You are such a geek… » 2008

Archive for March, 2008

NEXTSTEP 3.3 RISC SparcStation 5

March 30, 2008 at 8:05 pm · Filed under Techie

I finally found a copy of NEXTSTEP 3.3 and got it installed on a SparcStation5. I am rocking retro 1993 style. Screenshot for street cred:

Comments

login: Looking Back on Debian 1.3

March 29, 2008 at 2:30 pm · Filed under Techie

Back at the tender age of 12 I picked up a magazine at the Base Exchange. This magazine contained a CD. This CD contained Debian 1.3. All was well in the world…

I remember reading with such excitement about this amazing new Linux (yes I pronouced it wrong, I was a geek living in Germany) and how it was free. Free you say!? I had just spent the past year lusting for Windows NT for no other reason that it was enterprise ready. I had no clue what that meant but I knew it was something I couldn’t learn. Much in the same way as I would look with much glee on the SGI pictures in magazines with no hope of ever affording the 12,000 dollar machine. Such was life for a youngster.

That is what made Linux so exciting for me. It looked kind of like those funny Sun boxes and it was what HACKERS used so it had to be cool. With no understanding of what installing Linux met I dropped that CD in and used rawrite for the first time to create the boot floppy.

Then it died. My perfectly working Windows 95b edition machine died. Well I thought it had died when really all I did was blank the partition table attempting to do an install. All of this came back vividly today as I retraced that install on my MacBook Pro in vmware.

—————————————-

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments (1)

OpenSolaris Shortcomings

March 29, 2008 at 7:37 am · Filed under Techie

I want to like OpenSolaris. I love compiling away on my Sun Machines at the house. The simple fact is though the “Open” is a misnomer of great proportions. What makes me excited about OpenSolaris is the lineage it stems from. For UNIX admins everywhere, it is truly one of the last of the old guard. HP-UX, Tru64, and the host of other dead UNIX OS showcase how much impact the BSD and Linux world has had on mainstream POSIX.

I am not sure how many times I have had to correct the Unix-like versus UNIX debate.Where this all leads to is the recent OpenSolaris elections. I am not sure if this is the Ian Murdock influences, but a board is formed to govern the code and direction of the project. Within the OpenSolaris community there is a great deal of expertise and knowledge coming in from outside sources. Yet, Sun in all its infinite wisdom has killed any hope it had.

The board is now made up entirely of Sun employees. I am sure these employees are great experts in their respective fields. This is in no way a jab at the excellent work Sun has done over the past 20 years. Rather this is a plea to the company, let the community work! I have run out of headstone space in the back yard to bury yet another UNIX.

Comments