a/740883/18619

errr

> 64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=43545 ttl=64 time=15.4 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=43546 ttl=64 time=0.540 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=43547 ttl=64 time=13.7 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=43548 ttl=64 time=0.520 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=43549 ttl=64 time=9.39 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=43550 ttl=64 time=0.531 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=43551 ttl=64 time=14.8 ms

Can you see the difference? XD

tereško

7:22 PM

probably the hamster living in the NIC is old and dying

djsmiley2k

8:59 PM

Old switch yeah. I figured maybe the ram is, and it's losing Mac table...

Just need to borrow come good network cables from work, rewire some bits (some I can't get to unfortunately) and figure out why my desktop is at 100Mbit still

Journeyman Geek

11:59 PM

@tereško oled is pricy but the sensible would comparisons shop anything over 27" with TVs

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