Cinnamon doesn’t support it yet either, so I’m also not on it :(

Haha thanks. I think it’s a lost cause! Perhaps I shouldn’t have worded the post the way I did.

I suspect this is what I’ll have to do. I was hoping to avoid it as that’ll take a weekend of copying, but I might just have to bite the bullet.

I’m not using Windows. I run Debian on this server.

The bulk of external enclosures that money can buy tell the computer they’re plugged into that the disks have logical sector sizes of 4096 bytes, apparently for compatibility with >2TB drives on Windows XP.

I do not need compatibility with Windows XP as the current year is 2024. My disk has logical sectors 512 bytes in size, but the external enclosures don’t report that. I want to know how I can mount the disk anyway, despite the enclosure’s attempts to thwart me. I know the disk is fine, as it is detected with 512 byte sectors and mounts happily via SATA.

It’s never been in a Windows machine.

The only enclosure I have that works out of the box is one of those “SATA to USB adaptors” rather than a bona fide “3.5 inch drive enclosure”. It’s not ideal for long-term use.

I wonder if there’s a place to find out if any given make/model of enclosure will report the sector size as 512 bytes. Then, presumably, one could purchase an enclosure off that list and be confident the disk will be readable.

Yes, the last code block in my OP shows the result of attempting to mount /dev/sdc1 normally: mount: /mnt: special device /dev/sdc1 does not exist.

Though I do not believe it is required as I can mount other drives to /mnt just fine, I have attempted to make /met/tmp and mount there to no avail.

No - I’ve been working on a headless server, and ideally I need this thing to be written into /etc/fstab and work reliably from the command line. I could plug the drive into my laptop to have a look in some GUI tools if you think there’s one around that can circumvent the sector size mismatch, but in the end I’ll need a CLI method.

It’s ext4.

I would argue modern MacOS is not “bad software” per se, it’s just nothing to write home about. Back in the heyday you describe, it was innovative and quite spectacular compared to the competition. Nowadays it’s rivals are better featured in many respects, but it still does everything it needs to.

They acquired K-9 Mail a year ago or so, but it’s still K-9 Mail. There’s plans and a roadmap, but not much has happened that the end user can see, yet.

It’s alright. Personal preference has me sticking with Linux, and I’ll never touch Windows with a ten foot pole if I can avoid it, but MacOS is certainly commendable.

Before I went Linux, I daily drove hackintoshes for a decade or so - back when the hardware was bad and the software was first class. Now it’s the other way around!

If Asahi ever get their kernel perfect, I’m definitely buying a modern MacBook Pro. No doubt about it.

It really does just sort of “work”.

“Sorry, there was a problem. (Error code 0x0000fkn69)”

Nothing Microsoft makes ever works.

And one of the last major holdouts from web 1.0 :(

The good thing about ChatGPT is that it gives you a starting point for languages you’re not familiar / rusty with.

As an Australian I had a heart attack before I read the title.

You don’t just pick up a handful of redbacks, you fool! You kill them with fire and sleep with one eye open for the next month!

Pixel 5 and Zenphone come to mind, too.

I use Xournal++, too. Note that the original Xournal is no longer maintained, but Xournal++ is.

It’s supposed to be a clone of Windows Journal - the precursor to OneNote. It’s very good at exporting to and annotating PDFs, and I use it for all my classwork. Windows Journal worked great for me back in the day, and Xournal++ continues to do so today.

All that said, I’m saving this post so I can try out some of the alternatives listed here in the future.

Don’t mind me and my ThinkPad X220.

Modern computers cost too damn much

AI can literally read minds. I don’t think it’s that great of a step to say it should be able to decompile a few games.