Linux Resolution

True to form, as soon as I finally publicly announced my frustration with Linux, a solution appeared. Not directly as a result of my announcement, but from an entirely different quarter altogether. Once again, proving that those who ask do receive in a Providential way tangled inseparably with the biochemical processes of the brain, etc.

So, how did this happen? Well, when stuck on any problem, it is wise to go back to the root, the last understandable portion and retry. So, I began thinking, about my approach. First, my problem was with the OS, i.e. Ubuntu or Mint. But that was built on Linux, and I was having trouble with the Linux commands...which are based in the Unix programming language. So, I searched for Unix guides and basic Linux guides apart from distributions, OS's, etc. Boom! There was exactly what I needed. The basic how-tos and instructions in the programming language and in how Linux works, etc. I still haven't figured out my problem with the wireless adapter, but I am not spinning helplessly among the jargon.

So armed with this new approach, I looked for more info on the way the OS's are built and what they support. Of course, they aren't built to support the adapter I have...now they tell me, right! But it can be patched to work if you understand the programming language properly. So it isn't a problem with the OS or the language at all. They both do what they were designed to do. It was a problem with my approach. Asking it to work in a way it wasn't designed to.

So that led me to take a fresh look at the OS itself. Would it connect to the internet through cable. No issue, right on. Would it download packages well, no problem. Was it easy to navigate and understand intuitively, yup. Today, I tried out the stuff Mint promised over Ubuntu. DVD's played right out of the box. CD's too. Software is great. The graphics and publishing stuff is similar to what I pay big bucks for at work.

Is it the answer to all the problems? no. Is it a valid option for getting out from under the thumb of microsoft and apple? I'm leaning strongly that way. Will I chuck out this Vista machine? No, of course not. But I might not buy another one. If Linux can make a computer last 10 more years (who even gets 10 years on a windows or mac), it will be worth the effort to reeducate myself.

And the moral? When stuck, step away, ask for help, and let it come. And of course don't forget that changing one's perspective, opinion, mind, etc. is a valid solution.

My latest Odyssey

I have an old laptop. It's too old and slow to run Windows anymore. Even web stuff is too slow. So, I got the idea a year or so ago to try out Linux. I'd heard rumors and occasional shouts from the tech world that this was a great option to get out from under Windows. Actually, my first encounter with it seriously was in a program to provide computers for education to children in the developing world. There is a rugged laptop constructed that uses little power, can be charged from a solar panel, and comes with a Linux based operating system designed just for the purpose. They give them away free.

So, I started looking into it and found that there are so many distributions. The world of Linux is complex. I quickly hit on Ubuntu and that seemed like a good option for a pretty much non-techie. I mean, I'm super proficient with standard software and Windows, but only know enough about the real workings of a computer to be dangerous. And I don't particularly enjoy working on that kind of thing. But my DIY ethic runs deep and a chance to make this thing work without corporate invasion was too tempting.

So I made the leap. There was nothing to lose, the thing was pretty much a paperweight with Windows anyway. Ubuntu worked great for the most part. That was back in the 6 or 7 distro. I loved the applications and the compatibility, and my laptop had a new lease on life.

Then came the problems. I only had one internet connection in the house. So, I couldn't update or download packages for Ubuntu. I found a little thing called Keryx that let you download stuff on Windows and flash stick it over to Ubuntu. But it was real tempermental and required a good knowledge of Terminal and working in code. So I didn't really worry about it. I figured when I got a home network, I'd sort it out.

Then I wanted to connect the laptop to my new Digital TV so I could watch downloads, etc on the big screen. And that was where it all came apart. Where Windows was a simple, plug it in and make it work, Ubuntu was weeks of sorting through complicated forums of semi-repetitious threads that usually went something like this:
"I'm new and I need help with my dual monitors"
"Tell us more"
"I have a Quank 340 with a Whosie processor on a 32 bit tortrat."
"Oh, that's easy! Go to Terminal and type lkkhjiusdbnfkwje
that should produce a grlthjlwjkehnkmsdf. Then you write:
asdf\
trjfnsdf
bjke4898f
dfjerktj
fdlkjsdftk
fjtjtuis
gfnjjr
jkshrtk
jkllkejrtkhuwejkrhkshdfbhejrgyu47477888dftghjv hhyfdg00-0---- nsdtkjhwerhwjyerjkbs
werthjwejkfrhskdjhfkjhwerkuthsdvnn dfg
and that should do it."
"Great that worked out perfectly, thank you so much techie wizards!"

And I had no idea what was said. I know it's some sort of status symbol to know all the tech speak, and I get it, you were picked on as kids, so now you've got the upper hand. But if you actually want people to be able to learn the system, and to expand the use of Linux, you have to have somewhere, anywhere, that SPEAKS BLOODY ENGLISH!

Occasionally I'd find a frustrated post to that affect too, presumably before the person went out and bought a new Windows computer.

But I wasn't going to give up yet. That's just the guards at the entrance to the valley of discovery trying to scare me away. I ran into it in the bike world too. So I dug and scrounged and tried for weeks to make it work. I even consulted friends who I thought might know more, but many techie friends weren't into Linux for the same reasons I'm discussing.

In the end, I was given a windows computer by a friend which I easily set up on the TV and networked to the internet, then built a new housing out of oak, so it matches the furniture (but that's another story) and the laptop was given to my young son to play with, since it worked for his purposes and he was just beginning to learn how computers work.

All was well until I happened to pop into a discount computer store last week and see that refurbished usb wireless adapters were SUPER cheap. A whole shelf full under $10 each. I talked to the sales guy and walked out with one. Of course, I couldn't get it to work with Ubuntu. I tried for a good long time. More forums, etc. So I thought I'd just throw Windows back on there and maybe it'd work as a web terminal for my son who had discovered the internet since the first Linux episode.

That install went well except that the wireless adapter would only work with XP Service Pack 2 or higher. And I couldn't download that because I couldn't get the thing on the internet without the adapter! So I had the idea that network admin people usually have all kinds of stuff like that on flash drives. So I tried to find that download and found several. After a lengthy wait period, I tried them to discover that the file was corrupt. I did this three times.

So on the second full day into this, I tried to wire the laptop through the wireless router via an extra jack. That worked, and I got SP2 on it. The Adapter drivers went on no problem, and the thing was on the internet. But then I needed virus software and went for AVG, which is good. But on that laptop, it made things slower. So then I went for spyware and that bogged it down to the point that I couldn't open anything more than Google and couldn't even have two applications running at once. Windows just wasn't going to work.

So, I downloaded the newest version of Ubuntu, 10.4. The ads promised that it cured all, well most, of the ills everyone knew about Ubuntu. Maybe it did. But those weren't the ills I was having, so back to the forums I went. Now on full day 4, I wired it to the router and boom, it went right on. But the stupid thing has known issues with this particular usb adapter driver. I tried Windows drivers using special cross over aps, I tried using Terminal and couldn't figure out all the techie jargon enough to even know what I was doing. Oh things were happening, but I had no idea what, and when they were done, still no wireless.

I even tried to go back to basics and spent several hours reading primers on Linux, which were only slightly better than the forums. Instead of lines of indecipherable code, I got things like,
"Linux is based on Unix. It was developed as a freeb and gzorndens really seem to fit flabberwidgets much better so after many years the community developed housits to sit on the wobnockers and then someone came up with a windows style GUI." Then it went into more lines of code that actually defined the commands, but DIDN'T define the terms in the DEFINITIONS. So I guess that would all make sense if I had a degree in computer science...in which case I probably wouldn't need the stupid primer anyway! Good God! If I talked that way to people about my field, they'd run me out on a rail! Are there no Interpreters in the IT world who can bring a concept to another audience?! It's either, "this is called a mouse...can you say mouse?" or indecipherable gibberish.

So in desperation, I went back to the all-seeing oracle otherwise known as Google and started asking those kind of questions. (It really is all there, you just have to know how to ask for it.) Pretty quick I hit up on a whole group of people who have said the same things. People who happen to be Techies. I even found some who are Linux proponents. And that brings us to today, where I sit downloading Mint, which promises to be Ubuntu (which is supposed to be Linux for the rest of us) that actually IS for the rest of us: clean forums, all drivers out of the box, etc. It's Irish, and I'm hopeful that the Irish good folk common sense and poignant cut-the-crap attitude will make this what I need. C'mon Ireland, a distant son needs your help!

I'll let you know how it goes.

Pain, Death, Rebirth

I don't have much of an idea what pain is. I mean real physical pain. I like to think I do, but I don't think many of us in the US even know what it is. I'm sure there are some. I know at least one person who does. But most of us are soft and whiny. I know I am. I am bothered by relatively minimal complaints. I am coming to believe that true strength, true heartiness, is not the absence of pain, but the ability to focus through it, to press on in spite of it.

This splices in nicely with other things I've been thinking. I am always put off by the focus on help in modern Christianity. Certainly rest for the weary and help are prominent features in the Bible. But this does not come at the exclusion of pain or suffering. When we focus too much on the help and the good, it sounds hollow.

I've recently heard a series of testimonials...the standard 'how has life changed for you now that you follow Christ' thing. Most are stupid, vapid comments like, "things are just good, and, you know, like stuff is better..." Most of these people weren't living in horrible circumstances, so their life hasn't changed much. That is not to say they haven't undergone a metanoia of their own, but what are we advertising here? This isn't some motivational seminar. We accept Christ because 1. we come to believe his claims are true and/or 2. we have no other alternative left before us. I don't believe there are any other reasons, but I invite anyone to point out other valid ones.

So, working from this perspective, the help is a nice feature, but not at all a requirement. Accepting a fact as a fact isn't an option. Whether you believe you will fall from a cliff or not, you will nonetheless fall. And whether a blind person believes the sky to be blue does not change the fact that those who see call the sky blue. It is true. This is the Gospel: Not so much, what can Jesus do for you, but that the God, the origin of all things has entered our time line to restore our rebellious ruined and doomed race back to what it was intended to be, along with the world we drug down with us. The only question, the only point of faith, is if we're right. And this is only a question because God has yet to submit to our will. He operates as He sees fit, and what else would we expect from a God who is actually God. I would certainly doubt a God who felt a need to convince me of anything.

And if we come by the second path, regardless of what we may believe to be true, we can come to such a broken helpless place, a place so aware of our own depravity and ruin that we will call out in sheer desperate hope. These, our God has promised never to ignore, so though they may not logically assent to everything, they will cling out of sheer desperate hope and find that hope not to be forsaken.

I personally have come by this path and in time found the first as well. So whether anyone else likes it, believes it, or accepts it. I am convinced. More than convinced. I have actually died. In some extratemporal spiritual way, I know the point of my own death and I know the meaning of being hidden in Christ, buried and resurrected with Him. It changes perspective on everything.

It wasn't until the point of my own death in a very real and final way that I truly understood that God existed and how. It was in that moment of final release of myself that I found I was not in a void, but held tightly by loving arms. That space was far from empty, but crammed full of Him. Truly not crammed full, but our universe is within Him, contained. He is inescapable.

I know that doesn't make much sense on the surface, but it is true. And because of it, I can't approach belief, evangelism, or whatever other Christian trappings, in the way many do. For some reason unknown to me, when I died, I was placed exactly back in the very moment of my previous timeline. I know the moment well. I felt my world blow away and reform. My physical heart still beats, my body still functions, but the real me, the soul, the part that makes me alive, had died and been reborn. I didn't want to come back. I wanted to be dead. But that is no longer for me to decide. Not I but Christ in me, lives and acts. Of course the ghosts, the shadows of my old nature still haunt the system. Some bugs are deep in the code of my being. But I don't want to fix them, I want to kill them with the rest of my old self.

So please don't come to me with hollow ideas of daisies and roses Jesus. I don't want to be fixed. I want to be dead! And if anything good remains it isn't me, its Christ. Accepting Him was irrevocable because I died to do it. And I am coming to understand that pain, that conflict, that suffering, are all parts of the dead man. I was sent back here to accomplish His purposes and I can truly say with Paul that neither physical death nor life matter any more to me because to live is Christ and to die is gain.

Single Speed

I love bicycles. They are very liberating things. The most mechanically efficient form of land transportation, they are marvels of ingenuity. Not like the open-ended wonders that require subscriptions to keep running or constant drains on resources to use. They are complete units that any person can use. They are quiet, clean, noninvasive. There are no traffic jams on a bike. And in our increasingly sedentary lives, they are a bright spot of physical activity and serotonin release.

I am fortunate enough to be able to ride my bike to work. This is partly good planning on my part, and partly Providence. So, I ride for a useful purpose. When I started, it quickly became clear that modern bikes are over-engineered. They have lots of gadgety conveniences that get in the way and do not actually help the bike function. Did you know that in a 21 speed bike, several of those "speeds" actually repeat when you look at hte gear ratios? And others are so outside of the range of normal human riding that even athletes rarely use them. Most people only use 3 to 5 of the speeds.

So, big deal, right? It's just extra junk that we may use when we finally decide to bike up Mount Everest. But in my daily commute I began to see the downside. This extra engineering takes constant maintenance, and eventually the bike stops functioning well, and Murphy's law holds very true...it will stop functioning at the worst possible moment. Here's an example. I have to cross a big road with cars whizzing by way too fast. When I get an opportunity, I take it, pedalling hard to get across quickly. But the sudden torque causes the derailleur to bounce and the chain to skip and all of a sudden, I'm in the middle of traffic spinning my feet wildly with no traction and trying not to get run over.

OK, so I could get better parts that wouldn't do this...If I wanted to spend several hundred dollars on them...which wouldn't be worth it on the average bike, so I might as well buy a better bike, which in the end costs as much as a cheap car! Who can afford this? Even if I could I wouldn't pay it. It's a matter of DIY Punk solidarity with the oppressed masses who just need reliable transport. Me and Snake and Chin Lau and Rajeem and Paulo represent the literal billions worldwide who aren't part of this rich elitist bike club.

Fortunately, there is an answer. Single Speed! More than a type of bike, it's a lifestyle choice, a statement, a reaction to the evils of bigger, better consumer culture. And it's embraced by people from competitive athletes to street punks all over.

So, I was hooked. But I'm cautious. I started riding single speed by simply not shifting for a year or so. I slowly learned more about how bikes work. I discovered that I have a pretty decent bike for making the switch and I learned what gear ratio worked best for me. Then, about 3 months ago, I decided to make the switch. Of course this is not without it's corporate invasion and I could easily buy rather pricey conversion kits, or loose parts. But I'd prefer to do it street style!

So I tried to scavenge up some parts through Freecycle. I got lots of bikes, but all seemed broken in the same ways (can anyone say design flaw?) or didn't have what I needed. So I just removed the mech and ran a short chain on my existing gears. This worked great until I hit a rough patch of gravel and the chain bounced high enough to catch the pick ups on the gear above it. Being just long enough to fit the cog I had chosen, it bound tight, freezing my hub.

To make a long story short, I ended up having to buy a new wheel after learning just how thoroughly entrenched the man actually is in the surprisingly political bike world. I was flat refused service, as soon as they caught drift of my intentions, by certain bike shops that I now know are not in the single speed camp. I'm not kidding.

So then it was a matter of finding the other parts. After lengthy internet searches, refusals by bike shops even to advise me, and attempts to grossly overcharge, I ordered what I needed from some websites. All the while still collecting bikes form Freecycle, hoping to hit up on good parts.

This all came to a head this week after 4 hours trying to make the dang thing work with the new parts and still getting chain problems. I spent a sleepless night dreaming about bike gears and the next day, finally hit on the vocabulary to describe my problem. I then quickly found a solution on the internet and now have a beautiful DIY Punk single speed bike that still cost far less than buying an overpriced attempt to suck in the faddies and posers.

And as bonus, several kids have gotten new bikes out of it from me. The guy who drives around scavenging metal to scrap from people's trash has gotten a boost in his income from my curb. The neighborhood knows I can fix 'em for free and takes advantage of it. And I even ended up with a back-up bike and parts in case another unforeseen problem crops up with my design!

So, this is not simply a funny story of reverse engineering, nor a case of taking a beating for ideals, though it is both of those things. Deeper than that, this is an illustration of the simplicity on the far side of complexity. A journey through the valley of discovery with all its trials wherein the truth-seeker finally arrives at the goal only after persevering in the path, battered, but triumphant. This is real human experience, bro!