The Unforgiving Minute

I’ve been taking a little unannounced blog-cation here, largely cuz, well, sometimes you get that not-so-bloggerly feeling.

Life’s been mostly routine, aside from a few minor medical emergencies involving the last surviving grandparent. School’s winding down for the semester (one test to go, woo!), I’m once again WAY behind on my Christmas shopping, and I continue to spend too much time goofing off on the computer.

The current reading material is Kernighan and Pike’s The UNIX Programming Environment, which is still fascinating and surprisingly relevant despite being almost 25 years old. Things have changed, sure, but not as much as you might expect. Particularly interesting so far is the discussion of how files, directories and inodes work. My own understanding of the topic was a little fuzzy until I read through that part of the book.

I’m also slowly migrating almost all my systems to OpenBSD. The “real” server, server-toy and laptop are already switched over. When the G5 Power Mac reaches retirement age (damn, I just realized it’s now 5 years old!) it’ll probably get replaced by a generic PC running, yup, OpenBSD. It really is that damn good.

That said, I would not recommend OpenBSD as a first foray into UNIX-ish operating systems. If you’re curious about UNIX/Linux or just sick of Windows, get an Ubuntu or Knoppix disc and a good introductory book, and wade in slowly. OpenBSD’s a wonderful operating system, but it is NOT newbie-friendly and the user community doesn’t suffer fools gladly, or at all, really.

And finally, if you’ve been going through TD-withdrawal and just NEED more of me, hop on #gunblogger_conspiracy and join the fun. Of course, if you read through the vicious and out-of-context quotes posted on the Gunblogger Conspiracy website you’ll get the impression that I’m some kind of maniac sex pervert. I blame Paul for that.