I got the stage 3 tarball installed. Now to installing the kernel and logging program. With a decent pair of speakers I plan on turning this thing into a MP3 server.

I downloaded the GRP CDs for Gentoo Linux in an attempt to install it on my home computer again. I should have some time this weekend to work on it.

Well, got my blogrolling thing back.

I've been trying to use distcc to speed up making packages for my system, but I keep getting an error when an ebuild (script for automating compiles for Gentoo) would try to generate libraries. I realize that since the other computer I'm using is my office computer (a Pentium 4 Windows XP system) is generating binaries and object files only understandable in windows. I'll need to tweak the Cygwin such that I can get Linux binaries and object files from it. I'm using this as a reference.

Well.....My Gentoo machine is going smoothly :). Got Samba running, got Webmin running, Apache running, PHP. I'm in the process of putting MySQL on now.

Haven't been here in a while. I was never able to install any packages onto my home machine, but after some time I was able to install the binary packages I made in the virtual machine onto this Pentium 120MHz machine I am converting into gentoo. I had to edit the /etc/make.conf file to make sure the PORTDIR and PKGDIR variables were set, and that I put the packages into the appropriate directory. I haven't given up on my machine at home, just need to find a place to put it.

I've used Macromedia Dreamweaver in the past, and they had a site management feature that allowed you to update your site via FTP. I dismissed it in the past, due to FTP's lack of security compared to SSH. I tried it today on my personal site, and I'm impressed.

This is coolness! Right now I'm posting this blog from within a VMWare session running Gentoo Linux. Speaking of which, I'd betterget some more mileage out of this trial before it runs out. :) That software (VMWare) has got to be the most impressive software I've worked with in a while. Let me find out some more packages I can emerge into this session. I'm trying out this ratpoison package I made. It's good to be able to work in X without the mouse, since my machine at home doesn't have a working mouse. :) Now that I think about it, I need to start making packages to put on my other machines.

At some point I need to get that distcc thing going again, so my compiles will be quicker.

I was thinking about some itches to scratch, and I've come up with a few, which should sharpen some of my skill on many fronts.

At my current employer I get floppy disks of information to be put up on the web site. I thought about making that process interactive over the web. I think I can use a combination of XML, for the data and CGI with Perl to pull this off. The only problem now would be the authentication mechanism. I probably can find a Perl module to take care of that, too. More on that in a minute

I was also thinking of configureng screen scraper to download all of my Yahoo email. That's another itch to scratch.

On the way to work I was thinking also about how to migrate users from one computer to another (that's happening a lot now.) Usually I just copy files to a network drive, but being able to package those files would be helpful, as I can preserve the directory structure of the files I back up (or migrate.)

I have stopped working on putting Gentoo on my old desktop and laptop at home for right now. I was setting up the desktop for working on my web stuff. I found another neat way, in my opinion to utilize Gentoo in the meantime. I'm using it to generate Slackware packages for software that's not part of that distro, like ratpoison and Mozilla Firebird. A lot of the software I'd like to install at home isn't part of the Slackware distribution, so I can use Gentoo to compile a package for me to take home.

I usually get those Linux Format magazines, and this issue had the DVD with the whole Linux Documentation Project on it, as well as a guide called RUTE. I'm burning a CD with that on it now. Speaking of which, let me download the latest FIRE (Biatchux Lite) CD.

I've noticed that I don't have any programming itches to scratch. One thing I want to do now is get Gentoo installed on my 486 laptop (good luck, huh?) I came up with an idea on how I can accomplish this.

It seems like I just need to get a stage 3 tarball installed on the laptop, and install all of the packages. But how to put the stage 3 tarball on the computer. Sounds like a trusty floppy distro should work. But since I don't have a network connection (like ethernet) I have to go the parallel port route. Then I can use the same methods to install any packages I may want. First, lets create the binary packages to be installed. While the computer's making the packages, I'll test the plip connection at home.

Home update: I finally got a chance to try to install Gentoo at home. Time to rethink my strategy. I was trying to onstall it on a UMSDOS folder on a FAT32 partition I have at home (I'm sharing that drive with a Windows installation.) In situations where file permissions were really important I haven't had much success with UMSDOS. So the next time I try it I'm going to make a loopback filesystem and go from there. Which means I'll need a ramdisk. Time to look at my documentation

I keep hearing about getting "blogrolled" so I went to this site to try it out It's a place where you can keep track of all your blog links. Now I'm blogrolling all of the blogs I visit frequently, and some I don't :) Also you can put all the links you blogroll on your own blog using some javascript. Interesting.

I finally got an opportunity to install Gentoo on my Pentium 200 computer, and what happens? I can't find the CD I made with the packages on it! Oh well...just make another CD with the packages on it and try again.

I tried installing a binary package I made inside this virtual machine, and it worked. So I shouldn't have any problems installing the binary packages at home. I've started creating binary packages for my main machine at work and my web server. While that's going on....back to work.

Haven't gotten a chance to try out my newly made packages. I had intended to try it out on July 2, but all of the festivities of the 4th of July holiday made that impossible. Quite a lot happened. I got a chance to see my father this holiday, which was a plus, considering I haven't seen him in a while (try a year,) and I just realized this was the most time I spent with my mother and nieces in a while. If this thing works with my Pentium 200 computer I'm going to make packages for an old 486 Toshiba laptop I have at home. With Gentoo Linux you can just about make distributions of packages for any computer, old or new, with the same tools. True you can just get CDs or download packages for the net, but I'm just really impressed with Gentoo that I want to try it wherever I can.

I'm actually starting to make an effort to redesign my site. It's something basic right now, but maybe later I'll do something flashy with it.

Well, I tried emerging other packages which have failed due to compiler issues, so what I'm going to do is grab what packages I already have and the portage tree, take them home, and compile some of them there (I have all of the sources on CD I've downloaded in the past.) I'm just anxious to see how my efforts went here.

I also want to turn some of my other computers to Gentoo Linux machines. I run the web server, which has Mandrake 8.1 on it now, and I find emerging packages a whole lot more convenient than installing RPMs if i needed to update my machine, so at a convenient point I want to install Gentoo on my web server.

As far as the compiler went, I'm going to update gcc to 3.2.2 later and see if that helps.

I set up a file that had all the packages I wanted 'emerged' (installed) and ran this command to install all of them:

cat autoemerge.txt | xargs emerge

I was hoping to see at least 1/3 of it done, but my virtual machine ran out of space well before then, so I had to clean off some disk space and keep going.

Well, the virtual machine kept choking on building fluxbox and openbox, so I tried emerging IceWm instead. Let's see how that goes.

For the last few days I've been trying to set up a Gentoo Linux installation at my house. As I only have a Pentium 200 MMX machine I've been trying to compile all of the software on my office computer, a 1.8 GHz Pentium 4, and install the resulting packages at home. I tried the stage 1 tarball, only for gcc to choke doing so; so I just tried a stage 3 tarball, with better results. However I have yet to finish compiling all the software, because 1) I tried to set up distcc so the I can use another machine I have in the office to do builds, but that hasn't worked out too well for me (I have been mucking around with the distcc settings, so I will have to play around with them some more.) and 2) I ran out of disk space. I use VMWare to make my "distro," so I won't have to do all this stuff on another machinel Hopefully this distcc and ccache thing works. I'll just let it run until tomorrow evening, burn a CD with all the packages I made, and take them home and have some fun.

I downloaded a copy of VMWare Workstation 4 so I could try out Windows .Net Server 2003, and I'm really impressed with VMWare. I just hate the fact that it's so expensive. I'd like for some of the open source alternatives to be more up to snuff, so I wouldn't have to pay for it. TIme to roll my sleeves up and work on some of this code.

I also got a chance to try out FrontPage 2003 Beta, and I like how it's changed. One of the reasons that I liked Dreamweaver over FrontPage is that I could see the HTML and Preview my changes at the same time. You can do that now in FP2003. Another thing is that when I see the code and the preview at the same time I can click on an element in the preview and the cursor goes to the location in the HTML view.

Also, I'm thinking about setting up Plone or Movable Type to play around with setting it up and seeing how I can ease updating our web site.

I still gotta redesign my web site. I think this time I'll take the time to do it right and employ some design principles.

Wow! I haven't been here in a while. I found a nice tool to allow me to access all my bookmarks from anywhere in the world. It's called Bookie, and you can find it at bookie.mozdev.org. I found it after using Mozilla Firebird for Windows.. I'm impressed. Right now, though, the client and server were not available for download, so I had to compile it from CVS, which was not a problem for me.

I finally finished my database programs...the rest of it I'm going to do using Microsoft Access.
I haven't really seen too much in the way of the blogs I mostly hit. Coherence Engine had some nice entries; the guy who does the Super Fast Computer is trying to install Gentoo Linux on his machine; maybe I'll give him some help.

It's also time to set up some links on my blog site.

It's really frustrating to write programs when you don'l know what the commands do in the language.

Working on some programming.

Nothing Special Today
No special blogs to look at. I was wanting to read some more of the Coherence Engine.

I've been checking out the Coherence Engine blog, and I realize that it's good to read opposing viewpoints on stuff. Another blog that's really interesting is http://chuckolsen.blogspot.com/

A nice site if you want to process digital videos. http://nickyguides.digital-digest.com/

I found it! The interview with Jaron Lanier for which I was looking!

Another interesting blog - http://edtechdev.org/blog/archives/cat_technology.html

This is an intersting blog. It's about different views on how software is created. Its latest entry reminded me of some material by Jaron Lanier, who coined the term virtual reality. I'd really like to find the article I read.

Another link to peruse http://www.bsdforums.org/forums/

Still on the hunt for some more Linux blogs.

Metroid Prime, IMHO, is one of the best games I've played in a while. The graphics are superb, and the gameplay is superb. That game alone is reason enough to purchase a Nintendo GameCube. Here's a good link for completing all of Metroid Prime:
http://www.gameforms.com/features/walkthroughs/metroidprime/

http://scripting.com another site I find interesting.

http://aelice.silhouette-project.com/ - another good one, but this one isn't about linux.

Some good links on linux experiences.
http://justenoughlinux.com/
http://zopenotes.com/

I need to find somewhere with some interesting blogs...most likely about linux experiences.....

TightVnc...when I need to log on remotely

My first blog...awwwwww......