This is actually from 23 Oct 2001, I just forgot to post
it.
I read through that Linux Certification article I mentioned
yesterday. Pretty interesting to me, since I'm looking into
getting some certs. The CompTIA Linux+ looks to be about on
the same level as the last CompTIA exam I took. I'm A+
certified, and that exam was trivially easy. I might just
go down and take the Linux+ exam next week, since I won't
have to study for it (other than to edit a file with vi
again, I haven't done that for a couple of months). I
haven't finished reviewing the LPI and SAIR ones, but I
think that the LPI one will certainly be on my list of
things to get. I didn't realize that the RHCE was such a
broad exam, or I'd have looked at it a lot sooner. That one
is definately on my list, but I think I'll have to make sure
I'm prepared first.
Tomas Ogren is helping me to get "push-sync" set up for
ftp.gnome.org. This will mean that it gets updated
immediately whenever somebody puts a new release on
master.gnome.org, and we won't have so much trouble with
things being out of date. The old setup is much too slow.
We got the "install-module" mess cleaned up there, but no
further. install-module is the script that manages the ftp
site, making symlinks, diffs, and that sort of thing. It's
very slick, but we had a few dozen copies of it running
around. Now, just 1 real copy is left, making things much
simpler. Now we only have to keep track of a single copy,
and can set up that single copy to "trigger" the sync.
Hopefully we'll get this going to several machines soon, so
that ftp.gnome.org is a RR DNS.
We've got to get new DocBook tools on the gnome.org
webserver, but I haven't got time to do all of the research
required for this. Darn. I sent out mail asking for
volunteers to work on this, hopefully I'll get some
replies.
I spent some time with drake this evening, trying to
customize Norm's stylesheets a little bit. I think we
figured out how things were getting called, but we don't
have any clue how to customize it. Drake is going to email
docbook-apps, and I'm going to read the replies. :-) I
just found out that there's some XSL information in TDG, so
I'm going to try to read that tonight.
"Simplicty does not precede complexity, but follows it."
Great quote.
GNOME
I'm hacking on spec file today, and making some progress. I
got a bunch of the needed cleanup done on the gnome-vfs one,
although it's going to need a bit more hacking/cleaning.
I'm working on gnome-applets.spec.in right now, and it's
requireing a complete re-write (almost). Ick. At least I
know where some of the problems were coming from before.
the %configure macro is convient, but broken. Ah, well,
what can ya do?
I'm also playing with Jonathan's doc-i18n-tool, because
nobody else seems to be able to be bothered. I've got
enough stuff on my plate, but this is too important to let
slide. Well, playing with is a bit of a stretch. I
downloaded it, tried it out a bit, got on #i18n, and started
nagging people. :-) They're playing with it right now, and
I'm getting tired and ready for bed. OK, email sent with
some issues.
Here's a Tech Republic article on linux certs that I'm going
to read in the morning (well, later in the morning). Enjoy
http://click.online.com/Click?q=9c-xtXpQanxk_islEk2c9B3tOiR
OK, so I'm a complete moron. It's 12:50am on Saturday, which means that I leave for a group bike ride in 7.5 hours. I found my bicycle computer, and my bikes on the bus pass, which means that I can actually get to my ride. I also managed to swap the front tire on my bike twice tonight. I swapped first for a "spare" kevlar with a wire bead that I had around (it was giving me flats on the back, but I've determined that I need a steel-belted tire on the back to avoid that). As it turns out, that tire has "high" sidewalls, and was rubbing against the rivets that help hold my fender in place. I can't move the fender at all, so I guess I just need to stick with low-sidewall tires. Anyway, I'm using the tire from my track bike in the mean time. I think I'll put the original back on there. It looks a bit worn, but I've never had a flat on it. In fact, tonight was the first time that I've taken that tire off in the past 3 years. BTW, by worn I mean that it's slightly flat where it contacts the road, and it's got some tiny "cracks" in the rubber. From the inside, it looks perfectly fine, and there's still 3/32 of rubber left there, so I think it's probably safe.
Hmm, another quote, methinks
The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views ... which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering. -- Doctor Who, "Face of Evil"
I miss Doctor Who. SciFi has some good stuff, but no Doctor Who.
It's fruit season, clearly. We've got a bushel of grapes in the kitchen waiting for us to finish cooking them, then straining them. The apples are ripe, and we need to figure out something to do with them. Not sure what we'll do yet. I'd prefer cider, but I've been unable to find a hand-powered cider press for a reasonable price, nor even a good set of plans to build one from scratch.
If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to get the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude. See in college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving the natural method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insisting that you shall learn what you have no taste or capacity for. The college, which should be a place of delightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and the young men are tempted to frivolous amusements to rally their jaded spirits. I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
It's been a month since I wrote anything here, so this is
going to be really long... In the mean time, I've managed
to be out of a job, working on GNOME stuff mostly, and some
biking. So, if anybody is looking for a sys admin, or maybe
even a build expert, let me know. I do actually have a
resume, but I was resting for a while, while I put it
together.
Biking
I actually got out to do some track races this week, and I
clearly haven't figured out the mental part of these yet.
Maybe in a few races I'll be able to get my act together,
and turn in some reasonable efforts. We'll see.
I was talking with somebody who's been out at the track with
us a couple of times, and he said he was out at the track
pretty much every day. He was talking to somebody he met
out there, who noticed that he was always riding the same
speed. They recomended that he talk to a coach, so that he
could actually improve his bike riding, since you can't do
that by riding the same speed all the time. I was thinking
about this, and it dawned on me that I'm pretty much riding
the same speed on all of my road rides. Sure, I speed up
and slow down a lot over the course of the ride, but my
average time for every ride is about the same. This was a
good thing when I was completely out of shape, and just
trying to get fit, but now that my lung capacity and muscles
have regenerated a bit (not back to peak, certainly, but
they're doing OK), I need to start training to get better.
I haven't figured out if I just need to get in touch with a
coach, or if I'd be better off joining a team, or what.
Work
Well, I was completely miserable there, although I'd sort of
liked some warning, rather than having to leave quite so
abruptly. At least I don't have to work with the guy who
was my boss anymore, as he was a horror to work with, let
alone under. Mostly, the parting was caused by my wanting
to improve things at the university, and the other people at
the university wanting to keep things more or less the same.
I don't really feel like writing more about it now (well, I
could, but there are other things I want to write about), so
I'll leave that for another day. It's hard to move on
though.
I do have a much nicer email address out of the deal...
gleblanc@linuxweasel.com. I should put a website up too...
Cool Software
When I got my domain online, I suckered TSCHAK (err, uhm,
no, I can't remember his real name, and I'm too lazy to
look/ask) into helping me get djbdns set up for DNS
services, and qmail/courerimap for email. They're pretty
slick, although some of the support libs are a bit stupid.
Qmail is bloody fast, running on my SPARCstation 20
(SM81/256MB). I bulloxed something up so that it wasn't
getting mail for a few hours, then when I fixed it, it got
flooded at nearly the bandwidth of my net connection, and it
never seemed to flinch. djbdns is so so so so so so much
nicer to admin than bind is, even if I use JRB's DNS
management tool (which still doesn't seem to write files
than bind can parse, but whatever). If you don't mind a
little bit more setup time (download, compile, install, for
two or three small packages, instead of download RPM,
install), in exchange for a SANE way to manage the DNS
records, djbdns is the way to go. I do need to get a
secondary server online, preferrably on another link. I
should look into that again, maybe Mr Bill can host it for
me. Hmm...
Hardware
A while back, right when I got my SGI Indy, I also got a
free 21" IBM Fixed Frequency monitor from a buddy at SGI (a
customer had used a bunch of old IBM Unix machines to trade
up to new SGIs). I've also got an Alpha machine downstairs.
Strangely enough I think that the Alpha may be able to
drive that IBM monitor, which is good, because I have NO
other monitors with BNC connectors on them (which is what my
existing cable for the Alpha is).
I need to pick up a bunch of smallish (<4GB) 50-pin SCSI
drives, so that I can get my farm of SPARCstation 2s online
again. I also need a decent backup solution... I've got a
DSS2 tape drive right now, which will do 2GB on a 90m
cartridge. My home directory is currently 6.2GB, which is
huge. Normally it's more like 2GB, but that still means it
fills up a tape. I'd have to swap tapes several times in
order to get the rest of the drives on this machine backed
up, not to mention the other machines around. I think that
I'm at about 10-12GB right now, certainly with the potential
to grow to a lot more than that. I'm thinking that a DLT
drive will be the best way to go, since they're fairly cheap
(I can get a drive for < $100 from ebay), and they're fast.
The only "concern" is the cost of media. It's pretty
expensive. I suppose I could look at getting a library,
maybe an Exabyte or something. Media should be dirt cheap,
and the capacity should be good. I wonder what the cost
would be. Hmm, should have thought of this before...
Other Stuff
Ack, one of those things that I hate about me is that I'm
really shy. I don't go up and talk to people on my own. I
have the hardest time with that. It can get really
frustrating. There's this young lady out at the track
(she's probably my age, maybe a year older). Anyway, she's
a national caliber bike rider, who also happens to be really
cute. We've chatted a little bit, and she smiles at me when
I sit there grinning like an idiot, but that's about as far
as I've managed to get. I completely missed a great
opportunity to secure her as a friend because I was too much
of a coward to offer her some help. ARGH! I hate that. I
think I'll go kick myself for a while, and try to get some
sleep. Later all.
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