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linux update, the last
Mar. 11th, 2007 01:06 amLast vestiges of vista have been dug out of the magnetofield, however I was reluctant to destroy a complex data structure, quasifascist though it may have been. I placed it into suspended animation in the backward of an ext3 filesystem, thinking to just bury preserved it under a linux bloom - it could come in useful for experimentation or as barter. However, the ubuntu installer shew a surprising genocidal streak and insisted on scorching the earth before laying down its roots. In an aside of cosmic sarcasm, it was my exhaustion from the efforts of trying to preserve the microspawn, that led me wearily to assent. It was all over quickly - I regret nothing. Maybe ubuntu was telling me something.
The original problem seemed to be with APIC, the advanced inter-processor version of PIC which was, as I recall from childhood, the blasted problem with linux a DECADE AGO. Plus ça change. "Linux runs on any hardware! (As long as it's at least five years old.)" Now, as then, it is assigning multiple devices the same interrupt. The only sign of progress is the number: interrupt 209; back then, there were only twenty or so. Yikes!
Fortunately, one can disable it easily by whispering sweet nothings to the kernel and asking it to ignore modern technology. Even more fortunately, not only does the system boot but both of the processors still work; I guess the kernel has some hacks to compensate for their lack of communication. At any rate, it somehow seemed to work in Knoppix (or maybe I was mistaken), so this remains a viable project. On the down side, my cores are low-grade enough to not support the new Virtualization protocol, so I can't xen Windows inside linux.
Ubuntu itself is cute - nice minimalist install and not the usual package of 12 window managers, 3 IM clients, 4.3 web browsers, &c. Just firefox, gaim, even a VoIP package. Although it still comes with the requisite crappy suite of games standard for the gnome desktop. The package system seems okay, although sadly the math-sci crowd seems to not be their prime audience, and math-sci people also seem better at maintaining Debian packages. However, the two distros seem quite compatible at least in user-space; nothing has gone wrong just using the Debian packages.
In the real world:
Every time I have Ethiopian food, it is better than the last.
Globally, nothing seems to be getting better.
hfwolfe, I finally opened my Differential Geometry book.
Just read Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep. Lovingly just like everything else he writes, except a space opera. Maybe this one reads a little bit much like Iain M. Banks, but maybe that was inevitable.
The original problem seemed to be with APIC, the advanced inter-processor version of PIC which was, as I recall from childhood, the blasted problem with linux a DECADE AGO. Plus ça change. "Linux runs on any hardware! (As long as it's at least five years old.)" Now, as then, it is assigning multiple devices the same interrupt. The only sign of progress is the number: interrupt 209; back then, there were only twenty or so. Yikes!
Fortunately, one can disable it easily by whispering sweet nothings to the kernel and asking it to ignore modern technology. Even more fortunately, not only does the system boot but both of the processors still work; I guess the kernel has some hacks to compensate for their lack of communication. At any rate, it somehow seemed to work in Knoppix (or maybe I was mistaken), so this remains a viable project. On the down side, my cores are low-grade enough to not support the new Virtualization protocol, so I can't xen Windows inside linux.
Ubuntu itself is cute - nice minimalist install and not the usual package of 12 window managers, 3 IM clients, 4.3 web browsers, &c. Just firefox, gaim, even a VoIP package. Although it still comes with the requisite crappy suite of games standard for the gnome desktop. The package system seems okay, although sadly the math-sci crowd seems to not be their prime audience, and math-sci people also seem better at maintaining Debian packages. However, the two distros seem quite compatible at least in user-space; nothing has gone wrong just using the Debian packages.
In the real world:
Every time I have Ethiopian food, it is better than the last.
Globally, nothing seems to be getting better.
hfwolfe, I finally opened my Differential Geometry book.
Just read Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep. Lovingly just like everything else he writes, except a space opera. Maybe this one reads a little bit much like Iain M. Banks, but maybe that was inevitable.
