More Linux playing. This time, I went and downloaded FatDog64, which has been talked up rather highly around YouTube and such.
It was, shall we say, an adventure...
Trying to download it from the FatDog website just wouldn't work. Tried twice. The first time I ended up with some strange files oddities in the download folder. Zapped those, and tried again, only to have the download fail at about the 200 MB level...
So, I did some searching, and found a mirror site, which allowed me to choose whether I wanted the version with Seamonkey as a web browser, or FireFox. I chose FireFox and went on, holding my breath.
The download that time work. I quickly burned to CD, did a liveboot, and everything seemed hunkydory on my Acer desktop (with Ethernet to the modem). OK. While in the liveboot, I set up an old USB thumbdrive for boot, and installed to that.
So, I pulled out the T400, which I've been testing with the new battery, and decided to give it a go. (I needed to boot into BIOS anyway, to disable the Bluetooth, which I never use, and which [for me] only serves as a battery drain.) FatDog booted up OK, no problems.
I was slightly thrown when I wasn't given the network setup prompt at bootup, as other Puppies do. So, I went in search of the network setup, only to get my second jolt: It's not recognizing my touchpad for input. It lets me navigate with the touchpad, but won't let me click. I'll have to check on that...
After finally getting my head on straight, I got the network set up, and am now cruising about in FireFox. (And typing this entry.) I'll be taking this OS on the road with me as well for some testing. (Though, right now, I somehow see Saluki getting more service time.)
A question: Why the hell does the trashcan keep appearing as though it's got something in it? I clicked on it shortly after bootup, and it went to the 'empty' look. Now it looks full again...
This is going to be an adventure...
In other news. (ie, more tails of me needing to get my head screwed on right...) I finally got round to downloading/installing Thunar under Bodhi. (Forgetting, of course, that Thunar takes forever to start up...) Enlightenment File Manager is tolerable for a quick look at what's in a folder, but it is a bit skimpy for real file management.
Oh well... I need to get packed up this evening. Back out to work tomorrow...
And maybe get a little more "adventuring" in for the evening...
Weekends definitely go by too fast.........
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Saturday, April 27, 2013
The Setup
Well, the Thinkpad T400 came home from the Computer-Shop-Across-the-River today, now sporting a brand new CPU cooling fan. Works great, with no problems. I'm happy.
Not having anything better to do, I debated all day about what to install on the system. For the longest time, it was down to between CrunchBang and Bodhi. I did some experimenting with the system, tested both distros via liveboot.
As a side test, I booted Saluki from the USB drive I made up last night. Ran like a dream.
So, all day, I went back and forth between CrunchBang and Bodhi. I just couldn't decide between them. (And, I do have to say, if the heaviest thing you have to decide is between which Linux distro you're going to install on a computer, I'd say life is treating you pretty easy...)
Finally, I came to a decision: Install NetRunner.
Yeah, NetRunner. After all, that's what I originally had in mind when I bought this computer.
So, I installed NetRunner.
Major mistake.
Now, I'd did a liveboot test, and everything seemed fine. A few glitchy things which I wrote off as being due to running from the CD. But I went ahead with the installation process, which seemed to go fairly smoothly. I got up to rebooting the system into the new installation...
...and the reboot failed. The system locked with a black screen a barely blinking hard drive light.
OK, hard reboot and everything seems to work fine. I dearly loved the login screen...
Then, I get back in, only to find that my wireless isn't working. So, I try to enter my password for my wireless setup... Only to be told that the activation failed. Even though it looks like the wireless is up. The web browser burps, and now I can't get back into the wireless setup... And I keep being asked to set up some sort of "password locker" type thing... Every time I dismiss the password locker thing, and try to access the wireless, the password locker setup reappears... OK, I'll do the password thing, and maybe that will store my wireless password properly...
Yeah, right... At this point, I get a little disgusted, and try to reboot the system... Only to have the reboot fail yet again...
As the old farmers say, at this point I had lost my religion, so I reached for another distro...
By the sheer coincidence that its CD was laying on top of the distro pile, I am now running Bodhi on the T400. It installed perfectly (though I initially forgot to enable the wireless icon in the liveboot), and everything ran perfectly once the install was complete.
Well, almost perfectly. I installed the "Nikhila" (ie, heavyweight) meta package from the Bodhi AppCenter. I figured that would be faster than doing it individually. Of course, the "Nikhila" setup comes with Adobe PDF reader, which I truly dislike. (If I could never see another Adobe product, it would be too soon.) So, I went back through the AppCenter, and threw Okular on for the time being. I figured I could just go through Synaptic and nuke Adobe Reader.
I just never realized that Adobe Reader was the "zombie you can't kill" program. Took me about 3 passes through Synaptic before I finally managed to extirpate every last vestige it. How many damned bits and pieces does that accursed program jam onto your system..?
As a comparison, I also zapped Cheese, as I don't have a webcam. That was just point & click removal, the way it should be.
But, hallelujah!, Bodhi is now set and running. I'm happy.
Though I'll probably tote the CrunchBang DVD along with me when I go back to work Monday.
I'm just never satisified...
Not having anything better to do, I debated all day about what to install on the system. For the longest time, it was down to between CrunchBang and Bodhi. I did some experimenting with the system, tested both distros via liveboot.
As a side test, I booted Saluki from the USB drive I made up last night. Ran like a dream.
So, all day, I went back and forth between CrunchBang and Bodhi. I just couldn't decide between them. (And, I do have to say, if the heaviest thing you have to decide is between which Linux distro you're going to install on a computer, I'd say life is treating you pretty easy...)
Finally, I came to a decision: Install NetRunner.
Yeah, NetRunner. After all, that's what I originally had in mind when I bought this computer.
So, I installed NetRunner.
Major mistake.
Now, I'd did a liveboot test, and everything seemed fine. A few glitchy things which I wrote off as being due to running from the CD. But I went ahead with the installation process, which seemed to go fairly smoothly. I got up to rebooting the system into the new installation...
...and the reboot failed. The system locked with a black screen a barely blinking hard drive light.
OK, hard reboot and everything seems to work fine. I dearly loved the login screen...
Then, I get back in, only to find that my wireless isn't working. So, I try to enter my password for my wireless setup... Only to be told that the activation failed. Even though it looks like the wireless is up. The web browser burps, and now I can't get back into the wireless setup... And I keep being asked to set up some sort of "password locker" type thing... Every time I dismiss the password locker thing, and try to access the wireless, the password locker setup reappears... OK, I'll do the password thing, and maybe that will store my wireless password properly...
Yeah, right... At this point, I get a little disgusted, and try to reboot the system... Only to have the reboot fail yet again...
As the old farmers say, at this point I had lost my religion, so I reached for another distro...
By the sheer coincidence that its CD was laying on top of the distro pile, I am now running Bodhi on the T400. It installed perfectly (though I initially forgot to enable the wireless icon in the liveboot), and everything ran perfectly once the install was complete.
Well, almost perfectly. I installed the "Nikhila" (ie, heavyweight) meta package from the Bodhi AppCenter. I figured that would be faster than doing it individually. Of course, the "Nikhila" setup comes with Adobe PDF reader, which I truly dislike. (If I could never see another Adobe product, it would be too soon.) So, I went back through the AppCenter, and threw Okular on for the time being. I figured I could just go through Synaptic and nuke Adobe Reader.
I just never realized that Adobe Reader was the "zombie you can't kill" program. Took me about 3 passes through Synaptic before I finally managed to extirpate every last vestige it. How many damned bits and pieces does that accursed program jam onto your system..?
As a comparison, I also zapped Cheese, as I don't have a webcam. That was just point & click removal, the way it should be.
But, hallelujah!, Bodhi is now set and running. I'm happy.
Though I'll probably tote the CrunchBang DVD along with me when I go back to work Monday.
I'm just never satisified...
Friday, April 26, 2013
And a quick note
Just checked the stats, and wow!
73% of the recent viewers are on Linux, while Chrome is whipping everything as the web browser of choice. My poor Macs have simply dropped away, and Windows is getting a goodly thrashing.
Wow, folks! Interesting!
73% of the recent viewers are on Linux, while Chrome is whipping everything as the web browser of choice. My poor Macs have simply dropped away, and Windows is getting a goodly thrashing.
Wow, folks! Interesting!
On the Road Computing
Not been on for a while, due to work. I'm on the road a bit, and what I'm doing takes up a goodly bit of my time. By the end of the day, I'm not really wanting to do much more than to turn into a human-shaped vegetable for the evening.
However, I have been a bit creative with my "vegging out." I took along my X60s, running Mint, along with a couple bootable USB sticks, one with MacPup, the other with Precise Puppy. And I have to say, they worked great. They offered a bit of a change of pace, being able to slip from one operating system into another. I was sort of able to sort out the "work" stuff (done under Mint) from the more "relaxing" stuff (usually done under MacPup, but occasionally switching off with Precise).
I've said it once, I'll say it again: I am VERY impressed with the Puppy Linuxes. They do what they say.
I'm so impressed, in fact, that I just created another USB boot stick with Saluki Linux installed. The install went great, and I only had one minor snag (if you can call it that). I had to install FireFox, as the version of Saluki I have (023) only came with Midori. The download and install of FF, along with Flash, went off without a hitch. Everything works fine.
There is one bit of funkiness in this little story. I was thinking about doing the Saluki install while on the road, and decided to do a little reading up on the OS. I browsed IcyOS's videos, etc., then hit DistroWatch. From there, I went to jump to the Saluki homepage, only to find it was "expired" and dead. The download pages were the same.
Luckily I'd stashed away an .iso copy, but...
I dearly hope this is just some oddball hitch. It's far too nice an OS to see it fall off into oblivion. I haven't checked back lately to see if anything has changed.
Creepy.
In other news, the T400 is still at the Computer-Shop-Across-the-River. They had to order a fan, and it just arrived. They are going to try to get it up and running, hopefully by tomorrow.
I still haven't decided what to install on it...
Oh well...
Beyond that, not much is going on. I intend to take a slow, restful weekend. I hope everyone can do the same.
However, I have been a bit creative with my "vegging out." I took along my X60s, running Mint, along with a couple bootable USB sticks, one with MacPup, the other with Precise Puppy. And I have to say, they worked great. They offered a bit of a change of pace, being able to slip from one operating system into another. I was sort of able to sort out the "work" stuff (done under Mint) from the more "relaxing" stuff (usually done under MacPup, but occasionally switching off with Precise).
I've said it once, I'll say it again: I am VERY impressed with the Puppy Linuxes. They do what they say.
I'm so impressed, in fact, that I just created another USB boot stick with Saluki Linux installed. The install went great, and I only had one minor snag (if you can call it that). I had to install FireFox, as the version of Saluki I have (023) only came with Midori. The download and install of FF, along with Flash, went off without a hitch. Everything works fine.
There is one bit of funkiness in this little story. I was thinking about doing the Saluki install while on the road, and decided to do a little reading up on the OS. I browsed IcyOS's videos, etc., then hit DistroWatch. From there, I went to jump to the Saluki homepage, only to find it was "expired" and dead. The download pages were the same.
Luckily I'd stashed away an .iso copy, but...
I dearly hope this is just some oddball hitch. It's far too nice an OS to see it fall off into oblivion. I haven't checked back lately to see if anything has changed.
Creepy.
In other news, the T400 is still at the Computer-Shop-Across-the-River. They had to order a fan, and it just arrived. They are going to try to get it up and running, hopefully by tomorrow.
I still haven't decided what to install on it...
Oh well...
Beyond that, not much is going on. I intend to take a slow, restful weekend. I hope everyone can do the same.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Flipping about
It's been a rather nice day here, if a bit windy and cold. A very good day to just get out and waste a day. Which I did, quite effeciently.
I did drip the T400 off at the Computer-Shop-Across-the-River. Had a nice chat with the owner, who took the time out from the absolute stack of computers in the queue to be worked on to talk. They're a nice bunch, and I feel quite safe leaving one of my toys with them to be worked on.
Other than that...
I had the Acer Aspire out, and ran the battery down watching "The Tek" on YouTube. (Interesting bunch there, too. I like the oddball humor. Check them out. And, as a disclaimer, I have no connection to them. Just find some of their stuff interesting.) A couple hours of using Bodhi for the evening.
And I'm now using CrunchBang on the T60. (And no, I don't feel hip enough to use the '#!' icon just yet. I'm not that big of a CrunchBang user, just yet.) Flipping through the various distros I have up/running sort of keeps me limber, not letting me get locked into one or the other.
It does feel odd, going from distro to distro, especially as I read/watch various reviews online. The dichotomies that I run across surprised me. In one review of Bodhi, the reviewer refers to it as more suitable for "power users" because of its massive customizability. In another, the reviewer seems to say Bodhi is more suitable for "noobs", because of it's massive customizability... Reviewers tend to sing the praises of the utter stability of CrunchBang; general users on forums tend to go on about CrunchBang's apparent reputation for eating users if they turn their backs on their computers...
And everybody hates Ubuntu. Because it's popular. And that's bad. Because...uhmmm.... Well, because!
Fascinating.
I was just looking at the blog stats, and I am both fascinated and grateful for the spread of readers I've been getting. Folks from all over the world, which I find very gratifying. Thanks for stopping by! As I said a few posts ago, I hope my ramblings are least a little distracting from the day to day.
One of these days, I might even try to be a bit coherent in what I'm going on about! ;-)
I was fascinated to see that someone hit the site using Windows NT (Welcome!), which was separated out from the general "Windows" category. Interesting that. Kinda sad that my beloved Macs are in the distinct minority. But I'm glad that all the folks, using whatever hardware/software they like.
I do get a little grumpy and fixated at times. But, in the end, I take a cue from a comment Harlan Ellison made in one of his commentaries way back when. Use what you're comfortable with. (OK, he didn't say it that way, and it was in a piece lambasting the types who abuse the anonymity of the Internet, but hey...)
Hope everyone enjoys the weekend! I'm off the waste the rest of the day!
I did drip the T400 off at the Computer-Shop-Across-the-River. Had a nice chat with the owner, who took the time out from the absolute stack of computers in the queue to be worked on to talk. They're a nice bunch, and I feel quite safe leaving one of my toys with them to be worked on.
Other than that...
I had the Acer Aspire out, and ran the battery down watching "The Tek" on YouTube. (Interesting bunch there, too. I like the oddball humor. Check them out. And, as a disclaimer, I have no connection to them. Just find some of their stuff interesting.) A couple hours of using Bodhi for the evening.
And I'm now using CrunchBang on the T60. (And no, I don't feel hip enough to use the '#!' icon just yet. I'm not that big of a CrunchBang user, just yet.) Flipping through the various distros I have up/running sort of keeps me limber, not letting me get locked into one or the other.
It does feel odd, going from distro to distro, especially as I read/watch various reviews online. The dichotomies that I run across surprised me. In one review of Bodhi, the reviewer refers to it as more suitable for "power users" because of its massive customizability. In another, the reviewer seems to say Bodhi is more suitable for "noobs", because of it's massive customizability... Reviewers tend to sing the praises of the utter stability of CrunchBang; general users on forums tend to go on about CrunchBang's apparent reputation for eating users if they turn their backs on their computers...
And everybody hates Ubuntu. Because it's popular. And that's bad. Because...uhmmm.... Well, because!
Fascinating.
I was just looking at the blog stats, and I am both fascinated and grateful for the spread of readers I've been getting. Folks from all over the world, which I find very gratifying. Thanks for stopping by! As I said a few posts ago, I hope my ramblings are least a little distracting from the day to day.
One of these days, I might even try to be a bit coherent in what I'm going on about! ;-)
I was fascinated to see that someone hit the site using Windows NT (Welcome!), which was separated out from the general "Windows" category. Interesting that. Kinda sad that my beloved Macs are in the distinct minority. But I'm glad that all the folks, using whatever hardware/software they like.
I do get a little grumpy and fixated at times. But, in the end, I take a cue from a comment Harlan Ellison made in one of his commentaries way back when. Use what you're comfortable with. (OK, he didn't say it that way, and it was in a piece lambasting the types who abuse the anonymity of the Internet, but hey...)
Hope everyone enjoys the weekend! I'm off the waste the rest of the day!
Friday, April 19, 2013
Minor Ramblings...
Did the long road trip today, in preparation for some work I'll be doing next week. It was...well, a long road trip. I'll be making it several times over the next few weeks. Looks like some decent work, at least for a while.
I didn't bother taking the X60s along with me, which was probably for the best. I just needed pen and paper today, and that served me well enough. Maybe next week...
Currently, I've got the T400 up and running. Which is another story altogether. When I booted it this evening, yes, I got the damned "Fan Error" message, and the thing crashed. This time I didn't even bother with the canned air. A good "thwack" on the side got the thing running again. Which tells me I'm in for trouble. It has to be a fan going bad, which annoys me to no end.
So, off tomorrow to the Computer-Shop-Across-the-River. Granted, I could just snag a new fan and do the job myself, but I really don't have the space to do the work, and I really don't have the time. I have other things I need to be doing this weekend.
So...
In the meantime, while the thing is up and running, I've livebooted into Bodhi, just to see how it feels on this system. I have to say good, even though I forgot to install the wireless gizmo into the liveboot run, and spent 5 minutes fiddling, trying to get the 'Net connection up and going. Thank heavens for the Bodhi start page.
I am still fascinated that you can not log into Hotmail via the Midori web browser. Hotmail is THAT bad these days? Yeesh! (Though, it's as close to the "Metro" look as I ever want to come...)
Anyway...
Not much else going on here. I'm exhausted, not just from the road trip, but from last night. My dog decided that, if he couldn't sleep, I wouldn't sleep. I didn't sleep. So I am definitely not long out of the bed...
I didn't bother taking the X60s along with me, which was probably for the best. I just needed pen and paper today, and that served me well enough. Maybe next week...
Currently, I've got the T400 up and running. Which is another story altogether. When I booted it this evening, yes, I got the damned "Fan Error" message, and the thing crashed. This time I didn't even bother with the canned air. A good "thwack" on the side got the thing running again. Which tells me I'm in for trouble. It has to be a fan going bad, which annoys me to no end.
So, off tomorrow to the Computer-Shop-Across-the-River. Granted, I could just snag a new fan and do the job myself, but I really don't have the space to do the work, and I really don't have the time. I have other things I need to be doing this weekend.
So...
In the meantime, while the thing is up and running, I've livebooted into Bodhi, just to see how it feels on this system. I have to say good, even though I forgot to install the wireless gizmo into the liveboot run, and spent 5 minutes fiddling, trying to get the 'Net connection up and going. Thank heavens for the Bodhi start page.
I am still fascinated that you can not log into Hotmail via the Midori web browser. Hotmail is THAT bad these days? Yeesh! (Though, it's as close to the "Metro" look as I ever want to come...)
Anyway...
Not much else going on here. I'm exhausted, not just from the road trip, but from last night. My dog decided that, if he couldn't sleep, I wouldn't sleep. I didn't sleep. So I am definitely not long out of the bed...
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Fiddling the evening away
I'm back at it on the Thinkpad T400. Just booted it up this evening, and got the dreaded "Fan Error" message these systems are often afflicted with. A quick recourse to the canned air seems to have helped, but I have a strange feeling that I'll be dropping it off at the Computer-Shop-Across-the-River before long...
And, before anyone asks, no I haven't installed a Linux distro yet. However, I'm going to. And, giving my fickleness, I think I'm leaning towards Bodhi. I had the old Acer Aspire (which is running Bodhi) out just a bit ago, doing some YouTube cruising, and I find that I really, really like Enlightenment. I like the minimalist, "You put what you want" approach. Granted, it takes time to get it all set up just the way I want it, but... (Netrunner has some cool stuff, particularly that included version of VirtualBox that I so want to play with. But it comes with a bit too much bloat for my taste. Too much stuff I'd have to excise...)
Right now, I've got the T400 booted into MacPup off the USB. (There's Enlightenment again.) As a side note, I'm wanting to kick myself for something I did last night. I did a screen shot last night of some stuff I wanted to save from the 'Net. However, in my normally addled mental state, I FORGOT TO MOUNT THE USB STICK. I'd just hit 'save' on the system last night, didn't rename or select beyond the default location. When I just looked... No screenshot saved.
Irksome.
I have to do a long road trip tomorrow, and kind of considered taking the T400 here along for the ride. However, I haven't even installed the new battery yet. (The old battery seems to be functional, but I haven't tested it to see how much charge it still holds.) And the fan issue needs to be checked into better. (I'm not going to be toting a can of compressed air along, so...) Probably just tuck the X60s in the bag, and maybe tote my Puppy USBs along for the ride.
In other computer news, along with the T400, I got a 512 MB memory stick for the A31, so it will soon be on the upgrade block. No question about what's going on there. It's going to be AntiX. I look forward to getting that system up and fully functional again. It's a beautiful old computer. I hope that I can get some drivers downloaded for the PCMCIA wireless card, so it will be fully untethered. (Though, to be honest, it might be a better computer for writing, if I don't have instant access to the online world...)
I think I'll just back over to YouTube. The evening still needs to be fiddled away a bit...
And, before anyone asks, no I haven't installed a Linux distro yet. However, I'm going to. And, giving my fickleness, I think I'm leaning towards Bodhi. I had the old Acer Aspire (which is running Bodhi) out just a bit ago, doing some YouTube cruising, and I find that I really, really like Enlightenment. I like the minimalist, "You put what you want" approach. Granted, it takes time to get it all set up just the way I want it, but... (Netrunner has some cool stuff, particularly that included version of VirtualBox that I so want to play with. But it comes with a bit too much bloat for my taste. Too much stuff I'd have to excise...)
Right now, I've got the T400 booted into MacPup off the USB. (There's Enlightenment again.) As a side note, I'm wanting to kick myself for something I did last night. I did a screen shot last night of some stuff I wanted to save from the 'Net. However, in my normally addled mental state, I FORGOT TO MOUNT THE USB STICK. I'd just hit 'save' on the system last night, didn't rename or select beyond the default location. When I just looked... No screenshot saved.
Irksome.
I have to do a long road trip tomorrow, and kind of considered taking the T400 here along for the ride. However, I haven't even installed the new battery yet. (The old battery seems to be functional, but I haven't tested it to see how much charge it still holds.) And the fan issue needs to be checked into better. (I'm not going to be toting a can of compressed air along, so...) Probably just tuck the X60s in the bag, and maybe tote my Puppy USBs along for the ride.
In other computer news, along with the T400, I got a 512 MB memory stick for the A31, so it will soon be on the upgrade block. No question about what's going on there. It's going to be AntiX. I look forward to getting that system up and fully functional again. It's a beautiful old computer. I hope that I can get some drivers downloaded for the PCMCIA wireless card, so it will be fully untethered. (Though, to be honest, it might be a better computer for writing, if I don't have instant access to the online world...)
I think I'll just back over to YouTube. The evening still needs to be fiddled away a bit...
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
And Paranoid
I swear I am getting paranoid in my old age...
Instead of just shutting down and hitting the sack, I decided to try the Netrunner liveboot on the T400... And it almost felt like Windows was fighting back. Took FOREVER to boot from the DVD, far longer than on any of my other computers. (Or so it felt to me, sitting here alone in my little monk's cell of a room...) Then the network started acting funny...
Netrunner is so...cool, though...
I do believe that Windows is on it's way out. Not tonight, though. I WILL sleep on it.
It's getting late, and I'm getting silly. Time to go to bed...
Instead of just shutting down and hitting the sack, I decided to try the Netrunner liveboot on the T400... And it almost felt like Windows was fighting back. Took FOREVER to boot from the DVD, far longer than on any of my other computers. (Or so it felt to me, sitting here alone in my little monk's cell of a room...) Then the network started acting funny...
Netrunner is so...cool, though...
I do believe that Windows is on it's way out. Not tonight, though. I WILL sleep on it.
It's getting late, and I'm getting silly. Time to go to bed...
Materialistic Ways
Well, I may be back on the road again soon, so...
I picked up another clodhopper laptop. I found a castoff Thinkpad T400 on the cheap, and snatched it up, thinking that a Core2Duo with a fast clock speed and (more importantly) a considerably larger hard drive might be a good investment. This one was apparently a corporate castoff, into which someone had jammed an extra gig of RAM. It just showed up on my doorstep today.
I've been swearing oaths over & over that I would NOT tolerate Windows on a "new" laptop. Well, this one came with Win7 Professional, and for some reason I'm a bit hesitant to wipe it and install something better. (I have a copy of Netrunner I'm dying to try...)
Would you believe that I sat here for nearly 2 hours, running updates on Windows, the Thinkpad software, etc.? I had all sorts of wonky stuff happen, of course. (Windows update failed on at least 5 updates... The "ThinkVantage" software crashed the computer's screen, forcing a reboot... The virus scanning software simply stopped in the middle of upgrading... The attempt to upgrade Adobe's compliment ended in failure...)
And I'm still dragging my feet on doing what should be done...
Right now, I'm running MacPup off the USB drive. (Had a devil of a time with that. Windows, of course, wanted to format the stick the minute I plugged it in. Then, when I rebooted, it almost felt like Windows overrode the "ThinkVantage" button, and went straight into Windows boot up. Rebooted again, and got part of the way into the standard Puppy bootup, only to have the system start acting wonky... Forced a system shutdown, rebooted, and everything works fine...)
I don't really feel safe with the Windows side. I do feel comfortable with MacPup.
And I'm STILL dragging my feet...
I need to liveboot Netrunner... Though I'm now also debating doing a Bodhi install... (Had to watch one of IcyOS's reviews, which got me off on the Bodhi mindset...)
This is what happens when materialism gets the better of you. I oughta know better...
Think I'm gonna sleep on it........
I picked up another clodhopper laptop. I found a castoff Thinkpad T400 on the cheap, and snatched it up, thinking that a Core2Duo with a fast clock speed and (more importantly) a considerably larger hard drive might be a good investment. This one was apparently a corporate castoff, into which someone had jammed an extra gig of RAM. It just showed up on my doorstep today.
I've been swearing oaths over & over that I would NOT tolerate Windows on a "new" laptop. Well, this one came with Win7 Professional, and for some reason I'm a bit hesitant to wipe it and install something better. (I have a copy of Netrunner I'm dying to try...)
Would you believe that I sat here for nearly 2 hours, running updates on Windows, the Thinkpad software, etc.? I had all sorts of wonky stuff happen, of course. (Windows update failed on at least 5 updates... The "ThinkVantage" software crashed the computer's screen, forcing a reboot... The virus scanning software simply stopped in the middle of upgrading... The attempt to upgrade Adobe's compliment ended in failure...)
And I'm still dragging my feet on doing what should be done...
Right now, I'm running MacPup off the USB drive. (Had a devil of a time with that. Windows, of course, wanted to format the stick the minute I plugged it in. Then, when I rebooted, it almost felt like Windows overrode the "ThinkVantage" button, and went straight into Windows boot up. Rebooted again, and got part of the way into the standard Puppy bootup, only to have the system start acting wonky... Forced a system shutdown, rebooted, and everything works fine...)
I don't really feel safe with the Windows side. I do feel comfortable with MacPup.
And I'm STILL dragging my feet...
I need to liveboot Netrunner... Though I'm now also debating doing a Bodhi install... (Had to watch one of IcyOS's reviews, which got me off on the Bodhi mindset...)
This is what happens when materialism gets the better of you. I oughta know better...
Think I'm gonna sleep on it........
Monday, April 15, 2013
...and again
Yeah, I did it again. I'm showing off.
Precise Puppy is now up and running on USB. Soooo...
The Puppies are good distros for this, of course. Lean, fast, but very, very good. I've gotten to like them more and more.
Obviously...
Guess I'll be lost in Linux-land again...
Precise Puppy is now up and running on USB. Soooo...
The Puppies are good distros for this, of course. Lean, fast, but very, very good. I've gotten to like them more and more.
Obviously...
Guess I'll be lost in Linux-land again...
Chaos Rebound 2
OK, if at first you don't succeed... Even if you sorta succeeded, but needed to prove to yourself that can actually succeed properly...
I did a second round with the USB install using MacPup, just to prove to myself that I actually have a clue. This time I followed the advice of the ever-cool IcyOS (otherwise known as Puppy Linux World) on YouTube. He has a great video (though aimed at Saluki Linux) which is excellent for installing any Puppy Linux distro to USB. You can watch it here.
Basically, it's doing it the "manual" way. Setting up the USB stick via gparted, then copying over the files manually, then setting up the boot menu via grub4dos. Nothing automated. It's quick, it's simple, and you know that everything is done properly. And it works like a charm. I'm doing this entry in FireFox under MacPup off an 8 GB stick on the Toshiba. (I was going to do it off the Acer desktop, but it won't boot from USB. Literally hangs at the Acer splash screen. Weird...)
Granted, I know this is old, old hat to most Linux mavens. But, to me, it's a major achievement. I feel like I've done something cool.
Low-level geekery can have its rewards...
I did a second round with the USB install using MacPup, just to prove to myself that I actually have a clue. This time I followed the advice of the ever-cool IcyOS (otherwise known as Puppy Linux World) on YouTube. He has a great video (though aimed at Saluki Linux) which is excellent for installing any Puppy Linux distro to USB. You can watch it here.
Basically, it's doing it the "manual" way. Setting up the USB stick via gparted, then copying over the files manually, then setting up the boot menu via grub4dos. Nothing automated. It's quick, it's simple, and you know that everything is done properly. And it works like a charm. I'm doing this entry in FireFox under MacPup off an 8 GB stick on the Toshiba. (I was going to do it off the Acer desktop, but it won't boot from USB. Literally hangs at the Acer splash screen. Weird...)
Granted, I know this is old, old hat to most Linux mavens. But, to me, it's a major achievement. I feel like I've done something cool.
Low-level geekery can have its rewards...
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Chaos rebounds
And just as a followup...
Since I had the Toshiba laptop out, I decided to do an update on the Windows 7 install I still have on that system...
Yeah...
Well, after fighting with the Norton security package, and the Adobe Flash crap, etc., etc., I finally got into the Widows update...
Yeah...
Let me just put it into perspective: I had not used my old MacBook Pro for ages, and had about 300+ MB of updates on it. In about 10 minutes, I had all of that downloaded and installed, and was working away.
The Win Update said I had 49 + MB of updates to install. Fifteen minutes later, I had just hit 9% downloaded... I won't even go into how long it took to install what totaled 9 updates...
And when it finally hit the "You have to restart to get these very minor updates to work properly" bit... Well, I hit "Restart", whereupon Windows Update crashed and locked up the system...
Getting past that, I then have to begin fighting with Norton security again...
I am reminded, yet again, WHY I switched to Macintosh, and am now experimenting with Linux.
And the only real reason I keep this particular Windows 7 install? Because I have a copy of Amiga Forever thereon...
Yeah....
Since I had the Toshiba laptop out, I decided to do an update on the Windows 7 install I still have on that system...
Yeah...
Well, after fighting with the Norton security package, and the Adobe Flash crap, etc., etc., I finally got into the Widows update...
Yeah...
Let me just put it into perspective: I had not used my old MacBook Pro for ages, and had about 300+ MB of updates on it. In about 10 minutes, I had all of that downloaded and installed, and was working away.
The Win Update said I had 49 + MB of updates to install. Fifteen minutes later, I had just hit 9% downloaded... I won't even go into how long it took to install what totaled 9 updates...
And when it finally hit the "You have to restart to get these very minor updates to work properly" bit... Well, I hit "Restart", whereupon Windows Update crashed and locked up the system...
Getting past that, I then have to begin fighting with Norton security again...
I am reminded, yet again, WHY I switched to Macintosh, and am now experimenting with Linux.
And the only real reason I keep this particular Windows 7 install? Because I have a copy of Amiga Forever thereon...
Yeah....
Chaos 6, Unnecesarium 2, Logic ejected for rude behavior
So... I got MacPup Linux running on a USB thumb drive.
This has truly been a task of Herculean proportions, at least for a near technical illiterate like myself. I used the Puppy Universal Installer (which gagged because I kept getting the formatting of the drive wrong), and the Bootflash Install (which gagged because I didn't have the .iso stored where it could be accessed). But I finally let the Bootflash utility format the drive, and then Universal Installer jam the the necessary files in place.
I then tested the bootable drive on my Toshiba. It booted.
Then I tried to do some updates to the system.
I won't go there.
This has all been very good for my soul.
At least the thing is booting, it's recognizing my hardware correctly, going online, showing the correct time, etc.
I'll test it on a few other systems. Gently. Then I will quietly set it aside for a while.
What is that old bit about trying to do things that you haven't a clue how to do?
This has been very, very, VERY good for my soul.
This has truly been a task of Herculean proportions, at least for a near technical illiterate like myself. I used the Puppy Universal Installer (which gagged because I kept getting the formatting of the drive wrong), and the Bootflash Install (which gagged because I didn't have the .iso stored where it could be accessed). But I finally let the Bootflash utility format the drive, and then Universal Installer jam the the necessary files in place.
I then tested the bootable drive on my Toshiba. It booted.
Then I tried to do some updates to the system.
I won't go there.
This has all been very good for my soul.
At least the thing is booting, it's recognizing my hardware correctly, going online, showing the correct time, etc.
I'll test it on a few other systems. Gently. Then I will quietly set it aside for a while.
What is that old bit about trying to do things that you haven't a clue how to do?
This has been very, very, VERY good for my soul.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Milestone
Well, this is interesting. My 100th entry on this blog. To be honest, I never really expected to even write 10, let alone 100. I'm far from the most diligent person on the planet. But, hey...
Of course, I never really thought I'd get off on some of the tangents I've gotten off onto... I had no idea I'd get addicted to playing with Linux distros. I figured I'd be off, rattling about fountain pens and odd movie bits. Never anything technical...
Oh well...
I notice, too, that I've had 1200 hits up to the 99th entry. I've seen folks from all over the world, from England, Germany, Italy, Russia, even China, as well as the U.S., popping up in the stats. I do want to say"Hello!" and 'Thanks!" to all the folks who have dropped in and read my ramblings. I hope some of the stuff has been entertaining, maybe informative, or at least distracting. It makes me feel good, and rather humbled, that all of you have taken time from many busy days to stop and have a read of what silliness I have to say. Thank you all again. I appreciate the company.
Now, on to my normal bit of self-absorbed meandering... ;-)
It's been a very nice day here. I managed to get out and about, even getting to run out to the country for a while. A decent Saturday.
Of course, I've spent most of the afternoon hanging over a hot CD/DVD burner, putting a few distro .iso's on disk. I burned both Netrunner and Fuduntu to DVD, and did some liveboot work with them. Both are awesome setups, and I like them both. If I had to choose between one or the other as my one & only system, I'd have a hard time of it. I'd seriously been thinking of replacing Crunchbang on the Thinkpad T60, but... I just don't know...
I'll have to do more playing.
Also burned a CD-R of MacPup 5.2.9, the version of Puppy Linux that uses Enlightenment as its interface manager. I ended up playing with the liveboot of this far longer than with the other two, and all I can say is 'Wow!' It's a beautiful little setup, and I took a major liking to it. So much so, in fact, that I think this is going to be my first distro that I'm going to install onto USB drive, and use as an ultraportable production setup. (Yes, it's that good!) The debate now is whether to clean off one of my old 8 GB thumb drives, or try out one of the new 16 GB drives that I squirreled away after the holidays.
Given MacPups small size, 8 GB would give me plenty of storage. But 16 GB fits under that "the more, the merrier" bit, so...
Decisions, decisions... We'll see what we end up with...
Again, thanks everyone for stopping and spending some time!
Of course, I never really thought I'd get off on some of the tangents I've gotten off onto... I had no idea I'd get addicted to playing with Linux distros. I figured I'd be off, rattling about fountain pens and odd movie bits. Never anything technical...
Oh well...
I notice, too, that I've had 1200 hits up to the 99th entry. I've seen folks from all over the world, from England, Germany, Italy, Russia, even China, as well as the U.S., popping up in the stats. I do want to say"Hello!" and 'Thanks!" to all the folks who have dropped in and read my ramblings. I hope some of the stuff has been entertaining, maybe informative, or at least distracting. It makes me feel good, and rather humbled, that all of you have taken time from many busy days to stop and have a read of what silliness I have to say. Thank you all again. I appreciate the company.
Now, on to my normal bit of self-absorbed meandering... ;-)
It's been a very nice day here. I managed to get out and about, even getting to run out to the country for a while. A decent Saturday.
Of course, I've spent most of the afternoon hanging over a hot CD/DVD burner, putting a few distro .iso's on disk. I burned both Netrunner and Fuduntu to DVD, and did some liveboot work with them. Both are awesome setups, and I like them both. If I had to choose between one or the other as my one & only system, I'd have a hard time of it. I'd seriously been thinking of replacing Crunchbang on the Thinkpad T60, but... I just don't know...
I'll have to do more playing.
Also burned a CD-R of MacPup 5.2.9, the version of Puppy Linux that uses Enlightenment as its interface manager. I ended up playing with the liveboot of this far longer than with the other two, and all I can say is 'Wow!' It's a beautiful little setup, and I took a major liking to it. So much so, in fact, that I think this is going to be my first distro that I'm going to install onto USB drive, and use as an ultraportable production setup. (Yes, it's that good!) The debate now is whether to clean off one of my old 8 GB thumb drives, or try out one of the new 16 GB drives that I squirreled away after the holidays.
Given MacPups small size, 8 GB would give me plenty of storage. But 16 GB fits under that "the more, the merrier" bit, so...
Decisions, decisions... We'll see what we end up with...
Again, thanks everyone for stopping and spending some time!
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Re-Read Ramblings
I have a bad tendency to pull old favorites off the shelf and re-read them over and over. Books, that is. I sort of have a standing list of favorites that always close by. I don't limit it to fiction, but include non-fiction as well. All sorts of stuff, like...
Donna Tartt's The Secret History
Count Harry Kessler's Berlin in Lights
Tim Marigold's Cold Warrior
Piers Brendon's The Dark Valley
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion
Gerard Derozoi's History of the Surrealist Movement
Etc., etc.
This evening, I went a bit out of the box, down the route of the cheap technothriller, and pulled out Crichton's Jurassic Park. Maybe it's in keeping with the times, as they're now trying to milk that cash cow by re-releasing the movie in 3-D.
I'm not sure about that whole deal (ie, the movie re-release). Granted, I loved the film when it came out. I was still in grad school, and had read the novel not long after it came. The movie was fun, enjoyable popcorn fare, but it was really the four-color comics version of the book. I hate to say "dumbed down", but...
I'm not really sure how I'd take to it, all these years later. Granted, I've seen it a few times since (used to own a VHS copy of it, but that's long gone). The digital eye-candy was wonderful, and Steven Spielberg is (in films like this) always capable of delivering on the "wonder" factor, but...
The book, however, is still quite good. It's Crichton at his shrill best. going down the route of "worst-case-scenario", and backing it up with the latest trendy theory name dropping. Hey, anything with the word's "chaos theory" in it anywhere was damned cool!
I'd read The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man back in high school, and had been creeped out by them both. Much later, I hit Jurassic Park, and was sort of hooked. I devoured The Lost World, Rising Sun, and even went back and read Congo. I pretty much became a Crichton fan for a while. (Hey, I even found a copy of Travels...)
Then I made the mistake of reading Sphere, and that pretty much ended it. (I don't want to stop anyone from reading it, but... The phrase "poorly plotted,written and constructed first draft of a REALLY bad movie pitch" pretty much covers it.) None of the books written after Rising Sun ever did for me.
Really, I don't think this entry is going anywhere, beyond my pulling an old book off the shelf, cursorily flipping through the pages, and ending up reading half the book in a quick sitting. Brought back some memories, not unlike pulling out Stoll's The Cuckoo's Egg.
Ah, memories... And a good read on the side...
Donna Tartt's The Secret History
Count Harry Kessler's Berlin in Lights
Tim Marigold's Cold Warrior
Piers Brendon's The Dark Valley
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion
Gerard Derozoi's History of the Surrealist Movement
Etc., etc.
This evening, I went a bit out of the box, down the route of the cheap technothriller, and pulled out Crichton's Jurassic Park. Maybe it's in keeping with the times, as they're now trying to milk that cash cow by re-releasing the movie in 3-D.
I'm not sure about that whole deal (ie, the movie re-release). Granted, I loved the film when it came out. I was still in grad school, and had read the novel not long after it came. The movie was fun, enjoyable popcorn fare, but it was really the four-color comics version of the book. I hate to say "dumbed down", but...
I'm not really sure how I'd take to it, all these years later. Granted, I've seen it a few times since (used to own a VHS copy of it, but that's long gone). The digital eye-candy was wonderful, and Steven Spielberg is (in films like this) always capable of delivering on the "wonder" factor, but...
The book, however, is still quite good. It's Crichton at his shrill best. going down the route of "worst-case-scenario", and backing it up with the latest trendy theory name dropping. Hey, anything with the word's "chaos theory" in it anywhere was damned cool!
I'd read The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man back in high school, and had been creeped out by them both. Much later, I hit Jurassic Park, and was sort of hooked. I devoured The Lost World, Rising Sun, and even went back and read Congo. I pretty much became a Crichton fan for a while. (Hey, I even found a copy of Travels...)
Then I made the mistake of reading Sphere, and that pretty much ended it. (I don't want to stop anyone from reading it, but... The phrase "poorly plotted,written and constructed first draft of a REALLY bad movie pitch" pretty much covers it.) None of the books written after Rising Sun ever did for me.
Really, I don't think this entry is going anywhere, beyond my pulling an old book off the shelf, cursorily flipping through the pages, and ending up reading half the book in a quick sitting. Brought back some memories, not unlike pulling out Stoll's The Cuckoo's Egg.
Ah, memories... And a good read on the side...
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Another little success
So, with the T60 up and running with Crunchbang, I thought I'd give a look at the A31. (Actually, I didn't have anything else to do, but that doesn't sound as inspirational, now does it?)
My weapon of choice, AntiX 13 Beta 2. And it worked fine. Booted up live and ran fine.
Just one problem: Wireless. The wireless card wasn't recognized. It's an older PCMCIA card, and I suspect it's a problem with the drivers. And, of course, if you can't go online, you can't check for new drivers...
OK, no, I'm not going to string along on this. I did hook into the modem via ethernet cable, and the A31 went online fine. But, no, I didn't look for the drivers.
And, no, I didn't install. Not yet.
Hey, I've already got 4 Linux distros up and running on various systems. And I'm still really just getting the hang of two of those. So... Maybe I want to hold off a bit...
So, Linux news is at least good this evening.
And, also, so is Mac news. I finally got round to doing basic system's maintenance on the family iMac, and on my work laptop, the MacBook. They're both back up and running. I had to put the MacBook through it's paces preparing some paperwork today, and it did great. Kind of odd to be back on the Macs, but kind of fun, too.
Otherwise, a quiet day. Nice out. Good to get out and about, and clear the head before another week starts.
Now, off to relax and watch bad TV. And all that...
My weapon of choice, AntiX 13 Beta 2. And it worked fine. Booted up live and ran fine.
Just one problem: Wireless. The wireless card wasn't recognized. It's an older PCMCIA card, and I suspect it's a problem with the drivers. And, of course, if you can't go online, you can't check for new drivers...
OK, no, I'm not going to string along on this. I did hook into the modem via ethernet cable, and the A31 went online fine. But, no, I didn't look for the drivers.
And, no, I didn't install. Not yet.
Hey, I've already got 4 Linux distros up and running on various systems. And I'm still really just getting the hang of two of those. So... Maybe I want to hold off a bit...
So, Linux news is at least good this evening.
And, also, so is Mac news. I finally got round to doing basic system's maintenance on the family iMac, and on my work laptop, the MacBook. They're both back up and running. I had to put the MacBook through it's paces preparing some paperwork today, and it did great. Kind of odd to be back on the Macs, but kind of fun, too.
Otherwise, a quiet day. Nice out. Good to get out and about, and clear the head before another week starts.
Now, off to relax and watch bad TV. And all that...
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Yeah, I did #!
I installed Crunchbang on the Thinkpad T60.
Went ahead and wiped Ubuntu 12.10 off, and installed Crunchbang 11 "Waldorf".
And it works great. I have to say, at least as far as the installation, I don't understand why people are so leery of Crunchbang. Granted, I don't think I'd want to hand it cold to someone who'd never seen Linux before. But I don't see if it as hard to deal with. And I'm far from the most experienced computer person in the world.
Granted, I've only been playing with #! (as it's referenced) for a short while. Live boots on the desktop and on the T60. But I like it. I like the minimalist approach it takes. Minimalist on the surface, at least, but you can feel the power underneath.
I definitely have to acknowledge the help I got from Puppy Linux World on YouTube. Great videos, lots of information. Check it out. (If anyone's interested in Crunchbang, PLW has a whole series up, "Crunchbang Bootcamp", which will help enormously.)
So, another new thing to play with. I'm not going to know what to do with myself...
I haven't gotten 'round to working with the A31. I did burn another copy of AntiX, this time making sure it was a CD-R in the drive. (Deep sigh. Headshake.) I'll get to it eventually.
So, off to play in the fields of Crunchbang...
Went ahead and wiped Ubuntu 12.10 off, and installed Crunchbang 11 "Waldorf".
And it works great. I have to say, at least as far as the installation, I don't understand why people are so leery of Crunchbang. Granted, I don't think I'd want to hand it cold to someone who'd never seen Linux before. But I don't see if it as hard to deal with. And I'm far from the most experienced computer person in the world.
Granted, I've only been playing with #! (as it's referenced) for a short while. Live boots on the desktop and on the T60. But I like it. I like the minimalist approach it takes. Minimalist on the surface, at least, but you can feel the power underneath.
I definitely have to acknowledge the help I got from Puppy Linux World on YouTube. Great videos, lots of information. Check it out. (If anyone's interested in Crunchbang, PLW has a whole series up, "Crunchbang Bootcamp", which will help enormously.)
So, another new thing to play with. I'm not going to know what to do with myself...
I haven't gotten 'round to working with the A31. I did burn another copy of AntiX, this time making sure it was a CD-R in the drive. (Deep sigh. Headshake.) I'll get to it eventually.
So, off to play in the fields of Crunchbang...
Friday, April 5, 2013
A Bookish Aside
So, it's later in the evening (obviously), and and I've started the great .iso burnings. (Well, one burning, anyway.) Just doing some testing on a liveboot of Crunchbang 11. And I have to say it's striking. The default, "stealth" desktop is impressive. And a bit unnerving.
I'll probably burn ZorinOS in a bit. Don't know if I'll do any more this evening. And I doubt I'll do any installs. Think I'll just do some livebooting.
While wasting some time earlier on, I pulled out an odd little collectible of mine.
A long, long time ago, when I was a starving grad student hiding in an oddball apartment on the main drag of our local U. town, I tripped across a book entitled The Cuckoo's Egg, by Clifford Stoll. I'm sure everyone who knows a bit about Internet history knows Stoll's book, which details his discovery and pursuit of a hacker who turns out to be in the employ of the old Soviet intelligence service, the KGB. It's a great read, a good introduction to the subject for the casual reader. Not too technical, not too dry.
I still have my cheap paperback copy, which is now quite battered and dog-eared. Occasionally still get it out and flip through it.
For whatever reason, a few months back, I was somewhat bored, and pulled he old paperback out. That launched me off on one of those pointless bouts of activity. I went from book to computer to the web.
And I found myself on Cliff Stoll's website ACME KLEIN BOTTLE. It's a cool site, fun to read in marvelously droll way. And, somewhere n that site, there's a link that references The Cuckoo's Egg. In fact, it offers copies for sale.
Whoa. New old stock copies. with a nice autograph from the author himself.
On one of those silly whims, I placed an order for a copy. And in the comments field, I wrote a silly little note about how much I'd enjoyed the book, way back when, etc., etc.
The next day, I found the order confirmation in my inbox. And, attached was the nicest note from Cliff Stoll himself. Not long after, the book arrived, and I was really charmed at the nice notes that Cliff had added to the book, personalizing the copy for me.
A couple days ago, being in one of those moods, I pulled my "Stoll copy" out and started reading. Just finished it this evening. I'm not sure how many times this makes for me reading it. But it was fun. It took me back to that. It took me back down nostalgia lane. I liked that.
I doubt Cliff will make it into this neck of the 'Net, but I still want to say "Thanks!" At times, a little nostalgia is a very comforting thing.
I'll probably burn ZorinOS in a bit. Don't know if I'll do any more this evening. And I doubt I'll do any installs. Think I'll just do some livebooting.
While wasting some time earlier on, I pulled out an odd little collectible of mine.
A long, long time ago, when I was a starving grad student hiding in an oddball apartment on the main drag of our local U. town, I tripped across a book entitled The Cuckoo's Egg, by Clifford Stoll. I'm sure everyone who knows a bit about Internet history knows Stoll's book, which details his discovery and pursuit of a hacker who turns out to be in the employ of the old Soviet intelligence service, the KGB. It's a great read, a good introduction to the subject for the casual reader. Not too technical, not too dry.
I still have my cheap paperback copy, which is now quite battered and dog-eared. Occasionally still get it out and flip through it.
For whatever reason, a few months back, I was somewhat bored, and pulled he old paperback out. That launched me off on one of those pointless bouts of activity. I went from book to computer to the web.
And I found myself on Cliff Stoll's website ACME KLEIN BOTTLE. It's a cool site, fun to read in marvelously droll way. And, somewhere n that site, there's a link that references The Cuckoo's Egg. In fact, it offers copies for sale.
Whoa. New old stock copies. with a nice autograph from the author himself.
On one of those silly whims, I placed an order for a copy. And in the comments field, I wrote a silly little note about how much I'd enjoyed the book, way back when, etc., etc.
The next day, I found the order confirmation in my inbox. And, attached was the nicest note from Cliff Stoll himself. Not long after, the book arrived, and I was really charmed at the nice notes that Cliff had added to the book, personalizing the copy for me.
A couple days ago, being in one of those moods, I pulled my "Stoll copy" out and started reading. Just finished it this evening. I'm not sure how many times this makes for me reading it. But it was fun. It took me back to that. It took me back down nostalgia lane. I liked that.
I doubt Cliff will make it into this neck of the 'Net, but I still want to say "Thanks!" At times, a little nostalgia is a very comforting thing.
A bit of bling
Nothing much going on today. A nice, lazy Friday. Beautiful day here. I really should post pictures of the "big room" outside. But, instead...
Here's the desktop I set up for Bodhi. Enlightenment is cool to play with, but I haven't done anything spectacular with it. Running it on the older Sempron processor, with just 1.2 GB RAM, I'll keep it moderate. (This is the "Laptop" profile, with the "Electric" theme. Works well, and is visually different enough from what I've got going under Mint and Ubuntu.)
I spent far too much time last night downloading and squirreling .iso's away. To be honest, I can't even remember what all I grabbed. There's a couple Crunchbang distros (old & new), ZorinOS Core, another copy of AntiX, an actual copy of Ubuntu 12.04 for backup (I didn't install mine off CD, but did it through an upgrade from 11.04.), and even a copy of GNewSense ('cause I just wanted to try it out).
I really should do something worthwhile with all of these, like say... writing reviews. But I'm not really sure the world needs still more Linux review out there. We shall see...
Tripped across yet more intriguing content on YouTube. Reviews of that? I'll think on it...
Right now, I'm considering wiping down my Thinkpad T60, clearing out Ubuntu 12.10, and trying an install either Crunchbang or Antix. Or...Zorin... I really don't know...
 |
| A little Enlightenment |
Here's the desktop I set up for Bodhi. Enlightenment is cool to play with, but I haven't done anything spectacular with it. Running it on the older Sempron processor, with just 1.2 GB RAM, I'll keep it moderate. (This is the "Laptop" profile, with the "Electric" theme. Works well, and is visually different enough from what I've got going under Mint and Ubuntu.)
I spent far too much time last night downloading and squirreling .iso's away. To be honest, I can't even remember what all I grabbed. There's a couple Crunchbang distros (old & new), ZorinOS Core, another copy of AntiX, an actual copy of Ubuntu 12.04 for backup (I didn't install mine off CD, but did it through an upgrade from 11.04.), and even a copy of GNewSense ('cause I just wanted to try it out).
I really should do something worthwhile with all of these, like say... writing reviews. But I'm not really sure the world needs still more Linux review out there. We shall see...
Tripped across yet more intriguing content on YouTube. Reviews of that? I'll think on it...
Right now, I'm considering wiping down my Thinkpad T60, clearing out Ubuntu 12.10, and trying an install either Crunchbang or Antix. Or...Zorin... I really don't know...
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Another win/lose day
So, I had the Thinkpad A31 out... It's a cool computer, and I have it more as a half-wit collector's item. In my mind, it's the the laptop I most identify with service on the International Space Station. So, I think about zipping through space every time I see it. Just me, I guess...
And I feel a bit dense, as I remember writing something about seeing if I could switch memory modules from the R40 into the A31... That might be kind of hard, as the A31 uses DDR, and the R40 uses DDR3... Anyway...
Yeah... Anyway... I got the A31 out, installed the IBM wireless card (I think it's actually an Orinoco rebranded), and decided to do some experimenting. This particular system came to me with Windows 2000 installed (running in 256 MB of RAM), and it doesn't like my nice, new high speed Internet connection. It would see a signal, but I could not find a way to get it to connect properly. The wireless card seemed to be working fine, seeing that there was a signal there, but I don't think the software wanted to admit to that. I'm sure if I played with it long enough... But that wasn't why I dragged the laptop out of the pile.
Well, I dumped out my ever-growing pile of liveboot disks, and made the discovery I knew I was going to: The A31, of course, only has a CD drive. And, of course, I'd accidentally burned AntiX onto a DVD... Not really wanting to go through the rigamarole of correcting, I decided to try booting something else. How's abouts Wary Puppy? That works on everything!
Except the A31, where it gagged and locked up the system. Looked like driver problems, though I'm not sure.
OK, next candidate, Damn Small Linux. That, thankfully, booted perfectly. Except... It didn't see the wireless card. A quick check through the system showed... Nothing...
Curses.
So, I rebooted, and got crazy, and tried to boot up Ubuntu 10.04. And you can probably guess how well that went. At least the lockup was a bit neater than Wary Puppy's.......
At least I know I can get one Linux distro running on the old Thinkpad. I may re-download the AntiX .iso and burn it to a CD this time. (I'd just do a USB thumb drive, but I'm not sure the A31 will boot from that. Besides, it'd be good to have it on the more accessible CD format for use as a possible rescue disk.)
Once again, you win some, and you crash and burn some.
At least my old Acer banger is rolling along with Bodhi. That makes me happy. The more I'm using Bodhi, the more I start to like it. It definitely takes time to grow on you, but at least it's sort of fun to play with.
It's been very nice weather here. I did manage to tear away from the computers and get out to walk a bit. That's a bit of a win, too, I do believe...
And I feel a bit dense, as I remember writing something about seeing if I could switch memory modules from the R40 into the A31... That might be kind of hard, as the A31 uses DDR, and the R40 uses DDR3... Anyway...
Yeah... Anyway... I got the A31 out, installed the IBM wireless card (I think it's actually an Orinoco rebranded), and decided to do some experimenting. This particular system came to me with Windows 2000 installed (running in 256 MB of RAM), and it doesn't like my nice, new high speed Internet connection. It would see a signal, but I could not find a way to get it to connect properly. The wireless card seemed to be working fine, seeing that there was a signal there, but I don't think the software wanted to admit to that. I'm sure if I played with it long enough... But that wasn't why I dragged the laptop out of the pile.
Well, I dumped out my ever-growing pile of liveboot disks, and made the discovery I knew I was going to: The A31, of course, only has a CD drive. And, of course, I'd accidentally burned AntiX onto a DVD... Not really wanting to go through the rigamarole of correcting, I decided to try booting something else. How's abouts Wary Puppy? That works on everything!
Except the A31, where it gagged and locked up the system. Looked like driver problems, though I'm not sure.
OK, next candidate, Damn Small Linux. That, thankfully, booted perfectly. Except... It didn't see the wireless card. A quick check through the system showed... Nothing...
Curses.
So, I rebooted, and got crazy, and tried to boot up Ubuntu 10.04. And you can probably guess how well that went. At least the lockup was a bit neater than Wary Puppy's.......
At least I know I can get one Linux distro running on the old Thinkpad. I may re-download the AntiX .iso and burn it to a CD this time. (I'd just do a USB thumb drive, but I'm not sure the A31 will boot from that. Besides, it'd be good to have it on the more accessible CD format for use as a possible rescue disk.)
Once again, you win some, and you crash and burn some.
At least my old Acer banger is rolling along with Bodhi. That makes me happy. The more I'm using Bodhi, the more I start to like it. It definitely takes time to grow on you, but at least it's sort of fun to play with.
It's been very nice weather here. I did manage to tear away from the computers and get out to walk a bit. That's a bit of a win, too, I do believe...
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Quick Note
Just a quick note that I've finally got the Acer Aspire laptop all battery'd up and seemingly working fine. I'm writing on it now, and this is its first untethered run on the first charge of the fresh battery. So far, the system is indicating nearly 3 hours life on this battery. (Though I'm not really sure if it's calibrated properly or not. We'll see after a few discharge cycles.)
(Hmmm... As I said... Not sure about the calibration. I did a complete boot on the battery, and then checked email and browsed a bit. The monitor is showing it at 92%, with over 3 hours... Oooo-kay...)
This little system, like its big tower brother, is rather embarrassing to me. Way back when it was brand new, I really didn't pay attention to all the nice features. This is darned nice laptop with a potent processor, very comfortable keyboard, and very functional scrolling touchpad. I simply never paid any attention to all that. Pure ignorance on my part.
Sad statement of how we take for granted, and don't appreciate what we have.
In other news, I tried to do some Linux work with the old Panasonic CF-29. Got so far as managing to get "Wary Puppy" up and running. (The Pentium M chip doesn't do PAE, so I was limited to what I could try.) However, I didn't get any further, as it became apparent that there were problems with the Matsushita optical drive. Tried to live boot a copy of Xubuntu 12.04, but no go... I'm not sure if it's a physical problem with the drive, or a driver issue. Whatever, the computer no longer sees the drive. And I'm seeing the same boot-up problems I saw on it before, where the "MP" light comes on, and the system takes forever to boot up.
Oh well...
Thought about trying to work on the Thinkpad R40 for a bit, but decided better on it. (Though I am still thinking of stealing that 256 MB RAM stick out of it, and seeing if I can up the memory on the A31. That, and a Puppy install there, would be great. Or maybe trying to see if AntiX actually lives up to its "works on older computers" hype...)
I have a feeling I'm going to get into that "best laid plans" territory again. We'll see...
(Hmmm... As I said... Not sure about the calibration. I did a complete boot on the battery, and then checked email and browsed a bit. The monitor is showing it at 92%, with over 3 hours... Oooo-kay...)
This little system, like its big tower brother, is rather embarrassing to me. Way back when it was brand new, I really didn't pay attention to all the nice features. This is darned nice laptop with a potent processor, very comfortable keyboard, and very functional scrolling touchpad. I simply never paid any attention to all that. Pure ignorance on my part.
Sad statement of how we take for granted, and don't appreciate what we have.
In other news, I tried to do some Linux work with the old Panasonic CF-29. Got so far as managing to get "Wary Puppy" up and running. (The Pentium M chip doesn't do PAE, so I was limited to what I could try.) However, I didn't get any further, as it became apparent that there were problems with the Matsushita optical drive. Tried to live boot a copy of Xubuntu 12.04, but no go... I'm not sure if it's a physical problem with the drive, or a driver issue. Whatever, the computer no longer sees the drive. And I'm seeing the same boot-up problems I saw on it before, where the "MP" light comes on, and the system takes forever to boot up.
Oh well...
Thought about trying to work on the Thinkpad R40 for a bit, but decided better on it. (Though I am still thinking of stealing that 256 MB RAM stick out of it, and seeing if I can up the memory on the A31. That, and a Puppy install there, would be great. Or maybe trying to see if AntiX actually lives up to its "works on older computers" hype...)
I have a feeling I'm going to get into that "best laid plans" territory again. We'll see...
Monday, April 1, 2013
One for Two
Welcome to Bodhi Linux...
Yeah, I got it installed on the Acer Aspire. It was...interesting. In the Chinese sense of the word. I ended up having to do it twice, due to a really stupid hat trick of mine.
And, no, I'm not going into it. Let's just say that Puppy Linux will not be joining us here on the Acer. And AntiX almost got to own the day.
But here's Bodhi, finally running well. Or at least running. I'm still finding my way 'round here. Going to take some time.
I ended up doing a manual download of most of the software I wanted, rather than doing the all-in-one packaging. Worked better, and my install is a little leaner for it.
Now, my biggest irk is that the battery on this system is nearly gone. Thankfully, I've got one on order, and it was actually fairly inexpensive. I'll be glad when it gets here. A full charge now is less than an hour, and that's not good.
In any event, I'm going to be playing with the system for a bit. Try to get a feel for it. Maybe post some images later on.
Fun, fun, fun...
Yeah, I got it installed on the Acer Aspire. It was...interesting. In the Chinese sense of the word. I ended up having to do it twice, due to a really stupid hat trick of mine.
And, no, I'm not going into it. Let's just say that Puppy Linux will not be joining us here on the Acer. And AntiX almost got to own the day.
But here's Bodhi, finally running well. Or at least running. I'm still finding my way 'round here. Going to take some time.
I ended up doing a manual download of most of the software I wanted, rather than doing the all-in-one packaging. Worked better, and my install is a little leaner for it.
Now, my biggest irk is that the battery on this system is nearly gone. Thankfully, I've got one on order, and it was actually fairly inexpensive. I'll be glad when it gets here. A full charge now is less than an hour, and that's not good.
In any event, I'm going to be playing with the system for a bit. Try to get a feel for it. Maybe post some images later on.
Fun, fun, fun...
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