Saint's Log

When you know how it works...

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:46:12 +0200

Sunday my external HD crashed on the floor, a Bad Thing^(TM).

Luckily, it hosted an ext3 file system -free with all the documentation available-, so, even if the hardware is broken (it works, then it fails, then it works again), you can recover the infos using dd (it's what my wife is doing - she's the Sysadmin).

If you know how it is made you can fix it!

(or at least salvage it :) ).

I hate this :>

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 13:33:49 +0100

I got my work laptop fixed and I got one more evidence that proprietary software sucks!

The support service replaced the main board. Gnu/Linux had NO problem to start, Eclipse needed just some workplace path fixing. Windows eXtra Panzone (extra fatty) instead prompted me again for the activation procedure. I heard about something like this if the kludge did'nt like the "hardware signature".

O.K. let's do it by netw... GODAMMIT! The IP and gateway are those of another network, and the system prevents me from fixing the network config... Paranoid, idiot bloodsuckers!

Now I have some options left...

Dial Microsoft for reactivating the machine and bow to their diktat;
Dial Microsoft for reactivating the machine and bill them the time I'll spend on it;
Claim that XP is not functional anymore preventing me from working on any project that requires working with Windows. In a few weeks the XP partition could be replaced by an EXT3 one.

The one guessing what's my favorite option will win the golden galleon Harry owes me...

Nice things... I broke my left wrist (not this nice) so I can't drive until January 11^th (this is nice, I' m starting hating driving¹). Therefore the "Euridice" pizzata (pizza meeting) took place in my home. "Euridice" guys (malveo and mmzz) left some nice markings on my plaster cast: "pkill -9 java" (I program in Java at work) "vim rulez" (I'm an emacsite monk :), I use Emacs in almost all my work activities ) and the best one "dpkg --reconfigure arm".

Honor citation to Minni's

bones.each do |b|
b.repair |
end

¹ Here in Veneto region all the cars queued could make a live much much longer than the road network, there are too many cars...

Free Software Banzai!

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:19:55 +0100

This morning my laptop did not start. A bit of a problem, since I had to show the new Eclipse plugin to the co-worker/customer

A quick rush to the HW mantainance guy and in few minutes we set up a replacement box with my laptop HD and a live GNU/Linux distribution CD. Not the most comfortable environment around but at least I was back on the track.

What saved my ass was that I work with a Free Software OS and tools. The HW guy was free to download a live Linux distribution CD. He was free to give me a copy. And in all those years there was nothing preventing me to gathering the skills (a very few ones indeed) i needed to set up a bit of tools so that I can work with this CD based GNU/Linux (almost) in the same way I work with my custom tailored environment.

Yes, you could build yourself a (NameANonFreeOS) live disk, but you can't download it whenever you need one. And I am not if that is completly legal...

New home for my log.

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:30:58 +0100

I think I'll move my log here from the former persone.linux.it.

Why ? I prefer Free Software to simply GNU/Linux (even if i'm very happy with my GNU/Linux box).

What do I do in my life ? I write code. And I costantly work to avoid the use and the creation of non free software.

What I feel that matters is that the user has the right to do whatever he wants with the code we release, even if it's something no one else will find useful (or at least useful without overhauling an re-customizing).

Oh, why a verbatim license on this post ? Simple, have you thought about someone editing your thoughts ? :)