My Life is a Mess of Linuxes
Posted by TFG on February 24th, 2008
Or, Computer Weirdness.
I’m trying to build a dual-boot server box for R&D. It happens to have an Intel DG33TL motherboard in it, thanks to a decision I made a few months ago. The Ubuntu 6.06 and 7.10 releases won’t do dick if you use the i386 release…the machine just sits there like a bump on a log So, I had to use an AMD64 release. That, in turn, does not support my partner’s server & client software. This means I have a nice purty tricked-out server sitting here, with a 300GB HDD partitioned all to hell and back, that’s only barely able to run Windows XP with a lot of hackish trickery. Thanks, Intel. It looks like I’ll have to run all that partner stuff on an ancient, slow-as-molasses Celeron laptop. Hopefully, though, I’ll be able to get a development environment up and running on it, though.
I’m also dorking around with embedded Linux. That’s some fun stuff there, boys, let me tell you. Building images, flashing memory, editing with vi, downloading packages, running everything over a null modem cable using minicom. At some point, I will have to integrate a non-integrated set of software, and as a former mainframe systems programmer who did all of his work in System 370 assembler for heavy lifting or REXX for short-life fooling-around stuff, I just can’t wait to bang my head into the brick wall of C and object-oriented programming. I mean, I can read html & PHP, at least. C, and all of it’s derivatives, is like trying to read Russian. My eyes cross, and I get an intensely sharp pain in my brain. At least there are plenty of explanations online that I can read. Makes for a lot of sitting and concentrating, though, something I’ve lost the ability to do in the last 17 years.
All of this for a thin-as-a-hair Next Next Tiny Bidness scheme cooked up in two weeks of intense, um, refocusing. And it’s been raining in California all weekend, so there’s no racing going on, and I therefore have no chance to go vegetate and flush my buffers clear my mind in front of hot rods turning left.
For those of you reading this with no idea what the hell I’m talking about, this is the reason I need two pots of coffee, a pack of Marlboros and a sixer of cold beer just about every day. I don’t understand most of it, either.
February 24th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Recently, I had somebody call me an idiot for trying to run my business on anything other than freeware.
Oh yeah.
February 24th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
I know just enough of what you speak to be impressed, and glad, that you are dealing with it, not I.
February 24th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
This might be hard to believe, Charles, but any business idea I have is going to be low cost with value add from my brilliant mind. Stop grinning.
JD, I actually got one of my embeds to work today. Since NASCAR was rained out, I plowed through it, like a dumb bull. It kinda makes me happy, but it’s only one little piece, and I have miles to go. Still, I did a little jig in the garage when it worked. Say…weren’t you looking for some contract programming work a while back? Do you know Linux?
February 25th, 2008 at 10:26 am
No, I am, or was, I guess is a better description, an analytical chemistry guy with a lot of VB / Excel background. To summarize my 30+ year career: Taking the data from instruments and putting it in reports with spreadsheets and plots so management can understand data and still make stupid decisions based on what they wish was true rather than real information.
I was looking, but I pretty much give up. Nobody wants a crotchety old guy working for them, especially one with a smart mouth. I’ll go out to Target, Home Depot, Lowe’s, hell, even Wal-Mart, I guess.