Recently set up a cheap TCL for a customer's AirBnB cabin.

Cannot use it for anything other than terrestrial digital TV without it being logged into a google account. Set it up and then log out? Lose all your streaming apps. Leave your own google account logged in for guests? Ha ha. Set up a dedicated google account? Double ha ha. Guests use their own? Sure, let them run through the setup wizard again, and download the latest apps again (rural area, fibre optic not available, it's 4G/5G with a weak signal), before they can watch netflix. Triple ha ha.

I told him his choices - get an AppleTV or similar, or plug an old laptop into the HDMI port, or return the TV for a pricier model without the login requirement. Obviously the first 2 options aren't ideal for a rental, so he took it back.

I offered to find out for him but he didn't want to pay me for something he could clearly do for himself. That's OK, he's going to call me again to set it up.

I want to know how to set and prove the identity and age of "Administrator"

z/OS (and IBM i / OS400) are pretty much hypervisors these days. They run VMs, not the other way around, and there isn't a platform out there that can provide the transaction throughput or uptime of a Z-series. If there were, then the mainframe would have died out a long time ago. Instead, IBM keeps on developing and refining it because there isn't an x86 platform that can do it for a competitive cost.

IIRC our AS400 took about 20-30 minutes from flicking the big red toggle switch until the console became usable.

But then it didn't happen very often, maybe once or twice a year.

I haven't bought a new laptop in years. There's a company in Australia (and many other countries I assume) who acquire ex-govt and ex-lease laptops. Business-grade laptops.

They get a new SSD and a bloat-free copy of windows, a 12-month warranty (excludes battery), and free shipping, for about 1/3 the price of a new machine. Currently typing this on a Lenovo i7-8550 with 12GB memory, a 240GB NVMe and a 500GB SSD in the spare slot. It'll do me for another couple of years.

You can keep windows or install your choice of distro. My "other" laptop has similar specs and runs Debian Trixie.

I hate seeing perfectly usable hardware go to waste, so every time I visit a pensioner with some creaking, wheezing old desktop, I point them to a "new" second-hand laptop.

You post a lot of text, only to grasp at straws. Operating system bigotry helps no-one. Someone with your experience should know that.

Have a better one.

"my years of experience"
I started my IT career on an IBM System/36 circa 1984, but let's not have a pissing contest, eh?

"very close to 100 percent uptime"
Why are you bringing uptime into it? I was talking about wireless adapter drivers - you know, as an example to support my argument that all OSs have problems. But as you've asked, I wouldn't expect any contemporary windows, macos, or linux machine to have close to 100% uptime. Achieving the "five nines" metric requires exponentially greater investment. But they have been getting better. I see fewer and fewer kernel panics and blue screens than I used to.

"without constant upkeep"
Now you're being silly, as if linux doesn't have constant updates.

"every OS is full of problems"

Heh.

"but only after about 45 minutes of reading manuals and forum posts."

Every OS *is* full of problems. Some more than others. It's only recently that Debian has started asking "Do you want to use non-free software?" and, more importantly "Do you want to use non-free firmware?", 'cos you couldn't finish a Debian installation without an ethernet cable to fetch the wireless drivers, or have them ready to go on a USB stick. Never had that with a Windows installation. Other failures and problems, yes, but not a lack of drivers to run the network adapters.

Nikon failed when they tied themselves to niche formats like Apple's MOV video format.

And the value of a Nikon was always in the glass. Nobody cared as much about the Nikon camera body as they did about the Nikon glass. But seeing what they've done in the digital world, I'm never buying a Nikon again.

Canon did it much better. And it's the same with Leica and Hasselblad - the glass is the thing.

I've got a Mamiya RB67 and the lenses are glorious. So is the body and viewfinder. But a digital back is something like AUD$14K. So I will stick to film for now.

Wasn't his doing. Management couldn't get the $$$ signs out of their eyes to see the coming revolution.

Had they properly managed the IP licencing earlier, and invested in more R&D for digital technology, they'd have stayed at the top of the pile. They had the money to invest in digital, but they were too scared of losing sales of analog films.

Sales of film negative stock was very profitable. And Kodachrome, and ektachrome.

Plus movie films, and specialist films. The catalogue was huge.

Kodak films were expensive. They were good, though, and worth the money. Their range of colour films was extensive, much much more than what's available today.

And then there was the printing papers.Rolls and rolls and rolls and rolls of it for minilabs AKA kiosks.

Ilford ruled on B&W, and Agfa was a distant third (good quality, just didn't have the sales). And Cibachrome...... drool.

Film *was* messy and expensive, but the results were fantastic.

I should clarify that by saying the results *could be* fantastic. Point-and-shoot cameras, while convenient and lots of fun, left a lot to be desired WRT quality imaging. But they *were* a lot of fun to use at parties, even if the results weren't immediately available, there was an enjoyable anticipation for the results.

Aren't there companies - mostly USA - with multiple 8s, much more than they could ever use?
I can understand IBM and HP needing multiple 8s, but General Motors and others?

That must be a nexus-1.

Won't be long before you can have a Leon for the heavy gardening work, a Pris for "company", and a Zhora to take out your enemies.

Perhaps even a Roy to discuss philosophy. Just don't make him mad by referring to the four-year lifespan.

"how to elevate privileges, hide processes, and quickly delete files"

He had to look that up? What an incompetent fool. He deserves his sentence.

Makes the rest of us look bad.

Fuck my 15 moderator points, you should be ashamed that this was allowed at all. What a load of shite.

I'm really disappointed.