Okay, first off: I’ve got a massive MacWorld / Borders / Trip to SF and back report to write up. It’s coming, and I hope it will be worth the wait. Until I can get it done, there are some wonderful links in the comments for my previous entry, from other bloggers who came to MacWorld, Borders, or both.
My short version? It was awesome. It was everything I’d hoped it would be, and more than I could have ever expected. The drive up was great, and the drive home (without Anne, because she went over to Tahoe to spend the weekend with her friend) was lonely, but enjoyable because I listened to Jay Mohr’s book Gasping for Airtime most of the way. It’s a interesting story . . . but you have to hear him read it. It’s the difference between listening to Dark Side of the Moon and reading the sheet music.
Okay. Enough about the trip report that’s coming. Here’s the thing that made me fire up this nifty browser called “Epiphany,” and write these words: I totally, completely, utterly b0rked my Debian machine before I left for MacWorld. I don’t know what I did, exactly, but somehow it completely lost my mouse. modprobe psmouse and modprobe mousedev did nothing, and I couldn’t find anything in a single online forum that would help me make my goddamn mouse work again. I tried dpkg-reconfigure gpm. I tried mouseconfig I tried cursing in lots of different languages, and making Faustian bargains with gods I’m pretty sure I just made up . . . I even taught myself how to recompile a linux kernel (the debian way and the other way) . . . but no dice.
Finally, I gave up, and decided to just start over with a clean partition and a new install. So I did mv /home/wil /mnt/hda1/backedup/, did a diff to make sure I didn’t miss anything, and burned myself a copy of the latest Debian (Sarge) Network installer.
Oh. My. God. Becky. It was so easy.
Okay. Seriously. Back in the old days of 1999, everyone told me how easy it was to set Red Hat up, but how much cooler Debian was if you could just get past the nightmare install . . . well, this was about as easy an install of anything I’ve ever done. It was literally a handful of commands, and then a bunch of waiting while it grabbed a ton of packages and set them up.
I’m now sitting here with a honest-to-goodness Debian system, running kernel 2.6.8!
Check it out:
wil@bender:~$ uname -a
Linux bender 2.6.8-1-386 #1 Thu Nov 11 12:18:43 EST 2004 i686 GNU/Linux
Okay, this is probably not as exciting to anyone else as it is to me . . . but the fact that I got this working, and took all the HAM radio and isdn stuff out of the kernel, and still got it to work . . . it’s a pretty big deal to me.
I’m logged into Gnome right now,( which I usually don’t use — I’m a KDE or Enlightenment kind of guy — but it looks beautiful) and I’ve got apt installing Firefox and Thunderbird in a terminal, and then I’ve got to restore some of the backups, but I’m very proud of myself. Until I totally screw something else up, I feel like I can put on my propeller hat and give it a mighty spin. *snort*
I’ve got an audition tomorrow morning, then I’m working on the audio book of Just A Geek in the afternoon. Check back around Friday for the full SF trip report, and some other cool news.
Oh, man! And if this moment needed to get any better . . . They Might Be Giants just started singing Ana Ng on the radio behind me.
Discover more from WIL WHEATON dot NET
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I’m glad to see more people saying that Debian is easier to install than ever.
Ubuntu is a Debian derivative and if you’re not a total geek is a wonderful way to have a Debian system which gets regularly updated (6 monthly update cycle) and is well integrated.
I heartily recommend it 🙂
I am so glad you are not dead. Ha! Anyway, just wanted to send you a quick Happy New Year! Where did 2004 go? Yikes. Bye for now.
I seem to post too much more than I can post here. I’m basically looking to start using non-microsoft software. I’ve not had any luck so far. I need help. I want to break away from windows 98se to linux/unix but the ISOs I can find are not much use to me.
.::Mike A::.
hey wil,
good to see ya back again. glad to hear the trip went well…can’t wait to read the report! just as a side note, my sister gave me one of your wwdn T-shirts for my birthday! and i totally love it! i have been living in it! tee hee….50,000 monkeys at 50,000 typewriters definately can NOT be wrong!!!!!
take care wil,
love
rach
Congrats on the sporty Debian install! I haven’t used the New Installer(TM), I guess I need to give it a try. My work machine has a bunch of stuff messed up, since I set up Xinerama, and took it down, and dorked around with some other things that mere mortals were not meant to tamper with.
Debian rules! \m/
You lost me on the first line.
Good luck on the audition.
Val
Wow, “Debian”, “Sarge”, ok “Linux” I’ve heard of. I’m so ashamed and bow to all of your computer sci geek superiority. I’m a poli sci geek, so this stuff is totally out of my depth. Can feel the absolutely positive vibe comin’ out of your post tho’ Wil, so congrats for the install going so well (head still hurts trying to figue it out.
Anyhoo, good luck on the audition, keepin my fingers crossed.
Pax;
John N. in upstate, NY
Oh my gosh Wil,
I cannot say that I have ANY idea about any of what you wrote, but I am working on it. 🙂 Is everything all set with your computer now?
Anyway, I really enjoy reading your updates as it is a good way to keep on topp of what you are up to and how you are. Will you even grace your East Coast supporters with one of your talks? I want to get a copy of your book signed and hear you speak!
Ha, no way… bender? Okay that’s really funny, so my friend are “renting” a box for hosting and we decided to name it Bender… it’s also running Deb.
You lost me at hello…and got me back at Ana Ng. I love nerd rock but guess I just can’t do all the other great nerd stuff like computers etc. Anyone else picked up Rhino Records release Left of the Dial? It has Ana Ng along with about a billion other classic 80’s college radio tracks.
Just wanted to let you know that gmail4troops.com is no longer taking invitations. Not sure if anyone let you know, but you may want to pass that on.
-Brian
haha! Geek! You — oh wait, I understood everything you said… I had some suggestions for fixing your mouse (are you sure it was plugged in?) I got the “Becky” joke… I… I… I….. … NOOOOOO!!!!!!
Audition = Sweet
Getting 2.6.8 Running = Super Sweet
JAG Audiobook = Hella Sweet
Your glowing review of Debian is rather inspiring, actually. I’m using Mandrake 10.0 right now, and am having issues of varying annoyance levels. Think I’ll give it a try.
Gee, Wil, you made my head spin. I am *so* not a computer geek.
But…TMBG I can understand. 🙂
Meh… bender… and here I was thinking I was unique naming a machine after a Futurama character – now you have one, and Dave Dash has one, soon everyone will have a shiny silver server named bender 🙁
FreeBSD bender.bsd-box.net 5.3-STABLE FreeBSD 5.3-STABLE #0: Sat Oct 23 14:25:34 EDT 2004 [email protected]:/usr/src/sys/i386/compile/bender i386
I probably should have spraypainted it red instead of silver. Then I could have called it Zoidberg. Nobody would want to name anything after him….
I read this and all I could think was, “Oh my God, Wil, you are such a geek! Not that there’s anything wrong with that 😉
Looking forward to the “trip report.”
First Off,Good luck with the audition!!! I’ve got my copy of Just A Geek on hold at the book store, can’t wait. I’ll go forward to the trip report.
Best. Post. Ever. Thank you.
Glad you had fun Wil. I’ve been on the edge of my seat waiting for the *big* update, but I can wait for another day or so.
I’ve started the book, by the way. So far so great.
Sounds good, I might have to actually give linux another try and try the Debian (Sarge) Network installer. I love linux for server stuff but haven’t really gotten into it for a desktop because I need tools like Photoshop.
I think the only thing I actually understood about that post was “Ana Ng”…but if you’re happy, I’m happy.
I think the only thing I actually understood about that post was “Ana Ng”…but if you’re happy, I’m happy.
Gotta say– I love the Sir Mix-a-Lot reference. And the quote at the top from Picard in that episode where Pulaski has to come in and save him because his heart almost gives out. I hope I’m the only one that caught those.
I am certainly a geek-child of the eighties. Dear god. I think I’ll crawl under my desk now.
For some reason I never had all that much of a problem with the Debian woody install screens. Once I figured out what to call my monitor and sound card I was, as they say, rockin’. I tried a sarge install about the middle of last year and it failed horribly. I’ve been trying Ubuntu lately. Not bad but there’s a grub error killing me right now and I do prefer all of my packages be maintained. I have wanted to get back to a pure debian roots for a while though. The lack of a new release has been the stumbling block. You’ve given me courage that sarge isn’t all that dangerous anymore. Thanks to you evil will be thwarted in the Great White (and damn do I mean white at the moment) North once more.
Excellent, TMBG! Now *Ana Ng* will be fun-fully stuck in my head for the next half-hour! 😀
I’ll throw in another vote for Gentoo. I’ve been using it since version 1.1 and have converted several Red Hatter’s here at work. You can have fun, learn tons and build a working system all at the same time.
If you like Enlightenment, have a look at
XFCE. Runs great, less filling.
And for a modern but less calories terminal, try Terminal
To totally “Star Trek Geek Out” shouldn’t the headline have been:
“Rumors of my assimilation are greatly exaggerated?”
Hey Wil, even propellerheads like myself screw up every now and again. You don’t need to turn in your geek badge if you royally mess something up. 🙂
11100011 0011010101 101010100011 1010101110011
10101111000110110101010101011101010101010101010
just kidding… your geekness is adorable. 🙂 glad to see you’re back wil!
you know I can’t stop giggling over the Oh. My. God. Becky
I keep wanting to go into the Sir-Mix-Alot song “I like big butts and I can’t not lie….”
ookay yeah I am dork, I’ll stop now.
Ermmmm…. Aroo?
OK, the Linux geekspeak went completely over my head (glad to see I’m not the only one), but I never claimed to be a penguin geek. Trek, sure. Asimov, absolutely. Anime, yeah. Macintosh, once upon a time. But I’ve never been a Linux girl.
That said… OMG, even after getting Just A Geek for Christmas, I would totally buy the audiobook. Although I might bust a gut and wreck the car during my daily commute.
Will, I can’t believe you said, “Oh. My. God. Becky.” I thought me and one of my best friends were the only ones that still said that. Tee hee!
I’m a Unix geek and an amateur radio geek, and I’m so totally upset that you took out the ham stuff in the kernel. Okay, not really.
Can’t wait to read more about the MacExpo trip!
73! (thats ham-speak for “best regards!”)
KG4EFO
Damn that post was made just for the extremely geeky nerds cause I understood nothing.
Alls I know about my computer
is that it is a Mac with the mac X and all i use is the internet
Good times.
Hi Wil!
I just came across this and I have to say…wow. I think this blog is more interesting and truthful than any celeb blog I have ever read.
Keep up the good work!
P.S. I have no clue as to weather or not you read/respond to these (well not so much the read as the respond part), I could be talking to a wall! lol
Ahhhh, excellent! And about damn time too! 😀 Sorry, I’ve been checking for an update since you did your keynote at MacWorld. Again, you were awesome!
Congrats on the Debian! Well done. I’ve been timidly dual-booting Mandrake with XP on my dell laptop for the last 6 months. Freaks my boss out everytime I boot into Linux! He’s a windoze guy all the way. Thinking of trying Debian, but I’m not sure if I’m that brave yet. Maybe I’ll do it next time I screw up the boot loader…until then most of my work is on my Mac (shiny new dual G5…mmmmmmm, happy place).
Looking forward to your trip report. You can catch mine at http://mypocketlint.blogspot.com/
I know this is not relavent to what you had to say but, the title of this particular blog entry caught my eye because i’ve heard that line before and I believe it was said by Captain Picard in First Contact after an encounter with the borg.
Small repetition for emphasis — those interested in trying Debian without any commitment at all should start with Knoppix. You don’t have to install anything to your hd, but it will automount all of your partitions (Windows, Linux, whatever).
Also, I’ve been running Sid-based stuff for quite a while with very few problems. I wouldn’t use Sid in a production office setting necessarily, but for regular folks Sid works pretty well. It gives you much newer software than you’ll get with Sarge.
FWIW
Jay Mohr is a homophobic asshole.
Yeah, debian is teh shiznit. Check out Synaptic (apt-get install synaptic), while I don’t use it much any more (‘apt-cache search’ and ‘apt-get install’ is generally faster if you have an idea of what you want) it’s cool to be able to graphically browse and see packages you didn’t know was there, and it’s sometimes easier to see when you have a package conflict…
Ana Ng is quite possibly the only song I’d ever sing Karaoke if someone discovered a version somewhere… actually, ‘She’s An Angel’ would be pretty good too…
Please excuse my outburst. I feel better now.
Regarding the audio book. PLEEEEASE make an unabridged one. I love audible, but I hate abridged books.
Listening to you describe the install had me laughing; I’ve felt the same way many times. Lately, I’ve been enjoying Ubuntu.
later
Oh
My
God
Wil, you are a bigger geek than my husband, The Database Guru. And he’s writing a book on a popular database product (due out in the Spring).
I’m so incredibly CMOD’d by your geeky talents I feel like I need to dump core right now. (But in the interest of netiquette, I’ll wait til I’m alone).
If you and my husband were in the same room, the universe would surely implode.
Glad you had sunshine here in SF and that you had a good time here. It’s beautiful when the weather’s good. Wish I coulda been there to see ya…
Try the latest Mepis LiveCD, it’s Debian-based, runs from CD with no install necessary, and if you decide you like it, there’s an icon on the desktop that says *install me*, that does exactly that 😉
The new installers are so very easy its not funny, I can still shudder in pain remembering potato installs from days gone past and screaming ‘Why wont you just work’ at the screen…
If you like Debian check out ubuntu as well – its a fork from Sid and its very nice, nice enough to get me to move this box from straight debian after 4 years.. The reality is simple – once you have seen the power of apt you never look back…
Which line are you saying is from Picard? If you’re thinking of “rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated,” that’s not a Star Trek quote, it’s a Mark Twain quote.
Ana Ng and I are getting old
And we still haven’t walked in the glow of each other’s majestic presence
Listen Ana hear my words
They’re the ones you would think I would say if there was a me for you
Yay Wil! Been Debian since v0.93 (that’s 1995). It’s a great distro, even if you have to live in testing/unstable to have up to date packages on your workstation. All my servers run stable.
You should try Blackbox for a nice lightweight window manager.
OK Wil… I came back to this entry a couple days later because I was inspired. There’s an old x86 box in the basement and you inspired me to attempt Debian. Problem is instead of installing it, I’m seeding it as torrents (no burner!!!) Does that make me a dork instead of a geek?
Must find floppies!!!
How could I, of all people, miss the title reference?