Take that, Linux!

Current Status:

• Linux machine has to boot from floppy, but I have control of it now.
• PC boots, uses video card, everything seems happy… at least hardware-wise.
• Cube is fixed! Easiest fix ever! I plugged it in!
• PowerBook is shipping off tomorrow (most likely) to Apple repair. (again)

On the PC, I finally got drivers installed for the video card. I was able to switch to the DVI port (and even use both heads to span my desktop across two monitors), but the 1600×1024 mode wasn’t lining up correctly, like it wasn’t when I first installed my last card. I took a cue for what I learned last time, and installed the reference drivers direct from nVidia. 1600×1024 now works like a charm. Now I can sell my old card to my boss, who just bought an SGI flatpanel like mine off eBay.

On the cube, I pulled it out of its case and stared at it, like I said I would. I jiggled the power plug. I had looked at the power strip yesterday, but it never occured to me to double check the plug on the power supply. Sure enough, it was loose. Easiest. Repair. Ever.

On the PowerBook, I’m currently copying the entire hard drive over to the cube (which has just enough free disk space to leave a few gigs breathing room) in anticipation of the shipping box arriving tomorrow. After being on the phone with the Apple repair guy at work today, I finally managed to cause the spontaneous sleep thing to occur at work, for a while, we were working under the theory that it only happened at home.

On the Linux machine, it turns out that I was on the correct track, but I ended up making a lot of false moves over the course of the evening. What it boiled down to was that I was leaving out certain parts of the Linux kernel that I was putting on the boot floppy. There are certain things that need to be in there… like “How to use IDE drives” and “How to read Linux partitions” that were modules before. Once I figured out which parts needed to be in there (which was about an hour ago), I made the boot disk. Then I made another one, labelled it, and stuck it on my shelf. I also put the write-protect tab on both to prevent accidental erasure. I’d still like to know why LILO refused to work, but I got it working another way, so I’m happy. At least now, if there’s a power outage, it will still automatically reboot, which is all I’m concerned about, really.

I think I’m going to wait a while before I get the other server-ish stuff working again on the Linux machine. I need some quality SimCity 4 and/or PSO time.

Hmmm… still “About an hour” to go on Mac copy… guess I’ll just leave them on overnight.