[OT] Cool tiny tiny PC

[dennis]

My ADSL router manages more than that with less processing power than a Pi so it is doable.

[meow2222]

maybe if the question were clearer

NT

[Bod]

I use Linux distro Zorin 9 and it has a *Look Changer*, I've set mine to Windows 7 look.

[Dave Liquorice]

If you have dialogue open in windows the only window that can have focus is that dialgue window. You can move it about and sometimes its parent window but you can't switch focus to any other window or move them about.

So if the dialogue or parent is over the information in another window you want to you use in the dialogue and you can't shift things far enough you have to close things, shift things about "blind", then reopen. Right fecking PITA.

Under Presentation Manager *any* window can have focus and be moved about at *any* time.

[Tim Watts]

Sure?

I did say "routing IP" not "switching".

[cl]

VirtualBox is a free virtual hosting environment sponsored by Oracle. It can run on Linux, Windows and others. It uses the virtual hardware abilities of modern x86 processors.

Desqview is hardly a 'virtual machine' environment, just a multi-tasking one (yes, I used it once-upon-a-time).

I liked OS/2 but felt it was a dead end. (I even did some work on it as a contractor at IBM in the late 1980s)

?? I don't quite understand what you mean by that.

[cl]

Not true in Linux, you have to change the default settings on the Window Manager but you can do what you want if I understand you correctly. I do it when I'm entering bank details for example when a 'not focussed' window has the details I want and can stay in front of the window where I'm entering text.

[dennis]

It routes (and switches and runs a firewall).

[Tim Watts]

And it will do this at gigabit throughputs (and I mean inter-vlan internal routing as well as routing the ADSL link)

Because I would be quite surprised if a typical commodity router could genuinely sustain that.

[Clive George]

Really? I've not had a modal dialogue getting in the way for years. It may block the app, but not the rest of the OS.

[dennis]

80 Mbits/sec isn't gigabit speeds. I did choose it because it had gigabit ports and fast wifi at 5G.

[meow2222]

Not usually an issue in linux, but can be on occasion

NT

[Tim Watts]

That's why I said "inter vlan routing".

As in: I have a file server and a guest wifi on different vlans and I want limited routing with firewalling between then, at fileserver speeds (gigabit).

I'd like to see a commodity router do that, because I haven't found one that:

a) Can do it at full speeds;

b) Not make a hash of the logic.

Which is *exactly* why I want a small powerful linux box - because the linux network ecosystem is very well behaved and almost never makes a hash of anything.

[Tim Streater]

Windows is so 1970s, isn't it.

As is the case under OS X.

[dennis]

The router does run linux, a lot of them do. Thats why you can put openwrt and stuff on them. If you are saying linux can't do the job....

[Tim Watts]

No, I am saying the weedy CPU can't do the job.

FFS how hard is it...

[Johny B Good]

And, an even (pitifully) smaller percentage who find XP a 'consumerization step too far', sticking with win2k.

However, using win2k instead of winXP as your 'hang back from winXP/Vista/win7/win8" OS does have the merit of lending truth to the phrase "Security by Obscurity" which winXP singularly fails to enjoy.

It seems to me that win2k is now _so_ obscure (0.2% market share?) and mostly in use by peoiple _with_ a clue that the malware authors are actively avoiding infection of win2k systems so as not to raise premature alarms in the PC using community about their latest zero day exploits before they've had had a chance to maximise their ROI from all those winXP/Vista/win7/win8 'consumers'.

The malware creators have done just this sort of filtering in the past, notably those Russian Mafia backed exploits which excluded PCs which had their regional settings configured for Iron Curtain country locales.

Such malware examples, on discovering they've landed on a system with, for example, Russian/Ukranian keyboard and language settings would quietly uninstall themselves after tidying up all evidence of the infection attempt. It's no great stretch to suppose that such a technique isn't now also being employed to maintain its stealthy presence on systems that _are_ worth the effort of exploitation (all versions of windows that _aren't_ windows 2000).

I'm not suggesting that win2k is a workable alternative to computer 'consumers' (sadly, it can't be), just that for the few who's requirements can still be satisfied by win2k, there's a nice side effect of greatly reduced risk of exposure to the latest zero day threats that piss all over the feeble efforts of the latest 50 odd flavours of antivirus suites on offer to the 'consumer' and 'user' alike.

The benefits of win2k of reduced loading on the system resources and a user oriented GUI now goes beyond those obvious benefits and adds an unexpected benefit of reduced exposure to the latest malware exploits. This doesn't eliminate the risks altogether, it just means the shortcomings of whatever AV solution you choose to install will be just that little more moot.

[dennis]

So don't use XP, that hasn't been true for a few years now. Probably since 1980. Nearly all the complaints posted about windows are a decade out of date or just plain user problems.

Just like windows then unless an *application* keeps taking the focus which it can under windows or linux and probably OSX.

[dennis]

Win 8.1 needs less resources than XP to run smoothly.

[dennis]

Its not exactly a demanding job to switch a few bytes around and update the pointers in the ring buffers. I doubt if you are running BGP or OSPF on a dynamic network that needs to compute new routes all the time.