Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2017 July 2

= July 2 =

Laptop with an ARM processor
For the past few years, I've been looking for smartphones, tablets, laptops, and/or miniature computers (i.e., computer sticks, box computers) that conform to few ideals that I have. I've fallen behind on my tech news in the past year or two, so I'm out of the loop. At the moment, I'm looking for an ARM-powered laptop. The Chromebooks with ARM processors don't cut it for me because they have a TPM; it's got nothing to do with lockdown fears, I just don't want one (or rather, I'd prefer the anti-rollback function to be implemented with a normal NAND flash device with lockable regions). It has to be an laptop that, in order of most preferable to least preferable, uses a processor made by Rockchip, Mediatek, or Allwinner. Devices running those processors tend not to have any kind of hardware-based restrictions on running arbitrary code, unlike Exynos and Qualcomm processors.

I'm aware of the Pinebook, but my problem with that is that the first-stage firmware is loaded from eMMC and the device is configured to be able to boot first-stage code from SD and USB. Contrast that with Chromebooks where the first-stage firmware executes in-place from EEPROM and where it isn't setup to boot directly from SD or USB (ARM Chromebooks use processors that can boot from SD and USB, but they just aren't configured to do so). So, I'd like it to have that separation between EEPROM and main internal storage. I'd prefer one with an SSD over an eMMC as an eMMC has OTP features; I'd prefer one with raw NAND over an SSD. I'd really like it if the internal storage (the SSD/eMMC/NAND) is removable.

I've seen a few other possible devices in the past few months, sometimes running Remix or some Android-based OS, but it was all a blur. These were mostly ones made/introduced within the past 2-3 years. Overall, I really don't want one that looks like a netbook (e.g., crap). Any suggestions? — Melab±1 &#9742; 00:33, 2 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I think a number of people would like something like that. I believe there's some in China but not sold externally. Most of what is around is development boards for embedded or IoT use, or else enterprise boards which have mostly been snapped up for server farms for software development. It has been jam tomorrow as far as anything like a reasonable laptop running Linux is concerned. It is altogether likely that the one due to come out running Microsoft Windows will be locked down just like the Chromebook ones. Have you looked at unlocking an ARM Chromebook? You'd have to be careful it is actually possible if you go down that route. Also you'd probably want a more recent machine as the older ones are quite slow in PC terms. Practically everything in ARM land has TrustZone these days, it has now started even being extended to the cheapest IoT devices. Security has become a major concern with IoT, one can't expect someone making a talking teddy bear to be expert in security even though they may want the teddy bear to be connected so implementing security has to be very easy and robust. Dmcq (talk) 11:13, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Web site with slow automatic vertical scroll
. This article slowly scrolls vertically for me, once I manually scroll down into the text, using Google Chrome on Windows 7. I've never seen a site do this before. How do they do it ? StuRat (talk) 01:02, 2 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I've checked it twice and it seems OK to me. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 22:17, 2 July 2017 (UTC)


 * It doesn't do that for me (Chrome on Windows 10). Are you sure you didn't accidentally click down on your scroll wheel? --Shantavira|feed me 16:02, 3 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Yep. That provides variable speed and direction scrolling as I move the mouse, while this is constant speed scrolling and does not depend on mouse movement. StuRat (talk) 16:22, 3 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I tried the site again today, and it started the slow scroll but then stopped after a second, just long enough to display the circular links to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc., at the bottom of the screen. So, it may be designed to display those, but was malfunctioning before, scrolling through the entire page ? StuRat (talk) 16:24, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

SSL certificates for Wikia
Hey, guys. I've posted at the desk before in regards to my collaborative science fiction story Inner Bruise. Now it has a wiki (http://inner-bruise.wikia.com/wiki/Inner_Bruise_Wikia), and recently I mentioned my Inner Bruise wiki at the SF composition Usenet group, hoping to get participants, at which point someone wrote this:

"Your site generates many repeated error messages aboutr it hasn't got a proper certificate. I had to click "close" on it several dozen times just to be able to scroll down. I suggest you figure out what this certificate thing is, and fix it, if you want people looking at your site."

I learned from a gated community I frequent that the term "certificate" was referring to an SSL certificate, which changes the protocol from http:// to https:// and thereby makes a site more secure.

I concluded then that the reason I wasn't getting a lot of traffic except from myself could be that other people were getting the "no certificate" message and that was preventing them from reading the site. This woman at Usenet was the first person to tell me so, but I suspect many other people may have checked out the site before and gotten the message, then given up on the site without telling me.

The poster at my gated community who explained what an SSL certificate was also linked me to this page, which seemed to confirm that the Inner Bruise wiki has a good certificate. Three out of three people there told me they could read my Wikia page without any problems.

So, can you read http://inner-bruise.wikia.com/wiki/Inner_Bruise_Wikia without any problems, or does it give you a message about lacking a proper certificate? If I don't have a proper SSL certif, will Wikia give me one for free? And if I do have one, any ideas why that woman on Usenet got that message? Enzingiyi (talk) 03:47, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
 * No problems whatever for me, FWIW. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.58.120 (talk) 04:16, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Your link above is not to an SSL version of the page so SSL certificate issues aren't really relevant. Try https://inner-bruise.wikia.com/wiki/Inner_Bruise_Wikia instead. This does actually work but is simply a redirect to the http page because wikia still doesn't properly support https. Note that the fact that the redirect works means there's limited support including a working wildcard certificate since otherwise you couldn't have the redirect. But the main content will not be served over HTTPS since it's not supported. (Most likely there's a simple backend to provide the redirect.) These [//community.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:937347] [//community.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:893491#142] suggest it's being worked on but although they're from 2015 it doesn't seem like they've progressed far enough to properly enable it. (Actually the fact I can't find any good recent discussion suggests to me it's not very far along.) E.g. this from 2016 [//community.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:1074519] doesn't mention anything. So there's not much you can do other than to encourage wikia to work on this ASAP (I think they already know) or move to some other wiki provider who does fully support HTTPS.  Note that most browsers still aren't going to complain about a non HTTPS site nor a redirect from HTTPS to HTTP, so whatever error messages your friend is getting would be rare. I'm not sure whether they're using some weird browser or plugin that complains about any insecure connection or what. (I don't think these should complain about certificate errors anyway, instead they may complain about the redirect or the fact you are connected to an insecure site.)  Assuming they didn't visit the wrong URL (whether HTTP or HTTPS), the alternative is that it's something wrong on their end e.g. they don't trust the certificate authority or they have malware and are being forced onto some other site or something of that sort. It's also possibly wikia happened to be broken when they visited although the certificate seems to be from May so I find this unlikely. But random stuff does break whether from the site or your internet connection which can sometimes cause unexpected behaviour. I guess a final possibility is they were accessing usenet via some weird web frontend that converted links into some sort of gated link via another site and they clicked on this link and this gated link provider was broken.   In any case, there's nothing abnormal about the wikia's configuration so anything your friend regularly experiences is likely to be the case for all sites on wikia, or alternatively if it's due to malware whatever their malware decides. I would recommend you give links in the HTTP form for now. Although HTTPS links will generally work, I think specialised browsers and plugins may be slightly more likely to complain due to the redirect (out of fear of the user being mislead) than they will about visiting a non HTTPS site.  Nil Einne (talk) 05:55, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much for this information! I've passed it along to the woman on Usenet. Enzingiyi (talk) 22:32, 2 July 2017 (UTC)