[roadrash]

Howdy kids...

I'm feeling productive and happy, so I thought I'd share. LOL

I've spent the past week upgrading a couple of computers, and resolving various hardware, software, and networking issues. Nothing extremely difficult, just tedious. I'm a Linux fan, so this is all on Mandriva 2008. My laptop dual boots WinXP and Mandriva 2008. Some of my silly "triumphs" include:

• Upgraded the OS on my laptop to Mandriva 2008, then updatedthat, and reconfigured all my personalizations.
  
• Replaced the PIII-600 that I was using for a "server" (file storage, DHCP server, etc.) with a P4-1.5GHz machine. I basically swapped the old hard drive into the 'new' box, then upgraded the OS (also to Mandriva 2008) and configured the rest of the hardware (NIC, modem, video, etc.) Actually, I didn't "upgrade" it... I formatted that partition (leaving my home partition untouched) and re-installed the new OS.
  
• At this point, the server doesn't have internet access of any kind because I don't have broadband, and the modem in the server wasn't configured. So, I set up a DHCP server on the laptop so I could get the server connnected to it and then transfer all the OS updates
  
• Miraculously, I got the internal modem on the laptop working and connecting to the 'net... and at faster speeds than my PCMCIA modem had been getting. I've had this laptop since the Fall of 2004 and only had the internal modem working for a few days, but I managed to break the conffiguation somehow and went back to the PCMCIA modem. But, it's working now. Yay!
  
• Worked out the networking issues so the two machines could see each other (remote shares via NFS, DHCP, IP numbers, etc.)
  
• Once I had the machines connected, I set up NFS shares of a couple of directories on each machine. Then I transferred all of the updates to the server and installed them there too.
  
• Spent hours refreshing my file archives. I had back-ups from my previous laptop, a bunch of CD .iso files, and all sorts of other personal data that needed to be sorted through and mostly deleted. I still need to update the 18+ GB of mp3's that are on the server. For that, I think I'm just going to delete the whole 18 GB on the server, and then copy the new stash that's currently on the laptop. I wonder how long it'll take to transfer 18 GB of files? LOL
  
• After the server was updated, I needed to make it the DHCP server and the laptop the client (because the laptop will generally be a client anyway). So, I had to sway DHCP configurations. In the midst of all of that networking stuff, I was trying to figure out some firewall issues that occurred when I also had the laptop connected to the internet via modem.
  
• At this point, I was feeling pretty good, so I decided to see if I could get the modem working on the server. It's a "winmodem" (aka software modem), so I didn't expect much. To my surprise, the Mandriva config utility told me that I needed some files to make it work, and those files were available at their web site. So, I tracked down the various files and that modem connected to the 'net also!! Wow, 2 for 2!
  
• Yesterday, I bought and installed a DVD burner in the server. This was the easiest part of this whole mess. I actually walked a couple of hundred yards to a mom-and-pop computer store to buy the burner. (Nearby computer store, FTW!)

I've still got a few more "projects," including, but not limited to:

• Get Sauerbraten running on the server. It runs on my laptop (WinXP AND Linux), but the video card in the server doesn't seem to be up to the task.
• "re-establish" the wireless broadband connection that I was "borrowing."
• Set up yet another old machine for my parents to use at their business in place of an even older one. How old? It's going to be running Win98 unless I can get Quickbooks running on Linux via WINE.

So, yay for me! LOL