Current mood:	tired
Entry tags:	changes, geekiness, linux

Linux adventures: New hardware.
My new hard drive arrived today. Last week, when I tried to upgrade from the repository, my hard drive started clicking, and the upgrade failed from I/O errors. I tried running various programs that I thought might fix the bad places on the hard drive, but to no avail. So, I decided it was better to just give up on the drive and get a new one, which would be more reliable than my who-knows-how-old Maxtor (which, on looking at the case, turns out to have been manufactured on 06-10-96). So, I popped onto Newegg.com and found the cheapest hard drive with a high number of high ratings and ordered it.
It arrived today, and I installed it in the machine. By the time I can post this, the install will be done. Of course, I archived important files before I took the old hard drive out.
It occurs to me at this point that it may seem that I have been replacing my computer hardware at an excessive rate, given all the posts I've made about my various fresh installs. This is not the case. Most of my equipment is legacy. Probably half of you have nothing as old as my newest desktop machine. Well, it may be higher, given the technical factor to which my friends tend to have achieved. *grin* But this hard drive is a good example. It's 12 years old, and I don't think I was the original owner, unless it's the second drive I had in my very first machine, but I don't think so. I think it's one I picked up from someone who no longer wanted it, because it's a fairly big one, and I don't think I had a big hdd until much later.
Anyway, I have a lot of legacy equipment, and from time to time, pieces of it reach their end-of-service points.
Having finished the new install, I realized I'd forgotten to grab a few config files for aliases and profiles. Oh, well... but I also forgot the interfaces file for the network cards. Oops. My lapses in memory are unimportant, though.
After a few madenningly simple mistakes and their solutions, I had my gateway box up and running. I hope it is just as before, hehe. We shall see, I guess. Anyway, I am again proud of how much I've learned, humbled by how quickly I've forgotten the things that make the system work properly, and happy to be online again with expectations of reliable service for the forseeable future.
I love Linux. :)