Sunday, January 25, 2004

Opportunity Lands Safely -- 11:49 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The Mars rover Opportunity landed safely on Mars and has begun to transmit some pictures. The JPL website has the details. The first pictures show a much different landscape than the one around Spirit. Two for two! Maybe NASA is on a roll.

Saturday, January 24, 2004

Success with 2.6! -- 10:15 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Well, I finally managed to get everything (mostly) working with the Linux 2.6.1 kernel. I haven't recompiled the NVIDIA driver and sound still doesn't work. The latter is just a matter of some ALSA-specific modules.conf work. The good news is that I was able to burn a CD at full speed (well, it got up to 42x by the end) without using up all of my CPU, basically proving that my burning problem was a DMA issue. It probably will also help my CD ripping/MP3 encoding as well as installing games like UT2K3 which require a lot of decompressing during installation.

My only worry is, now that I've managed to do a major kernel revision on my box all by my lonesome, what other geeky thing is there left to conquer? Have I reached the apex? I suppose I could be like Qbe and buy a VAX to run VMS on. Or maybe I'll go anti-geek and get a Mac. Perhaps neither.

J.t.Qbe comments: Bah, you've only climbed the foothills of geekiness. There's plenty left for you to do. Off the top of my head, here are a few ideas:

• Anime.
• Build your own Linux from scratch (google for "Linux from scratch").
• Start collecting and using other Unices: FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Solaris, Unixware, QNX
• Start collecting and using other Unix hardware: Sparcs, SGIs, HP, EPIX, etc.
• Write your own operating system and become the next Linus.
• Invent your own programming language and write your own compiler.
• Write your own roguelike game.
• Move on to the VMS world and get a VAX or Alpha.
• One word: AS/400
• Two words: ham radio
• Two more ham radio words: QRP homebrew
• Three words: amateur radio astronomy

See? There are always new mountains to climb.

The Master comments: Okay, I have two bones to pick with that list: AS/400 and UnixWare. Why? Do you like self-torture or something? Those aren't hobbies, dammit. They're sentences for major crimes.

A.T. Hun comments: So is Anime, as far as I'm concerned. I've tried to like it but, heaven help me, I just can't get into it. Other than Voltron, that is, which likely doesn't count.

J.t.Qbe comments: Confucius say: it's only a sentence if you're forced to do it. Ok, he didn't really say that.

Once upon a time I tried Unixware and it was far, far nicer than SCO Openwhatever. Of course, nowadays everything is nicer than SCO. And I too was an anime hater but have found a few series I've enjoyed (Trigun is a lot of fun). The secret is that you must watch at least 2 episodes before deciding that you hate it.

Spirit Problem Found -- 9:07 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The NASA team reports they have found the problem with Spirit that was causing the Mars rover to continually reboot. They narrowed it down to some bad flash memory (they probably used Sandisk). While Spirit isn't back to normal, at least they can communicate with it properly now. Hopefully it can be fixed permanently soon. Thanks Slashdot.

Oh dear, someone commented on /.: "The Spirit is willing, but the flash is weak."

In a related story Spirit's twin, Opportunity, is scheduled to land on Mars in about two hours.

2.6 Upgrade Tip -- 12:03 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

When attempting to upgrade to kernel 2.6, make sure to read the README for module-init-tools before installing. I suggest following the instructions for installing in /sbin. That way, your 2.6 kernel can have the utilities it needs while a 2.4 kernel can still have the ones it needs. Believe me, it will save a lot of headaches. RTFM? Whodathunkit?

Yeesh, I just found something REALLY stupid that I did. It helps when you recompile a kernel to actually move it to the /boot partition so it can be loaded. Kids, don't update kernels late at night.

Spirit Freaks Out -- 10:32 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The Mars rover, the Spirit, has apparently freaked out. It's CPU has rebooted its systems 60 times per day. NASA figures a hardware failure is causing it, but is at a loss to figure out how to fix it. The Spirit will likely never regain full function. Meanwhile, the Opportunity rover is scheduled to land tonight . . .

Past Two Days' News

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