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[Doctor Gollum]

Because* they don't make shiny things so there's no jobs to create income to buy shiny things so they take our rubbish for free and fix it... Or go without.

*I spent long enough at school to know not to start a sentence with 'because', but it seemed to be appropriate to the simplification of the complex subject matter.

[dave the builder]

Appears Gaffers shiny TV won't be going to Africa just yet
so ,no need to buy a shiny replacement (from china,as we don't make shiny TV stuff in the UK)
so someone will be without a bowl of rice for tea
I doubt the stock market will crash though 

[Rods2]

Had my local Linux sever go down yesterday afternoon. I initially thought the problem was one of the raid drives, but on trying to reboot, it fell over before it could init. the bios. I removed the motherboard and found one of the plastic pins had broken on an IC heatsink which had sprung the broken end away from the IC. My first thought was it has probably fried the chip, but as it is one of those nothing to lose situations a dab of new heatsink compound and an insulated bolt lightly done up to replace the plastic pin and it all booted up correctly.

Where the IC may have been heat stressed, I've bought a cheap 2nd hand like-for-like motherboard as a backup off ebay as the cost is negligible compared to potential lost time. I have been planning to build a new Linux server in the next 3 months with much more disc capacity, so I can now hopefully again do this at my convenience.

[TheBoy]

But Rods2, Linux sucks.

Granted, it pays the mortgage and the bills, so I'm glad it sucks. But it still sucks.

Did I mention it sucks?

[henryd]

...... so now a year before we move to the US and have to replace most of our electrical devices.

Are you having a sale at Chez Guff of all your useless (in the US) white goods and power tools etc? 

One day I shall be, yes.

When my mate moved to the States a few years ago, he was determined to take his fancy coffee machine.  He ended up getting a transformer that was bigger than the coffee machine itself and hummed menacingly in the background while you were making a cuppa! 

There are some devices which are dual voltage and would work with a simple change of plug but then there is the CBA factor of getting out there combined with the cost.  No to mention the opportunity to get nice brand new shiny stuff

We have a small step down transformer for those items we have from America but which are 110 volts only.  It's small but blimey it's heavy.  If anyone ever breaks in to the house while I am there it will be my go to weapon.  A clout on the noggin from that and you'd be out for a week.

Shouldn't worry about that,quick trip to Walmart will sort the artillery

[Kevin Wood]

But Rods2, Linux sucks.

Granted, it pays the mortgage and the bills, so I'm glad it sucks. But it still sucks.

Did I mention it sucks?

Yeah, so much it keeps running until the hardware croaks.

[Gaffers]

...... so now a year before we move to the US and have to replace most of our electrical devices.

Are you having a sale at Chez Guff of all your useless (in the US) white goods and power tools etc? 

One day I shall be, yes.

When my mate moved to the States a few years ago, he was determined to take his fancy coffee machine.  He ended up getting a transformer that was bigger than the coffee machine itself and hummed menacingly in the background while you were making a cuppa! 

There are some devices which are dual voltage and would work with a simple change of plug but then there is the CBA factor of getting out there combined with the cost.  No to mention the opportunity to get nice brand new shiny stuff

We have a small step down transformer for those items we have from America but which are 110 volts only.  It's small but blimey it's heavy.  If anyone ever breaks in to the house while I am there it will be my go to weapon.  A clout on the noggin from that and you'd be out for a week.

Shouldn't worry about that,quick trip to Walmart will sort the artillery

Nah, I'll be going to cabellas or bass pro.

I was talking about here in the UK where I am always worried how the police will react when they pull me over and find half a dozen speargun in the boot.

The last one I had a tangle with tried to insist that my wife's perfectly legal and in date German driving license was not valid in the UK because she had been here more than a year.

[TheBoy]

But Rods2, Linux sucks.

Granted, it pays the mortgage and the bills, so I'm glad it sucks. But it still sucks.

Did I mention it sucks?

Yeah, so much it keeps running until the hardware croaks.

Real Unix does. Linux, even now, craps its pants under sustained pressure.

Granted, partly due to that 1990s Windows problem where almost anyone could write an app/driver, and hence is was a piece of privileged 3rd party code that was just poorly written/tested - this is where Linux is now.

I hardly ever have to touch our real Unix servers, other than applying security patches. Linux, on the other hand...

But I'm happy, keeps a roof over my head, like Windows did 15yrs ago

[Kevin Wood]

But Rods2, Linux sucks.

Granted, it pays the mortgage and the bills, so I'm glad it sucks. But it still sucks.

Did I mention it sucks?

Yeah, so much it keeps running until the hardware croaks.

Real Unix does. Linux, even now, craps its pants under sustained pressure.

Granted, partly due to that 1990s Windows problem where almost anyone could write an app/driver, and hence is was a piece of privileged 3rd party code that was just poorly written/tested - this is where Linux is now.

I hardly ever have to touch our real Unix servers, other than applying security patches. Linux, on the other hand...

But I'm happy, keeps a roof over my head, like Windows did 15yrs ago

You see, you and me, we're the same, but different. 

I now go round telling people that I only use Windows machines when I'm being paid by the hour. They seem to get the hint and I no longer get a barrage of "this machine used to be really fast but now it's sluggish. Can you take a look? Oh, and the Norton site won't load." and "My printer driver doesn't seem to work any more".

If a machine is really going to be flayed 24/7 then I'd argue that either operating system is a poor choice as they are too complex and general purpose right down to the kernel these days. Pare it down to what it needs to do and nothing more and it'll be much more stable. Embedded systems have been designed like this for years. I don't really understand why the internet hasn't followed.

.. but it also keeps a roof over my head, so we're both happy.

[Rods2]

A good operating system is unobtrusive, transparent reliable standard software interface to the computers hardware. Linux performs this function for me and tends to run from one year to the next, not only on my local server but with the hosting company my biggest client uses.

As load demand varies considerable on the main live Linux server due to seasonal variations and demand through several xml feeds it does very occasionally get overload, but as soon as demand slows it sorts itself out unlike the Windows Server the company also runs that when that is overloaded it is a PITA as it crashes.

[Kevin Wood]

A good operating system is unobtrusive, transparent reliable standard software interface to the computers hardware. Linux performs this function for me and tends to run from one year to the next, not only on my local server but with the hosting company my biggest client uses.

As load demand varies considerable on the main live Linux server due to seasonal variations and demand through several xml feeds it does very occasionally get overload, but as soon as demand slows it sorts itself out unlike the Windows Server the company also runs that when that is overloaded it is a PITA as it crashes.

Yep. This is perhaps my biggest bugbear with Windows. All the fake plastic boobs they bolt on as eye candy and insist on changing every couple of years.

[Gaffers]

Well it was a short lived respite. Seems that it is something to do with using the Fire TV box as it lasted most of the day on the Nowtv box for the rugby. Switched back to the Fire TV box and 20 Mims later it was off again.

The switching between remotes was annoying so the TV has been replaced with a nice new shiny 4k jobby. The other TV is probably still OK so it will be listed on ebay, I would love to use it upstairs but I don't really have room unless I can find a suitable wall mount for such a large telly.