The dangers of upgrading a PC

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#121
I have LTSpice installed in Devuan, a Linux based OS. It runs without issues apart from failing to update itself automatically. The reason for failing is the ltspice executable cannot be removed while ltspice is running. To correct the error, I manually move and rename the new downloaded ltspice executable, and the update is complete, albeit with manual intervention.

I have been not dependent on Windows since 2007. Until 2014, I used Debian and then I had to switch to Devuan. Linux wasted less of my time.
 
#124
I'm not taking any sides, but saying "Linux" I'm s too ambiguous. Even saying Ubuntu doesn't cover it - which version, which window manager, etc. There's a huge difference between using Gentoo and Ubuntu for example.
 
#127
Frabor said:
In SSD the defrag makes no sense as it will wear out the cells with almost no gain. SSD with conjunction with the operating system uses TRIM, that is similar in concept to defrag, but in this case liberates unused portions of cells. Also, SSD keep a count if cell writes and provision writes in a way that avoid over utilization of cells (erasable non volatile memory cell have a maximum write count before failure). For more, and more precise info, https://www.techtarget.com/searchstorage/definition/TRIM#:~:text=SSD%20TRIM%20is%20an%20Advanced,contribute%20to%20longer%20SSD%20life.
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"defrag" tries to fix a broken filesystem. Real operating systems don't need defrag as they have better
filesystems that optimize file layout.
 
#128
PRR said:
??? Why would I defrag a SSD? A seek is a logic pointer, not a physical motion.

I was never over-impressed by the results of a defrag even back to stepper-motor drives. (Yes, I remember trialing the interleave on MFM drives too slow to read sequential sectors without a breath.)
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Back in the dawn of SSD's there was a lot of trepidation about the lifetime of the drives, and the lifetime of the data held in the drives if it was not periodically "refreshed." The controllers in the early drives were not as elaborate at what's there today. Some of the flash memory in use had a guaranteed write cycle life of only 10,000 writes. I had already seen data loss in Compact Flash cards from leaving them in a hot car in Florida for extended periods of time.

Much like today, there was plenty of misinformation to be found on the internet. TRIM was not yet a thing in XP or Vista. Some of the PC "experts" on the web were telling users to defrag their SSD's while others were saying not to do that. Windows writes a chunk of data to the boot drive every time is boots up. The theory was that the area where this happens will wear out first, long before your other stuff gets written a few times. The idea was to force it to move. I was working in cell phone development at the time and we used flash memory from Intel and Micron who licensed Intel technology. Both of their engineering people advised us not to defrag an SSD. I still have an old Toshiba 20 GB SSD and an Intel 60 GB SSD. Neither were ever defragged and both still work though I do not trust them any more.

Defrag performed some useful purpose when you wanted to gain a few more bytes of usable storage space on an old Seagate ST-225 or ST-238. Drive speed was also not a thing in these days as they weren't much faster than floppy disks.
 
#130
Really?
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#131
When you had access times in the tens to hundreds of ms, reducing fragmentation would pay dividends. So, I can believe floppy defragging would be useful.

I've intended to try Linux for a couple of decades now; I've set up servers for work, and used it on Raspberry Pis for various things. Installing the WiFi driver for an unsupported device (in Raspbian) was harder than summoning demons using incantations from the Necronomicon.
 
#132
dangus said:
When you had access times in the tens to hundreds of ms, reducing fragmentation would pay dividends. So, I can believe floppy defragging would be useful.

I've intended to try Linux for a couple of decades now; I've set up servers for work, and used it on Raspberry Pis for various things. Installing the WiFi driver for an unsupported device (in Raspbian) was harder than summoning demons using incantations from the Necronomicon.
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And how did you make out with the demons?
 
#135
rif said:
Did you try the command line under sudo? Don't forget the dozen or so flags you need to set. Like "sudo summon -i "file of incantations" -o "demons" ". Necronomicon sounds like a package that has a lot of dependencies to install.
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That was sarcasm, if it didn't come through. Plz don't try as there may be a command called summon.
 
#139
Tubelab_com said:
This PC has no graphics card at all, just the on CPU graphics
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I ran a 8700k system with only cpu graphics for a few years.
Given cpu graphics use about 15 watts and my last graphics card 170 watts then I dread to think how much money I saved on electricity.
The PC is on most of the day every day.
The only difference is the CAD redraw is a little slower but most other apps I use it makes little or no difference.
Even some games played ok on cpu graphics.

When I bought my Intel 12400F it has no cpu graphics so had to get my old gtx760 card out.
 
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