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Oh god this computer is running XP and IE7
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@fortecadenza We run XP and IE8 with Google Chrome Frame on our school. I wish my sysadmin would let me boot from USB, I would be so much more efficient on the Linux systems I would take with me.
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@omni Yeah my sysadmin tried to stop me booting from USB. Once. Then I started opening cases and popping CMOS batteries to reset the BIOS to remove the passwords so I could re-enable it.
Pony likes this. -
@omni Most of our computers are good, they run Windows 7 and Firefox 10 ESR, and we even have a few iMacs, but stuck I'm on the worst computer in the school.
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@ceruleanspark Don't you love it when someone that thinks they know a lot about comps meets someone who actually does know a lot about them?
Scribus likes this. -
@ceruleanspark Huh, how does that work? Also, do you actually damage the batteries then or not?
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@fortecadenza Firefox? FIREFOX? OH WOW I'M SO JEALOUS RIGHT NOW
derpyshy / chem likes this. -
derpyshy / chem likes this.
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@omni Funny thing is most of the people at my school use IE anyway
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@omni The CMOS battery is what provides the very minimal amount of power to run the memory that stores the BIOS password (and also the internal clock, so that'd reset too), so popping it out and back in again causes the BIOS to effectively forget the password.
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@bitshift Ah, "popping it out" as in disconnecting, I thought "hitting it with a needle to break it" or so (I know very little about hardware, albeit I know what a CMOS battery is, I have no clue how it looks).
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@bitshift Usually. I've got a Thinkpad that doesn't work on.
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@fortecadenza But... why? That's not funny at all :(
derpyshy / chem likes this. -
@omni Nah they're just watch batteries. They're designed to be user replacable. Unplug them, flip the battery out, wait a couple of minutes for residual charge to drain, pop it back in, reconfigure the bios and you're done. It's probably worth saying that this was a huge violation of the terms of my schools "Acceptable use of computer equipment" policy, and the only reason I wasn't expelled for molesting the internals of the equipment is because I was good enough not to get caught.
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@fortecadenza @omni Why can't they just install Chrome, and help Google with their world domination already? sheezh...
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@ceruleanspark What if the people at your school sees that post?
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@derpyshy Chrome doesn't have an ESR or LTS build. I think.
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@derpyshy Then there's Bronies in IT! :D
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@fortecadenza Blerrg
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@derpyshy It's been almost a decade. I'd be extremely surprised if ol Mr Shepard wants to bust in here and ban me from using the schools computers now.
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@derpyshy I'm inclined to doubt he enrolled in school under the name Cerulean Spark. It would be awesome but I still doubt it happened.
Sir E. Hooves III likes this. -
@ceruleanspark Heh. I imagine him actually doing that... xD
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@livingdeadscribus I was using a pseudonym for my exploits at the time, but it wasn't this one.
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@ceruleanspark Was it Blue Spark? Like Mario Kart? :p
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@livingdeadscribus As a huge weaboo/furry I was inevitably "Kurokitsune" at the time. Also Cerulean is blue because Pokemon Blue was the best version.
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@eaglehooves Yeah, when devices are explicitly intended to be secure (such as many Thinkpads), they tend to spend the extra to use nonpowered storage for exactly that reason.
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@ceruleanspark It really was. I got Red first, but then I ended up liking the mix of critters in Blue much better. Ninetales, yo. :)
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@ceruleanspark On the plus side, "kurokitsune" still sounds classier (at least to a first listen) than "Black Fox".
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@bitshift There's a designer who's got "Kitsune Noir" as his pen-name/domain. I'd love to have that, but he's pretty rich so there's no chance I'm snagging it.
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@livingdeadscribus ...I take it back, "Black Fox" is hella classy. :o
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@omni Wait... HOLY CRAP WE HAVE LINUX http://ur1.ca/amqwh
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@fortecadenza But Ubuntu Linux is one of the worst Linuxes :( Oh well, at least it's SOMETHING.
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@fortecadenza You have stickers. My IT department put penguins on all their new banners, but doesn't actually support Linux.
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@omni I like Ubuntu, because I know nothing about computers and it's a nice, simple, user-friendly design.
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@eaglehooves Why even. We actually do though, I heard the IT guys talking about it.
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@omni what. Aside from being popular and well supported, what's wrong with Ubuntu.
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@fortecadenza I find Ubuntu's design to be of limited user-friendly-ness. Especially in the newer versions, because Canonical thinks it's a good idea to give you "related Amazon results" when you type anything in the Ubuntu "start" menu. For real. Ubuntu also isn't "simple", especially if you need to quickly fix something. Layer on layer of nonsense makes finding the real culprit of a problem terribly awful, an the graphical interfaces are of limited use when trying to find the problem. Unity's workspace system is also a complete mess. Being honest, I find GNOME3 (which Unity is build on top of: https://www.gnome.org/gnome-3/) much nicer. Also, Ubuntu is terribly slow with updates and has small repositories, which creates additional security risks (people have to download from untrusted sources or will be behind on security fixes).
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@ceruleanspark I'll say I'm not fond of the Unity interface, but that's really simple to just get Xubuntu or something else instead.
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@omni Hrm. Maybe I'll use Mint or something.
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@ceruleanspark I guess it's mostly bad experience. PulseAudio breaking sound completely, slow responses from the Unity interface and wanting to be somewhat up-to-date (being 2 or 3 versions behind on Firefox is pretty normal for Ubuntu users). Ubuntu surely has good sides, though, but I hate it when people misuse the label "simple", as it's a misleading label (I find Arch Linux to be much simpler to use, as it starts off minimalistic and so).
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@omni I think it's less "misusing" simple and more applying it in different areas. If a mechanism is more simple, like an old car (crank start, manual transmission, little automation) it's harder to use (you have to crank to start, clutch & shift, all that jazz), but easier to build and maintain because the machine is simpler. If it's simple to use (put in D, push gas), the engine is much less simple.
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@fortecadenza Mint should be a reasonable choice, I guess, but Ubuntu isn't as bad as I make it out to be (I'm just still having issues forgiving Canonical for all the stupid mistakes they make, like, for example, the MSN protocol breaking on their messenger to be listed as a bug which "would be fixed during the next, full release" as it "doesn't severely damage usability of the system"). As long as Ubuntu keeps working fine for you, there's no real need to switch, I suppose. It's also not ONE of the worst, it's one of the worst in the "above-average good" category, I would suppose. I'm just... hating on things and so...
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@omni thanks for explaining that. I was always curious what Ubuntu's weak points were compared to others.
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@livingdeadscribus Fair enough.
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@omni But I do appreciate where you're coming from. In fact, I'm trying to get there myself. XD
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@pony Every distribution has their pros and cons. Arch Linux, which I use, is harder to use for beginners as it's designed for those who know how they want their system to work, but that does simplify getting it to be the way you want it to be. Even though Arch needs a bit more maintenance and a lot more setting-stuff-up in the beginning, you do get a system which is more up-to-date and tailored to your needs (without things you may not use, like printer support, installed by default) and therefore faster. The next step is Gentoo. Fairly insane maintenance needs (a month of not updating? May as well reinstall the complete OS) and very long installation times (we're easily talking about half an hour or so for software like Firefox as you compile it from source), but extremely flexible (even more-so than Arch) and quicker (as you optimise software for your hardware during compilation). I wish I was smart enough to use it, but the learning curve is terribly steep...
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@omni On the flip side, if you break your Arch or Gentoo and you don't know what you're doing, you're kinda screwed. :P
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@bitshift Setting up Arch or Gentoo kinda implies you know what you're doing, though :P
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@bitshift I managed to sink my Arch install before I even had a desktop. Back to Debian-based!
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@omni Could you by any chance recommend a "start from scratch" distro like Arch, but using RPM or DEB? I've got this LPIC book I'm trying to learn from, but all the DEB and RPM distros I can find are too "already done" for me to feel like I'm really working with. And DistroWatch is lagging TERRIBLY for me right now.
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@livingdeadscribus Or, I suppose, could anyone?
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@omni True. That's really just the reason I'm loath to recommend them to anyone who doesn't already have the experience to choose them of their own accord anyway.
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@livingdeadscribus A server/minimal install of Debian would do, that already includes very little.
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@livingdeadscribus Unfortunately, I can't, as I don't know any :x
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@livingdeadscribus Debian is also damn solid anyway, even if the stable repos (as opposed to unstable, testing, and sid, in decreasing order of stableness, and increasing order of freshness) are not exactly designed for package freshness. :P
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@bitshift I'll second this. Choose not to install most of the preset stuff during the install, and you're left with a pretty minimal system.
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