Originally, this was going to be a post about the fun I have been having with my two Raspberry Pis, but now I have another ramble on my mind!
Linux distros.....
So, I was looking today at Distrowatch (a website which claims to show the popularity of various distros - but I know it can be manipulated (legally) by a distro asking its users to do certain things!)
Anyway, this is tied in to the (what seems to be certain) demise of my old distro, Yoper (and my later distro PCLinuxOS).
If you look at the top distros based on page rankings, Yoper has vanished (as indeed it is now dead, then I expected this). However, other distros seem to be limping along, dispite no updates for a long time (check out Mandriva for example, whose last (official, stable) release was August 2011 - yet they are still there at number 69!)
A look at the top few suggests that Mint is the most popular distro - and has been for some time.
Presumably this is because the Ubuntu family split their vote with the various variants they have? I personally use Xubuntu for many of my machines (although I am a PCLinuxOS XFCE fan myself).
Some of the choices are really odd - several of the Linux distros in the top 100 are either dead or pretty much so! Others are old, specialist distros which are ancient too!
I have never been a fan of Distrowatch - it is very easy to manipulate the results and doesn't reflect what I see on users machines in general..
From my own experience, the top distros are all Debian based. So the -buntu family, Mint and indeed the original Debian itself.
Amusing to see dear old Puppy still hovering around the top 10 - and Knoppix still in the top 60 (and Knoppix is quite aged now!)
I am downloading the latest live version of my favourite current distro - PCLinuxOS at the moment. Sadly their XFCE version is currently sleeping, but the KDE variant is updated and this is what I am grabbing for various testings. I prefer the XFCE desktop for my machines, but still prefer their KDE version to Ubuntu for example! (I use Xubuntu currently on most of my machines, but not all!)
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Thursday, July 24, 2014
More broadband speed ramblings!
So on Tuesday, I had to go to the local village doctors surgery. It is held in our village hall, which is next door to the house of some well known local people.
Whilst I was there, I noticed that I was connected to a BT wifi hotspot through my phone. Interesting I thought - I wonder how fast the local people internet must be.
Now BT encourage their members to opt in to their wifi hotspot deal - also was known as Fon - where you share a small percentage of your broadband to those who might be in your general area, in exchange for obviously being able to use other peoples shared wifi.
Bear in mind that only a small percentage of the bandwidth is shared - with less shared if you - as the main account holder are using the connection to its max - so I was interested to see what sort of shared speed I would get from their wifi
A swift Speedtest later and I find that the "shared" speed is 4.5Mb/s (later I got over 5) - so goodness knows what they get themselves!
I get 800kb/s to 1Mb/s as my main connection - not as a small shared wifi hotspot!
Then BT wonder why I hate the fact that they dumped all the 4G trialists to remain on this crap whilst using 4G to make little or no difference to city dwelling yuppies.
Whilst I was there, I noticed that I was connected to a BT wifi hotspot through my phone. Interesting I thought - I wonder how fast the local people internet must be.
Now BT encourage their members to opt in to their wifi hotspot deal - also was known as Fon - where you share a small percentage of your broadband to those who might be in your general area, in exchange for obviously being able to use other peoples shared wifi.
Bear in mind that only a small percentage of the bandwidth is shared - with less shared if you - as the main account holder are using the connection to its max - so I was interested to see what sort of shared speed I would get from their wifi
A swift Speedtest later and I find that the "shared" speed is 4.5Mb/s (later I got over 5) - so goodness knows what they get themselves!
I get 800kb/s to 1Mb/s as my main connection - not as a small shared wifi hotspot!
Then BT wonder why I hate the fact that they dumped all the 4G trialists to remain on this crap whilst using 4G to make little or no difference to city dwelling yuppies.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
BT where are you
Soooo..... where was the call from the BT minion I was promised? Seems they don't want to talk to those people who ask awkward questions which deviate from their basic crib sheet.
Shame on you BT. The main UK provider of telecoms, but absolutely shit useless at dealing with questions.
The only reason I still pay you useless feckers - and indeed the only reason I have an internet connection at all - is that my wife and daughter won't let me cancel as yet. I will cancel as soon as I can though - believe me!
Shame on you BT. The main UK provider of telecoms, but absolutely shit useless at dealing with questions.
The only reason I still pay you useless feckers - and indeed the only reason I have an internet connection at all - is that my wife and daughter won't let me cancel as yet. I will cancel as soon as I can though - believe me!
Friday, July 18, 2014
BT - strange lot!
Well, my BT provided router (a HomeHub3 - revision A) is known for not being particularly good when it comes to setting up port forwarding. I have seen this before when setting up port forwarding, but not enough of a problem to bother me.
This week I had cause to set up port forwarding for VNC so I could carry out an experiment. The BT HomeHub has a number of preset port forwarding rules built in - and one of those opens the ports needed for VNC. So I went into the hub and set the VNC preset up - applied the rules etc and the hub tells me all is good.
But, when I try to VNC into the relevant machine, no luck. So I check the open ports with a couple of websites - and the relevant ports (specifically port 5900) are not open! BT hub says they are - but they are not.
So, I fire off an email to BT, complaining about the useless hub.
After lunch today (well, yesterday now!), I get a phone call from them. A nice lady tries to explain all about things to me, but when I explain the actual issue, she goes off to get her crib sheet on port forwarding! After various dead end suggestions, she tells me that BT don't support port forwarding on residential lines and that I need a business line! I remark that the HomeHub3 is a residential router and has port forwarding built in - although it doesn't work!
She just repeats that port forwarding needs a business line. Truly bullpoop!
Eventually, I give up, accept her fairy tale and decide to escalate the issue with someone who perhaps doesn't need to read from a crib sheet to answer basic questions.
Anyway, shortly after this call had ended, I get another call from BT. This time it is a bloke. Same basic start - what is my problem etc. I explain the issue, tell this one that I am familiar with using a computer and port forwarding etc before he goes for the crappy crib sheet. Eventually, he accepts there may be an issue with the port forwarding. This chap decided he needed to speak with some tech people at BT before answering my questions - so he will ring me on Monday!
Lets see what happen then!
This week I had cause to set up port forwarding for VNC so I could carry out an experiment. The BT HomeHub has a number of preset port forwarding rules built in - and one of those opens the ports needed for VNC. So I went into the hub and set the VNC preset up - applied the rules etc and the hub tells me all is good.
But, when I try to VNC into the relevant machine, no luck. So I check the open ports with a couple of websites - and the relevant ports (specifically port 5900) are not open! BT hub says they are - but they are not.
So, I fire off an email to BT, complaining about the useless hub.
After lunch today (well, yesterday now!), I get a phone call from them. A nice lady tries to explain all about things to me, but when I explain the actual issue, she goes off to get her crib sheet on port forwarding! After various dead end suggestions, she tells me that BT don't support port forwarding on residential lines and that I need a business line! I remark that the HomeHub3 is a residential router and has port forwarding built in - although it doesn't work!
She just repeats that port forwarding needs a business line. Truly bullpoop!
Eventually, I give up, accept her fairy tale and decide to escalate the issue with someone who perhaps doesn't need to read from a crib sheet to answer basic questions.
Anyway, shortly after this call had ended, I get another call from BT. This time it is a bloke. Same basic start - what is my problem etc. I explain the issue, tell this one that I am familiar with using a computer and port forwarding etc before he goes for the crappy crib sheet. Eventually, he accepts there may be an issue with the port forwarding. This chap decided he needed to speak with some tech people at BT before answering my questions - so he will ring me on Monday!
Lets see what happen then!
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Mid July ramble
OK, Microsoft backed down and the domains seem to have been returned to the control of No-IP. However, I ended up changing to a new dynamic domain from the guys there - who were pretty quick to offer domains which had not fallen foul of MS to their members.
Seems to be the way of the future though - our Government here in the UK are now rushing through - with cross party support! - a law to allow the UK to spy on our communications. Whilst I am not some radical terrorist or maniacal right wing (or left wing or whatever wing) bad guy, my emails, phone calls and even web browsing can be collected and spied on by the various branches of the UK (and USA of course) secret services.
Pretty scary isn't it? The Apologists will always say that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear. But my view is that I object to my (non bad guy) interweb use being collated by these secret organisations.
Well, I am getting to the point where I shall pull the plug on the web here - I don't need it and my connection is so slow that any interference will bring it to a stop.
Dear Mr Cameron - Piss Off trying to spy on law abiding citizens. K Thx Bye
Seems to be the way of the future though - our Government here in the UK are now rushing through - with cross party support! - a law to allow the UK to spy on our communications. Whilst I am not some radical terrorist or maniacal right wing (or left wing or whatever wing) bad guy, my emails, phone calls and even web browsing can be collected and spied on by the various branches of the UK (and USA of course) secret services.
Pretty scary isn't it? The Apologists will always say that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear. But my view is that I object to my (non bad guy) interweb use being collated by these secret organisations.
Well, I am getting to the point where I shall pull the plug on the web here - I don't need it and my connection is so slow that any interference will bring it to a stop.
Dear Mr Cameron - Piss Off trying to spy on law abiding citizens. K Thx Bye
Tuesday, July 01, 2014
No-Ip and Microsoft
SO Microsoft flexed their muscle (i.e cash and power) to get 22 No-IP domains removed from the web - including the one I was using (no-ip.biz).
MS claim that bad people were using these no-IP domains in connection with malware.
Well Microsoft, in case you haven't noticed, these malwares, naughty though they may well be, presumably only run on Microsoft OS enabled computers. So it could be argued that you yourselves are permitting malware and perhaps the flaws in Windows are what should be addressed rather than removing legitimate websites (mine is simply a database of a specific surname) from the internet.
I do not use MS operating systems, so I don't have any problem with malware. Perhaps, if you are using their operating system, you may wish to consider something better, such as the Apple systems, Linux or a BSD?
MS claim that bad people were using these no-IP domains in connection with malware.
Well Microsoft, in case you haven't noticed, these malwares, naughty though they may well be, presumably only run on Microsoft OS enabled computers. So it could be argued that you yourselves are permitting malware and perhaps the flaws in Windows are what should be addressed rather than removing legitimate websites (mine is simply a database of a specific surname) from the internet.
I do not use MS operating systems, so I don't have any problem with malware. Perhaps, if you are using their operating system, you may wish to consider something better, such as the Apple systems, Linux or a BSD?
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