Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2015 March 27

= March 27 =

TinyCore Linux
Hi!

I am trying to get Tiny Core Linux v.6.1 up and running.

The PC is a Dell Optiplex 740 that boots and runs Tails (operating system) from a DVD or USB drive just fine, so I know the the BIOS is set properly.

TinyCore boots from a DVD that I made from a downloadable ISO, but instead of a GUI I get the shell/command prompt. Here is what I tried:

tc@box: ls tc@box: pwd /home/tc tc@box: startx -sh: startx: not found tc@box: tci -sh: tci: not found tc@box: tc-install -sh: tc-install: not found

The  and   setup commands are from this page.

I can move around the file system and ls the usual files in the usual places so command just shows that  is empty.

I tried both TinyCore and CorePlus downloaded from here

This looks like a really interesting distro to play around with (9MB command line, 15MB GUI!) if I can only get the installer working and put it on my (preformatted with ext2) thumb drive.

Somehow I just can't stop thinking that I am missing something blindingly obvious. --CypherPunkyBrewster (talk) 00:40, 27 March 2015 (UTC)


 * The tinycore FAQ has a section "Help X does not start. Why does my system boot up to a login prompt?" Does that help?- gadfium 22:52, 27 March 2015 (UTC)


 * I tried it, and the result was (when booting from the DVD):
 * However, I did find another way the get it running.
 * Prepare a formatted FAT32 USB thumb drive.
 * Plug it into a computer running Windows Windows XP, Vista, or 7 (I don't know about 8 or 10)
 * Put a DVD made with the CorePlus-current.iso in the DVD drive.
 * Download core2usb.exe from http://sourceforge.net/projects/core2usb/
 * Run core2usb.exe (it's a standalone -- no install)
 * Follow the instructions for loading TinyCore Linux to the thumb drive.
 * Boot from the thumb drive (it has to be before the DVD or HDD in the BIOS boot sequence)
 * It should boot into the TinyCore GUI (it did for me)
 * Follow the instructions in the corebook to load and run tc-install.
 * Now you can install TinyCore on another thumb drive using ext4 or one of several other formats.
 * If you want the new thumb drive to be able to install or remaster, It will get the files to do that from the DVD.
 * I still haven't figured out why the DVD dumped my into the shell with no way to install anything, but with the workaround I have a working system. I will do a followup here if I figure out the DVD GUI problem. BTW, TinyCore does everything I want it to do, boots faster than any distro I have ever tried, and at 15MB it fits on those old, small thumb drives we all end up collecting along the way. --CypherPunkyBrewster (talk) 04:33, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
 * If you want the new thumb drive to be able to install or remaster, It will get the files to do that from the DVD.
 * I still haven't figured out why the DVD dumped my into the shell with no way to install anything, but with the workaround I have a working system. I will do a followup here if I figure out the DVD GUI problem. BTW, TinyCore does everything I want it to do, boots faster than any distro I have ever tried, and at 15MB it fits on those old, small thumb drives we all end up collecting along the way. --CypherPunkyBrewster (talk) 04:33, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I still haven't figured out why the DVD dumped my into the shell with no way to install anything, but with the workaround I have a working system. I will do a followup here if I figure out the DVD GUI problem. BTW, TinyCore does everything I want it to do, boots faster than any distro I have ever tried, and at 15MB it fits on those old, small thumb drives we all end up collecting along the way. --CypherPunkyBrewster (talk) 04:33, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Reboot Android to Safe Mode

 * Pipo m9pro wifi
 * Android 4.2.2 (rooted)

Something's wrong with my tablet. The popup dialog box says "Unfortunately, the process com.android.phone has stopped". I clicked OK. The dialog pops up within a second over and over.

I can't select reboot to safe mode because of that noisy dialog box.

I can't press volume + and - together to enter safe mode because this tablet does not have these two buttons. It only has ESC and power. I can only press the power button for several seconds to turn off the tablet. When I turn on the tablet again, it gives me the same dialog boxes.

What can I do to enter safe mode?

I am using this tablet mainly as a book reader. I can do factory reset. It's just I can't do anything now except for press OK. This tablet is not a phone. I am more than pleased to disable com.android.phone if I could. I am more than pleased to disable most of the crap put into the system by Google. -- Toytoy (talk) 09:58, 27 March 2015 (UTC)


 * According to this information there could be a reset hole on the side of the device which you can press with a paperclip. You might find that a short press will do a 'soft reset' - basically just power off and on again - while a long press (5 or 10 seconds) will do a 'hard reset'. If that doesn't work, there are instructions here (under 'WHAT TO DO IF FLASHING GOES WRONG') that require connecting a PC but seem to offer hope for re-flashing the ROM (i.e. resetting the firmware). - Cucumber Mike (talk) 12:04, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Deinstalled a game but I still lost 7GB of total space...
I installed The Elder Scrolls:Skyrim after purchasing it on Steam, which left me with 93GB free on hard drive. It took up 7GB of space. Then I deinstalled it via "Delete local content" but still only have 93GB available. I even went into SteamApps and deleted its file there, but that didn't help. Where are these 7 worthless GB and how can I delete them? 107.10.22.138 (talk) 12:06, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * In my experience, a Disk Defrag actually frees up disk space (sometimes). You can also use CCleaner (which is free). That should clean most of the content which is remaining. KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( もしもし！ ) 12:28, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * TFC (temp file cleaner) does a better job. Depending on your OS you may have saved game files in your Documents folder or in your User folder. --  Gadget850talk 13:16, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Obvious but worth mentioning: Did you check the recycle bin? Are you sure the free space hadn't dropped to 86GB for some unrelated reason before you deleted Skyrim?
 * If there is a System Restore point from when the game was installed, that might prevent the space from being marked as free, but I'm not sure that's how free-space accounting works with System Restore.
 * WinDirStat or a similar utility will tell you which folders are using the most disk space (it will not see System-Restore-related disk space, though). -- BenRG (talk) 18:03, 27 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Defrag never conquers free disk space, is only moves blocks, a prefefined number of sectors, to anoter place of the disk to line up the whole file for accessing it at once. When ever it would result of recompressing uncompressed files, if ever the program an filesystem support this. More likely is freeing file fragments of inconsitent file systems. Such is to repair with the chkdsk command.
 * Games save you score, custom settings and some games inclde an editors to create own parts of the game. Online games need to store information about your game user identity to prevent cheating or store bought or achieved virtual items or keys to acces them on the games manufacturers server. See waht information and values are behind that if any and know this information will be stored on the computer's user profile as your data if not explicit removed. -- Hans Haase (有问题吗) 12:51, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Does Steam keep the installer file after you've installed the game (and then uninstalled it)? LongHairedFop (talk) 13:08, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I have Steam, and Steam does not move anything to the recycle bin when deleting local content. I still recommend CCleaner and also Advanced System Care. Also, check your AppData folder for anything remaining. I can't check it now, because I am on a Mac at the moment. When I get back to my PC, I can do it, but that will be a bit later on. KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( もしもし！ ) 13:30, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * In my experience, the file system on current Macs will only notice removed files when the recycle bin is emptied, even if files are removed with  and never show up in the bin. I don't know how or why that is, but I've observed this more than once. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:18, 28 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Sometimes after deinstalling a Steam game, I find that there isn't a noticeable gain in harddrive space until after I restart my computer. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:23, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

power point
how can one design a linking power point to the web — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aine Prosper (talk • contribs) 12:21, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * See this article. --  Gadget850talk 13:18, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Adding whitespace to pdfs in adobe
I have been sent a scanned PDF document that has text too close to the edge at the page at the top (it will be cutoff if I print and I don't want to reduce the size). So, I was wondering if there was a way to add whitespace to the top of the page, sort of the opposite of cropping whitespace. This is a multiple page document. I can think of some ways to do it and would if it was one or two pages, like printing, then scanning with the page moved a little bit down on the scanner. I suppose I could even convert to an image and move the image down in an image program then covert back to a pdf, but:

I was wondering if there is a direct way to do this with adobe acrobat professional (for mac)? Thanks in advance, even if the answer is you can't.--108.46.137.89 (talk) 14:19, 27 March 2015 (UTC)


 * You may have more luck searching for "add margin" rather than "add whitespace". This thread seems to answer your question. -- BenRG (talk) 18:07, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you Ben. Unfortunately, while I did find the right place to do what I wanted from that discussion, when I try it gives me the message "Page size may not be reduced". No idea why. Oh well.--108.46.137.89 (talk) 21:04, 27 March 2015 (UTC)


 * I feel quite certain that ImageMagick can do what you want. You can use it to convert the PDF file into images and use -crop, -repage, -resize, or some other options to process the images, then convert the processed images back into a PDF file. (The tool supports a large number of options, so you will probably need to do some research to find the right method to get the result you need.) --173.49.16.112 (talk) 02:00, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * You could embed the PDF pages into a LaTeX document with  and , and process the thing with pdftex. You can adjust and move the printable area of the document with appropriate (La)TeX magic if the default has to large margins. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:26, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

One article redirecting to another one!
I've found quite a few Wikipedia articles that redirect to something else unrelated. Wrex The Robo-Dog and Regretsy are two i could find. Sorry if i posted this in the wrong category, but someone needs to explain this to me. RocketMaster (talk) 19:28, 27 March 2015 (UTC)


 * April_Winchell explains why Regretsy redirects there. You could change the redirect to that specific section if you like. I don't know whether there's ever been a WP page for the Regretsy web site. It may or may not be notable enough for inclusion in the encyclopedia. So in the mean time, someone has redirected that name to the coverage that is available on WP, rather than having a less helpful redlink. Roko's basilisk is in a similar situation. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:35, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * But, what about Wrex, the animated robotic dog? It's a toy. It redirects to something about Teen Titans. RocketMaster (talk) 19:41, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * "Wrex The Robo-Dog" is redlinked - there is a robot dog of that name that one can buy from WowWee, so that might be a good target, and Robo-Dog redirects to List of LazyTown episodes (probably due to the reference to a "vicious robotic dog" on that page). Which is the redirect that's causing the problem?  (This might be a better question for the Help Desk (WP:HD), incidentally.) Tevildo (talk) 19:44, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm having problems with Wrex the Robo-Dog. That one redirects to Johnny Rancid. I have no idea why. RocketMaster (talk) 19:48, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I can't help with this particular issue, as the page in question doesn't even have an entry for Johnny Rancid. Perhaps a Teen Titans expert can assist?  Incidentally, to make a factual correction to my previous post, WowWee's product is Wrex The Dawg™, not "Wrex The Robo-Dog". Tevildo (talk) 19:54, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * OK! Research has indicated that Mr Rancid and his dog appear in "Can I Keep Him?" (Season 3, Episode 10) - see List of Teen Titans Episodes.  I think we may be slightly under the WP:GNG threshold at this point, and a more appropriate redirect target could be found. Tevildo (talk) 20:04, 27 March 2015 (UTC)