'No Stupid Questions' (NSQ) Internet & Technology Edition

[U 'MIRIN BRAH?]

Thanks lads. I already have an SSD but was planning on grabbing another since mine is only 256 GB's.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Thanks lads. I already have an SSD but was planning on grabbing another since mine is only 256 GB's.

If you get a larger one, use Macrium Reflect or something equivalent to clone it to a larger drive with more space and resize the partition, Windows will accept it without asking why it's so much larger and you don't have to reinstall. 50% of the time it works all the time! But your original disk is not nuked so just boot off of that one if something is wrong and fiddle with it. I've done that many times and it works well.
If you upgrade to larger one, keep 10-20% as a hidden partition or let the software(Crucial/Samsung/whatever) reserve that space to always keep it snappy.

 

[Spunt]

If you get a larger one, use Macrium Reflect or something equivalent to clone it to a larger drive with more space and resize the partition, Windows will accept it without asking why it's so much larger and you don't have to reinstall. 50% of the time it works all the time! But your original disk is not nuked so just boot off of that one if something is wrong and fiddle with it. I've done that many times and it works well.
If you upgrade to larger one, keep 10-20% as a hidden partition or let the software(Crucial/Samsung/whatever) reserve that space to always keep it snappy.

That's really interesting. I have a 256Gb SSD from an old PC that died ages ago, I could just tack it onto the existing one ad carry on, much less hassle and no need to balance the contents of 2 smaller drives.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

That's really interesting. I have a 256Gb SSD from an old PC that died ages ago, I could just tack it onto the existing one ad carry on, much less hassle and no need to balance the contents of 2 smaller drives.

If the drive is the same size or larger, no problem. If it's using the same system(like motherboard and drivers), no problem. Changes in CPU is not a concern. Swapping a drive into something that is using another motherboard chipset, or graphics card, that will be a rude awakening for your OS and shit won't work even the slightest bit.

edit: you could RAID it and expand it into one drive.

 

[U 'MIRIN BRAH?]

If you get a larger one, use Macrium Reflect or something equivalent to clone it to a larger drive with more space and resize the partition, Windows will accept it without asking why it's so much larger and you don't have to reinstall. 50% of the time it works all the time! But your original disk is not nuked so just boot off of that one if something is wrong and fiddle with it. I've done that many times and it works well.
If you upgrade to larger one, keep 10-20% as a hidden partition or let the software(Crucial/Samsung/whatever) reserve that space to always keep it snappy.

Oh I was just gonna leave the original ssd as is,
use it as an additional drive and copy Vidya off my HDD over to the new ssd.

 

[Stasi]

50% of the time it works all the time! But your original disk is not nuked so just boot off of that one if something is wrong and fiddle with it. I've done that many times and it works well.

+1 for keeping original disk. Disconnect your original disk and try booting with the new one before doing anything. I just changed the boot order after cloning and stupidly thought it worked and formatted the original drive. For some reason the clone didn't pick up some essential boot partition and it wouldn't boot off the new drive.

4 hours later and manually creating partitions using the command line in windows recovery I finally got it working. Don't be a silly goose like me.

 

[artilleryfroth]

Please help an old lady out, youngsters. HTC Vive Cosmos or Oculus Quest 2? Not for me obviously, for kids who so far are only interested in Alyx (but for this kind of money of course I want it to be good for many games). They use PC and mostly go via Steam. Thanks in advance.

 

[Least Concern]

Please help an old lady out, youngsters. HTC Vive Cosmos or Oculus Quest 2? Not for me obviously, for kids who so far are only interested in Alyx (but for this kind of money of course I want it to be good for many games). They use PC and mostly go via Steam. Thanks in advance.

I don't know the answer from a technical level, but notably Oculus is a Facebook product, and thus should not be purchased by anyone.

I've heard good things about the Valve Index, and Valve is the same company that operates Steam and published HL: Alyx, so it's sure to work fairly well with it.

Note that 3D gaming requires a pretty beefy PC. If you don't have a desktop computer (not a laptop) with a powerful graphics card, your kids might have a rather vomit-inducing experience with 3D, if it works at all (so the latter might actually be preferable).

 

[stares at error messages]

Please help an old lady out, youngsters. HTC Vive Cosmos or Oculus Quest 2? Not for me obviously, for kids who so far are only interested in Alyx (but for this kind of money of course I want it to be good for many games). They use PC and mostly go via Steam. Thanks in advance.

Steam has giftcards. I'd make sure your grand kids are still into Steam before shilling out. Otherwise Fed saving bonds were always a fun time when I was a kid.

Steam seems to be shilling the Vive, so I'd go for that. https://store.steampowered.com/steamvr
Valve (Steam Company) Alyx seems to be available for a number of VR headsets. https://www.half-life.com/en/alyx/vr Good luck buying for your grand kids.

 

[artilleryfroth]

Steam has giftcards. I'd make sure your grand kids are still into Steam before shilling out. Otherwise Fed saving bonds were always a fun time when I was a kid.

Steam seems to be shilling the Vive, so I'd go for that. https://store.steampowered.com/steamvr
Valve (Steam Company) Alyx seems to be available for a number of VR headsets. https://www.half-life.com/en/alyx/vr Good luck buying for your grand kids.

I don't know the answer from a technical level, but notably Oculus is a Facebook product, and thus should not be purchased by anyone.

I've heard good things about the Valve Index, and Valve is the same company that operates Steam and published HL: Alyx, so it's sure to work fairly well with it.

Note that 3D gaming requires a pretty beefy PC. If you don't have a desktop computer (not a laptop) with a powerful graphics card, your kids might have a rather vomit-inducing experience with 3D, if it works at all (so the latter might actually be preferable).

Thanks, my kids have pretty spec gaming PCs but I’ve told them they have to share a VR headset and the hand thingies, or I won’t buy it for any of them. So you think I should go vive?

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Thanks, my kids have pretty spec gaming PCs but I’ve told them they have to share a VR headset and the hand thingies, or I won’t buy it for any of them. So you think I should go vive?

The PC connectivity for Quest 2 have looked a bit screwy, it's a nice idea they have but it also requires an additional cable for like $80/€80. Maybe it's better now. The Vive will probably be easier to get up and running Alyx and with less issues.

Sperging:
The Vive seems to allow you to adjust the interpupillary distanstance freely while the Quest have a couple of fixed settings which is fine for most people. If it's not fine then the VR will suck. Take a ruler or measuring tape and see what the distance is from the center of one pupil to the center of the other while looking straight ahead, or have them do it themself in the mirror. 61mm to 73mm is what the Vive covers. For Oculus there's three fixed settings, 58mm, 63mm and 68mm, and you would ideally want to be as close as possible to those. The Rift S/Go had a fixed IPD of 63.5mm while I sit at 70mm and it was driving me nuts, it feels like my eyes are seriously out of alignment and the brain won't shut up about it, so it is very important.

With two kids it would also be nice to know that both are within the adjustable range of whichever one you end up buying. If you have a birthed a cyclops and a hammerhead shark then you it's a paperweight either way.

There's a VR thread in Games with people that know way more about the specifics, it might be good to ask there.

 

[artilleryfroth]

The PC connectivity for Quest 2 have looked a bit screwy, it's a nice idea they have but it also requires an additional cable for like $80/€80. Maybe it's better now. The Vive will probably be easier to get up and running Alyx and with less issues.

Sperging:
The Vive seems to allow you to adjust the interpupillary distanstance freely while the Quest have a couple of fixed settings which is fine for most people. If it's not fine then the VR will suck. Take a ruler or measuring tape and see what the distance is from the center of one pupil to the center of the other while looking straight ahead, or have them do it themself in the mirror. 61mm to 73mm is what the Vive covers. For Oculus there's three fixed settings, 58mm, 63mm and 68mm, and you would ideally want to be as close as possible to those. The Rift S/Go had a fixed IPD of 63.5mm while I sit at 70mm and it was driving me nuts, it feels like my eyes are seriously out of alignment and the brain won't shut up about it, so it is very important.

With two kids it would also be nice to know that both are within the adjustable range of whichever one you end up buying. If you have a birthed a cyclops and a hammerhead shark then you it's a paperweight either way.

There's a VR thread in Games with people that know way more about the specifics, it might be good to ask there.

Thank you! That’s really useful, and something I hadn’t considered. Looks like we have about 68mm and 69mm and they’re not full-sized humans yet so I’ll definitely be going for the Vive.

 

[NoSpiceLife]

Best linux version for ~5 year old Walmart HP ?

Need a browser , VPN, and transfer files to / from an external

Late I know, I push it everywhere I can, it's great.

MX Linux for sure, I have it running on my Toshiba Satellite P870, which is what...8 years old, I think. Absolutely no problem at all.

It's also my daily as well on my PC. I've just done a clean install (was fucking around so had to) and it's even better than last time I did it.



So my stupid question:
I kept filling up my SSD, Samsung 860 EVO 500GB, even though I'm piling it all onto the 4TB HDD, and the 4TB external drive.

Sooo I did an impulsive thing and purchased the SK Hynix P31 1TB.

After reading the CPU/GPU thread, it sounds like I'm fucked in terms of upgrading anything else at present, and I have a little issue where I don't think the P31 is going to work out well on my motherboard.

Specs:
~ASUS PRIME H310M-K LGA 1151-2 mATX Motherboard
~Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x 8GB) DDR4 2133MHz
~Intel Core i3 8100 Quad Core LGA 1151-2 3.60 GHz CPU Processor
~ASUS STRIX-R7370-DC2OC-4GD5-GAMING (AMD Curacao PRO according to my computer)

I think those are the only things that matter.

I am literally going around in circles trying to work out what fits with what, the P31 can go on the motherboard but I don't think both the P31 and the GPU can at the same time, and after reading the other thread, what I should buy instead to go with the P31.

 

[Boris Blank's glass eye]

I am literally going around in circles trying to work out what fits with what, the P31 can go on the motherboard but I don't think both the P31 and the GPU can at the same time, and after reading the other thread, what I should buy instead to go with the P31.

You could get a M.2 enclosure if it's an option, maybe this one. You'll be stuck with lower speeds but won't have to get a new drive.

 

[Jones McCann]

Has anyone else considered the fact that if your browser comes baked in with spell checking their probably recording every messige you type into it?

 

[Full Race Replay]

Has anyone else considered the fact that if your browser comes baked in with spell checking their probably recording every messige you type into it?

unless im mistaken it's the os that does the spell-checking. Maybe it depends on the situation.

 

[Kosher Dill]

Has anyone else considered the fact that if your browser comes baked in with spell checking their probably recording every messige you type into it?

This is more likely true than not. Chrome claims that only its "advanced" spell checking calls out to the internet, but you shouldn't trust that. Similarly with the spell checkers in Windows 8 and later.

 

[Jones McCann]

unless im mistaken it's the os that does the spell-checking. Maybe it depends on the situation.

Could be, that's worse for you if you use Windows.

This is more likely true than not. Chrome claims that only its "advanced" spell checking calls out to the internet, but you shouldn't trust that. Similarly with the spell checkers in Windows 8 and later.

Yeah I wouldn't trust them at all, I only thought of this because I used Ungoogled Chromium on Windows and I can't seem to find any maintained versions on Ubuntu so I'm using Brave. Ungoogled Chromium didn't have a baked in spell checker because chromium uses google binaries for it. I missed it sometimes but at least google isn't spying on me saying nigger on the internet like Brave definitely is.

 

[Never Scored]

Could be, that's worse for you if you use Windows.

Yeah I wouldn't trust them at all, I only thought of this because I used Ungoogled Chromium on Windows and I can't seem to find any maintained versions on Ubuntu so I'm using Brave. Ungoogled Chromium didn't have a baked in spell checker because chromium uses google binaries for it. I missed it sometimes but at least google isn't spying on me saying nigger on the internet like Brave definitely is.

I recommend Pale Moon. It's not perfect, but it's one of the few browsers not cucked by Google's shit and it passes the autist sniff test on dig deeper. You can use it in Ubuntu without even having to install it and it has an updater built right in.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

You could get a M.2 enclosure if it's an option, maybe this one. You'll be stuck with lower speeds but won't have to get a new drive.

Another option to get better than SATA speeds is a NVMe to USB-C/3.2/Thunderbolt adapter. He'll have the fastest USB drive on the block! They're supposedly very good(if the right case/controller is bought).