Computerus

[Mongrel]

Jesus Fucking Christ wow. Gotta look out for this shit now too.

[Thad]

I've got two HDMI cables coming out of my HTPC. One goes to the TV, for video, and the other goes to the audio receiver.

I installed an update a couple days ago and now I can't set one of them to audio-only anymore; if I disable the "second display", or set the two displays to mirror, then I can't output audio on that port either. So if I want to be able to hear audio out of my speakers, I have to deal with programs randomly popping up invisibly on a second screen that doesn't actually exist. I'm sure there's a way around this by fucking around in X configuration files, but frankly I'd rather just hit Start-Shift-Left Arrow every single time I turn on my TV forever than deal with Xorg.conf. (Switching to Wayland is also an option; I'm not sure it'll fix my problem but it couldn't hurt to try.)

Long term, I'm going to need to buy a new audio receiver that can pass 4K/HDR video through anyway (and/or supports eARC so I can output audio through one of my TV's HDMI ports). I've only got two devices right now that output a higher-quality picture than the receiver can take, but sooner or later I'm bound to get more.

But what a pain in the ass. I hate it when updates break shit.

[mharr]

General question for Win10 power users: Does it still do that thing where popping up the rmb context menu on a remote drive folder can take a double-digits number of seconds depending on how busy the file system is feeling?

[Thad]

Previously posted about how to resume an interrupted download with wget.

Today, I'm having trouble with large downloads from archive.org getting interrupted. The wget command wouldn't work, because they were downloads that were only accessible with a login.

So after some digging, I found out that here's what you do (curl command, bash syntax; not sure about other shells off the top of my head, but should work on most Linux distros, including ones running on top of Windows 10):

1. Open your browser's dev tools (usually F12).
2. Go to the Network tab.
3. Start the download.
4. Right-click on the download, and go to Copy -> Copy as cURL
5. When the download craps out, put this on the command line:

Code: Select all

export ec=18; \
while [ $ec -ne 0 ]; do \
    curl -L -O -C - (paste rest of parameters here); \
    export ec=$?; \
done

Some explanation for what's happening:

When you select "Copy as cURL" from the Dev Tools, it copies the cURL syntax for the request, including the headers and the cookie with your login information.

To make it resume a download already in progress, add the following flags:

-L flag: if you get a message saying the file has moved, download from the new location.
-O flag: output to a file with the same name as the remote file.
-C - flags: if the file already exists, continue the download where it left off.

And then wrap it in a while loop that checks the exit code and repeats if the value is nonzero. (18 would be the value for an incomplete transfer, though I also occasionally got 52, when the connection timed out completely.)

Resources:
StackOverflow: How to resume interrupted download automatically in curl?

AddictiveTips: Automatically resume interrupted downloads in OSX with curl
(this was written back when MacOS's default shell was bash; they've since switched to zsh, and I'm not familiar enough with zsh to know if the same loop syntax will work without some tweaking)

[Thad]

8Bitdo Pro 2 gamepad review: A $50 bargain for cool features, killer performance

Another new controller with buttons on the back -- but sadly, once again it's only possible to remap them to other buttons on the controller, not keyboard/mouse/anything else.

[Thad]

Framework Laptop review (hands on) — the anti-MacBook is here

Available for preorder. Minimum price is $750, if you're willing to put it together yourself. Which, if you're buying this laptop, I expect you probably are.

I don't have that kind of money to drop on a laptop right now, but it's definitely something to keep in mind for when I do.

Wish there were an AMD version, though.

[Brantly B.]

Damn, but I'm one of the few use cases who can ever claim to actually care about having an onboard discrete GPU.

[Thad]

Previously:

I'm pretty solidly in the "guess I'll have to hang on to my 2013-vintage i7 for awhile longer but I should really do something about that horrible sound the fan keeps making" mode.

Opened it up, blew it out, determined it's the CPU fan. I don't think it's in any imminent danger of failing but it's sure making a godawful noise as it spins up and down. (Workaround might be to just disable the fan control and let it run at full-blast all the time; that would make it louder but probably less obnoxious.)

It's a 120mm fan and easy enough to buy a replacement. Saw a YouTube video where a guy replaces it without taking the heatsink off. My case is a little tighter but I'm hoping I can pull that off.

[Thad]

So my Windows laptop ran an update the other night. For about 90 minutes.

I'm not sure what's changed under the hood, but the most immediately noticeable frontend change is that it stuck some bullshit in my taskbar that warns me that it's 109 degrees out. Like, doesn't just *tell* me it's 109 out, but formats it in ominous red text.

Who was asking for this, Microsoft? Who was asking for a 90-minute update to put shit they didn't ask for in their taskbar, to tell them that it's fucking hot outside?

Christ on a fucking bicycle.

--

Meanwhile: finally got my first Raspberry Pi; I've set it up as a Pi-Hole. My goal is, eventually, to build a new firewall and switch from pfSense to OPNsense, because while I have no complaints about pfSense itself, I've become convinced that it's run by fucking psychopaths. (Note: that last link has a line-art version of the goatse pic up at the top, followed by a Downfall video. Potentially NSFW.) Anyhow, my reading on OPNsense indicates that it doesn't have the kind of robust list-based domain blacklisting that pfBlockerNG provides for pfSense, and consensus seems to be that the best way for OPNsense users to get something like pfBlockerNG is just to set up a Pi-Hole.

So I haven't bought a computer to put OPNsense on yet (from recommendations I've seen, I figure I'll get an HP T730 and stick a 4-port Intel network card in it; I'll probably do that next month after I get my quarterly bonus), but I figured I could get started on the Pi-Hole. I got a Pi 3, followed a Pi-Hole setup guide, and it was pretty simple and straightforward to set up. Impressed with the Pi so far, as a simple, cheap solution for low-impact tasks.

Doesn't seem to be doing much yet, but I suspect that's because so far I'm only using it as a DNS provider for my main desktop, and I suspect that between uBlock Origin and NoScript, most ads are getting blocked before they ever send a DNS query. I expect I'll get better results once I set it up in the new house with the (eventual) new firewall; at that point it should help with stuff like the goddamn banner ads on my TV menu.

[Thad]

Previously:

I'm pretty solidly in the "guess I'll have to hang on to my 2013-vintage i7 for awhile longer but I should really do something about that horrible sound the fan keeps making" mode.

Opened it up, blew it out, determined it's the CPU fan. I don't think it's in any imminent danger of failing but it's sure making a godawful noise as it spins up and down. (Workaround might be to just disable the fan control and let it run at full-blast all the time; that would make it louder but probably less obnoxious.)

It's a 120mm fan and easy enough to buy a replacement. Saw a YouTube video where a guy replaces it without taking the heatsink off. My case is a little tighter but I'm hoping I can pull that off.

Slapped a Noctua NF-F12 in there and oh my god y'all I'm just so happy right now.

[Mongrel]

Well, speaking of the fears iterated ITT, my comp is down (posting from atog comp). Reasonably hopeful it's just the power supply since there's no sign of life whatsoever and here's no sign of any visible damage from anything blowing out.

Going to swap out for Starr's power supply temporarily to see if that does the trick (only 50w difference and both boxes were fairly overpowered, so it should be fine), and if so I mercifuly will only have to deal with the modest cost and annoyance of replacing that.

Actually the most annoying thing (hopefully) is that it's Jackbox night! Argh!

[Mongrel]

Yeah it was the power supply. Gotta go grab one of those I suppose... maybe a bit higher rated since I progressively upgraded my GPU and RAM over the years (still under the 750w which was way over spec when we built this, but I like low loading on my power supplies).

For the time being we're just gonna share my rig since it's the faster one.

[Mongrel]

Ran through the likely options -

NewEgg.ca: https://www.newegg.ca/p/pl?N=100007656% ... 60&Order=1
Canada Computers: https://www.canadacomputers.com/index.p ... 100-149.99

I don't really recognize any of these brands outside of Corsair or EVGA and searching for reviews of computer parts online is as always frustrating and futile. Any advice here? NewEgg has a sale on the Super Flower Leadex III which looks like it has pretty good reviews? Super Flower is apparently a subcontractor/OEM for EVGA

Any advice before I just go ahead and grab that? Anything else look better for cheaper? (the Flowey also seems to have free shipping, since, y'know he turns up everywhere).

[Thad]

CoolerMaster and ThermalTake are generally pretty good brands. I'm not familiar with Gigabyte's power supplies, but their motherboards are solid.

Rosewill is NewEgg's house brand; I've never had any trouble with a Rosewill part, but I've also never bought anything as advanced as a power supply under the Rosewill brand, either. (Mostly simple stuff like SSD caddies and HDMI cables. But those are good!)

[Thad]

Well here's something I've never experienced before: a memory stick that causes a computer to freeze on the BIOS splash screen, depending on what boot image is on it. Like, a Win10 boot image boots, but an Ubuntu or Mint one freezes it. Same memory stick, multiple different USB slots.

Best guess: this is an old computer that doesn't support UEFI boot; the Windows image has a compatibility shim that allows it to boot either GPT or MBR; the Linux images don't; the BIOS tries to read the data on it and panics.

That seems a little surprising, though; Linux is typically a lot more friendly to install on old machines than Windows is. (And not for nothin', the same image boots fine if I burn it to DVD, but I don't think DVD uses MBR or GPT for partition information.)

[Thad]

Best guess: this is an old computer that doesn't support UEFI boot; the Windows image has a compatibility shim that allows it to boot either GPT or MBR; the Linux images don't; the BIOS tries to read the data on it and panics.

Yeah, that's gotta be it; it hangs if I connect an SSD with a GPT partition, too (albeit slightly later in the pre-boot process), but boots cleanly if the same drive is connected and has an MBR partition.

[Mongrel]

Yer a(n installation) wizard Thaddy.

[Thad]

Who has six short beeps and really isn't looking forward to having to buy a new computer? This guy.

[Thad]

Okay I got it to boot; not dead yet. Still probably a good idea to start shopping.

[Mongrel]

Is that the motherboard you JUST got a a little while ago??