Text 8230, 144 rader
Skriven 2006-11-30 10:42:38 av Maurice Kinal (1:140/13.1)
   Kommentar till text 8225 av WAYNE CHIRNSIDE (1:123/140)
Ärende: of ethics and hard drives
=================================
Hey WAYNE!

Nov 29 21:25 06, WAYNE CHIRNSIDE wrote to MAURICE KINAL:

 MK>> currently being done.  That way we all benefit from it rather then 
 MK>> just a few distributions who fall for the stunt of proprietary crap.  
 MK>> I think that is the best idea all the way around.

 WC> OK, i get your meaning now and concur.

I thought you would.  It makes perfect sense to me and has since the beginning.
 That is one thing I don't miss about DOS and have grown to appreciate the
ability to build a kernel suited to whatever.

 WC> This sucker is wide open, standard and ready to rock out of the box.

Those are my favourite.

 WC>  but employing quotes, plus or minus signs to include or exclude 
 WC> items matched.

"linux bios" ought to be enough.  Just a sec ... yep!  First hit;

   Welcome to LinuxBIOS - LinuxBIOS

   LinuxBIOS is a Free Software project aimed at replacing the proprietary BIOS
(firmware) ... LinuxBIOS can be (and is)
   deployed in a wide range of scenarios. ...
   linuxbios.org/index.php/Main_Page - 18k - Cached - Similar pages


 WC> Once I got past the intimidation factor I was sold.

Same here except that in my case it was with Solaris on a Sparc station and
especially the c-shell.  However when I first saw a Slackare console on a 486 I
was really sold and wasn't at all intimidated by it, although it did take a
couple weeks to get back into the swing of things and get rid of any lingering
DOS-think.

 WC> Microsoft exists only to provide me with inexpensive quality 
 WC> computer hardware that won't run their latest release.
 WC> You know, life is good.

Right.  I always look forward to a new release of Windows as I always benefit
from that.  Looking around lately has me waiting in anticipation for Vista so
that I can liberate some of the more recent stuff.  <BFEG>

 WC> He hated Linux, it didn't break and he couldn't make lots of money
 WC> on such contracts.

Heh, heh.  Makes sense to me.

 WC> So he specialized in a crap operating system to get rich.

Just like Bill Gates.

 WC> I could wipe this drive with Linux on it and be up, secure and fully 
 WC> restored
 WC> customized
 WC> to what I've now with only 1/2 meg of files saved to floppy as well
 WC> as stored on my ISP mail server in two days.

It used to take me a couple days but lately I have that trimmed down to hours. 
Mind you no GUI which makes all the difference.

 WC> Actually a good deal less time since last nights backup.
 WC> Basically compile mplayer and LAME and a couple of other trivial file 
 WC> tweaks.

Same here.  I did manage to redo mplayer on the previous build and it looked
really good but I wasn't happy with my choice of kernel headers which is why I
redid the whole shebang (booted to it as we speak).  I think I still have a
problem with iptables but I think I might be able to rectify that.  It'll have
to wait a couple days as there is more pressing issues to take care of first. 
Overall this one looks to be the next stable system.  Should have mplayer
working again really soon.

 WC> I never went beyond 3.1 either except for the H.P. dumped on my 
 WC> doorstep dead
 WC> by someone disgusted with problems and the need to upgrade.

Heh, heh.  I like when that happens.

 WC>> Hey is their an bzip2 equivelent?

 MK>> bzless.  Also a bzmore and a bzcat while we're at it.  I use bzcat
 MK>> quite a bit as well as zcat and plain ordinary cat.  cat is my friend
 MK>> even without compression but even moreso with it.

I forgot to mention bzgrep and zgrep.

 WC> Best Buy has a Western Digital 80 Gig HD for 61 dollars today no 
 WC> rebate.

Sounds good.  Seems it wan't that long ago that 40G cost ~$150.

 WC> Glad you brought that up, snip the rest and reply if USB 1 and 1.1
 WC> are hot swapable.

Should be.  It has been here (1.1) for some time now.

 WC> I've all the Gateway docs local in HTML as Gateways support has it 
 WC> all on web 
 WC> site retreivable with serial number.
 WC> Quite detailed and extensive too.

I saw that.  Seems to me they had ftp working last time I was there but I might
be thinking of something else.  They did have backup docs going back some time.
 Gotta love when that happens.

 WC> I sort of question it also however the one boot option reads
 WC> "removable device" rather than floppy thus I'm thinking
 WC> it just may fly.

Should work.

 WC> The BIOS release on it is the last for the box after it shipped
 WC> as the numbers match to the flash upgrades docs I downloaded from 
 WC> Gateway.

I doubt usb bootabilty on there even if the bios says it's possible.  That
capability has been a more recent occurance.  This Intel S775 board is the only
one I currently have that can boot anything I throw at it on usb.  The Gigabyte
AM2 board also worked 100% in that regard.  One of the neighbour's S478 boards
can also boot usb but with flash disks it requires a phoney-baloney DOS style
floppy boot.  I hate when that happens.

 WC> Finally ready to play around with su.

I hardly ever use it anymore.

 WC> Before judged it too easy to mess up but now a nice shortcut.

Right.  I just login on another console as root whenever I need to.  Still
haven't got a GUI going where su is more meaningful.  Maybe this time I'll give
xorg-7.1 another shot.  Last time I even went as far as putting on a window
manager although I still didn't fire it up that much once I saw that it worked.
 The xmga driver with mplayer sure looked spiffy on there.  :-)

Life is good,
Maurice

--- Msged/LNX 6.2.0
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