Tip For Computers Exhibiting Symptoms of Having a Mind of Their Own

[Hervé]

From Jim Stone:

Now running on a totally new system

This ought to get 4 devices capable of administering this web site. Wait and see. Worked on the first one.

It took an old old old celeron (that will not be used for the web site) to get everything kickstarted (knoppix clashed with the UEFI bios on the new laptop) and black screened with the CD but from flash [drive] it works perfect and is very fast and very complete. Lots of experimenting ahead.

Knoppix appears to be extremely efficient with bandwidth. I will have to use it more to find out but one huge problem with the newest Linux Mint was that it - for some reason - tripled bandwidth usage which is for me inexplicable and inexcusable.

So far the things I don't like with live knoppix are the desktop background, the fact a voice says "initiating startup sequence" when you start it, and no matter what application you open, it bounces the window once on purpose for "coolness" - only that kind of crap is for mac, not my computer. Whatever.

What I like: Even from a live cd, it runs much faster than Mint or Ubuntu run from flash. When using flash, Knoppix runs perceptibly instantly with enormous applications like Gimp and Blender opening perceptibly instantly. Once the UEFI bios gives the go, Knoppix boots in about 4 seconds. It takes longer for the bios to do post than it does for knoppix to boot. So it is real fast.

The computer is running cold as a bone. Someone told me a while ago that a programmer sabotaged power management in Mint and Ubuntu, and they never fixed it. But since it all started with Knoppix (which they took from) there is no excuse other than wilful intent that it stayed broken. I believe Mint and Ubuntu are intentionally crippled. Knoppix is obviously way beyond. No power management issues at all. The hottest thing on the whole computer now is the flash drive it is running from. The CPU would get hot with windows and Mint, but with knoppix it's as cold as a TI-35. No perceptible heat anywhere at all on the computer itself. That ought to do wonders for battery life, changing the flash drive for one that runs cooler is obviously going to make a difference. The flash drive is by far the biggest heat generator. So that's worth pointing out.

It has chrome and firefox. But there are security features on them that are not in any chrome or firefox I have seen. Knoppix must have added stuff. It also has konqueror but it malfunctions on most web sites.

It has a zillion apps, (like what happens when you use someone's computer and they have a fetish for putting 5,000 things on it they'll never use) yet the desktop is perfectly clean and none of that stuff starts unless you ask it to. I never knew there were games for Linux but there are evidently hundreds. It also has the ability to run games like DOOM.

Basically, if it is worth having and in the Linux world, it is in Knoppix 8.1 Blender is supposed to be powerful enough to do feature animated films, it's here. It is cryptic for someone who has not ever done that. There are 4 normal video editors also, along with a music score creator and several multi channel audio apps. Obviously it has open office and all those types of things.

Anyway, Knoppix is obviously the gold standard in Linux. I never had this much crap available, all running smoothly and cold as a bone. By cold as a bone, I mean, the laptop is cold to the touch and the CPU fan never came on. If it was not managing the fan correctly, the laptop would be hot. It is not hot. Power management is simply so good a CPU fan is not needed. It absolutely DESTROYS Mint (which I was using up until this evening) it is 20X as fast at least,

I forgot something huge: With both the latest Linux Mint, and Windows, the new computer was constantly highlighting and deleting text while I typed. That's not happening AT ALL with Knoppix.

That's a big thing to point out, because even with a live CD that was perfectly fresh, Mint would constantly highlight and delete text while I was typing, and Knoppix is not doing that at all. It is as if both Windows and Mint piped me straight into enemy hands, and they raised as much mayhem as possible. Now everything is rock stable with no interference whatsoever, it is immediately noticeable.

Perhaps the speed boost and bandwidth savings were due to not having to serve data to multiple [enemy] computers . . . . WOULDENT DOUBT IT.

It does little good to have an open source application be publicly verified, when the public has to go through so much code it is longer than 2,000 New Testaments. Now that even programs like Linux have universally expanded beyond 1.5 gigs, it is all a matter of trust. It appears in this case that the original is still the best. I should have just stuck with Knoppix, that is obvious now.

[Ewan]

Oh please, someone point me to an idiot-proof guide to install this on my computer.

(Twice tried to install Ubuntu over the years and both times ended up re-formatting drive and re-installing Windows. )

[TargeT]

Posted by Ewan (here)
Oh please, someone point me to an idiot-proof guide to install this on my computer.

(Twice tried to install Ubuntu over the years and both times ended up re-formatting drive and re-installing Windows. )

There are many linux distro's that can run entirely from a CD or USB... no install required.

If you have issues installing linux then you'll have issues down the road as well, I'd suggest a "live cd" or similar.

[Hervé]

Follow up on Knoppix, Ubuntu, Mint, etc.:

From Jim Stone:

Knoppix update:

It is obviously securable. Here's how I know. Everything above this point on this page was done on one connection. If I went around the web enough to find all that information before, it would have consumed 150 megs of bandwidth at least. But now that I can keep people off the system by securing the desktop remote with a password, the same amount of posting has eaten 10.6 megs.

During this time (within those megs) I had videos auto start twice which would have killed huge bandwidth before.

THE DETAILS:
If I don't secure the desktop and simply boot and go online, every application, photo, or even text file I open will open 3 times. If I secure the desktop by setting a root password right after boot, PLUS open the remote desktop viewer and configure it with a password to make it so anyone who wants to back door through the cell connection has to enter a password to do it (no password equals full access to anyone) but if I set it, then applications and files only open once after I click them. So here is what is obviously happening when I don't set a password -

Someone, who knows the cell number and is sitting within the internet structure somewhere is forcing me to work at a remote location that is transmitting my desktop back to me before I even get to see it. This would chew a boatload of bandwidth. Before they can do it, they need access to what my desktop would be. The password keeps them out.

Obviously they are having me open desktops on more than one remote system which is why applications and files open three times instead of once, and they don't know that glitch is there that shows all 3 events to give it all away.

BOTTOM LINE: Knoppix is the champ.

Ubuntu and Mint never even let you know there is desktop transmission going on, and in all the times I used them I never once saw an option to set a password for it to prevent people from getting onto the system. I also never once saw Ubuntu or Mint allow an option to set password for root during a live session. Maybe you can, but I never saw it.

DOING BOTH IN KNOPPIX IS NOW CUTTING BANDWIDTH USAGE BY A WHOPPING 90+ PERCENT!!!

Now I know for certain I was not paranoid. I was getting enormously frustrated because no matter what I did, I was chewing bandwidth like no tomorrow, having to add expensive cell packages once every three days no matter what.

From past experience, the same bandwidth should have lasted close to a month. It was becoming a disaster. And with Knoppix configured correctly, the disaster is SOLVED.

It just keeps going and going and going and I can't believe it has not cut. I have done so much work on this one package it seems impossible after going through what I just did before Knoppix (and then learning how to configure Knoppix to stop it all).

The only caveat is I have to reset it all for every live boot. But it only takes a minute or less.

[Flash]

this is kind of way over my head, however do I know how I need to reduce the usage of bandwith. My home computer are sooooo slow despite having fast bandwith subscription that I can't believe it. I compared with a work computer which was always fast and cold.

Here at home, both my computers suffers from heat, slowliness, etc.

Can a someone explain to me in very layman terms what to do (in pm or on here, deos not matter to me).

thanks in advance

[TigaHawk]

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but the OS your system is running is not the level that they'll be hacking you from.

Built into (unsure about the older chips, but most definitely the new ones) the motherboard is the "Intel Management Engine". That's just intel's own brand, no going into whatever other company's have whipped up.

What that thing is and what it does is a complete black box, essentially it's hard coded backdoor access to your machine.

OS level hacking is childsplay compared to that. A hacking conference uncovered Lenovo's one a few years back, and i believe america responded by switching their entire government's fleet of PC's to a different brand.

[TargeT]

Posted by Flash (here)
this is kind of way over my head, however do I know how I need to reduce the usage of bandwith. My home computer are sooooo slow despite having fast bandwith subscription that I can't believe it. I compared with a work computer which was always fast and cold.
Here at home, both my computers suffers from heat, slowliness, etc.
Can a someone explain to me in very layman terms what to do (in pm or on here, deos not matter to me).
thanks in advance

First:

For a desktop:
Get a can of compressed air and spray out everything you can (open the side of the case)... I usually just take my tower out side and use my shopvac (which has a "blower" mode) to clean out lint / dust / animal hair etc...

For a Laptop:
use the compressed air on ever slot or hole on your laptop you can see; it's a bit harder to to get them cleaned out with out pulling them apart.

Next:
Download Secunia PSI install it, run it. This software will perform an inventory on your system and show you which programs need security updates (also, you get a "score" on how well patched your system is).

This is good for a couple reasons, first it shows you everything installed on your system and second it gives you links to the patches for the software; usually it's pretty simple to update things.

So now your system is physically cleaned up and you know "what's on it" due to Secunia (and hopefully you've updated what you use and uninstalled what you don't). You are now ready to start troubleshooting your "speed" issues.

First, test your connection speed to ensure it's around what you are paying for; if those numbers are right then you need to look at your system for potential software/hardware issues (which starts a whole new round of troubleshooting).

its pretty difficult to make this a simple processes unless you have money to blow, then just go buy a new system.

Posted by TigaHawk (here)
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but the OS your system is running is not the level that they'll be hacking you from.

Built into (unsure about the older chips, but most definitely the new ones) the motherboard is the "Intel Management Engine". That's just intel's own brand, no going into whatever other company's have whipped up.

What that thing is and what it does is a complete black box, essentially it's hard coded backdoor access to your machine.

OS level hacking is childsplay compared to that. A hacking conference uncovered Lenovo's one a few years back, and i believe america responded by switching their entire government's fleet of PC's to a different brand.

That's brand new and only on Intel's Skylake family of processors (These started selling August of 2015) so... while your right, it's just not prevalent at all yet and only theoretically possible (no proof of concept exploits yet).

Right now our biggest threat vectors are still OS and installed software vulnerabilities.

[shaberon]

Posted by TargeT (here)

Posted by Ewan (here)
Oh please, someone point me to an idiot-proof guide to install this on my computer.

(Twice tried to install Ubuntu over the years and both times ended up re-formatting drive and re-installing Windows. )

There are many linux distro's that can run entirely from a CD or USB... no install required.

If you have issues installing linux then you'll have issues down the road as well, I'd suggest a "live cd" or similar.

Yes that's a really good suggestion. The "live keys" (I used...I think it was Precocious Pangolin at the time) are a small but fully usable operating system, which can optionally just load from CD or USB (bearing in mind the BIOS must be set to attempt to load these before the hard drive), or do a full install.

If you need something that's not really an operating system, but, instead, a bootable disk that will give you a virus scan and a handful of other utilities--in other words, stuff you can run without your computer ever looking at its operating system--I also found that Trinity Rootkit is highly effective: http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.ph...g=en&locale=en

[petra]

Posted by TargeT (here)

Posted by Ewan (here)
Oh please, someone point me to an idiot-proof guide to install this on my computer.

(Twice tried to install Ubuntu over the years and both times ended up re-formatting drive and re-installing Windows. )

There are many linux distro's that can run entirely from a CD or USB... no install required.

If you have issues installing linux then you'll have issues down the road as well, I'd suggest a "live cd" or similar.

I was able to get Ubuntu on a long time ago and that is what I did, but I had to go back to Windows. I restricted myself from access to my sound card on Ubuntu and it took about a week to figure out why my sound was not working. It's not as idiot proof as Windows is that's for sure

[Hervé]

Just in case "Google" and others play tricks with searches:

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en

[Hervé]

From Jim Stone:

Windows update alert:

This one is VERY STRANGE

The windows machine I have that has never been used online AT ALL, EVER and was brand new when I bought it two months ago, despite NEVER being used online, it suddenly started doing an update that took over an hour.

This computer has no internet connection available to it at all, unless Microsoft has set Windows up to illegally connect to WIFI it has never been told to connect to before. By illegal I mean, password protected "no access" WIFI.

After the update it ran like crap so I tried to force it to re-install from the manufacturer's embedded partition. When I started this from windows it hung at 9 percent for a half hour. I tried again and it always hung at 9 percent.

I then shut the computer off and pushed the NOVO button, (this is something Lenovo computers have, it is a great feature) got into the bios based recovery routine (that totally bypasses microsoft), launched the manufacturer's recovery from there, and it went very quickly, totally re-installed windows, and it runs like new again.

This happened despite:

1. Having all updates for all applications including windows disabled.
2. Never having the computer online EVER.
3. Never having the computer set up to access any WIFI connection at any time whatsoever.
4. Having wifi disabled in the bios.
5. Having the computer shut off for two consecutive months, only to turn it on after being boxed up for two months just to burn the Linux DVD'S. After that, the battery was charged but it was shut off and unplugged. It was only on for about 7 hours.

I turned it on this morning to see how it behaved with flash Linux. Immediately the first thing it did was start updating Windows. The update took a couple hours. Then it looked normal and ran horribly. I then put the other computer through the exact same steps (to see if a virus somehow got onto flash) and nothing happened.

So Windows will ignore being told to not update, and has a secondary channel through which it can pull in updates even if you have Wifi disabled and never configured it to get Wifi from anywhere. The processor was an AMD A8. It has a UEFI bios.

The other computer (which is identical) has had the WIFI card out of it since day one and usually has the hard drive unplugged while it runs Knoppix from flash.

Nothing weird has happened with the other computer.

So it is important to know:

If your machine is modern [with a] Microsoft [OS], it will defy all orders and ram updates onto itself no matter what, even if you don't have internet and never go online with it.

Most likely these happen in the dark behind your back, most often; but I happened to catch it doing it.