Sunday, June 03, 2007

Work is transforming me into another mindless drone

As I have mentioned before my lust for tech is dying a slow and painful death. Taylor2nd just highlighted it for me a while ago when he asked me how come I wasn't participating much anymore on a local tech forum that we use. I used to post and idle on that site all day, reading up all the new tech news hot off the press as it unfolds but work has gotten in the way now. I still load the page the first thing in the morning when I get to work but there is no guarantee that I will look back in that window for the next couple of hours.

Also a couple of weeks ago during a conversation with Taylor2nd I realized I have thrown away my BSD past. Currently I am using a 64bit-pure based port of Slackware Linux since AMD released their cheap AM2 64bit processors about 10 months ago. I must say it sucks the developers of flash/java plugins for FireFox have decided that there aren't enough users to care about getting them working on this platform so I have been browsing sites unable to see flash/java content.

The lack of java/flash support pushed me to download NetBSD3.1 x64 to install and abandon Linux once again. I have always liked NetBSD but never used it on my desktop because they lack support for key hardware as I would find out after installing, rebuilding the kernel, building X.org desktop and finding that there was no nvidia devices detected for my video card. This is the shit I went through in the 90's when trying to get X to work on redhat 4.x but I am now in the know that there is no way X on netbsd will work with my video card so I had to nix NetBSD x64 from my list of suitable desktop OS replacements.

At this point I could no go back to no flash/java support so I decided to give NetBSD 3.1 x86 a try. I installed, rebuilt the kernel, built X.org, no cigar.. the same video card problem popped up. I could always go FreeBSD x86, I know they support my hardware, but for some reason I have my mind set against it. I think I might end up throwing away x64 Linux for a i386 version of Slackware.. one step forward, two steps back.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can u say lost?

SimplEnigma said...

I read the title. That must count for something. LOL.

And umm, yuh sure is WORK that's turning you into a mindless drone? LOL. j/k.

Adrian said...

lol well you can get a b+ for your effort SE :p I think there are a few techies who read this blog so at least someone should understand my dilemma

owen said...

the only time I haven't used windows/ dos was when I bought a mac OSX/unix laptop. weeks it tek mi fi install oracle. It a scary world out there :(

SimplEnigma said...

LOL...B+? At least it wasn't a C++ (hehe, I made a funny...I don't know what it means, but I know it's a witty play on words).

Anonymous said...

I tried to use FreeBSD back in 2001 when I worked with a www.enter.net, mainly because of it's stability and portage. It was not long lived though... few weeks after having it installed i removed it. Mainly back then i just wasn't into the Sherlock Holmes mode to figure out how to do this an that.

Anonymous said...

hey man.. techies dont die.. You'll live on. you just in a slump. it happened to me once.. btw i think you should technorize your self (in a rick james kind of voice).. cause your a tech blogger. get your blog some of that kind of traffic

Adrian said...

lol good one SE.. you have a little geek in you :p

@taylor well if techies dont die they fade away.. if I had a tech blog it would be so empty heh.

Mad Bull said...

SE, that WAS funny! I understand your trouble, my brother. I am actually there with you, to some extent.
I used to be so into the tech. It was like I lived for computing! Now I don't really care so much. As long as it keeps my paycheck coming, but I don't follow up on new developments so much anymore. As a for instance, I haven't even looked at Windows Vista. I downloaded Oracle Linux, burnt the CDs and I haven't installed it anywhere. Not even sure where the CDs are.
To a large extent, my interest in tech has been replaced by blogging. I blame blogging for my nowt having written my world class application as yet. Oh well... at least I enjoy it.