20 Dec 1999 00:03
Okay, yes, the linux box is running, and the apache web server seems to be running flawlessly, there are a few niggling details that still have yet to be worked out. Although mySQL is running, DBI and DBD have not been installed for perl. What the crap? Is this why we installed linux mandrake? It seems like if a person selects the “everything” option it should install something as vastly useful as DBI and DBD. I realise that not evceryone will be using them, but c'mon, that's why you go through and weed out the things that you don't need.
Oh well, at least sendmail is working, right? Wrong. Instead of installing sendmail or qmail, postfix was installed. Now, postfix might be great mail software, but was doesn't it show up in linuxconf? Instead, linuxconf references sendmail and appears to edit the sendmail files. Why isn't mandrake more intelligent?
Samba at least installed correctly the second time and runs pretty smoothly. However, I can't get smbmount to work. I want to be able to get the files off of my windows box. Ack! How am I supposed to make a smooth transition to linux if my old files are a mile away. Why should I ftp?
All bitching aside, the linux box is pretty sweet, despite running on a Cyrix P150+ circa 1996. The web serving is much faster than on my windows box, where I was running Omnihttpd. The windows box is a Pentium 200 running win98. Ack. At least the linux box hasn't randomly eaten itself. Just when I had the linux box installed for the first time, the windows box decided that it wanted nothing to do with TCP/IP anymore. A whole day of reinstalling later it was all okay again.
I now have two useful computers in my apartment- a true lesson in frugal computing. However, neither one is really doing what I want them to do, but at least it seems like I can make progress with the linux box. Ah, the trials and tribulations of personal computing.
Thank you for your patience and support.
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