A thread for boring computer questions.

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Jordan, you'll need to get dirty in the register, can't really tell you what to look for.

-- Ed (dal...), January 30th, 2004.

Um, to get even less computer savvy, how exactly do I go about this?

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 20:47 (twenty years ago) link

I do have a problem actually. I have a file manager programme for X (I trust shiftingcopyingpasting files et al more where I can SEE what's going where!) - however it doesn't let me do it, so I think I have to be root. However, I can't log into X from the Gnome login screen as root. Hm. Once IN X I can be root in the full display and in xterms but er... apparently NOT with the file manager jobby. Any ideas?

Of course I might be off the mark with this one and it's just shagged :)

― Sarah (starry), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 21:20 (twenty years ago) link

root doesn't need to use a filemangler

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 21:22 (twenty years ago) link

What's that supposed to mean? I *don't* need to be root to run the file manager?

ARGH. I appear to have specially downloaded what I now assume is an xmame front end:

http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/non-free/x/xmame/xmame-x_0.74.1-1_i386.deb

If I can't find a .deb of REAL ACTUAL xmame soon I am going to scream.

― Sarah (starry), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 21:29 (twenty years ago) link

Don't download deb's by hand fool

http://packages.debian.org/

^ search by text

then

apt-get install packagename

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 21:30 (twenty years ago) link

Ed and Jon have a great 'good cop-bad cop' thing going on in this thread.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 21:32 (twenty years ago) link

sarah, try emelFM as a file manager.

MOBO info will have to wait on me flipping the lid on the PC again. I did look up the chipset once already but info was far from conclusive.

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 23:15 (twenty years ago) link

You need to run ... um ... I think it's called gdm-configurator. Something like that, anyway. Or, you might be able to select 'configure' from the login screen, depending on how it's set up.

Anyway, do that, as root, and it lets you enable root login from the login screen.

― caitlin (caitlin), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 11:05 (twenty years ago) link

Er yes Jon, apt-get wouldn't FIND the package which is WHY I downloaded it *without* using apt, and then ran dpkg -i yadayada. I am now stuck in UTTER dependency HELL. Once I think I have the correct mame packages it's now faffing about with sound packages - I don't even have a sodding SOUND CARD!!

Yeah Will, this is what you get when someone a little TOO obsessed with security sets it up for you innit :)

― Sarah (starry), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 11:10 (twenty years ago) link

HI DERE. WHAT'S DEBIAN PLZ?

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 11:17 (twenty years ago) link

Debian is a type of GNU/Linux. (As opposed to Linux. Some people consider this distinction important.)

― caitlin (caitlin), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 11:19 (twenty years ago) link

A distribution of linux, look at http://www.debian.org. I guess it is a good thing if you know what you are doing and have broadband and don't give up easily and are strong enough not to give in to the first thought of suicide (and there will be LOTS)...

― Sarah (starry), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 11:21 (twenty years ago) link

HEHE - SORRY ABOUT POSTING THE SAME QUESTION ON TWO BOARDS. I AM A TROLL.

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 11:24 (twenty years ago) link

Is it bad that I have my computer, TV, and cable all plugged into the same surge protector? Last night while I was watching TV and on the computer the power went out for like a second, the TV went off but came right on but my computer of course went down. Today when my computer froze I hit the power cord to try and off and on it, but it wouldn't work, and there was no power to my TV either. I fiddled with the plug-in in the wall and stuff came back on. I bought a new surge protector today, but am I overloading it by plugging all this stuff into it?

― Mary (Mary), Thursday, 5 February 2004 02:25 (twenty years ago) link

shouldn't be, when the computer froze did ctrl+Apple+Power not work?

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 5 February 2004 06:55 (twenty years ago) link

No, none of the keystroke tricks have been working on the freezes lately. Computer is unresponsive.

― Mary (Mary), Thursday, 5 February 2004 07:17 (twenty years ago) link

When I shut my computer down, the circle thing spins around for a good while, finally the the screen turns light gray for about a second, before sighing and really shutting down to black. Is this acceptable behavior?

― Mary (Mary), Thursday, 5 February 2004 22:07 (twenty years ago) link

quite normal, best not to shut down, os x prefers it if you don't, just put the computer to sleep if you have to leave it

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 5 February 2004 23:14 (twenty years ago) link

Unixy based OSes always require a bit of shut down time to clean up the file systems & such. It should be ok, unless it takes an hour or something. If you have a laptop, you can shut the lid on it & walk away after it gets to the circle spinning stage... it will hum to itself & then finish & turn itself off.

― lyra (lyra), Friday, 6 February 2004 17:00 (twenty years ago) link

Ed, are you too busy calculating the molecular weight of carbon dioxide to appreciate that not shutting down a computer IS USING UP PRECIOUS PRECIOUS ENERGY RESOURCES??!??!

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 6 February 2004 17:15 (twenty years ago) link

An area of wales the size of a rainforest is destroyed every day by computers that are left on.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Friday, 6 February 2004 18:42 (twenty years ago) link

What's that in football pitches?

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Friday, 6 February 2004 18:53 (twenty years ago) link

My computer is doing fine in sleep mode. Should I continue on with my plan to intall PC card and attach CD burner, or should I take its pervious problems seriously and bring it to Tekserve for a check-up before embarking on any sweeping changes?

― Mary (Mary), Friday, 6 February 2004 22:59 (twenty years ago) link

Hello - I have a large mpeg (1gb) that needs to be chopped in half. Quicktime doesn't seem to be able to do this. Is there another app that will perform this task?

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Saturday, 7 February 2004 01:55 (twenty years ago) link

Hmmm, if you have access to something like Strata Videoshop, that should be able to. Otherwise, you might want to check http://www.downloads.com & see if anyone has any shareware programs that will do it.

― lyra (lyra), Saturday, 7 February 2004 05:29 (twenty years ago) link

Have you tried Quicktime Pro?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 7 February 2004 18:28 (twenty years ago) link

>"What's that in football pitches? "

Around 0.02 asteroids worth of football pitches.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Saturday, 7 February 2004 21:32 (twenty years ago) link

putting a computer to sleep is preferable to turing it off, it helps them last longe, reducing the need to replace and thereby saving manufacturing energy usage, but leaving a computer on on is of course not terribly energy saving of course.

― Ed (dali), Sunday, 8 February 2004 16:41 (twenty years ago) link

So... now Nicotine comes up with nothing but a grey window. Any suggestions?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 15 February 2004 04:03 (twenty years ago) link

How long can printers be expected to last? I have had mine for about 4.5 years -- it is an Epson Stylus Color 740. Recently, its printing out everything light and blurry -- one line will be readable but the next will be blurry. I thought it was just the ink but I have changed it and same problem. I applied all the fix-its in the printer utility -- to no avail. I think the problem might be printer alignment? Anything I can do to fix this, or is this simply old age? Do people bother taking their printers to be repaired, or do they just throw them out?

― Mary (Mary), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 04:23 (twenty years ago) link

you may be able to change the print head, if it is separate from the inck tank, but the price of that may be more than a new printer of equivalent or better spec. It may not be the print head, it may be something like the motors or the drie belts in which case, in this, crazy world, it's cheaper to buy anew printer than to ge your old one fixed.

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 09:31 (twenty years ago) link

Hell sometimes its cheaper to buy a new one than replace the ink carts.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 13:23 (twenty years ago) link

casuistry sometimes you gotta wait a little while for it to connect; and sometimes the server is just down.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 15:03 (twenty years ago) link

should a laptop not be left in a parked car because of the cold?
/idiot

― winstonsalem, Wednesday, 18 February 2004 15:36 (twenty years ago) link

it's probably ok if you give it an hour or so to return to room temperature before you turn it on again.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 15:37 (twenty years ago) link

thanks for the quick reply, so this is generally frowned upon?
what about all the students i see w/lptps who walk a couple miles across campus in the frigid cold?

― winstonsalem, Wednesday, 18 February 2004 15:45 (twenty years ago) link

OK if I change a file name up in iTunes within all that track info, it shows up properly--until I play the song at which point it reverts back to the screwed up information tags. Help?

― Allyzay, Thursday, 19 February 2004 16:25 (twenty years ago) link

Alyy, try usin disk utility (in the Ultilities folder of Applications) to repair disk permissions on your startup disk, you may have a permissioning error.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 19 February 2004 16:49 (twenty years ago) link

Okay so my old g3 running os 8.6 died with a nasty drive error that diskfirstaid can't fix. i figure for the price of taking it to a shop i might as well just get a new box. i'm thinking going pc and staying laptop for convenience sake. what's a good cheap choice with power to handle modern stuff quickly but not for getting into graphicdesign madness etc? should i go for trackpads of ibmstyle dotpointy things? if i get a pc i may actually play k-cool GAMES for a change, so how much power should i be looking to get?

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 19 February 2004 16:59 (twenty years ago) link

Could the permissioning error also be causing my computer to go to sleep and not wake up occasionally? This seems to happen mainly if I take it out of my bag and plug it in BEFORE opening it and waking it back up. I am sure permissioning errors have nothing to do with this but it was a segue into my next question you see.

― Allyzay, Thursday, 19 February 2004 17:05 (twenty years ago) link

is there any risk at all in disk repairing my FW drives?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 19 February 2004 17:42 (twenty years ago) link

I have another two questions to add to the pile.

Why the FUCK does Safari limit filenames to 31 characters (or whatever) when downloading files that are handled with Quicktime? (i.e. you open up an mp3 or a movie in a new tab, let it load, click the little arrow and "save as source" -- and you're limited to OS 9 character lenths!! AAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH)

Also is there any way to set the font size "one larger" permanently?

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 19 February 2004 17:45 (twenty years ago) link

Sterling: word on the street is that if you go laptop you may as well stay on Apple gear as the cost/performance is really about the same. If you want a powerful laptop though you ought to just go Alienware and forget the rest. Trackpad is a necessity, those red nipple mice just piss everyone off.

Ally, if it keeps doing that you should go ahead and try resetting the PMU which is called a 'last resort' but then again so is everything I've ever done to fix a problem on any computer.

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 19 February 2004 17:47 (twenty years ago) link

Sterling: as far as lower priced notebooks go, Acers seem to be well thought of. If you're going for battery life over processing power (with built in wireless networking) a Centrino powered notebook would be ideal, something like their TraveMate 290. As far as pointing devices are concerned you should probably just go try some. Dell notebooks were available and may still be (I haven't looked for a while) with both. There are lots of choices as far as configurations go unless you're just buying off the shelf. Or you could just buy an Apple like Tom suggests.

― Bryan (Bryan), Thursday, 19 February 2004 17:50 (twenty years ago) link

I'm not thinking laptop for actually travelling so much as occasional moving and generally a smaller footprint for a cramped apartment. Going to PC is partly for price ratio but partly coz I want to be able to play kewl gamez and generally be all compatible and run slsk etc. like a normal person.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 19 February 2004 18:01 (twenty years ago) link

Probably incredibly easy, but:

Is there anyway to find the serial number of a piece of hardware (my DVD combo drive) without taking it out and looking at it or having the brochure?

― Atila the Honeybun (Atila the Honeybun), Thursday, 19 February 2004 18:39 (twenty years ago) link

You might wanna think about a Shuttle minisystem then, Sterling. Throw in as slutty a processor and videocard as you can get and some drives and you're off to the races with a small portable but powerful system. Something like this.

― Bryan (Bryan), Thursday, 19 February 2004 18:45 (twenty years ago) link

Oh, come on, even I eventually managed to get slsk working.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 19 February 2004 18:57 (twenty years ago) link

yeah but its not just that but the general benifit of using what everyone else does and having like *everything* available.

anyway new question: i've been on the mac all-bundled-together wagon so long [like my whole life] that i don't know anything about getting PCs. Like will i rilly save money/get more bang/buck if I build my own system like say from a Shuttle? Or will the monitor/periphials costs and hassle bring the price out about the same? If I buy a Shuttle basebox, many don't seem to come with chips? Is it hard to put a chip in a motherboard? (Or do they come with chips?). Should I stick with pentiums or is an atholon a better deal? etc?

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 19 February 2004 21:47 (twenty years ago) link

You can buy Shuttle systems and ones like them bundled with everything you need or you can buy a barebones one like in the link above and put it together. IMO it's not hard to physically put it together so long as you have compatible parts (a store will help out with that or else you can read online manuals - getting the right RAM is slightly tricky). Most things only go in one way. Driver installations with Windows XP are mostly pretty easy. I'd get a Pentium IV or an Athlon 64 CPU. You'd probably save a bundle putting it together yourself and Shuttle or a similar company might even give some tech support.

― Bryan (Bryan), Thursday, 19 February 2004 21:58 (twenty years ago) link

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