It's the little differences that make all the difference...

1034

Oh, Linux, you hilarious construction!

Just stumbled upon the solution to directing DOSBox to the correct directory when mounting in Linux. I was googling around trying to find out how to mount a directory located on a harddrive other than the main, boot drive and utterly chanced upon the solution. My filepath was completely correct (which I’m a little bit proud of) but the MAJOR difference from Windows isn’t (just) that drives have different designations, it’s that CASE MATTERS.

I had used a capital letter as part of the name of one of the extra harddrives; using the ‘wrong’ case wouldn’t have mattered under Windows when writing a filepath (and drives have letters, rather than names). That one letter being the wrong case was enough for DOSBox (under Linux) to throw up a ‘unknown file or directory’ error…

Today has been a sharpening of the learning curve.

Anyway, now to figure out how to modify the DOSBox conf file in Linux (again, this was a doddle in Windows…)

1211

A sidequest appears!

I booted up the old Dell laptop to see if I had a dosbox conf file on there (I did not) but when moving it around, noticed it rattled, which is never a good sound for a laptop to make… Inside, I found a screw, completely out of the threaded hole where it should be, and I have no idea how it came loose; it’s not one I ever would have touched (the only other work I’ve done inside this laptop is securing the loose m.2 drive, whose screw is literally at the very opposite corner of the machine).

Hmm, actually, thinking about that previous repair, maybe this second fault is indicative of generally shoddy construction: the wrong-headed bolt for the harddrive, and this other bolt loosening over time.

Oh well, keeps me busy.

1349

…but back to DOSBox!

The conf file is located here:

/home/bananaworld/.dosbox

This goes near the beginning:

fullresolution=1501x1126

windowresolution=1501x1126

output=opengl

(Resolution extrapolated from 640x480 using: https://www.omnicalculator.com/other/resolution-scale)

This goes right at the end:

mount c /media/bananaworld/2Store465/games

mount d /media/bananaworld/2Store465/gamesnot

C:

(NOTICE THE CAPITAL LETTER IN THE PATH!!!1!)

I played Transport Tycoon the other day in that ‘DOS Browser’ thing, but couldn’t save the game, so that was useless. Next came today: trying it in DOSBox, which worked fine (after I’d downloaded the original DOS version rather than the Windows version) but it was the older TTD.

Some googling reminded me of the existence of OpenTTD, and I had a look for a Linux version; of course it exists (nerds!) which led me to looking for it in the software centre; of course it’s in there! 

Oh, Linux: equally confounding & astounding.

1612

Just when I thought I was done swearing for the day, Linux brings me another ‘joy’...

For more than twenty years, I’ve had the same printout attached to many different computer desks and/or monitors; it’s a list of Alt codes for quick reference. It allows you quickly see which numbers to type in, while holding down the Alt key, to get a whole variety of special characters. It’s been my only consistent piece of  computer equipment (which is quite a cool thought) because it has been persistently useful, and, crucially, unchanging.

Until now.

Those super-useful shortcuts for putting in accented letters, symbols, powers, copyrights, etc are now all completely useless, thanks to it not working at all in Linux.

I couldn’t believe that my ancient scrap of parchment was now defunct, but I wasn’t about to give up; there must be a way to insert Alt codes in Linux using a simple set of keystrokes.

Ha ha ha.

Not only is there not a method that would allow me to use the combos I’ve memorised over decades, there just isn’t an easy way to do it at all… unless you want to go down a massive faffabout-hole. How can something so fundamental & useful in Windows be completely absent in Linux…?

Ok, that’s not strictly true; what I’m using is what’s available: the Character Map. Yup, go find the character you want in a completely separate program and zarking  copy ‘n’ paste it over to where you need it.

How deeply irritating.

Cool, kicking back in your lawn chair...

1131
What's getting me through battling Linux is listening to the O.G. who inspired a series of Weezer EPs: 

 

https://freemusicarchive.org/music/John_Harrison_with_the_Wichita_State_University_Chamber_Players/The_Four_Seasons_Vivaldi

 

(Thanks to: https://www.reddit.com/r/weezer/comments/zykzk9/i_found_the_exact_versions_of_vivaldi_sampled_on/) 

 

 

Dear Google, noöne with a brain wants your "AI" summary. And more Linux headaches...

 

1905

Let’s just have a slight tangent where we remove the pointless, useless, and cluttersome “aRTiFiCiAL inTElliGEnCe” results when using Google search in Firefox.

The key steps are to go to Settings -> Search, scroll down to Search Shortcuts, click Add button. In URL box, paste in:

 https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14&tbs=li:1

 Name the ‘new’ search engine (I used GoogleOld), click Save Engine button; scroll back up the page and select your search engine. Much better results.

Source:
https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/google-search-no-ai-overview.html

https://archive.ph/88Smi

2053

Things are a little better than yesterday, possibly helped by having been for a little bike ride in the sunshine. 

The short version:

• The shared folders on PavNAS are now appearing in Linux Mint’s file explorer! I’ve no idea what changed. I discovered this by firing up the T410 running LM and it had the shares available on there; I went back to the HPAIO and there they were!

• Weirdness #1: WiFi is OFF by default on booting the T410; it must be turned on manually before any shares appear (or I’m able to do any online stuff). Absolutely no idea why this is. Hopefully it won’t affect my use-case too badly as this it’s supposed to be a Kitchen MCM which will have a network cable attached at all times.

• Weirdness #2: still can’t access OMV configurator via browser on the HPAIO. I can use it in a browser on the T410, so I don’t think Linux is the issue. Absolutely no idea why this is (again).

• Haven’t got around to trying DOSBox (or DOSBox Staging (a seemingly newer/better version)) yet, but I have started copying all the games over. I’m not looking forward to mounting those directories as drives in DOSBox because I STILL have no idea how file structures work in Linux…

2127

Zark’s’ake, I don't know why I bother: obviously, trying to mount a drive in DOSBox resulted in absolutely no success. I think my error was having the games on a different harddrive to the main drive, which just introduces one extra possible point of confusion for the whole process.

When I can be zarked, I'll try it one more time; after that I'll move the games to the main disk (THE C: DRIVE!) and follow the how-tos to the letter.

Linux, ugh.

Linux roadblocks for DOSBox and, somehow, OpenMediaVault

1711

Today has been a bit of a mixed bag and I’m not sure I’m having a good time in Linux. I mean, it’s fine, but it’s not great. It’s possible that it’s just different to Windows, and I’m just not used to that, which is tainting the experience, but it has many annoying quirks.

I’ve been working through the list of programs I’d written down from the Windows PC, trying to install them, or alternatives, in Linux Mint. It’s quite annoying not having the programs I know & love, especially having found SumatraPDF to be great, and having only just discovered Wacup, neither of which are available for Linux…

On a more positive note, one of the programs that’s just available to easily install from the Software Manager (a lovely utility) is DOS Browser, which has been fun, but I haven’t worked out how to save games yet (vital for DOS games). Think I’ll just use DOSBOX like the old days, if I can figure out how drives & directories work in Linux (another major stumbling block for my migration to an utterly alien OS).

The biggest problem I’ve hit so far is not being able to access OMV; both the shared directories and the web interface are unreachable from this computer now. I booted up the old Dell laptop (the one used to make a ‘clone’ of all my browser tabs) and I can still do everything from there, so I’m stumped as to why I can’t access it.

Feeling a bit despondent about the whole thing.

I’m sure there are people who would relish such a situation and enjoy finding work-arounds to these niggles, but I can’t be zarked with it. This may present as lazy, but I don’t think that’s it (I wish I could detail the hours I’ve spent over the past few weeks attempting (and eventually succeeding!) to fit 104mm & 64mm BCD rings (plus a double bashguard (which I made)) onto a pair of SRAM Rival cranks in a way never intended by the manufacturer - this was not a lazy endeavour…!) I ust don’t enjoy it when computer stuff that absolutely should work… just doesn’t, when there’s no good reason for the failure to launch. It’s silly & annoying.

The most consequential Linux installation so far!!

1536

SD card storage space via Dell laptop = success! And it can be accessed from another PC.

So here we go with the HP AIO mega-move to Linux…

Just starting the process, and not much to report other than some tiny notes for future reference:

Esc: Startup menu

F9: Boot menu

F10: BIOS

Booting from Linux Mint (LM) installation USB: UEFI, not Legacy.

1607

LM is installed! That was straightforward. 

Now to install all the software I need, and then comes the ultra-fun of making LM look & feel like something familiar to me. Luckily, (I think) I’ve written down most of what I need somewhere in these notes…

Cabbage, cabbage, tabbage; and beginning the REAL move to Linux...

2048

Going on a slight tangent before trying out that SD-card-as-extra-storage operation: the slightly more pressing matter of Windows 10 and its End-of-Life…

My ‘main’ computer (a quite old but still capable HP AIO) is, unbelievably, still running Windows 10 Pro, which is over five months out-of-date and no longer receiving security updates from Microsoft. Despite having a good processor, and plenty of RAM, Microsaft have arbitrarily decided that it’s not good enough for Windows 11 and should be scrapped.

I’ve written before about installing Windows 10 & 11 IoT on various PCs, and this would certainly be a viable option for this computer, but I’ve also written about installing Linux (Mint) on a couple of PCs in an attempt to move away from my dependence on Microsaft. Even if I switch to an IoT version of Windows, that option won’t last forever; eventually they too will be out-of-support and by then we’ll be staring at Windows 12 (though Microsaft’s OS almost certainly just be called CoPilot by then; Windows is dead) and it’ll be 100% subscription-based with no wiggle room to wrangle a blessedly-lightweight IoT onto old hardware.

ANYWAY…

To head-off this inevitable dead-end, I am, as I said, trying out Linux, but I haven’t committed to Linux yet.

This is where the ‘main’ computer comes in: if I divest myself of Windows on there, and install Linux, I’ll have to use Linux!

Will it be annoying? Zark yes! But not as annoying as trying to hurriedly learn Linux in five-to-ten years’ time when the IoT gravy train finally hits the buffers and I have to scrabble around in a panic (and as an older person…) to learn a new OS.

Yes, it’s the right decision.

…but I’m not just jumping off a cliff. 

Time to admit to something rather embarrassing: one of the reasons it’s taken me this long to get around to updating the OS on my main PC is the sheer volume of ‘tabbage’ going on; across three different browsers, in seven windows, I have just over 40 tabs on the go. This isn’t a huge number really (I often have more than that in just one browser on my phone) but they are carefully laid out across the three browsers for different purposes.

Honestly, I couldn’t face shutting down all those tabs in order to replace the OS, so I did nothing about it for months & months…

About that not jumping off a cliff: so what I’ve done this evening is set up my laptop next to the (allegedly) out-of-date desktop and go through all the browsers, windows, & tabs, and recreate the exact layout on the other PC.

Wot a cop-out.

But you have to pick your battles.

And now I have no excuse!

I’m going ahead with that idea using the SD card as a storage drive in the PavNAS, but I’m going to attempt to do it from the laptop; if that works, I know I can still do everything I need to, even if the old AIO doesn’t survive its trip down the Linux-hole.

See you on the other side.

YET ANOTHER post about copying speeds, but it's really mainly about an SD card

1826

Today I’ve been copying all the music from the EHDD attached to PavNAS over the network to the old AIO (with the intention of not only listening to it (which is the whole point), but also finally getting around to sorting it - a massive job…)

It's (obviously) thousands of small files so it made an interesting* test of transfer speed: seemed to proceed at around 10MB\s. Is that good or bad? I should just be glad that it works, really!

In other news, I was helping someone else with their laptop and they were once again bemoaning the lack of storage space; 100GB just isn't enough in 2026, and buying a larger M.2 drive would be quite expensive these days. Why did laptops have to get so thin…? Remember when we could dump out the optical drive and put in a huge, cheap spinning rust HDD as a secondary drive for storage? Obviously optical drives are deprecated these days, but they could have left room for a little 2.5” drive… Or am I just stuck in the past with my 2.5” drives? (And the aforementioned literal stack of 3.5” drives!)

Anyway, I've previously faced the identical problem myself with a modern** laptop and wangled my way around it by using a 128GB card in the SD slot to store extra files (comics in my case; have I written about this before? It was when the laptop that's now PavNAS was temporarily the comic-reading computer).

I don't know why it was only on this occasion that the idea of an SD card hit me, but I popped to the shop*** and bought myself a (pricey) 256GB card; I'll pass on the 128GB card to more than double their laptop's storage.

Anyway (and I don't know why I'm writing about this before trying it), my plan is to put an SD card back into PavNAS and see if I can mount it as a storage device in OMV! I'm everso pleased with myself for thinking this up****. If it works, it should be quite quick to send & receive files to & from. I wanted to try it out today but was terrified of interrupting the music copying; I've previously found that changing anything on the OMV web interface makes copying hiccup, even if what one does has nothing to do with the drive in use. Best let the copying finish.

* subjective

** relative

*** almost; as previously recounted, Curry's barely meets the definition of a shop, carrying nearly no stock, and hardly staffed.

**** jinxed it now

Always copy FROM TreeSize!!

1202 (alarm) I'm having my first go at updating the backups. This consists of copying the latest load of downloads from the Living Room PC (LRPC) (where I do most downloading) to an external HDD; an important next step is sorting the load of downloads into folders which match the sorted folders in the backup locations.

Then, this ExtHDD gets plugged into various other locations and the new data gets copied across to the relevant folders in the backup locations.

I've copied to a couple of locations so far, but have made a bit of a mistake: I've been using File Mangler to do the copying…

As previously detailed, FM (Windows Explorer) doesn't like copying folders it hasn't got permission to access, even though I can give it access without a check or a thought. It's extremely stupid.

What I should be doing is using TreeSize to do the copying, which just needs UAC permission once when the program is started.

I shall use it from the next location onwards.

…or should I go back and redo the places I've already done…?

Can I be zarked to do it?

Maybe I'll just try looking at the properties in FM & TS and see if they agree. The easy way.

An electronic, virtual appendectomy.

1001 The (much) older Lenovo AIO which is in use as my workbench computer has always been a bit dodgy; drivers just aren't available for many of its devices under newer Windowses.

One particular annoyance has been the trying-to-work-but-definitely-doesn’t-work touchscreen. Any touch on the screen is read as a touch in a tiny portion on the lower left side, and sometimes it keeps thinking touches are happening there and the mouse can't be used.

Yesterday, I was finally bothered enough by it to do something about it (N.B. not bothered enough to try to make the touchscreen work - that would be a painful & pointless exercise).

I went into Device Manager - Human Input Devices and simply disabled the two entries which mentioned touchscreen.

There I go again, putting the pro in I.T. professional.

No progress, but good intentions paving the road...

1549 Haven’t done much on the data/NAS/back-up front lately. Actually, what have I been doing?

I really should check it’s all still working and much more importantly, organise an off-site back-up…