Older blog entries for apeiro (starting at number 16)

Wow, busy busy busy lately. Arch Linux is growing at manageable pace and I'm happy to report that we'll be moving all desktop computers over to linux at my place of work. I'm quite excited about this -- we'll be looking into a thin-client setup first, though we'll have to buy some pretty hefty application servers if we go that route.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

I released Arch Linux 0.4 today. Just in time for me to vanish from the net for a week or so to visit my family for the holidays. :)

Work

We're hiring 4 new people immediately, then another 2 or 3 more in a couple months as our new division starts growing. Today is full of meetings and interviews, with a break midday to go check out the new LOTR movie. My company rocks.

School

Don't even ask -- oh, how I loathe it. The two hardest exams are tomorrow and Friday. Then I get two weeks respite and and it all begins again. *sigh* I just want to be coding.

Yes, I'm still alive, but barely.

I got a 0.4beta iso out today, so we should have 0.4 released in a week or two, just in time for me to finish my finals and head home for Christmas.

I saw a little review of Arch Linux on OSNews today.

I released all the gcc3-built packages today, after 3 weeks of testing. They all build except for a few kde ones. 0.4 will be in a month or so, depending on when the installer fixes are done.

I released pacman 2.1 today. It has new functionality to allows users to access multiple package repositories at the same time, including their own custom ones. This also allows us to open up the new 'unofficial' package repository which will eventually contain a ton of unsupported packages. This will give Archers a lot more packages to choose from without bloating Arch's official package set. Go team!

Real Life

Except for work, no news to report here. We're really busy with at work with the acquisition of a new network, so I'm working heavy overtime to move services/servers/networks around while trying to release our revamped flagship product after 8 months of development. And when this is all done I have to go back to school. :(

I learn so much more in real life than I do there.

Whew... finally got the damn thing released. 0.3 (Firefly) is out doing its thing, and hopefully everything is a little better than it was in 0.2. The great thing about a young version like 0.3 is that you're allowed (nay, expected) to have some screw-ups. That makes my job a little less stressful.

Released pacman 2.0 today -- it will be on the mirrors tonight. I had to leave some things out until 2.1 so I can move on and start preparing for the Arch 0.3 release. I've been thru the hoops a few times now, so the release process is getting smoother and more defined.

I rebuilt the bootdisk set with 3 disks instead of two: one for kernel, one for modules, and one for the root filesystem. Works nicely and (theoretically) supports ide, scsi and pcmcia. The install program is also smoother.

Look ma! We're getting closer!

Got back from the houseboat trip last night, went to bed at 6pm and woke up this morning at 8:00. The floor is still moving.

Microsoft Fun

A few good Palladium/TCPA links floating around, if you're interested in where Microsoft and friends are heading:
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20020627.html
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rja14/tcpa-faq.html

Assuming these guys know what they're talking about, this does not bode well for linux.

I leave for a houseboat vacation tomorrow with all my coworkers. There will be copious amounts of beer, and my boss has forbidden me to bring the laptop to code on Arch. I didn't put up much of a fight. It's 30 degrees Celsius outside - coding isn't much of an option when you're on a houseboat in that heat.

Work

We finished rebuilding the new database server this morning. Now we're importing the 7gb database and hoping that MySQL's slave replication has been working.

Arch Linux

Made an ABS update/sync script last night and fixed a couple small pacman2 bugs. That's two more things off the TODO list. Hopefully I can get 0.3 out in the next few weeks before things start getting REALLY busy.

School

*sigh* Registered for courses last night. I've been taking core courses for awhile now, so they want me to pick up some electives. I have no idea what to take. I guess I could take some easy intro courses so that I have more time in the Fall.

I'm a little worried about finding time for everything when school starts. Arch Linux, full-time school, part/full-time work, guitar, and then general fun. The numbers don't add up.

[root@homer /etc]# uptime
  2:02pm  up 475 days, 16:16,  2 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
[root@homer /etc]# shutdown -h now

*sniff* The doctors say they have to take ol' Homey down to repair his RAID array. I don't know if he'll ever be the same.