Root Access

Hennes

00:03

A full sized bluetooth keyboard, a BT mouse and a nice desktop can do a lot to improve an ipad.

Now if you could only add n external monitor or two

r.tanner.f

@Hennes wait, a mouse?

Hennes

Well, fingers all over the viewing area is obviously bad

So a mouse is a must for any tablet.

r.tanner.f

But... you can use a mouse on iPad?

Hennes

I do not see why not? Though I never tried it

►

How To: Connect A Bluetooth Mouse To Apple iPad- Btstacks Mouse

r.tanner.f

@Hennes Yeah I just stumbled on that too xD Looks like it needs a jailbreak?

Hennes

00:08

I assumed it was jailbroken. Most people on here are technical enough to do that

But if it works technically then there might also be an app for it

r.tanner.f

Oh, my iPad? Nah, I haven't jailbroken any of our iOS crap. That's the reason I buy her Apple stuff, so I don't have to mess with it.

Hennes

Hmm, one way to see it.

my way is "I can not do what with my own stuff?" Homebrew! jailbreak!

even if I have no app which requires it

r.tanner.f

Eh, she doesn't want it done anyway. But if I can get a mouse on it, it's happening.

Hennes

Anyway, I see plenty of people with ipod and ipads. Seems to work for them. FOr me I will wait until my laptop gets to old.

Until then it is unneeded luxery

r.tanner.f

I'm waiting for this whole tablet/laptop combo to mature a little. That's where it's at for me... I think the only thing I use our Apple devices for is to watch Netflix when my S3 is dead.

Anyway, home time

Hennes

00:14

* waves *

Luke

Any idea how long for Badges to be awarded?

Bob

00:35

@Luke Depends on the badge..

Some badges are instant, some check every 5 minutes (I think), some are daily

Luke

It came

My first SU Gold badge! But my second :(

Bob

@Luke Congrats!

I'm nearing 365 consecutive days o.O

allquixotic

Hallo! (:

Bob

@allquixotic Hi!

allquixotic

@Bob Not usually on at this time but waiting for SW:TOR updates to complete

I'm on my main desktop mwahahaha

Bob

00:44

@allquixotic What time is it?

allquixotic

@Bob 7:44 PM (19:44 for you 24ers)

Luke

00:57

@Bob I must beat you... Lol

Journeyman Geek

01:58

Hello folk

apparently I'm being forced to run mobile versions of SU cause the network is just so damned slow ;p

Also, I saw a 233 mhz system of some sort running netware in the bookshop at the chennai airport domestic terminal

Hennes

Well, even an old system should be able to run terminal software just fine.

Journeyman Geek

oh I was just suprised it even existed ;p

not something I expected to see

Bob

02:15

@JourneymanGeek Every time you go back :P

@JourneymanGeek You should see the discussion we had yesterday...

13 hours ago, by JohannesM

A customer just called and asked for improving the speed of his backups to an external storage.

It was a Win95 computer backing up to a ZIP drive.

And it was a database server...

Jeff Аtwoоd

03:44

I answered a question yesterday.

Today its the top question.

3rd top answer (22^votes)

Ariane

Uhm, hi? The 'ask a moderator' room is empty, so I thought maybe it was okay to ask here. Do you know if it's okay to bump my questions after a couple of days without a satisfactory answer, when they seem to have died out?

Jeff Аtwoоd

@Ariane they are automatically bumped AFAIK

is it considered elite to get an 22 upvoted answer?

(somewhat elite)

(which is the 3rd answer on the hottest question ATM)

how to get a password from a logged-in account?

Ariane

Uhm, probably..?

Jeff Аtwoоd

(the email account no longer exists)

Ariane

And what do you need by "automatically bumped"?

mean*

Jeff Аtwoоd

03:58

@Ariane means it goes to the top of the list if its unanswered once in a week AFAIK

Ariane

Ah, okay. Well, thing is, there are answers for some of them, but not what I was looking for.

Jeff Аtwoоd

@Ariane if theres no accepted answer too it will bump

(user 1 will bump it)

(community user or something)

Ariane

User 1? What?

Paul

@Ariane Hello Ariane, which of your questions are you referring to? The gang that hangs out here are helpful, so drawing attention to one by posting a link here (without getting too spammy) can help. Also, if you aren't getting attention, you can add a bounty once you have enough rep. If the answers aren't applicable you can edit the question in an effort to get better answers.

Jeff Аtwoоd

/me waits

Paul

04:02

@Ariane You can think of the Community User as the system itself, it does various things to get unanswered questions in front of people

Ariane

Oh, all rightie.

So you want me to link you the questions?

Paul

Well please don't dump a bunch in here. Which is the main one you are after?

Ariane

@Jeff, I don't really get what you mean. You're not being crystal clear.

Jeff Аtwoоd

@Ariane AFAIK, the system wil automatically bump your question, nothing to worry.

Paul

Though there aren't many people active on here right now

Ariane

04:06

I know, I meant what you're waiting for.

Jeff Аtwoоd

how to get my login password (probably no way :|)?

Ariane

If your email address doesn't exist anymore? Probably not, nope. How would they reset the password if not through email? The best I can think of is to contact an admin or something.

@Paul Uhm, actually, it's most of my questions. xD http://superuser.com/users/184971/ariane?tab=questions

But right now, the main one is:
http://superuser.com/questions/529113/most-efficient-use-of-my-ssd-and-new-old-hard-drives

Because people have, well, read the question quite quickly, and didn't see I asked for a lot of things. And they replied quite, well. Simply. Very partial answers that don't help me choose, as in, how the heck should I set all of that up to get it working as well as possible.

@Jeff or trying to revive the account somehow.

email account *

Jeff Аtwoоd

@Ariane I'm creating another email accout.

Ariane

That won't help if it doesn't have the same address. oO

Jeff Аtwoоd

@Ariane changed the email

Paul

04:14

@Ariane Part of the problem is that the question includes a lot of detail that doesn't need to be there - the question distills down to "I am going to install a hard disk and ssd, what is the best way to set these up for best efficiency / performance". But then you are seeking opinion, which isn't an appropriate use of this site, which is intended to provide specific answers to specific questions.

allquixotic

It's a good use of chat, though :-) (hi)

Ariane

Well, I also asked some specific questions. Such as, how does the Windows thingie that fuses drives work, etc. But sorry, I didn't know asking for opinions wasn't good. I actually recently advised someone to do that. >_>

@allquixotic, so you do have advice? :D

allquixotic

@Ariane The way I judge it is, I ask myself, how many possible answers are there to this question? if I can think of more than a dozen or so possibilities, it's probably either worth splitting up into multiple separate questions, OR if it has an infinite number of possible answers (or reasons for those answers), then it's not really a good question for the site.

Paul

@Ariane Heh. As allquixotic says, if you are looking for some general pointers, then asking here worth it

allquixotic

can you link to the question please? @Ariane

Ariane

04:18

0

Q: Most efficient use of my SSD and new/old hard drives

To begin with, here are my computer's current specifications: -Windows 8 Pro, 64 bits -Motherboard: ASRock 970 Extreme3 -Processor: AMD FX-8150 Zambezi 3.6GHz Socket AM3+ 125W Eight-Core Desktop Processor FD8150FRGUBOX (copied from Newegg; I wasn't sure exactly what was not necessarily useful ...

BRB, while you read the novel. Gotta tend to the laundry and get ready for bed. (This site is addictive. Supposed to be sleeping since an hour ago).

allquixotic

that's a very odd arrangement of disks

not only do you have three, but two are HDD and one is SSD, and the capacities don't even come close to matching... almost anything you do that involves treating them logically as one volume would be dubious at best... you should probably just treat them as JBOD (just a bunch of disks) and install Windows on the SSD, install huge media on the 1TB, and stuff you can afford to lose (swap file) on the old HDD

Paul

@Ariane I have an SSD and Hard disk in the machine in front of me. My feeling is that the point of SSD in a desktop is to increase interactive performance. On the linux side, I installed the OS on it, and got a good performance boost. On the Windows side, I couldn't be bothered with trying to get the OS onto the SSD or a reinstall, so I just created a fairly big partition on the SSD and dedicated it to readyboost

allquixotic

you could also install replaceable programs on the old HDD but that's likely to cause the programs to load slower than they would from the 1TB HDD

Jeff Аtwoоd

recovered my password yay

Paul

@allquixotic Can you make them JBOD and still control what ends up on what disk?

allquixotic

04:21

certain types of data don't actually need to be read at a fast rate because they are played back gradually... in other words, you could read them from a rather slow media and not even care... for example, video and audio files... they decode at kilobytes per second, whereas drives read in MB/s

so for that type of data you probably could put it on the 256 GB HDD

@Paul "JBOD" just means formatting a filesystem on each disk separately, so you'd have, say, C:, D:, E: drives

controlling what ends up on what disk is basically a matter of explicit choice: during Windows install, you tell it to install to the SSD (so Windows boots up fast); during program install, you tell it to install to the 1TB HDD (because programs are big and the 1TB HDD reads faster than the slow/old one); when saving media files you save them to the 256GB HDD

well you could probably put very frequently used programs on the SSD too, things like your web browser, or whatever you frequently load on startup

but 128GB isn't a lot so you'd have to eventually start shoving very large programs (games....) onto the HDD

Paul

@allquixotic Ah, right. JBOD is frequently "misused" when talking about turning the disks into one big volume, so I thought that is what you meant.

allquixotic

nah, that would probably disable TRIM and also would do awkward things like write frequently-written-to files to the SSD, reducing its lifespan

Ariane

I'm back.

allquixotic

that's another thing -- for stuff that's being written and rewritten over frequently, it's definitely better to put it on the HDD

so programs that you install once and leave alone, and OS files that are mostly static save for updates, are a good choice for the SSD

Ariane

Uhm, but isn't the OS itself what is written and read from the most frequently? Journal files or something. But I was fairly sure installing the OS on the SSD was a must-do.

allquixotic

04:28

the OS itself doesn't do a tremendous amount of writing, at least not to executable files

to the registry perhaps, but really the most you see in terms of writes for normal desktop usage is your browser cache

Ariane

So web browser, not on SSD?

allquixotic

browser cache -- which is usually somewhere in C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Roaming

you can create a symbolic link if you really want to move it off the system volume because it will default to the system volume

Ariane

Well, "really want"... I'll only "really want" to do that if you say I should. xD

allquixotic

I don't think it's that big of a deal but it depends on your use case... you could also disable browser cache entirely (on most browsers; not sure about IE but Firefox allows you to) if you have a good internet connection with no data cap

Ariane

I have an average connection with a 60 GB data cap. :p

allquixotic

04:31

the worst kind of browser cache is a medium size one, because it frequently fills up and the least recently used resources get deleted and written over

Ariane

But well, disabling cache is so-so. Cache is useful.

allquixotic

the useful extremes are either: no cache at all, or an enormous one

with an enormous cache you actually don't do a whole lot of writing, just lots of reading, if you usually visit the same pages

and a huge cache also saves you internet bandwidth

the stackexchange sites rely very heavily on your browser cache

if everybody disabled browser cache at once i think stackexchange would crash

Ariane

Is there a way to make things appear normal, but have Windows / applications store those sensitive frequently written/read files on the hard drive? Like, "behind my back", invisibly. That would be useful.

allquixotic

no, there aren't really any magic tricks where windows goes "oh, that stuff gets frequently written to, so we're not going to store it on the SSD"

also you don't have to worry about reads

for all intents and purposes, SSDs have unlimited read cycles

Ariane

No, well, not really having Windows decide

allquixotic

04:34

the whole point of SSDs is that reads are insanely fast

and virtually unlimited in quantity

you only (slowly) erode the lifespan of the device when you write

Ariane

I meant, like, I would select X, Y and Z files that I can predict will be often rewritten, and have them still appear to be on <SSD>:\Users\Me\AppData\Roaming, and work normally that way, but even though it appears normal, they're actually on the hard drive.

allquixotic

in an ideal world you'd be aware of what actual disk activity is taking place on your system, via in depth knowledge of the programs you run and their read/write behavior, and you'd stick as much data as possible onto the SSD that gets read often and written infrequently

large data that gets read infrequently gets stuffed on the 1TB; any data that gets written very frequently gets stuffed on either HDD

@Ariane that's what a symlink does

Ariane

Not an expert at all How does it work, and is it a pain in the butt? xD

Why did it replace my stars with italic? Rwar.

allquixotic

a symlink decouples the file path of the file and the location where it's actually stored, by creating a "pointer" (a level of indirection) from the place where it's stored to another location

so Firefox says gimme C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\<something> and the actual file data is stored on D:\<something> (your HDD)

hanleyhansen

hey guys

Ariane

04:39

And it appears absolutely normal? And successfully lies to programs, so there are no issues and everyone thinks things are on the SSD? Then uhm. Shouldn't I put -everything- on the SSD with symbolic links to the HDD for what I don't -actually- want on the SSD? Sounds like it would make everything simpler. o:

allquixotic

mostly you'll want to use symlinks in instances where you have to very rarely (if ever) delete or move the entire directory that the symlink refers to

Ariane

(Hm, hi.)

allquixotic

@Ariane you can do it that way, but for things that you know don't get written over much (stupid example: Adobe Reader's executable files, Microsoft Office's executable files), it's better to have them on the SSD, for performance

howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/…

that's how to make symbolic links, unless somebody's written a GUI to do it (might be a windows explorer shell extension)

hanleyhansen

in my ec2 instance i added an EBS volume and mounted it to /logs. In my virtual hosts i am pointing to my logs as follows /logs/access_log etc but apache is throwing the error: (13)Permission denied: httpd: could not open error log file /logs/corp_error_log.
Unable to open logs

allquixotic

what you can do is install the programs to the SSD normally, let them create their directories, and then decide what directories you want to "cut and paste" over to the HDD and create a symlink

hanleyhansen

04:41

apache:apache is the owner of /logs

allquixotic

so, you'd start Firefox, let it create your profile, then symlink your profile from your HDD to the SSD

hanleyhansen

i don't understand

Ariane

@hanley, I think it would be easier to get help by posting a proper question with all the details first, no?

allquixotic

@hanleyhansen what user is httpd running as?

hanleyhansen

@allquixotic apache

allquixotic

04:42

and what are the DACLs on /logs and the files within it?

hanleyhansen

@Ariane that was my next move. i figured i ask here first incase i missed something obvious

allquixotic

what you can do is enable a login shell for apache, then su apache and try to do it manually: touch /logs/corp_error_log

hanleyhansen

@allquixotic how do i check that? right now /logs is empty. do i have to create the files first?

allquixotic

if you get permission denied from the shell then you can debug the permissions

@hanleyhansen DACLs = permissions... try ls -la /logs

also, stupid question but is / world executable? :p

hanleyhansen

Ariane

04:45

@allquixotic: Yeah, but I meant. I thought it might have been a good idea, instead of always going "grr, on which drive was that thing again?" (having Program Files and Program Files (x86) already drives me crazy enough, lol), to, uhm, well, make the SSD the only actually used drive, and the hard drive a sort of dump only used by the system to store what I don't want to actually be on the SSD. Do you get what I mean, or am I being unclear?

allquixotic

hm looks like it

@Ariane that works -- you can technically have all your programs' file paths refer to C:\.... as long as you create proper symlinks for things you want on other drives

hanleyhansen

@allquixotic /logs is 755

allquixotic

it'll work; on the Linux side we do stuff like that all the time :P it just seems unnatural for Windows because, well, it is

@hanleyhansen try editing the /etc/passwd entry for apache to change its login shell to /bin/bash or /bin/sh (I'm assuming it's /sbin/nologin) -- just for the time being; change it back later -- then su apache and touch /logs/corp_error_log

Sathya

.. and I missed him?

allquixotic

@Sathya seems like an imposter; look at the profile

Sathya

04:48

indeed

Ariane

@Sathya, not sure what you wanted from me. o:

That link about symbolic links that you gave, it says Windows Vista, but I have Windows 8. Is it going to work the same, still?

allquixotic

@Ariane yeah, they work the same in win8

Sathya

@Ariane you can always leave a message there, we'll reply soon as we log in

hanleyhansen

@allquixotic worked fine

no i'm really confused lol

so it's not a permissions issue

Ariane

@Sathya, you mean relatively to the moderator room? All right. But I don't visit chat often. Do I get notifications on the main site or something?

hanleyhansen

04:51

could it be a conflict bc apache adds an alias for logs?

allquixotic

@hanleyhansen it's not a file permissions issue at least

hanleyhansen

i see

allquixotic

unless the path to the log file is relative to the apache document root or /usr/share or someting

Sathya

btw, @Ariane welcome to Super User. I dropped a note about you yesterday in here :P

20 hours ago, by Sathya

Ariane, Québec, Canada

221 7

windows-8 windows windows-7 server ssd partitioning keyboard

20 hours ago, by Sathya

3rd day on Super User, 221 rep

20 hours ago, by Sathya

guess we have a new Super User addict :P

hanleyhansen

i'm going to try commenting out that alias

Ariane

04:52

>_> Not my fault. This site is evil. xD

Sathya

@Ariane you'll get a notification in the inbox if there's a chat message to you

Ariane

Like, anything including "@Ariane"?

allquixotic

@hanleyhansen when i doubt a configuration file and think a program is doing something file-y that it's not supposed to, i typically start running it under strace... :P

@hanleyhansen like strace -Ff -eopen httpd <options to prevent it from daemonizing> ... then see if it tries to open something like /usr/share/apache2/logs/blah_log for writing

although i suspect it probably is trying to write to that exact path or a similar one because the directory path it's taking is relative... best to read the docs on that particular directive

i solve problems by circumlocution so if you don't wanna do that, read the docs and gain real knowledge ;D

Sathya

@Ariane either the full name ( @Ariane or minimum 3 char match ie @Ari )

hanleyhansen

@allquixotic lol strace gave me this: Unable to open logs

nothing else specific

let me take a look at that directive

Sathya

04:55

if you haven't been in the room for more than 2 days than you don't get the notification

5

A: What are the rules for when chat messages appear in a user's inbox?

To use you as an example: @TonyMeyer, i.e. an exact match will cause a notification if you've been in the room in the past seven days. @Tony, i.e. a first name match (to be precise, a word boundary match) will cause a notification if you've been in the room in the past two days. @Ton will notif...

better explains

Ariane

@Sathya Strange, because I didn't see when you posted about me.

Sathya

@Ariane I didn't mention you earlier ie. no @ reply, hence no notification.

Ariane

Oh, okay. I wonder why. I mean, if people talk about/to me, regardless of whether I've ever been there, I'd like to know. xD

Sathya

@Ariane there's search for that :)

Ariane

Yeah, but I don't wanna run a search daily to know if people are talking to me. oo'

@allquixotic, the symlinks... If I understand well, I have to 1. put things on the SSD, 2. create the same directory structure on the HDD, 3. follow the procedure to create the symbolic link?

allquixotic

04:58

@Ariane why would people talk about you?! .... I guess you need to get a cat/dog gravatar if you're joining the SU guru community, because most SU addicts have one :P with few exceptions... I just recently switched to a mine turtle :D

@Ariane you got it... but you can skip step 1 if you can choose the path where the thing is installed

like if you are downloading a file and it asks you where to save......... you don't have to first put it on the SSD if you see what i mean

you can put it on the HDD directly and symlink, skipping step 1

not always possible or advisable though

Ariane

Unfortunately, I don't. xD

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