|
Tuxior Central
Mutt RPM Team
RPMs for the mutt mail program
|
TRi's little Linux world
- How it all began...
-
End 1996/start 1997, I was writing my Masters Thesis in
Microelectronics. The research centre where I was working at
the time was using Sun Unix(SunOS) workstations, so the
preferred format for a thesis was
LATEX. All fine and
well, but near the end of the project came the time (as
everybody who ever wrote a thesis or similar will know)
when daytime wasn't good enough and I urgently needed to
use my own PC at nighttime (when the centre was closed) as
well. What to do? Using
LATEX under
MS Windows 3.1 was possible, but extremely
painful - starting from awkward usage over the notorious
unreliability of Win 3.1 to the useless 8+3
filenames.
Hence, I was looking for a better solution. Enter
Linux. Red Hat Linux 4.1, to be precise, as at that time
that was the one most of my friends recommended. The
installation was a nightmare, mainly due to the fact
that - lacking a CD-ROM - I ended up downloading the
complete distribution from the Internet "at work",
saving it on tape, carrying the tape home, making a backup of
my HD, repartition, copy the Linux distribution onto one
partition and then running a HD install from there. The
second problem was that my aging 486 only had 8MB RAM -
which was a problem with RHL 4.1, as there was a bug in
the installer...
Anyway, after about two, three days messing around I
finally had the machine up and running. Not only that -
I also had an almost perfect copy of the work
environment I was using in the research centre: Same
window manager (fvwm 2.0.45, if you need to know),
LATEX, XEmacs -
the works. All on a meagerly 486/DX2-66, 8MB, with 300MB
for Linux. I was happy and got to work, typing away at
that thesis... ;-)
Now, I won't pretend that that machine was
fast. In fact, it was downright slow, as I
insisted on using X on it. But it worked and worked
reliably - far better than what I was used to under
Windows before. I was hooked...
-
- The story continues...
-
Well, since then, Linux has completely replaced
Windows for me. My PC has changed since to an
AMD K6-2/500, 128MB with 18GB of SCSI drives - and yes,
I do have a CD-ROM now... I'm also no longer
running Red Hat Linux 4.1, but Red Hat Linux 6.2. In
addition, I was able to convince my girlfriend to use
Linux as well and added one older box to continue the
RHL 5.2 RPMs for mutt (see below). That little network
is hooked up to the Internet via a SparcStation LX running
OpenBSD as
ADSL NAT/firewall box. This old little box
is surprisingly well able to handle that task. I'm also
well impressed by the quality and efficiency of
OpenBSD - not to forget the focus on security the
OpenBSD folks have. A nice addition to my network and
definitely worth a look for anybody interested in
setting up such a box.
I still use LATEX
and XEmacs, but I also have StarOffice installed, as my
girlfriend needs to be able to work on MS Office files
from time to time.
Oh - and the thesis is long since finished and gathers
dust on some dark shelf... ;-)
-
- My part
-
Being a very satisfied Linux user, I was interested in
contributing at least a bit back to the Linux
community. Aside from using my (limited) C coding skills
to provide bugreports and maybe write the odd patch or
writing a bit of documentation here and there, I
turned to building RPM packages for Red Hat Linux to
enable other folks to use programs I like as well. My
efforts (past and present) to date:
You'll find more details about the three areas on the
respective pages. I hope you'll find them useful.
-
- The future
-
Some more messing around with old parts is planned,
though I'll probably have to start selling off/giving
away stuff - it's accumulating.
Some things I might look into, if I find the time:
- My "Sparc Herd" keeps growing...
In addition to the SparcStation LX I mentioned
earlier, I currently own:
- Sun Ultra 10/440
- Sun SparcStation 20
- 2 x Sun SparcStation 5/170
- Sun SparcStation Classic
In addition, I'm thinking about selling:
- Start with Solaris[tm] - I should have enough
Sparcs for that by now... :-)
- There are two or three ideas for actual programs I
have in mind, though I fear I'll never find the time...
|
