From the silicon front...
Jul. 7th, 2001 08:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpI tried running the Adaptec software for the Iomega CD-RW again last night, except this time, instead of a 4x write speed, I selected the 2x speed. I figured maybe 4x was just too fast for my machine to keep up, suspecting maybe the USB port - which is card-mounted and not integral to the motherboard - might be not as perky as it should be.
It worked. I cleaned off about a half-gig of miscellaneous files last night, and before I left for the store this morning, I lined up another 600 MB of photos for archiving.
I also decided that I had had about enough of FreeBSD on what I persist in calling my "Linux" box. I got out the Linux Mandrake 7.2 disks and got to the point in the install where files start to get copied onto the hard disk, when.... blam! I get an error message.
Something is not right with some file somewhere. I retry the install, this time in text mode. Same problem.
Okay. Let's go to plan B. I put away the 7.2 disks and retrieve the 7.1 disks. All goes well with the install, up to the point where it asks me to put in the "Extensions" CD. I don't have one, but the screen says that I don't really need one. I hit "Cancel" and the machine begins to churn, probably unpacking the archives copied to the disk so far.
I get a divide by zero error.
Suspecting that perhaps the default partitioning of the disk left too little room in the root directory, I restart the install and repartition the disk so that about 60% belongs to "/" and the rest (except for a 250 MB swap partition) belongs to "/home".
Everything goes as before, except after the files are unpacked, I am asked to install the "Applications" CD.
I have one of those, but the CD won't open to let me put it in.
Against my better judgment, I use a paper clip to force the CD drive open. I put in the Applications CD and close the door.
The machine freezes.
Feh.
The install documentation, as is seemingly traditional with Linux, is useless. It describes a process that only generally resembles what the computer screen is asking me to do.
Moreover, this is time-consuming. What starts out as an initial estimate of 40 minutes or so to install the system rapidly climbs to over 80 minutes and stays there. At least FreeBSD installed quickly. (On the plus side, it gave me an opportunity to read the first 50 pages or so of Cryptonomicon, and it looks like it's going to be a good read.)
Drew will come at around 11 with the mail today, and I'll probably go home at noon and work on a translation until closing time. We'll then go to Durango, where we will gather provisions for the upcoming week (or at least a few days). Tomorrow will be devoted to cleanup and translation (that should make for an interesting day).
Cheers...
It worked. I cleaned off about a half-gig of miscellaneous files last night, and before I left for the store this morning, I lined up another 600 MB of photos for archiving.
I also decided that I had had about enough of FreeBSD on what I persist in calling my "Linux" box. I got out the Linux Mandrake 7.2 disks and got to the point in the install where files start to get copied onto the hard disk, when.... blam! I get an error message.
Something is not right with some file somewhere. I retry the install, this time in text mode. Same problem.
Okay. Let's go to plan B. I put away the 7.2 disks and retrieve the 7.1 disks. All goes well with the install, up to the point where it asks me to put in the "Extensions" CD. I don't have one, but the screen says that I don't really need one. I hit "Cancel" and the machine begins to churn, probably unpacking the archives copied to the disk so far.
I get a divide by zero error.
Suspecting that perhaps the default partitioning of the disk left too little room in the root directory, I restart the install and repartition the disk so that about 60% belongs to "/" and the rest (except for a 250 MB swap partition) belongs to "/home".
Everything goes as before, except after the files are unpacked, I am asked to install the "Applications" CD.
I have one of those, but the CD won't open to let me put it in.
Against my better judgment, I use a paper clip to force the CD drive open. I put in the Applications CD and close the door.
The machine freezes.
Feh.
The install documentation, as is seemingly traditional with Linux, is useless. It describes a process that only generally resembles what the computer screen is asking me to do.
Moreover, this is time-consuming. What starts out as an initial estimate of 40 minutes or so to install the system rapidly climbs to over 80 minutes and stays there. At least FreeBSD installed quickly. (On the plus side, it gave me an opportunity to read the first 50 pages or so of Cryptonomicon, and it looks like it's going to be a good read.)
Drew will come at around 11 with the mail today, and I'll probably go home at noon and work on a translation until closing time. We'll then go to Durango, where we will gather provisions for the upcoming week (or at least a few days). Tomorrow will be devoted to cleanup and translation (that should make for an interesting day).
Cheers...
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no subject
Date: 2001-07-07 10:58 am (UTC)I found Cryptonomicon a good read, but I confess that it didn't make me hungry to read more of his stuff.
no subject
Date: 2001-07-07 12:43 pm (UTC)Well one thing I can say is that unlike FreeBSD, Linux does not want you to create a new partition for each major directory structure. It's perfectly happy being all thrown on one big partition, except in the case that you have a really big drive and the boot stuff might end up above the BIOS limitations, then you might have to make a twenty or so meg partition at the beginning of the disk to hold /boot.
The other thing I'd point out is that since you have a CD burner you can easily give up on Mandrake and download whatever distro you want :) I've never used or tried to install Mandrake, but I'll be installing Debian from scratch in a couple of days here. I have high hopes for success.
no subject
Date: 2001-07-07 12:45 pm (UTC)