Saturday, 23 February 2008
WiFi plans dashed...
The computer store I was hoping to go to get the WiFi card installed was closed. Looks like I've got to try and catch them during the week and see if they can install it. I'll let you know if there's any update, but until then, it looks like my exercise of install the WiFi card is on hold.
Thursday, 21 February 2008
Gentoo's new kernel, and plans for the weekend
After coming off "on-call" duties for the job I'm doing, I did an update on my PC. The usual mantra is something like:
root@lasek ~ $ emerge --sync && emerge -DNuva --with-bdeps y world
This will trigger off a sync with the world repositories of Gentoo and get you everything that is considered the latest of what is available out there. It will then see what is new compared to your system, and ask if you want to upgrade. Pressing "enter" by itself will trigger that off. After sometime (and hopefully with no errors), it will return to the command prompt. This is where you need to check the dependencies on your system, by issuing:
root@lasek ~ $ etc-update && revdep-rebuild
Now, you need to check your configuration files to see if they need updating. For most configuration files, you just accept the defaults. The only thing you need to look out for is if you have manually changed the configuration file. Then it's an opportunity to merge your customisation into the configuration files installed by the upgrade. Next comes the system as it checks all the dependencies. It may take some time, but sure enough, your systems binaries are now fully aware of their dependencies.
I noticed that a new kernel had been downloaded. The next step I did was to upgrade my kernel. This was done with:
root@lasek ~ $ mount /boot
root@lasek ~ $ cd /usr/src
root@lasek /usr/src $ rm linux
root@lasek /usr/src $ ln -s linux-2.6.23-gentoo-r8 linux
root@lasek /usr/src $ cd
root@lasek /usr/src $ genkernel --menuconfig --kernel-config=/etc/kernels/kernel-config-x86-2.6.23-gentoo-r6 --splash=gentoo all && emerge nvidia-drivers
Wait some more time, and reboot. You'll get this:
evilric@lasek ~ $ uname -a
Linux lasek 2.6.23-gentoo-r8 #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Feb 21 20:22:05 EST 2008 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
Not much to actually do, but huge rewards!
Lastly, my plans for the weekend are centred around the computer again. I own the Toshiba P20, and it's been good to me for about 5 years, but it never had a WiFi card. So my idea is to get a WiFi card installed, get it working on the Windows partition, and then spend the rest of the weekend attempting to get it working under Gentoo Linux. I accept all words of advice, and wishes of good luck!
root@lasek ~ $ emerge --sync && emerge -DNuva --with-bdeps y world
This will trigger off a sync with the world repositories of Gentoo and get you everything that is considered the latest of what is available out there. It will then see what is new compared to your system, and ask if you want to upgrade. Pressing "enter" by itself will trigger that off. After sometime (and hopefully with no errors), it will return to the command prompt. This is where you need to check the dependencies on your system, by issuing:
root@lasek ~ $ etc-update && revdep-rebuild
Now, you need to check your configuration files to see if they need updating. For most configuration files, you just accept the defaults. The only thing you need to look out for is if you have manually changed the configuration file. Then it's an opportunity to merge your customisation into the configuration files installed by the upgrade. Next comes the system as it checks all the dependencies. It may take some time, but sure enough, your systems binaries are now fully aware of their dependencies.
I noticed that a new kernel had been downloaded. The next step I did was to upgrade my kernel. This was done with:
root@lasek ~ $ mount /boot
root@lasek ~ $ cd /usr/src
root@lasek /usr/src $ rm linux
root@lasek /usr/src $ ln -s linux-2.6.23-gentoo-r8 linux
root@lasek /usr/src $ cd
root@lasek /usr/src $ genkernel --menuconfig --kernel-config=/etc/kernels/kernel-config-x86-2.6.23-gentoo-r6 --splash=gentoo all && emerge nvidia-drivers
Wait some more time, and reboot. You'll get this:
evilric@lasek ~ $ uname -a
Linux lasek 2.6.23-gentoo-r8 #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Feb 21 20:22:05 EST 2008 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
Not much to actually do, but huge rewards!
Lastly, my plans for the weekend are centred around the computer again. I own the Toshiba P20, and it's been good to me for about 5 years, but it never had a WiFi card. So my idea is to get a WiFi card installed, get it working on the Windows partition, and then spend the rest of the weekend attempting to get it working under Gentoo Linux. I accept all words of advice, and wishes of good luck!
Saturday, 16 February 2008
On call work, well done Mr Rudd, and Ana blogs -- so listen up!
I'm on-call this weekend. It was a killer night the other night, and I was up for more than 24 hrs. I hate it. It drains me. The boss I work for is great. Very understanding, and was up for half the night with me on one of the calls. The picture below is a shot of me (playing around with the timer setting of camera) - after getting up from a long night.
I need sleep! I've got that weird tired look in my eyes. I should be better next week! I need to take more photos (just of things in general). I can't believe it's been 4 months I've been away from my wife. I do visit her (and our puppy) every so often, but it's not the same as living with her.
Secondly, well done to Mr Rudd for doing something recently that the Howard Government couldn't do for over a decade while in office. Well done on saying "sorry". Keep in mind you don't need to apologise to me if you don't stuff the Internet up in the first place!
Lastly, a friend I met recently, who lives in India, set up a blog a few days ago. Ana is asking everyone to listen, so then, everyone have a visit! I'm sure she'll have interesting things to say on it.
I need sleep! I've got that weird tired look in my eyes. I should be better next week! I need to take more photos (just of things in general). I can't believe it's been 4 months I've been away from my wife. I do visit her (and our puppy) every so often, but it's not the same as living with her.
Secondly, well done to Mr Rudd for doing something recently that the Howard Government couldn't do for over a decade while in office. Well done on saying "sorry". Keep in mind you don't need to apologise to me if you don't stuff the Internet up in the first place!
Lastly, a friend I met recently, who lives in India, set up a blog a few days ago. Ana is asking everyone to listen, so then, everyone have a visit! I'm sure she'll have interesting things to say on it.
Saturday, 9 February 2008
Gentoo is still keeping up to date...
I was having a chat (via Gmail's chat) with a friend of mine I used to work with, at the previous company where I was employed, and the conversation went onto Open Source, Linux distributions and eventually Gentoo. He said he wasn't happy with Gentoo, as his perceptions was that since the leader (Daniel Robbins) left, the project has essentially collapsed. He also stated that there hasn't been a recent LiveCD release, which I prompted him to a previous post I made in this blog.
Not so... and here's poof. Yesterday, on my Windows XP desktop at work, my version of Mozilla Firefox updated itself to 2.0.0.12. And after issuing the update commands on my Gentoo machine:
root@lasek ~ # emerge --sync && emerge -DNuva --with-bdeps y world
root@lasek ~ # etc-update
root@lasek ~ # revdep-rebuild
...I've got a freshly compiled version of Firefox which I am using to write this article with.
According to the release notes off the website, it was finialised on 7.02.2008. And here's my build identifier from my about: page above:
And if you're reading this blog using another browser that's tied in with a proprietary Operating System, maybe you should visit the Mozilla site and download the latest version of Firefox. Right after you install a better Operating System!
Not so... and here's poof. Yesterday, on my Windows XP desktop at work, my version of Mozilla Firefox updated itself to 2.0.0.12. And after issuing the update commands on my Gentoo machine:
root@lasek ~ # emerge --sync && emerge -DNuva --with-bdeps y world
root@lasek ~ # etc-update
root@lasek ~ # revdep-rebuild
...I've got a freshly compiled version of Firefox which I am using to write this article with.
According to the release notes off the website, it was finialised on 7.02.2008. And here's my build identifier from my about: page above:- Build identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.12) Gecko/2008020912 Firefox/2.0.0.12
And if you're reading this blog using another browser that's tied in with a proprietary Operating System, maybe you should visit the Mozilla site and download the latest version of Firefox. Right after you install a better Operating System!
Thursday, 7 February 2008
Gmail came back... and it looks fine.
Just wanted to add, as a follow-up to my post yesterday, that Gmail is back, and was up as of this morning. It looked like it happily accepted emails from various sources while I couldn't access it. Strangely enough, I was still able to access blogger and I could connect to gChat (via Pidgin). As I contacted them through their website to report a problem, I still haven't heard back from them yet (even a generic email would have been appreciated). Anyway... all good!
Wednesday, 6 February 2008
Everyone is human... even GMail.
I can't believe it. For the first time since I've used the service (which is about 4 years), Gmail is down -- "Temporary Error (502)"!
And this can't be the first time, since they already have a help page on it. I wonder what's wrong. Do feel free to write to me if you know, but I won't find out until the service is back up and running.
And this can't be the first time, since they already have a help page on it. I wonder what's wrong. Do feel free to write to me if you know, but I won't find out until the service is back up and running.
Sunday, 27 January 2008
Linux Format UK collection
I was at home in Melbourne last weekend and remembered I took a photo of my LinuxFormat UK magazine collection. Here's the photo:
From my calculations, I've got 61 editions at the time of writing (starting at #39). Therefore, I've been collecting this magazine for the past 4½ years.
In that time, not only has the magazine changed, but so has Linux and Open Source in general. The magazine used to come with a supplement known as "Linux Pro". It talked about very business-oriented content and topics. Some were some discussions, and some were tutorials. Linux has moved from the 2.4 kernel to the 2.6 kernel.
The magazine comes in two formats - a CD version and a DVD version. And it's always a great read. The only thing frustrating about this magazine is that since Open Source moves so fast, what the magazine discusses in some articles may already me 6 to 8 weeks old after all the announcements are made on the web.
Still a great read!
From my calculations, I've got 61 editions at the time of writing (starting at #39). Therefore, I've been collecting this magazine for the past 4½ years.
In that time, not only has the magazine changed, but so has Linux and Open Source in general. The magazine used to come with a supplement known as "Linux Pro". It talked about very business-oriented content and topics. Some were some discussions, and some were tutorials. Linux has moved from the 2.4 kernel to the 2.6 kernel.
The magazine comes in two formats - a CD version and a DVD version. And it's always a great read. The only thing frustrating about this magazine is that since Open Source moves so fast, what the magazine discusses in some articles may already me 6 to 8 weeks old after all the announcements are made on the web.
Still a great read!
Wee Jasper
I visited Wee Jasper today. It's been about 16 years since I was last in Wee Jasper. The story goes, I was attending my course at RMiT (which I didn't pass, but that's for another story), and a friend of mine I met through a Melbourne chat board went to Melbourne Uni. Every year at Melbourne Uni, a scavenger hunt was held. On the list this year was to get a picture of the Wee Jasper Post Office. It was worth 2000 points (can't tell you the scale, but there were heaps of little "stunts" that were only worth 100 or so).
So I turned up at my team's headquarters (in Coburg) at 9pm at night. I asked "What's worth a heap of points?" Someone yelled out, "Picture of Wee Jasper's post office." I said, "Cool, who's with me?" With that, Plugger (that's what everyone called him), Geoff (a guy I knew from my high school days), and some other guy (don't know - never saw him before, never saw him again) came forward and volunteered to come along with me for the ride. We worked out we would drive in shifts - which didn't work out, as Geoff didn't have a license, and the other guy (I'll call "John" from now on) didn't drive in the city, but had some experience driving on country roads. Plugger and I did the majority of the driving in my mother's 1984 Mazda 323, and John took over when we left Yass, and did the driving on the dirt roads to Wee Jasper and back. This is roughly the route we took (do zoom in for more detail):
View Larger Map
Once we got there, we had to take a photo of the Post Office. Below are three photos (which are similar to the photos taken on that night):
The first photo is of Wee Jasper's town sign. The next was the bridge leading into Wee Jasper, and the third is the photo required for the scavenger hunt. The originals (which were lost), were taken around 3am in the morning. Therefore, with close to no lighting, the only one that came out was the photo of the town's sign. My current vehicle is also in two of the photos, as the original photos required proof that the site was visited. Luckily, the scavenger hunt judges allowed the photo of the town sign.
The round trip took around 14 hours, and from memory, cost around $130 dollars in super grade leaded petrol. Reflecting on the trip now, and having driven the winding roads to Wee Jasper, the only thing I could think about was how stupid I must have been to agree to drive these roads at 3am in the morning. Fortunately, there is more paving on the roads, as I do remember the car sliding around back in 1992 on gravel. The other thing was driving at night, and diving in between all the trucks on the Hume Highway. It's just luck that we're all still alive -- well to the best of my knowledge. I don't really keep in touch with Plugger, Geoff or "John".
So I turned up at my team's headquarters (in Coburg) at 9pm at night. I asked "What's worth a heap of points?" Someone yelled out, "Picture of Wee Jasper's post office." I said, "Cool, who's with me?" With that, Plugger (that's what everyone called him), Geoff (a guy I knew from my high school days), and some other guy (don't know - never saw him before, never saw him again) came forward and volunteered to come along with me for the ride. We worked out we would drive in shifts - which didn't work out, as Geoff didn't have a license, and the other guy (I'll call "John" from now on) didn't drive in the city, but had some experience driving on country roads. Plugger and I did the majority of the driving in my mother's 1984 Mazda 323, and John took over when we left Yass, and did the driving on the dirt roads to Wee Jasper and back. This is roughly the route we took (do zoom in for more detail):
View Larger Map
Once we got there, we had to take a photo of the Post Office. Below are three photos (which are similar to the photos taken on that night):
The first photo is of Wee Jasper's town sign. The next was the bridge leading into Wee Jasper, and the third is the photo required for the scavenger hunt. The originals (which were lost), were taken around 3am in the morning. Therefore, with close to no lighting, the only one that came out was the photo of the town's sign. My current vehicle is also in two of the photos, as the original photos required proof that the site was visited. Luckily, the scavenger hunt judges allowed the photo of the town sign.
The round trip took around 14 hours, and from memory, cost around $130 dollars in super grade leaded petrol. Reflecting on the trip now, and having driven the winding roads to Wee Jasper, the only thing I could think about was how stupid I must have been to agree to drive these roads at 3am in the morning. Fortunately, there is more paving on the roads, as I do remember the car sliding around back in 1992 on gravel. The other thing was driving at night, and diving in between all the trucks on the Hume Highway. It's just luck that we're all still alive -- well to the best of my knowledge. I don't really keep in touch with Plugger, Geoff or "John".
Friday, 25 January 2008
...and welcome back gentoo.org
With the recent discussions of Daniel Robbins and the future of the Gentoo Linux foundation, it's obviously kick-started some work done on their website (not by me personally, but more likely from the community on the mailing lists). News is now being populated, and there is a clear discussion forming over what needs to be done to make the 2008.0 installer CD. The mailing lists and the package updates are happening at a furious pace (as always).
Keep in mind, though, you don't actually need to use the Gentoo installer CD to install Gentoo Linux. You can use any LiveCD that runs Linux to install Gentoo. Some that come to mind are:
As long as the CD boots up on your PC, establishes a connection to the Internet (or somewhere you can get the Gentoo stage 3 tarball), and allows you to partition your hard drive, you're good to go for an install of Gentoo.
Great to see!
Keep in mind, though, you don't actually need to use the Gentoo installer CD to install Gentoo Linux. You can use any LiveCD that runs Linux to install Gentoo. Some that come to mind are:
As long as the CD boots up on your PC, establishes a connection to the Internet (or somewhere you can get the Gentoo stage 3 tarball), and allows you to partition your hard drive, you're good to go for an install of Gentoo.
Great to see!
Tuesday, 15 January 2008
Welcome back drobbins!
Based on my previous post of "Gentoo appears dead, yet is so alive!", and Daniel Robbins's recent offer, I would like to welcome back Daniel as president of the Gentoo Foundation to allow him to fix it up. I know this still needs to be approved by Gentoo's council, but this is my vote of confidence in Daniel's leadership.
I oppose any motion from any of the council to stop this from happening.
Welcome back drobbins!
I oppose any motion from any of the council to stop this from happening.
Welcome back drobbins!
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