Linux is Free?

[yogi]

Ahem ... well the OS might be free, but the hardware to put it on isn't. This baby is as much or more than a Mac. LOL

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2019/12/min ... ble-to-buy

[Kellemora]

Wow, another grossly overpriced TOY!
I don't care how much POWER they claim it has, even in the more expensive model.
You can't fit a 455 Hardin Marine Engine in a roller skate shoe.
"This packs an 8-core Intel i9-9900k processor, discrete NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics, 32GB RAM and a fill 1TB SSD."

How much current does an Intel i9 draw? How are they powering it? How are they keeping it cool?
Discrete Nvidia card means you can't find it? And what on earth is a FILL 1TB SSD?

I looked up the i9 CPU, it draws 95 watts, and costs 450 bucks by itself.
Requires a full-heat sink with fan to prevent overheating.
Recommended power supply is 850 watts.

I can't see all of that in that tiny little box. And if it did have that much power, it would be glowing orange all the time, hi hi.

Don't forget, I bought Debi's dead-beat computer based on the advertised specs, and got burned big time.
It has no more power than my net book. A 10 watt CPU hi hi.

[yogi]

And what on earth is a FILL 1TB SSD?

That would be a solid state drive with 1 terabyte memory capacity.

My ASUS tower is pretty close to that Linux box. I have a little less memory and only need 650 watts in the power pack. Nobody NEEDS that kind of computer unless you are a hacker in some dark and murky lab mining crypto currency. Nobody needs Linux Mint either, and I am very suspicious about how they managed to get Mint to work well enough with nVidia so that it can be sold commercially. They aren't selling it because people need such a machine. They are trying to make a point that Linux can be as good as Apple Computer if they charge you enough for it. If I were to pay that much for a computer, I'd get one that just works.

[Kellemora]

Almost all of my machines have Nvidea graphics and I've never had the problem you've had finding drivers. They are usually already in the kernel pack. I think one time it wasn't but I could get the driver for it. Took me awhile to learn how to install it, but once I did, everything worked great.
I wouldn't pay that much for a computer, not when I prefer BIG and my computer guy will do one for me for around 450 to 475 bucks now. He's no longer 300 bucks because everything has gone up.

[yogi]

Perhaps you forgot about the nVidia problem as I described it. I don't blame you because I said a lot. LOL The drivers for nVidia cards exist and work perfectly. The Linux kernel has it's own version of video driver that is not compatible with nVidia hardware. They refuse to put an nVidia compatible driver in their kernel because it's proprietary. Tough luck if most Linux users need the driver they refuse to support natively. We are talking Linux Mint here, but every Linux OS I tested has the same problem except the one derived from Fedora. They not only figured out nVidia but also figured out how to deal with systems that have more than one video card on them. But, as far as I know, the Fedora branch is the only Linux OS that does it.

I understand why you won't pay big bucks for a computer. You are perfectly justified too. Obviously the Mint Box 3 was designed for a different group of Linux users.

[Kellemora]

I get a warning when I boot up with the splash screen turned off so I can see what is loading.
Linux says I'm missing such n such a video driver file for my nVidea card.
I cannot use the driver file it want's me to use because it does not have the driver for my video card.
It only thinks it does. I know, I turned it on once and got a black screen, which was a mess trying to undo when you can't see the screen. I booted into Knoppix so I could undo that driver call.
The kernel automatically uses another driver that works just fine.
Even so, I installed the proper driver for the card, and honestly, the card works better using the generic driver. So I uninstalled that driver too.

Every time I've went the extra bucks to get a nicer machine, I ended up either getting taken, the machine was not as good as claimed, or if it worked right, it died rather fast.
This is why I've always had the computer store build my computers for me.
Then I made the dumb mistake of buying the frau on off-the-shelf computer because she needed one NOW, hi hi.
I paid close to 600 bucks for that machine, so figured it would be good. But no it was junk.
My computer guy could have built one for 300 bucks that would run circles around it, at the time.
Now he's up to around 475 bucks to build one I would like. Mainly because of the cost of more memory than I used to buy.

[yogi]

That's a major problem with Linux in general: sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. I'd be more understanding if the hit and miss nature of Linux was actually in the module add-ons to the kernel, but it's the kernel itself that frequently is "in a state of flux" to put it nicely. I was just looking at the kernel version in one of my Ubuntu installs. It's a 4.x version kernel and one of eleven possible versions. Each version in turn has dozens of update versions. There are literally hundreds of versions of the Linux 4.x series kernel. That tells me all I need to know about stability in general. It's not until you get to the 5.x version of the kernel that you will find a few that actually are compatible with nVidia cards.

You have some specific needs and wants from the computers you use, just like most other folks. It's not surprising that you don't want to deal with anything that doesn't fit into your framework, and you would be insane to pay in inflated price for such a misfit. I don't think you are all that special, by the way. A lot of computer users are just like you, but most have less knowledge about what a computer can and should do. Then there are the insane ones, like myself, who go above and beyond what is practical. I complain too, but not about the same things you would.

[Kellemora]

The only reason to upgrade the Kernel is if you bought new hardware not covered by the current Kernel.
Upgrading could break something that is working just fine, just like Windows upgrades did, hi hi.

Windows XP was stable, solid as a rock. I have an old Dell I got used with XP on it. It just sits in the corner running all day, all night, and the only thing it is used for is playing a game a Free Cell every now and then.
Also I use it to check a file or folder of files before I send them to my son to make sure they can be read.
Odd thing is, the XP machine could read the ones his Win10 laptop could not.
Like you, we have no idea why either, no illegal characters in use at all.

I can get by with some really old computers for doing my writing and accounting on.
But for on-line use, I need a newer and faster computer, just like the awesome Silver Yogi!

I finally threw away another box of outdated stuff from under the under desk last night.
A 4-Port Parallel printer selector, A PS-2 KVM switch, and several old USB Hubs, since I now only use USB Switches, same with the LAN stuff, tossed a 4-Port LAN because it was only 10/100 and everything I have now is 1000. Plus the 1000 will also accept 10/100/1000 without reverting to the slowest on everything like the old LAN switches did.
I kept some things around just in case the new things break so I have a backup, but the backup devices are now outdated.
JUST LIKE ME, hi hi.

I often wonder how much bribery money was paid by the battery companies to stop peripheral device companies from making hard-wired devices?
The frau sent me out west to pick-up a couple of things she ordered that finally came in. Thankfully the store was open Sunday evening because of the delayed shipments. It was next door to where they held a Sunday night writers group meeting, and I saw a few I recognized so walked over there after loading up the car.
I expected to see the usual flurry of laptops, but now, half of them were using cell phones.
Two of the gals at the end closest to where I sat down for a few minutes had a small keyboard and mouse, wireless of course, using it with their cell phones, which they sat on their purses up at eye level, horizontal.
Not that I like to see purses sitting on tables where food is served, but that's another beef of mine.
In any case, the keyboard she was using was less than a foot wide, but the keys were spaced normally like a real keyboard. Everyone always plugs in their laptops and cell phones while there. Well, except me when I used to go. I figured it was battery powered for a reason so used it on battery power, hi hi.
I only watched what was going on for a few minutes, the guy who runs it gave me the evil eye twice so I decided it best if I boogie on out of there and get home.
I guess in a few more years we will see people with wrist watch computers that display the screen like a projector on the back of the purses, hi hi.

[yogi]

I doubt that the battery people had to bribe anybody. The demand was there to begin with and they only supplied what was needed. The computer world is getting smaller and a hell of a lot smarter as well. Each time a computer shrinks some compromises have to be made, but the benefits generally outweigh the inconveniences. You are right about the coming wave of wearable computers. It's here already in fact and my wife will be the lucky recipient of one in a day or two. I got her one of those Apple watches that I'm certain will hardly be used to its fullest capacity. It has a feature that she requested a while back, i.e., it will detect if she has fallen and is immobile for an extended period of time at which point it dials up 911. Try and get a desktop or a laptop to do THAT. lol.

The next level of smallness is chips embedded into your skull where your brainwaves interact with it. Those things are already in the labs and it should not be much longer for them to reach the consumer market.

[Kellemora]

The frau has a cousin who lost an arm, above the elbow, so a prosthetic is basically for show, he couldn't do a lot with it.
His wife talked him into signing up as a guinea pig for a robotics company, for which he had to move there sometimes for months on end, but did get to come home often when he could afford it.
Somehow he can use nerves to drive sensors, at first it was just to bend the arm at the elbow, and once they accomplished that goal, they began adding more sensors in his upper arm until he could move the wrist up and down a little.
Once when he was home, the arm didn't look like much, just metal bars and lots of little servos, etc. But they had advanced far enough he could pick up a specially designed cup and actually take a drink from it.
Little by little they got the thumb to move and finally two of the main fingers, which actually look more like a lifting claw on a stick hi hi.
He said it was harder to learn how to drive each sensor than it was to wiggle his ears. Hours and hours of practice to simply bend the elbow without causing it to jump like tossing a ball skyward. Then it was the same thing when they found the right nerve to trigger the wrist motors.
Then he had to deal with constant infections around each sensor plate on his arm as they tried different materials.
I think he said those plates are made from a type of titanium but now with some crystal formed coating on the back and around the pin that goes into his arm. Said those things probably cost more than his house and cars combined, each.
When he first started playing guinea pig there were only three others they were working with. One dropped out, and they added four more. Most of them did better at learning to control the arm than he did, but then they make improvements with what they learned too.
Within another year or two, they will have the arms covered with a soft plastic so they look like an arm.
But they have not progressed with finger movement yet, except for those who lost their arm below the elbow. Apparently they have more defined nerves to work with, and some simply use muscle movement, which another company is working in that field and much further ahead than the company who is using him for their experiments.
He did say, no matter what they do, it will never be like a real arm, at least not in his lifetime.

[yogi]

There are some pretty amazing things going on in medical laboratories. I don't think we are too far away from perfecting prosthetic limbs and your wife's cousin is truly helping to advance the science. This story brings to mind hearing aides. I probably could use one but hesitate for a couple reasons. One major reason is that almost everybody I talk to that wears one claims it's not like the natural hearing they once had. My mom wore hers for less than six months and complained all the time that things sounded funny even though the audiologist had a profile of her hearing programmed into the device. When they get to the point of being able to grow replacement organs in the lab, there might be a chance of restoring a lost sense or lost body function. Until then we are at the mercy of limitations of mechanical devices.

[Kellemora]

I was born without hearing a certain range, that of little girls screaming, hi hi.
I've always considered this a blessing too!

I also have Tinnitus, and it has got worse every year too, it is really bad now.
My doc worries because it often drives folks crazy.

I had tried a few corrective type hearing aids, not amplifier type though.
They did pick up the range I can hear and moved it to a range I do hear well.
But like your mom, it didn't sound right at all.
I also tried tinnitus cancelling ear plugs and they did absolutely nothing.
Tinnitus is inside your head, probably a brain malfunction, hi hi.

[yogi]

Back at Motorola I was the microphone test equipment technician. As such I worked with a lot of audio equipment and knew many years ago that I suffered from high frequency hearing loss. This is a fairly common occurrence for people in our age bracket, but I noted it in my late 40's. While the loss was obvious at that time, it really deteriorated after attending a wedding for my wife's niece. The DJ blasted the music to the point where the furniture shook. When we left the reception I could hardly hear anything at all, and it took several weeks before I got close to normal again. Unfortunately, that wedding caused more permanent damage that I had previously.

It was at that time that I started with tinnitus problems. There is no cure regardless of all the spam you get saying there is. The high frequency receptors are gone and cannot be regrown. There is no way to fix that. The ringing bothered me at first, but I have more or less grown accustomed to it. Frankly, there is no other choice but to go insane. I read an explanation for it once many years ago, but it didn't make sense. The article claimed that since the hearing sensors for high frequency are gone, the brain indeed does try to compensate for the dead air time. It ... well ... generates ringing. The range of sounds vary greatly. It's not the same all the time. At some times it's rhythmical, but most often it's just chaos.

If it's true that the hairs in the ear canal which pick up high frequency are gone, then I don't see what a hearing aid can do to compensate. I also don't think it's a band of frequencies that is missing. There are some high frequencies that I can hear. It's very odd and I'm sure it's different for each individual who experiences it.

[Kellemora]

My Tinnitus goes through various stages.
At first it was like the faint sound a single cricket or two, then this progressed until it sounded like I was on a quiet riverbank at night in a corn field filled with crickets.
Eventually the cricket sounds changed to a rolling whistling sound, with an occasional loud set of crickets.
Over the years it has only got louder and louder, and words are now sometimes mangled so I don't hear a word properly.

The one hearing aid that I tried that altered the frequency only changed that one frequency range down an octave. Unfortunately there are tons of sounds in that hearing range that I never heard before.
And now with tons of appliances all making beeping sounds with piazo crystals I cannot hear, they just keep chiming away until someone tells me something is beeping, hi hi.

The hardest thing for me to do is hear what somebody says in a room with a fan running.
It not only cancels out their voice but also if I can hear it, it is jumbled up.
I do know certain doctors, especially psychiatrists keep sound busting fans running in the waiting rooms.
Also some lawyers offices and family counselors too.
Trouble is, some of those sound busting fans they use, although no one else can hear them, to me a few sound like a low pitched old style siren running, hi hi.
Oh and if they have more than one in the room, it sounds to me like they are fighting.
Sorta like the sound you feel when you are in an 8 cylinder car next to a four cylinder car and the engines are fighting each other while at a stop sign. Maybe you know that sound?
I get that a lot with some sounds playing havoc with my Tinnitus.

[yogi]

I forget which way it is, but it's only one of two possibilities. High frequency hearing loss takes out your ability to hear vowels; it might be consonants, but the effect is the same either way. The reason you don't hear little girls screaming is because most of that happens in the high frequency range. Words are jumbled, not because you do not hear the word, but because you don't hear the vowels being pronounced. The brain tries to compensate and fills in a lot of blanks unconsciously. But, when there is background noise occurring in the vocal range, the brain can't filter out the words correctly

From what I can tell nobody has a clue about why you hear what you hear when you suffer from tinnitus. I'd have to agree that the chaotic sounds have increased over the years since they started, but the good news is that they leveled off. Oddly enough the tinnitus sounds do not block out people's voices. You can't hear the upper frequencies anyway so that there is nothing to cause inter modulation. If a motor is running, or anything with a constant bandwidth, then I seem to be able to hear as well as it is possible. But when the television or other people are talking, it's very hard for me to understand words being spoken without vowel sounds, I was made aware of this again at the Christmas dinner where I heard conversations but did not know what people were saying. I'll hear you fine in the car as we tool on down the highway, but when we are in a room full of talking people it's only a 50% chance that I'll know what you are saying.

One aspect of this high frequency hearing loss is distressing. My wife's voice has changed in terms of my perception of it. I no longer can hear her speak in her natural tones that I've recognized and grown to love over the many years we have been married. More often than not she sounds something like those robotic female voices synthetically generated when you call a business. Apparently I'll never hear her real voice again, and that is sad.

[Kellemora]

I have that same problem, I can hear a single person talking just fine, but in a room of people, or if the TV or Radio is on, it jumbles the words from both them pretty bad.

It used to be I like music a little heavy on the bass side, but now, if the bass is high, it's just like a rumble for everything else. But normally I hear music OK unless they get up around high-C or above.

[yogi]

Music gives me the same problem as does conversation. Using an equalizer to boost the high end doesn't seem to do much because all that does is amplify the frequencies I can't hear to begin with. About the best music experience for me is with headphones that have a good dynamic range. I can hear both the music and the vocal equally well. The earbuds that came with my Google clever phone are phenomenal. It's just that earbuds tend not to stay put in my ears and I don't use them for the most part.

[Kellemora]

This is eons ago now, but my sister had hearing aid earphones that were part of her glasses, but no part of it went inside her ear.
It supposedly transferred the sound through the bone behind your ear.
She really liked them, except for how fast they ate batteries.
Got to the point she only turned them on if she was in a conversation with someone.
She didn't replace them when she got new glasses on which they would not fit right.

[yogi]

If I recall right Google Lens had a feature where it would show you subtitles of the conversation going on. I guess they had problems with it getting the translations right all the time, but the concept is interesting. I've also heard about those hearing aides that work via the bones around the ear. It seems reasonable and eliminates the feedback whistle you can run into with a lot of hearing aides. I'm thinking of reverting back to the old time method of just cupping my hand around my ear when I'm in a conversation with somebody. That actually works well in my case, but it must creep out the person I'm talking to. LOL

[Kellemora]

I can just see old Yogi pulling out a hollow bone hearing horn and holding it up to his ear, hi hi.
On second thought, it probably works better than the electronic gizmo's they have today, and a lot cheaper too!