Gentoo to Ubuntu Migration Part 2: The College Years

As I'm sure last week's month's installment left you desperate for more...

I started college in May, 1997, and graduated in December, 2001---only one semester beyond the typical four years! I learned a lot in college. Obviously, there was the required "book learning" for my degree (computer science). I mostly enjoyed my classes, but I find book learning less engaging than hands-on learning.

The self-taught/hands-on learning, particularly with regards to Linux, is the topic of this post. Initially, I dual-booted Linux and Windows 95. I tried to use Linux whenever possible, but if I couldn't figure out how to do something, I reverted to Windows.

Sadly, my memory fails me as to my progression using Linux. But here are some highlights, in no particular order:

• My original distribution was Slackware. It's been far too long for me to make any kind of comment about its pros and cons. But I'm pretty sure that my installation was a mess before I ultimately switched to Debian. At the time, I didn't know anything about package management. Whenever I needed (or just wanted to play with) some piece of software, I would download it, and do the obligatory "./configure ; make ; make install".
• I remember learning about Samba, which allows Linux to access shared folders in Windows (and vice-versa). At the time, there weren't (or at least I couldn't find) any mature graphical "network neighborhood" browsers for Linux. So any file sharing I did was through the command-line smbclient.
• I learned about markup languages by writing papers in LaTeX. It took me a while to get past the non-WYSIWYG paradigm... but I eventually grew to love LaTeX, and markup languages in general, and still prefer them to WYSIWYG editors (however, the business world isn't so enlightened, and sadly I still have to interface with Microsoft Word in the "real world").
• Printing used to be a major hurdle in Linux. I have vague recollections of hacking the cryptic /etc/printcap file (I think that was it). I never actually learned the details of the file (e.g. its grammar and meaning), but mostly just looked for working config files on the Internet.
• Surfing the 'net: good old Netscape Navigator 4.x! This was about the time of the first "browser wars", i.e. crummy Netscape versus Microsoft's bundled-with-Windows Internet Explorer. I remember Netscape losing this battle, and Linux users were left with the increasingly obsolete and generally junky Navigator, waiting patiently (*really* patiently) for Mozilla to deliver a usable browser for Linux.
• I used FVWM (or maybe FVWM2, possibly FVWM95) as my window manager for a long time. At one point, I downloaded all of Gnome's libraries and dependencies, painstakingly compiled and installed each (in the right order of course), and... stuck with FVWM! To this day, I don't use the full-featured "desktop environments" (i.e. GNOME/KDE), but tend to stick with the lighter-weight stand-alone window manager. I recall playing with Enlightenment DR15, which had truly mind-blowing eye candy. But still, for whatever reason, stayed with FVWM.
• Editors. A classic Internet flame war. These days, and since senior year (maybe even junior year), I've been a die-hard vim user. But I did dabble with emacs for quite a while.
  

I wish I'd made a note of it (of course I never imagined myself blogging about it), but there came a point where I completely removed Windows from my PC. I think I did this around sophomore year, which would have been 1998 or 1999. I've literally been Microsoft-free ever since (at least on the computers I own). Basically, I reached a point where I was completely comfortable doing everything I needed or wanted to do under Linux. The Windows partition was increasingly becoming just wasted space, and I no longer felt I needed it as a safety net.

To this day, I wish I could remember exactly what prompted the complete changeover! I don't know if it was just a realization that I was spending over 99% of my time in Linux, or if there was some critical application for which I finally found an adequate substitution. Either way, the training wheels were formally off!

During these years, there were often "distribution wars". People vehemently supported their distribution; flame wars bashing each others' distributions were not uncommon. Being well-versed in Linux, but still not a true expert, I found myself consulting others as to which distribution I should choose. I went with Debian. Many others were supposedly easier to use, but most people said Debian made you do everything by hand, and was great if you wanted to learn about Linux system administration---which I did.

So Debian became my distribution of choice. This was before "apt-get"! I remember using the horrendous dselect program to manage packages. I haven't used that program in years, so perhaps it has improved, but at the time, I remember thinking it had about the worst user interface I'd ever encountered. (To be fair, perhaps it would make more sense to me now, given that I'm more familiar with the mindset of Linux developers, and common Unix idioms.)

I happily used Debian for many years. I let Debian's package manager (dpkg) manage all my programs. However, there were still many packages I needed (or just wanted to play with) for which a Debian package didn't exist, or existed but was too old. With some programs, I liked to be on the "bleeding edge". Debian's "stable" distribution is decidedly not bleeding edge---that is the price one pays for a stable and consistent system.

Vowing not to let my Debian installation degrade the way my Slackware distribution had, I vowed not to clutter my /usr/local area by blindly running through the "./configure ; make ; make install" routine. Enter what I still consider a really cool "secondary" package manager, epkg (the encap package manager). This program basically allowed you to self install your own programs into /usr/local/encap/packagename-version, and the program would manage symbolic links into the actual /usr/local/ directories.

As time went on, I grew tired of managing packages through epkg. The system worked, but it was somewhat tedious to self-manage an ever-increasing list of packages. Debian seemed "stuck", moving at a glacial pace. Some package versions were getting quite stale---epkg was needed not just for the bleeding edge, but even features that were added within the last year! Likewise, Debian packages were often compiled with features I didn't need, or compiled without features I wanted.

There had to be a better way... and that's when I found Gentoo. Again, I can't remember exactly when I discovered Gentoo. I believe it was after I had graduated college, probably around 2003 or 2004. Gentoo is unique in the Linux world, as it is one of the few source-based distributions. Instead of downloading and installing pre-built binaries, Gentoo's package manager downloads a program's source, builds it on the target machine, then installs the resulting program. The package management system, portage, is also a highly-configurable build system. Via the use of simple configuration files, it is quite easy to install and manage software packages that have been precisely tailored to your system.

Gentoo to Ubuntu Migration Part 1: Prologue

I've been using Linux for over a decade now, and loving almost every minute of it. Recently I changed the distribution I was using on my workstation from Gentoo to Ubuntu. Since one of the goals of this blog is to document my technology learning, I feel obliged to report on the transition experience. Also, at least one of my friends has an interest in this story.

In an attempt to make the story as dramatic as possible, I decided to break it into multiple sections. This, the first, is the back story: how I got into Linux.

I first got started with Linux around 1996, when I was still in high school. In BL Times (Before Linux), I ran a small bulletin board system (BBS) called raw sewage (a name which I cherished so much I use it for my website). The BBS is important because it gave me a requirement for my PC which was unusual at the time: multitasking, i.e. the ability to run multiple applications concurrently. These days, we take multitasking operating systems for granted, as virtually everybody has at least a couple programs running: a web browser, an email client, a spreadsheet or document, maybe a music player, and a game of solitaire when the boss isn't looking.

But my bulletin board days pre-dated Windows 95, which was Microsoft's first operating system that had semi-useful multitasking capabilities. (Yes, you could technically run multiple applications at once with Windows 3.x, but it was "fake" multitasking. I'm glossing over a lot of technical detail here: the techies should know what I mean and everyone else can take my word for it.)

Anyway, I was running MS-DOS, the old text-based operating system that required you to type in commands. DOS could only run one program at a time. I needed to have the bulletin board software running constantly, but I also wanted to be able to use my computer for other things. For a while, I used a program called DESQview, which effectively made DOS into a multitasking operating system. Eventually, for reasons I can't remember, DESQview fell out of favor with me.

I also dabbled in IBM's OS/2 Warp. I remember liking OS/2 for the most part. However, I ultimately gave it up as well, but, again, for reasons I can't remember. (My apologies: my memory is bad, and all this was over a decade ago---with college i.e. lots of beers---in between.)

At some point, I heard about this operating system called Linux that was a true multitasking system and free. Somehow, I happened across one of those multi-CD cases that contained at least three Linux distributions: RedHat, Debian and Slackware (there may have been more, but see my note about my memory). The case had a little insert that described how to install each operating system. I do remember that it suggested first-time users install Slackware: and so I did.

Of all the details I've forgotten, I do remember my initial reaction: underwhelmed. And I remember staying underwhelmed for quite a while, actually. Here I had read all these great things about Linux, how powerful it was, etc. And yet all I had was a foreign prompt staring at me. It resembled DOS, but it clearly wasn't DOS. It couldn't run my BBS software, or any other program with which I was familiar. And there was supposed to be a graphical interface, but I didn't know how to get to that... I remember I basically spent a lot of time just nosing around the file system, trying to make sense of things like "usr" and "var". But it was some time before I actually did anything useful with Linux.

The Great Metal T-Shirt Social Experiment

It's been too long since my last post. My apologies to my dedicated readers.

This past weekend I attended the 2009 International Beer Fest in my hometown of Peoria, Illinois. The weather cooperated for the most part: the start of the day was warm and sunny, but it turned a bit chilly and rainy towards the end. But it was never so bad as to force everyone inside, thus making the crowd manageable. As usual, the beer selection was huge (I believe there were over 300 different beers available) and delicious.

I can't remember exactly how many times I've gone, but several times prior to this year's, I wore my Iron Maiden t-shirt. It started as a friendly wager between my wife (then-girlfriend) and I: she wore a shirt that she was sure would attract compliments and attention---sadly, I can't remember what her shirt said. However, I was sure my Iron Maiden t-shirt would get far more compliments. Obviously I wouldn't be blogging about this if I wasn't right: if I remember correctly, the final score was Iron Maiden 8 to her shirt's paltry 2.

For the record, I'm a huge Iron Maiden fan. That I could advertise my fondness of one of the greatest metal bands of all time and conduct a social experiment was... as awesome as Iron Maiden themselves!

So the Iron Maiden t-shirt became a staple of the next few Beer Fests, consistently garnering numerous compliments. Peoria is an Iron Maiden town!

Back to 2009: the Iron Maiden t-shirt lives on, although it's taken a beating over the years (it's at the front of my t-shirt rotation). Also, my wife got me an awesome Megadeth t-shirt for Christmas that was begging to make an appearance at Beer Fest. Just like my computers with which I'm always tinkering, I must also tinker with my "apparel technology". Why fix something that ain't broke? The Iron Maiden t-shirt is a guaranteed hit! My curiosity overwhelmed my sense of sticking with what works.

So I wore the Megadeth t-shirt. The result: a measly two compliments! I truly expected more.

However, this is only a sample size of one. It's not statistically valid. The same thing could have happened with the Iron Maiden t-shirt (but I doubt it).

The question is: do I give the Megadeth t-shirt another try at next year's Beer Fest? Part of me says that I have to---otherwise I'm simply practicing bad science, reducing this to a trivial layperson experiment; it demands sophistication and statistical rigor.

On the other hand, I don't know if I can bear another miss... not to mention a Protest the Hero t-shirt that is patiently waiting for its turn at Beer Fest.

Shedd Aquarium

My wife, in-laws and I visited Shedd Aquarium on Saturday (March 21). It was a bit too crowded for my tastes, but we still had a great time. Armed with my new Nikon D90, this was my first opportunity to really exercise my budding photography skills. I just uploaded a number of pictures to my Flickr site, and created a Shedd Aquarium 2009 set to house them all. Enjoy!

MythTV Hardware Upgrade

When I started this blog, one of my goals was to consistently post any hardware or software problems I encountered while tinkering with my computers. This serves two purposes: if, in the future, I find myself having similar difficulties, I have a written record of what I did to refresh my memory (simply typing it all out will strengthen my memory). The other advantage is giving back to the community: so many times I've encountered a strange error or situation, only to find some obscure blog post that explains the exact same situation and solution. Perhaps some day a desperate computer enthusiast will use my blog to find and answer to their woes.

First, the short version: I need to pass the "pci=nomsi" parameter to the Linux kernel in order for my Asus M3N78-EM motherboard to recognize the hard drive.

Now the long version...

I'm a compulsive hardware tinkerer, always tweaking my computers, both software and hardware. I haven't bought a prebuilt computer for at least 15 years; all my computers were assembled piecewise by yours truly. Last week I was rebuilding my backup server (affectionately named "dumpster"), replacing the Intel CPU and motherboard with an AMD solution. My MythTV media PC ("cesspool") also used AMD. However, it had an older, slower CPU---a BE-2350---than the one I was about to put in the backup server, a 4850e. I thought to myself, why put the better processor in a machine that doesn't need it? Why not use the faster hardware for the machine that gets regular use?

There's one fact of which my wife loves to remind me; a fact I feel obligated to report in the interest of full-disclosure: there was absolutely nothing wrong with our MythTV prior to me attempting the CPU change; it didn't need a faster processor. But like I said, I have this compulsion: computers are toys to me, and I just want to play! Besides, what could go wrong with a simple, quick CPU swap?

I put the better CPU, the 4850e, in MythTV. I hit the power button and... nothing! The computer wouldn't POST (power on self-test). As I thought about what might be wrong, I wondered if the CPU was too new for the motherboard, a Biostar Tforce TF7025-M2. Some quick Google work confirmed my suspicions: Biostar's CPU support page doesn't list the 4850e as supported; likewise, Newegg's customer reviews say the same. D'oh!

Sad, but no problem: just put the old BE-2350 back, and finish the backup server... and it still won't POST! What happened? At this point, I assumed the motherboard was dead. (In hindsight, I don't know why I thought this.) I ordered a new board, an Asus M3N78-EM. This motherboard sports the nVidia GeForce 8300 video chip set.

When the new board arrived, I was excited: I get to use the 4850e (I checked teh M3N78's CPU compatibility before ordering), and would have all-around faster/newer hardware. So I dropped in the CPU, connected all the cables, hit the power button and... nothing. It wouldn't POST!

Now I was really broken. What was the problem? When a home built computer won't even POST, it could be one of any number of components: CPU, motherboard, memory, power supply. My first thought was that the case itself was causing a short. So I took the motherboard out of the case, set it on some cardboard (non-conductive), and tried again... No dice. Now I got to play the swap-one-component-at-a-time game to isolate the problem.

Foolish as I am, I tried everything in the wrong order: hardest-to-easiest. The simplest first check would be to swap RAM. But I went straight to disassembling the backup server to borrow its parts:

1. Tried a different power supply
2. Tried a different CPU (the old BE-2350, that I had to pull from the backup server)
3. Tried the 4850e in the backup server to verify the CPU wasn't dead

None of those worked, meaning, either the brand-new motherboard itself was dead, or the RAM was bad. I tried some different memory... success! After kicking myself for not trying the simpler troubleshooting first, I then kicked myself some more: I probably didn't even need a new motherboard in the first place. If only I had tried different RAM before impetuously ordering a new motherboard, I might not have had to deal with any of this mess!

On the other hand, I do have newer hardware that supports VDPAU, which is supported by MythTV.

Elated, I re-assembled the computer, hit the power button, and... now Linux fails to boot! Worse, my grub configuration specified the use of a splashimage, which wasn't found, resulting in garbled, unreadable boot text. I could make out enough of the text to tell that in mid boot there was a kernel panic, but couldn't discern the actual error. I then grabbed an Ubuntu installation/live CD. When it booted, I discovered that the hard drive wasn't being recognized. I turned to Google for my answer.

The second search result turned up this Ubuntu bug report. It talked about totally different hardware, by the symptoms were the same, basically:

ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 13 SControl 30)
ata1.0: qc timeout (cmd 0xec)
ata1.0: failed to identify (I/O error, errmask=0x4)
ata1: failed to recover some devies, retrying in 5secs
ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 13 SControl 30)
ata1.0: qc timeout (cmd 0xec)
ata1.0: failed to identify (I/O error, errmask=0x4)
ata1: failed to recover some devies, retrying in 5secs

The suggested workaround was simple enough: configure the SATA interface as AHCI in the BIOS (which I had already done), and pass the "pci=nomsi" option to the kernel at boot.

(Side note: that error message says "devies", shouldn't that be "devices"? Must have been a typo in that kernel version.)

I did exactly this, and... success! The system is now up and running. It hasn't even been 24 hours yet, but so far the system is stable.

My New Toy

I've been wanting to get into digital photography for a while now. It's one of those things that has always been at the back of my mind, but I never acted on it... until now. I just bought a Nikon D90 digital SLR camera, with the 18--105mm kit lens!

Before I bought it, I mentioned to a friend that I was contemplating buying a new camera. He said, "Nice, woot.com has a 10 megapixel camera for $89." I'm sure that was an okay camera, but I was looking at digital SLR cameras, which have a number of advantages over the point-and-shoot variety that "normal" people buy. Do a web search for "slr vs point and shoot" to see the differences. Here are a few links that discuss the differences. The short version is that digital SLR cameras offer more control, potentially better image quality, more features, changeable lenses, and faster operation. All this comes at a price, as digital SLRs are typically bigger and heavier than the ultra-compact cameras that easily fit in your purse or pocket. Digital SLRs are overkill for folks who just want to capture memories of good times.

I believe my wife and I now have the perfect balance of photography equipment: she has a small "deck of cards" sized point and shoot that she takes virtually everywhere. And it takes pretty good pictures! But for those opportunities where we need more horsepower---and lugging around the bigger camera isn't a problem---we now have it in the form of my D90. Not to mention, I now have a new technical toy to play with, and an enormous subject matter (photography and digital imaging) about which there is no limit to how much can be learned.

I went ahead and started the obligatory Flikr stream. As of this writing, it only contains a handful of my "best" pictures from the first two days of using the camera around our apartment. I showed the pictures to a friend whose unflattering commentary was, "Those don't look any better than what can be taken with an ordinary camera." True, those aren't great works by any stretch of the imagination, and probably could be captured just as well (if not better) with, e.g., my wife's little point-and-shoot.

But! My response is this: imagine two musical instruments: one, a clunky old beater, that was crummy from the start; two, a new, top-of-the-line, professional grade instrument. The music created from a beginning musician won't sound radically different when played on either instrument. However, in the hands of a skilled virtuoso, the music coming from the better instrument will generally sound better. I am the beginner musician, playing my music on an instrument designed for someone who's been at the art a lot longer than me. But I intend to practice!

Anyway, my first "real" shooting with the camera will be this weekend, when we go to Shedd Aquarium with the in-laws.

Job Performance

For at least a year now, the notion of job performance has been sloshing around in my head. My first exploration of this topic was my still unfinished essay on passion versus engagement. I just read "The Interview Question You Should Always Ask", which suggests that if someone's extracurricular interests are in the same domain as their work subject, they are likely to be a star performer on the job. And today I had a discussion with my friend and colleague about firing people for poor performance.

I often use writing as a way to explore ideas for myself; this blog is as much for personal therapeutic purposes as anything else. So now is as good a time as any to throw out some stuff on the topic of work aptitude.

One of the biggest questions I've been pondering for a while is, what is a reasonable amount of commitment to give your employer? The extremes are obvious: be the bum that gives up, quits, and/or allows himself to get fired at the first hint of difficulty; or, martyrs himself to unending, heart attack-inducing, sleepless dedication to solving any problems in his periphery.

I believe that where you land on that "dedication continuum" is related to, if not a predictor, of your job performance. It's just a fancy way of saying that your effort will generally be reflected in your review, assuming you're in a position that's reasonably well-suited to your skills. (In other words, if you're trying to be a doctor with no medical training, or working an assembly line with a PhD in astrophysics, this generalization doesn't apply to you.)

There's another continuum to be considered as well, and that is, how hard is it to actually put for the effort? When you see someone who is truly at the top of their game, you might think, "they make it look so easy!" But they really are putting forth a lot of effort, it just comes naturally to them. That's one side of the spectrum; the other is someone, generally not famous, but still successful, that is visibly working like mad to achieve and maintain the success. Think about someone putting their health at risk because they are working so hard to achieve whatever it is they want.

The point is this, there are two variables: (1) the amount of effort you're willing to put into the job, and (2) your will to put forth that effort. Obviously one affects the other: if you have no will, you are unlikely to put forth any effort.

I think what the "Interview Question You Should Always Ask" article linked above is getting at is this: people who truly love their work will naturally have the will to put forth the effort required to be profitable for a potential employer. This conclusion is fairly obvious, sure, but the article is just exploring one method of ascertaining a job candidate's interest level in the work's subject matter.

My "passion versus engagement" essay's take on this speaks to the establishment of the will that drives effort. Passion means that will comes naturally; people who are passionate about their work are the ones that make it look easy. People who are neither passionate nor engaged about their work make it look hard---they are the ones too stubborn to give up, but still put themselves through hell make the grade. Engaged people are somewhere in between: they'll occasionally go the extra mile, but don't expect them to do it every day; they make the routine stuff look not-too-hard; they are above average but below super-stars.

So my question is this: what if your passions don't pay? You're at a disadvantage no matter what job you apply for---if you're competing for a job with a passionate person, you're not going to get it. Until you figure out a way to profit from your passion(s), you have to resign yourself to being engaged. So the next question is, how do you find an environment that fosters engagement? How do you maintain integrity, and still land the job when you say, "This work isn't my passion, but I'm willing to put in a reasonable amount of effort?" Won't that flag you as a putz?