Ken Milmore

@kbm0
255 Followers
662 Following
376 Posts
Ageing software engineer 👴💻
#Debian enthusiast 🐧
Dabbler in mathematics ∞
Lefty vegetarian tree-hugger 🌹🥕🌳
Gateshead, UK 🐐🇬🇧
𝓖↔¬𝖯𝗋𝗈𝗏(⌜𝓖⌝)

@spacelizard Not only have I written and read software to and from cassette tape, I wrote a utility to use cassette tape as a transfer medium between operating systems!

https://archive.org/details/Dragon_User_1988-03_Sunshine_Books_GB/page/n11/mode/2up

Dragon User (1988-03)(Sunshine Books)(GB) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Dragon User (1988-03)(Sunshine Books)(GB)

Internet Archive
@aburka @spacelizard I doubt if many other people have either. The tar format was not used with analogue compact cassettes, which were the storage format of choice for cheap '80s 8-bit microcomputers. I bet someone on here will know of an exception though!
@quixoticgeek @aral @ammdias @iaruffell Ideally you never want to reuse a user ID when someone leaves, because it might be in use somewhere as a file ownership. And there are reasons you might want to generate temporary/transient users frequently. So you don't ever need anywhere near 260 million users to run into trouble. Unfortunately Windows seems to have the edge here, with its bulky SIDs.
@quixoticgeek @aral @ammdias @iaruffell No but you need to have a way of mapping your "enterprise" user ID space (from LDAP or AD or wherever) to a local user ID for every user that logs in. The smaller the local UID space is, the trickier this becomes. It's a bit like having to map every IPv6 address to an IPv4 address.
I expect Linux will one day try to support 128 bit UIDs natively.
@AnnaAnthro First world solutions to first world problems.
@quixoticgeek @aral @ammdias @iaruffell It's more like 260 million, if you fit into the gaps left between systemd's UID land grab.
There are various reasons, though, why it is desirable for an ID space like this to be sparse. So it isn't very much.
https://systemd.io/UIDS-GIDS/
Users, Groups, UIDs and GIDs on systemd Systems

I learned that the artist behind the artwork for the game Elite was none other than Philip Castle, the designer of the posters for A Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket, among others.

He passed away on February 20, 2026, at the age of 83 🙏

#PhilipCastle #Elite #RetroGaming #SciFi

@wisegreyowl One of the best sections of the wall.

Happy 33rd Birthday to NetBSD!

https://www.netbsd.org/

#netbsd

The NetBSD Project

@pikesley @tante I thought it was a trilogy TBH, obvs I missed the last one.