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mkwriteable

Messing around with cbagger's mkwriteable script, and came up with something that allows the user to specify which directories to open up. I figure this could be useful for someone who is sensitive to RAM usage but also wants to be able to write to a particular directory or directories.

This hasn't been thoroughly tested, but it seems to work.


#!/bin/bash
ARGS=$@
checkfile=/etc/sysconfig/writeable2
grep ^all $checkfile && exit
do_bin() {
cp -srd /KNOPPIX/bin/ /ramdisk
ln -sf /ramdisk/bin /
echo "bin" >> $checkfile
}
do_boot() {
cp -srd /KNOPPIX/boot/ /ramdisk

I asked my daughter...

(she is four)

Me:
Do you like Linux?

Kelsey:
No.

Me:
Do you like Windows?

Kelsey:
No.

Me:
What do you like?

Kelsey:
Princesses

personal entry.

newbies make baby jesus cry.

and the drupal...my goodness. i rewrote the entire remastering documentation today and this STUPID f#$cking drupal really pissed me off by, you guessed it, being cumbersome...having to 'preview' posts before you submit, and then not thinking because you usually expect submit to mean submit...and looking in another terminal and leaving the browser because well, you have better things to do.

Wasting space?

Through the efforts of many people, searching for, and finding orphaned files left over from the reduction from Knoppix, we managed to find about half a meg of new space to play with.

And this is good.

The powers that be have deeded this space for the newly created DSL default theme, and various other eye candy.

While I understand their goals of making DSL "presentable" for our 1.0 debut, making the DSL desktop "unified" or whatever. I also find this use of space a little disappointing.

Am I the only one who feels that this space could be better used to squeeze more functionality out of our little 50mb monster?

Confession of n00b.

My last entry explained my desire to be an eternal n00b Well,I have recently discovered that, yes, I am still a n00b, but I am also becoming increasingly aware of the ability of myself and other n00b's to ignore the documentation: http://damnsmalllinux.org/talk/node/51
and the usefullness of searching the wealth of knowledge contained in the DSL forums:
http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.cgi?act=Search;CODE=00;f=1

I think I have figured out why more people do not read the information that springs to life when they boot their newly minted LiveCD. As I am sure everyone has noticed, a window opens itself and is put on display as DSL readies itself to be used and abused. I have seen numerous posts about "how do I disable that annoying pop up when DSL starts x?" Well, there is some really good info in there for the n00b. Read it. Not just once. Do not be so quick to disable it unless you have read the entire contents and understand it.

Emergency DNS and web server

I thought it would be neat to burn a bootable version of our DNS and webserver. The Monkey HTTP server works pretty nicely. Now I just have to figure out how to burn the CD with /opt/monkey/htdocs already populated. The same plan should work for DNS (although I haven't found a DSL version of BIND yet).

Dynamic IP Newbie Fun

I know, I know, "Grrrr....Newbies!" But every one of us willing to make the effort to learn something new takes something away from the OS monopoly. Anyway, enough of my defensiveness...

I have loaded up DSL from my newly burned Live CD and it is all well and good, but unless I can learn how to connect to the net it will never be my main operating system. Unfortunately, I can't find much information on where to start, particularly because I have a dynamic IP address. Our broadband is provided, strangely enough, by waitrose, a supermarket here in the UK, and it comes through a Voyager 105 ADSL USB modem.

No more a newbie (just stupid sometimes)

Just read a blog by tronic (Linux is fragmented, and will never be BIG as MS because of the chaos it creates with all its live-cd's and distro's).

Guess he's wrong.

Linux is BIG now and strong just because of that diversity. Linux will be weak when one BIG Linux-corporation will "kill" all the other distro's and replace it with one flavour of pizza. I don't understand all the hate that linux/MS -users have for each other. I use MS and DSL (red hat/suse/mandrake/lycoris.... etc,. etc..) on my pc's and for now i do my banking/administration with MS. (because Linux will not do this for me, OR i am not clever enough to figure it out OR i am a busy parent who hasn't got the time to figure it out OR my family doesn't want to see a strange GUI on the desktop OR ........)

mini-itx store changes

We are streamlining the product base in the mini-itx store. Dropping the more esoteric (read expensive) mini-itx boards like the TC 10000. Very few people buy them and when they do it always turns out that there is difficulty obtaining them from the supplier. Instead we are just going to carry the Epia 5000, ME 6000, and the V10000. We will also carry a few of the Nano boards when they finally come out.

With the cases, we are also doing the same thing. We are dropping the Morex 2699 even though it was inexpensive, I think people didn't want them because they look like a VCR. We are also dropping the Castronic cases, they are very nice cases, small and well made, but no one ever ordered them, no doubt it is because of price.

NCLB, a 501(c)3 Organization

Well, after several months of US bureaucracy I finally got the blessing of the federal government for No Computer Left Behind, Inc. to be recognized as a 501(c)3 not for profit organization. This will allow me to apply for grants and other things and hopefully will entice larger corporations to donate hardware or possibly warehouse space since they can get a tax write-off for their generosity. Getting hardware has proven to be very easy but getting a place to put it all has not! Hopefully, through a donation or a large grant I will be able to get a ‘home’ for the organization where I can setup workstations and accommodate volunteers.

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