Text 7872, 164 rader
Skriven 2006-11-08 04:37:12 av James Bradley (1:134/77.0)
   Kommentar till text 7849 av Maurice Kinal (1:140/13.1)
Ärende: ttylinux
================
On or about: 11-04-06  01:34, Maurice Kinal did engage James Bradley regarding,
but not limited to: ttylinux

 JB> was expecting all along, your boxes were built from the ground-up, 

 MK> Sort of.  Most are used but I strip them down and if there 
 MK> is anything left then it stays.  Otherwise it hits the 
 MK> recycle bin.

Right, it was the "reverse engineering" particular to getting into some of
these convoluted, scrapped boxes that I was referring to. When you get sick at
the prospect of clawing your way into an over-engineered case, engineered just
for the sake of keeping the 'layman' out...

 JB> 'surfin'... My first instinct is to suggest a power tool to open 'em 
 JB> up, but that doesn't meet with too much approval for some reason. 

 MK> Yeah.  I am not a fan of laptops.  I see Intel seems to be headed in
 MK> my  direction about much of their stuff and looks to be 
 MK> abandoning the questionable stuff.  I am thinking they are 
 MK> beginning to see the light but we'll see.

Cousin Ken - Olga's son - says IBM is the only company to build a reliable
laptop, and the only survivor in the torture tests magazine staff runs once a
year.

 MK>> Currently by using usb for hotswapping regular drives and 
 MK>> then plugging them into the targetted machine and booting 
 MK>> it up.  
 
 JB> That's the part in the puzzle I was missing.

 MK> Right.  No sweat as it does work whether or not it is bootable.  I've
 MK> found  some decent pci based cards in the past that proved to be 
 MK> great addons towards this idea.  However I no longer need 
 MK> that and found them good homes.

Right, that you fire off the iso to the USB interface, then move the subject
drive to the target computer.

 JB> another about to leave for Edmonton... ... ... Because I can't always 
 JB> count on the USB port to boot the rigs...

 MK> It doesn't have to.

But it *does* require that the IDE drive bay, *not* be buried in a mire of
complexity. I can see the ease, if the patient is already opened - hence my
penchant for power tools.

 JB> workings now, and as I suspected, reverse engineering is not nearly 
 JB> as time consuming there, as it is here.

 MK> No reverse engineering whatsoever.  I use the same utils as 
 MK> I use for everything else.

Not in the logic department, but the physical one.
 
 JB> as the BIOS said nothing about "USB" in the boot order, but 
 JB> obviously, it goes first all the time, regardless of what I want.

 MK> Strange but I have seen stuff like that before.  In the case of the
 MK> Intel  board (the 64-bit guy) I have the bios set to boot to usb 
 MK> first only if there is something there and if there isn't 
 MK> then the first HD it encounters, which could be a sata 

See, if I have a 'drive' inserted without a bootable partition available, it
keeps looking for that, until a partition arrives to satisfy that equation, or
you remove the ones that do not. The board does have three USB channels
available, (along with some of the worst documentation I have seen,) so I
suspect at least one of those bridges wouldn't intercept the call for an OS.

 MK> Gigabyte's bios where I could hit f12 on bootup and it 

That could save LOTS of time. The <Del> - BIOS tweek - reboot Waltz can be a
slow, drawn out dance.

 JB> As all the big Dells here, have front-accessible SCSI hotswap drives, 
 JB> your system could work for those too, by unmounting them, then 
 JB> running something or another (I think I read somewhere.) to tell the 
 JB> controller to let go of the device number.

 MK> Perhaps hotplug.  I'd have to see that but for the usb 
 MK> interface all you have to do is unplug it (after umounting 
 MK> of course).  Should work for you too.

I don't know the difference between "Plug" and "Swap". THe controllers are HW
RAID, "Passive Backplane Array" type systems, so I'm sure they could burn my
toast if I worked on 'em enough. The software to run the pig, is run on an M$
product, and meant to occupy hda1, so I toasted it after my first attempt at
lilo installation proved fruitless.

 MK>> anything is  possible with the right kernel.  Everything else can be 
 MK>> (u)mounted later and thus a vastly flexible and dynamic 
 MK>> system can be tweaked on the fly with no need for reboots.
 
 JB> ... Only if bootable to USB. I only have the newest project that will 
 JB> do that here, AFAICT.

 MK> Doesn't matter but that is a nice feature for sure.  It 

Again, back to the physical aspects. If you can touch the IDE cable, and have a
USB->IDE interface, *and* if you use *ATA drives... My efforts usually go into,
too unusual territory for that to prove economical. Now, I doubt the next sixty
machines to race through here, are going to be any where *near* as quirky as
the last six, but time will tell. You know I'll do my damdest to make sure they
are stranger yet. <G>

Now, on to that G3 I tripped over this afternoon... O-8*

 MK> already saved both me and the neighbour's hide when
 MK> screwing up an install and being able to boot a minimal 
 MK> system to make quick repairs.  Paul definetly sees the 
 MK> light now and like you didn't fully appreciate the beauty 
 MK> until it became mission critical.  Now he listens ... sort 
 MK> of.  He was just here complaining about kernel headers.  

You read me wrong, and I was reading you wrong. Now that we are on the same
page...

Again, with this language - was leading me on, that you were using bootable USB
devices exclusivly. THe USBs' roll was not defined earlier.

 MK> Kids these days eh?

"Yes, dad?" <ROTF>

 MK> Right.  It used to be Mandrake not that long ago but I 
 MK> don't hear as much from those people much these days.  

Because they changed their name? <G+D>

 JB> apart a microwave oven for some real power? <Holding breath>

 MK> No.  Microwaves are for popcorn.

That, and long distance, non-satellite, high bandwidth communications. I wonder
how many relays are still done through microwaves across the hills between us.

 JB> I haven't tried to sell my second case here, but if there's no 
 JB> takers, you'd be welcome to it. Shipping alone, might cost close to a 
 JB> hun., though.

 MK> I don't really need any at the moment.  Been keeping an eye 
 MK> open lately waiting for prices to drop.  Shouldn't be too 
 MK> much longer.

The defect with these, was the second layer of paint didn't adhere to the
first. (Guess they didn't read the label on the enamel.) Therefore, the paint
was peeling. Apearance garnering little importance here...

 JB> say, eh?

 MK> I had an Aunt Olga.  Maybe the same one?  ;-)

I still have my aunt, sort-a.



... James

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