that’s it! Debian is now done installing! Much better!

The Fedora install was going so well…it was on disc 3 with nary a problem. Then it had the same problem again. For some reason, in the middle of the install it rebooted the laptop again. Frankly, I’m not down with these 3 day installs. Sorry, but my laptop’s days with Fedora have passed. Basically, every time I try to reinstall Fedora I know I’m going to have similar problems. It’s just too slow to endure these kinds of installs. So I’m switching over to Debian on my laptop where upgrades do not require reinstalling the entire system. You just point to a new repo and update your packages as usual. Fedora will remain on my nice fast computer.

Search engines have been in the news a lot recently. For example, this BBC News story talks about how Google is refusing to hand over their search results to the Justice Department. This could come back to bite them in the butt when they try to buy some company and the DoJ denies their application. I believe they are probably doing the right thing as we are already giving up too much privacy involuntarily. This week a story broke on all the major news networks that for about $100 I can buy the cell phone records of a complete stranger.

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…..