OT: Am I a nerd

[AnthonyL]

I'm sitting in my study at the moment and:

To my left is a PC moving Linux partitions around prior to having yet another go at re-installing Win10.

A bit nearer are: A 500Gb USB drive a 1TB drive (ex the above Linux PC which now has a 2TB drive) Another 1TB drive that I think has some backups on it An empty 2.5" caddy A 160Gb 3.3" drive in an open USB drive, but the drive only reports

120Gb

To my right is a Netbook with Win10 and a 2TB USB drive In front of me is an Android phone and a WinCE phone

And I'm typing on an XP laptop.

Oh and nearly forgot the 4 x USB sticks and 15 CD/DVD with various software tools and OSs.

Also a spray can of Isoclene, 99.7%, that'll zap any Covids around.

[Brian Reay]

Not even close ;-)

[AnthonyL]

What am I missing?

I've got two multimeters behind me. One of the leads has a screw-on crocodile clip missing which is annoying then I've found I can buy a pair of clips from CPC for a couple of quid/

The multimeters were from Maplin, Sinometers, that must be 20+yrs ago.

[Steve Walker]

Probably.

There again, the 4 pcs, plus a laptop, plus a couple of older pcs (for temporary set-ups) and another, older laptop (used in the shed for Netflix or Youtube while I am working on something or for car diagnostics), plus the server with a raid-6 array and running ESXI with Nethserver, Ubuntu Windows XP and Windows 10, a spare server stored in the shed, 4 Linux based satellite boxes (running OpenVix) and a number of Arduinos and Raspberry Pis in this house probably more than qualify me (and my eldest son).

Oh, and there is an office grade, colour laser printer next to the PC that I am using now, an A3 inkjet printer next to me, a B&W laser printer upstairs, my work laptop in the boot and a scanner in the cupboard.

I could go on, but will restrain myself ...

SteveW

[AnthonyL]

I do have an all-in-one, an HP ML370 doing nothing (lovely hot-swappable drives and Novell on one of them) and a loft full of round touit items including an old PC with parallel ports and a casette video convertor.

It is Ubuntu and Win10 that's giving me a headache. Machine came with Win7, I installed Mint KDE but then they announced support was stopping, I ended up adding Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and then early in the year I gave in and "updated" (it really is the wrong word) to Win10 and after some messing got my Linux back. Then 1909 forced itself on me last week and took away my Grub. At that point I thought may as well put a bigger drive in, redo my messy partitions and lost Windows in the process. It's a good job my regular social hobby and activity is curtailed.

Oh and what is it (and I hope your'e not one) with Linux support posters? And even some of the sites. I could not get to grips with the StackExchange editor and everyone on any of the sites I've tried speak a 'foreign language' and then don't come back to clarify. It's like talking to a lawyer at times.

But I'll give it too you, I'm only an amateur nerd.

Now Rasberry Pi, not looked closely but there seems to be a nice design for a multi-tuner PVR. Oh yes, and my sister's broken Topfield is setting on a shelf.

[Martin Brown]

Don't do it - you will surely regret it if you do...

[Brian Gaff (Sofa 2)]

No.

Oh, you want a reason, sorry that is information we are keeping to ourselves to stop panic. Brian

[AnthonyL]

It hasn't worked anyway. Seems like I'm going to have to revert to a disk->disk copy and then move the partitions around afterwards.

I've long regretted the direction of Windows, hence my continued use of XP. I have two applications that need a Windows platform though one I won't now need till this emergency is over, and that depends on whether anyone is left to partake in that hobby. The other is my camera software will only run in Windows and hopefully I'll still be allowed out to take photos. I could use Linux tools but I'd lose some features.

And no, Wine doesn't cut it.

[newshound]

I'll see your drives and raise you a Proliant

[Chris Green]

Virtualbox is the way to go then. I run XP as a virtual machine in my Linux desktop, the only program that I use in XP now is the excellent Epson software for my V700 scanner (i.e. a photography application like yours).

[AnthonyL]

Couldn't get VB to work when I tried it last year though I didn't do a fresh install. I have created a VMWare image of Win10 but not yet tried to use it. Part of this exercise is to give me a larger Linux partition to do such activities.

[The Natural Philosopher]

So put xp in a virtualbox.

The only thing its won't do is run the screen fast, but unless you are trying to play PC games, who cares?

[Chris Green]

I use the Oracle PPA to install the latest Virtualbox rather than the Ubuntu repositories which have the OS only version of Virtualbox which is not very up to date and has some useful bits missing.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I use epson software for my excellent epson V600 scanner *native in linux*

Only code I run is two graphics programs and a model aircraft calc program. And firefox when barclays cant handle a linux browser.

VB works fine for me now. I think I had to use oracles own version to get all the features. Cant remember

[Tim Lamb]

Barclays nanny about my continued use of W7 and they appear to have taken against Firefox unless I manually clear the cookies:-(

[Bob Eager]

I'm sitting here with a large PC packed with drives on the floor beside me, running FreeBSD. Next to it is another, runningh Windows 10 (needs must sometimes).

Opposite my desk is SWMBO's, with the same two PC setup. In between is a UPS.

To my right are four HOP Proliant microservers in a rack. Also two 24 port switches and a KVM. Another UPS too.

Downstairs is another pair. FrteeBSD development machine, and a Windows machine which is mainly for bench equipment telemetry and running the chip programmer. And another UPS. Ans two 8 port switches.

Also a development microserver.

On the shelf are five spare microservers.

More stuff in a storage unit.

[Bob Eager]

Just make it report a recent version, and Windows!

[Brian Reay]

You need to have so many you dare not count them so you can avoid having to admit to Senior Management how many you have ;-) ( Ditto for amateur radio kit)

A whipper snapper ;-)

(Not much good to actually measure anything of course ....)

[Bob Eager]

I have an AVO 8 from the late 1960s. And one from 2005, which has an obvious difference.

[Tim Lamb]

I'm not that clever!

>