If you are a Linux power user then Gentoo is the only way to go. What an AWESOME operating system! It is more of a power users Linux than Slackware.

I have built several Gentoo boxes now. It took my old Pentium III, two days to install. Compile the kernel, compile the OS... compile everything, the result - superfast OS, no fat, no bloat, just what you install - no hidden extras.

I am now a Gentoo fanatic. My next post will outline why Gentoo is superior to all the other Linux distros. (Start the flames now :-)

My SuSe dual boot build died... sometimes X Windows works sometimes it doesn't, for no apparent reason. The Windows 2000 build on the other partition doesn't have these issues, so I don't think its the video card or hardware. Also SuSe doesn't play nice with VMWare even after an upgrade to VMWare Workstation 5.0. So its good bye to the gecko.

If you ever see a "C compiler cannot create executables" error on Slackware - chances are you are missing a library. Find out the package's library dependencies or for the true slackers, mount your Slackware CD 1, cd to /slackware/l directory and type "installpkg *".

This will install every library which may or may not be desirable depending on the intended use of the machine (i.e. probably not good on a production server :)

Along the lines of my "Leaking movie tickets" post, I remembered the day I thought I was rich. I went to the ATM, withdrew some money and got the following reciept. $170,000,000 dollars in my account!!!


So I withdrew $1000, the receipt came out with the correct amount ($0) and I was stuck with the cash - not great for paying bills over the Internet with.

If you have a newer Microsoft keyboard you probably know what I mean... its that damn "F Lock" key, where the function keys (F1, F2 and so on) don't work like normal function keys until the F Lock key is pressed. This has driven me crazy ever since I got my wireless keyboard.

Anyway, there is a registry patch to reverse this behaviour, check out http://www.mvps.org/jtsang/flock-e.html to get the registry patch.

I was doing some intense network data capture using TCPDump on Linux against a busy network when I hit up against the 2GB file limit (not that hard to do on a busy Gigabit network). I must say I was surprised considering I was using RH Enterprise Linux.

I have often come up against the 2GB limit under Windows 2000 doing database work but never under Linux. Most 32bit applications under both Windows and Linux have the same issue. However, I was able to create a 2.7GB text file under a DOS prompt on XP by piping the output of a command line program to file. Bizarre!

I needed to edit the 2.7GB text file (yes I do, do some weird shit sometimes :) so I used Total Commander to split it into 700MB chunks, then used trusty old PFE was able to edit the text files. Not bad for an editor that fits on a floppy, considering most text editors can't handle text files over a 100MB in size.

Once we all move to 64bit computing, file size limits will become a thing of the past (for most users)

The following are some handy free Windows tools to talk to Linux boxes:

• Putty - telnet & SSH client
  
  
• WinSCP - Secure Copy (SCP) & Secure FTP (SFTP) client. This has a cool Total Commander type interface with one pane being the remote Linux machines file system and the other pane the local machines disks.
  
  
• 3CDaemon - a freeware FTP, TFTP server & client and Syslog server all in one. Be careful, this is for short adhoc file transfers, don't use this in production as it is no longer supported and has known unpatched vulnerabilities. But it is great for uploading/downloading images to devices like routers and quick & dirty file transfers.
  
  
• Linux FS plugins for Total Commander - these plugins let you access Ext2 & ReiserFS partitions on a Windows box. Really handy for dual boot machines.
  

I have had to use Linux a lot in the last month at work, I have forgotten how much I like it as an OS. I have had 3 Red Hat Enterprise Servers running flat out for a couple of weeks.... no crashes, no hiccups, no lockups, no blue screens of death.

As I have already lamented when trying to find a replacement for RH9, I have found that I am disappointed in the mainstream distro's - they are trying to be everything to everyone. I am a minimalist and don't want a 3 GB base install. So I have reverted back to Slackware.

I learnt Linux on Slackware. I love it! You can still build a full-functioning box with a decent toolset from a single CD. So my primary Linux box is now Slackware 10.1 with no XWindows - pure command line :-) and for my dual-boot machine I have gone with the slick GUI of SuSe.