*cry*

[Jeff]

On Sat, Mar 18, 2000 at 02:21:18PM -0800, Lighthouse Keeper in the Desert Sun wrote:
> On Mar 18, Jeff conjectured:
> 
> > Ack!  That cheap mobo comment wasn't directed at you, Lighthouse Keeper,
> > that was the quality of the i586 mobos I had to deal with... The 486
> > might use a wierd chipset, or just be getting worn out (sometimes that
> > happens, but not often).  My apologies.
> 
> :)  I got this computer around CHristmas 1994, and my uncle and I built it
> from parts.  (Mostly my uncle, but anyway...)  Since I started trying to
> put Linux on it, we discovered that there are truly interesting things
> happening.  First, the mobo power got yanked from its sockets, as well as

*wince*

> the hard disk power.  And the RAM was being odd- the board should support

*cringe*

> 4 32 mb chips, but when they guy at the computer store was putting chips
> in, the 32 mb chip said there were a total of 10 megs, and the 16 meg chip

*grimace*

> worked.  So this thing has given me no end of trouble.  I discovered why
> gcc wasn't working, though... it had none of the libraries.  (It's so

Ack!  That's a real pain in the place we can't talk about on the radio.
I hate library problems.

> obvious what packages one needs to install to get a bare-minimum with
> working compilers... :P )  Then I had to track down the 'make' rpms...

Yuck.  <SOAPBOX>This is one reason why I like SuSE's install... you can
check all of your dependancies to make sure you've got everything you
need before you click the install button.  Very handy for cut down
installs -- I just finished doing something like this myself.</SOAPBOX> 

I need to amend that though, SuSE seems to be headed the way of the
graphical installer and their axp distro isn't download friendly -- it
isn't on *any* mirrors and ftp.suse.com is painfully slow.  I'm going to
try out slack on my home computer next ;).

> argh.  Soon I get to switch the modem out of this computer (sakura) and
> put it into manji (the 486-to-be-firewall).  THe fun will start when I
> have to set up a second ethernet card, whenever RoadRunner gets setup in
> my town ("4th quarter 2000"... so we're lucky if we have it by Christmas.)

Be thankful it isn't @Home...

> Joy of joys, ne?  But I'm enjoying it, once I get it all to work.  Of
> course, I'm looking into a CD-RW at the moment, and trying to decide if we
> want to put it in my computer or Ben's mac.  (I'd like to try setting it
> up under Linux... but that's the geek in me talking.)

I totally understand.  I just finished a cut down install on an old
AlphaServer 1000.  Interesting learning experience, the box took way
too much time to set up.  The hardware is still mostly good, but I'm
watching the second harddrive; it forgot its partion tables last time I
powercycled it (none of the data thankfully, I was able to repartition
it exactly the way it was before).  Anyway, that might have been because
it got partitioned two ways (DOS & BSD, long story though, and I'm not
going to bore you with it :).

-- 
Jeff
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My Public Key -- http://24.5.73.229/pubkey.txt 
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