I've broken linux. And this time I really do mean broken - not just screwed up configs or weird boot errors - absolutely totally completely broken beyond all repair. And I'm not amused.
Actually, none of this is my fault. I'm blaming Kubuntu and its overhyped crapness.
Desktop linux, easy for anyone to install and use, detects all sorts of hardware, sets everything up properly blah blah blah. I've only ever heard good things about how good the install process is. So I thought I may as well give it a go, because I'd quite like a system that's up to date and shiny and Just Works.
Bollocks! I booted off the live CD and it didn't pick up my mouse. Bog standard usb optical mouse, hardly anything unusual or difficult. It also didn't pick up my network connection, leaving me with not a huge amount I could do with the live cd apart from frantically hit keyboard buttons in an attempt to remember shortcuts for menus and things. bah.
Figured it might work better as a proper install though, so I tabbed my way to the 'install' icon. And there we hit the first problem. No mouse means no clicking stuff. There was one option box I couldn't tab into, and no way was I having a system running in American.
So I stole Alex's mouse, and started again. heh.
It all looked so promising - told it what partitions to use for what and it started copying files and stuff. So I left it happily doing whatever it was doing and went outside to watch the fireworks at the college (which were absolutely crap and lasted all of 5 minutes!! really not worth it..)
By the time I got back in the installer had crashed. Excellent! It was quite firmly stuck at "loading module usb-storage" with the progress bar on 59%. I rebooted and started the whole procedure again, and again it got stuck at exactly the same place. I even left it there overnight in case it was just being incredibly slow. But no...
At a guess I'd say it was trying to download stuff from the internet, and obviously failing because it was too stupid to pick up my network connection. But really, who knows. I gave up, swore lots at my now very unbootable system and kicked the bios enough so windows worked (what a good idea it was to keep that on its own hard drive!)
Downloaded and tried the alternative installer cd (command line, mmm) but that didn't even start. So I've reinstalled Debian, of the old and hideously out-of-date Sarge variety.
So to cut a long story short, I've replaced my broken linux install with an older and crappier version of the same thing. What a productive weekend
Absolutely bratty kids begging for sweets this year, which was a nice change! And no minichavs egging the house either - possibly because they were all too busy skateboarding around Somerfield in Ludlow with baskets full of eggs and flour...
Last year, when I was living in Newcastle, the house got egged. A lot. Eggs do not make a nice noise when they smash against windows I think we possibly had one lot of kids knocking on the door, but they got ignored.
In 2004 the mad crazy alcoholic neighbours were probably more of a concern than random kids then. I think we had some trick or treaters come round a week early though. I seem to remember telling them not to bother coming back even when they had figured out what day it should be. heh.
2003 though, that was good. Obviously I ignored any knocking on the door, but I do remember one chubby looking girl pressing her face up against the window on the door and shouting "we know you're in there!!11!1". When we continued to ignore it, she burped through the letter box!
We were pissing ourselves laughing at the time, and still do now actually. heh.
Fireworks this weekend. Maybe. They're having a display at the college, but I don't think any of us 'commoners' are invited - we got a flyer through the door about it but it had "IN CASE YOU HAVE ANY ANIMALS TO CARE FOR" written across it in big angry letters so I'm guessing it wasn't a friendly invite! Ah well, I shall watch them anyway and see how well my shiny new camera copes with it. mmm, new camera...
ooh, I should get some sparklers
So the clocks have gone back (or most of them anyway, I can't reach the one in the kitchen and haven't felt bothered to do various stereos etc yet).
This means I'll have to do a lot more driving in the dark, which isn't really something I've got a lot of experience with. I'll get used to it though, I'm sure.
On the plus side, being back on GMT means that windows no longer gets the chance to fuck about with my computer clock.
I really don't get that particular one actually. Linux knows about daylight savings, and handles it very sensibly - the actual computer clock stays the same, but it stores something somewhere saying "look, this user is actually an hour ahead".
Windows, on the other hand, changes the actual clock... So then Linux comes along and says "ok, we're an hour ahead of whatever the clock says" and I end up on +2 and slightly confused. grr!
I say all that, but I can't remember if I've actually booted windows this summer, so it's quite possible that XP does things properly now and I'm ranting for no real reason. heh.
Firefox 2.0's spellcheck feature is a bit annoying in textareas with html in them apparently. Might turn it off actually, far too many red squiggles all over the place because I use words that aren't in its dictionary. For example, "Firefox"... hmm
Actually I was going to write something rather geeky about browser upgrades the other day. Maybe I still will at some point.
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I think we possibly had one lot of kids knocking on the door, but they got ignored.
