Tue Nov 17 2020 17:15:42 MST from IGnatius T Foobar

Interestingly, some of the core commands from *nix have been ported to

AmigaOS - and I find that a lot more comfortable than AmigaOS, at this

AmigaOS should have *been* unix in the first place. They could have easily cracked into the workstation market, which was expensive at the time.

Amiga was too far out ahead of itself, in many regards. I wonder if it had been a *nix, if I would like *nix better today. 

I don't think so. Linux is a darling of Networking pros and Developers because of its scripting and development possibilities - but for most average users, it is like using an F1 as a daily driver... although recently, it is more like a BMW M... stiff, harsh, difficult, but wrapped up pretty enough most people can deal with it. 

Oh yeah - things are coming together. I like the way this is working a lot better. I guess a big part of it was that I had to learn a lot about Citadel groupware *and* Linux to get this far - but things are absolutely easier to do because everything is just a little bit more responsive. It is like the difference between trying to get work done with a light duty truck and a full sized truck. The pi felt like it was struggling with what I was throwing at it - and there were things I wanted to do that it couldn't quite handle. This feels like I've got a lot of room to expand. 

Makes me seriously doubt Apple's decision to ditch Intel for ARM. I'm sure the Apple silicon is doing remarkable things with ARM - and may in fact be beating OLDER Intel core CPUs like this one - but in the long run, I don't see ARM out-performing Intel cores on execution speed. Maybe MIPs as a relation to wattage... they're more power optimized - but workhorse PCs will remain Intel architecture - and Macs will no longer be the best workhorse machines. 

Linux partially achieves security by making convenience so inconvenient and time consuming to set up, that I skip it and use more secure methods that are easier to enable. 

As an example, it would be far more convenient for me to enable VNC or XRDP and/or SAMBA to remotely administer the Sanitarium from my internal Windows network - but that would entail setting up a bunch of firewall rules and really making sure I had everything dialed in. 

Instead - it is easier to use SFTP, SSH and other standard Linux utilities that are far less user friendly, but easier to set up, configure and maintain. 

This achieves increased security by two methods - it reduces the attack vectors for a Linux box, because things like XRDP and SAMBA simply aren't there at all. There is less application footprint to compromise. 

It also means that the few utilities that do exist are very basic, require a lot of expertise to be able to use proficiently, and are very well tested by the open source community. 

I don't know if that makes Linux more secure by *design*, or by coincidence, though. 

This is the first time in weeks I was able to shut down my Surface, because I didn't have 10 pages of Linux forums open I needed to pick back up tomorrow. 

So at one point, as I struggled with Citadel, I built out the test unit and installed CentOS and considered learning a "real enterprise Linux," to run my Citadel SERVER instead of using Debian. 

Evidently, now there are articles about "What to use instead of CentOS," because IBM has forked CentOS into a paid distro. 

Glad I decided to work through it with Debian - and this only cements in my mind that Debian is actually the best Linux distribution all around, and has been for many decades. 

I mean, I've believed that for a while. I think that is why Ubuntu is the most popular distro - why Raspbian is the dominant Rpi distro. 

Debian minimizes the Linux-like hassles of Linux. 

https://medium.com/linuxforeveryone/searching-for-the-right-linux-distribution-dont-trust-google-1be3d0f48c19

More thoughts to come. This article exposes several things I don't have time to take a deep dive on right now. 

Linux and OS X are kicking ass and taking names on helping me in my quest to find this damn archive of Pagan Flame writings.

I think it might take me hooking up every spare internal or external drive I own and running this Grep command for hours against all of them... but it is out there, and eventually this will find it.

And I am logged in on the Debian box (the test unit, not the one running The Sanitarium)... right now... I may make a go at making Linux my daily driver. I've been meaning to - I figure it will help me get better at administering the production server if I'm using it for my main PC on a daily basis.


There is no way I can replace Windows for a lot of the things I want to do - but for surfing and e-mail, replacing Windows is a piece of cake.

Well, Debian suddenly crapped out with an I/O error, while OS X on a G4 is still going strong.

Who knows why. Maybe the drive overheated - or maybe it is Linux is just a little unpolished - especially on things of this nature. You know what I suspect.

Still... I think I learned an important lesson. It was searching directories where I am absolutely certain the file isn't - and spent a lot of time there.


I need to do my GREP search from directory trees where I think it is likely the file may be hiding - and I need to exclude directories with tons of files that I know the file won't be in.


So... this is going to take a while.

Oh, man. I'm so excited! My sister's common-law husband made me a Raspberry Pi and loaded 8500ish games onto it. 

I used to play Street Fighter 3: Third Strike on a cabinet arcade machine at a job I loved ten years ago. That was my favorite arcade game ever. I gave it a go. It was extremely fun! I can't wait to get good again. What a kick! 

You're going to love it, dude. Retrogaming is such an enjoyable, affordable, and rewarding hobby to get into, and you can do it as little or as much as you want - you can just play the games you loved and remember, you can explore and learn everything about old systems you always wanted but never got... you can just stick to emulation on a Pi, you can do it on a PC, you can do it on a phone, you can do it on FPGA, and you can start collecting real, original hardware - depending on how bad the bug bites you. Hell... you can get so into it you start designing modern hardware for 35 year old machines. :)

If you have any questions, need any tips, sources, whatever... let me know and I'll be glad to help you any way I can.

I love that there are so many great ways to get into this hobby and how excited people are to discover their old favorites are so easily accessible today. It is absolutely a nostalgia trip for anyone who was ever any sort of gamer. 

Sat Dec 26 2020 05:33:21 MST from Wangiss

Oh, man. I'm so excited! My sister's common-law husband made me a Raspberry Pi and loaded 8500ish games onto it. 

I used to play Street Fighter 3: Third Strike on a cabinet arcade machine at a job I loved ten years ago. That was my favorite arcade game ever. I gave it a go. It was extremely fun! I can't wait to get good again. What a kick! 

That is a cool case, too... btw. :)

Well, used Linux to find another file that has been lost for ages, tonight. I'd searched all over for it, and didn't know what file type it was... 

But the Linux Find command narrowed it down in about 10 minutes. 

Gotta give Linux props - for finding files in a massive file system - right out of the box it fears no lost file... if you've got some idea of what to search for, Find or Grep cut through your file system like butter. 

Where is TheDave? Haven't seen him around for a while. 

Wangiss - if you haven't already - you need to buy your kids a Pi 400. Hell, buy them all one, and yourself one, and you'll still have spent less than on a single Intel core PC. 

And it is pretty damn cool. I'm posting this message from one. 

Mon Jan 11 2021 16:02:49 MST from ParanoidDelusions

Wangiss - if you haven't already - you need to buy your kids a Pi 400. Hell, buy them all one, and yourself one, and you'll still have spent less than on a single Intel core PC. 

 

And it is pretty damn cool. I'm posting this message from one. 

It is basically the Timex Sinclair Z80 I always wanted when I was a kid, but a Ghz QuadCore with 4GB RAM and 16GB of storage, default, 2 USB 3.0, 1 USB 2.0, and two mini HDMI out ports. 

Of course, it is the perfect form-factor for Retrogaming. Very retro-aesthetic. 

So, I'm reading up on I2P...


https://geti2p.net/en/

And I note they offer a Docker container. So I read up on Docker - and it looks like Docker is simply a Virtualization hypervisor.

Running an anonymous protocol stack (for lack of a better understanding of what i2p is...) in a Virtualized container seems like a process in futility. The first hop out is going to be in your physical network - over your bare metal machine and that is going to be traceable. Right?