Bristol Digest, Vol 557, Issue 1

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Today's Topics:

1. Re: Is it harder on computer to stay powered up, or hibernate
often? (Winnie Lacesso)
2. Re: Is it harder on computer to stay powered up, or hibernate
often? (Amias Channer)
3. Re: The Advent laptop (Amias Channer)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 08:13:43 +0100 (BST)
From: Winnie Lacesso <Winnie.Lacesso@bristol.ac.uk>
To: bristol@mailman.lug.org.uk
Subject: Re: [bristol] Is it harder on computer to stay powered up, or
hibernate often?
Message-ID:
<alpine.LRH.2.02.1406300812350.26896@rescue.phy.bris.ac.uk>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


Hi Amias, haven't seen you round here in yonks. (You ever get that Dell
C600 Latitude doing anything useful? Think I gave it to you?)

> If you have 16GB of ram and suspend
No - 4GB RAM & hibernate. ScientificLinux5 doesn't (in my experience)
suspend well. Correction: it suspends & revives fine, but with no video
on reviving, thus not useful. It hibernates really well though.
But a wonder was, is that "hard" on the disk & innards vs just staying
up/on for months.

> I think its a good thing to expect your disk to fail and ensure
> you are covered rather than hoping it wont and losing data.
Agreed 100%. Got 3 USB backups of everything & a laptop rebuild plan
that's been used about 4-5 times now in rebuilding main laptop &
building others to similar format. Watch for hardware errors daily.
(elderly 2006 laptop!)

Alex Butcher wrote:
> Especially seeing as most consumers just want MOAR MEGGERBITES! (in
> the same way they want MOAR MEGGERPIXELS from their cameras, MOAR
> HOARSEPOWER from their cars, MORE WHATTS from their stereos and MOAR
> SATIETY from their food)

heehee but they normul peepl who not hav grate super-whizzo
computer-feend wisdom + skils. Eksperts lik us know how to get
moar from memery disk processer ect equip so not hav to spend
hem-hem irrashunal amount of monay...


(Apologies!)



------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 11:00:51 +0100
From: Amias Channer <me@amias.net>
To: Winnie Lacesso <Winnie.lacesso@bristol.ac.uk>, Bristol and Bath
Linux User Group <bristol@mailman.lug.org.uk>
Subject: Re: [bristol] Is it harder on computer to stay powered up, or
hibernate often?
Message-ID:
<CAMgU7XV9JSQSCxzbUs6rwHPSNSy1diw3n3CN59GpQ9vxNUkm4Q@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Hello Winnie,

yep its been a while , i've been having a baby , she's now 2 and already
using my linux desktop :)
ISTR that laptop is doing something for an internet radio station now ,
thanks .

I think you should request an SSD for your laptop and conduct some
extensive testing with it over the next 6 months for reliability ;)

Hibernate is likely to be heavier on the disks than suspend because IIRC
its a total memory dump or at least much closer to that but if the period
of inactivity is months then its probably worth it. 4GB of writes is quite
possible for a machine that has been idle for a month.
Pretty sure waking up an HDD and stressing it is not great and you don't
get that with SSD which is just instantly ready.

As an aside - hibernate/suspend is a pain with network connections , as a
tester i find it the biggest source of wierd behaviours because of the time
dilation that i can cause in both the host clock and on the server when
trying to re-establish sessions from the past. Logic and rationality fall
apart if time has bubbles in it. In a scientific environment i'd be a
little nervous of this contaminating experiments so might want to provide
an easy way to ensure no hibernate or suspend for users if they need it.

Cheers
Amias


On 30 June 2014 08:13, Winnie Lacesso <Winnie.Lacesso@bristol.ac.uk> wrote:

>
> Hi Amias, haven't seen you round here in yonks. (You ever get that Dell
> C600 Latitude doing anything useful? Think I gave it to you?)
>
> > If you have 16GB of ram and suspend
> No - 4GB RAM & hibernate. ScientificLinux5 doesn't (in my experience)
> suspend well. Correction: it suspends & revives fine, but with no video
> on reviving, thus not useful. It hibernates really well though.
> But a wonder was, is that "hard" on the disk & innards vs just staying
> up/on for months.
>
> > I think its a good thing to expect your disk to fail and ensure
> > you are covered rather than hoping it wont and losing data.
> Agreed 100%. Got 3 USB backups of everything & a laptop rebuild plan
> that's been used about 4-5 times now in rebuilding main laptop &
> building others to similar format. Watch for hardware errors daily.
> (elderly 2006 laptop!)
>
> Alex Butcher wrote:
> > Especially seeing as most consumers just want MOAR MEGGERBITES! (in
> > the same way they want MOAR MEGGERPIXELS from their cameras, MOAR
> > HOARSEPOWER from their cars, MORE WHATTS from their stereos and MOAR
> > SATIETY from their food)
>
> heehee but they normul peepl who not hav grate super-whizzo
> computer-feend wisdom + skils. Eksperts lik us know how to get
> moar from memery disk processer ect equip so not hav to spend
> hem-hem irrashunal amount of monay...
>
>
> (Apologies!)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bristol mailing list
> Bristol@mailman.lug.org.uk
> https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/bristol
>
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Message: 3
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 12:05:48 +0100
From: Amias Channer <me@amias.net>
To: Bristol and Bath Linux User Group <bristol@mailman.lug.org.uk>
Subject: Re: [bristol] The Advent laptop
Message-ID:
<CAMgU7XU7uxNsTARAju64wSXr1E=oN0R8+m5DgWiR3_H_76AUoQ@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Hello Dave,

ISTR there was a guide in the previous linux voice [1] that covered how to
take an image of an existing xp setup and run in virtualbox.
Passthrough usb should easily be able to cope with photography interfaces.

maybe Ben E knows about how to get hold of back issues

This way you can try all sorts of things but keeping your XP installation
safe in a VM with snapshots and backups , you can also firewall it safely
via linux or better still don't allow it any net access at all.

Dual boot is a world of pain and something i'm very glad i left behind ,
most of us have done this so bare that in mind when asking for help on dual
boot - its tricky , horrible and unnecessary so you should be very very
very grateful if anyone helps you with it because its the Linux equivalent
of mucking out a horse shed.

Personally i don't think meets should be for fixing stuff , really you
should pay people for that because its how most of us earn our living.

Cheers
Amias

[1] linux voice is an excellent read i would heartily recommend a
subscription , beats linux format by miles :)


On 28 June 2014 18:22, d.hockin <d.hockin@btinternet.com> wrote:

> Chris! Good news!!!
>
> There just wasn't enough power left to run the disk drive and the pc!
> That's why it was beeping and shutting down so fast :)
>
> Luckily too, the disk left inside there, when I fired the pc up, was the
> boot recovery one, and Suse got under way. I swapped it for the LXF one,
> and it went well until Firefox crashed!
>
> So I'm back on XP for this email, and I'll take a look shortly at the BIOS
> via f2 to see if its still expecting your memory stick, and then let it do
> all the umpteen updates and downloads that expect are waiting in the
> wings....
>
> Keeping my fingers crossed that it will work - but a least Grub fired up
> OK, and its 3 choices - Suse, XP and I forget what was the 3rd(!) -
> certainly fired up Suse and XP.
>
> Many thanks for you considerable efforts. I had to leave KT as I'd lost
> all trace of hearing in the high noise level, and that guy opposite had
> taken over Dave, so he wasn't going to be of any help to us there and then.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Dave.
> _______________________________________________
> Bristol mailing list
> Bristol@mailman.lug.org.uk
> https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/bristol
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bristol mailing list
> Bristol@mailman.lug.org.uk
> https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/bristol
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