Goodbye, Microsoft!

Are you tired of paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for your computer's software? Tired of having to buy upgrades, and new hardware to run the upgrades? Tired of crashes, security flaws, cyber-attacks, and worrying if your computer is safe to use? Had enough of license agreements, lock-downs, and restrictions on what you can do with your computer? Worried about your business being sued for making a careless copy?

It doesn't have to be that way. You can live your life free of Microsoft, and free of their thousand and one petty annoyances. And you can save money in the process.

This website is devoted to helping you say Goodbye to Microsoft, and to "Take Back the PC."


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New release of Haiku OS

Brad R Monday 26 December 2022 - 14:00:07  

From How-To Geek I learn that Haiku OS R1/beta4 -- the open-source continuation of BeOS -- has been released.

Be Inc created BeOS in the mid-1990s as a super-modern operating system, but it failed to catch on. Over 20 years later, the open-source Haiku OS project is picking up where it left off, and there’s a new beta release available.

The Haiku project has been developing an open-source continuation of BeOS for years, based partially on some BeOS code, but much of it has been built from scratch. Haiku R1 Beta 4 is now available, as the first major release in a year and a half. It might be the most significant upgrade yet, as it makes Haiku much more viable as a typical desktop operating system.

It's good for those of us on the "WinTel" platform to be reminded that our alternatives are not just Windows and Linux, or Windows and Linux and BSD Unix. These days I'm much less a student of operating systems, and much more just a user of operating systems. But for those wishing to learn, getting involved with a project like Haiku can be very educational.

And if you feel so inclined, send them a few bucks, so they can make their year-end fundraising goal.
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My question for phone scammers

Brad R Tuesday 14 June 2022 - 19:17:06  

I got one of those calls again.

Her: "Hello sir, are you the primary computer user in your household?"
Me: "You can assume that."
Her: "I am calling from Microsoft corporation. We have been scanning your computer and we can see that hackers have taken control of it. I need you to start your computer and sit down at it."
Me: "What version of Windows am I using?"
Her: "It doesn't matter, sir; all versions of Windows--"
Me: "You don't know what version I am using?"
Her: "Of course I know, sir."
Me: "Then what version am I using?"
Her: --long silence--
Me: "Yeah, I thought as much." *click*
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Adios, trusty Z10

Brad R Sunday 12 December 2021 - 13:42:09  

Well, damn. After six years of reliable service, I've just been informed that my Blackberry Z10 smartphone is going to be "decommissioned" -- i.e., remotely bricked -- on January 4th.

Long time readers will recall that the Z10 has kept me safely away from the Scylla and Charybdis of Android and Apple. Alas, I now seem to have no alternative but to choose one or the other.

I've settled on an entry-level Android phone, the Moto G Play, available refurbished for a not-extortionate price. Time will tell how well I get along with Google.
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The (fixed) scdbackup afio problem

Brad R Sunday 27 June 2021 - 08:03:08  

Long-time readers of this site may recall my three-level backup system. Daily, my wife's computer and mine are backed up to each other over the local network, via a cron script I wrote. Also daily, each computer is backed up to its own USB hard drive, via Back In Time. And weekly, more or less, I use scdbackup to back up to DVD-R media (which can be safely stored off-site).

Or at least I did, before the upgrade to Debian 10. After the upgrade, my scdbackup scripts failed. I thought perhaps the switch from 32-bit to 64-bit was the problem, so I recompiled scdbackup from scratch, but that didn't solve it. I kept getting afio errors.* What had suddenly and inexplicably broken?

Finally I decided to investigate the mysterious "error code 1" that afio was returning. And on the afio man page, I found this:

-1 warnings-to-ignore

Control if afio(1) should exit with a nonzero code after printing certain warning messages, and if certain warning messages should be printed at all. This option is sometimes useful when calling afio(1) from inside a backup script or program. afio(1) will exit with a nonzero code on encountering various 'hard' errors, and also (with the default value of the -1 option) when it has printed certain warning messages during execution. warnings-to-ignore is a list of letters which determines the behavior related to warning messages. The default value for this option is -1 mc. For afio versions 2.4.3 and earlier, the default was -1 a.

Oh ho. My shiny new Debian 10 uses the latest version of afio, 2.5.1. Obviously my previous Debian used 2.4.3 or earlier, which ignored all warnings (-1 a). So some otherwise innocuous warning message is getting reported as an error, and aborting the backup.

The solution is to add that option to the afio command issued by scdbackup. This is in the file conf/sdvdbackup_afio_value, which should be edited to contain
afio -o -1 a
(adding the -1 a option, to make the current afio work like older versions).

And with that change, afio and scdbackup are fixed, and I'm doing DVD backups again.
__________
* afio is a compression program that scdbackup can use to reduce the number of DVDs required. It is more suitable than tar/gzip for this task, since a disk error will corrupt only one file and not the entire archive.
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New browser update

Brad R Saturday 22 May 2021 - 21:30:11  

I'm no longer looking for a new browser.

After my previous post, a chap from my local Linux Users Group tipped me off to uBlock Origin (Legacy), which is an alternative script blocker. I've been using it for the last three weeks on PaleMoon 29.2.0, and it works well, though not as easy to configure as NoScript.

And today I learned from reader "twp" that NoScript is still available for PaleMoon. Though not from the PaleMoon add-ons catalog; you have to go directly to the NoScript web page. NoScript "Classic" (5.1.9) is what you need for PaleMoon. I have now installed it and it seems to be working just fine.

Meanwhile, I have installed Opera, though not yet Vivaldi or Brave. It's been a busy month.
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Seeking a new browser

Brad R Wednesday 28 April 2021 - 13:18:02  

Well, it finally happened. After months of warning messages, the latest update to Pale Moon browser is incompatible with NoScript. So I think I need to switch browsers.

NoScript is (was) a very powerful browser extension that blocks Javascript by default, advises what sites (including third-party sites) are attempting to run Javascript on your computer, and lets you selectively permit them. All with an easy user interface. I default to blocking Javascript, and permitting it only for sites that I trust (a whitelist). This is, first, a privacy and security measure. Second, there are many websites that have toxic or incompetent Javascript, which may not be hostile but can paralyze my computer. And third, this lets me bypass some access restrictions.

So, I'm in the market for a fast, efficent, and privacy-supportive browser. I've identified three candidates:

Opera. Long-time readers of this site will recall that Opera was my favorite browser, until they stopped supporting 32-bit Linux. Well, I've now upgraded to 64-bit Linux, so Opera is again a contender. I've always liked the speed and ease of use of Opera, and in the past they were always a leader in privacy features.

Vivaldi. Though it's been around for years, I just learned about Vivaldi a week ago. This review describes it as "Opera meets Chrome," coming "from the same team that developed Opera back in the day." I like the sound of that.

Brave. I've been hearing about Brave for a long time, ever since it was just aspirational. It's now a real product, and many people recommend it.

Heck, I may have to try all three.
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Goodbye, Google (2021)

Brad R Monday 18 January 2021 - 05:25:51  

A few years ago I posted "Goodbye, Google" as a guide to eliminating all traces of Google from your life. At the time I remarked "one overlarge, overbearing tech behemoth is much like another." Well, that's no longer true -- I now consider Google to be far more dangerous and abusive than Microsoft. So here, long overdue, is an updated list of alternatives to help you break your dependence on Google services. As always, suggestions are welcome.

Google Search. I like DuckDuckGo. Startpage is a privacy-protecting front end for Google (ok if you just want privacy, but not if you dislike Google's search bias or want to boycott Google). I've also used Metacrawler*. Others: Bing, Yahoo! Search, Yandex, search.com, dogpile*, excite*, WebCrawler*, info.com*. * = metasearch engine. Sources: eBizMBA, Wikipedia.

Google News. These days I use Bing News (yes, I know, I'm using a Microsoft product). There's also Yahoo! News. DuckDuckGo now has a news search, but there's no direct link to it -- you have to do a general search, and then click the "News" tab.

Gmail. Your ISP should provide a mail account (and may provide webmail). Ditto your web hosting service, if you use one. Otherwise, there are many free webmail services. I've used Yahoo! Mail. I've heard ProtonMail widely recommended. I've also read a recommendation for Fastmail. Don't use outlook.com/hotmail.com.

Android Phones. I like our old Blackberry Z10 and Q10 smartphones -- you can still (in 2021) buy refurbished units from Newegg -- which use the QNX-based Blackberry 10 OS. December 2021 update: Blackberry is "decommissioning" all non-Android products, including the Z10 and Q10. Newer Blackberries, alas, use Google's Android OS. The only other option I can suggest, if you must have a smartphone, is an iPhone.

Chrome (web browser). There are many alternatives. For desktop I like Firefox, Pale Moon, and Opera. Brave is now "ready for prime time." I'm also interested in Dissenter, Midori, Falkon (formerly QupZilla), and SeaMonkey. On Linux I also use GNOME Web (a.k.a. Epiphany), and Konqueror. For Android devices I'd suggest Opera Mobile, or perhaps Firefox or Brave. (Here are more alternative browsers for Android.)

Google Maps. There's Mapquest, and OpenStreetMap, and if you don't mind Microsoft, Bing Maps. Alas, Yahoo! Maps is now defunct.

Google Groups. For email lists, I use groups.io -- replacing Yahoo! Groups, which has been shut down. For "net news" (Usenet news), I'm currently using the Pan newsreader. There are others.

Google Ads. I don't use any web advertising service, so I'm a bit short of suggestions here. Suggestions are welcome.

YouTube. I also don't upload videos. I've seen Vimeo, Rumble, Bitchute, and Brighteon suggested, but I haven't tried them. Here's a list of nine others that might be worth a look.

Google Docs. For online collaboration, Zoho seems to be competing with Google. I haven't tried Zoho Docs or any of their other services. I work entirely on my desktop PC, not on the cloud, and I use the LibreOffice suite. There are many others.

Google Calendar. Here are four free online calendars other than Google. Zoho Calendar sounds promising.

Google Drive. I don't use cloud storage for my files, but here are 16 alternative cloud storage services. (Mostly free.) I've also learned that Proton Drive is in early release.

Google Analytics. If you need stats and analytics for your web page, here are lots of alternatives to Google Analytics. (That web site, alternative.to, is terrific for finding alternatives to just about anything.) Or just do a web search for "alternatives to google analytics".

Google Translate. Try Bing Translator, TranslateDict, Translate.com, DeepL, Babylon, PROMT, or ImTranslator (a front end for PROMT, Google, and Microsoft translators). Source: MakeUseOf.

Google Home. Just don't get one.
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DOSEMU2

Brad R Tuesday 24 November 2020 - 18:05:54  

After reading of my adventures re-installing DOSEMU, Chuck G. shared this bit of useful news:

There's a new version of DOSEMU out there with precompiled binaries for Ubuntu and Fedora, called DOSEMU2. It's different and in pretty much an eternal beta state. It takes a bit more setup effort, but it does work.

Since I have the original DOSEMU working, I'm not going to attempt to install DOSEMU2 at this time. (Especially as I'd have to build from source; precompiled packages for Debian are not provided.) But I'm glad to hear that someone has "forked" the DOSEMU project and is continuing maintenance and development, since the original DOSEMU seems to have been frozen in mid-2013.
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Failure to load .bash_profile

Brad R Sunday 30 August 2020 - 13:57:39  

Like many people, I set a bunch of environment variables in my .bash_profile file. Including $PATH, which is altered to include my ~/bin directory. Recently I discovered that a utility program had disappeared, and a bit of sleuthing revealed that my $PATH did not include ~/bin. Indeed, none of the environment variables in .bash_profile were being set. Why?

Unusually, a web search didn't offer much help. Some pages told me that .bash_profile would only be sourced in "interactive login mode" (text mode login), which didn't square with my experience over the last many years. I was also told that .profile would be executed for a graphical login, but that wasn't happening either.

Finally I stumbled across this helpful page that did a much better job explaining the login sequence...and told me about the .xsession file. In graphical login mode, it is .xsession that loads .bash_profile. A quick check revealed that, in the process of upgrading to Debian 10, I had inadvertently removed that file.

I've now restored .xsession, and all is well.
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DOSEMU in Debian 10

Brad R Thursday 30 April 2020 - 16:55:06  

Incredible as it may seem, I still have MS-DOS applications that I need to run. And fortunately, there's a DOS Emulator for Linux, DOSEMU. (There's also DOSBox but I've never used that.) One thing DOSEMU handles well is access to legacy serial and parallel ports; I need that too.

In Debian 8 it was an easy install; DOSEMU and the required FreeDOS were in the Debian repository. So I was dismayed to find that DOSEMU is not available from the Debian 10 "Buster" repository.

My first thought was to get DOSEMU straight from the source. They offer a precompiled "binary distribution," but that failed to run. Plan B would be to compile DOSEMU from the provided source packages, but I worried, what if DOSEMU simply isn't compatible with 64-bit Linux?

So I got curious. 32-bit Debian 8 had DOSEMU. Was it available then for 64-bit? When did it get dropped from the repository?

Using the package search function at debian.org, I quickly found that DOSEMU was available for 64-bit Debian 9 "Stretch." It was dropped in Debian 10. So clearly 64-bit is not an obstacle.

And I got curious again. When I upgrade a Linux distribution (say from 7 to 8), all of my previous applications remain installed (even if not themselves upgraded). Could I install a Debian 9 package under Debian 10?

I don't know if that's universally true, but for DOSEMU, it worked. The 64-bit (amd64) package can be downloaded directly from that debian.org page. Then I used dpkg to install the downloaded package:

dpkg -i dosemu_1.4.0.7+20130105+b028d3f-2+b1_amd64.deb

...and to my delight, it ran with no problems.

I suppose the Debian team has decided there's not enough demand for DOSEMU. When Debian 11 becomes essential, I'll do an upgrade, so as to keep my existing applications. (I couldn't upgrade from Debian 8 to 10, because I was also switching from 32-bit to 64-bit.)
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