So, what happened the last days?
I resorted to trying to install gcc on the SINIX box from a binary package. Looks promising, at least pkgadd doesn't barf anymore after I upgraded cpio, but the disks are partitioned for both/ usr and /opt with 150 MB each. How great.
Switched ISPs to a flat rate one, was annoyed at pppd failing to authenticate with no sensible error message whatsoever.

Lots of band rehearsals, seems our situation will change somewhat in the next time.

Hung out all night in what happened to become my one of my favorite chat systems (don't ask...), got into a bitter argument with one of the ops who apparently thinks it is not only his right to misuse his privileges to harass other users but his duty. Too little sleep. Now I'm awfully grumpy and have all kinds of sentiments I'd rather not have. I guess its time for another attempt at cutting down sensless 'net usage and getting more sleep instead.

Spent the last days trying to get gcc compiled on Sinix 5.41. So far, gcc 2.95 looks more promising than gcc 2.7.2, after all, gcc 2.95 makes to the second compilation stage, before bailing out, while 2.7.2 doesn't even get there. Will have to look at what it is missing this evening.

So, now that computer fair is over and I'm back at university. Summary:

• All days: Lots of people who think Linux is another Windows app or think although they are too clueless even for their Windows boxes it will magically get better when they install Linux.
• Friday: Played with the DECstation Linux together with ths.
• Saturday: Felt adventurous and installed konqueror on my until then all-GNOME system and had the package dependencies mess up my XFree installation while doing so. Scrambled for recovery. Still, konqueror is a pretty nice app, esp. as a web browser. Installed the Nautilus packages too, but it isn't happy with my system libraries at all. Had some fun talk with a collector of old computers as well.
• Sunday: Got annoyed with the AUGE people who provided the Internet uplink (thanks for that!) but tought it was a good idea to force all users through a badly underpowered proxy server. Had a much nicer talk with some people from a new LUG in Aalen and with some people of the now defunct CLTG. Tried to crack root on the SGI Personal Iris at the CC86 booth via sash, but it didn't let me.
• Monday: The most relaxed day. More fun with the Personal Iris the CC86 people finally got cracked and networked using my AUI-TP transceiver. Then ths arrived and we had a look at his first stab at convincing the purple Indigo2 IP28 PROM to do something usable for Linux/MIPS. It is a bad hack, but it does print an exclamation mark on screen. :-)
  Then, chaos and excitement about the packing and loading after the fair. The fair management made a fuss about which cars were allowed to drive into the exhibition hall and thus we had to pack all 8 machines into one car. Well, it worked out, I got home, where my brother forced me to set up my box before I even could eat something for dinner, and the printer didn't work at first but I managed to get all that done before going out the see Placebo in concert. The sound wasn't that good, but they still played a nice show.

All in all, there were way to many clueless people among the visitors. It had some fun moments, but I don't think I'll be staffing the booth again next year.

The car repair in fact made it in time and thus I was able to bring all my equiment to that electronics fair.

To my surprise, when I arrived at the exhibition hall, no one was there, some of the others had already dumped their machines on the table but noone was around. But after a few moments of standing around puzzled, Ernst arrived, and shortly later Igor and a friend of his, and we got busy removing the protective plastic wrap from the floor carpet. (note: it is not a good idea to have tables standing around and computers chained to that tables when you still need to clear the floor.) and got hooked up for power and network from the MausNet people who have the booth on the back side of ours. And I even managed to convince my serial terminal to talk to the DECstation (turns out it wanted a null-modem cable. Huh?)
Then went to work, so I don't have to go there tomorrow. Just to find my boss telling me that I'm now responsible for about twenty more machines. Ugh.

Today I got notice from the police that they have given up searching for the sucker who broke into my car and stole my oboe some four weeks ago. I was not surprised.
I didn't even bother reporting to the police that some even more stupid asshole thought it was a funny idea breaking into my empty car again last week and ruined the door locks on both sides that way. Bah. So now the car is in repair and while they are at it, they'll do winter inspection, too.
I hope I'll get it back on thursday, when I need it to transport my stuff to the booth of the local LUG at the annual computer and electronics fair. I think I'll be bringing a Personal DECstation 5000/50 I borrowed to play with MIPS-Linux on it. I first tried the RedHat-based declinux-root but then switched to Jan-Benedict Glaw's Debian mipsel-base tarball, which works quite nice. So I now just need to build a compiler for the machine before I can actually do somewhat useful things on it.