Per Jessen wrote:

Andrei Borzenkov wrote:

...

On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 11:14 AM, Per Jessen wrote:

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However - to hit a function key (f1,f2,f3,f4...), you need to press "Fn" and the function key .... closing a window with alt-f4 now becomes a three-key job, switching to a console means pressing four keys .... I think the machine might be going back.

Go to BIOS setup and change "Hotkey Mode" from Enabled to Disabled. I won't be surprised if there are Linux tools to do the same.

aha, will try that. Thanks.

Brilliant! it works - thanks Andrei, that saved me a good few hours. The Lenovo support pages are difficult to navigate. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (10.7°C) http://www.hostsuisse.com/ - dedicated server rental in Switzerland. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Carlos E. R. wrote:

I just had a quick look at the cheapest I could find in stock in my zone. This one:

https://www.pccomponentes.com/lenovo-ideapad--100-15iby-intel-celeron-n2840-...

Lenovo Ideapad 100 - 219 €

One of the comments made me look again: "it does not include Windows :-("

Wow.

So I looked again at the specs, and sure, it says "FreeDOS operating system".

What's the purpose of that I wonder? I wouldn't mind avoiding the Microsoft tax, but it's no big deal these days I think.

For me, the bad thing are the few connectors:

1 x Micro HDMI 1 x USB 2.0 1 x USB 3.0 1 x RJ-45

I think the B70-80 has one or two more, plus an SD card slot.

I need more USB connections.

USB hubs are cheap - less than 10. (depending on the kind of performance you need/want). -- Per Jessen, Zürich (10.9°C) http://www.dns24.ch/ - your free DNS host, made in Switzerland. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

18.11.2016 18:21, Per Jessen пишет:

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So I looked again at the specs, and sure, it says "FreeDOS operating system".

What's the purpose of that I wonder? I wouldn't mind avoiding the Microsoft tax, but it's no big deal these days I think.

Well, last year I got Dell E5450 with Ubuntu, cost was significantly less than the same model (exactly the same hardware spec) with Windows. So with everything else being equal - why pay more? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 2016-11-19 10:59, Per Jessen wrote:

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Well, last year I got Dell E5450 with Ubuntu, cost was significantly less than the same model (exactly the same hardware spec) with Windows. So with everything else being equal - why pay more?

Agree, I just didn't think there would be any major price difference.

My local big shop asks for about 95€ for Windows 10. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar)

On 2016-11-19 12:42, Per Jessen wrote:

Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

On 2016-11-19 10:59, Per Jessen wrote:

...

...

Well, last year I got Dell E5450 with Ubuntu, cost was significantly less than the same model (exactly the same hardware spec) with Windows. So with everything else being equal - why pay more?

Agree, I just didn't think there would be any major price difference.

My local big shop asks for about 95€ for Windows 10.

Sure, but that has no relation to the price offered for pre-installs to a vendor.

Then the only way to learn of the savings is to find the same machine with and without OS. I don't know what it will be, but I'm sure that's the reason. Selling PCs without an OS was(is?) very popular here. Software piracy was/is also hugely popular. There was a mandate or law that no computer could be sold without operating system, so they started using FreeDos, or Linux. And sometimes the Linux install not been functional! That said, installing current Windows without a license has become quite difficult. I tried (for a test), and couldn't do it. Windows finds out and goes to a black background, warning that the installation is not legal; it continues working for half an hour or so, to give you some time to enter the license code or buy it. Then it crashes or halts. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar)

On 2016-11-19 14:35, James Knott wrote:

On 11/19/2016 08:08 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

Then it crashes or halts.

How's that any different from a licensed version? ;-)

LOL. Don't be naughty :-) This is an intentional halt or crash to force you to buy a license, it is different. I don't remember exactly what you get, perhaps a blue screen, perhaps you get a chance to save. I don't remember. Actually, I had very few crashes with Windows 7 or 10. Probably none except while doing big configuration changes or updates. I have to recognize that I have more system crashes with Linux. My 13.1 crashes frequently while hibernating, for instance. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar)

On 2016-11-19 16:42, jdd wrote:

Le 19/11/2016 à 14:42, Carlos E. R. a écrit :

...

Actually, I had very few crashes with Windows 7 or 10. Probably none except while doing big configuration changes or updates. I have to recognize that I have more system crashes with Linux.

My 13.1 crashes frequently while hibernating, for instance.

depends of what you do. I rarely crash windows because I rarely use it :-)

Well, Windows got its deserved fame because it crashed just by using it. A fault in an application could do it. But Windows 7 is very stable. On the other hand, some operations with Windows 2008 (the server edition) are quite risky. Like trying to setup Exchange.

I pretty often crash Linux, but I don't say what I do with it :-)

glad it mostly works :-)

My desktop machine crashes while attempting hibernation, some times. It just stops in mid process. Started doing it after some recent kernel update. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar)

On 2016-11-19 16:39, jdd wrote:

Le 19/11/2016 à 14:35, James Knott a écrit :

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On 11/19/2016 08:08 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

Then it crashes or halts.

How's that any different from a licensed version? ;-)

do use a correctly patched version (certainly not by M$soft) :-)

I had a "patcher", but it stopped working after a SP to W7. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar)

On 11/18/2016 11:17 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

I need to have a look at second hand laptops. Sure, a minipc would do as well, but a laptop has a keyboard and screen. I'm not confident with a headless thing.

Carlos you could do as well with a Raspeberry Pi Model 3. Headless is not an issue for your skill level. You can plug in any mouse and keyboard and microsd card from your junk drawer, and any HDMI monitor/TV for setup. Since all your storage seems based on USB externals you could use them unchanged. You'd probably save enough electricity to pay for the RPi. It would probably be faster too. -- After all is said and done, more is said than done.

On 11/18/2016 02:56 PM, Vojtěch Zeisek wrote:

Or something like https://omnia.turris.cz/en/ ?

To be honest that bothers me for reasons of what I can best describe as 'security architecture'. I realise that modern parlance mentions 'boundryless security' but I still like the idea of the CPE/router being a boundary. Given that, there are things that run at the boundary and things that don't. We see on some (perhaps NAT'ing) home option to pass though one or more ports, or even pass though everything to one machine, so making it 'not a firewall'. I realise that you shouldn't use a NAT as a firewall, a NAT is not a security device, but it does, or can, protect against gross stupidity wrt 'incoming'. unless you play with these settings. But what this device is doing is migrating functions that should be on the 'inside' of a boundary, either in the 'DMZ' or in the protected area, onto the router itself. Yes, I know, such isn't new. Back when, some of those 'packet inspection' (that didn't actually inspect the packet contents) that ran on SUN workstations were in a situation where CPU power so overwhelmed network demands that people who should have known better decided to put, and hence 'expose' various functions by running them the 'firewall'. Its not that you absolutely can't do this is a secure manner, setting up a boundary within the machine itself. its just that it takes a very specific security architectural approach and is not something that you do as an add-on to to a firewall. And it has to be tested in a very specific way,not simply the normal functional testing. The idea of being more 'efficient' by running more stuff to soak up all that unused CPU power etc is misguided. Given that you can implement a DEDICATED firewall on a Pi or Arduno and glue it to inside of a chassis as a "bump in the wire" to the LAN port, such misguided efforts at 'efficiency seems wrong brained to me. Repeating the errors of the past has got us into trouble before. -- A: Yes. > Q: Are you sure? >> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation. >>> Q: Why is top posting frowned upon? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

I've got an RPi 3, Beaglebone Black, PCDuino8 Uno, and ODroid U3. The RPi I just started playing with in the last few weeks. It's good, and has a good support system, but I keep getting hung up by the 1GB of memory. The BBB I sold on eBay because it didn't fit my use case anymore (so I sold it to buy the RPi.) It was well-built, well-supported, had a good community, and is best suited for robotics projects. The PCDuino8 I wouldn't recommend unless you want to be met with a lot of frustration and no support from the manufacturer. (I guess it was worth the $10 I paid for it on eBay maybe.) I'm using it as a serial datalogger for an Arduino project. To be honest, I like the U3 the best. It's super speedy, has an emmc port on the back, and has 2GB of memory. I use it as my server. It runs bind, a minecraft server, mysql server, emoncms, asterisk/freepbx, VPN, owncloud server (servicing 6 client machines,) mantisbt, NFS server, rsnapshot, and subsonic. And does so amazingly well. For storage I attached a 120GB SSD to it through USB. I love the board, it's wonderful :) And even with all of that running, there's still over a gig of memory free to do stuff like remote VNC sessions. When it's not using a CPU core, it turns it off to save even more power. And on top of everything else, it uses all of about 10 watts of power when I'm doing intense stuff. Chris -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

If I go the "headless" route, I'd rather prefer a box that allowed the hard disks to be inside. It would be perfect finding such a thing attached to small and cheap keyboard and display, though.

This intrigued me, and I'd have considered going this route if I was building my "server" now instead of 2 years ago. Just looks so cool... :D http://ameridroid.com/products/cloudshell-for-xu4-smoky-blue -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Le 18/11/2016 à 23:39, Carlos E. R. a écrit :

perhaps. The price then is nearer that of a cheap laptop.

yes. The only good thing is 4 usb3 I have 3 on my second hand laptop but why have more? cheap (as per terabyte) usb HDD go up to 5 Tb (I have 3 of them, around €140 from Nierle in germany jdd -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 2016-11-19 14:11, Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 2016-11-19 07:36, jdd wrote:

...

Le 18/11/2016 à 23:39, Carlos E. R. a écrit :

...

perhaps. The price then is nearer that of a cheap laptop.

yes. The only good thing is 4 usb3

I have 3 on my second hand laptop

but why have more? cheap (as per terabyte) usb HDD go up to 5 Tb (I have 3 of them, around €140 from Nierle in germany

Well, for one reason, I have several good but not huge hard disks that I can still use. My current implementation has two externals, 1T and 2T.

I might seek for a machine with a TV card, and connect it to the TV instead. Run it with myth TV. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar)

On 2016-11-19 16:36, jdd wrote:

Le 19/11/2016 à 14:13, Carlos E. R. a écrit :

...

I might seek for a machine with a TV card, and connect it to the TV instead. Run it with myth TV.

this is hdmi, very common nowadays

But the difficult thing is finding a suitable tv card that works in Linux without complications. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar)

On 2016-11-19 18:43, jdd wrote:

Le 19/11/2016 à 18:31, Carlos E. R. a écrit :

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But the difficult thing is finding a suitable tv card that works in Linux without complications.

oh, you mean a TV tuner?

never tried that, TV are so cheap. I use my real TV as computer screen, not the other way round

Yes, but having the TV via computer allows recording, and most importantly, time shift: stop viewing for a while, even hours, and then continue watching from the same point. The output from the card is stored on the hard disk, and another process reads from the hard disk and displays to the monitor. You can go back and forth, fast, slow... With some software, like mythtv, you can play back at 105% of speed, say, to catch up with the delay slowly. When you get to the commercials, jump over. The idea is using a dedicated small computer for this. Currently I have an embedded machine for the purpose, a gigaset M740 AV. I'm considering joining the machine working as home server with the one doing media center, and using a minipc for both things. (thinking aloud) -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar)

On 2016-11-19 19:49, Per Jessen wrote:

Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

But the difficult thing is finding a suitable tv card that works in Linux without complications.

That's not so difficult - Hauppauge WinTV Nova-S-Plus for instance (for DVB-S, PCI-bus).

I'm selling them here: https://www.ricardo.ch/v/an857727816/

Modern PCIe cards are available too, I wouldn't expect any complications in Linux. If you need decoding and a smartcard slot, it can become difficult.

I have an haupage somewhere. I just looked, can't remember where it is. It is a pain to make it work in Linux. I abandoned the effort and bought a TV set for my work room instead, many years ago. And when those cards work, you have to manually configure the channels downloading a file. You can not simply click a button and have the card scan the air and find the stations on its own with no help, as TV sets do. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar)

On 2016-11-19 19:49, Per Jessen wrote:

in Linux. If you need decoding and a smartcard slot, it can become difficult.

That's exactly the problem right now. Which channels do you access w/o a decoder card? And any solution in sight for Linux in this area? /kaare -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 2016-11-18 23:39, Carlos E. R. wrote:

I was looking at things like this: MSI Cubi N-021BEU Intel N3050 Black 125 €

without ram or hard disk (2.5" SSD). It has 4 USB3 connectors.

https://www.pccomponentes.com/msi-cubi-n-021beu-intel-n3050-negro https://msi.com/Desktop/Cubi-N.html#hero-specification

According to the vendor and comments, it has no OS. According to MSI, it has W10.

I'd have to calculate what it would be adding the missing pieces: internal hard disk, perhaps a small display, keyboard... replace my external hard disk enclosures that are USB2 with others that are USB3, perhaps. The price then is nearer that of a cheap laptop.

I just noticed that they sell small keyboards with a mouse pad, wireless, precisely for mediacenters. Just the thing. How well do Bluetooth keyboard/mice work on Linux, or specifically on openSUSE? Do they work on BIOS and GRUB screens? Not a blocking issue, but... -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar)

On Thu, 24 Nov 2016 20:07, Per Jessen wrote:

Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

I just noticed that they sell small keyboards with a mouse pad, wireless, precisely for mediacenters. Just the thing.

How well do Bluetooth keyboard/mice work on Linux, or specifically on openSUSE?

I've been using a Logitech wireless keyboard (and mouse, but rarely) since 2012, it works very well. We only use it as a mythtv "remote control", so the batteries have yet to be changed :-)

...

Do they work on BIOS and GRUB screens? Not a blocking issue, but...

Yep, works just like any other USB keyboard.

Hint: there is a very BIG difference between "Bluetooth Keyboard" and a wireless keyboard with its own proprietary receiver-dongle (e.g. Logitech) at least as far as BIOS and UEFI (and grub) are concerned. The bluetooth will (mostly) fail in UEFI, b/c there is seldom a bluethooth HID driver integrated in the UEFI, while the ones with the proprietary receiver-dongle will (mostly) work, as they present a USB-HID device to the computer. Same with mouse / touchpads. - Yamaban. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 2016-11-25 07:53, Per Jessen wrote:

Yamaban wrote:

...

...

...

Do they work on BIOS and GRUB screens? Not a blocking issue, but...

Yep, works just like any other USB keyboard.

Hint: there is a very BIG difference between "Bluetooth Keyboard" and a wireless keyboard with its own proprietary receiver-dongle (e.g. Logitech) at least as far as BIOS and UEFI (and grub) are concerned.

Very true - I didn't consider wireless == bluetooth. The Logitech wireless keyboard does come with a little 2.4GHz receiver dongle.

But those I saw that caught my attention are pure BT. The main idea is not for a PC, but for smart TV sets, I guess. The one I saw (because it was linked in an Amazon email) was a "Logitech K400 Plus", and the specs say "Bluetooth". But later on on the page it says "Unifying USB | Bluetooth". some also say: laser pointer https://www.amazon.es/dp/B00YTL47OQ?psc=1 (no, I'm not considering this one) So probably I have to seek for wireless keyboards with integrated touchpad with USB dongle Look at the photo of this one: Leelbox wireless, Touchpad 2.4GHz https://www.amazon.es/dp/B01KZP6VMU?psc=1 The article description in Spanish is about impossible to read, it has been automatically translated from some other language. I wish there were a button to disable the translation. It says Linux compatible (others do not). Specifies USB dongle. The keyboard I intend to use for booting, then I will start kodi. The rest I'll handle via ssh from desktop machine. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Friday, 2016-11-18 at 23:39 +0100, Carlos E. R. wrote:

I was looking at things like this: MSI Cubi N-021BEU Intel N3050 Black 125 €

without ram or hard disk (2.5" SSD). It has 4 USB3 connectors.

https://www.pccomponentes.com/msi-cubi-n-021beu-intel-n3050-negro https://msi.com/Desktop/Cubi-N.html#hero-specification

According to the vendor and comments, it has no OS. According to MSI, it has W10.

I'd have to calculate what it would be adding the missing pieces: internal hard disk, perhaps a small display, keyboard... replace my external hard disk enclosures that are USB2 with others that are USB3, perhaps. The price then is nearer that of a cheap laptop.

I finally went this route :-) I got an MSI Cubi N-020BEU. It's got an Intel Braswell N 3710, 1.66GHz CPU, and comes without ram or disk. I had to add a small size SSD, a "Kingston SSDNow mS200 120GB mSATA" plus two 4 GB ram modules, "Kingston ValueRAM SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 PC3-12800" (maybe an overkill, but Linux loves RAM). The box comes with a chassis supplement that can contain a laptop rotating dust hard disk, if wanted; I will instead use full sized external hard disks, which I already posses, but via USB 3. I installed openSUSE Leap 42 without a problem, using temporarily a spare keyboard and mouse, but the final setup will be with a K400 Logitech wireless keyboard, much smaller and designed for multimedia centers, which is currently in transit. I got it cheaper due to the black Friday thing. I connected it to my "office room" small TV set, via an hdmi cable. Sound works. I tried a mkv movie, with VLC, and it played very badly, with big jumps in the video. Xine similarly bad. Both play quite well an avi file. However, kodi plays both just perfect, and kodi is what I intended to use, so I'm very happy. :-)) I just have to migrate some other services, like Apache, to run here. Probably just need to copy the configuration files. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAlg6Tm4ACgkQtTMYHG2NR9XTDgCgkmBT1B3qchNUFsvhNGTh7hma ahEAnjSSkH+Oj4DwFByFZHkL773Xkk4u =9sP6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On 11/18/2016 02:17 PM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

I need to have a look at second hand laptops. Sure, a minipc would do as well, but a laptop has a keyboard and screen. I'm not confident with a headless thing.

An old HP laptop sits under my desk to server as a MariaDB SQL server. It operates headless for two reasons. 1. Trying to crawl under my desk to tippy-tappy at the keyboard and peer at the screen I'm going to bask MY head in the underside and braces of my desk. 2. The screen is useless, something wrong with the hardware makes the screen a meaningless zig-zag of random colour. So I ssh and ssh -X to it. Its 10Mhz Ethernet port talks happily to my 100Mhz switch, so that's perfectly adequate, when I need it, which lets face it, isn't that often. What matters are some remote monitoring tools that tells me it's all OK and of course the connection to the database. I have FTP and NFS there (and proven they work) if needed but the very little file transfer I've found I need has been done adequately with ssh. That being said .... I have a friend who runs an older multibay chassis as his household NAS. Its a mixed environment, his kids use Windows on their laptops and he frets about PSUs, what RAID to use, ransomware and more. Nevertheless, the idea of a small box, one of the "Raspberry Pi/Arduno in a matchbox" devices http://www.pcworld.com/article/2911098/computers/mini-pc-invasion-10-radical... http://lifehacker.com/five-best-small-form-factor-pcs-1701619172 and large USB drives is appealing. Or perhaps a large SATA/SSD in the same box and USB for expansion, backup and off-lining. If it comes to that I might replace my Dell tower with something like that and free up some physical desktop space. Perhaps Santa will be generous :-) -- A: Yes. > Q: Are you sure? >> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation. >>> Q: Why is top posting frowned upon? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org