Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2012 August 3

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August 3

Is There a Free, Open-Source Program Similar to Visual Basic?

Thank you very much. Futurist110 (talk) 04:55, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Not exactly. You don't say which operating system you're using. It also depends if you want a language similar to Visual Basic (i.e. one based on the BASIC language), or if you're just wanting a system for rapid development of applications and you don't care much about the underlying language.

For Linux, Gambas is the closest thing to VB, being BASIC-like but not identical to Visual Basic, but I'm not sure how easy it is to run under Windows or MacOS. Otherwise you may look at other languages designed for easy development of desktop/graphical applications like Mono (software) (a C# clone), or Java (maybe with an integrated development environment like NetBeans which makes development much simpler). Otherwise, the traditional alternative to VB was the non-free Delphi, which is now considered rather dated, but there are various free versions available listed under Object Pascal, though I've no idea what they're like. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:26, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

If you're just looking to do VB development with free tools, but not open-source, look into the Visual Studio Express Editions. They give you pretty much the whole VS IDE for free, but have limitations on using them commercially. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 15:18, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm using Linux right now, at least on this computer. Futurist110 (talk) 01:59, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

You might like to look at "Basic for Qt", formerly known as "KBasic". http://www.q7basic.org/. They seem to have transitioned from open source to closed source with a limited free edition to completely commercial and now back to open source again. I've never tried their product myself.-gadfium 08:40, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

php myadmin

what do the latters php stand for and is it all about? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Suzyo Banda (talk • contribs) 09:44, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Why don't you look at our PHP article. Shadowjams (talk) 11:35, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

mounting with nounix, noserverino

I have a NTFS partition that I use for both Windows and Ubuntu. Recently, I have started to get the message "Value too large for defined data type" from my torrent program under Linux, no matter how big the file was. Reading on a forum, they recommended mounting the NTFS partition with nounix, noserverino, which worked so far.

Why did it worked? What was causing the problem? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Comploose (talk • contribs)

You're really not giving us much info to go on - telling us the version of Ubuntu, the version of the torrent program, and whether you're running 32 bit or 64 bit will help a lot. But I can tell that you're not mounting a local NTFS volume, because those aren't ntfs or ntfs-3g mount options - those are CIFS (Samba) mount options. It sounds like your torrent program was compiled without Large file support and so can't handle inode numbers > 2³¹. Lots of programs don't care about inode numbers, but those that use stat pass it around in an ino_t object (which is 32 bit by default on a 32 bit system). When you use serverino (which seems to be the default) then samba maps NTFS file IDs into unix inodes and passes them on to the client; but it seems these can be > 2³¹; when it notices you're trying to stat a file with such an inode number on a client with 32 bit ino_t, that's the error you get. Specifying noserverino instead tells samba not to use inode numbers it created from NTFS IDs, but to manufacture its own, and in doing this it seems to keep those < 2³¹. As the mount.cifs manpage notes, there are downsides to do thing this. It would be cleaner either if your 32 bit torrent client was built with LFS support, or if you were running a 64 bit system, where ino_t is 64 bit by default. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:09, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

You might wonder what large file support has to do with inode numbers. It's not obvious that they're related; inode numbers are just magic values, which are the same for a whole file. LFS would obviously change types for things that address the interior of files (like fpos_t and off_t) but not ino_t. They do change it (have fun reading /usr/include/i386-linux-gnu/sys/types.h) when you enable LFS; I guess the LFS developers were thinking "heck, were changing a bunch of stuff, and we're going to break some things, we might as well modernise everything that's to do with modern systems which can host lots of stuff, so we only break stuff once". -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:51, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed answers. My problem is back, the mounting parameters didn't solve it. I'm using Ubuntu 12.04, and Transmission from the repository.Shouldn't it already be compiled with large files in mind? Downloading something bigger than 2 GB is not that uncommon. Maybe the problem is actually the NTFS in linux, not the file size, since I also get trouble with files smaller than 2 GB, but only using torrents (either with the Transmission client or the qBittorrent client). Comploose (talk) 15:46, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

You're saying NTFS, but supplying CIFS mount options, which is confusing me. If the disk is formatted to NTFS and plugged directly into a linux machine, then you'd use ntfs or ntfs-3g to mount it (and those mount options are meaningless and wrong). But if it's on another machine, and you're accessing it over the network (that is with CIFS aka SMB aka Samba) then those are appropriate mount options (and the underlying filesystem, ntfs or not, is irrelevant). Or are you doing something with virtual machines? -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:53, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

I wrongly used the CIFS mount options in an attempt to get rid of the problem. The system did let me mount the NTFS, even if the parameters are meaningless. I thought that had solved the problem, but it's back. The partition is NTFS and in an internal HDD and the problem also appears with the Vuze torrent client. Comploose (talk) 16:23, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Problem solved (I think). I started the system with Windows and it noticed something strange and performed a chkdsk on the HDD. Apparently some files were damaged and therefore the error messages. However, how would you perform the equivalent of chkdsk in Linux? Obviously, you won't be using NTFS if you have an exclusive Linux system, but sometimes it might be needed to do it under Linux. Comploose (talk) 10:01, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

In general, filesystem errors in Linux are fixed with fsck. Just as mount is just a wrapper than runs the appropriate mount program (mount.ext2, mount.fuse, mount.ntfs-3g etc.) fsck runs the filesystem-relevant fsck program (fsck.ext3, fsck.cramfs, etc.). But there isn't (really) a Linux fsck.ntfs - there is ntfsfix, which fixes some errors, but not with the degree if thoroughness of a proper fsck. Right now the assumption seems to be that you're only running an NTFS volume because it goes into a windows machine sometimes, and given that there's no official documentation about NTFS' on-disk structure, it's still safest to have Windows fix errors. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:31, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Yeap, I wouldn't be using NTFS if it were not for Windows. I suppose there is no advantage for it under Linux.

And thank you for your answers. Comploose (talk) 17:40, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Online shopping

Can u suggest a website to buy online in Hungary ? GiantBluePanda (talk) 19:59, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

What would you like to purchase? The answers will depend heavily on that. Amazon is a decent all-round website for buying most items, and they will deliver to Hungary. Apparently, the biggest online auction sites are Vatera and Teszvesz. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 21:53, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Anything. I want to send a gift to my friend. GiantBluePanda (talk) 21:59, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Right. Well, see how you get on with those links then. (I've corrected the links to the auction sites. Turns out, when the Link box says 'page exists', it's lying. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 23:19, 3 August 2012 (UTC)