Salutations and greetings everyone!
As a "com-PEWT-er PSY-entist" for something close to a quarter of a century, methinks it's time to try something kinda new -- blogging! -- about something that's been an integral part of my life and career, which is, believe it or not.... Linux.... [imagine that!]
In the early '90's <e-Gads!> I was introduced to the Linux kernel by a friend of mine while I was working at the local baby Bell and from the moment I successfully compiled the .97 kernel I was *ENTHRALLED*. An opportunity to work on the craft of *NIX and know that *EVEN* *IF* I did literally *destroy* a system [which <cough><cough> Yes I *did* as a consultant at one time, maybe three <cough>] I could somewhat quickly rebuild it.
From 1.02 I jumped to Slackware and then to Red Hat and then wandered to and fro, from Gentoo to Knoppix, from the multimedia "Element" distro to variations of the Ubuntu system, including the Ubuntu Studio I currently run on my main development server, enjoying opportunities to learn and compare and expand my true geekiness, and maybe I'll get a chance to show that here once I understand the bits and pieces of the blogging tools that I want to learn...
Thank you so very much for taking the time to read this far -- DethB4DCaf
As a "com-PEWT-er PSY-entist" for something close to a quarter of a century, methinks it's time to try something kinda new -- blogging! -- about something that's been an integral part of my life and career, which is, believe it or not.... Linux.... [imagine that!]
In the early '90's <e-Gads!> I was introduced to the Linux kernel by a friend of mine while I was working at the local baby Bell and from the moment I successfully compiled the .97 kernel I was *ENTHRALLED*. An opportunity to work on the craft of *NIX and know that *EVEN* *IF* I did literally *destroy* a system [which <cough><cough> Yes I *did* as a consultant at one time, maybe three <cough>] I could somewhat quickly rebuild it.
From 1.02 I jumped to Slackware and then to Red Hat and then wandered to and fro, from Gentoo to Knoppix, from the multimedia "Element" distro to variations of the Ubuntu system, including the Ubuntu Studio I currently run on my main development server, enjoying opportunities to learn and compare and expand my true geekiness, and maybe I'll get a chance to show that here once I understand the bits and pieces of the blogging tools that I want to learn...
Thank you so very much for taking the time to read this far -- DethB4DCaf
Allow me to describe my 'computer cave' .... (-;
Posted 04-13-2011 at 05:39 PM by DethB4DCaf
Greetin's y'all!
My 'nym' is DethB4DCaf and THE most important thing you need to know about me is that I am born and bred to be a southpaw [left-handed]. Once you understand THAT, why, everything else about me will eventually make sense... (-; (-;
So, for my FIRST BLOG (sounds of clapping and cheering can be heard in the distance) please allow me to tell you about the computers, laptops, servers, handheld devices and other computer-related pieces and parts that have transformed my office into one of the largest magnetic fields in North America... (-;
While I also have a half-dozen pieces of Apple hardware, including multiple iTouches and towers and a nice laptop that I recently got from a *great friend*, one of my favorite machines right now is a Dell Netbook, because of it's apparently awesome solid-state construction. This poor little fellow has a 16GB SSD hard drive [instead of the 500GB HDD they offered] and within a couple weeks of my getting my new Inspiron mini 10v, it had to be *washed* *under* *a* *sink* *to* *remove* *an* *_espresso_* *beverage* that was knocked over onto the *booted* machine. After... ah.... drying it off... (sigh)... I ended up taking the time to try several different distros, and right now I am planning on leaving it as a dual-boot [Linux Mint 10 and BackTrack 4.0, release 2] machine.... perfect for an afternoon at a local coffee shop... (-8
The center of my home network where all the heavy lifting is done is a pair of IBM X236 machines that I was lucky enough to encounter, complete with a small box of spare hard drives for both machines. The first monster is a 64-bit, dual-CPU, 8GB RAM machine that will eventually be utilized [again] to hold all my virtual Linux environments. The second 64-bit machine has a single Xeon CPU and 3GB of RAM and, in theory, I will once again use it to manage my home network once I do some troubleshooting and see if my current problems with this machine are the result of an apparent double HD crash. However, until I get around to fixing that, my Amahi home network server is running on the larger beast of an IBM X236 machine.
Even after taking down and tearing apart half-a-dozen older.... and reallly olde.... machines, my office is large enough that I still have the room to deploy seven Linux workstations and two Linux laptops. The oldest laptop in my office is a Dell Inspiron 3800 PIII running Vector Linux while the oldest workstation is a Franken-machine -- with all of 486MB of RAM -- built years ago to access and manage older storage mediums such as floppies (Anyone need to borrow my eight-inch, single-sided, 192kb floppies? I can't use it with this machine... (-; ) Most of these machines are dual boot, some are triple boot and all are connected to a network that is dominated by NetGear routers/hubs and two NAS devices, one of which is ~~realllly~~ olde and about to pass away* and a second [a SeaGate Black Armor 110 NAS] that is self-contained....and has only... one...hard-drive.... (as opposed to something useful like two for RAID-striping) but is quite flexible/managable as a network-based appliance. Next up for my network is to upgrade/replace the older NAS with something... multi-disk... (-:
*Right now RAID striping appears to be what is leading to the demise of the older NAS [which is a NetGear Storage Central SC101].... right after 'being used' and 'being in a room with hardware that actually works correctly'...
Not that I'm bitter about the NetGear NAS thing or anything.... |-:
Amongst the random 'toys' spread around and amongst all of the UPS' in my office are a 500 MB Iomega eGo drive, an Archos 5 Internet tablet with a 500 MB hard drive [yuck!], more than one Yopy (which was one of the original Linux PDAs from a company no longer in business), a printer I can carry in my computer bag that was originally made by Pentax as well as volumes of other toys, pieces, parts, and cables that successfully manage to keep most of the spare corners in my office quite full, and all of it covered with the cool amber, green and blue lights from the "On-Line" and "System Ready" lights of the different UPS' and night lights required by my cats to manage their way around the room correctly at night.
However, all that being said, the shining, crown jewel of my little corner of the world right now is a little laptop that showed up the day before Christmas Eve -- a CR-48 Notebook, courtesy of those fine folks at Google, for field testing. This little fellow is essentially a lightning-fast browser on steroids on a dedicated machine, complete with a headphone jack, a USB port, and an SD card slot.
Than-Q so very much for taking the time to read this far -- DethB4DCaf....
My 'nym' is DethB4DCaf and THE most important thing you need to know about me is that I am born and bred to be a southpaw [left-handed]. Once you understand THAT, why, everything else about me will eventually make sense... (-; (-;
So, for my FIRST BLOG (sounds of clapping and cheering can be heard in the distance) please allow me to tell you about the computers, laptops, servers, handheld devices and other computer-related pieces and parts that have transformed my office into one of the largest magnetic fields in North America... (-;
While I also have a half-dozen pieces of Apple hardware, including multiple iTouches and towers and a nice laptop that I recently got from a *great friend*, one of my favorite machines right now is a Dell Netbook, because of it's apparently awesome solid-state construction. This poor little fellow has a 16GB SSD hard drive [instead of the 500GB HDD they offered] and within a couple weeks of my getting my new Inspiron mini 10v, it had to be *washed* *under* *a* *sink* *to* *remove* *an* *_espresso_* *beverage* that was knocked over onto the *booted* machine. After... ah.... drying it off... (sigh)... I ended up taking the time to try several different distros, and right now I am planning on leaving it as a dual-boot [Linux Mint 10 and BackTrack 4.0, release 2] machine.... perfect for an afternoon at a local coffee shop... (-8
The center of my home network where all the heavy lifting is done is a pair of IBM X236 machines that I was lucky enough to encounter, complete with a small box of spare hard drives for both machines. The first monster is a 64-bit, dual-CPU, 8GB RAM machine that will eventually be utilized [again] to hold all my virtual Linux environments. The second 64-bit machine has a single Xeon CPU and 3GB of RAM and, in theory, I will once again use it to manage my home network once I do some troubleshooting and see if my current problems with this machine are the result of an apparent double HD crash. However, until I get around to fixing that, my Amahi home network server is running on the larger beast of an IBM X236 machine.
Even after taking down and tearing apart half-a-dozen older.... and reallly olde.... machines, my office is large enough that I still have the room to deploy seven Linux workstations and two Linux laptops. The oldest laptop in my office is a Dell Inspiron 3800 PIII running Vector Linux while the oldest workstation is a Franken-machine -- with all of 486MB of RAM -- built years ago to access and manage older storage mediums such as floppies (Anyone need to borrow my eight-inch, single-sided, 192kb floppies? I can't use it with this machine... (-; ) Most of these machines are dual boot, some are triple boot and all are connected to a network that is dominated by NetGear routers/hubs and two NAS devices, one of which is ~~realllly~~ olde and about to pass away* and a second [a SeaGate Black Armor 110 NAS] that is self-contained....and has only... one...hard-drive.... (as opposed to something useful like two for RAID-striping) but is quite flexible/managable as a network-based appliance. Next up for my network is to upgrade/replace the older NAS with something... multi-disk... (-:
*Right now RAID striping appears to be what is leading to the demise of the older NAS [which is a NetGear Storage Central SC101].... right after 'being used' and 'being in a room with hardware that actually works correctly'...
Not that I'm bitter about the NetGear NAS thing or anything.... |-:
Amongst the random 'toys' spread around and amongst all of the UPS' in my office are a 500 MB Iomega eGo drive, an Archos 5 Internet tablet with a 500 MB hard drive [yuck!], more than one Yopy (which was one of the original Linux PDAs from a company no longer in business), a printer I can carry in my computer bag that was originally made by Pentax as well as volumes of other toys, pieces, parts, and cables that successfully manage to keep most of the spare corners in my office quite full, and all of it covered with the cool amber, green and blue lights from the "On-Line" and "System Ready" lights of the different UPS' and night lights required by my cats to manage their way around the room correctly at night.
However, all that being said, the shining, crown jewel of my little corner of the world right now is a little laptop that showed up the day before Christmas Eve -- a CR-48 Notebook, courtesy of those fine folks at Google, for field testing. This little fellow is essentially a lightning-fast browser on steroids on a dedicated machine, complete with a headphone jack, a USB port, and an SD card slot.
Than-Q so very much for taking the time to read this far -- DethB4DCaf....
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