• Linux 6.17.6

    From vallor@vallor@vallor.earth to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Thu Oct 30 03:22:30 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    (Remember Linux? This is a newsgroup about Linux.)

    $ tail -n 3 linux-6.17.6/*.out
    linux-6.17.6/nohup.out <==
    real 439.15
    user 21323.79
    sys 3830.90

    linux-6.17.6/uname.out <==
    Linux lm 6.17.6 #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Oct 29 19:40:50 PDT 2025 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

    (I'm sure there will be trolls who scream in anger at this innocent post, but seeing what's
    coming out of their mouths lately, I'm not too worried about it.)

    BTW, I put up an old Linux beginners' document from the 90's, it can be found here:

    https://vallor.earth/unix.html
    --
    -v System76 Thelio Mega v1.1 x86_64 NVIDIA RTX 3090Ti 24G
    OS: Linux 6.17.6 D: Mint 22.2 DE: Xfce 4.18
    NVIDIA: 580.95.05 Mem: 258G
    "No, I'm from Iowa. I only work in Outer Space."
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From rbowman@bowman@montana.com to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Thu Oct 30 06:15:29 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    On Thu, 30 Oct 2025 03:22:30 +0000, vallor wrote:

    (Remember Linux? This is a newsgroup about Linux.)

    $ tail -n 3 linux-6.17.6/*.out ==> linux-6.17.6/nohup.out <==
    real 439.15 user 21323.79 sys 3830.90

    linux-6.17.6/uname.out <==
    Linux lm 6.17.6 #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Oct 29 19:40:50 PDT 2025 x86_64
    x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

    Still trailing. I upgraded to Fedora 43 and the kernel is 6.17.5. The
    upgrade was smooth as usual. Not really a problem but something that took
    me a while to figure out was it installs Python 3.14. Nothing wrong there
    but 3.14 is newly released and some of the PyPI packages haven't caught up
    yet and 'pip install' fails. 3.13 is still installed for a workaround.

    I also just finished an upgrade from Ubuntu 25.04 to 25.10. It hung when
    it tried to reboot as usual and needed 'systemctl reboot -i' to finish.
    Its kernel is 6.17.0-6-generic. Python is still 3.13.7, which is fine by
    me.
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From vallor@vallor@vallor.earth to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Thu Oct 30 06:42:41 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    At 30 Oct 2025 06:15:29 GMT, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

    On Thu, 30 Oct 2025 03:22:30 +0000, vallor wrote:

    (Remember Linux? This is a newsgroup about Linux.)

    $ tail -n 3 linux-6.17.6/*.out ==> linux-6.17.6/nohup.out <==
    real 439.15 user 21323.79 sys 3830.90

    linux-6.17.6/uname.out <==
    Linux lm 6.17.6 #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Oct 29 19:40:50 PDT 2025 x86_64
    x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

    Still trailing. I upgraded to Fedora 43 and the kernel is 6.17.5. The upgrade was smooth as usual.

    Glad it went easy.

    I think Fedora might have a policy of staying one version behind the
    current release kernel.

    Not really a problem but something that took me a while to figure out
    was it installs Python 3.14. Nothing wrong there but 3.14 is newly
    released and some of the PyPI packages haven't caught up yet and 'pip install' fails. 3.13 is still installed for a workaround.

    That's funky -- you'd think they'd test that. Python is pretty
    important.


    I also just finished an upgrade from Ubuntu 25.04 to 25.10. It hung
    when it tried to reboot as usual and needed 'systemctl reboot -i' to
    finish. Its kernel is 6.17.0-6-generic. Python is still 3.13.7,
    which is fine by me.

    I use a Linux Mint kernel on my laptop, it is currently running:

    $ uname -a
    Linux tuf 6.14.0-33-generic #33~24.04.1-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri
    Sep 19 17:02:30 UTC 2 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

    I need the newer kernel for keyboard lighting control, it is a new feature
    for this laptop. (The firmware default is some "breathing" effect that
    I needed to switch off...and there's no setting in the bios to do that.)
    --
    -v System76 Thelio Mega v1.1 x86_64 NVIDIA RTX 3090Ti 24G
    OS: Linux 6.17.6 D: Mint 22.2 DE: Xfce 4.18
    NVIDIA: 580.95.05 Mem: 258G
    "Windows would look better with curtains."
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Jan Panteltje@alien@comet.invalid to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Thu Oct 30 10:04:38 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    vallor <vallor@vallor.earth>wrote:
    (Remember Linux? This is a newsgroup about Linux.)

    $ tail -n 3 linux-6.17.6/*.out
    linux-6.17.6/nohup.out <==
    real 439.15
    user 21323.79
    sys 3830.90

    linux-6.17.6/uname.out <==
    Linux lm 6.17.6 #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Oct 29 19:40:50 PDT 2025 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

    (I'm sure there will be trolls who scream in anger at this innocent post, but seeing what's
    coming out of their mouths lately, I'm not too worried about it.)

    BTW, I put up an old Linux beginners' document from the 90's, it can be found here:

    https://vallor.earth/unix.html

    Nice, maybe one could add some examples of 'sort' and 'awk'.

    A good book on Unix would be nice too.

    And Kernighan and Ritchie:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_C_Programming_Language

    https://www.shortform.com/best-books/genre/best-unix-books-of-all-time

    Do people still read books these days?
    Or just ask AI to wrtte the code or whatever?


    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From rbowman@bowman@montana.com to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Thu Oct 30 19:38:02 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    On Thu, 30 Oct 2025 10:04:38 GMT, Jan Panteltje wrote:

    Do people still read books these days?
    Or just ask AI to wrtte the code or whatever?

    That depends on your definition of books. Most programming books can't
    keep up with the on line documentation except for the basics. My purchases
    are almost all e-books, not hard copy. I've got too damn many of those.

    I'm currently reading 'Foundations of Computational Neuroscience'. While
    it's making progress that field moves slowly enough that what I learned in
    the '60s is still applicable. Neurons haven't changed, only the models.
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From rbowman@bowman@montana.com to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Thu Oct 30 19:51:29 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    On Thu, 30 Oct 2025 06:42:41 +0000, vallor wrote:

    I think Fedora might have a policy of staying one version behind the
    current release kernel.

    I think so. 42 had made it to 6.17 when it ran out of 6.16 minor releases.
    43 only bumped it a little.


    Not really a problem but something that took me a while to figure out
    was it installs Python 3.14. Nothing wrong there but 3.14 is newly
    released and some of the PyPI packages haven't caught up yet and 'pip
    install' fails. 3.13 is still installed for a workaround.

    That's funky -- you'd think they'd test that. Python is pretty
    important.

    I can't fault Fedora. 3.14 is a genuine release, not something they cooked
    up like Red Hat Linux did in 2000, nor can I fault the PyPI package maintainers. I didn't have a problem with haversine and others. The ones I
    hit were GUI packages that may take a while to incorporate and test the
    3.14 changes.

    The Pythonistas say you should use uv to control the installed versions
    and switch between them rather than depend on the default. I haven't used
    that but I have used nvm to switch node versions where the latest nodee wouldn't handle legacy code. It isn't much different that using compiler switches to select C versions.

    I use a Linux Mint kernel on my laptop, it is currently running:

    $ uname -a Linux tuf 6.14.0-33-generic #33~24.04.1-Ubuntu SMP
    PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri Sep 19 17:02:30 UTC 2 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

    They're using Mint for the library seminar on installing Linux on a eol
    Win10 box. I did notice it was behind the current Ubuntu kernel.

    I need the newer kernel for keyboard lighting control, it is a new
    feature for this laptop. (The firmware default is some "breathing"
    effect that I needed to switch off...and there's no setting in the bios
    to do that.)

    Slowly changing color and intensity? I have a mouse that does that. I
    guess some people find it kool. My Acer laptop has keyboard lighting. It
    also has aluminum colored keycaps. Bad combination in anything but a
    darkened room.
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Farley Flud@ff@linux.rocks to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Thu Oct 30 20:39:55 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    On 30 Oct 2025 19:38:02 GMT, rbowman wrote:

    My purchases
    are almost all e-books, not hard copy. I've got too damn many of those.


    Does anybody actually purchase e-books? Ha, ha, ha, ha! Only a fucking
    idiot perhaps.

    If the "Blowman" would learn how to pie r8t e-books then maybe he could
    use the extra bucks to acquire blow and hookers.

    But then there would be the problem of penile erection.

    Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
    --
    Gentoo: the only road to GNU/Linux freedom and perfection.
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Joel W. Crump@joelcrump@gmail.com to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Thu Oct 30 17:28:36 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    On 10/30/2025 4:39 PM, Farley Flud wrote:
    On 30 Oct 2025 19:38:02 GMT, rbowman wrote:

    My purchases
    are almost all e-books, not hard copy. I've got too damn many of those.

    Does anybody actually purchase e-books? Ha, ha, ha, ha! Only a fucking idiot perhaps.

    If the "Blowman" would learn how to pie r8t e-books then maybe he could
    use the extra bucks to acquire blow and hookers.

    But then there would be the problem of penile erection.

    Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!


    We know you're a cheapskate, dipshit, you've made that abundantly clear,
    you use LO but won't contribute monetarily, you're promoting copyright-infringing piracy, just get the first clue.
    --
    Joel W. Crump
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?=@ldo@nz.invalid to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Thu Oct 30 22:36:25 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    On Thu, 30 Oct 2025 10:04:38 GMT, Jan Panteltje wrote:

    Do people still read books these days?

    I discovered decades ago that any computer-related books you could buy
    already start becoming obsolete when they hit the shops.

    Just about all of my learning has been online since then. And of course
    from actual hands-on mess^H^H^H^Hworking with Linux systems.
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Gremlin@nobody@haph.org to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Fri Oct 31 01:23:06 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    rbowman <bowman@montana.com> news:mmhtu1Fkmn2U2@mid.individual.net Thu, 30
    Oct 2025 19:51:29 GMT in comp.os.linux.advocacy, wrote:


    Slowly changing color and intensity? I have a mouse that does that. I
    guess some people find it kool. My Acer laptop has keyboard lighting. It also has aluminum colored keycaps. Bad combination in anything but a darkened room.

    I've got a mouse that does that too. It's annoying. <G> Interestingly enough, I also have an Acer laptop with keyboard lighting - they light up in red. I like it, makes typing in low light conditions rather pleasant. It's a Nitro
    5. What is yours?

    I've been happily running MXLinux without issue on it for months now. Fast
    as frak too!
    --
    Liar, lawyer; mirror show me, what's the difference?
    Kangaroo done hung the guilty with the innocent
    Liar, lawyer; mirror for ya', what's the difference?
    Kangaroo be stoned. He's guilty as the government

    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Gremlin@nobody@haph.org to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Fri Oct 31 01:23:08 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid> news:10dvd84$3jbhi$1@dont-email.me
    Thu, 30 Oct 2025 10:04:38 GMT in comp.os.linux.advocacy, wrote:

    vallor <vallor@vallor.earth>wrote:
    (Remember Linux? This is a newsgroup about Linux.)

    $ tail -n 3 linux-6.17.6/*.out
    linux-6.17.6/nohup.out <==
    real 439.15
    user 21323.79
    sys 3830.90

    linux-6.17.6/uname.out <==
    Linux lm 6.17.6 #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Oct 29 19:40:50 PDT 2025 x86_64
    x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

    (I'm sure there will be trolls who scream in anger at this innocent
    post, but seeing what's coming out of their mouths lately, I'm not too >>worried about it.)

    BTW, I put up an old Linux beginners' document from the 90's, it can be >>found here:

    https://vallor.earth/unix.html

    Nice, maybe one could add some examples of 'sort' and 'awk'.

    A good book on Unix would be nice too.

    And Kernighan and Ritchie:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_C_Programming_Language

    https://www.shortform.com/best-books/genre/best-unix-books-of-all-time

    Do people still read books these days?

    Some of us do. <G> I have a nice little collection of soft/hard cover ones
    for electronics/electrical etc. A book works better for me in some cases
    than having it on my cell or another device. My NEC code books for example. The ugly books are helpful too and are small so they fit right into a
    toolbox.


    Or just ask AI to wrtte the code or whatever?

    I'm old school. I still write my own code. I haven't used AI a single time
    to assist me.
    --
    Liar, lawyer; mirror show me, what's the difference?
    Kangaroo done hung the guilty with the innocent
    Liar, lawyer; mirror for ya', what's the difference?
    Kangaroo be stoned. He's guilty as the government

    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From rbowman@bowman@montana.com to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Fri Oct 31 02:19:12 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    On Thu, 30 Oct 2025 22:36:25 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

    On Thu, 30 Oct 2025 10:04:38 GMT, Jan Panteltje wrote:

    Do people still read books these days?

    I discovered decades ago that any computer-related books you could buy already start becoming obsolete when they hit the shops.

    Just about all of my learning has been online since then. And of course
    from actual hands-on mess^H^H^H^Hworking with Linux systems.

    When we started an Angular project I bought 'ng-book: The Complete Guide
    to Angular' only to find Angular had moved on in some areas. This wasn't
    the completely incompatible transition from AngularJS to Angular, but the difference between Angular 6 (May 2018) and Angular 8 (May 2019).

    I've bought very few dead tree editions of anything lately. Some I should
    have like a linear algebra text. It renders okay in the Kindle app on
    Windows, and semi-well on a tablet but paper would be nice.
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From rbowman@bowman@montana.com to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Fri Oct 31 02:28:13 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    On Fri, 31 Oct 2025 01:23:06 -0000 (UTC), Gremlin wrote:

    I also have an Acer laptop with keyboard lighting - they light up in
    red. I like it, makes typing in low light conditions rather pleasant.
    It's a Nitro 5. What is yours?

    Acer Swift 3. Not being a 'gaming laptop' it isn't a kool black chassis
    with red lighting. It's silver colored with white lighting. The keycaps
    are silver with subdued black letters. Not a happy combination.

    I've been happily running MXLinux without issue on it for months now.
    Fast as frak too!

    That's my Windows 11 machine, j.i.c. My Beelink mini has the same Ryzen 7
    CPU and 8 GB more memory and I'm running Ubuntu on it. The Beelink was an experiment that worked out well and I selected the SER4 since it was so
    close to the laptop and I was happy with the laptop's performance even
    with Windows.



    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From rbowman@bowman@montana.com to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Fri Oct 31 02:32:14 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    On Fri, 31 Oct 2025 01:23:08 -0000 (UTC), Gremlin wrote:

    I'm old school. I still write my own code. I haven't used AI a single
    time to assist me.

    I'm on a couple of subreddits like arduino. It's amusing seeing the N00bs
    come with a pile of AI generated shit and asking why it doesn't work. Some
    of the responses aren't too kind.
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From vallor@vallor@vallor.earth to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Fri Oct 31 03:32:25 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    At 30 Oct 2025 19:51:29 GMT, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

    On Thu, 30 Oct 2025 06:42:41 +0000, vallor wrote:

    I think Fedora might have a policy of staying one version behind the current release kernel.

    I think so. 42 had made it to 6.17 when it ran out of 6.16 minor releases. 43 only bumped it a little.


    Not really a problem but something that took me a while to figure out
    was it installs Python 3.14. Nothing wrong there but 3.14 is newly
    released and some of the PyPI packages haven't caught up yet and 'pip
    install' fails. 3.13 is still installed for a workaround.

    That's funky -- you'd think they'd test that. Python is pretty
    important.

    I can't fault Fedora. 3.14 is a genuine release, not something they cooked up like Red Hat Linux did in 2000, nor can I fault the PyPI package maintainers. I didn't have a problem with haversine and others. The ones I hit were GUI packages that may take a while to incorporate and test the
    3.14 changes.

    The Pythonistas say you should use uv to control the installed versions
    and switch between them rather than depend on the default. I haven't used that but I have used nvm to switch node versions where the latest nodee wouldn't handle legacy code. It isn't much different that using compiler switches to select C versions.

    I use a Linux Mint kernel on my laptop, it is currently running:

    $ uname -a Linux tuf 6.14.0-33-generic #33~24.04.1-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri Sep 19 17:02:30 UTC 2 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

    They're using Mint for the library seminar on installing Linux on a eol Win10 box. I did notice it was behind the current Ubuntu kernel.

    I need the newer kernel for keyboard lighting control, it is a new
    feature for this laptop. (The firmware default is some "breathing"
    effect that I needed to switch off...and there's no setting in the bios
    to do that.)

    Slowly changing color and intensity? I have a mouse that does that. I
    guess some people find it kool. My Acer laptop has keyboard lighting. It also has aluminum colored keycaps. Bad combination in anything but a darkened room.

    The keyboard doesn't support color, it's just white led's with changing intensity, 0-3. Black keys with white led-lit letters.

    It has different "effects", but all I wanted was full-intensity, all the time. It's set now.

    In
    /sys/devices/platform/asus-nb-wmi/leds/asus::kbd_backlight

    $ ll kbd*
    --w--w--w- 1 root root 4096 Oct 19 13:25 kbd_rgb_mode
    -r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Oct 30 20:25 kbd_rgb_mode_index
    --w------- 1 root root 4096 Oct 30 20:25 kbd_rgb_state
    -r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Oct 30 20:25 kbd_rgb_state_index

    I had to read the kernel source to figure out that the index files gave
    the format for setting the state and mode.

    $ cat kbd_rgb_mode_index
    cmd mode red green blue speed

    $ cat kbd_rgb_state_index
    cmd boot awake sleep keyboard

    All that rigomarole is simply to change this parameter, which I have
    set to 3 (the max) and set to not change:

    $ cat brightness
    3
    --
    -v System76 Thelio Mega v1.1 x86_64 NVIDIA RTX 3090Ti 24G
    OS: Linux 6.17.6 D: Mint 22.2 DE: Xfce 4.18
    NVIDIA: 580.95.05 Mem: 258G
    "If there's one thing I can't stand, it's intolerance."
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Jan Panteltje@alien@comet.invalid to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Fri Oct 31 09:19:27 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    rbowman <bowman@montana.com>wrote:
    On Thu, 30 Oct 2025 10:04:38 GMT, Jan Panteltje wrote:

    Do people still read books these days?
    Or just ask AI to wrtte the code or whatever?

    That depends on your definition of books. Most programming books can't
    keep up with the on line documentation except for the basics. My purchases >are almost all e-books, not hard copy. I've got too damn many of those.

    I'm currently reading 'Foundations of Computational Neuroscience'. While >it's making progress that field moves slowly enough that what I learned in >the '60s is still applicable. Neurons haven't changed, only the models.

    A very interesting subject!
    I did some neural network programming many years ago after reading an article in
    a German magazine by some professor who controlled model cars with just a few neuron like things.
    He could get real interesting behavior,
    like cars evading each other, clustering together, what not,
    with just a few artificial neurons.

    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From rbowman@bowman@montana.com to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Fri Oct 31 18:03:29 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    On Fri, 31 Oct 2025 09:19:27 GMT, Jan Panteltje wrote:

    A very interesting subject!
    I did some neural network programming many years ago after reading an article in a German magazine by some professor who controlled model
    cars with just a few neuron like things.
    He could get real interesting behavior,
    like cars evading each other, clustering together, what not,
    with just a few artificial neurons.

    It's been a longtime interest of mine. Had I been in college 20 years
    later I would have found my way into cognitive science but the first
    program was at UCSD in '86. As it was my degree was in psychology. It was
    fun explaining to people that while I knew quite a bit about rats and
    neural physiology I didn't know squat about the stuff covered in
    'Psychology Today'.

    In the '80s I attended a neural network seminar. Much of the theory from
    that time is still applicable but the computing power to make it work
    wasn't there. NNs were oversold, failed to produce, and became a dirty
    word. 'Machine learning' was coined to remove the stigma.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BEAM_robotics

    It's interesting the behavior that emerges with no 'intelligence'
    involved. I have a small car that is controlled by an Arduino. Reading the ultrasonic sensors and avoiding obstacles by controlling 4 motors using
    PWM outputs isn't too far past what can be done without the Arduino
    'brain'.
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Gremlin@nobody@haph.org to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Sat Nov 1 03:35:36 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    rbowman <bowman@montana.com> news:mmil5tFodrtU2@mid.individual.net Fri, 31
    Oct 2025 02:28:13 GMT in comp.os.linux.advocacy, wrote:

    On Fri, 31 Oct 2025 01:23:06 -0000 (UTC), Gremlin wrote:

    I also have an Acer laptop with keyboard lighting - they light up in
    red. I like it, makes typing in low light conditions rather pleasant.
    It's a Nitro 5. What is yours?

    Acer Swift 3. Not being a 'gaming laptop' it isn't a kool black chassis
    with red lighting. It's silver colored with white lighting. The keycaps
    are silver with subdued black letters. Not a happy combination.

    That's a nice rig as well. I agree concerning the color scheme on both. This is a new to me rig - I didn't buy it new. I'm not a gamer and didn't really need the power it has under the hood; I just couldn't resist the deal from
    the original owner. I play old roms (Nintendo and Atari 2600 -They're what I grew up with and I enjoy nostalgic trips down memory lane) and on occasion
    an old DOS based game every now and then. I was playing Doom1 the other
    night Via DOSBOX-X (it's a port superior to the original, imo) My other computers are more than sufficient for those tasks. This one is admittedly gross overkill for what I use it for.

    I've been a fan of Acer laptops for decades - Very reliable machines. We
    used to sell them at a computer repair shop I worked for. We did service a
    lot of Dells, HP, Compaq, Panasonic, etc, but rarely had to perform any service work on Acers.

    I've been happily running MXLinux without issue on it for months now.
    Fast as frak too!

    That's my Windows 11 machine, j.i.c. My Beelink mini has the same Ryzen 7 CPU and 8 GB more memory and I'm running Ubuntu on it. The Beelink was an experiment that worked out well and I selected the SER4 since it was so close to the laptop and I was happy with the laptop's performance even
    with Windows.

    Nice gear man! I've got one machine left that actually runs Windows natively. The others were switched over to Linux years ago. The Linux machines run various flavors of Windows via VM when necessary to provide support for clients and to run specific Windows software packages that don't do well
    under Wine.
    --
    Liar, lawyer; mirror show me, what's the difference?
    Kangaroo done hung the guilty with the innocent
    Liar, lawyer; mirror for ya', what's the difference?
    Kangaroo be stoned. He's guilty as the government

    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Gremlin@nobody@haph.org to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Sat Nov 1 03:35:39 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    rbowman <bowman@montana.com> news:mmilddFodrtU3@mid.individual.net Fri, 31
    Oct 2025 02:32:14 GMT in comp.os.linux.advocacy, wrote:

    On Fri, 31 Oct 2025 01:23:08 -0000 (UTC), Gremlin wrote:

    I'm old school. I still write my own code. I haven't used AI a single
    time to assist me.

    I'm on a couple of subreddits like arduino. It's amusing seeing the N00bs come with a pile of AI generated shit and asking why it doesn't work. Some of the responses aren't too kind.

    Hahaha. I bet they aren't :) I'll have to check those subreddits out!
    --
    Liar, lawyer; mirror show me, what's the difference?
    Kangaroo done hung the guilty with the innocent
    Liar, lawyer; mirror for ya', what's the difference?
    Kangaroo be stoned. He's guilty as the government

    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Jan Panteltje@alien@comet.invalid to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Sat Nov 1 08:13:13 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    rbowman <bowman@montana.com>wrote:
    On Fri, 31 Oct 2025 09:19:27 GMT, Jan Panteltje wrote:

    A very interesting subject!
    I did some neural network programming many years ago after reading an
    article in a German magazine by some professor who controlled model
    cars with just a few neuron like things.
    He could get real interesting behavior,
    like cars evading each other, clustering together, what not,
    with just a few artificial neurons.

    It's been a longtime interest of mine. Had I been in college 20 years
    later I would have found my way into cognitive science but the first
    program was at UCSD in '86. As it was my degree was in psychology. It was >fun explaining to people that while I knew quite a bit about rats and
    neural physiology I didn't know squat about the stuff covered in
    'Psychology Today'.

    In the '80s I attended a neural network seminar. Much of the theory from >that time is still applicable but the computing power to make it work
    wasn't there. NNs were oversold, failed to produce, and became a dirty
    word. 'Machine learning' was coined to remove the stigma.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BEAM_robotics

    It's interesting the behavior that emerges with no 'intelligence'
    involved. I have a small car that is controlled by an Arduino. Reading the >ultrasonic sensors and avoiding obstacles by controlling 4 motors using
    PWM outputs isn't too far past what can be done without the Arduino
    'brain'.

    As a kid, I came across an article in maybe it was 'Scientific American'? that described a toy car finding and driving to a light source.
    I got to work immediately and had an LDR photo cell, some electric motors, 4 wheels.
    The 'car' would indeed travel towards a flashlight for example.

    Then, in the room with the room lights on,
    its started travelling to the bright lit walls..
    Once it got close to the wall it came into its own shadow, and started moving backwards.
    Once out of its own shadow it started moving to the wall again,
    endlessly going back and forward.
    (Easy fix would be some side steering.)

    But it hit me that that 'oscillation' was actually like 'me' looking for 'the ultimate' (light) and me always somehow getting in my own shadow (concepts perhaps).
    That never let go of me, travelled the world looking for that.
    Are we (we are?) as simple as that.
    Psychology I studied by reading books.
    When things keep evolving with DNA and RNA maybe we can buy a 'build your own Dino' kit from Walmart.
    Like I had a build a radio kit once.
    I also worked a while in a big university hospital's chemical department with RNA DNA equipment I had to fix,
    design (new student ideas) and maintain.
    Science is a wide field, curiosity is maybe something that drives me..
    Cannot get enough !
    Electronics is everywhere these days.
    We are still learning
    Was just reading this:
    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251029100156.htm






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  • From Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?=@ldo@nz.invalid to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Sat Nov 1 08:58:29 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    On Sat, 01 Nov 2025 08:13:13 GMT, Jan Panteltje wrote:

    As a kid, I came across an article in maybe it was 'Scientific
    American'? that described a toy car finding and driving to a light
    source. I got to work immediately and had an LDR photo cell, some
    electric motors, 4 wheels. The 'car' would indeed travel towards a
    flashlight for example.

    I remember once in my high school library finding a copy of W Grey
    Walter’s “The Living Brain”, published in 1953. He was a pioneer in
    brain research with EEGs and the like. He also created simple “robots” (nothing resembling computers in them, though), similar in some ways
    to what you describe.

    The first one was a turtle-like machine he christened “Machina
    speculatrix” (a species of machine “life”, you might say). This had
    three wheels, two of them passive. The wheel connected to the drive
    motor was mounted on a shaft which could rotate under the power of a
    separate steering motor. It had a photocell on top, above the main
    body of the shell; when this was not being triggered by any light, the
    drive motor was off and the steering motor was on, so the photocell
    scanned round and round, looking for a light.

    As soon as it picked up a light source, the photocell triggered relays
    that turned off the steering motor and turned on the drive motor, so
    the turtle began heading approximately towards the light, but taking a
    curved path to get there (because of the angle of the steering shaft);
    at some point it would likely be facing too far to one side, lose
    sight of the light, stop and revert to scanning behaviour, pick up the
    light, and head towards it again.

    If you mounted a light on the shaft next to the photocell, that would
    be on in scanning mode but turn off in driving mode, then the turtle
    would respond to its own reflection in a mirror, continually stopping
    and starting. Or two or more turtles would get into a kind of dance
    around each other, lights flashing on and off as they oscillated
    between scanning and driving modes. Though if an outside light
    appeared, the dance would break up and they would all head for it.

    He then created an electronic analogue of conditioned-reflex behaviour
    (à la Pavlov), using little more than a pair of vacuum tubes; he
    called this circuit “CORA”, for “Conditioned Reflex Analogue”. He inserted this into another turtle, that he called “Machina docilis”,
    that could exhibit certain kinds of learning behaviour. He added a
    sound sensor, and also a displacement sensor on the body shell, so the
    turtle could sense situations like hitting an obstacle or being
    kicked. Then, using the CORA circuit, he would teach the robot to make associations between different sensory phenomena.

    Then, in the room with the room lights on, its started travelling to
    the bright lit walls.. Once it got close to the wall it came into
    its own shadow, and started moving backwards. Once out of its own
    shadow it started moving to the wall again, endlessly going back and
    forward. (Easy fix would be some side steering.)

    You could call this “emergent behaviour”. ;)
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  • From rbowman@bowman@montana.com to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Sat Nov 1 23:53:25 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    On Sat, 01 Nov 2025 08:13:13 GMT, Jan Panteltje wrote:

    But it hit me that that 'oscillation' was actually like 'me' looking for
    'the ultimate' (light) and me always somehow getting in my own shadow (concepts perhaps).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunicate#Life_cycle

    It starts off like a tadpole, finds a nice rock, attaches itself, and
    proceeds to absorb things it no longer needs like the rudimentary 'brain'
    that allows it to swim around and find a home.

    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From rbowman@bowman@montana.com to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Sun Nov 2 00:04:59 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    On Sat, 1 Nov 2025 08:58:29 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

    I remember once in my high school library finding a copy of W Grey
    Walter’s “The Living Brain”, published in 1953. He was a pioneer in brain research with EEGs and the like. He also created simple “robots” (nothing resembling computers in them, though), similar in some ways to
    what you describe.

    'Popular Science' or one of the similar magazines in the '50s had plans to build even a simpler version. The carapace, if you will, was a dishpan
    like this:

    https://www.lehmans.com/product/enamelware-dish-basin-white/

    Rather than photocells it had a couple of microswitches.
    i don't remember the details but it may have had a few relays that would
    be triggered by the switches when it ran into something.

    I haven't looked at magazines of that genre recently but they had a lot of
    off the wall projects like Make magazine on steroids. Build a hydroplane
    out of plywood? A sports car out of junkyard pieces? Got you covered.
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Jan Panteltje@alien@comet.invalid to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Sun Nov 2 06:49:27 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    rbowman <bowman@montana.com>wrote:
    On Sat, 01 Nov 2025 08:13:13 GMT, Jan Panteltje wrote:

    But it hit me that that 'oscillation' was actually like 'me' looking for
    'the ultimate' (light) and me always somehow getting in my own shadow
    (concepts perhaps).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunicate#Life_cycle

    It starts off like a tadpole, finds a nice rock, attaches itself, and >proceeds to absorb things it no longer needs like the rudimentary 'brain' >that allows it to swim around and find a home.

    Nature has everything!
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Jan Panteltje@alien@comet.invalid to comp.os.linux.advocacy on Sun Nov 2 07:09:47 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.advocacy

    rbowman <bowman@montana.com>wrote:
    On Sat, 1 Nov 2025 08:58:29 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

    I remember once in my high school library finding a copy of W Grey
    Walter’s “The Living Brain”, published in 1953. He was a pioneer in
    brain research with EEGs and the like. He also created simple “robots” >> (nothing resembling computers in them, though), similar in some ways to
    what you describe.

    'Popular Science' or one of the similar magazines in the '50s had plans to >build even a simpler version. The carapace, if you will, was a dishpan
    like this:

    https://www.lehmans.com/product/enamelware-dish-basin-white/

    Man the freedom:
    Lehmans.com is currently not available in your country or region.
    For assistance contact info@lehmans.com

    So used this anonymous web browsing website:
    https://us4.proxysite.com/
    got the NAMELWARE DISH BASIN WITH HANDLES - WHITE (15 QT) with handles picture :-)


    Rather than photocells it had a couple of microswitches.
    i don't remember the details but it may have had a few relays that would
    be triggered by the switches when it ran into something.

    I haven't looked at magazines of that genre recently but they had a lot of >off the wall projects like Make magazine on steroids. Build a hydroplane
    out of plywood? A sports car out of junkyard pieces? Got you covered.

    It is a re-occuring issue
    I have an old robot vacuum cleaner that sucks dust and cruises around rooms, bumps into things then changes direction....
    https://www.coolblue.nl/en/product/423603/dirt-devil-spider-m607.html
    Hits plants too, so beware!
    Never use it, hoovering by hand is 10 times faster .. and safer, cables on the floor, walwarts.. what not.
    But is so thin it does get onder the bench.



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