I like to think I speak fluent Geek. But man... for the first time, I'm completely lost. Thankfully, you end with TMBG... now that I understand.

I bow to your mad l33t D36i@n skillz! And welcome back!

Now that post was worth the wait. Pure geek. Plus it reminds me of my debian install experience. I like the debian sarge installer - though I perfer FreeBSD for other tasks... [Is Wil BSD freindly?]

Now how about a "best links out of the comments from Wil's MacWorld" post?

-D

wow, I've totally been outgeeked. Glad to hear everything worked out, Wil.

Congrats on the Debian install, Wil! Any chance that your upcoming update will include the latest details on your iBook tribulation?

wow wil. you're... a geek. i mean, i always knew you were a geek but... you're really... a GEEK. congratulations. you have crossed the line of no return. :)
its my birthday on thursday!!! im going to be 21!!!! anybody who lives in the LA area should come to Borders and say happy birthday because i have to work on my 21st birthday. :(

OMG you are a total nerd! :) Rock on with your Debian-installing-bad-self! Saw you at Borders in SF, want to send you the Pirates of the Spanish Main wind rules like I promised. I will fire the email your way after this, and hopefully it makes it past any filters you might have. couple 'a pdf's.

Glad you had a good time. Can't wait to hear your account of the trip.

My goodness - long time, no comment.

Can I spin your propeller?

I just got a visual of you flying around like Calvin did in his fanatasies before he actually got the beanie he sent away for (and had his dreams horribly crushed).

Congrats on your success with the computers. I just smiled and nodded as I read it. I get the feeling my life would be more complete if I were more of a nerd. But then, I'd probably be broke.

Hmm, I always shyed away from Debian thinking it would be too hard to install, I've been using Gentoo for the past few years. I've been wanting to try out a few new distro's though, it's all very well having it up and running and everything but man, that's dull. I've heard Ubuntu is good so I may test that out too.

The one thing I like about Gentoo is that I get a real warm feeling in my heart watching my kernel compile. The linux bit is easy to be honest, anyone can do it, the problem I often come across is knowing the right thing to install to get the rest of your bits and peices working, it can be a task and a half.

For example, I need to figure out how to get my wireless LAN card working in Gentoo, which I'm sure is easy, but I'm so lazy right now and so have been using Windows instead. Bad, bad me, I shame myself in front of the world of geeks.

Sob.

Oh, Wil, BTW, I forgot my favorite aside from you at Borders, when you did the Stewie Griffin "Oh yeah, I went there" with the 'internets'. You even did a bit of the head movement... hilarious.

Wil:
OK, I won't pretend that I understood in the slightest what you just wrote!

I'm just glad you got it running again!

Geek!

LOL

:)

Scott

Haha, good job though did you try to remove mouse support then reinitiate it... or try booting in safe mode and see what it says about mouse initiating. Personally I am a FreeBSD guy (other than work lousy win boxes)

Hey, I have the sheet music to DSotM. It's really not that bad a read! (OK, the "ooooooo, ooooohhh" stuff in "Great Gig in the Sky" doesn't translate that well, but...)

Hi Wil,
How do I put this?
I'm a middle aged guy (45), I try to keep up with the latest stuff, i'm building my own computers for my family (with a little help), but as I read your post I started to feel like I'm in the dark ages! But then...you mentioned Firefox! I know firefox! You bought me back from the brink! Thanks.
I'm looking forward to your trip report!
John

If you were running Sid previously (I see you're running Sarge now), then I think I had the same problem. There was an update of GPM that screwed with the mouse settings under X. I never use GPM, so (after hanging out on the debian irc channel and verifying that this wouldn't hurt me) I uninstalled GPM and everything was beer and skittles again.

Nice to know about the new installer. I got to debian via knoppix hd-install, which was (and still is) easier than any windows install I've done since 95.

I used to be a Slackware guy, but the package management in debian is just way way cool. For anybody who has a NIC-based internet connection, I'd strongly suggest burning a copy of the latest knoppix and giving it a spin -- it runs from the cd without installing to the HD, for those not already aware, so you can get an idea of what it comes with and how well it works. It doesn't have Firefox and Thunderbird yet, but it does have the Mozilla suite and Konqueror. For those of a Gnome persuasion, Gnoppix is supposed to be quite good also (never tried it).

Way to go Wil! Woot Woot! \m/. It's funny, I was actually able to follow along with you the whole time! We are such G33k$ LOL. Can't wait for your update on the MacWorld. Wondering, what did you think about the Mac Mini thats coming out?

Anyway, one question though? Do you ever do any shows in Canada at all? Would love to see a book reading or something up here in Toronto! I'll be front and center on that one!

Debian puts out.

Nice going Wil !
Some posters mentioned FreeBSD. That is one great OS. You realy should give that one a try. And if you are _realy_ into a trip, try OpenBSD. A OS for the practicle paranoid :)

Will, if you don't allready know about it, take a look at rsync. It is a great way to keep backups of your system. I have an hourly cron that backs up all of my user directories. It will only sync changes between the systems and thus is ideal for periodic backups.

I totally understand the high of getting through the Debian install. I was in Brazil over the summer with a bunch of Debian Developers and was somehow conned (I blame my husband, mainly) into helping test the installer.

It was just a test installer, so it didn't matter much in the long run, but! Still! SUCCESS! And instantaneous feedback of the installer!

Yes, I amuse easily.

The true measure of geekhood, Wil, is sending us an installation report about your sarge experience.

An audio version of 'Just a Geek' will be awesome. :D

Back in the day we used Linux to run my game company's mail server and Debian was the best distro IMO. Slackware was twitchy, and RedHat was just too worried about 'user-friendly' displays. Debian all the way.

Of course, I'm now a tool for Microsoft or perhaps always was since we were doing DirectX games.

Your editor Andrew can attest that I was always an Atari ST man at heart from back in our UT dorm days. I still fondly remember him checking e-mail and reading news on his crappy Commodore 128 in 1992. I wonder if there is a Linux distro that runs on an Atari 1040 ST?

It's awesome that Debian's so easy to install now. I had to do a reinstall recently when a hard drive died, and was very happy at how easy it was.

Debian rules.

Ah Debian - home of the brave, etc, etc.

You tried Ubuntu? Definitely worth a look, although the LiveCD is a bit shoddy.

I never quite understood this obsession about difficult installs. The old installer worked fine with just you sitting there hitting enter all the time. Afterwards, all you needed to do was compile your own kernel and modprobe until stuff worked...

Good to hear the new installer is working out for more people. I've been meaning to try it on my old laptop.

I look forward to reading your MacWorld report etc. What's your opinion on the miniMac?
I'm quite taken with it myself ;)

Good man! Welcome to upgrade hell - when you start feeling anxious because it's more than 12 hours since your last apt-get update[1] then you know you've been hooked.

Phil

[1] aptitude is for wimps, as I'm sure you've realised by now.

Sweet geekness! and Ana Ng! That rocks!

While I'm a big apt-get fan, do "apt-get --install synaptic", then from the menus Applications > System Tools > Synaptic Package Manager and you might never apt-get again.

I would agree that the Debian-based Ubuntu - http://ubuntulinux.com/ - is well worth a look. The live CD is a great way for Windows users to get a taste of the whole Linux and Gnome thing without having to install anything on their hard drive. And best of all, they'll even send you officially pressed CDs free of charge!

Wil,

Is there an MP3 anywhere online of you speaking at MacWorld? I'd love to hear it! or do you know if Apple plans on putting it online in video (or audio) format?

Brian
My podcast: http://shesaid-hesaid.com

I just wanna state: thanks so much for the detour to Borders! a) Because that bookstore is a personal favorite hangout of mine (free coffee refills!) and b) because some of us didn't score the cash/job/resources to get into Macworld. It was a pleasure to be able to see you in the flesh and fur and if'n you're back in SF on a Thursday evening, we usually have a D&D game running in the kitchen that you're welcome to drop in on!

Welcome to the Dark Side of Linux, Wil. Embrace Debian, and it will make you stronger than you ever thought imaginable. <laughter type="evil" />

wow you really are a Geek(I mean that in the most loving way too) and I didn't understand a single thing you said in this post,lol.
The only thing I got was the Oh. My. God. Becky. That was so easy remark, that made me laugh really hard :)

I am glad you are up and running again
and best of luck with that audition. *sends positive audition vibes your way

Wil,
Love the post. I live on the edge of geek and mommy,so didn't understand it all but can relate.
Couldn't install something the other night and by some miracle my hubby did it. He out-geeked me. That bastard.Snort,Snort. Anyways good luck with the audition.

Debian rocks, good choice.

Also, finish your /. questions pls.

My God, it's full of geek!

Okay, I know I'm a dinosaur and all, but not only was Wil's post in a language I didn't understand, but most of the preceding comments were in g(r)eek too! I look forward to the next installment--it's fun reading Wheaton in any language!

Im sorry that I missed you at Borders. Sick kid at home.

Sounds like you had a good trip. Good thing you had an audio book. I got real tired listing to the sheriff of Bakersfield guest hosting a talk show on my last drive on I-5.

What radio station plays TMBGs?

Hey Wil, Thanks again for an amazing performace at ACME this weekend. You guys killed! Now the big joke with Jeff and I is "...use it in a sentence". Keep up the awesome work, Baby Tiger! ;)

Yeah, I pretty much have absolutely no idea what you just said (do I have to turn in my geek card now?), but yay for TMBG! At least that I understood. I'm looking forward to your trip recap.

I think I can honestly say that I am a Geek. Not only was I riveted to this post but I understood it all.

You should e-mail the Debian installer team (debian-boot@lists.debian.org).

People are always happy when you thank them.

Congrats on the Debian install, Wil. I've been a FreeBSD guy running X and fvwm2 for about four years now. For my new computer which I got last week, I'm trying Ubuntu Linux (which is based on Debian), and damn, even though I don't know a thing about how to configure a Debian/Gnome system, it's turned out to be a pretty sweet system. Within 24 hours I was watching DVDs, and today I installed a DNS cache and reconfigured my DHCP client. Way to geek out!

*giggles*
that is a great post
& it is great to know that you are alive - I was begining to worry about you since you usually comment when you will be away.
Break a leg tomorrow morning - I really hope you get it

I sort of understand what was said (disclaimer: XP is my primary operating system ATM because I'm in school and all, but I'm planning on getting a 2nd hard drive and installing Linux on it).

Anyhoo - I remember reading an article on /. a while back about the new release of Debian, and they were saying that the install wasn't a royal pain in the maximus glutious than previous versions. Looks like they were right.

Wil, congrats on your Deb install! You sound like a good source distro geek, so I thought I take a sec to evangelize. ;) If you like Deb, you'd LOVE Gentoo. :) Check it out if you get a chance. :)

I'm glad to see more people saying that Debian is easier to install than ever.

Ubuntu is a Debian derivative and if you're not a total geek is a wonderful way to have a Debian system which gets regularly updated (6 monthly update cycle) and is well integrated.

I heartily recommend it :-)

I am so glad you are not dead. Ha! Anyway, just wanted to send you a quick Happy New Year! Where did 2004 go? Yikes. Bye for now.

I seem to post too much more than I can post here. I'm basically looking to start using non-microsoft software. I've not had any luck so far. I need help. I want to break away from windows 98se to linux/unix but the ISOs I can find are not much use to me.

.::Mike A::.

hey wil,

good to see ya back again. glad to hear the trip went well...can't wait to read the report! just as a side note, my sister gave me one of your wwdn T-shirts for my birthday! and i totally love it! i have been living in it! tee hee....50,000 monkeys at 50,000 typewriters definately can NOT be wrong!!!!!

take care wil,
love
rach

Congrats on the sporty Debian install! I haven't used the New Installer(TM), I guess I need to give it a try. My work machine has a bunch of stuff messed up, since I set up Xinerama, and took it down, and dorked around with some other things that mere mortals were not meant to tamper with.

Debian rules! \m/

You lost me on the first line.

Good luck on the audition.

Val

Wow, "Debian", "Sarge", ok "Linux" I've heard of. I'm so ashamed and bow to all of your computer sci geek superiority. I'm a poli sci geek, so this stuff is totally out of my depth. Can feel the absolutely positive vibe comin' out of your post tho' Wil, so congrats for the install going so well (head still hurts trying to figue it out.

Anyhoo, good luck on the audition, keepin my fingers crossed.

Pax;
John N. in upstate, NY

Oh my gosh Wil,

I cannot say that I have ANY idea about any of what you wrote, but I am working on it. :) Is everything all set with your computer now?

Anyway, I really enjoy reading your updates as it is a good way to keep on topp of what you are up to and how you are. Will you even grace your East Coast supporters with one of your talks? I want to get a copy of your book signed and hear you speak!

Ha, no way... bender? Okay that's really funny, so my friend are "renting" a box for hosting and we decided to name it Bender... it's also running Deb.

You lost me at hello...and got me back at Ana Ng. I love nerd rock but guess I just can't do all the other great nerd stuff like computers etc. Anyone else picked up Rhino Records release Left of the Dial? It has Ana Ng along with about a billion other classic 80's college radio tracks.

Just wanted to let you know that gmail4troops.com is no longer taking invitations. Not sure if anyone let you know, but you may want to pass that on.

-Brian

haha! Geek! You -- oh wait, I understood everything you said... I had some suggestions for fixing your mouse (are you sure it was plugged in?) I got the "Becky" joke... I... I... I..... ... NOOOOOO!!!!!!

Audition = Sweet

Getting 2.6.8 Running = Super Sweet

JAG Audiobook = Hella Sweet

Your glowing review of Debian is rather inspiring, actually. I'm using Mandrake 10.0 right now, and am having issues of varying annoyance levels. Think I'll give it a try.

Gee, Wil, you made my head spin. I am *so* not a computer geek.

But...TMBG I can understand. :)

Meh... bender... and here I was thinking I was unique naming a machine after a Futurama character - now you have one, and Dave Dash has one, soon everyone will have a shiny silver server named bender :(

FreeBSD bender.bsd-box.net 5.3-STABLE FreeBSD 5.3-STABLE #0: Sat Oct 23 14:25:34 EDT 2004 root@bender.bsd-box.net:/usr/src/sys/i386/compile/bender i386

I probably should have spraypainted it red instead of silver. Then I could have called it Zoidberg. Nobody would want to name anything after him....

I read this and all I could think was, "Oh my God, Wil, you are such a geek! Not that there's anything wrong with that ;-)

Looking forward to the "trip report."

First Off,Good luck with the audition!!! I've got my copy of Just A Geek on hold at the book store, can't wait. I'll go forward to the trip report.

Best. Post. Ever. Thank you.

Glad you had fun Wil. I've been on the edge of my seat waiting for the *big* update, but I can wait for another day or so.

I've started the book, by the way. So far so great.

Sounds good, I might have to actually give linux another try and try the Debian (Sarge) Network installer. I love linux for server stuff but haven't really gotten into it for a desktop because I need tools like Photoshop.

I think the only thing I actually understood about that post was "Ana Ng"...but if you're happy, I'm happy.

I think the only thing I actually understood about that post was "Ana Ng"...but if you're happy, I'm happy.

I think the only thing I actually understood about that post was "Ana Ng"...but if you're happy, I'm happy.

Gotta say-- I love the Sir Mix-a-Lot reference. And the quote at the top from Picard in that episode where Pulaski has to come in and save him because his heart almost gives out. I hope I'm the only one that caught those.

I am certainly a geek-child of the eighties. Dear god. I think I'll crawl under my desk now.

For some reason I never had all that much of a problem with the Debian woody install screens. Once I figured out what to call my monitor and sound card I was, as they say, rockin'. I tried a sarge install about the middle of last year and it failed horribly. I've been trying Ubuntu lately. Not bad but there's a grub error killing me right now and I do prefer all of my packages be maintained. I have wanted to get back to a pure debian roots for a while though. The lack of a new release has been the stumbling block. You've given me courage that sarge isn't all that dangerous anymore. Thanks to you evil will be thwarted in the Great White (and damn do I mean white at the moment) North once more.

Excellent, TMBG! Now *Ana Ng* will be fun-fully stuck in my head for the next half-hour! :D

I'll throw in another vote for Gentoo. I've been using it since version 1.1 and have converted several Red Hatter's here at work. You can have fun, learn tons and build a working system all at the same time.

If you like Enlightenment, have a look at
XFCE. Runs great, less filling.

And for a modern but less calories terminal, try Terminal

To totally "Star Trek Geek Out" shouldn't the headline have been:

"Rumors of my assimilation are greatly exaggerated?"

Hey Wil, even propellerheads like myself screw up every now and again. You don't need to turn in your geek badge if you royally mess something up. :)

11100011 0011010101 101010100011 1010101110011
10101111000110110101010101011101010101010101010

just kidding... your geekness is adorable. :) glad to see you're back wil!

you know I can't stop giggling over the Oh. My. God. Becky
I keep wanting to go into the Sir-Mix-Alot song "I like big butts and I can't not lie...."

ookay yeah I am dork, I'll stop now.

Ermmmm.... Aroo?

OK, the Linux geekspeak went completely over my head (glad to see I'm not the only one), but I never claimed to be a penguin geek. Trek, sure. Asimov, absolutely. Anime, yeah. Macintosh, once upon a time. But I've never been a Linux girl.

That said... OMG, even after getting Just A Geek for Christmas, I would totally buy the audiobook. Although I might bust a gut and wreck the car during my daily commute.

Will, I can't believe you said, "Oh. My. God. Becky." I thought me and one of my best friends were the only ones that still said that. Tee hee!

I'm a Unix geek and an amateur radio geek, and I'm so totally upset that you took out the ham stuff in the kernel. Okay, not really.

Can't wait to read more about the MacExpo trip!

73! (thats ham-speak for "best regards!")
KG4EFO

Damn that post was made just for the extremely geeky nerds cause I understood nothing.
Alls I know about my computer
is that it is a Mac with the mac X and all i use is the internet

Good times.

Hi Wil!

I just came across this and I have to say...wow. I think this blog is more interesting and truthful than any celeb blog I have ever read.

Keep up the good work!

P.S. I have no clue as to weather or not you read/respond to these (well not so much the read as the respond part), I could be talking to a wall! lol

Ahhhh, excellent! And about damn time too! :D Sorry, I've been checking for an update since you did your keynote at MacWorld. Again, you were awesome!

Congrats on the Debian! Well done. I've been timidly dual-booting Mandrake with XP on my dell laptop for the last 6 months. Freaks my boss out everytime I boot into Linux! He's a windoze guy all the way. Thinking of trying Debian, but I'm not sure if I'm that brave yet. Maybe I'll do it next time I screw up the boot loader...until then most of my work is on my Mac (shiny new dual G5...mmmmmmm, happy place).

Looking forward to your trip report. You can catch mine at http://mypocketlint.blogspot.com/

I know this is not relavent to what you had to say but, the title of this particular blog entry caught my eye because i've heard that line before and I believe it was said by Captain Picard in First Contact after an encounter with the borg.

Small repetition for emphasis -- those interested in trying Debian without any commitment at all should start with Knoppix. You don't have to install anything to your hd, but it will automount all of your partitions (Windows, Linux, whatever).

Also, I've been running Sid-based stuff for quite a while with very few problems. I wouldn't use Sid in a production office setting necessarily, but for regular folks Sid works pretty well. It gives you much newer software than you'll get with Sarge.

FWIW

Jay Mohr is a homophobic asshole.

Yeah, debian is teh shiznit. Check out Synaptic (apt-get install synaptic), while I don't use it much any more ('apt-cache search' and 'apt-get install' is generally faster if you have an idea of what you want) it's cool to be able to graphically browse and see packages you didn't know was there, and it's sometimes easier to see when you have a package conflict...

Ana Ng is quite possibly the only song I'd ever sing Karaoke if someone discovered a version somewhere... actually, 'She's An Angel' would be pretty good too...

Please excuse my outburst. I feel better now.

Regarding the audio book. PLEEEEASE make an unabridged one. I love audible, but I hate abridged books.

Listening to you describe the install had me laughing; I've felt the same way many times. Lately, I've been enjoying Ubuntu.

later

Oh

My

God

Wil, you are a bigger geek than my husband, The Database Guru. And he's writing a book on a popular database product (due out in the Spring).

I'm so incredibly CMOD'd by your geeky talents I feel like I need to dump core right now. (But in the interest of netiquette, I'll wait til I'm alone).

If you and my husband were in the same room, the universe would surely implode.

Glad you had sunshine here in SF and that you had a good time here. It's beautiful when the weather's good. Wish I coulda been there to see ya...

Try the latest Mepis LiveCD, it's Debian-based, runs from CD with no install necessary, and if you decide you like it, there's an icon on the desktop that says *install me*, that does exactly that ;-)

The new installers are so very easy its not funny, I can still shudder in pain remembering potato installs from days gone past and screaming 'Why wont you just work' at the screen...

If you like Debian check out ubuntu as well - its a fork from Sid and its very nice, nice enough to get me to move this box from straight debian after 4 years.. The reality is simple - once you have seen the power of apt you never look back...

Which line are you saying is from Picard? If you're thinking of "rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated," that's not a Star Trek quote, it's a Mark Twain quote.

Ana Ng and I are getting old
And we still haven't walked in the glow of each other's majestic presence
Listen Ana hear my words
They're the ones you would think I would say if there was a me for you

Yay Wil! Been Debian since v0.93 (that's 1995). It's a great distro, even if you have to live in testing/unstable to have up to date packages on your workstation. All my servers run stable.

You should try Blackbox for a nice lightweight window manager.

OK Wil... I came back to this entry a couple days later because I was inspired. There's an old x86 box in the basement and you inspired me to attempt Debian. Problem is instead of installing it, I'm seeding it as torrents (no burner!!!) Does that make me a dork instead of a geek?

Must find floppies!!!

How could I, of all people, miss the title reference?

Get ubuntu...it's debian except with hotplugging actually working. Try pluggin in a USB stick into ubuntu compared to debian :)