Why My Life Sucks

Let’s start with my car.  Well, the battery.  It’s dead.  Need to get that fixed ASAP.  dur.  Should have done it this weekend.

Which brings us to “I feel like shit.”  More or less literally, given that I’m taking a crap about once every 45 minutes or so.  For the last 3 days.  “Lots of that virus going around” the doctor says.  My crapping eating habits, due to the various anti-freak out meds I take may also have something to do with it.

Then there is my VoIP provider.  I’ve got 2 routers, and two number, one one each router.  Each router has two phone ports.  I wanted to add a 3rd number to the second phone port of the first router.  This should be simple.  It wasn’t.  6 (six) calls, average time 40 minutes each, and 2 (two) supervisor level personages.  This did not make me a happy camper.  There service if first rate, assuming you don’t have to change any thing.

The Craptop’s hard drive died.  However, I have a cunning plan, and the fact that I know what to do with Gentoo now should make it an faster rebuild.  Bonus, the cunning plan will make the hard drive bigger.  Score all around!

Got a Doctor’s appointment later this week.  Need to tweak my Cymalta I think.  Current load doesn’t seem to be working quite right.

$WeSellUsedMacs is becoming more and more surreal.  Average life span of a tech working there seems to be about 3 weeks. When I’m the most knowledgeable person about Mac hardware/Software in the building they have problems.

Google.  Go back to the way iGoogle was before you fucked it up.  It fails to read RSS titles about 70% of the time and each freaking tab has it’s own settings.  This does not make me a happy camper.  Actually, just fix the RSS feed issue and give and option to apply setting and theams to all tabs and that would fix it.   I may need to go look at my Google Lab stuff, this might be a side effect of those.  More later.

Spammers.  “Comment Spammers” in particular.  Please use software to comment spam that at least tries to make it look like a real comment. The “comment” on the top of the Spam Karma reject pile is ‘22gy2zo5g0a0f8lg paucyh yhtrg’. This, of course, is really a link to really random web sites, but, come on, what happened to “This is very interesting web site. I will be back later” comment spam?

Well, off to see if the Jump Buddy has enough juice yet.

This was a search phrase I found on Icerocket.

I’m not going to be a smart ass about this one, it’s not quite trivial.

1. Make sure you have SSH installed on the andLinux side.     ‘apt-get install openssh’ should get it, if it’s not one of the defaults.
2. Create a non-root user (see the andLinux FAQ)   Not that you only have to do step on using this method.   It might not be a bad idea to add this user to the sudo list via visudo
3. Install an SSH client on your machine (I use putty)
4. Make sure andLinux and the X windows thing is running.   If you set it up as automatic it should be.
5. SSH into the andlinux ‘machine’   The IP address out of the box is 192.168.11.150
6. Log in as the user you created in step 2
7. Issue the command ‘kicker && exit’   Note the exit part is optional, it closes the ssh terminal window, which you want to do because your going to start using the xwindow terminal of your choice.

You should get a couple of lines of text while KDE wakes up, but then you will get the kicker bar.   I normally modify mine to live on the top of the screen so it doesn’t overlap the windows task bar.

After the first time all you have to do is steps 5-7.     I’ve removed all the various andLinux windows side app launchers from the quick start area and this is how I do it for day to day operations.     Please note that startup perl script is still running as root.   I haven’t tried removing it just yet, I have a gut feeling that it doesn’t need to run at all any more.   I’ll poke it with sharp sticks later and find out.

Oh, and yeah, I was right.   I really didn’t get out of bed yesterday, other than to make a fast trip to the local market for milk and soda.

I use IceRocket to track visitors here.     I just got some one from the Islamic Republic of Iran.       He, or possibly she, got here via Google Images.       This is the page he ened up on.

Frankly, I’m not sure what to say about that.

Other odd search request that end up here:

“army mos, high paying” - Let me make that easy.   There aren’t any.

“darling i dont want to be professional for my wife” - Again, not sure what to say there.

“upgrading worth it 10.5.5 10.4″   - NO don’t do it!

“Nixon vs Mondale 1968″ - Ah, dude.   Read a history book.

“was jimmy carter in the army” - Rational question.   Nope, in the Navy.

“dungeons and dragons for linux” - That’s a bit geeky, but dumb.   If it the web based stuff it will run, otherwise, not really.   D&D is a table top game.

“1970 olympic flight seized by arabs” - Unless they mean an airline named Olympic, that’s a weird combo.

“drinking beer on lunesta”   - Good way to get a long nap.

“upgrading from 10.4.11 to 10.5.5″   - NO Don’t Do It.

“pictures of cats and bats”   - No bat pictures, but do have pictures of cats named after bats however, close enough?

“Rants of a lost life”   - Nice turn of phrase.   May steal that.

“I didn’t get into law school my life sucks” - my fair heart bleeds for you dude.

“can you get high off Amidrine”   - Not really.   Make you loopy and feel like shit however.     Better than the headache, I’ll give you that.

“10.5.5 main.cf group”   - Good luck.   You will need it.

“using diclofenac with midrin”   - Done it, but it’s not really a good idea unless you are getting regular blood test for liver and kidney failure.

“adderall ubuntu”   - Odd mix there.   Shoulnd’t need the adderal, Ubuntu installs fast enough that you should be able to finish.

“heather alexander alexander james adams wtf” - What?   He’s a transexual filk singer.   Can’t be the only one…

“fink vs macports” - Use Fink.   MacPorts has issues.   Not as many as 10.5.5, but fink still wins.

“24Q10″ - Nike Herc Rules!

“bristol stool chart type 4″ - That’s what you want, dude.

“working for michael kors sucks” - But he seems so fun on Project Runway.

“Apple postfix not working 10.5.5″   - I feel your pain.

‘”scary devil monastery” - We don’t talk about chickens here.

“is leopard 10.5.5 worth upgrading” - NO.

“OKLAHOMA ROADS SUCK” - Why, yes.   Yes they do.

“MY LIFE SUCKS BACKWA”   - Ah? what?

“why did jimmy carter suck” - Don’t know.   Let’s re-visit that question in a year.

No, not that damn, this is a Craptop damn. First time I’ve need to recompile the kernel since day 1 of the Gentoo era. Seems sound wasn’t enabled. grrr…

The Craptop project may have just hit a freaking wall. I finished the current emerge, and issued a ’shutdown now -h’ command, then moved the machine from the living room to my desk in the bed room. Machine will not turn on now. Turns on, does a memory count, detects the hard drive and DVD drive, then turns it’s self off. I’m hoping that it’s an over heat situation and letting it cool down will fix it (it has been running full bore for several days now), but just in case, I’m installing the rest of the LAMP stack on the andLinux part of the DellBookâ„¢

Finished fixing the fucked install dumbass attack, plus got PHP/MySQL/Apache2 and the like playing nice with each other.   Now attempting to get XFCE4/The Gimp/Firefox/DigiKam running.     The emerge to do that results in 119 items to install.   Off we go!

After that, I’ll re-run the update the world, and declare victory.

I’ve just spent an hour or so of quality, quality I tell you, time dealing with the “USE” option in /etc/make.conf   After dealing with all that, it needs to either rebuild or install 150+ items.   I launched a ’screen’ session and fired that puppy up.   I’ll come back in a hour or so an check on it.

First off, why am I doing this instead of installing Umbutu or even debian Linux

Well, there are 2 reasons.

1. The machine really is rather limited, so a kitchen sink “it just works” install, while an option, is sub-optimal.
2. It’s A Project.   I need projects.   It’s been far to long and I can feel my brain getting better as we speak.

So, that being said, on with the live blogging

It’s 11:27 in morning.   It looks like X, MySQL, Apache2 and PHP5 all emerged while I slept.     I’ve configured X, which was more or less painless and now I need to install a window manager that doens’t make your eyes bleed.   I’m going to use XFCE4, which is a 69 part project.   That’s running on the tuxbook (the craptop hostname) proper.   While that is going on, I’m going to attempt to get the servers up and running.

MySql first, I think.  
[11:37] Odd.   I thought I emerged MySql last night.   Seems I didn’t.   Doing that now.

[12:10]   Apache2 is set up and configured to work as a basic HTTP server.   Working on getting it to server PHP pages now

[12:45]   Just made an important discovery.   Don’t emerge via multiple logins.   Doesn’t do what you think it’s going to do.   I think what I need to do is do something like emerge phpmyadmin and let it deal with all the backdrop, after I run a
“emerge –verbose –update –ask –newuse world” to deal with the mangled install(s)

OK, this is going to take some time.   More later.

Well, bonus points are awarded!   At least the first compile is done when I got back.     On to configuration!

Just did the standard /etc/fstab and network files, and now I get to do my next emerge.   Need to make those PCMCIA slots work!

OK, did that, now setting up passwords and such like.

Installing the “must have” tools now.     Syslog etc.

Watching compiles is mind numbing.     I’ve been working with scripting languages to long, I’ve forgotten what it’s like.

Completely unrelated note.   The Darling Wife made Cherry tarts.   Very nummy (and, so far) I’m keeping them down.   More than a bit messy however.

As expected, networking failed.   Off to do the genkernel thing now.

[approx 7:30PM]The only thing more brain numbing than watching a compile go zipping by is watching one that doesn’t puke to the screen as you do it.   I don’t like that sort of compile…

[Approx 8:50PM] It’s still going.   It’s been doing modules for the last 30 or so minutes.   I’m not going to do this very often, once I get it up and running, at least I hope I don’t have to.

[9:15] OK.   We have penguin-lust which means I’m up and have a booting system that has a network.   I’m hyper!
Starting to install vi/vim now.   That’s a 7 step operation, it seems.   At least it’s a puke to the screen type of compile so I know it’s not dead.

[9:28] I’ve got vi installed and I’m got the frame buffer working. Woot!   Screen looks good.   Added my day to day user account.   Starting to add mc, ssh and ncftp,   which will make it a functioning work machine, less web-browser.

[10:13] got outbound ssh working, need to find the magic tweak for inbound.   Dur.   Need to start the server…

[10:38] I’ve been poking about a bit, I’ve got what I think are the bare mininamum text based things installed and I’m trying to clean up the install just a hair.

119 items to install X11?   I’ll be back in a while.     Going to go else where for a while.   See y’all later.

AKA a WinBook J¹. This machine is needs to do two wildly separate things. One is to be my work machine, which basically means I need an SSH client, an FTP client and web browser, ideally Firefox 3.x The other is to act as my GM machine in the upcoming Traveller game I’m going to be running. That needs a web server that can support PHP5 and MySQL, plus I need the ability to read a modern PDF file. Printing would be nice, plus the ability to make either an PDF or RTF file, but this is not a requirement.   I also need, in general, an editor (vi is my editor of choice) and Midnight Commander (aka mc) installed.   Running GIMP would also be nice.

This isn’t that big of a deal, except that the machine has only 256 Megs of memory and “only” a 10 Gig hard drive. After much dinking around I’ve decided that I’m going to go whole geek on this project and use Gentoo.   I know that Damn Small Linux will more or less work, as will etch debian, but both of those have weird dependency issues, hence the Gentoo experiment.

This is sort of a live blog of this. And just to make things fun, I’ve got a stomake bug, which means I have to run to the bathroom and talk to Ralph on the BWP ever so often. The anti Ralph stuff I’ve taken, on top of my normal meds is making me very freaking dizzy.

So far, I’ve followed the steps in the Gentoo manual up to step 6. So far, so good, the basic mini-install CD has “just worked”. I suspect that is going to end when soon, because my “network card” is a USB thing, which may or may not be directly supported right out of the box. To make things more fun, the next step will be making this work with a USB wireless thing, but that’s for later.

General comment. Why did they provide “Nano” not VI? I’ve put way to many :wq at the end of files today. Plus random x’s where I wanted a character to go away, etc. To add to the fun, the CTRL key is in the wrong place on this machine.

Standard issue with living in the middle of the country. CST isn’t a default time zone in the “easy to get to” spot. It’s there, but you have to go looking for it. Oddly Mountain time is. In fact all 3 of the timezones other than central are in the basic zoneinfo directory, but CST is in the US sub directory.

Opps.   Need to “emerge portage” first.     Why would there be a new version when I downloaded the “current” version 30 minutes ago?   Got to love cutting edge retro-computing.

I’m now watching it patch the kernel source. It’s as much fun as it sounds like.   After this, I’ve got to find out what modules I need, which, if I understand the manual means I need to emerge pciutils and run lsmod

Just a personal note, the OTC anti-nausea pills are working, however I’m wired and feel more than a little dizzy.     I can feel my fingernails, which is a strange feeling.     Lots of rushing sounds in my ears as well.     Not driving today!

lspci reports I have <long list of stuff>

Well, shit. Need to start the SSH server at the start, other wise you have issues, and it fucking reboots.   Damn.   I hope I can just start the SSH server up, then skip ahead.

(I’ve got the SSH server up, changed root’s password and have attached to if via smallbox).

Looks like I don’t have to redo the longer steps I’ve already taken.   Will see in a few here.

OK, we’re back.   I’m dumping out the results of those test just so I’ll have a record if and when I need to redo something.

lsmod

00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8601 [Apollo ProMedia] (rev 05)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8601 [Apollo ProMedia AGP]
00:05.0 Modem: PCTel Inc HSP MicroModem 56 (rev 02)
00:07.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super South] (rev 22)
00:07.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 10)
00:07.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 10)
00:07.4 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super ACPI] (rev 30)
00:07.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 20)
00:0a.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1410 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Trident Microsystems CyberBlade i1 (rev 6a)

And the big dump:(chroot) livecd / # lsmod            
Module                                   Size   Used by
ipv6                                   236260   12
dock                                     18448   0
fan                                       12804   0
pcmcia                                 45100   0
pegasus                               33424   0
mii                                       13312   1 pegasus
yenta_socket                     32908   1
rsrc_nonstatic                 20480   1 yenta_socket
pcmcia_core                       45076   3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
video                                   26640   0
backlight                           13188   1 video
output                                 11776   1 video
thermal                               24092   0
battery                               16640   0
ac                                         12544   0
processor                           39656   2 thermal
button                                 16528   0
rtc                                       20768   0
tg3                                     111748   0
e1000                                 119616   0
jfs                                     169836   0
raid10                                 30080   0
raid456                             129296   0
async_memcpy                     10880   1 raid456
async_xor                           12160   1 raid456
xor                                       21896   2 raid456,async_xor
async_tx                             15948   3 raid456,async_memcpy,async_xor
raid1                                   30080   0
raid0                                   15872   0
dm_bbr                                 20128   0
dm_snapshot                       24996   0
dm_mirror                           29440   0
dm_mod                                 63428   3 dm_bbr,dm_snapshot,dm_mirror
sbp2                                     29960   0
ohci1394                             38192   0
ieee1394                             92600   2 sbp2,ohci1394
sl811_hcd                           19968   0
usbhid                                 35712   0
ohci_hcd                             29700   0
uhci_hcd                             30988   0
usb_storage                     120608   0
ehci_hcd                             39948   0
usbcore                             133484   8 pegasus,sl811_hcd,usbhid,ohci_hcd,uhci_hcd,usb_storage,ehci_hcd
lpfc                                   216016   0
qla2xxx                             168548   0
firmware_class                 17408   2 pcmcia,qla2xxx
megaraid_sas                     35504   0
megaraid_mbox                   38160   0
megaraid_mm                       18464   1 megaraid_mbox
megaraid                             44360   0
aacraid                               68996   0
sx8                                       25484   0
DAC960                                 73032   0
cciss                                   41220   0
cpqarray                             28004   0
3w_9xxx                               39300   0
3w_xxxx                               32928   0
mptsas                                 43144   0
scsi_transport_sas         37120   1 mptsas
mptfc                                   25988   0
scsi_transport_fc           49028   3 lpfc,qla2xxx,mptfc
scsi_tgt                             22344   1 scsi_transport_fc
mptspi                                 28296   0
mptscsih                             41344   3 mptsas,mptfc,mptspi
mptbase                               78308   4 mptsas,mptfc,mptspi,mptscsih
atp870u                               36352   0
dc395x                                 39052   0
sim710                                 13188   0
53c700                                 33444   1 sim710
qla1280                             123660   0
dmx3191d                             20096   0
sym53c8xx                           77588   0
qlogicfas408                     15104   0
aha152x                               42512   0
aha1740                               15872   0
advansys                             85248   0
initio                                 24900   0
BusLogic                             72948   0
arcmsr                                 29952   0
aic7xxx                             168760   0
aic79xx                             241624   0
scsi_transport_spi         30848   7 mptspi,53c700,dmx3191d,sym53c8xx,aha152x,aic7xxx,aic79xx
sg                                         41360   0
pdc_adma                             17668   0
sata_inic162x                   20228   0
sata_mv                               28936   0
ata_piix                             26372   0
ahci                                     34180   0
sata_qstor                         17924   0
sata_vsc                             16516   0
sata_uli                             15620   0
sata_sis                             16772   0
sata_sx4                             20484   0
sata_nv                               33160   0
sata_via                             19588   0
sata_svw                             15748   0
sata_sil24                         24068   0
sata_sil                             19080   0
sata_promise                     20996   0
scsi_wait_scan                   9472   0
pata_sis                             21892   1 sata_sis
libata                               152248   17 pdc_adma,sata_inic162x,sata_mv,ata_piix,ahci,sata_qstor,sata_vsc,sata_uli,sata_sis,sata_sx4,sata_nv,sata_via,sata_svw,sata_sil24,sata_sil,sata_promise,pata_sis

OK.   That was fun.   I don’t think that configuring a Linux kernel while on medication that makes you dizzy is a good idea.   If this machine boots and has networking on the first pass I’m going to to be surprised.   If it doesn’t well, they supply the auto-detect genkernel tool as well, which is what I’ll do if this fails, and to be honest about it, what I should have done from the start, but I’m going for geek points here.

I’ve just launched the compile a kernel stage.   This is going to take a while, so I’m going to publish this post and go take a bath.   Bonus points if it finishes before I get out!