Gentoo to You

Where to begin? I guess first I should say I got Gentoo 1.1a installed over the weekend. Sort of. Kind of. While there are too many things you need to know, but the instructions don't say or are unclear about, I will try to list a few:

1. If you are doing the three stage install, and you are at the point, in stage 1 - Step 6: Setup Partitions, of creating the file systems on hda1 and hda3, you have to use the mke2fs /dev/hda1 for ext2fs or the mke2fs -j /dev/hda1 for ext3fs. The instructions don't say you should create anything on hda1 but take my word for it, you have to. Paradoxically, the instructions later on kind of imply you should use ext2, but ext3 seems to work just as well. Note that hda1 is assumed to be your boot partition (hda2 is swap and hda3 is /root. You don't need to create a file system for the swap file and the instructions tell you how to create the file system for /root. What they don't tell you is to create a file system for /boot).

2. Step 8 Mounting the CD-ROM. The command to mount the CD-ROM has some zeroes and some letter "O"s in it. Where it says mount /dev/cdroms/cdrom0, the last character of the cdrom0 part is the number zero. In the part /mnt/cdrom -o ro ot, all of the "o"s are the letter "o". Finally, in the iso9660 part, the iso is the letter "o", and the 9660 is the number zero.

3. Step 11 Progressing from stage1 to stage 2. Code listing 19 gives you the helpful instruction of "Adjust these settings" (# nano -w /etc/make.conf). If you have a Pentium II or above, you will want to include, as part of these adjustments, the command -march=i686.

4. Step 14 Final steps: kernel and system logger. You need to be familiar with compiling the kernel, because that is exactly what you will be doing here. If you are not comfortable doing so, stop. Do not pass go. Do not even think of installing Gentoo Linux. If you are flipping nuts brave enough to do so, have fun trying to find, in menuconfig, something called the "Device File System." No matter how many times and ways I tried to find this, I could not. I know the instructions say its supposed to be in "File systems", but it's friggin' not. At least not in my install and at least not called Device File System. Yes, I have the "Code maturity levels options" flag set for development and/or incomplete code/drivers (boy, does this engender confidence in its reliability).

5. Step 16 Final steps: /etc/fstab [What? More final steps? How many "final" steps are there? -ed]. When you edit fstab, be aware that some of the file scrolls off the right edge of the screen. The only way to see that part is to take the cursor to the right edge, and at that point, the screen will scroll and you can see the extreme right side of the file. You need to do this because you have to edit the <dump/pass> column to read as the instructions say.

Continuing on in Step 16 is the /etc/hostname and /etc/hosts files. The instructions seem to assume you have a static IP address. For example, they want you to put in your fully qualified domain name in the hostname file. That is, for example, mymachine.mydomain.com. I guess you can type in whatever you want, but again, this seems to assume you've got a domain. The /etc/hosts/ instructions also kind of assumes you have a static IP address, even though the example they give is 192.168.1.1. If you are using DHCP, I don't know that you can assume you will always have that address. And if you can't assume that, which you can't, then you can't hard code it into this file. Idiots.

6. Step 17 Installation complete. Remember to remove the install CD before rebooting.

Now for some general notes on the desktop configuration. Before you get KDE loaded, you need to have XFree86 configured. To do this, you need to know what kind of mouse, keyboard, video, and network card you have. I have an Intel 815EEAL motherboard. This is a standard motherboard and I would guess it's found in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of PCs. Its been out for at least a couple of years. Two of its features are embedded Intel fast Ethernet Express and Intel video. I also have a Microsoft PS/2 Intellimouse and PS/2 NaturalPro keyboard.

When you run xf86config, be aware that there does not appear to be a driver for the Intel 82815E GMCH 4MB 24-bit 230MHz RAMDAC embedded video. You can try various others but for now, I'm using the generic VESA driver. If I can find something that will give me super VGA resolution, I'll switch to that. But for now, all I get is 640X480.

Be aware that KDE, running in 640X480, is sometimes unusable because their screens assume a higher resolution (Which means you can't see all of the input boxes, no matter where you place the mouse cursor. Nor does it mean you can resize the windows, because you can't. Idiots.). This has been a bug for at least three years and they have still not corrected this. Idiots.

As to the Ethernet, I chose EtherExpressPro 100 from the xf86config menu. Wrong. Or maybe right. I don't know for sure. All I know is when I boot up, I get an error saying eepro100 is not loaded and the eth0 network is not up. Notwithstanding that error, I have Internet access. Go figure. Idiots.

As to the mouse. You have to use the workaround given in the instructions (manually edit /etc/X11/XF86Config to change the "Protocol" from "IntelliMouse" to "IMPS/2" and add Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"). Don't ask me why the protocol doesn't work. It's not like the IntelliMouse just came out and XFree hasn't had the time to fix their configuration file. Again, Idiots.

Problems yet to be figured out: 1. When shutting down, I get the following error - /sbin/rc return: can only 'return' from a function or sourced... 2. Also when shutting down, and booting, I get a failed to load char-major-10-135. I dunno.

One last tip, once you have KDE running and as your default, if you should need to make changes to xf86config, you will probably need to change run levels. You can do this in KDE by opening a window, then typing in init 1 (that's the number "one", not the letter "l"). This will shutdown KDE and leave you sitting at the command level black screen. If you don't see a prompt to login, hit the enter key once. Log in and you will be at the command line. When done editing, type in startx to check that X will still come up.

More as I figure out more.

Aloha!

Price v. Sales

The RIAA makes much about the slowing rate of unit CD music sales. They say the reason for this is software piracy. That you folks, yes, you there sitting in your chair in suburbia, are the evil root cause for the decline in the rate of sales. Since you are obviously the cause of this decline, federal law must be passed to stop you.

But perchance, is there another possible reason? Could it be that the monopolistic price fixing of the music industry could have an effect? Could it be that the monopolistic price of CDs, which are substantially cheaper to manufacture than a music cassette, while at the same time selling at a price two to three hundred percent higher than a cassette, could have a direct negative effect on sales?

Thanks to InfoWorld's Brian Livingston for this link here to a site which argues, persuasively, that it is price fixing, and the concomitant rise in retail price, that has slowed growth in sales. Me thinks this is yet another sign that the free market is not operating and the reason the RIAA wants federal regulation is to further bar competition.

Misc. Mishmash

Lot's of ideas, not enough time to develop them. So here comes a bunch of stuff:

The former police officer that, while driving under the influence of alcohol, killed a 19-year-old college student and then blamed the deceased for the accident was found guilty of manslaughter recently. He was sentenced yesterday. 20 years in jail. Yes Virginia, there is justice in the world.

They're still trying to catch that dog abandoned on the burned out freighter drifting towards Johnston Atoll. Only, the dog doesn't want to be rescued. Several efforts have failed so they will try to trap the dog in a cage. As before, apparently no one cares about retrieving the body of the dead seaman also aboard the vessel.

The legislature is struggling with passing a bill to cap gasoline prices. One of the fallouts of the recent trial against the gas companies is the revelation that, on a per capita basis, Hawai'i was the most profitable state in all 50 states for the two refineries here. This, after they denied even knowing what profits they were making, it was revealed that not only did they know state-wide, but that they tracked profits down to the individual station. In other words, they lied through their teeth to the legislature and the public. Notwithstanding that, a key legislator is standing in the way of passage of this watered down bill. It may not be a coincidence that he has received substantial contributions from the gas companies.

There are two other anecdotes about the gas companies. The first is that they refined gas here, shipped it to California, and then sold it for less there than here. The second is that when a refiner on the mainland wanted to send cheaper gas here, the refiners here threatened retaliation against the refiner. Thus are the normal operations of big business.

One fallout of the van-cam debacle is that the state transportation department is looking at raising speed limits in a couple of places. Whoa. You mean after enforcing artificially set limits (and trying to make a profit off of it), they are looking at raising the limits? Yes, they are. They could not escape the fact that over 85 percent of the people were ignoring the current limits and driving at what they felt was a sane speed. Unfortunately, as is the want of bureaucracy, the DOT will only raise the limit by 5mph (from 55 to 60mph). Sigh. Such are the operations of big government.

Cats remind us that not everything in life has a purpose - Aloha!

Mozilla Mo' Betta

The difference between the pre-1.0 betas and the current release candidate one of the Netscape Navigator/Mozzila browser is amazing. No, it's not bug free but I'm talking about the speed difference. Websites snap to the screen where Opera builds it piece by piece. If they can work more of the bugs out of it, I may be persuaded to make it my default. Maybe. In either case, competition is good and Opera, as good as it is, is no competition for IE. But Mozilla could be. We do live in interesting times.

Just Say No

"We have a duty to ensure we are not sending mixed messages to our youth," said Rep. Joseph Pitts, R-Pa. Thus opens the debate (see an article here from abcnews) over the continued funding of the half-billion dollar "just say no" to sex federal boondoggle. This, from the party that says less government is better. This from the party that wants government out of our lives. States rights? What state's rights? Now comes this party into our bedroom to consort with our children.

Even the Bush administration's own preliminary evaluation of the program that tries to teach complete abstinence to school age children, but bars any discussion of birth control, indicates there is no evidence to suggest the program is effective. Teens are still having sex at about the same rate as they were before the program started five years ago. And teens are still getting pregnant at about the same rate as they were before.

So why spend your tax money on this? I dunno.

Doing Well

As happens so many times, I was trolling the 'net looking for one thing (the author of a quote) but found something else. Something more interesting. The author of the quote turned out to be Pulitzer Prize winner James Michener. Whether you appreciate his work or not, I think you'll find interesting his essay on "When Does Education Stop" (see it here).

Oh, the quote? It referred to the coming of the missionaries to the Hawaiian islands in the 1800s and went like this "[they] came to do good, and did very well indeed!" It refers to how the missionary families transformed themselves from men of God to men of money. The so called "Big Five" of the last century had as their roots, missionary families. The five factors, using here the old business meaning of the word factor, soon literally owned these islands. Including what was left of the Hawaiian royal family. It was only with the political revolution of 1954, which brought the Democratic Party to power in Hawai'i, did the day of the missionary owned businesses begin to decline.

Out of this World

It is indeed ironic that NASA should be taught how to be a capitalist by the Russians. I realize that allowing a tourist on the space station technically could cause problems in the short and long-terms. But if it is handled properly, there is no reason why NASA couldn't start making some much needed cash itself. I'm sure there are a bunch of people who would be willing to pay $20 million USD, or whatever the going market is for a ride into the final frontier.

ANZAC Day - A Duty Clear Before Us

From the hand of a soldier going into harms way:

Ere another entry is made in this book we will have passed through a very trying time. We are leaving almost everything behind; whether we see it again or not will be a matter of luck. And now we go forward in the full consciousness of a 'duty clear before us', and ... we can only say 'Thy will be done'. God grant comfort to those in anxiety and sorrow and give our leaders wisdom."

Feel free to do a Google search on Anzac and read about a defining moment in the history of Australia and New Zealand.

I can be decisive, I think. - Aloha!

It's Friday!

Power to the People

Microsoft has released an XP version of PowerToys. These are the utilities, like TweakUI, that should have been included from the start, but for some reason, have not been. Whatever the reason, you can now download them here.

An Error Has Occurred

Follow this link here to the Error Message Hall of Shame, a collection of error messages that either tell you nothing relevant, or worse, tell you something relevant, but doesn't give you a logical way of fixing it.

Gentoo Burned

You can now order, for $4.99 USD, a CD with some of what you need to get Gentoo started (sources and pre-built binaries). This is for people on the other end of a 56K line who don't want to waste their life trying to download multi-megabytes of stuff. But as noted earlier, Gentoo still downloads tons of sources. The upside of this is you get the latest builds and patches. The downside is you have to spend a lot of time doing so. So, if you are stuck with dial-up, pause and reflect upon your need to play in this pond. Follow the link here to order.

History is a set of lies agreed upon by the winners. - Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!