Port MX to sideload on Win10? Let the debate begin!!!

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Adrian
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Re: Port MX to sideload on Win10? Let the debate begin!!!

#21 Post by Adrian »

If the OS relies on the BIOS clock alone then the BIOS clock is the correct and only time available.
I don't follow. If my BIOS is set up to 2:00 AM and the real time is 7:14 PM how is the BIOS the correct and only time available? When computer boots it will use 2:00 AM, when it finishes booting and gets the time from the network it will use 7:14 PM since that's the correct time. That's valid for both Windows and Linux...

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Re: Port MX to sideload on Win10? Let the debate begin!!!

#22 Post by dreamer »

Adrian wrote:
If the OS relies on the BIOS clock alone then the BIOS clock is the correct and only time available.
I don't follow. If my BIOS is set up to 2:00 AM and the real time is 7:14 PM how is the BIOS the correct and only time available? When computer boots it will use 2:00 AM, when it finishes booting and gets the time from the network it will use 7:14 PM since that's the correct time. That's valid for both Windows and Linux...
Yes if ntp is installed and configured to run at boot. The strange thing is that I uninstalled ntp in MX-16.1 and boot and shutdown still modified BIOS clock (according to text messages seen on the screen). It seems impossible to get rid of ntp from the boot/shutdown process.

Let's assume it is possible to remove ntp. Then the BIOS clock would be the only time available to the system. It would be "correct", because there would be no other time to refer to. If BIOS time for some reason was more than an hour incorrect, then of course dhcp renewal could suffer. I'm not saying ntp during boot/shutdown is automatically bad just that it's a lot of writing to the BIOS.

In Windows 7 you could boot with wildly incorrect BIOS time. It only updates once a month and not during boot. Unless that has been changed with a Windows update recently... Summer-time wasn't affected because it's related to date. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the BIOS clock is just as reliable as any other clock. It can keep time without being updated all the time.

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Re: Port MX to sideload on Win10? Let the debate begin!!!

#23 Post by richb »

To my mind adding the word correct to a variable, in this case time, because it is the only one available is a stretch. If it is the wrong time, it is wrong.
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Re: Port MX to sideload on Win10? Let the debate begin!!!

#24 Post by dreamer »

richb wrote:To my mind adding the word correct to a variable, in this case time, because it is the only one available is a stretch. If it is the wrong time, it is wrong.
From a practical perspective: Your/My computer doesn't power the ISS. :p Time doesn't have to be more precise than your wrist watch.

Syncing time every boot and shutdown will of course keep your computer time as close to perfect as possible. But there is a trade-off with writing to the BIOS.

I have hijacked this thread, because when UTC/time was mentioned I saw my chance. :lion: My earlier thread on this subject didn't help me to remove ntp from boot/shutdown.

viewtopic.php?f=104&t=43771&p=432373#p432316

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Re: Port MX to sideload on Win10? Let the debate begin!!!

#25 Post by m_pav »

Much ado about nothing, when you consider MX has the option to set the system time via local or UTC. On my 2 laptops which both have their factory installed Windows partition squished to minimum size + 25 & 50G respectively, when I installed MX, I simply chose the option to set the clock to local time instead of UTC, however, I can absolutely see the point for those whose Windows systems were out by an hour because my pet hate when I started using Debian flavoured Linux was always that my clocks went out by anything from 11-13 hours in reverse, so you people in the US have next to nothing to cry about with a pathetic little hour.

The worst offenders were the early live Bootable CD versions which had no restraint on messing with the BIOS clock, if I'd connected to the internet. My work around was to kill the power when I'd finished running live, then I wouldn't have to fix the BIOS clock and back then, I'd be doing that at least 6-8 times a day on different machines so I could locate and remove viruses from infected Windows systems because it was about 20x more efficient than attempting to fix using conventional worthless and weak Windows tools.

Now back to the original subject, by an immense margin, Microsofts choice to include options to run proper Linux CLI into their Windows system is there for the sysadmins and those aspiring to be sysadmins, not for the plegs who only use a browser and word processor.

Many companies that host servers have both Windows servers and Linux servers of some type, even if it's a firewall only device and the bigger the company, the more likely they'll have a Linux server, even if indirectly, through an external host, so the need to have Linux CLI available from a Windows machine was born of necessity. One thing you can take to the bank is, though Microsoft may have done it begrudgingly at first, it was done as a means to an end, which was to keep their windows system running on their customers machines so they can retain the "license holders control" control of everything that happens on that "terminal". I have no love for microsoft and less trust of them than a piece of dental floss spanning the Grand Canyon as a safety line, however, they are a necessary evil and if you're ever in full time IT work, there's no doubt about it, you'll come across their system one way or another.
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Re: Port MX to sideload on Win10? Let the debate begin!!!

#26 Post by MX<3 »

m_pav wrote:Much ado about nothing, when you consider MX has the option to set the system time via local or UTC. On my 2 laptops which both have their factory installed Windows partition squished to minimum size + 25 & 50G respectively, when I installed MX, I simply chose the option to set the clock to local time instead of UTC, however, I can absolutely see the point for those whose Windows systems were out by an hour because my pet hate when I started using Debian flavoured Linux was always that my clocks went out by anything from 11-13 hours in reverse, so you people in the US have next to nothing to cry about with a pathetic little hour.

The worst offenders were the early live Bootable CD versions which had no restraint on messing with the BIOS clock, if I'd connected to the internet. My work around was to kill the power when I'd finished running live, then I wouldn't have to fix the BIOS clock and back then, I'd be doing that at least 6-8 times a day on different machines so I could locate and remove viruses from infected Windows systems because it was about 20x more efficient than attempting to fix using conventional worthless and weak Windows tools...

I set the system to use Local time using the 'cheats' on live boot, then installed... and still got the time skew effect after the clocks changed. It can still happen if everything isn't set up correctly before you start. That 6-8 11-13 thing sounds like hell...

m_pav wrote:...not for the plegs who only use a browser and word processor.
Using a computer for whatever you want it for, doesn't make a person a "pleg", whatever that is... I'm just assuming it's derogatory. It sounds it...
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Re: Port MX to sideload on Win10? Let the debate begin!!!

#27 Post by dreamer »

I will post my final thoughts on this subject in this thread. Maybe it would have been better to post it in my own thread, but a lot of the discussion happened in this thread already.

I think it is very easy to justify updating the clock in the boot phase. Making sure users have the correct time and avoiding potential problems that way.

Updating the clock in the shutdown phase is much harder to justify. It can always be justified with “That’s how we do it”, but from a logical perspective I think updating the clock during shutdown is hard to justify. That’s unnecessary BIOS writes during reboots.

We haven’t seen reports of BIOS failure in the MX Linux forum. So based on lack of evidence showing the opposite is true, repeatedly writing to the BIOS may be safe.

Unnecessary (shutdown), but hopefully safe.

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Re: Port MX to sideload on Win10? Let the debate begin!!!

#28 Post by BitJam »

dreamer wrote:Updating the clock in the shutdown phase is much harder to justify. It can always be justified with “That’s how we do it”, but from a logical perspective I think updating the clock during shutdown is hard to justify. That’s unnecessary BIOS writes during reboots.
The problem isn't that the BIOS clock fails. The problem is that the BIOS clock drifts over time. If you Google for adjtime, you will see a hint of the complicated rigmarole Linux goes through to try to compensate for this. If we are the only OS that runs and if we don't write to the BIOS clock then eventually it will drift so far that it becomes useless or perhaps worse than useless.

When the system boots is uses the value in the BIOS clock to do sanity checks on the file systems. One thing this can detect is if the BIOS clock is drifting badly which is often a sign that the battery for the BIOS clock needs to be replaced. I've had to replace the battery on some systems but I have never had the NVRAM wear out. Cheap usb flash sticks can survive about 100,000 write-erase cycles and there are simple tricks that can greatly extend this. So if you shutdown your system five times per day, every day of the year then the NVRAM should last over 50 years.

I'm not adverse to adding an option so we don't write to the BIOS clock; I think it is a great idea! But I also think writing on shutdown won't cause problems with the NVRAM.

Sometimes upstream devs do bone-headed things. They are humans after all. Even so, if they do something you don't understand then the best thing to do is try to understand the reasons for what they are doing instead of taking a cursory glance and assuming you know better.
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Re: Port MX to sideload on Win10? Let the debate begin!!!

#29 Post by m_pav »

MX<3 wrote: Using a computer for whatever you want it for, doesn't make a person a "pleg", whatever that is... I'm just assuming it's derogatory. It sounds it...
Sorry about that. it might mean different things to different people, countries, languages or other.

It was coined to mean an individual within an undecipherable mass, such as seen in movie extras where a crowd is assembled as a backfill.
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Re: Port MX to sideload on Win10? Let the debate begin!!!

#30 Post by MX<3 »

m_pav wrote:
MX<3 wrote: Using a computer for whatever you want it for, doesn't make a person a "pleg", whatever that is... I'm just assuming it's derogatory. It sounds it...
Sorry about that. it might mean different things to different people, countries, languages or other.

It was coined to mean an individual within an undecipherable mass, such as seen in movie extras where a crowd is assembled as a backfill.
So... like a person that uses a computer, like most people use it? The regular everyday user. Then there are the power users, hackers etc.

If the power users call the mainstream users "plegs", it's gonna sound bad...

But if you didn't mean it to be bad, then I'm fine with it. I accept your apology. 8)
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