I guess Fedora grokked that if this install didn’t work, I was going to install Debian or Ubuntu. It’s currently going through CD 2 without problems. Still slow as heck, but actually making it through. Excellent!

Something happened in the transition from CD1 to CD2. The screen looks like it tried to boot up and then failed. I confirmed that trying to boot fails - of course as only 1/5 of the installation has taken place. I’m going to give it one more shot before I file a bug. Beginning installation….now!

According to many sources, including BBC News, an audio tape purported to be from Bin Laden calls for a “long-lasting truce” between the US and the terrorists. He also claims that we have been safe in the US only because they have been focusing all of their attacks on Iraq. BBC didn’t mention this, but according to a Fox News broadcast, we should believe his truce because he is forbidden to lie since he is a Muslim. As compelling as that logic is, the US is not biting. Personally, I wouldn’t either.

alright! Now, if only the insert disc menu would accept my mouse-clicks on the OK button. It probably has, but hasn’t redrawn the screen yet.

Yay! It didn’t bork this time…just 3550 minutes left and it’s still on CD 1. If there’s time today, I hope to make a more substantial post.

Came home from work expecting to pop in CD 2 for the install. The screen had blacked out and no amount of moving the mouse or tapping keys brought it to life. Rebooted and started the process again. This was at 5pm today. Right now it’s still “preparing to install”. I had a similar problem when I was originally installing FC3 on this computer. Perhaps there’s something that needs to be disabled in laptop installs to keep it from blacking out? The only way to keep things working is to push a button every once in a while to keep it from blacking out. Can’t do that while I’m at work so I’ll give it one more try today. If it doesn’t work, I’ll have to wait until Saturday to install FC5tc2. Of course, I’m losing valuable testing time, but that’s what happens when you try to upgrade Fedora on a 600 Mhz computer! By contrast, on nice fast machines it takes 15 minutes tops for an install. This is excruciating….anyone want to donate money for a new laptop?

Time left

57000 minutes…..

I decided to do something I’ve never done before, I’m going to install Fedora Core 5 Test Release 2 and actually help with the debugging process. It was a bit of an internal struggle. By taking part in the debugging, I get to see the new technologies instead of being surprised in March when it comes out as a final release. But, having my laptop here with no real purpose, and thus no consequences if something is broken in the software, I decided to install it. In a previous press release they said that test release 2 would allow upgrading from FC4 (whereas test release 1 did not); if this is the case, then I’ll be doing it on the laptop. If not, I may use some kind of emulation to run it on my Windows Box.

While I was fiddling with grub as part of my experiment to get rid of the graphical boot, I noticed the picture grub uses when I boot in. For Fedora Core 4 users, I’m talking about the blue screen with the words Fedora Core where grub gives you a few seconds to choose a different kernel or OS before booting in. I decided to make my own, to truly customize my computer! Afterall, that’s one of the things that REALLY attracts me to open source.

What kind of Linux-focused blog would this be if I didn’t mention that version 3 of the GPL was out! You can read it here!