in keeping with the theme of insanity flowing from hardware, this
week's insanity should
be
old computer hardware
yes, the old i486 CompuAdds wee pulled from university surplus
the other day, with the intention of making one into the new ieee
parts store server (there will be a link there if the server is ever
ethernetted,
no thanks to the UKPPD). i volunteered for the seemingly
trivial
task of converting this machine to a linux
box and setting up the sever.
how foolish of me.
oh, yes, linux runs very well on i486s, in fact much better
than dos ever did; utilizing the 32 bit processor, true
multitasking,
the whole nine yards.... except that nothing old ever works
right.
the case says CompuAdd 33/486, implying a 33MHz processor clock.
yeah, right; when linux boots, calibrating its delay loop (in BogoMips),
it says 16.59BogoMips. my 200MHz PPro uses a dealy loop of
199.9 BogoMips... the 133MHz Pentiums in the labs run at
132.something
BogoMips. so the case lies, and this is actually a 16 megahertz
processor,
or something nasty is causing it to run at half speed.... making
each boot take approximately 5 and a half minutes to boot from the
installation
bootdisks (luckily only a minute from the harddisk).
oh, yes, the installtion bootdisks.... i put my rootdisk
on the only bad floppy in the brand new box. how nice.
then i tried the NFS install.... what? ethernet
card?
oh, yes, this ancient box contained an EthernetExpress 16, which linux
detected at booting (but which WinSuck95's so-called Plug'n'Play
wouldn't detect earlier to tell us what the hell the thing was), but
apparently
those mysteriously gouged capacitors on the card were preventing it from
working at all. after borrowing a 3com card, the install went
through
without a hitch. no, i lied -- the install filled up the hard
drive. really filled up the hard drive; the thing only had 170MB
in it! (only, sheesh, how spoiled we are these days) after
totally uninstalling the X Window
System and related programs, the drive was at merely 70%. i'm
wondering
about removing that 16MB swap space.... hey, at least there's 8MB
ram, but what good will it do if we've no window system?!?!??!
'tis an ongoing thing.... watch this space, i'll be
wrsetling
with a webserver and cgi inventory database soon.
Mon Sep 22 19:11:53 EDT 1997
oh yes, here we go again....
more railing against inanimate objects.... why don't machines just bow
down before their creators instead of behaving like belligerent
teenagers..... (why can't theiur creators learn to type, man this
documnet has some of the blurst typoes....(sic)) machines that are dumb
just get on my nerves, let me make that completely known. and let me tell
you, these old computers are definitely dumb.
however, that comes in only a
close second to the real insanity:
women*
some say, "you can't live with 'em, you can't live without 'em."
Norm once said, "you can't live with 'em.... how 'bout another
beer?" after things that have happened to me lately, i'm inclined
in one of three directions: - become a monk and never lay an eye
on another one of those cruel-hearted non-human monsters
-
climb a tall building with an ak-47 and pick off women at ramdom
- jump off of said tall building
unfortunately i'll have the
guts for none of the above, and shall be bitter for the rest of my
life. oh well. just think of it --- i think i'm a
pretty nice guy, considerate, affectionate, all that, i listen, igive a
damn. i'm beginning to think that women only say they want these
things so that men will try to be that way and thus be that much easier
for these "women" [women? more like little bratty girls....]to then walk
all over them and toy with them to their hearts' (wait, they can't have
hearts) content. i'm serious! 90% of my manuy female
friend talk incessantly about how "those boys are such assholes, i wish
they were nice," but they're all hung up on crappy excuses for men
who treat them like shit. they love the people who are the worst for
them. how ironic and sad.i won't go into the particulars of the
reasons behind my disgust right yet (they will likely
see this and i'm not yet so pissed off that i don't care), but suffice it
to say that i've had a rather nasty track record for the last 13
months....
* don't bother flaming me with all this
bullshit of "women are not evil monsters you chauvanistic worm" and
all that. you know full well that i'm making a statement of hyperbole in
a rush of anziety and frustration. if i really thought that, i wouldn't
have any female friends, i wouldn't try to date women, i wouldn't
be complaining about it. do us all a favor and point your energy
someplace else.
yet
Mon Sep 22 19:11:53 EDT 1997
well, now seems like a good enough time..... upon review, after a
week and a half to cool off, i see that maybe my above comments were a bit
hot-headed. not that i necessarily recant in toto, however. i'm
very definitely still quite pissed off, though now just in general, not at
the particular person in question. that incident was of course very dumb,
as much a result of my "dating ineptitude" as anything. still, if i am,
as my close friends tell me, such a "great guy," then why are they
apparently the only ones who think so? why have i had so
many failed attempts that i seriously consider giving up for good?
i so desparately want it... i got a taste of the real thing once upon a
time, and i'll never forget the rush till the day i die, never stop
yearning to fill that void...........