The Time Sink

This week I may be able to change to focus from The Great Move (at least until the weekend) and finish up getting ol' Tux back on line. I threw another hard drive in yesterday, changed out the video card and tried out an additional controller for the IDE channels since the first two were full. ...and learned as I usually do how things work from how they don't <g>!

That's the method I'm using (under some protest) with getting him back up on the net. I ran the first of what will be several installs of Red Hat and other distros to see which one will be my sandbox for the next little while, and found I haven't quite figured out ICS on Win2k. ...or something. In any case, I can't see anything from the reconditioned TuX. At least this time I didn't hose the main connection (or didn't if you're seeing this <g>). It may be because I don't normally use DHCP here since it's a small LAN, while it appears that ICS demands it.

Oh. Sure: the WT??? am I using a Win2k box as a router question? Well, it's like this: Mainspring (the Win2k box) is on the wireless segment. ...and I don't really have a good way to get a Cat5 run here in the dining area that's not going to cost a ton of cash. So, if he'll share nicely with his friends through the pretty hub I found for him, all will be swell.

...and since I can use the Win2k box as a router, that means at least one webpad can live here also. That frees up some options in the server realm. ...and begs the question about what to do about TuX and that OnStream tape drive. ...and another uncommitted hard drive I found over the weekend. Samba anyone?

More fun with Linux... I dinked around a bit and then started the RedHat update dealy to see what would happen. ...and then stopped when I realized it was nearly 40megs over a dialup. ...and on a barebones workstation install! What's going to happen when I throw the kitchen sink install on? Whoo...

...and everyone is nicely recovered from The Great Rat Incident. ...although, I suspect Shelley won't be going near Prince for a time. ...and I do have to wonder where he snagged a gopher; the nearest field is a block away. ...and I haven't heard of any in the yards close by. I'm also wondering exactly how he snagged one. Mad cat skilz, for sure...

Hey, the weather has been changing! Yeah, we've still had some fog; but we're transitioning to freezing mornings and cold sunny days. ...and now they're making noises about rain (again). Yeah, we need a bunch: El niño was giving us some decent snow in the watersheds until January, but has totally gone off screen since then. ...and we need snow (and rain) or we'll be talking drought again in 2003.

I'm still trying to figure out what the heck is going on with that set of wheels and bearings I mounted up last week; it's been the old "uphill, against the wind" deal all week! Yesterday, I changed out the bearings to another set. ...and still had problems. ...which means it must be the wheels? Okay, I've had soft wheels before, but the ratings on these really looked okay. So, tomorrow, I'll change out the wheels and see how that goes...

Hmmmm... I'm thinking I have something borked on the Red Hat installation. Maybe that HDD from the stack has problems... In any case, things are running slower than I like, although that may be a case of the Celeron 500 in that box just not having enough horsepower for current distros (reminder: try Debian soon). ...but the big issue is how the Red Hat Update Agent continually hangs.

When I tried it on the current install the other night, it hung at some point and never recovered. ...and I figured maybe it had something to do with the way I have things networked. So I started with smaller package chunks and just watched things for a time. ...and it appears it's hanging during the install process. So maybe it's not the network. Although, that is another issue: the Win2k box occasionally loses both of the network connections... I'd given up on RRAS as it seemed that was only available on the server version of Win2k; but I was reading something yesterday that made it appear it was available on the Pro version. Time to check up on that a little further...

Let's see... Quite a list for today... But, the early morning coffee is on board (as is breakfast), the second round of Red Hattedness is in progress on TuX, I've snapped an early morning pic, and I think it's time to start in on things (by contrast, Shelley had all of the above done before she left for the gym an hour or two ago <g>).

On the agenda here: a massive clean up from all the projects this week, moving Brad's bed to his new room, continuing work on a particularly annoying MT install (Win32 host/restrictive permissions policy), and figuring out how to get Cat5 here to the kitchen area without the place looking like something from a light industry production line...

The mid-day report: that Linux install is still buggy as all get out. I'm now relating it to motherboardish issues, with the current front runner being the last memory chip I put in (two are from the same brand, the third is not).

I think I've run every permutation of HDD cable/IDE devices I can and that doesn't seem to be it. ...and while the motherboard is older with only a 500mhz Celeron, it should be running snappier than this (it certainly did under Red Hat 7.1). So, I'll pull that last memory stick and give it another round this evening. There's still the possibility that the fast HDD running off the add-on controller card has a problem, but that's easy enough to change out with the spare. ...and that'll be next. In the meantime, I'll try another largish install and see if it hangs

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"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke, "Technology and the Future"

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