source: MondoRescue/trunk/website/gossip-til-July.html

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1<TD WIDTH="120" VALIGN=TOP>
2<P>
3<A HREF="index.html"><IMG SRC="images/home.gif" ALIGN=TOP WIDTH="101" HEIGHT="56" VSPACE="0" HSPACE="0" ALT="Home" BORDER="0" LOOP="0"></A><A HREF="download.html"><IMG SRC="images/download.gif" ALIGN=TOP WIDTH="101" HEIGHT="56" VSPACE="0" HSPACE="0" ALT="Download" BORDER="0" LOOP="0"></A><A HREF="gossip.html"><IMG SRC="images/gossip.gif" ALIGN=TOP WIDTH="101" HEIGHT="56" VSPACE="0" HSPACE="0" ALT="News" BORDER="0" LOOP="0"></A><A HREF="feedback.html"><IMG SRC="images/feedback.gif" ALIGN=TOP WIDTH="101" HEIGHT="56" VSPACE="0" HSPACE="0" ALT="Feedback" BORDER="0" LOOP="0"></A><A HREF="links.html"><IMG SRC="images/links.gif" ALIGN=TOP WIDTH="101" HEIGHT="56" VSPACE="0" HSPACE="0" ALT="Links" BORDER="0" LOOP="0"></A><A HREF="thankyou.html"><IMG SRC="images/thankyou.gif" ALIGN=TOP WIDTH="101" HEIGHT="56" VSPACE="0" HSPACE="0" ALT="Thankyou!" BORDER="0" LOOP="0"></A></TD>
4<TD WIDTH="500" VALIGN=TOP>
5<P ALIGN=CENTER>
6<FONT FACE="Arial Black,Arial,Helvetica"><FONT SIZE="4">Diary (pre-August)</FONT></FONT></P>
7<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
8<I><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">July
927th, 2001</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></P>
10<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
11<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">I
12have received some very interesting patches, one of which will wean
13Mindi off the /dev/loop devices. I am evaluating <A HREF="http://www.bearshare.net">BearShare</A>
14as a way to test-drive new music for free. No news is good news. I am
15not releasing a new version of Mondo (or Mindi) for another week or
16so, just in case something comes up. I also want to learn more about
17ncurses-type interface. I would like to make Mondo's 'restore'
18interface prettier.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
19<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
20<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><I>July
212</I></FONT></FONT></FONT><I><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">5th,</FONT></FONT></FONT></I><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><I> 2001</I></FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
22<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
23<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">If
24you are running a Lin/Win system, your restored Windows partition
25with very little free disk space. If you run Scandisk after rebooting
26into Windows, that will fix the problem.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
27<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
28<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">Good
29news: I have backed up my non-RAID system and restored with my /usr
30partition as RAID-5 (XFS disk format). It worked, too.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
31<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
32<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><I>July
3322nd, 2001</I></FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
34<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
35<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">Mondo
36is behaving perfectly. I've just backed up, vaped and restored my
37RAID-based dual-boot Lin/Win system (for the 5th time this week) and
38I haven't lost any data at all. I am a happy bunny.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
39<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
40<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">(4
41hours later) OK, I've done it (backup/wipe/restore) again.
42Everything went splendidly. The thing is, either Mondo does its job
43or it doesn't: the trick is to make it do its job 99.9% of the time.
44If it doesn't work on your distro, I want to know about it.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
45<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
46<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">Here's
47something cute. I've just been told by a French user that
48&quot;Mondo&quot; sounds like the French for my back (&quot;mon
49dos&quot;, with a silent S). So, Mondo is a pun in Italian and a
50homophone in French. I just wish it would be reliable in Debian...</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
51<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
52<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><I>July
5319th, 2001</I></FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
54<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
55<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">Mondo
56supports software RAID. I have backed up my system in non-RAID,
57fabricated /etc/raidtab, restored to RAID, backed up again and
58restored again. Everything worked fine (after I fixed a lot of bugs).</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
59<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
60<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><I>July
611</I></FONT></FONT></FONT><I><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">7</FONT></FONT></FONT></I><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><I>th,
622001</I></FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
63<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
64<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">I
65am close to offering RAID support in Mindi/Mondo. Things are going
66very nicely... and surprisingly quickly. I am waiting for a problem
67or drawback that never comes. Mondo might even support RAID by the
68end of July.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
69<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
70<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><I>July
7116th, 2001</I></FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
72<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
73<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">Mondo
74v1.05 and Mindi v0.31 are out today. Again, I fixed some silly bugs.
75Feedback would be appreciated. This release includes DoJ's devfs patch.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
76<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
77<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><I>July
7815th, 2001</I></FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
79<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
80<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">Mondo
81v1.04 and Mindi v0.30 are out today. I fixed some silly bugs. Oh,
82and <B>stop press</B> - DoJ has submitted a very cool patch to make
83Mindi work with devfs-only kernels/distros. I'll look at that this week.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
84<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
85<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">I
86think my CD writer has been overheating. Anyway, Mondo v1.03 and
87Mindi v0.29 are behaving well. I have backed up and nuke-restored my
88system twice without any problems. Well, there was that one Out Of
89Memory error reported by the kernel, which struck me as odd because
90the computer has 256MB of RAM. Be that as it may, the new releases
91look good to me. If you have any comments or questions, I would love
92to hear them. Now I need to test these releases on other distributions...</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
93<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
94<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">Debian
95has been a boil on my butt since the first time I tried to use it.
96It doesn't like Mindi, it doesn't like Mondo and it refuses to play
97nicely with either. It generates bizarre errors that do not occur on
98any other distros. It doesn't even come with <I>gawk</I>, for God's
99sake, not even a shortcut to <I>awk</I>, so goodness knows what else
100is wrong. If the Debian team spent less time acting all superior over
101their .deb packaging format and more time making their distro a
102little more accommodating to applications written by mere mortals
103like me, they would be a lot more popular... and so would their distro.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
104<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
105<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><I>July
10614th, 2001</I></FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
107<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
108<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">The
109new releases - Mondo v1.03 and Mindi v0.29 - include a lot of minor
110bugfixes. Mondo now has a new interface to the restore engine. In
111fact, I ported almost all of the restore-side code to C. I have found
112the new program - 'mondo-restore' - to be fast and reliable. However,
113if you have any problems, the old scripts (prep-me, restore-me, etc.)
114will be on the ramdisk at restore-time if you need them.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
115<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
116<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">I
117have been getting a lot of feedback from users, which is helpful and
118gratifying. I am trying not to be grumpy when users report bugs. :-)
119However, please bear in mind that there are a dozen mainstream Linux
120distros and over a hundred (deservedly) lesser-known ones. If you
121want to help me chase these fireflies, your help would be most welcome.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
122<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
123<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">Finally,
124a cautionary tale. Either my CD writer malfunctioned or the CDRW
125disk became damaged. Either way, I was unable to restore my system
126from the most recent backup: there was a bad sector on the CDRW disk,
127I think, which caused one of the tarballs to be irretrievable. So, I
128restored from an older backup and downloaded the changed files from
129the Web (the changed files being Mondo and Mindi *g*). So, folks, do
130run that Compare Mode cycle, just to be sure your backup is good.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
131<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
132<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><I>July
13312</I></FONT></FONT></FONT><I><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">th,
1342001</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></P>
135<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
136<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">Mondo-rescue.c,
137my replacement for Mondo's restore-time scripts, is coming along
138nicely. It is stable, informative, much more attractive than the old
139&quot;Let's vomit our progress onto the screen and hope the user is a
140speed-reader&quot; presentation format. I hope to release something
141next week.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
142<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
143<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">Yes,
144the &quot;Support for GRUB&quot; line in July 9th's notes was indeed
145a typo.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
146<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
147<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><I>Ju</I></FONT></FONT></FONT><I><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">ly
148</FONT></FONT></FONT></I><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><I>9th,
1492001</I></FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
150<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
151<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">I
152have ported the Nuke Mode restore-side scripts to C, rolled them
153into a single program and given said program an 'ncurses' interface.
154It looks good. I'm still testing it and I shan't release it until it
155is definitely stable, and even then, I will keep the old scripts
156around just in case the executable goes nuts at the moment of truth.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
157<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
158<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">The
159new interface is very basic: no colors, no fancy boxes, just a
160checklist with &quot;percentage done&quot; next to each. It has
161worked well in tests. Eventually, I want to write something a bit
162like 'Disk Druid' so that the user can prep, format, mount and
163restore interactively (and selectively). This is the beginning.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
164<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
165<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><I>Ju</I></FONT></FONT></FONT><I><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">ly
1667</FONT></FONT></FONT></I><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><I>th,
1672001</I></FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
168<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
169<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">Mondo
170v1.02 and Mindi v0.28 include some minor bugfixes - minor unless
171you're the person who experienced the fatal error, anyway.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
172<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
173<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">This
174weekend, I shall be testing Mondo and Mindi on different Linux
175distributions. Mondo and Mindi appear to be stable; now is the time
176for me to test them to within an inch of their life (as we say in England).</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
177<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
178<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><I>Ju</I></FONT></FONT></FONT><I><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">ly
179</FONT></FONT></FONT></I><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><I>5th,
1802001</I></FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
181<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
182<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">I
183have just backed up and restored my system using Mondo v1.01 and
184Mindi v0.27; everything ran smoothly. Soon, I shall look at adding
185RAID and LVM support to Mondo. At the moment, I am concentrating on
186making Mondo as stable as I possibly can, especially at restore-time
187(when &quot;Syntax error&quot; is the <I>last </I>thing you want to
188see). I also want to add support for GRUB.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
189<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
190<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><I>Ju</I></FONT></FONT></FONT><I><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">ly</FONT></FONT></FONT></I><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><I>
1914th, 2001</I></FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
192<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
193<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">Okay,
194this has been a long night. A silly bug turned up in Mindi v0.25
195yesterday and I have been rewriting Mindi to formulate its boot/data
196disks in a more reliable fashion. I have also been backing up and
197restoring my system again and again (using Mondo), just to make sure
198it behaves itself in a mission-critical situation. It <I>is</I>
199mission-critical because I only have one hard drive, which means if
200Mondo eats my data then I am screwed. You are reading this;
201therefore, Mondo works, even on Lin/Win systems.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
202<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
203<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">I
204am intensively testing it, just to make absolutely sure there are no
205sneaky bugs hiding in the restore scripts (i.e. Mindi) or in the
206backup program (Mondo). However, there are no showstoppers left. Enjoy!</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
207<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
208<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><I>June
20930th, 2001</I></FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
210<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
211<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">My
212sincere thanks go to Maciej Kulasa, Bruno Cornec, Jeroen van Pelt
213and everyone else that stuck by Mondo (and me) through the last few
214months. My personal life has been unpleasant at best. I am now
215getting divorced. However, (a) my wife and I are still friends, and
216(b) I am now in a position to resume Mondo's development.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
217<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
218<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">v0.99
219is out and has been for some time. Thanks to Bruno, Maciej and
220others, the project has not petered out. Now that I am back, I can
221fix some bugs and release v1.00.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
222<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
223<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><I>March
2241</I></FONT></FONT></FONT><I><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">6</FONT></FONT></FONT></I><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><I>th,
2252001</I></FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
226<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
227<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">Well,
228tomorrow will be my last day at Ingram, so I am making the most of
229it by releasing a new version of Mondo. Please try v0.981 <I>and</I>
230v0.99, to see which behaves better on your system. If you have any
231problems, please e-mail the mailing list with a detailed bug report.
232Tell me which distro of Linux you're using, which kernel, the exact
233command with which you called Mondo (e.g. mondo --bkpath /
234--exclude-paths yak yak yak) and the last 20 or 30 lines of your
235/var/log/mondo-archive.log; or, if the problem is with the restore
236side, describe what you see on the screen as best you can. The more
237information you give me, the better equipped I am to help you.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
238<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
239<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">If
240you are using CD-RW disks, or you are creating multi-CD backup sets,
241your feedback would be particularly welcome.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
242<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
243<I><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">March
24412th, 2001</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></P>
245<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
246<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">v0.99
247is nearly ready. The latest kernel (2.4.2) is broken and will not
248run Mondo properly. However, v2.4.1 is OK.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
249<P>
250<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">A
251member of NLUG (www.nlug.org), the Nashville Linux User Group, has
252alerted me to their existence. I've been living near Nashville for
253almost two years and yet somehow I managed to remain oblivious to the
254existence of NLUG. Sucks to be me. Oh well, now that I know they
255exist, I am looking forward to attending. See, my head has been stuck
256so far up my INS that I've not been getting out much. :-)</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
257<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
258<I><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">March
2599th, 2001</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></P>
260<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
261<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">v0.981
262is being re-rolled. (/proc wasn't being excluded from backup.) A new
263tarball and a super-duper RPM should be available soon.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
264<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
265<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">v0.99,
266Bruno Cornec's 2.4-compatible version of Mondo, looks <I>great</I>
267and will soon be released. I'm asking Maciej Kulasa to make sure his
268restore script-related bugfixes are present in v0.99. If they are,
269the release is good to go.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
270<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
271<I><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">March
2727th, 2001</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></P>
273<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
274<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">My
275wife was in surgery yesterday. She's fine, she's at home, she's
276dosed up with painkillers and I'm keeping a close eye on her. She'll
277be back at work on Monday. This has nothing to do with Mondo: I just
278wanted to share. :-) I love her very much and I wouldn't be the man I
279am today without her.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
280<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
281<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">OK,
282on a Mondo-related note - v0.981 is out. Art Wells has done some
283sterling work re-rolling the tarball. He also added 'dd', which was
284missing for some reason. (My bad.)</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
285<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
286<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">More
287good news - Bruno Cornec has been working to make Mondo compatible
288with the Linux 2.4-series kernel. He is also looking at making it RAID-compatible.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
289<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
290<I><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">February
29123rd, 2001</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></P>
292<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
293<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">Art
294Wells has re-rolled the tarball for me. I'm releasing v0.98: it's
295basically the same as v0.977 with some cosmetic changes. It still
296says &quot;v0.977&quot; in some places but Art &amp; I will fix that
297before Monday, with a bit of luck.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
298<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
299<I><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">February
30020th, 2001</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></P>
301<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
302<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">I'm
303thinking of releasing v1.0 soon. It will be almost identical to
304v0.977. The thing is, no-one has reported a serious bug in Mondo for
305many months, so I am thinking that perhaps I should declare v1.0 in
306order to get people's attention. Think about it: what is v1.0? It is
307the first stable, feature-rich version of a program. Mondo has been
308stable and feature-rich for months, with no reports of data loss.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
309<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
310<I><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">February
31119th, 2001</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></P>
312<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
313<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">To
314the thugs dissing Mondo, y'all better stop hating on my boo or I'll
315get heavy with my nine. I'm 'bout it and I ain't afeared of cocking
316my gat and spraying you. See you at the crossroads. (Did I mention my
317pants are 3 sizes too big?)</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
318<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
319<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="BLACK">OK,
320so no news is good news.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
321<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
322<I><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">Febuary
32312th, 2001</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></P>
324<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
325<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">Angelfire
326took down Mondo's tn2/hugo web site. Weird. I've set up a new site
327athttp://www.angelfire.com/tn2/mondo;
328let's see what happens.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
329<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
330<I><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">February
3319th, 2001</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></P>
332<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
333<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">Mondo
334v0.977 is out. It is a bug-fixing release. Special thanks are due to
335Maciej Kulasa and Petre Scheie for their bugfixes. Also, my wife's
3361991 Ford Probe is back from the shop after nearly two months in &amp;
337out of there. Neill Sandler Body Shop, Murfreesboro, TN has charming
338management but breathtakingly inept technicians.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
339<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
340<I><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">February
3417th, 2001</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></P>
342<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
343<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">If
344you boil a frog slowly enough in a pot of water, it doesn't notice
345the change in temperature and will die without a struggle. Voters are
346the same way, I think. The last thirty years have seen significant
347legal and social progress towards equal rights for women, homosexuals
348and people of color. It would be a pity if the new President saw fit
349to undo some of that progress.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
350<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
351<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">I
352never understood the Democrat/Republican thing anyway. In England, I
353was considered right-wing because:-</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
354<UL>
355<LI CLASS="mvd-P">
356<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
357<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">I
358am not opposed to hunting</FONT></FONT></FONT><BR>
359<LI CLASS="mvd-P"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">I
360think the Government should interfere as little as possible in
361people's lives</FONT></FONT></FONT><BR>
362<LI CLASS="mvd-P"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">I
363am OK with civilians owning guns (although <I>I</I> don't want one)</FONT></FONT></FONT><BR>
364<LI CLASS="mvd-P"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">I
365do not think abortion should be used as a form of contraception</FONT></FONT></FONT><BR>
366<LI CLASS="mvd-P"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">I
367don't think throwing money at a problem will solve it</FONT></FONT></FONT><BR>
368<LI CLASS="mvd-P"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">I
369don't have a problem with private school education</FONT></FONT></FONT><BR>
370<LI CLASS="mvd-P"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">I
371support religious education in schools</FONT></FONT></FONT><BR>
372<LI CLASS="mvd-P"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">Conservative
373!= Fascist, IMO</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
374</UL>
375<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
376<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">However,
377in America I am considered left-wing because:-</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
378<UL>
379<LI CLASS="mvd-P">
380<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
381<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">I
382think Affirmative Action is an excellent idea whose time has come</FONT></FONT></FONT><BR>
383<LI CLASS="mvd-P"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">I
384believe in cheap, affordable healthcare <I>for all</I> (and I'm not
385against insurance, just against being ripped off)</FONT></FONT></FONT><BR>
386<LI CLASS="mvd-P"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">I
387don't want to interfere with a woman's reproductive system, whether
388I agree with her decisions or not (assuming she told me, which of
389course she wouldn't because it's none of my business)</FONT></FONT></FONT><BR>
390<LI CLASS="mvd-P"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">I
391don't trust the Christian Coalition</FONT></FONT></FONT><BR>
392<LI CLASS="mvd-P"><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">Socialist
393!= Communist, IMO</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
394</UL>
395<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
396<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">And
397what's with this Electoral College thing? They say that if we
398abolish it then Presidential candidates won't bother campaigning
399anywhere but California and Florida. <I>So what?</I> I hope the
400candidates don't campaign at all; I hope that, instead, they stay
401home and publish their views in their respective puppet newspapers so
402that I know where they stand and therefore who I should vote for.
403However, if I'm wrong and people do in fact vote for a familiar face
404rather than a good heart, God help us...</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
405<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
406<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">The
407only rational attitude I have found is to regard the American left-
408and right-wing ideologies as economic in basis, and that anything
409else is done to win votes. The Democrats get the black vote because
410most people think the Republican party is racist. The Republicans get
411the Christian vote because most people think the Democrats are a
412bunch of godless pedants. (I wonder who black Christians vote for?
413Maybe they don't...)</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
414<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
415<I><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">February
4166th, 2001</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></P>
417<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
418<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">Mondo
419v0.977 is about to be released. Maciej Kulasa has built a new
420hboot.img file (the floppy disk image) with some important bugfixes.
421Outstanding! This will be incorporated in a new RPM/tarball release shortly.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
422<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
423<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">The
424bad news is I can't ftp-upload or telnet from this PC: the firewall
425is just too strict. Sheesh. I guess I had better not try using </FONT></FONT><A HREF="http://www.nmap.org"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">Nmap</FONT></FONT></A><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2"> then...</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
426<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
427<I><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">February
4281st, 2001</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></P>
429<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
430<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">Ever since I
431got to this country, people have been trying to screw me (in
432business, not in my personal life; I mention that in case my wife
433reads this). Two car repair companies, my first employer and now my
434local karate club have tried to screw me. To be fair, the club's
435sensei had no idea his credit people were doing what they were doing:
436they had kept it from him, for some strange reason.</FONT></FONT></P>
437<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
438<FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">I have no
439doubt that most Americans and therefore most American businesses are
440charming, honest and respectable. However, I do have to wonder if
441&quot;Please fsck with me!&quot; is written on my forehead in an ink
442which only rednecks can read.</FONT></FONT></P>
443<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
444<I><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">January
44530th, 2001</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></P>
446<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
447<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">I'm
448ba-ack! Lots of bugfixes to roll into the next release. I want to do
449something with 2.4 because it allows for a variable-size ramdisk,
450specified at boot-time. That would mean 2.4 users could use their own
451kernel, modules, tools, etc. when creating Mondo's boot disks. It
452could even open the door to a multi-floppy mini-distro based on the
453user's own system.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
454<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
455<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">I'm
456very excited to be 'back on the case'. Anyone who wants to
457participate, would you please join the mailing list.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
458<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
459<I><FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">September
4601st, 2000</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></P>
461<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
462<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">I
463am releasing v0.976 (alpha) early. I can't test it, so I'm hoping
464some brave souls will do it for me. Ain't I a lazy bum? :-) Check it
465out &amp; send me your feedback, please.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
466<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
467<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">This
468new release uses only 25-30MB of each CD for overheads, compared to
46960-70MB previously. It should support ReiserFS. It won't support GRUB
470yet: I need some intrepid GRUB users to help me. It has a few minor
471bugfixes, too.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
472<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>
473<FONT COLOR="BLACK"><FONT FACE="Verdana,Arial,Times New I2"><FONT SIZE="2">I
474have no clue if it'll work for Windows... but if it does, the
475requisite ISO (without archives - you know, 'mondo-archive
476--no-bkpath') would be small enough to be put on the web site. That
477way, non-Linux users could still backup their Windows PCs. Neat, eh?</FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
478<P>
479<!-- $MVD$:spaceretainer() -->&nbsp;</P>
480<P>
481<!-- $MVD$:spaceretainer() -->&nbsp;</P>
482<P>
483<!-- $MVD$:spaceretainer() -->&nbsp;</TD>
484</TR>
485</TABLE>
486</BODY>
487</HTML>
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