Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2014 January 12

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January 12

4K and Remote desktop

I'm thinking of getting a 4K computer monitor, perhaps this one from Lenovo or this one from Dell. I'm currently running Windows 8 and will probably upgrade to 8.1 since Windows 8.1 has better support for 4K monitors. My question is what will happen when I Remote desktop from my 4K machine to my work laptop which is only 1080p and running Windows 7? Will there be any upscaling? I'd love for my remote desktop session to be full screen. I'd rather not have my remote desktop window only take up a quarter of the screen. I'm not sure I'd be able to read text on anything that small. Does anyone have any ideas what will happen? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:08, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the answer is - but I know what you can do to find out for sure. Set your laptop to run in (say) 640x480 resolution and remote-desktop into it and you'll see what happens when there is a resolution mismatch. SteveBaker (talk) 15:47, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Try this (which I found with a web search for "remote desktop scaling"). -- BenRG (talk) 21:37, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

That Dell monitor drops to 30Hz at 4k. That would give me an immediate flickering migraine. I'd avoid that, personally. 217.158.236.14 (talk) 11:28, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure it would actually 'flicker'. I think the backlight would remain on, but the pixels would only change at 30hz. Which is not great, but I imagine you wouldn't be playing games at 4k, anyway. APL (talk) 18:00, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

@SteveBaker:@BenRG: Thanks, Steve, for the suggestion and BenRG for the link. I tried Steve's experiment coupled with BenRG "smart scaling" article, and while I can get the window to scale, it only scales down. It does not scale up, which is what I want. I'm not sure if that's a limitation with my hardware or with RDP. I'll Google around see what I can find. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:29, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

GFortran III

This post is, essentially, addressed to StuRat although anyone else with experience may also contribute. I downloaded mingw-64-v3.0.0.tar.bz2; unzipped it (twice) with 7-zip, all files are now in a separate folder but I cannot find any executables. There are many text files, some C++ headers, etc. How do I get started? I do have Visual Studio 2010 installed if it is a prerequisite, I don't know. Thanks. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 15:44, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Did you look in the "bin" sub-folder ? There should be a gfortran.exe file there (note that Windows often annoyingly suppresses file type display, in which case it will look like just "gfortran"; maybe somebody else can tell you how to fix that problem).

At any rate, that's your compiler/linker. On my last post on this topic, I discussed ways to test it out, with my hello.f test program. You will have a problem, though, that the bin directory needs to be in your search path in order to compile from anywhere else. We discussed all this there, too.

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Computing/2013_December_30#Gfortran_download_.282nd_attempt.29 is the previous discussion. Note that the Youtube video I linked to there walks you through setting up the $PATH. StuRat (talk) 16:42, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

StuRat thank you. You are always ready to help. I did not look into bin subdirectory because I don't have one, believe it or not. I know how bin works, I would have checked it first had I had it. I went through all subdirectories just to make sure and, NO BIN found. As a matter of fact, I don't remember if I saw a single .exe file. What shall I do next? --AboutFace 22 (talk) 18:22, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for stating the obvious, but, not knowing you personally, I couldn't be certain that you knew about bin directories. StuRat (talk) 19:29, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Speaking of file extensions. Click on START, enter "extensions" in the search box and then click on "Show or hide file extensions." A wizard will show up, click on View tab, make sure that "Hide extension for known file types" is UNCHECKED. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 18:29, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, that worked. StuRat (talk) 19:18, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

StuRat, I just followed your link to my previous post which I also saved. It should be the way to go. Thanks. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 18:39, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

You're welcome. StuRat (talk) 16:00, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Which flavor of linux?

This is for my WinServ 2008. I installed Oracle VirtualBox, set up one Virtual machine with linux. The setup offers a few varieties. I chose Ubuntu but I wonder if others might be better: Linux 2.2, linux 2.4, linux 2.6/3.x, Arch linux, Debian, etc. Any opinions based on experience? Thanks, --AboutFace 22 (talk) 22:12, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

On VirtualBox, the VM creation wizard doesn't actually determine the OS; it just uses your selection to determine the default settings for the VM (amount of RAM, hard drive space, graphic memory, devices, etc). You could install Ubuntu onto a VM marked as MS-DOS provided that you changed the settings to properly accommodate it. Since the settings can be altered at any time through the VM settings menu, there's no irreversible detriment/benefit to be gained from selecting a certain OS.

By the wording of your question I'm guessing that you're new to virtual machines. If this is your first time using a virtual machine, I should also point out that the VM doesn't automatically install the OS for you. You still have to use some sort of installation medium as if it was an actual computer - VirtualBox accepts real OS CD/DVDs or virtual CD/DVD images (typically an .iso file). You can download a disc image for Ubuntu at Ubuntu's website, and images for other Linux distros at their respective sites. The VM will ask you to browse for this medium on first run, and you can always change it out by right-clicking the CD icon at the bottom right of the window and clicking "Choose virtual CD/DVD disk file." ProtossPylon 22:34, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

You are correct. I am green on that. I appreciate the tips and pointers for sure. I chose Ubuntu yesterday (from a drop-down box) because a friend of mine recommented it and demonstrated it on his laptop. It looked very impressive. Perhaps that was a good choice. Thanks again. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 23:22, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

I checked your link. What shall I download: Ubuntu Server/Ubuntu Desktop/Ubuntu Cloud? My goals are very limited. To set up a web server which just a few people might use with a password (acquantances/business associates, etc), checking various software thru safe downloads, etc. Actually I need a Ubuntu Client. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 23:29, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

I have several versions of Ubuntu running in VitualBox with no problem. Also, I don't update them – I just let them be. Ubuntu is based on Debian. Mint is a good stable beginners flavour of Ubuntu and I think you will waist time looking for the perfect flavour – I have given up long ago. So now you have Ubuntu, I suggest you stick with that and don't update it. --Aspro (talk) 23:34, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Mint has been suggested by my friend but the VirtualBox does not have Mint. I appreciate your assesment. I will stick with Ubuntu. It has been around for a long time. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 01:26, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

As I stated earlier, the OS drop-down menu doesn't have any bearing on what OS you have to use on it. Either way, Mint is based on Ubuntu. ProtossPylon 01:43, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Since Mint is based heavily on Ubuntu, choosing Ubuntu in VirtualBox would be a good place to start. Then you can tweak the configuration as you need it before you install Mint. Astronaut (talk) 15:39, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Also, Ubnutu has newbie friendly forums. [1] Some contributors are also power-uses and so can address other power-users queries. --Aspro (talk) 21:08, 13 January 2014 (UTC)