Even if they are perfectly good

Could that perhaps be an issue of stupid licensing? With, smart licensing, or whatever, if the license is non-transferable, then the hardware is basically an expensive paper weight.
I’ve heard Cisco used to give out Meraki devices for free on some events, because without a license they were totally useless. Until someone figured out how to run OpenWRT on them.

Pretending it’s a fictional scenario, asking the question in tech-oriented spaces such as Lemmy and Mastodon, then using some of the answers.

I guess it should just be set to master since it’s the only drive, but I tried all 3.
I just tried to use it to make a copy of CD, all seems fine. Maybe it can’t handle the maximum read speed, but meh, it seems to work hardware-wise.
Software-wise, Windows-only.

IDE CD-ROM

Yeah. I have 2, so I want to use them. The dangerous thingy is an IDE to SATA adapter. If I manage to find DVD-RW drive with front audio and a play button, I’d like to use that in an external 5.25" drive enclosure I have.
The goal: External DVD drive that can also work as a simple standalone CD player.

All I have now is 2 CD-RW drives like that.
And one of them (BENQ 4816A) doesn’t seem to work with Linux for some reason.
Sample from dmesg:

[303803.821623] usb 1-4: new high-speed USB device number 62 using xhci_hcd
[303803.953712] usb 1-4: New USB device found, idVendor=152d, idProduct=2338, bcdDevice= 1.00
[303803.953735] usb 1-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=5
[303803.953745] usb 1-4: Product: USB to ATA/ATAPI bridge
[303803.953752] usb 1-4: Manufacturer: JMicron
[303803.953758] usb 1-4: SerialNumber: 622222222222
[303803.956959] usb-storage 1-4:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[303803.957727] scsi host0: usb-storage 1-4:1.0
[303804.972734] scsi 0:0:0:0: CD-ROM            ATAPI    CD-R/RW 48X16    9.GH PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
[303809.784518] sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] scsi3-mmc drive: 48x/48x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
[303818.737158] usb 1-4: reset high-speed USB device number 62 using xhci_hcd
[303826.573935] usb 1-4: reset high-speed USB device number 62 using xhci_hcd
[303838.238333] sr 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0
[303838.238795] sr 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 5
[303845.622418] usb 1-4: reset high-speed USB device number 62 using xhci_hcd
[303918.801647] usb 1-4: reset high-speed USB device number 62 using xhci_hcd
[303936.512741] usb 1-4: reset high-speed USB device number 62 using xhci_hcd
[303941.673166] usb 1-4: reset high-speed USB device number 62 using xhci_hcd
[303950.281142] sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=1s
[303950.281164] sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 Sense Key : Illegal Request [current] 
[303950.281176] sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 Add. Sense: Illegal mode for this track
[303950.281186] sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 05 5d ec 00 00 02 00
[303950.281192] blk_print_req_error: 80 callbacks suppressed
[303950.281198] I/O error, dev sr0, sector 1406896 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x80700 phys_seg 1 prio class 2
[303950.555155] sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=0s
[303950.555173] sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 Sense Key : Illegal Request [current] 
[303950.555183] sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 Add. Sense: Illegal mode for this track
[303950.555192] sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 05 5d ec 00 00 02 00
[303950.555197] I/O error, dev sr0, sector 1406896 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 2 prio class 2
[303950.555215] buffer_io_error: 72 callbacks suppressed
[303950.555220] Buffer I/O error on dev sr0, logical block 351724, async page read
[303950.555232] Buffer I/O error on dev sr0, logical block 351725, async page read

Just keeps resetting, eventually spams a lot of errors, then goes on to start resetting again.

VLC manages to use it for audio playback. Sort of. It can load CD info, play a track, and skip within the track. But when trying to play a different track, it again resets the drive, so it has to load the disc again, causing ~15 second gaps between tracks.

Both digital (on PC) and analog (on drive) audio playback worked just fine on Windows 2000 after passing the USB to VirtualBox.

Cancer is probably the least dangerous living thing in Australia.

Maybe a solution similar to this could work: https://github.com/nfcgate/nfcgate/blob/v2/doc/mode/Relay.md

Have the card at home sitting on a reader connected to your homelab, add NFC module to PinePhone and simply relay the traffic over network.

Yeah, I already tried losetup unsuccessfully, but thanks anyway.

The world sucks right now for employment you might as well take a shot at a dream job because you never know what happens!

Well, I absolutely could get training for position of train driver.
Except…
As far as I know, you have to agree to a contract to work for that company for at least 5 years.
Otherwise, I’d have to pay them back for that training. How much?
I don’t know what it’s now. First I heard from someone, they mentioned it being EUR 21,000. But recently I overheard a train driver talking to a coworker about the training costing EUR 31,000.
Either way, in a country where the minimum wage is EUR 5.26/h… OOF.

Although I’d have to ask for official information, as this isn’t mentioned in the advertising they do.
But it would explain the eternal shortage they seem to have.

Sorry if I wasn’t clear, I am not. I am just usually imagining what happens in edge cases. Since I am in an English study programme (I honestly find English easier in relation to IT) I get the same information the foreign students do.
And I can see how fucking shitty it is.
The problem is they didn’t even translate the instructions to English, and further only gave them a 12 hour window until the deadline to figure things out. Ironically, the instructions highlight to really think about the decisions you make with the subjects selected (some expect prior knowledge you may not yet have). Think about it when? There’s also limited number of students to be accepted for each subject on a first-come first-served basis. Basically, a game of battle royale, but there were no instructions, and the game has already begun.

… except for it being built on electron so it’s a 300MB install.

and you need to use a paid VPN

There’s one possible disadvantage: accidentally selecting wrong profile. And suddenly I am looking at Monosodium Glutamate through university’s VPN.

You could also alias sudo instead then.

If you are just really uncomfortable with uncertainty in general, that can be a problem.

Yeah, that was just one of many cases. If I don’t know exact steps to do something, and there’s others around, it’s just like I physically can’t even try.
Another example, probably even starnger one, I never went to library at our uni because I don’t know its layout. Or the canteen, where you choose what food you want by ordering it through touchscreen kiosk, but I don’t know the UI, and I could only observe others from afar.

I also make my weekly backups roughly every 3 months. Which reminds me I should do it… tomorrow.

Anyway, last time I lost some data it was when memory card I thought I had backed up died. I managed to gather most of the data from another memory card, 2 laptops, old HDD and a backup DVD as most of the files were scattered around other devices.

Everything from 9 months ago, including notifications from 9 months ago.

Maybe we had yearly backups?

Hey.
So, it would seem I gave you a solution that’s still more complicated than it needs to be.
You see, I was using Debian at the time I initially played with this, but now I am testing it on Arch. When you check the man pages, you’ll see an interesting option available on Arch.

So…
Waypipe on Debian 13 (latest) is version 0.9.2.
Meanwhile on Arch we have 0.11.0.

There’s an interesting new option, --xwls.

Use xwayland-satellite to run X clients under Wayland; for server or ssh modes. This binds X display sockets for the next available display number and sets the DISPLAY environment variable for the program run under waypipe server. This option will only work if xwayland-satellite is installed and in PATH.

Which means that on Debian you have to:

1. Compile xwayland-satellite
2. Add xwayland-satellite to directory in PATH
3. Compile new version of waypipe from source
4. Add it to directory in PATH, at least for server

While on Arch you just pacman -Sy xwayland-satellite waypipe.

Then it works with waypipe --xwls ssh user@IP program.
It seems to have been added in 0.10.6.

poop gems

At least they’re pretty.

I use this one: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.vrem.wifianalyzer

They signed up for the job knowing what it entails.

Doesn’t mean it’s fine.
Based on current events, for police it will heavily depend on circumstances.
But what’s the beef with firemen?