Author: Kevin Riggle

This is a new experience. I'm waiting for a ./configure-script-from-the-black-lagoon to finish (Subversion, in case you're interested). This wouldn't have been such a big deal if I were installing Subversion on my main system, since there are well-established binary packages for me to install. Instead, I am installing it on my grandfather's DEC Alpha box, which I want to use as a development server. There are no binary packages for the Alpha architecture, so I'm compiling it from source (more's the pity). It's a nice idea in theory, but trying to make Apache Portable Runtime or whatever (APR) understand that BerkeleyDB is installed in /usr/local/BerkeleyDB4.2 has been a Pain In The Arse. I'm now running ./configure for the fifth (sixth?) time, and the APR configure script is not short. Add to that the fact that I'm running Debian stable on the Alpha, since there's no Debian unstable for Alpha 🙁 and I'm purposely keeping it as minimalistic as possible.

Let's just say I don't have much to distract me. This blog post is being made from Lynx of all things, which really brings back memories from the good old days of connecting to the Internet using a text-mode account from NetINS, Procomm Plus, and a 9600 baud modem. DOS RULEZ!

w00t! YAY! Finally figured out the correct incanta^H^H^Hcommand-line option to pass to ./configure. It's –with-berkeley-db=/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.2/include:/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.2/lib in case anyone else has the same problem. Now to run the whole configure once more with the correct option and head the heck to bed. I've got to get up at 5 tomorrow morning because I have a music contest. Bus leaves at 6:20… urgh. I'm simply not a morning person. Thankfully all my performances are late enough that I'll be awake (hopefully). I'm doing a solo — the aria "Si trai ceppi" from Handel's opera Berenice. It's a good time. I work tomorrow, too, so it may end up being an 18 hour day. I'm tough, I can handle it. 🙂 No way in heck I'm looking forward to working again on Sunday, though.

Anyhow, I may yet learn to update this blog regularly. So much has happened in the interim (Des Moines Register Academic All-State, MIT financial aid mixup, UDel trip, and so on). Aha, there's the ./configure script, finally finished. I'm sleeping — more (maybe) later.

I'm back!

After a pretty intense five days at NASA and the Mars Base (excuse me, Settlement) Design Competition, and then a pretty intense week at home, I can almost officially say that things are back to normal. Sure, I'm still installing software on my new hard drive that doesn't come on the default Fedora disks. Sure, there my computer is still sitting out with its cover off. On the whole, however, I made it through, and that's a good thing to be able to say.

Western Digital 80GB IDE HDD. My new hard drive, or something like it. I discovered that pretty much every motherboard with Serial ATA also has standard IDE connections, so there's no benefit to waiting to get a whole new system, and there's a lot of reasons (coughmancalacough) to get it now. I also discovered that I can save more than $100 on the laptop I want if I wait until I'm a student and can get the educational discount. I should be back up pretty quickly, which is a big relief.

Off to Houston this Thursday. I've got a lot of make-up work to do before hand, especially in my Discrete Structures class. Urgh. Should be fun, though — I'm looking forward to it, especially since there's really interesting stuff going on there right now.

…urk…

As luck would have it, my hard drive suddenly decided it was time to head to the great computing museum in the sky. Not quickly, thank goodness — it gave me enough advance warning that I could get all the data off. Still, it needs to be replaced, and I'm not exactly rich right now. I have been planning to upgrade my system for a while now, but the hard drive was one of the components I was counting on keeping. urgh.

Anyhow, that's why updates to this have been a little sparse. I'm actually running off Knoppix right now, using an old 350MB drive we had lying around as a temporary dumping ground for whatever data I'm working on at the moment. I've been quite pleased with Knoppix in the past, and I still am, but man, what I wouldn't give to have my system back! 🙁 I mean, I don't mind mounting my iPod and listening to my music off there, but everything was the way I wanted it on my old hard drive.

The fact that Knoppix lacks a fair bit in the installing-other-software department means that development on Mancala and whatever other projects I had in mind is stalled. Knoppix is nice for Web browsing and word-processing, but serious development truly requires a dedicated box.

In case you're interested in contributing to the Get-Kevin-A-New-Computer fund, I'll toss these out here: (if you're not, that's fine. I'm mostly posting these so I can find the links again when I reboot Knoppix 🙂

AMD Athlon64 3000+ 512K L2 OEM
ThermalTake CPU Cooler

Other bookmarks:
Sandman monologues thread on NeilGaimanBoard.com and from Neil's journal.