Guy at Microsoft here in Seattle/Redmond is selling a fun #RetroComputing setup that seems like the best home computer you could get in 1999; he is asking $750 for:

- EATX motherboard (Intel Nightshade 440BX)
- 2x P3-500 CPUs in SMP configuration
- 512MB RAM
- Onboard Ethernet
- Onboard UW-SCSI, SCSI, IDE, and Floppy
- Onboard VGA (CirrusLogic)
- PCI+ISA slots

- Number Nine Ticket-to-Ride IV PCI graphics card
- SGI 1600SW 1600x1050 monitor
- Creative Labs Audigy2 PCI card
- USB 2.0 PCI card
- Black Cherry MX keyboard (PS/2 or USB)
- Black Cherry mouse
- CF-to-IDE drive
- Gotek floppy drive
- 18GB UW-SCSI drive
- IDE CD-ROM drive
- SCSI CD-ROM drive
- spare Matrox Millenium II 4MB PCI graphics card
- spare IDE drive
- spare S3 Sonic Vibes PCI card
- spare PCI USB2 card
- spare (beige) 5.25” mounted CF-Card reader
- Thermaltake gaming style case and 550W PSU

Message me if interested and I'll pass along your contact info!

#RetroComputing

2) I had an issue when using the Remmina RDP client, where if I connected to a PC with a 16:9 display, but client side I was on an ultrawide display, the "preserve aspect ratio" option when scaling did not work. This is pretty niche and no one had reported a similar issue (and part of the problems is that KRDP does not set the host resolution to the client window size like the RDP server on Windows does, which is another issue being worked on). So I got the sources, debugged the issue,…
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… build environment, and within an hour was able to confirm that the fix worked for me. The fix will only be released as part of KDE 6.8 in a few months, though. So I created a symlink to my locally built executable, and voilà, I'm running a krdpserver from the future and the bug doesn't bother me anymore.
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… and within an hour had a fix I was happy with. I opened an MR and iterated on the fix with one of the maintainers, but even then, with a quick symlink here too I am able to use my locally built executable as if it were the installed one.
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I used to do this a lot more before going into gamedev (I contributed to FOSS as part of my job before Ubisoft), and I'm getting back into it. The sad part is a significant number of projects are unmaintained so PRs/MRs go unmerged indefinitely. But on those which are actively being used and maintained, it's really fun.

Recent examples: Remote desktop (RDP) has been getting better on Linux lately, with KRDP as server and the KRDC and Remmina clients all working pretty well.

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1) I had trouble when connecting from a Windows PC to a Linux PC running krdpserver. Initial connection has quirks (which are known and being worked on) but after connection, if you minimize the client window and go back to it later, the image no longer updates (even though the connection is still alive, because you can see the mouse move on the remote computer). I asked about this on the bug tracker, and was pointed to a MR in krdpserver that fixed an issue just like this. I set up a…
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This is probably pretty obvious to people in the same circle as me (so most who will see this) but being a programmer, using FOSS software is pretty awesome.

In addition to the large leaps Linux has been making in getting to a polished desktop experience lately, being able to run a program you built locally because a version with a fix you want is not yet available, or being able to debug and fix issues yourself and then contribute the fix is pretty damn cool.

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RE: https://infosec.exchange/@josephcox/116994609630364826

Do not donate a penny to Wikimedia until the union is recognized

[Edit to add: If you are pausing donations, as I am, one thing you can do is email them at donate@wikimedia.org to let them know why.]

[Edit 2: here is what the union is asking for instead of pausing donations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Workers_United#Solidarity . That said financial support is how I support Wikipedia, so I'm still going the financial route for putting pressure on the organization.]

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(continued from previous post in thread)

Posting in solidarity to my laid off colleagues at Bethesda Montréal on behalf of our union.

English: https://bsky.app/profile/bethesdaunion.bsky.social/post/3mral2qkf5k2a

French: https://bsky.app/profile/bethesdaunion.bsky.social/post/3mral2vq3v22a

If this upsets you, let Microsoft know: https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/69b8ec0b-7479-f111-9b47-6045bdbd0989

(5 images total, 3 here and 2 in reply)

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One example of another rally in Rockville, Maryland where the main Bethesda studio and the parent company Zenimax are located.

https://youtu.be/PBxtEVVVj5g

We had a good turnout at today's Save the Devs rally in Montréal! Sounds like it was just as good at the other locations where rallies were held. Some real bangers among the signs as well!

https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/montreal-video-game-developers-protest-recent-microsoft-layoffs/

(sorry for those who boosted the previous toot, I had to delete and repost it because I messed up the group @ and editing it back in afterwards didn't work)

Hello @homelab peeps! I was wondering if anyone had tips to improve the following:

My NAS (TrueNAS Scale) permanently seeds some torrents, for example all the Exo projects like ExoDOS and some Amiga-related ones. Sizes range from a few GiB to hundreds of GiB.

I noticed that this makes my NAS hard drives constantly read, I can hear them seeking (I guess it fetches random parts of the torrent data so the ZFS cache in RAM is basically useless). I'm worried the drives will fail sooner. Ideas?

While cleaning a storage room, our staff found this tape containing #UNIX v4 from Bell Labs, circa 1973

Apparently no other complete copies are known to exist: https://gunkies.org/wiki/UNIX_Fourth_Edition

We have arranged to deliver it to the Computer History Museum

#retrocomputing

Hey @homelab folks! I might be looking for a router, and to separate my network infrastructure from my NAS (I had all eggs in the same basket) but still try and keep the maintenance burden low, I'd like to be able to run pi-hole, unbound, nginx and wireguard (at least that's what I use at the moment) on the router. I also don't have infinitely deep pockets :)

What do people suggest? I've seen some bananaPi stuff on AliExpress, but I think I could also run OpenWRT on a regular consumer router?

From my understanding, since the router uses a power brick, even the smallest UPS should be fine right?

For the PCs, I did some calculations and it seems like a 450VA UPS should be fine for a few 10s of minutes (assuming I'm not gaming or anything that draws lots of power), but to be safe I could get a 1000VA and that should be good for at least 30 minutes...

Also recommendations on brands, I can play it safe and get APC but is CyberPower any good? Is it a big gamble to get other brands?

Looking for recommendations for purchasing one or two UPS. The goal is to remain functional during short outages. Recently we've had a few outages that lasted 5-10 minutes during bad weather. When they happen, we can check the power company's estimation, and if longer than that we'll shut down.

To remain functional during such a short outage, I would need one for my router, and one for two PCs and a network switch (located in a different room).

(questions in next post)

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I installed a PCIe card USB 3.2 gen2 and USB C, which is really nice because in addition to adding ports in the back, I plugged the case's front panel ports into it too.

For the software I am going with TrueNAS Scale, we'll see how it goes. Initial impression: it's a pain to copy my old data over, but once that's done, the interface is really nice and everything runs silky smooth so it should be smooth sailing from there.

Bonus pics: new NAS compared to old QNAP. Just a bit bigger.

NAS update:

Finally built my own to replace the old QNAP which was too limiting for what I wanted to do with it (which is: replace a lot of external services for me and my family).

I got a nice ITX motherboard with CPU, 6 SATA ports, PCIe x4 and 2x2.5gbe (paid for the N100 version, but got upgraded to the N150 for free, nice bonus!). With a 500GB m.2 SSD and 16GB DDR5 RAM, it runs really well. I used a Jonsbo N2 case, I like the form factor. Specs in 3rd pic alt text.

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