Gerall’s Blog

Recently, I got a Dell Inspiron 910 (a.k.a a Mini9). I love this device! A netbook with the processing power of a machine from 2004 - but with no fans!!

One often asked question about the Ubuntu version is “Can I install programs to the SD card?” Mostly, this is asked by Windows users who are trying to get into Linux. They want their SSDs for their personal files instead of an OS install… I thought about this, and decided to test something.

I have a 8gb Class 4 SDHC card and I’m not afraid of re-installing the OS a couple of times. The bulk of the operating system (for Ubuntu anyway) resides under the /usr directory. So, it should be possible to move the /usr hierarchy onto the SD card and see how it behaves. I rolled up my sleeves and got it to work like this…

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Tags: GNU/Linux, Gadgets, How To // Add Comment »

Huge election that will have world-wide effects, folks… Time to utilize that privilege!

Go vote for *someone*. Anyone.

Write-in that hot manga chick if you don’t like the candidates…Just vote!

Tags: Metaphysics // Add Comment »

Aiming to understand the new profile-system under Gentoo, I did a lot of reading on the Installation Handbook. In doing so, I realized that the symlink for your profile is not to a given file on the filesystem, but to a directory on the filesystem!

This has proven to make the further installation of my new Gentoo 2008.0 system run much, much smoother… Without sounding too critical, it would be nice if the install instructions were explicit about this. I might be going blind, but I cannot find any reference to the directory/file distinction in the Chapter under Choosing the Right Profile.

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Tags: GNU/Linux // Add Comment »

I’ve installed Gentoo’s 2008.0 release, and it’s a return to the distribution for me. Since my last exposure, Gentoo has implemented something called “profiles” which has given me fits as I try to re-acclimate to its quirks.

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Tags: GNU/Linux // Add Comment »