On Tue 25 Jun 2024 at 16:23:16 (+0200), Thomas Schmitt wrote:

Lee wrote:

My question is: how do I reformat the flash drive so it's usable as a "normal" flash drive again?

You have to delete the partitions of the USB stick which came with
the ISO.
Then you create one or more partitions.
Then you format them to a writable filesystem each.

If it shall serve for file exchange with MS-Windows or Macs, then you probably want just one partition with FAT as filesystem.

I would do the first and second step by program "fdisk" and the third
step by program "mkfs.fat".
If you prefer a GUI program, look for GParted or what your desktop
offers for the tasks of partitioning and filesystem formatting.

Of course, we're not told what "normal" means, what was tried,
nor how normality was tested. It's possible that they need to
use, say, mkdosfs to get back to the state in which USB sticks
are typically bought, so it can be plugged into other devices.

Cheers,
David.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Hi,

Lee wrote:

My question is: how do I reformat the flash drive so it's usable as a "normal" flash drive again?

You have to delete the partitions of the USB stick which came with
the ISO.
Then you create one or more partitions.
Then you format them to a writable filesystem each.

If it shall serve for file exchange with MS-Windows or Macs, then you
probably want just one partition with FAT as filesystem.

I would do the first and second step by program "fdisk" and the third
step by program "mkfs.fat".
If you prefer a GUI program, look for GParted or what your desktop
offers for the tasks of partitioning and filesystem formatting.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

In hindsight it would of course have been advisable to make a copy
of the USB stick to an image file before putting the netinst ISO onto it. Assuming that the USB stick is /dev/sdc and you home directory offers
enough space for the size of the USB stick this would have been something
like:

dd if=/dev/sdc bs=1M of="$HOME"/usb_stick.img

Later you would put it back onto the USB stick the same way as you did
with the netinst ISO image.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Tue, 25 Jun 2024 09:53:41 -0400
Lee <[email protected]> wrote:

My old laptop died; I just got a new one and it has _no_ optical
drive. But the Debian install from flash instructions were excellent
& I now have a laptop running Debian.

My question is: how do I reformat the flash drive so it's usable as a "normal" flash drive again?

Nothing I tried worked.. I ended up putting the thumb drive in a
Windows machine and formatting it there; it would be nice to know how
to restore the thumb drive to working order on Debian.

Experience suggests that if it will be used on a Windows machine, e.g.
for file transfer, it's probably best to format it in Windows.
Otherwise Windows will give the occasional error message about it,
offer to fix it, and fail miserably. It will still work.

Obviously only for the Windows formats, FAT or NTFS. Microsoft pretends
not to know about things Not Invented Here.

It's possible to have MS and Linux partitions on the same drive. I have
one like that, FAT for interchange and ext4 for files that Linux
software insists must have certain permissions.

--
Joe

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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You can easily refotrmat it, either using fdisk or if you want a GUI, use gparted.


With fdisk (also you can use cfdisk) I suggest first to delete all partitions, then create new one. Then choose your type (it is 0b for FAT32).

Write to disk and quit fdisk.

Then format the new partition, for vfat use: mkfs.vfat /dev/sdc1 (or whatever your partition is).

Everything must be done as root (of course) so be carefull.

Hope this helps.

Best

Hans

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Hi,

David Wright wrote:

Of course, we're not told what "normal" means,

I guess it's a single partition with FAT.
Around 2010 i got three USB sticks and kept their compressed original
content. For examination of their MBR partition tables it is enough to
cut off their heads:

$ gunzip <usb_2gb_original.gz | dd bs=512 count=1 of=x.img
...
$ /sbin/fdisk -l x.img
...
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
x.img1 * 32 3915775 3915744 1.9G 6 FAT16

The other two have

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
x.img1 38 7839719 7839682 3.8G b W95 FAT32

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
x.img1 * 63 15794175 15794113 7.5G b W95 FAT32

The types do not necessarily tell the actual filesystem type.
But since that was the initial partitioning, i trust them and do not
uncompress the whole images in order to inspect them.

what was tried, nor how normality was tested.

Yeah. More tangible info would help with helping.

It's possible that they need to
use, say, mkdosfs to get back to the state in which USB sticks
are typically bought, so it can be plugged into other devices.

Since at least a decade, "man mkdosfs" describes "mkfs.fat".

But before creating a new filesystem, it is necessary to create a
suitable partition for hosting it.
An USB stick with the netinst ISO shows two partitions:

$ /sbin/fdisk -l debian-12.2.0-amd64-netinst.iso

Disk debian-12.2.0-amd64-netinst.iso: 628 MiB, 658505728 bytes, 1286144 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x52bf7ba9

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
debian-12.2.0-amd64-netinst.iso1 * 0 1286143 1286144 628M 0 Empty
debian-12.2.0-amd64-netinst.iso2 4476 23451 18976 9.3M ef EFI (FAT-12

Partition editors might react unfriendly on the "Empty" partition which surrounds the EFI partition. The latter has a FAT filesystem which is completely filled up:

$ sudo mount offset=2291712 /mnt/fat
$ df /mnt/fat
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/loop0 9450 9446 4 100% /mnt/fat

The files in this FAT are the initial boot stages for amd64 and i386:

$ find /mnt/fat -type f
/mnt/fat/efi/boot/bootx64.efi
/mnt/fat/efi/boot/grubx64.efi
/mnt/fat/efi/boot/bootia32.efi
/mnt/fat/efi/boot/grubia32.efi
/mnt/fat/efi/debian/grub.cfg

Their only purpose is to convince Secure Boot that the GRUB software is acceptable and to find the ISO filesystem where the rest of GRUB's
equipment is stored.

So both partitions are of no use for the general purpose USB stick
and can be deleted.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Hi,

i wrote:

$ sudo mount offset=2291712 /mnt/fat

For the archives, this would of course have to be

$ sudo mount offset=2291712 debian-12.2.0-amd64-netinst.iso /mnt/fat

The number 2291712 was computed from the partition start block 4476
multiplied by the block size 512.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 6/25/24 10:39, David Wright wrote:

Of course, we're not told what "normal" means, what was tried,
nor how normality was tested. It's possible that they need to
use, say, mkdosfs to get back to the state in which USB sticks
are typically bought, so it can be plugged into other devices.

I keep my thumb drives in extN, because interchangeability with other OSes
is not normally a concern. So for me, that is normal and FAT is an aberration.

--
Logic is a systematic method of coming to
the wrong conclusion with confidence.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 6/25/24 15:43, Lee wrote:

Whoever came up with scroll bars
that play hide & seek should be tarred & feathered.

Agree. Most programs that do that crap can be convinced not to. Same with Thunderbird putting the menu bar below that next bit, whatever you call it. Search the net for |<program> scrollbar|.

--
Q: Why do black holes never learn?
A: Because they're too dense. -- ZurkisPhreek on Fark

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Entire attribution and quote removed to avoid the mailing list
treating this post as spam.

I got the impression that Lee used windows in the past (and may
still), which is why I didn't suggest the same as Joe. (Lee did
write "on Debian").

And by devices, I was thinking more of TVs, printers, scanners,
set-top boxes, etc.

One of our six TVs can handle ext2/3; nothing else can.

Cheers,
David.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Wednesday, 26-06-2024 at 05:43 Lee wrote:

On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 11:47 AM Joe wrote:

On Tue, 25 Jun 2024 09:53:41 -0400
Lee wrote:

My old laptop died; I just got a new one and it has _no_ optical
drive. But the Debian install from flash instructions were excellent
& I now have a laptop running Debian.

My question is: how do I reformat the flash drive so it's usable as a "normal" flash drive again?

Did you try gparted, a user friendly graphical partition manager? I do not know if it would do what you want, but I expect it will, it has always helped me out.

Nothing I tried worked.. I ended up putting the thumb drive in a
Windows machine and formatting it there; it would be nice to know how
to restore the thumb drive to working order on Debian.

Experience suggests that if it will be used on a Windows machine, e.g.
for file transfer, it's probably best to format it in Windows.

Yes, but I did the "burn the boats" thing with my new desktop & wiped
windows and installed debian.

Good on you ! I support you in this move.

If you have any grips or difficulties, please mention them. After five years of using XFCE, I no longer have desires to go back to Windows. Steam has helped me play the few Windows based games that I play with my children. I have yet to master Wine, but
then Linux has all the programs I need so I don't have much need for Wine.

My remaining Windows 10 machine goes end of life... at the end of the
year? So I need to learn how to live without windows -- which I have

I would like you to keep a diary of your journey, of what challenges you face and how you moved past, this could help other people you know who want to make this journey.

mostly. I just haven't adjusted to Linux and the horrible UI :( Or

I wonder what UI you are using?

Would you be using Gnome? There are many people who really like the Gnome UI, but I do not, I prefer KDE, Cinnamon, and XFCE.

Maybe because I am a long time Windows user, I prefer text based menus over the smartphone style icon based menus, like Gnome, Windows 3.x, Windows 8.x, Windows 11.

I use XFCE on my main PC, and very much appreciate it. Simple, elegant, and to the point menu system, customisable task bars, customisable system tray, etc.

When my wife returned to Linux this year, I set up her PC with KDE Plasma 6. I find this UI very attractive, modern, and a great temptation to leave XFCE, but XFCE is just so nice and simple to use so I will stay with XFCE for now. I use Menulibre to add
menu items.

I also like Cinnamon, I find it 'beautiful' to look at, and a very simple and uncluttered UI. Great for computer users who never change the look and feel of their UI.

I think KDE is better for someone who is familiar with computers and wants to make a few changes to their UI's behaviour.

So far I have not mentioned Mate. If I recall correctly, Mate has three main menus, I only see the need for one, hence prefer KDE, Cinnamon, and XFCE.

how user _un_friendly linux can be. Whoever came up with scroll bars
that play hide & seek should be tarred & feathered.

If I recall correctly, in KDE and in Firefox I was able to turn scroll bars on permanently, so much nicer than "scroll bars that play hide & seek". I am currently using KDE, and my Firefox and File manager have permanently visible scroll bars, 'as it
should be'.

Disclaimer: These are my personal preferences. Other peoples experiences and preferences may vary.

Lee

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On Wednesday, 26 June 2024 00:26:00 BST George at Clug wrote:

On Wednesday, 26-06-2024 at 05:43 Lee wrote:

On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 11:47 AM Joe wrote:

On Tue, 25 Jun 2024 09:53:41 -0400

[snip]

If you have any grips or difficulties, please mention them. After five years of using XFCE, I no longer have desires to go back to Windows. Steam has helped me play the few Windows based games that I play with my children. I have yet to master Wine, but then Linux has all the programs I need so I don't have much need for Wine.

I've been mightily impressed by steam. The only reason my win10 is still around is because it has skyrim on it (and a load of mods). Skyrim works under steam but I can't be bothered figuring out how to get the mod manager and other
tools to work.

Within steam you can elect to designate a particular proton (aka wine) version for a game. Google usually solves figuring that out.

Fwiw, the only thing about win10 which has impressed me is WSL2. Not enough to advocate keeping win10 but to avoid me coaching newbies through putty. Can't really recommend cygwin any more.


OP:
The best thing about linux is, when you gain a bit of knowledge, just how little the operating system matters wrt to your data. I've been depreciating a couple of centos boxes (raid 6 servers). They're now debian and the data disks are unchanged. Loosely, all I did was create a debian VM with passthrough to an ssd, copied the samba/nfs/iscsi configs over and stuck the ssd into an esata
caddy on the back of the centos server. Downtime was reboot time plus time to go into the bios and change the boot drive to the esata.

Sod's law came into play (in reverse). I bought an rpi4 and a 5 bay usb enclosure. Spent many many days backing up (rsync) both boxes. If I'd not had a backup something horrible would have happened. ;-)

My old kmail client was running gentoo from, must be 15 years ago, KDE 3.5 iirc. I exported all its emails then imported them into this kmail. I didn't expect it to work. Ditto backup so it did.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Lee wrote:

My gripes and difficulties are the same thing. No universal image
viewer like Ifranview,

`apt search image viewer` suggests: eog, eom, ephoto, photoqt..
among dozens of others. But start with one of those.

an html editor would be nice -- something along
the lines of the seamonkey html editor but current software and
supported

`apt search html editor` offers a bunch of suggestions, but
really most editors have support for specialized syntax checking
and previews and such. You might try bluefish.

, something equivalent to notepad++

Assuming that you don't want the graphical forms of emacs or
vim, how about bluefish, or notepadqq ?

, something equivalent to
winmerge (meld is nice, but isn't really a substitute)

You will have to be specific about what makes meld "not a
substitute". Assume whoever you are talking to doesn't know what
winmerge is.

, a cloneSpy equivalent would be nice

duff, perforate, rdfind, dupeguru...

Exact Audio Copy doesn't work on Linux, but supposedly does run under
wine so that's a possibility..

You want to pull stuff off of an optical disk? cdparanoia, or
one of the things that wraps it like ripit or ripperx.

Debian firefox does NOT allow one to do
TLS intercept - ie. this does not work:
C:\UTIL>cat firefox-tlsdecode.bat
set SSLKEYLOGFILE=C:\Users\Lee\AppData\Local\Temp\FF-SSLkeys.txt
start C:\"Program Files\Firefox\Firefox.exe"

@rem wireshark:
@rem edit / preferences
@rem protocols / tls (v2.6: protocols / ssl)
@rem paste SSLKEYLOGFILE filename into (Pre)-Master-Secret log
filename (was SSL debug file entry)

I have no idea what you are trying to do there, but I'm sure a
DOS batch file won't run here, especially since it appears to
mostly be comments.

Describe what you want to do, not how you want it to happen.

-dsr-

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Sunday, 30-06-2024 at 02:46 Lee wrote:

On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 7:26 PM George wrote:

On Wednesday, 26-06-2024 at 05:43 Lee wrote:

On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 11:47 AM Joe  wrote:

On Tue, 25 Jun 2024 09:53:41 -0400
Lee wrote:

My old laptop died; I just got a new one and it has _no_

optical

drive.  But the Debian install from flash instructions

were excellent

& I now have a laptop running Debian.

My question is: how do I reformat the flash drive so it's

usable as a

"normal" flash drive again?

Did you try gparted, a user friendly graphical partition manager?

No.  It wasn't installed and fdisk was, so I went with fdisk.

Yes, but I did the "burn the boats" thing with my new desktop &

wiped

windows and installed debian.

Good on you !  I support you in this move.

If you have any grips or difficulties, please mention them.

My gripes and difficulties are the same thing.  No universal image
viewer like Ifranview, an html editor would be nice -- something

along

the lines of the seamonkey html editor but current software and
supported, something equivalent to notepad++, something equivalent

to

winmerge (meld is nice, but isn't really a substitute), a cloneSpy
equivalent would be nice, I'm getting used to the linux privoxy log
viewer vs. the iconified thing that sits there on the windows

taskbar,

Exact Audio Copy doesn't work on Linux, but supposedly does run

under

wine so that's a possibility.. Debian firefox does NOT allow one to

do

TLS intercept - ie. this does not work:
C:\UTIL>cat firefox-tlsdecode.bat
set SSLKEYLOGFILE=C:\Users\Lee\AppData\Local\Temp\FF-SSLkeys.txt
start C:\"Program Files\Firefox\Firefox.exe"

@rem wireshark:
@rem   edit / preferences
@rem   protocols / tls  (v2.6: protocols / ssl)
@rem     paste SSLKEYLOGFILE filename into (Pre)-Master-Secret

log

filename (was SSL debug file entry)

But the major things that were keeping me from migrating to Debian

are

fixable now in xfce:
The xfce4-terminal window can be configured so that left double

click

selects a "word" and right click pastes it in
installing bits of the Chicago95 theme makes all the scrollbars
permanently visible, with up & down arrows at either end of the

scroll

bar that scroll by one line
clicking in the scrollbar trough above or below the bar scrolls the
window up one window size instead of jumping to that point in the
scroll buffer

My remaining Windows 10 machine goes end of life... at the end

of the

year?  So I need to learn how to live without windows -- which

I have

I would like you to keep a diary of your journey, of what

challenges you face and how you moved past, this could help other
people you know who want to make this journey.

I don't know how helpful a diary of my journey would be.  My

workplace

had a policy of Windows for the desktop and RedHat for servers in

data

centers, so I got used to cygwin on windows to ssh into linux

servers

(that other people maintained).  Then Microsoft came out with the
Windows 10 spyware/operating-system-as-a-service and it was clearly
time to abandon ship.  Which wasn't possible at work, but at home

I

don't have to put up with the M$ crapware so.. new machine, blow

away

everything that came installed on it and install Debian on the PC at
home.

To make a long story short, I have years of experience with the
end-user side of linux & almost none with the maintenance side..

like

formatting thumb drives or anything requiring sudo access.

I wonder what UI you are using?

Xfce

Hi Lee,

Thanks for your response.  

I abandoned Windows after Windows 8 when I learned they had included "telemetry" at a significant level of data gathering. I understand
that our data is valuable to Tech companies to gather and sell, but I
would prefer if they did not.

You are doing some way more technical things than I ask of Linux. I do
not even use Bluefish which is a nice HTML editor. I do so little
technical things with Linux I only need the Mousepad text editor, and
of course, I use 'nano' not 'vim'.

I like XFCE, simple but effective. However because I am too lazy to
install specific useful applications, I usually install both Cinnamon
and XFCE, but then only ever log into XFCE. Doing this installs a
number of useful applications that I like. For example this way I get
to use a program that calls itself "Image Viewer". I once tracked down
its real name, but have forgotten it, 'eog' maybe?

I have issues remembering things, hence I use GUI applications that
have visible menus over Terminal applications that require the
memorisation of typed in commands, well, where ever possible. I do
resort to using the terminal to run 'find' for locating files, and
files containing text strings.

Recently I have been attempting to get Wine to work. Gecko does not
seem to install. I have no idea if 'wine msiexec' does anything, as it
never reports success or failure whether I specify a msi file that
exists or does not exist. When I run 'wine iexplore' the page is
blank, and I get an message like 'Could not find Wine Gecko' and no
page text is displayed. There are times like this with Linux where
things do not seem to work and documentation is quite limited. (If
anyone knows a simple solution to this issue, please let me know, but
I mention it, not to find a solution here, but as one my challenges in
using Linux). PlayOnLinux seems to work OK, not sure what they are
doing for Gecko?

I have used Steam's Pluton for running a few Windows Games my family
plays. I had to replaced our Nvidia GPUs for Radeon GPUs. I still
cannot get Nvidia to work well in either Debian or Arch Linux, despite
people on YouTube saying that Nvidia works well in Linux.

All the best on using Linux.

George.

Lee

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<style type="text/css">
body,p,td,div,span{
font-size:13px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
};
body p{
margin:0px;
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<body>On Sunday, 30-06-2024 at 02:46 Lee wrote:<br>
&gt; On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 7:26 PM George wrote:<br>
&gt; &gt;<br>
&gt; &gt; On Wednesday, 26-06-2024 at 05:43 Lee wrote:<br>
&gt; &gt; &gt; On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 11:47 AM Joe&nbsp;&nbsp;wrote:<br> &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt;<br>
&gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; On Tue, 25 Jun 2024 09:53:41 -0400<br>
&gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; Lee wrote:<br>
&gt; &gt; &gt; &gt;<br>
&gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; My old laptop died; I just got a new one and it has _no_ optical<br>
&gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; drive.&nbsp;&nbsp;But the Debian install from flash instructions were excellent<br>
&gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; &amp; I now have a laptop running Debian.<br>
&gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt;<br>
&gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; My question is: how do I reformat the flash drive so it's usable as a<br>
&gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; "normal" flash drive again?<br>
&gt; &gt;<br>
&gt; &gt; Did you try gparted, a user friendly graphical partition manager?<br> &gt; <br>
&gt; No.&nbsp;&nbsp;It wasn't installed and fdisk was, so I went with fdisk.<br>
&gt; <br>
&gt; &gt; &gt; Yes, but I did the "burn the boats" thing with my new desktop &amp; wiped<br>
&gt; &gt; &gt; windows and installed debian.<br>
&gt; &gt;<br>
&gt; &gt; Good on you !&nbsp;&nbsp;I support you in this move.<br>
&gt; &gt;<br>
&gt; &gt; If you have any grips or difficulties, please mention them.<br>
&gt; <br>
&gt; My gripes and difficulties are the same thing.&nbsp;&nbsp;No universal image<br>
&gt; viewer like Ifranview, an html editor would be nice -- something along<br> &gt; the lines of the seamonkey html editor but current software and<br>
&gt; supported, something equivalent to notepad++, something equivalent to<br> &gt; winmerge (meld is nice, but isn't really a substitute), a cloneSpy<br> &gt; equivalent would be nice, I'm getting used to the linux privoxy log<br> &gt; viewer vs. the iconified thing that sits there on the windows taskbar,<br> &gt; Exact Audio Copy doesn't work on Linux, but supposedly does run under<br> &gt; wine so that's a possibility.. Debian firefox does NOT allow one to do<br> &gt; TLS intercept - ie. this does not work:<br>
&gt; C:\UTIL&gt;cat firefox-tlsdecode.bat<br>
&gt; set SSLKEYLOGFILE=C:\Users\Lee\AppData\Local\Temp\FF-SSLkeys.txt<br>
&gt; start C:\"Program Files\Firefox\Firefox.exe"<br>
&gt; <br>
&gt; @rem wireshark:<br>
&gt; @rem&nbsp;&nbsp; edit / preferences<br>
&gt; @rem&nbsp;&nbsp; protocols / tls&nbsp;&nbsp;(v2.6: protocols / ssl)<br> &gt; @rem&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; paste SSLKEYLOGFILE filename into (Pre)-Master-Secret log<br>
&gt; filename (was SSL debug file entry)<br>
&gt; <br>
&gt; But the major things that were keeping me from migrating to Debian are<br> &gt; fixable now in xfce:<br>
&gt; The xfce4-terminal window can be configured so that left double click<br> &gt; selects a "word" and right click pastes it in<br>
&gt; installing bits of the Chicago95 theme makes all the scrollbars<br>
&gt; permanently visible, with up &amp; down arrows at either end of the scroll<br>
&gt; bar that scroll by one line<br>
&gt; clicking in the scrollbar trough above or below the bar scrolls the<br> &gt; window up one window size instead of jumping to that point in the<br>
&gt; scroll buffer<br>
&gt; <br>
&gt; &gt; &gt; My remaining Windows 10 machine goes end of life... at the end of the<br>
&gt; &gt; &gt; year?&nbsp;&nbsp;So I need to learn how to live without windows -- which I have<br>
&gt; <br>
&gt; &gt; I would like you to keep a diary of your journey, of what challenges you face and how you moved past, this could help other people you know who want to make this journey.<br>
&gt; <br>
&gt; I don't know how helpful a diary of my journey would be.&nbsp;&nbsp;My workplace<br>
&gt; had a policy of Windows for the desktop and RedHat for servers in data<br> &gt; centers, so I got used to cygwin on windows to ssh into linux servers<br> &gt; (that other people maintained).&nbsp;&nbsp;Then Microsoft came out with the<br>
&gt; Windows 10 spyware/operating-system-as-a-service and it was clearly<br> &gt; time to abandon ship.&nbsp;&nbsp;Which wasn't possible at work, but at home I<br>
&gt; don't have to put up with the M$ crapware so.. new machine, blow away<br> &gt; everything that came installed on it and install Debian on the PC at<br> &gt; home.<br>
&gt; <br>
&gt; To make a long story short, I have years of experience with the<br>
&gt; end-user side of linux &amp; almost none with the maintenance side.. like<br>
&gt; formatting thumb drives or anything requiring sudo access.<br>
&gt; <br>
&gt; &gt; I wonder what UI you are using?<br>
&gt; <br>
&gt; Xfce<br>

Hi Lee, <br>

Thanks for your response.&nbsp;&nbsp; <br>

I abandoned Windows after Windows 8 when I learned they had included "telemetry" at a significant level of data gathering. I understand that our data is valuable to Tech companies to gather and sell, but I would prefer if they did not.<br>

You are doing some way more technical things than I ask of Linux. I do not even use Bluefish which is a nice HTML editor. I do so little technical things with Linux I only need the Mousepad text editor, and of course, I use 'nano' not 'vim'.<br>

I like XFCE, simple but effective. However because I am too lazy to install specific useful applications, I usually install both Cinnamon and XFCE, but then only ever log into XFCE. Doing this installs a number of useful applications that I like. For
example this way I get to use a program that calls itself "Image Viewer". I once tracked down its real name, but have forgotten it, 'eog' maybe?<br>

I have issues remembering things, hence I use GUI applications that have visible menus over Terminal applications that require the memorisation of typed in commands, well, where ever possible. I do resort to using the terminal to run 'find' for locating
files, and files containing text strings.<br>

Recently I have been attempting to get Wine to work. Gecko does not seem to install. I have no idea if 'wine msiexec' does anything, as it never reports success or failure whether I specify a msi file that exists or does not exist. When I run 'wine
iexplore' the page is blank, and I get an message like 'Could not find Wine Gecko' and no page text is displayed. There are times like this with Linux where things do not seem to work and documentation is quite limited. (If anyone knows a simple solution
to this issue, please let me know, but I mention it, not to find a solution here, but as one my challenges in using Linux). PlayOnLinux seems to work OK, not sure what they are doing for Gecko?<br>

I have used Steam's Pluton for running a few Windows Games my family plays. I had to replaced our Nvidia GPUs for Radeon GPUs. I still cannot get Nvidia to work well in either Debian or Arch Linux, despite people on YouTube saying that Nvidia works well
in Linux.<br>

All the best on using Linux.<br>

George.<br>









&gt; <br>
&gt; Lee<br>
&gt; <br>
&gt;</body></html>

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On Mon, Jul 01, 2024 at 09:05:51AM -0400, Lee wrote:

On Mon, Jul 1, 2024 at 4:53 AM jeremy ardley <[email protected]> wrote:

[...]

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ritwickdey.LiveServer

Thanks, but no thanks. That seems to include the Microsoft spyware licensing: https://code.visualstudio.com/license
Data Collection. The software may collect information about you and
your use of the software, and send that to Microsoft.

Desperate for Data :-)

But yes, that's what they currently do.

Cheers
--
t

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In the more general case, telemetry is not in itself
considered 'evil'.

I consider it evil if it's opt-out rather than opt-in.


Stefan

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On 7/1/24 23:41, Stefan Monnier wrote:

In the more general case, telemetry is not in itself
considered 'evil'.

I consider it evil if it's opt-out rather than opt-in.

Stefan

I think that highly depends on what that telemetry is sending. Crash
reports, yes, contents of a list of phone numbers it found, not no, but
hell no! Ditto for passwords and such.

Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
- Louis D. Brandeis

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Is telemetry evil?  Are guns evil?  Philosophical questions?



I find it objectionable when people gather "telemetry" about "me" and
not just the causes of the "blue screens of death".


I find it objectionable when people gather personal "telemetry" and
then on sell that information to others for whatever purposes, whether
it is to target me with ads, or political analysts like Cambridge
Analytica, or to alter my "Social Credit Score", or to be used to
cancel my Credit Cards, or for whatever other purpose.



While collecting information about individuals and selling their data
is common practice these days, I object. I cannot stop it, but I can
at least use systems that gather such data as minimally as possible.
Hopefully by using Linux for 99% of my computing experience, I am
giving Google and Windows less data.


Of course, by the mere fact of visiting a web site (for example, that
has Google Analytics installed), and by writing emails like this that
well be scanned, and then this data will be added to my profile by any companies collecting data to gain some view of me, which they will
then sell to political groups, marketers, etc.


Scott McNally’s quip that ‘you have no privacy, get over it’ is
sadly true, but I don't think he meant that we have to resign
ourselves to this fast, we can but do what we can to reduce the data
collected, even while realising our efforts are mostly in vain.



https://lockstep.com.au/library/quotes/


Privacy is an interesting topic.



What has privacy to do with a Debian User email list?  Well I am
hoping by using Debian less of my data ends up in large tech company
hands. At least let me dream that it does.


I encourage others to use Debian, if by doing so will let them sleep
better at night, even if it is in ignorance.



George.






On Tuesday, 02-07-2024 at 13:40 Stefan Monnier wrote:

In the more general case, telemetry is not in itself
considered 'evil'.

I consider it evil if it's opt-out rather than opt-in.


        Stefan

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font-size:13px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
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<body><br><div>Is telemetry evil?&nbsp; Are guns evil?&nbsp; Philosophical questions?<br></div><div><br></div><div>I find it objectionable when people gather "telemetry" about "me" and not just the causes of the "blue screens of death".</div><div><br></

<div>I find it objectionable when people gather personal "telemetry" and then on sell that information to others for whatever purposes, whether it is to target me with ads, or political analysts like Cambridge Analytica, or to alter my "Social Credit

Score", or to be used to cancel my Credit Cards, or for whatever other purpose.<br></div><div><br></div><div>While collecting information about individuals and selling their data is common practice these days, I object. I cannot stop it, but I can at
least use systems that gather such data as minimally as possible. Hopefully by using Linux for 99% of my computing experience, I am giving Google and Windows less data.</div><div><br></div><div>Of course, by the mere fact of visiting a web site (for
example, that has Google Analytics installed), and by writing emails like this that well be scanned, and then this data will be added to my profile by any companies collecting data to gain some view of me, which they will then sell to political groups,
marketers, etc.</div><div><br></div><div>Scott McNally’s quip that ‘you have no privacy, get over it’ is sadly true, but I don't think he meant that we have to resign ourselves to this fast, we can but do what we can to reduce the data collected,
even while realising our efforts are mostly in vain. <br></div><div><br></div><div>https://lockstep.com.au/library/quotes/</div><div><br></div><div>Privacy is an interesting topic.<br></div><div><br></div><div>What has privacy to do with a Debian User
email list?&nbsp; Well I am hoping by using Debian less of my data ends up in large tech company hands. At least let me dream that it does.</div><div><br></div><div>I encourage others to use Debian, if by doing so will let them sleep better at night,
even if it is in ignorance.<br></div><div><br></div><div>George.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>On Tuesday, 02-07-2024 at 13:40 Stefan Monnier wrote:<br><blockquote style="border:0;border-left: 2px solid #22437f; padding:0px; margin:
0px; padding-left:5px; margin-left: 5px; ">&gt; In the more general case, telemetry is not in itself<br>
&gt; considered 'evil'.<br>

I consider it evil if it's opt-out rather than opt-in.<br>


&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Stefan</blockquote></body></html>

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On Mon, Jul 01, 2024 at 11:40:56PM -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:

In the more general case, telemetry is not in itself
considered 'evil'.

I consider it evil if it's opt-out rather than opt-in.

Absolutely.

Plus (a) I don't trust most vendors to be telling the truth
whenever their bottom line is at stake and (b) I've seen
enough dark patterns to nudge users to not opt out to be more
than disgusted.

Just... no.

Cheers
--
t

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George at Clug writes:

While collecting information about individuals and selling their data
is common practice these days

It's common practice because people won't pay for services but will
tolerate advertising.

Of course, by the mere fact of visiting a web site (for example, that
has Google Analytics installed)

I've never visited a site that cares that I block Google Analytics.

The best way to protect your "personal information" is to not have
accounts with any of the popular "social media" services, especially
Google, Facebook, and Twitter (and never use Windows, of course).
--
John Hasler
[email protected]
Elmwood, WI USA

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Hello,

On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 09:53:41AM -0400, Lee wrote:

My question is: how do I reformat the flash drive so it's usable as a "normal" flash drive again?

Nowadays, people rarely "format" (*) their "drives".

They create filesystems on raw devices.

For example `mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdX`, where /dev/sdX is the raw device corresponding to your USB key (see the lsblk command, for example).

Nothing I tried worked.. I ended up putting the thumb drive in a
Windows machine and formatting it there; it would be nice to know how
to restore the thumb drive to working order on Debian.

However, for Microsoft compatibility, in addition, you will need
a partition table. Linux, except for booting (because of BIOS
requirements), does not require partition tables.

So, first create a partition e.g. with fdisk[1]: this will make
/dev/sdX1 available in lsblk.

Then again, for Microsoft compatibility, you need to create
a Microsoft-compatible filesystem. One good alternative is
VFAT.

Thus with `mkfs.vfat /dev/sdX1`.

Please double-check you use the right raw device name, as fdisk and mkfs commands are destructive.

(*) actually the last time I did format a device using a SCSI
command was in the nineties -- some people differentiate
"low-level formatting" with "high-level formatting", which
is better called "creating a filesystem" -- yes back then
it was sometimes useful to reformat using 256 bytes/sector
for RAID0 applications :)
[1] https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/create-a-partition-in-linux

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