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Software Tools / Re: Experiences, thoughts and rants about using Linux as a newbie after Windows
« Last post by awemawson on December 31, 2025, 12:36:45 PM »
All too blooming complicated for me these days - bring back CP/M is what I say.

Happy New Year everybody.
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Electronics & IC Programing / Re: Pi PICO DRO/Quill-Knee combiner
« Last post by BillTodd on December 31, 2025, 12:35:22 PM »
This black resin is really sticky stuff when cold, cleaing it off was a bit of a bugger.

The case clips together, so Im not at all sure if it'll come apart in one piece
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Radio Control Models / Re: 1/16 scale Terramac RT7R
« Last post by ddmckee54 on December 31, 2025, 01:55:18 AM »
Santa brought me a garage door for an early Christmas present, he's also bringing me a P1S/AMS combo as a late Christmas present.  The gaping hole in the front of my garage is now filled and the building is weather-tight.  Insulating it, or any other work on the inside, is going to have to wait for warmer weather.

I tried printing some larger than 200mm stuff  on the MP10 and it crapped out again, that's why Santa's bringing me the late present.

I also decided it was time to install the Micro Swiss all-metal hot end on the D6.  In the process I discovered the root cause of the jamming issue I'd been having on it.  The D6 uses an aluminum block with a series of slots milled in it as a heatsink for the heat break.  This block is bolted to the bottom of the extruder drive, which caps off the open top of the slots.  The cooling fan blows air through the slots to cool the heat break.  The Micro Swiss all metal hot end replaces this heatsink with one of their own design.  I found 2 things that were issues with the original heatsink.  First, at least 75% of the cooling slots were blocked off with dust,  This would cause heat creep, and eventually the filament would be melting in the heat break, not the nozzle, causing a jam.  I'm going to have to blow these slots out once in a while or the same thing will happen to the Micro Swiss heatsink.  (When I found that issue I almost regretted ordering the P1S, until I remembered that to get a quality print out of the D6 I have to print at 60mm/sec, while they recommend 200mm/sec on the P1S.)  The second issue I found was that the slots that were right next to where the heat break went through the heatsink had no exit, they were dead-headed so about 25% of the heatsink NEVER worked properly.  The cooling fan could pressurize the slots, but that air would be static so it wouldn't help cool the heatsink.  Those slots didn't have any dust in them which shows no air was circulating through them.  The Micro Swiss heatsink has an exit milled in for these slots. 

I finally found some 1/4"x1/2" aluminum flat bar for the RT7's upper frame rails, so I'm going back to Plan A and using the aluminum frame rails.  They'll be a little easier to machine on the equipment I've got.
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Software Tools / Re: Experiences, thoughts and rants about using Linux as a newbie after Windows
« Last post by vtsteam on December 30, 2025, 10:48:07 PM »
Hi sorveltaja, just to maybe help/explain why wine in many current Linux's doesn't work with many older programs (like in my case, old free Google SketchUp 8 3D-CAD, which is essential for me), we need to also install 32bit compatibility architecture for wine to handle these older 32 bit programs.

I also need that 32 bit compatibility to run my older Dell laser printer driver in CUPS. If you find mysterious problems like the above two in using windows programs or drivers, this may be a solution. Many linuxs now support only 64 bit applications and drivers out of the box. But for most there is an addon to allow you to also run 32 bit legacy software.

In Puppy linuxes from Fossapup F96-CE on back, they do not use apt or synaptic to load programs, but include a special Puppy Linux package manager that handles that stuff without using the console.

In later Puppy Linuxes, Bookwormpup64, and on, they do include apt and Synaptic, but also a degraded Puppy package manager. They have (to me) the same problems of needing to use the console in many cases to make an installation. HOWEVER, now there is a move to make a large number of applications available as appimages. These do not require a package installer at all. You simply download the application to your hard drive, make a shortcut to it, and then it runs itself. In other words, it acts a lot like a Windows program, without needing any installer.

None of the above Puppy types require sudo or su to work in the terminal. They are considered single-user systems, not multi-user, so there is no need to isolate multiple users from the administrator. The user and the administrator are all the one -- the computer owner. This is how Windows 98 used to work, as well, and all early computers.

But I also rarely needed to use the terminal in Puppy Linux. Sometimes I'd use it to check a printing cue via the command "lpstat" or clear it. Or occasionally I'd run a program from terminal instead of clicking on it graphically -- that was useful if it was a new program that crashed silently. In terminal you would get the actual error messages that happened in the crash, and you could troubleshoot the cause.

But that was pretty much all the need I had for using the console. I contrast that greatly with the period, about a dozen years ago, when I used Ubuntu. There was a constant need for troubleshooting, and installing, and correcting issues with the terminal.

Okay, enough about Puppy Linux as an historic background -- I stopped using it after 10 + years about two months ago, in favor of EasyOS. Really, to me, EasyOs is a highly developed Puppy, by the original developer of Puppy, although he doesn't say that.

In relation to what I wrote above, one very big feature is its Package Manager, which I think is the best I've ever seen, and most comprehensive of any I've tried. It can load a great variety of different application types into EasyOS : .debs appimages, flatpaks, .pets, .sfs and it does a lot of behind the scenes work automatically -- for instance refreshing the file list from the repositories for .debs. It also offers to run any application as a restricted user, or as root, your choice at installation time.

Another advantage of EasyOS is that it can take a snapshot of your system and store it at any time. If you ever have problems, you can always revert to a former snapshot.

The entire system upgrades seamlessly with the push of a button, but can be also rolled back to a former snapshot or system version. The speed of upgrade is amazing, because it only downloads a differential file from your last version.

All of your user data is encrypted automatically, also. And your browser can be run as its own user, so it does not have admin access. It is isolated.

Well that's enough, but I think it goes further to give a context for the fact that apt, synaptic, and sudo, are for me rarely needed, and terminal is used very occasionally only for troubleshooting, unlike the old days for me, using Debian and Ubuntu.

Again, this is not meant to in any way be negative about other Linuxes, and there are a huge variety of them. it's just an expression of my own personal preferences about how I like to work on my own computer. Obviously there's a learning curve for any Linux, and I've experienced that these last few months in transitioning from Puppy Linux to EasyOS. But I definitely think it was worthwhile. It's a very fast system with a minimal footprint, and huge capabilities in terms of available programs. 
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Introductions / Re: can I have videos in my posts
« Last post by kayzed1 on December 30, 2025, 04:29:41 PM »
Can you not get a good 9mm or some thing to sort them out :D
PS: AdeV, Tony STILL only has the rear bodywork to Paint and the Ford40 will be finished.
Been that way for 3 years...Motor sounds ace. you need to get down here and see it.
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Electronics & IC Programing / Re: Pi PICO DRO/Quill-Knee combiner
« Last post by BillTodd on December 30, 2025, 01:31:47 PM »
Thanks James,

I've 3d printed the box in resin and will post process it tomorrow (leaving the print to drip dry makes cleaning up so much easier).

I have yet to fit the knee scale to the mill , and with temperatures dropping here , it may be some time before I do  so , it'll be a while before I can call it done.

Happy new year everyone.
Bill
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Software Tools / Re: Experiences, thoughts and rants about using Linux as a newbie after Windows
« Last post by sorveltaja on December 30, 2025, 12:35:51 PM »
How to setup Mate desktop to more traditional style, and it doesn't have to be Debian, there are several other distros offering Mate as an option: https://distrowatch.com/search.php?desktop=MATE

So, after installation, it looks like this:

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Panel at the bottom has only two functions in it, 'show desktop' on the left and workspace switcher on the right side.

I rarely if ever use those. That panel can be removed by right-clicking (rmb - right mouse button) and selecting 'Delete this panel' (these items can be added afterwards if needed to the bottom panel):

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After that, rmb on upper panel → orientation → Bottom

(This is one thing that I prefer to do for convenience - otherwise, if the panel is on top, I keep hitting the clock, calendar and whatever icons are on the system tray, instead of minimizing or closing a maximized window).
 
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It has three menus on the left side, but I prefer to have only one. To delete those three menus, hover the mouse over them and rmb --> Remove from panel.

To add a single menu, rmb over the panel → Add to panel --> Compact menu.

That menu icon can be moved by rmb → move. When it's in desired position, rmb → Lock to panel.

Now there's much more compact start menu:

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By default, that panel doesn't show list of open windows, such as file manager.

To change that, rmb over it → Add to panel → Window list. It's barely visible on some themes, but it has three dots on the panel.

As mentioned before, when placing app icons to panel, their order may change after reboot. To avoid that, I've placed the 'window list' to about quarter of the panel  length from left side, and placed app icons to the left side of it. Not 100% proof, but seems to work.

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While experimenting with these panels, if needed, one can reset them to default by rmb → Reset all panels. 
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Electronics & IC Programing / Re: Pi PICO DRO/Quill-Knee combiner
« Last post by JamesC on December 30, 2025, 11:21:39 AM »
Good to see you back on this project Bill
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Software Tools / Re: Experiences, thoughts and rants about using Linux as a newbie after Windows
« Last post by sorveltaja on December 30, 2025, 10:43:19 AM »
Quote from: vtsteam on December 29, 2025, 10:55:05 AM

No offense meant by that. Just my personal take on those particular ways of loading programs. I don't see that it hurts anyone, and others may like them. To me, and I've show several newbies how to use Linux, those particular aspects are counterproductive. Newbies generally do not want to drop to console to add a program. Apt requires console work with a number of unfamiliar and ambiguous commands, such as update/upgrade remove/purge, etc.

Synaptic, is supposed to make this into an automated, more graphically oriented process, which would be great if it worked the way it is supposed to. But it has many problems. For instance try installing Wine with it. It will pull in many dependencies to do that. Then uninstall it immediately afterwards. It will not uninstall those most of those dependencies. This kind of thing eventually bloats a user's system. There are many other problems with Synaptic installations, which require a new user to go to apt to and console to make the program they want work.

Su and sudo, is for most people I've introduced to Linux, another point of confusion. At first they cannot understand why they do not have permission to do the things they want to do. While Linux, like Unix, was designed as a multi-user system, where a root administrator, and lesser permissioned users was a necessary practicality, most home computers are single user systems. Since now with sudo, anyone can override their permissions restrictions anyway, I personally prefer not to have to type that in.

EasyOS is just a personal preference for me, and I'm fine if others want to use any other Linux system, or even Windows or Mac OS's. To each their own. But there's nothing wrong, I think, in pointing out what one's personal likes and dislikes are, and the reasons for them, and I think those do not prevent newbies from trying Linux of any species.

I hope my comments are taken in the spirit meant -- not as a discouragement to anyone.

Thanks for expanding your reply. I'll admit that I have some learning to do about the way I worded my reply.

I tend to have rather strict way of writing about projects.

It consist offering context as best as I can, when I have an opinion (good, bad, ugly or whatever). You have provided a good example of that kind, and it can, and most probably will make the subject(s) more relatable and easier to approach.

But yeah, I've noticed the same thing with Wine. I've used this site to find the codename of the distro I'm using, and version-specific installation instructions: https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/wikis/Debian-Ubuntu

It requires separate app to handle Wine settings using GUI. I've used WineGUI, available at: https://gitlab.melroy.org/melroy/winegui/-/releases
 
So it certainly isn't as straightforward as Windows user like me might assume.

Another virtual machine, Qemu/virt-manager, has installation instructions at: https://christitus.com/vm-setup-in-linux/ 

What comes to VMWare player, it's one bugger to install. The version specific instructions I've managed to find from random website, they work, but I doubt that I'd install it again. And then there's the fact, that Broadcom once declared it to be free to use (it may have included VMWare Workstation as well), and then deleted the download links from their website.

In the end, it's true that using terminal isn't everyone's cup of tea. That was one of the main reasons that kept me away from Linux for a long time.

I don't remember which of the Linux Youtubers said: Linux doesn't protect you from yourself. In other words, using terminal can be scary, as it can break the system.

That's why I try to describe the steps when I use terminal, in as simple terms as I can, and if possible, add links to the content I'm referring. And no doubt, there's always room to improve that.
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Introductions / Re: can I have videos in my posts
« Last post by vtsteam on December 30, 2025, 08:59:36 AM »
Ade, we're drowning in bot new user requests -- I can't handle them any more.
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