Sometimes, things do work

Have you ever known a software developer?

Most of the ones I've known that I've respected and liked tend to develop things pretty much the same way I do: you see the system in your head, you know it can be done (or not) and everything after that moment when you can see everything is just a matter of typing.

I have a truly insane amount of code in my head right now. I know how I'm going to do just about everything I have to have working in 44 hours, and I am quite peaceful about it. I just have a lot to type. And test. Not too much, since this is a demo of a proof-of-concept, and I can talk around broken or non-implemented things. But still, it's nice that all the code works in my head.

Speaking of working, I had a hell of a time getting Ubuntu Linux working with the nVidia geForce4 video buried in this eMachines machine. Ubuntu guys: major points off that your installer on the 7.04 CD assumes (wrongly) that it will always have at least 1024x768 video available during the setup routine. Thanks to nonworking nVidia graphics drivers, the system defaulted to 800x600 and all the "OK" buttons during the installer were down underneath the bottom edge of the display... couldn't even scroll to them!

Sometimes, pressing ENTER blindly gets you the results you want.

Anyway, if you have an nVidia-equipped machine on which you'd like to run Ubuntu, be sure you get hold of a tool called Envy, which can download and install the correct nVidia and ATI drivers for your rig most of the time.

It worked... I am speaking to you from my XP machine, dual-booting to Ubuntu 7.04 Desktop (the "Feisty Fawn" release). Firefox 2.0.0.3, Thunderbird 1.5.10, all my usual favorite things.

By the way, Suzanne's laptop was an unexpectedly capable videocam and production studio this afternoon:

Suzanne and I had some pretty good catfish and dirty rice tonight. I've been doing most of the cooking since she moved down here, as well as things like vacuuming and cleaning-of-the-bathroom, which doubtless will amuse those of you who figured I'd make "the woman" do all that stuff. Nope. I do those things, as well as yard stuff, car stuff, and computer and network stuff. She does rabbit stuff, some shopping stuff, and job-hunting stuff. Everyone has a mission.

Right now there are four or five cats lounging on the couch next to me. I'm watching the Speed Channel and waiting for some code to finish running on the system I've been working on. I really should come up with a subset of the data to do testing against... every damn time I do anything it runs for an hour to swallow it.

It could be worse... I could be using the computer in my office, which is a complete POS. I already complained about that thing... it's a Dell Pentium 4 with about a 1Ghz processor in it. The only reason it has any sort of decent storage in it is because I put my own 100Gb drive in it. A gift to the people of the United States, basically. Anything serious I want to do, I do at home. Things here generally work, though last night I had a shit-fit dealing with a BIOS update on the server. I could not get the thing to boot off a floppy, so I put another floppy drive in it, then another. And another. And another. I finally figured out that the drive(s) worked great, the cable was fucked up. I put another cable in, and life was good.

I waste more time on two dollar parts than anyone you know.