On Sunday, 30-06-2024 at 02:46 Lee wrote: > On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 7:26 PM George wrote: > > > > On Wednesday, 26-06-2024 at 05:43 Lee wrote: > > > On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 11:47 AM Joe wrote: > > > > > > > > On Tue, 25 Jun 2024 09:53:41 -0400 > > > > Lee wrote: > > > > > > > > > My old laptop died; I just got a new one and it has _no_ optical > > > > > drive. But the Debian install from flash instructions were excellent > > > > > & I now have a laptop running Debian. > > > > > > > > > > My question is: how do I reformat the flash drive so it's usable as a > > > > > "normal" flash drive again? > > > > Did you try gparted, a user friendly graphical partition manager? > > No. It wasn't installed and fdisk was, so I went with fdisk. > > > > Yes, but I did the "burn the boats" thing with my new desktop & wiped > > > windows and installed debian. > > > > Good on you ! I support you in this move. > > > > If you have any grips or difficulties, please mention them. > > My gripes and difficulties are the same thing. No universal image > viewer like Ifranview, an html editor would be nice -- something along > the lines of the seamonkey html editor but current software and > supported, something equivalent to notepad++, something equivalent to > winmerge (meld is nice, but isn't really a substitute), a cloneSpy > equivalent would be nice, I'm getting used to the linux privoxy log > viewer vs. the iconified thing that sits there on the windows taskbar, > Exact Audio Copy doesn't work on Linux, but supposedly does run under > wine so that's a possibility.. Debian firefox does NOT allow one to do > TLS intercept - ie. this does not work: > C:\UTIL>cat firefox-tlsdecode.bat > set SSLKEYLOGFILE=C:\Users\Lee\AppData\Local\Temp\FF-SSLkeys.txt > start C:\"Program Files\Firefox\Firefox.exe" > > @rem wireshark: > @rem edit / preferences > @rem protocols / tls (v2.6: protocols / ssl) > @rem paste SSLKEYLOGFILE filename into (Pre)-Master-Secret log > filename (was SSL debug file entry) > > But the major things that were keeping me from migrating to Debian are > fixable now in xfce: > The xfce4-terminal window can be configured so that left double click > selects a "word" and right click pastes it in > installing bits of the Chicago95 theme makes all the scrollbars > permanently visible, with up & down arrows at either end of the scroll > bar that scroll by one line > clicking in the scrollbar trough above or below the bar scrolls the > window up one window size instead of jumping to that point in the > scroll buffer > > > > My remaining Windows 10 machine goes end of life... at the end of the > > > year? So I need to learn how to live without windows -- which I have > > > I would like you to keep a diary of your journey, of what challenges you face and how you moved past, this could help other people you know who want to make this journey. > > I don't know how helpful a diary of my journey would be. My workplace > had a policy of Windows for the desktop and RedHat for servers in data > centers, so I got used to cygwin on windows to ssh into linux servers > (that other people maintained). Then Microsoft came out with the > Windows 10 spyware/operating-system-as-a-service and it was clearly > time to abandon ship. Which wasn't possible at work, but at home I > don't have to put up with the M$ crapware so.. new machine, blow away > everything that came installed on it and install Debian on the PC at > home. > > To make a long story short, I have years of experience with the > end-user side of linux & almost none with the maintenance side.. like > formatting thumb drives or anything requiring sudo access. > > > I wonder what UI you are using? > > Xfce
Hi Lee, Thanks for your response. I abandoned Windows after Windows 8 when I learned they had included "telemetry" at a significant level of data gathering. I understand that our data is valuable to Tech companies to gather and sell, but I would prefer if they did not. You are doing some way more technical things than I ask of Linux. I do not even use Bluefish which is a nice HTML editor. I do so little technical things with Linux I only need the Mousepad text editor, and of course, I use 'nano' not 'vim'. I like XFCE, simple but effective. However because I am too lazy to install specific useful applications, I usually install both Cinnamon and XFCE, but then only ever log into XFCE. Doing this installs a number of useful applications that I like. For example this way I get to use a program that calls itself "Image Viewer". I once tracked down its real name, but have forgotten it, 'eog' maybe? I have issues remembering things, hence I use GUI applications that have visible menus over Terminal applications that require the memorisation of typed in commands, well, where ever possible. I do resort to using the terminal to run 'find' for locating files, and files containing text strings. Recently I have been attempting to get Wine to work. Gecko does not seem to install. I have no idea if 'wine msiexec' does anything, as it never reports success or failure whether I specify a msi file that exists or does not exist. When I run 'wine iexplore' the page is blank, and I get an message like 'Could not find Wine Gecko' and no page text is displayed. There are times like this with Linux where things do not seem to work and documentation is quite limited. (If anyone knows a simple solution to this issue, please let me know, but I mention it, not to find a solution here, but as one my challenges in using Linux). PlayOnLinux seems to work OK, not sure what they are doing for Gecko? I have used Steam's Pluton for running a few Windows Games my family plays. I had to replaced our Nvidia GPUs for Radeon GPUs. I still cannot get Nvidia to work well in either Debian or Arch Linux, despite people on YouTube saying that Nvidia works well in Linux. All the best on using Linux. George. > > Lee > >
