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Author Topic: No, I will not fix your computer.  (Read 65268 times)

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Thad

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Re: No, I will not fix your computer.
« Reply #680 on: November 23, 2013, 10:53:45 AM »

My Windows Experience Score is 5.9.  The hard drive, predictably, is the bottleneck, which is of course why I keep talking about eventually going to an SSD caching solution.

It is still a marked improvement over my previous score, Windows Has Encountered a Problem and Must Restart.
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Thad

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Re: No, I will not fix your computer.
« Reply #681 on: November 23, 2013, 04:02:06 PM »

Lost a good big chunk of my day because I forgot Debian's versioning nomenclature is totally oldschool/conservative/designed for servers.  I grabbed Stable, forgetting that that's the equivalent of an LTS from Ubuntu or a release from Red Hat, whereas Testing is (roughly) equivalent to the latest stable from Ubuntu or Fedora.

For a minute there I was back in 2003 with a distro that didn't recognize my network card and still thought graphical installers were a pretty neat idea.
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Thad

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Re: No, I will not fix your computer.
« Reply #682 on: November 23, 2013, 05:23:41 PM »

And then another chunk because I forgot to go to Advanced Options and pick XFCE instead of GNOME.

Now, I can see the reasoning behind the versioning thing.

The reasoning behind having people select their DE at boot time instead of on the screen where they select all their other package groups, on the other hand?  That eludes me.
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Thad

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Re: No, I will not fix your computer.
« Reply #683 on: November 24, 2013, 05:21:02 PM »

...I swear I used to be able to increase the text size in Windows without making the text and graphics all a blurry fucking mess everywhere in everything.  Anybody encounter this/know a fix?

It's pretty much the equivalent of the Text-Only Zoom that is the primary reason I still use Firefox.
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Rico

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Re: No, I will not fix your computer.
« Reply #684 on: November 24, 2013, 05:53:55 PM »

Nevermind.
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Rico

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Re: No, I will not fix your computer.
« Reply #685 on: November 25, 2013, 07:46:04 AM »

I have spent entirely too much time on Google over the last day being completely baffled that
it is apparently impossible to change the text size independently.

SSD owners out there: It seems to me that it'd take a couple years for the decrease in loading times to make up for the time spent reinstalling Windows and programs. Is the difference viscerally amazing? Looking at benchmarks just isn't the same.

Picked up a mobo, CPU, and 16 GB of RAM for ~$300. Golden age.
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Brentai

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Re: No, I will not fix your computer.
« Reply #686 on: November 25, 2013, 08:30:28 AM »

Yes, the difference is night and day, especially for games. Loading times are  close to nil unless you're playing DNF.
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Mongrel

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Re: No, I will not fix your computer.
« Reply #687 on: November 25, 2013, 02:11:21 PM »

I figure I'll be getting an SSD the next time I need to do a full rebuild, but that might not be for years 'cause this computer is still pretty damn serviceable for higher-ish end games even though it's three years old with no upgrades since then.
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Thad

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Re: No, I will not fix your computer.
« Reply #688 on: November 25, 2013, 03:58:22 PM »

Settling into OpenSUSE.  There was some weird shit where I had to delete eth0 and then rename one of the other (actually existing) network devices to eth0, but once I had that figured out things started going much better.  Have I mentioned how much I love the package management on this thing?  While technically most major distros now SHOULD be capable of one-click installs, it just doesn't seem to have caught on with them the way it has with OpenSUSE for some reason.

Package support in fact generally appears to be better than last time, and it was pretty good last time.  It's not what you'll get with the Debians or Fedora but it's the next best thing, and what it lacks in breadth it makes up for in ease of installation.  It's also way more friendly at dealing with conflicts than any apt-based system I've ever used; if one comes up it doesn't just drop you back to the command line with a vague error, it tells you specifically which versions of which packages from which repos are causing the conflict, and then presents you with options -- keep the old one and cancel, install the new one and go with that repo for that package from here on in, or ignore it and go on through with the possible breakage.  It's not perfect -- it tends to list the same options multiple times -- but it gives you everything you need to make an informed decision without having to fuck around with manpages or try to find a solution online.

13.1 was just released last week so there's no nVidia binary package yet.  I think I can probably wait instead of fucking around with shell scripts; I've got plenty else to do.

But all 3 OS's are now up and running and connected to the Internet, so I think I can classify the new computer as Finished at this point.  Still plenty to do, slowly getting everything just the way I want it like the ass-groove on my couch, and of course now I have to set the Mac Pro up the way I want it, as a studio/backup server.  Lots to do, but getting there.
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Thad

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Re: No, I will not fix your computer.
« Reply #689 on: November 26, 2013, 11:40:14 AM »

Meanwhile, over in the "I'd like to replace my Samsung Chromebook with an Acer one", the C720P has been announced.  It's $300 and has a 32GB SSD and a touchscreen, but it's only got 2GB RAM, as compared to the next model down which is $250 and has a 16GB SSD and no touchscreen but 4GB RAM.

Tough call.
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Thad

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Re: No, I will not fix your computer.
« Reply #690 on: November 26, 2013, 04:25:58 PM »

I have spent entirely too much time on Google over the last day being completely baffled that
it is apparently impossible to change the text size independently.

Looks like it's tucked away under the extremely-helpfully-named Window Color option.

This may be the least intuitive thing in the Windows Control Panel since having to go to "Add Local Printer" to add a network printer.


MEANWHILE: Batman is not performing nearly as well on the new computer as the old one.  Same settings (near as I can tell); same card -- except before the card was underclocked.

I would sure like to figure out why it's doing that.
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Brentai

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Re: No, I will not fix your computer.
« Reply #691 on: November 26, 2013, 05:04:05 PM »

Check your audio setup?  People have surprised before by how much their audio settings are screwing them over.

I've personally had trouble with onboard monitor scaling before (apparently some drivers are stupid enough to pass through a scaling algorithm even when you're running at native resolution), and it's usually tucked somewhere away from the regular graphics settings, so try checking that too.
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Rico

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Re: No, I will not fix your computer.
« Reply #692 on: November 29, 2013, 05:08:00 PM »

I have poor impulse control. A 250GB SSD at $130 was too hard to resist, since it's big enough to just clone my main drive and hopefully not have to worry about reinstalling anything.
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Thad

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Re: No, I will not fix your computer.
« Reply #693 on: November 29, 2013, 05:12:31 PM »

Meanwhile, over in the "I'd like to replace my Samsung Chromebook with an Acer one", the C720P has been announced.  It's $300 and has a 32GB SSD and a touchscreen, but it's only got 2GB RAM, as compared to the next model down which is $250 and has a 16GB SSD and no touchscreen but 4GB RAM.

Tough call.

I think it's gotta be the 4GB version.  While a touchscreen is a nice feature and it usually costs a hell of a lot more than $50 to add one, I think the RAM is a more practical concern.  Storage is too, but you can replace the SSD in a C720; you can't upgrade the RAM.

No sales today; I'll see if there are any on Monday.  If so I'll pull the trigger then; if not, I'll reasonably assume that its already-probably-subsidized-by-Google price is as low as it's going to get and wait until I've got a bit more money saved up.  (Insurance will cover it to the tune of $200, but I still have to wait for part of the money to come in after I buy it.)
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patito

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Re: No, I will not fix your computer.
« Reply #694 on: November 29, 2013, 06:28:30 PM »

I have poor impulse control. A 250GB SSD at $130 was too hard to resist, since it's big enough to just clone my main drive and hopefully not have to worry about reinstalling anything.

If you're gonna go the cloning route, you should read up on partition alignment, since that can have a huge impact on the SSD drive speed if it's not right.
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Niku

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Re: No, I will not fix your computer.
« Reply #695 on: November 30, 2013, 10:45:41 AM »

Thad let me know how the new Chromebook goes if/when you get one.  I'd kinda like to pick up a Chromebook purely for web and writing stuff, but if you get one you can run emulators on decently, so much the gravier.
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Rico

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Re: No, I will not fix your computer.
« Reply #696 on: December 02, 2013, 07:55:11 PM »

Oh good, the put everything together and fans and everything spin up but it doesn't actually boot game. I love that game.
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TA

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Re: No, I will not fix your computer.
« Reply #697 on: December 02, 2013, 08:20:21 PM »

Oh good, the put everything together and fans and everything spin up but it doesn't actually boot game. I love that game.

Yeah, you can't just clone to an SSD from a platter drive.  There's partitioning issues.  Best to just install from zero.
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Rico

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Re: No, I will not fix your computer.
« Reply #698 on: December 03, 2013, 12:53:17 AM »

Didn't even try that part yet. Leaning motherboard, but could be processor. Hate trying to troubleshoot without spare hardware.

Ended up just RMAing both parts today. Also, very upset to discover that AMD is (still? back to?) using the seesaw style of CPU cooler clip. That is a really uncomfortable level of force to have to apply to hundreds of dollars worth of hardware. You'd think they would have figured out a better solution by now.
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Brentai

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Re: No, I will not fix your computer.
« Reply #699 on: December 03, 2013, 10:11:14 AM »

I assume there's a good technical reason for those clips simply because they're too disturbing to be justified by simple cost effectiveness.
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