Once I was able to get Fedora Core 1 installed and working – and past
the issues that I had with the Dell GXa systems that I’m using – I ran
into the next issue … Up2Date not seeming to work …

I had seen this on previous Fedora Core 1 installations, however had
never looked around the see what the issue might be. I dug in
this time and found the following great article on Fedora Core 1 Up2Date problems.
It seems that the obvious problem was that the Redhat servers were
getting swamped with update requests and downloads. Changing the
configuration for ‘yum’ so that it would use one of the many ‘mirror
servers’ out there fixed the problem in a second.

I’m now experimenting with both Fedora Core 1 and Core 2. I know
that there are other distros out there, but for now I want to track
both Fedora and SuSE … I’m also going to continue my experimentation
with Darwin … I think it’s a dark horse that it going to make some
progress … just not sure how much yet.

After all of the problems installing SuSE Linux on my Dell Optiplex GXa
machines (some old boxes that I’m using for wireless gateways) I
figured that I’d jump to Fedora. Fedora Core 1 installed just
fine … and took almost no time … except …

Once I rebooted I was unable to get the integrated 3Com Ethernet
adapter to work. I figured that I would jump to Fedora Core 2 and
see how that worked … just for the fun of it. No good … the
3Com driver still wouldn’t work.

I had to do some real digging to finally find the answer … this bug report at Redhat detailed the problem … Kudzu!  Seems that Kudzu might just leave the board in a weird state …

I followed the instructions as was written … disable Kudzu on boot … and
everything works fine. It was interesting to see this resolved as
of this month! Well … now I’m onward and upward …

I am out.

After just slightly more than a year, I am no longer working at The SCO Group.  It has been quite an experience.

Several years ago, I began to work with a small start-up company –
iBase Systems – that had one of the best engineering teams that I have
ever worked with.  They were extremely capable, motivated, and
practiced XP and Agile methodologies for development.  It was a
blast.  I joined them as a consultant, and worked with them
through some initial rounds of funding, and then as we worked to evolve
the company from a ‘tools’ company to a product company.

In early 2003 – pre-SCO lawsuits – we began discussions with SCO about
partnering and licensing.  These talks expanded into acquisition,
and in June of 2003 we were acquired by The SCO Group … just as the
first lawsuit was announced.  I have to admit that I was a little
unsure of the step we had just taken, however I did know that I was
going to get a good education and experience of UNIX and Linux.  I
did.

Over the last year I was able to gain incredible insight and knowledge
about the history and evolution of UNIX, and the birth and origins of
Linux.  No … I am not ‘anti-Linux.’  No … I do not agree
with the media hyped versions of things … I was able to develop a
more objective perspective.  I have my own opinions about the
whole situation … and nothing is ever black and white.

Anyhow … after a year working at SCO on next generation products,
UNIX, and various other assorted things … it became apparent that I
was open to moving on to other things.  I love to create and
communicate new and leading edge technologies.  I am not one for
sitting around to wait out the outcomes of lawsuits.

As of June 11th, 2004 I am no longer working at The SCO Group. 
I’ll enjoy watching as things related to the lawsuit unfold.

I’m off to get back to work, and to re-engage in the industry!

Last night I was experimenting with the installation of various
versions of SuSE Linux. I had received two copies of SuSE 9.0 at Novell’s Brainshare several months back, and also downloaded the .iso images of SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8.0 from the Novell SuSE download site.

During one of the sessions at Brainshare the speaker was giving out
‘prizes’ for answering various questions, and so I picked up both SuSE
9.0 ‘personal’ and SuSE 9.0 ‘professional’ … along with several other
little trinkets for the kids.

I have to admit that I was shocked when I could not get three different
versions of SuSE to install on my Dell Optiplex GXa server!

I tried to install SLES 8.0 … after the first CD it told me to insert
the next CD … but had locked the CD drive! No matter what I did
I could not get the CD to eject.

I tried the SuSE 9.0 versions and found that ‘personal’ didn’t include any of the packages that I required.

I tried SuSE 9.0 ‘pro’ and it also died during the first CD with errors installing a package.

I tried RedHat and Fedora … both worked flawlessly.

I installed Fedora … what one Novell friend called a “hobbyist”
operating system … due to the fact that it worked! I want to
know why SuSE wouldn’t install … it really surprised me!

I know that I have been *really* quiet on my blog lately.  I have
been very busy on a number of fronts, and I also have been counting
down the days for this Friday the 11th.  There are a number of
reasons for this … and I’m sure that I’ll be bloggging on Monday the
14th to share some of the things that are going on in my life …

It’s all good … I am looking forward to taking the month of June to
complete a number of things, and I am really looking forward to our camping trip to Yellowstone for the 4th of July.  After that I’ll be ready to get going again on some new projects.

There is a lot going on out in the world, and in the computer industry … and I am about to re-engage!

On my drive from my house to Utah Valley, I drive through Provo Canyon.  Before getting to the canyon, I drive around Deer Creek Reservoir
(Wow … the picture on this page is pretty much what I see out the
back windows of my house!) and for the last several weeks there have
been the most amazing colors painted across the desert landscape.

There have been bright patches of red, then purple, and now yellow and
white as flowers are blooming and displaying their incredible
colors.  What is amazing is the patterns that are created by
‘natural genetic engineering’ … the interaction of the weather, soil,
wildlife, and numerous other causes that generate beautiful patterns
spread across the hill sides.

This has been a very interesting spring this year as the weather has
been wet, and we even had some late snow.  I think that this is
what is also effecting the blooming of the various flowers.  It’s
sometimes amazing to stop and really look at what nature has been
creating for millions of years … some of it is hard to compare to
what we create as humans.

For a number of years, I have heard friends talking about going out to the Dugway Geode Beds
to dig for geodes.  We finally went on Monday, and it was
fun.  We left around 1:00pm and were there within two hours. 
It’s about 100 miles west of Provo out in the desert.  There is a
stretch of dirt road – the old Pony Express Route – that is 50.1 miles
of beautiful desert driving.  When you get to the right location,
you can see the southern tip of the Great Salt Flats.

I’m going to post a more official page with photos, GPS coordinates,
etc. to assist others with what I found.  The biggest thing that I
learned is that finding the Dugway Geode Beds is not that hard. 
Digging for the geodes is the hard work, and where to dig is the
key.  Finding geodes is based on your ability to find the ‘layer
of pink clay’ that covers the geodes.  We found a spot where
others had been digging, and I started from there.  Once I hit the
clay – two+ feet down – I started to find geodes.  I didn’t know
that I was supposed to keep digging through this clay … next time I
know better!

I know that summer is here because I am so busy on doing summer-related things.

Back around Easter I started on planning the front-yard landscaping,
and for irrigation and sprinklers to be installed in the back yard.

While planning the back yard, I remembered that we hadn’t completed the deck railing and stairs on the back deck,
so I had my friend Miguel come over and we completed that.  I
designed the railing based on what I remember of the house I grew up in
… it turned out nice.

As part of the planning for the front-yard, I wanted to get a new front
porch built.  I did a quick design, and again had my friend Miguel
come over and we got it done in less than a week.  It’s nice to
have that completed … we now have a nice front porch to replace the old steps that were there.

I also have been wanting to get my motorcycle running.  I have a
BMW R100GS that I bought years ago and it’s a blast to ride.  I
love to take cruises up into the mountains or out into the
desert.  We dropped it for service a week or so ago since it was
sitting in my barn for the last 8 years!  Time flies!  I’m
going to see if I can pick it up tonight … I figure that besides the
fun, I can save a lot of money on gas compared to driving my truck.

We also moved forward on the irrigation system last week.  Ed
McQuirk has done that work for me in the past, and I’m using him again
… he cranks on it.  So he has been working on the back yard (at
least a half-acre) for the last week, and expects to complete that this
week.  It’ll allow us to have a completely watered back yard
(field?) and a nice garden area.  We stubbed out the water near
the front-yard to allow for the drip system to be installed when we
complete the front landscaping.

As the irrigation gets completed, I’m going to move on to the
front-yard landscaping, and the garden … it will be fun to have a
garden this year … I haven’t had a nice one for a long time.

Summer is here!

A friend of mine sent me the link to this article on a ‘plan for kamikaze pigeons’
to be used to deliver biological weapons.  This is great stuff …
amazing what creative people we have working around the world!

The best quote that I saw in the article – that prompted me to blog this – was:

“A thousand pigeons each with a two-ounce explosive capsule landed at intervals
on a specific target might be a seriously inconvenient surprise.”

Inconvenient … yeah … it might be …

Last night when I got home, I turned on the TV to take a quick look at
the news.  I have a Dish Network satellite system, and when I
turned it on I was surprised to see a whole new set of channels. 
It appears that Dish has now added the full range of radio channels
from Sirius – the new competitor to XM Radio.

I have often thought about exploring these products, however I just
never got past the part of  paying for radio.  Now that I
have these on my TV I have to admit that I am impressed by the
content.  I don’t watch a lot of TV, however I do enjoy the music
that is provided … and now there is even more to choose from.

I’m hoping that Dish is going to keep these on for their customers, and
if I get to where I really like them on TV … I might consider buying
a subscription for my car.  My guess is that this is their
marketing plan …