[Les.]

Edp, contrary to the views of most, IofM is NOT in the UK, nor is it in the EU; it is a self governing crown dependency. However for practical purposes, in most things we are treated as if  we are part of the UK. There is a protocol linking us through the UK to Europe, so we are obliged to follow Europe in most things. I guess things will just continue as if we are part of UK. No special ties with N.Ireland any more so than Scotland, which is of course our nearest neighbour. UK residents visiting Mann seem to have more rights than Manx residents visiting UK, and in EU we have even less.

Real effects post Brexit? Only timer will tell.

Les.

[Les.]

I get the feeling some of this is about “Bias”. Tories v Communists (sorry, Labour) and Labour against Tories.

And then of course we have the BBC. Monday’s “I am sorry, I haven’t a clue”. First one very pointed Boris joke, then one very tasteless Farage joke. I waited for the famous “BBC balance”, but of course I am still waiting.

It rather looks as if fake news and bias are here to stay.

Les.

[Les.]

Steve, when you say “Leak when old”, do you mean leaking as Bob describes the deposit on his furniture, or are you thinking of the dripping tap down below?

We all know the little rhyme  —  “No matter how you shake your peg, the last few drops run down your leg”.

My second wife, who was NOT a member of the medical profession, used to subscribe to “The Practitioner”, the Doctors’ monthly comic. In about 1980, there was a “Symposium on Incontinence” in one particular issue. One subject they discussed was the topic of the above rhyme. A simple solution was offered. Place two fingers underneath immediately forward of the anus, and gently press and draw forward. Do that after your pee, and you will see those last few drops drip forth, leaving leg dry. Been doing that for 40 years, as the rhyme was already a reality.

I guess I am lucky, older than most of you, and the only time I sweat is when I do a birthday log chopping session, so no deposits on furniture. I drink PLENTY of water, pee well but slowly, only wake up once most nights, drink water whilst sitting on side of bed, go and pee, and (usually) straight back to sleep. I do take an Mg+ supplement.

Les.

[Les.]

A few days had passed when I suddenly realised the little shield with either a tick (= all OK) or an indication of updates pending had gone awol. I think I was slightly mislead by the little green “Skype” icon (with its own tick).

Anyway, I opened package manager, clicked refresh and about a dozen awaited me. Updated OK, but a few days later the little icon has not returned. How don I get it back?

Les.

[Les.]

Dave, I searched the FAQs, but could not find that, but if you did, that should be OK. On that basis I sent a question to CH4OD, and await an answer.

Meanwhile, I guess I should go to the laptop and update FF, before stopping it (auto) updating.

Les.

[Les.]

Planeman, I did as you suggested and fired up the tablet, went to more 4 and tried to “Watch in the app”. That took me to an “enter your email”, which just went nowhere. Later I tried the “download the app” route, and that did not work.

Eventually I got to a different login window, and that turned me out with “This programme can not be watched in your country”!

I vaguely recall that I MAY have originally created the account using the address and postcode of the house I bought in 1966 and sold in 1970.

It looks as if I had better keep things exactly as they are at the moment, but with Edp’s “block FF updates”.

I could ALMOST understand all this stupidity if I did not have a TV licence, but I do. Strangely BBC progs sometime ask if I have a licence, but never ask for its number. It looks as if after TWO FREE YEARS, I will have to pay for it again come February! The ONLY BBC stuff I watch online is from 10:35 on a Thursday, as N.Ireland go their own way. This suggests neither your Android box not the one Dave linked to would be any use, and probably none of those Blacklion suggested either.

Les.

[Les.]

Wow, suggestions, suggestions.

Bob, a TV tuner card would not help when the signal is the problem, either record or watch live. At that point the only option is view via www.

I just checked the other identical laptop, and that has an 80GB HDD, which has 40GB free space with a Linux install and 10 years of Ebay stuff plus a few other minor items, so obviously the Win7 unit could be shrunk and cloned, though really I ought to fit the SSD into the Ebay laptop. Actually, that only takes about 1 min to boot with Linux, so maybe not worth bothering.

Maybe Duke has best suggestion, if it really is that quick. But I will NOT go to 10. Can’t be a***ed to learn it, and it is used for NOTHING else. It has a fault whereby it will KILL its battery, so for the last maybe 5 years, it has been run on PSU only, just that it seems too good to be scrapped.

Edp, maybe I should try your suggestion. I can see that Windoze can slow down the starting procedure by as long as it wants, but only the firefox update will crash the live viewing.

I suppose what I should really sort out is the Ch 4 signal, but I don’t think it is just signal strength, since I can receive up to 140 stations (TV and Radio), and I am unaware of any others with this problem. I suspect a clashing source from elsewhere, a sort of cross modulation, that is the route cause. It is a special “Quad bowtie” aerial with a high gain masthead booster, and as a precaution, I replaced the booster fairly recently.

Thanks all, Les.

[Les.]

Edp, I think there were three updates at boot up, then I guess it downloaded the FF update whilst it was running, then froze until I shut it down (FF, I don’t think the laptop itself). Then of course the post shutdown update (7 I assume). I don’t think all the three pre-boot updates would have been FF. Stop the updates? I can’t be a***d to find out how, not really used Windoze myself since XP, 10 years ago at least.

Graham, I just checked the boot time (and no updates this time), 3-1/4 mins until the little whirlygig stopped whirling, but a total of 7 mins before FF would stop its own whirlygig and find the page of my choice.

Fit SSD, I do have a 60GB, so I guess I could, but how much time would I waste installing on that? I seem to recall it took all one evening and some to install last time.

I have an 8″ android tablet somewhere, but I assume that is not an “Android Box”, and if it was I would have to learn to use it, and I have too many things to do without learning to drive that. I have a Pi with Kodi on it, but there is nothing left there that will open Ch 4.

Planeman, I am tempted, but would I use it? Is there any learning involved, or just tap what you want and go ahead?

Is it my imagination or am I just becoming an out of date old Dinosaur? But I still enjoy life, especially out on the Ducati (Cagiva actually).

Les.

[Les.]

WoF, I shall treat it as a serious question , since you seem to be a Micro$oft expert and maybe not versed with Linux.

Package manager. Once upon a time, before I ever had a successful Linux install and run, if you wanted to install a programme (maybe you prefer program?) you needed to install any other stuff which it needed to run correctly. Dependencies. They apparently drove many people crazy (metaphorically). Today we have “Package managers” which know all the dependencies and add them to everything needed before you finally give the “Go Ahead”. In the case of Mint, “Synaptic” is the default package manager. As I understand it, it is simply a gui version of using Terminal, the command line system used by Mint.

If you open a terminal and type in something like    –    apt get something, followed by    –   apt get install something, it installs “something”  just like the gui does, but now you can see every little detail. Well, you could if it did not flash past so damn quickly.

Les, the one eyed man in his land of the blind. E&O excepted!!!!

[Les.]

Drezha, you got it! It took me a while to get back to a working terminal (for updating etc.) I had to retrace my previous steps as best as I could remember them, including a shut down and restart.

Not only did the TAB turn <OK> red, but also in the next step. Fonts installed, then the HP stuff, which I can hopefully set up properly in a few mins.

Thanks, Les.

[Les.]

Edp, “Disks”. In Mint, Menu – Accessories  – Disks.

It displays all drives. Select correct one.Remove, modify or why partitions. next Format, (and you have to tell it to get on with it), then finally mount it. There is a little arrowhead in the partition display area that I think says “partitioned!”, later another little icon next to that tells you formatting is completed. Close and reboot and it is mounted. (That is as best as I recall until next time I have to battle with it again.

Les.

[Les.]

Wasbit, no, not me. I did not see it as I never watch any TV other than midday news, motogp and F1. Perhaps I should get to know him however, much better when you have an expert “on hand”, things go much better.

I had a pal getting on for 10 years ago, who had been using unix stuff for decades. He struggled for a while with a badly supported network card, but the provided me with a good workaround. problem was every kernel update meant another repeat of the workaround. –Solved with a different card. But then he returned back to UK.

It was strange that ext/fstab was so dangerous from the command line, but via the graphical “Disks” it just worked.

But everything “computer” is strange in reality. In reality I have a very analogue mind. I can deal with electrics, simple electronics,”motorcycle) engineering, combustion technology (well, a bit), ceramic technology (professional qualified), simple metrology, but digital leaves me confused. But today the world is digital, even if many do not understand it.

Les.

[Les.]

SUCCESS!  I have finally got it sorted! Today I again attempted to mount the drive using disks. I went all the way through the procedure until the final step where I was asked for PW before writing the new data to etc/fstab. Whoa!. Is this going to screw my OS and data? CANCEL quickly and think again. I dug out that last screwed 60GB SSD, fitted it instead of my main SSD, rebooted with the Mint install disk and load it into RAM. Now “Install”, to ensure the 60GB can “do things” without risk to my main drive.

Back to disks, ensure one partition on LaCie 1TB drive, next format drive (ext 4), and after completion of that, open the”gears” tab and then mount options. mount the drive. Close everything, shut down computer, then reboot.

WORKS!!!

Les.      EDIT. The fact that it did not corrupt the 60GB drive, meant I then had to refit my main drive and repeat the above procedure. That worked too.

[Les.]

Tonight I got the No 2 PC reinstalled having given up on fixing it re the non-booting. Later, I disconnected it and connected the 60GB drive. booted up, then ran thro the original suggestions to fix the  new LaCie drive. Ensured I got the correct drive (sdb, NOT sdb1 ). closed nano (everything seems to work as (I think) it should.

Shut down, disconnected the LaCie and tried to reboot. Exactly the same as with my No.1 PC on Mon morning.

So that procedure is a No-No for me.

Still don’t know what to do with the 1TB drive!  festina lente.

Les.

[Les.]

Ed, first a good result, then bad things on other fronts. When my emails came up, the first thing I see is a REFUSAL of a planning application that I made back in May. Next, whilst “jar-ing the jam, I managed to knock one over so purple jam stains everywhere.

So, back to simple stuff. I will put the 60GB drive in the No.2 machine and try again with the new LaCie. nothing lost if I screw things up. Now I have a full working setup on No.1 machine, I can afford to wipe and reinstall a spare copy on the No.2 machine, which I will do. I will have a look at autofs, I MAY learn something.

Cheers, Les.

[Les.]

All, I just got back to full working, and amazingly before I saw last replies.

Edp, yes, I am sure it went t-up due to some silly error in nano.

When I came to it yesterday, I first thought it was a hardware fault, since it was AOK at previous night’s shutdown. I dug out the spare PC which (I THOUGHT) had a working op sys. That would not boot, so i then went in circles for much of the day.

In fact the spare PC had a 60GB with install, but I had replaced it with a NEW second 240GB SSD, hence the non-boot and confusion. I installed a fresh system on the new 240GB SSD, and I was able to see my corrupted drive, and copy everything except the .mozilla and .thunderbird and copy all to my older LaCie.

Later on, using the 60GB install (sda1) , and my corrupt drive in as well (sdb1) I was now able to see the locked .mozilla and .thunderbird and copy to backup drive.

That was the solution, now up and running, BUT I still have the original SSD with a non mount and also of course my new L:aCie. LATER!

Les.

[Les.]

Ed, Dan, nobody?

I realise it is only a matter of mounting, or alternatively getting higher privileges to copy the two hidden folders. If I try anything, I fear losing the lot.

Les.

[Les.]

Damn, damn, damn! After writing rather a lot, it all disappeared. Start again!

HELP! Last night I tried and failed using nano. I won’t go thro it all right now, not sure I can remember any longer.

This morning I switch on and the PC would not boot! Discounting time spent searching my shed for an electric motor, commissioning the leaf blower for SWMBO, trying to make jam, the rest of the day has been spent trying to get things back to normality. NOT SUCCEEDED!

I suspect that my failed attempts to mound the recalcitrant hard drive caused my SSD boot drive to become unmounted. what followed was too convoluted to explain in detail, so I won’t. I booted up from the Linux install disc (but NOT installed) and when I searched for the boot drive, it could not be mounted! i removed it and fitted the new 240GB SSD I bought for my No.2 machine months ago, still without an install. I rebooted with the Linux disc, and installed a new full Mint on that SSD.

I then shut down, plugged in my OLD LaCie backup drive and my “OK yesterday” SSD and rebooted with linux disc. Now I could see both the SSD and the LaCie, so I set about copying all my docs etc to a new “21-09-2019” folder on the LaCie.

Apart from a couple of jpg and pdf files, everything copied OK. Now for the hidden files. SOME of these, including .thunderbird and .mozilla were locked! These are the two most important, esp the .thunderbird..

I need EITHER to learn how to copy these two locked hidden files, or how to mount my “OK yesterday” drive, presumably working from the Linux RAM install. WITHOUT LOSING my thunderbird!

Les.

[Les.]

Edp, I tried yesterday running the commands to which you linked.  When I got to   sudo vim /etc/fstab    i got vim   command not found.    I have heard many refs to VI and VIM, but they are not really on my radar. On the off chance it was simply a matter of installing, I went to synaptic, but it was not found, so I am left confused once more.

Cheers, Les.

[Les.]

Edp, this is a backup drive for connecting as and when. As long as I can write to it and read it, that is what I need. When I first tried yesterday, it was in its “box” and connected by firewire 400. When that failed, I removed it and connected it via a USB connected gizmo. Again I could see the drive (it mounted), and I could un-mount it, but was not allowed to write to it.

Dave, after reading the replies, I fitted the drive only in my PC using normal SATA.  I refitted in the enclosure and connected again by Firewire 400, with no write permission as I said.

However, this particular LaCie has FW400, FW800, USB and SATA (an “external” sata, NOT an “ESATA” if I understand correctly). I had noticed when I tried a right click “Format” that it was a USB formatter which may be relevant. I will try again shortly using the USB connection.

Thanks all, Les.

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