September 2025 - Talk - lists.gtalug.org

Wanted: but beyond my ability to develop
by CAREY SCHUG 22 Sep '25

22 Sep '25

A linux distro that instead of setting up dual boot, will automatically make a virtual copy of the boot partition and bring up the original OS in a virtual machine. The preferred configuration would be with a dedicated second display (since they are so cheap and universally available), but if only one display is available, it could create a generic virtual display a bit smaller than the host machine's display. It would be an option whether the VM would be brought up at every boot or only upon a simple command request. Another option would be with a second disk installed, so the original operating system's disk is left unchanged (or perhaps the partition shrunk to make room for a shared data partition, in which the original boot partition would have to be virtualized to protect the space removed from that operating system's exclusive control). when I asked simple ai-search, i was told such did not exist yet, and it would be difficult to run gaming in the VM, but I don't care if gaming will run there. Even cooler, with a second disk installed, would be to boot either OS (either disk) native, and automatically bring the other one up virtual... "standard" process: --shrink original primary partition to make room for linux --make partitions as desired and install linux in the new area --create disk image of boot cylinders/partition table, modified to not include linux and end where it starts --if desired, (not sure of details) duplicate virtual images of UEFI for linux or the original os, or make additional real partitions. I don't think they can share them, can they? --put linux boot into real boot cylinders --concatenate the virtual disk of the original boot cylinders with all of the other original OS partitions into a virtual disk used for booting the original OS in a virtual machine. Any naysayers saying "can't do that" or "too hard" will get my usual refrain... Carey

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War Story: selection of replacement M.2 SSD can be tricky (long)
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 20 Sep '25

20 Sep '25

I have an old Dell XPS 9560 notebook. It has a dying SSD. The SSD is M.2 SATA, which is not a good choice for performance. The XPS can support NVMe drives in the same socket, so I went shopping for one. (I bought this computer used, before the pandemic. The seller said he had problems with the original SSD so he replaced it with this SATA drive. There is a chance I'll have trouble with an NVMe drive.) I checked: this XPS does not support HMB. HMB has been an important technology for making NVMe drives cheaper. It allows some of the host computer's RAM to be used by the drive, eliminating the need for on-SSD RAM. So: I kind of need a drive with on-board RAM. There are not that many of them left. I also prefer TLC as opposed to QLC since TLC generally has better endurance. And sometimes higher speed, especially for sustained writes. I found it hard to search for an SSD with these attributes. They aren't often spelled out in listings so Amazon search and AliExpress search are not great. I ended up buying one of these: <https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003788387057.html> That comes in several size variants, but I don't want the -T models since they have no on-board DRAM. I will find out if the "metal heat dissapation vest" prevents it fitting in my notebook. If it doesn't fit, I can find it a home elsewhere. Mystery: In the past DRAMs on NVMe drives seemed to be 1G (small sample of inexpensive drives). HMB buffers seem to be much smaller. For example, on my desktop, the Crucial P3 Plus 1TB NVMe's HMB seems to be 32MiB. That seems to be so much smaller that it must be doing something less than the on-board DRAM would do. Finding HMB size: On my desktop, I followed some AI advice from DuckDuckGo: $ sudo nvme get-feature /dev/nvme0n1p1 -H -f 0x0d The last line of output said: Host Memory Buffer Size (HSIZE): 8192 The AI advice said that that was the the size of the HMB in bytes. That turns out not to be the case. It is the size in memory pages (4k on my machine, I think). This is from a note to an answer in an old stackexchange page: <https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/681131/how-to-check-change-nvme-hm…> So AI helped but was wrong in an important detail (by a factor of 4k). The stackexchange answer was similarly wrong but had a correcting note (coincidence???). There may be future war stories when I get this drive and try to install it. Any recommendations for cloning the old drive, skipping bad spots? - I have Windows and Linux partitions - I have an NVMe to USB device. - I can boot the computer from a USB stick so I can copy without either source or destination partitions being mounted. - the new drive is larger than the old one.

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(opinion) Is Flutter/Dart getting popular
by William Park 17 Sep '25

17 Sep '25

Is Flutter/Dart getting popular (where you are, and around you)? Or, did it pop for awhile and is now declining, like Golang? Both are Google's, so who knows what they will do with it. Kotlin and Swift are popular, because of all those Android and iOS phones. There is nothing driving Flutter/Dart combo, other than "cross-platform" capability which may not be all important in the end.

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(DIY topic) wire twisting adapter
by William Park 10 Sep '25

10 Sep '25

Since Linux guys are more DIY than Windows guys... What tool or adapter do you use to twist electrical wires? I don't trust those "Wago" connectors, because they only have 2 points of contact. I prefer to twist the wires for contact surface, and use wire cap connector to hold the twisted end together. 1. I used to use linesman's pliers, as usual. But, my wrists are not what they used to be, and carpal tunnel and tennis elbow don't help either. So, I'm looking for an easier way, more power tool way. 2. Amazon has lots under "wire twisting tool" search. But, they don't grab the wires and apply tension, so the twisted wires don't end up straight. Also, most adapters wrap wires around 1 centre wire, but that's not ideal for "wire cap connectors". 3. I made 2 adapters (pictures attached). But, they don't apply tension, so the twisted wired are not straight. In fact, the results are ugly. 4. Right now, I am using drill chuck to hold the wires in tension. But, I'm looking for something lighter.

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MS Windows 10 End of Support
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 10 Sep '25

10 Sep '25

In the middle of next month, Windows 10 installations will stop being eligible for updates, including security updates. Many machines are not eligible for updates to Win 11. In particular, AMD machines older than Ryzen and Intel machines older than the Core 8th generation. I don't know about you, but I have a bunch of Windows 10 installations that I almost never use. What should we know? - there are hacks to let some ineligible machines get updated to Win 11. Those hacks may well cease to work. - if you do certain things, including doing back up some things to the MS Cloud, you can qualify for another year of support <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/07/how-to-get-another-free-year-of-upd…> Why do I keep Windows 10? - only on machines which won't run Win 11 - too often necessary for firmware updates Firmware updates are rare on machines as old as the ones stuck on Win 10. - I paid for it, dammit - tax preparation software only runs on Windows. I've been running it on a Win 10 machine and I haven't tried to figure out how to move the history to a new machine. Lazy! I'm currently thinking of letting the Win 10 installations fall our of support next month. I don't really want to bother with enabling the additional year of support. It might be good to ensure that all those old machines have the latest firmware before Win 10 goes EoS.

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unofficial confirmation of tonight's meeting
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 09 Sep '25

09 Sep '25

We're going to have a meeting at 19:30 tonight. In Person: TMU George Vari Engineering and Computing Centre, 245 Church Street (just north of Dundas), Room 201 (See note below) Online using Nextcloud: https://hub.gtalug.org/call/7m45sf9i It will involve at least one small demo and anything else you bring. See you there! (I expect a better announcement is to come.)

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Re: Telus anyone?
by Karen Lewellen 08 Sep '25

08 Sep '25

I admit to being a bit torn on the cRTC. certainly there are things supporting your stance. Then, for me personally, I have more descriptive video on television, and at least in theory statutes requiring service accommodations. Neither of which serve the providers. Karen On Mon, 8 Sep 2025, Alvin Starr wrote: > Not sure. > The CRTC tends to be convinced to do things that will help Bell, Rogers > and Tellus and not the rest of us. > > It may have been that phones with SIM cards started to become popular > and It was then harder to force phones locked to a single carrier. > > So the cows had bolted from the barn and there was not much to be lost > by the carriers letting the CRTC block locking. > > But that is really just my wild ass guess as to why the CRTC went with > unlocking. > > > On 2025-09-08 15:41, Karen Lewellen wrote: >> Is this not part of why the cRTC made it against their policy to sell a >> locked phone anymore? Bell or some other company hard wiring or turning >> off features. Not to mention consumers paying a grand for a smart phone >> only to be unable to keep that phone if they left? >> Karen >> >> >> >> On Mon, 8 Sep 2025, Alvin Starr via Talk wrote: >> >>> On 2025-09-08 10:09, James Knott via Talk wrote: >>> >>>> On 9/7/25 23:08, Alvin Starr via Talk wrote: >>>> >>>>> But at some point Rogers moved to GSM and Bell went with CDMA so that if >>>>> you had a Bell phone you could not use it on a GSM based carrier. >>>>> The reason I got the CDMA phone was because of the data features of CDMA >>>>> but strangely those features were turned off in the Bell provided phone. >>>>> Much to my displeasure. >>>> My 2nd phone was on Rogers, but used IS-136, which they had before GSM. >>>> There was supposedly a cable for it that could be used to use the phone >>>> as a dial up modem. However, I never saw that cable and it was an extra >>>> cost service. As for CDMA vs GSM, that's just incompatible, not >>>> locked. It would be locked if you couldn't take a CDMA phone from Bell >>>> and use it on Telus. >>> You are right in GSM vs CDMA is not a locked issue. >>> I had not intended to make that implication but I guess I did. >>> >>> I could use the phone on the Telus network but that was roaming. >>> >>> The phone had been "modified" by Bell to disable some features and other features were hard wired into the Bell network. >>> >>> At the time Telus was not an option that I knew of. >>> >>> So it may have been possible for the phone to have been removed from the Bell network and added to the Telus network but the firmware wired features would have still been setup for the Bell network. >>> The downside was that the phone was deliberately crippled by Bell and that was something that was not easily fixed. >>> >>> I guess if the phone was locked or not depends on your definition of "locked". >>> >>> -- >>> Alvin Starr || land: (647)478-6285 >>> Netvel Inc. || home: (905)513-7688 >>> alvin(a)netvel.net >>> || > > -- > Alvin Starr || land: (647)478-6285 > Netvel Inc. || home: (905)513-7688 > alvin(a)netvel.net || > > >

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Telus anyone?
by Karen Lewellen 08 Sep '25

08 Sep '25

Hi all, We have certainly discussed the other providers. As I may have to use them for the phone I am considering, was wondering if anyone has a stance? Karen

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`cat` alternatives? i.e. `batcat` looks promising
by Ron 06 Sep '25

06 Sep '25

Anyone using `batcat` or `lolcat` as `cat` alternatives? It's a bit of a niche use case, but they're interesting examples of some stodgy ol' utilities being re-imagined for the 2020s. The first I encountered, `lolcat`, has *beautiful* output, even if the name chaps my butt. Rainbow colours vertically and horizontally. It's dumb, but it sure is pretty. It rarely gets used. There's another one though that actually looks useful and might just replace cat & less: `batcat` (Ubuntu) or `bat` elsewhere: a `cat` clone "with wings". Anyone use this and have any tips? Curious what other think of it and of the "oxidization¹" of common tools (¹oxidation = enhancing & rewriting in Rust). Looks like 2025 is the year of modernizing some of my tools and this might get aliased to `less` and / or `cat`. https://github.com/sharkdp/bat/blob/master/README.md > bat: A cat Clone Written in Rust for Linux and Unix > > Syntax highlighting – Bat supports syntax highlighting for a large > number of programming and markup languages. > > Git integration – Bat communicates with git to show modifications in > left side. > > Automatic paging – The command can pipe its own output to less if > the output is too large for one screen. > > Display and highlight non-printable characters. > > A user-friendly command-line interface. > > And of course, for file concatenation, including all of the cat > command functionality.

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block size for dd -- no difference
by William Park 04 Sep '25

04 Sep '25

I was doing one of those occasional backup of my root SSD to HD. They are identical size, so sector by sector. I took this occasion to see if blocksize (bs=) matters. for i in {4,16,64,256}K {1,4,16,64}M; do echo ==== $i ==== dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdi bs=$i sync done No difference. All did 117MB/s.

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