Just Passing Through

Some while back I decided it was time to create a Linux distribution for people who didn't really like computers, but needed them to work. The big headache was finding a Linux base which didn't change as often as I changed my underwear. This constant upgrading, adding features, always fixing, always broken, always... In other words, I wanted a Linux for common, ordinary, non-hobby users. The vast majority of Linux people are all about hobby, and very few consider what this means for actual human needs.

So I began first by sounding my complaints among the Linux groupies about this thing called "stability" and "long term support." Is it possible to have a Linux distribution which could be installed just once on a machine, and supported as long as the average computer lasted? Statistics indicate that's about five to seven years, but we'll go for five. Actually, there is such a distribution, but you have to pay for it -- RedHat Enterprise Linux. However, there are a couple of projects which clone this, legally: CentOS, Scientific Linux, and Whitebox. Those are the ones about which I know something. That first one is the biggest and best by far, but it is all about the enterprise, not the home user.

So I decided perhaps we could just repackage that CentOS and make it more what folks would expect for their home computers. I have currently one guy helping me, and he's actually capable of creating a CD from packages we might decide to put together. It would mean adding stuff you don't normally get when you install CentOS, and leaving off a bunch of stuff typically installed which home users don't need. It worked okay on the desktop systems I tried, but not so good on laptops. There were some shortcomings.

That is, until this last week. The latest version, 5.3, includes a lot of enhancements for laptops. I decided I just had to try it, since the Debian Etch install I mentioned in my previous post was just a little bit broken in a few places. So I installed it this morning. I'm stunned. While a few things were broken -- this is Linux -- I was able to fix everything. Best of all, this issue of laptops going into suspend or hibernate is fixed, at least for my Inspiron. This is the first Linux distribution I've tried that could do both without me having to tweak any settings or rewrite configuration files manually. It just worked on the first try.

That's amazing to me, after all these years of trying to get Linux to work right on laptops. It gives me hope to think perhaps, finally, God has granted something my friend and I can work with and not have to waste a whole year getting things usable. We hope to have this ready in a couple of months. Stay tuned.

I finally managed to find someone who wanted my eMac, and was willing to trade me a decent laptop for it. The result is I now own a Dell Inspiron 4100. Yeah, fancy.

It has a screaming 1Ghz CPU, just today I boosted the RAM up to 512MB, a CDRW/DVD, a massive 20GB drive, and a whole USB port! Oh, and the screen displays at 1400x1050. Cool, huh?

Anyway, I finally settled on running Debian Lenny. It's not the easiest, but it works a lot better than any of the Ubuntus. As with Bob, regular Ubuntu froze without ever loading itself completely. Xubuntu would install, but simply did not like my hardware. I never tried Kubuntu, because it's the slowest and most power-hungry of the bunch. I knew better than to try CentOS, because it's not for laptops. SUSE's LiveRun disk didn't work at all. But my trusty old Debian did install just fine.

I don't have the horsepower for stuff like Flash and other media players, but that's fine with me. I hate stuff moving on the screen when I'm trying to read. Oh, and Opera works fine.

So, off we go. My new main machine is kinda wimpy, but it does exactly what I want a computer to do. It's easier on my eyes than the big desktop box at my right elbow. I still use the server for stuff I can't do on the laptop, but mostly it's just a file server and guest machine. Nobody uses my laptop but me.

Update: I was unable to find a simple way to regulate the power control features in Debian. The only answer was to read a ton of documentation on harddrive controls, among other things. It's not fun any more. I need to get work done, so I simply reinstalled the original OS -- XP.

The title should cover it, but I realize there are people who actually listen to what the liars on TV say. Thus, it becomes necessary to explain some things in detail -- small, bite-sized pieces.

For humans to exist, they have to get food. They have to get several kinds of food or suffer horrible deficiencies and die young. You have to be good at getting all those different kinds of food. If you have a neighbor, and he's better at something than you, and you than he, you can specialize and trade. That's called "having an economy." If enough of you live close together and can exchange all the different kinds of food each of you specialize in getting, you can all live better with less work. It's called "economic efficiency." Enough of that, and some of the folks can consider doing something besides fetching food, some other useful thing which folks need.

Maybe one can work on clothing, and someone else on housing. All good things we need. Then someone can make tools which make all of those tasks even more efficient. Pretty soon, some folks can specialize in services which don't actually make anything, but takes a load off others. Eventually, there is this thing called "leisure time," where everyone does not have to work from dawn to dark every day. There is enough stuff exchanged, and services exchanged, folks have time to think, dream, worship, etc.

Then we can have some artistry in production, or even plain old art: music, stories, pretty toys, etc. As the situation gets more complex and more efficient, we can talk about technology advances and even greater efficiency. Then we start needing folks who do nothing more than coordinate all this stuff, guys who buy and sell and hold stuff for those who have no time to barter. They can come up with a means of exchange, and maybe even loan it out. Maybe go farther afield and collect stuff not available locally.

But, if there is no underlying production of stuff everyone uses, the economy becomes exceedingly fragile. Without that solid base of food, clothing and housing, there's nothing to keep the top part of the economy from falling down. We Americans hardly know how to make basic clothes. We aren't that good at growing our own food any more. We do okay with housing, but we don't make much of the tools and equipment an advanced technological society needs. We got the banking and hustling and managing part worked out, but we don't make much of anything compared to the size of our economy.

All we have is loans and using the technology built elsewhere. We haven't protected the basis of life. Now that the loans and management business isn't working too well, we have nothing to fall back on, nothing to keep us alive. Nobody knows how to do the stuff everyone has to do just to live, and nothing in our economic system has room for reviving that sort of production.

We have no economy to recover. Until we stop all the stupid, non-productive stuff we are doing, all those banking type services, loan management, etc., and start making stuff again, we will have massive unemployment. Let me explain what the President and all his brilliant advisers are saying in just a few words:

You need to get back to the lending agencies, borrow some more money, and start buying all that cheap crap again so we can all have jobs.

In other words, the problem, as they see it, is we just aren't willing enough to borrow and buy. Never mind we don't even have a job that will buy basic food, clothing and housing. We are all having trouble in this nation because we don't buy enough luxury junk and services. Somehow, it's all our fault. So if we would just go back to the banks and borrow money we can't possibly secure with collateral, backed by jobs which we may not have, or won't very long, and pay huge interest rates without those jobs and income. That's what Obama is proposing. Oh, I suppose it would be okay if business on the verge of closing can go borrow up that money on expansion for a non-existent market.

So there you have it. We don't have no economy to revive. We have to start over.

It seemed, at least to me, significant. I wrote here protesting the propaganda (lies) regarding Iran and nuclear materials. The post disappeared. Gone. No record of it.

I'm not sure what to make of that.

A complete nobody, posting infrequently on a website which is less than mainstream, hosted in a country which trumpets their neutrality in such matters, and the post is removed without notice of any kind. It's not as if my post was unusually provocative, compared to some of what my friends post.

I believe I understand why so many great wise men of times past went off to be alone in the wilderness. While I would hardly claim to be wise, some knowledge and wisdom has dropped on my head like books from a high shelf.

Some of the things I've learned are so completely against the mainstream, the common assumptions of the world in which I live daily. Making attempts to share these ideas has gotten me into more trouble than I care to relate. I've lost two jobs from merely mentioning a few things I learned.

An acquaintance of mine wrote:

There is no such thing as knowledge which is above question or re-examination. We all have a right... a moral duty, to question everything we are told that serves a political agenda.

Truth needs no law to support it. Truth is self-evident to all. Truth withstands re-examination. Truth survives questions. Throughout history, from Bruno to Galileo to Zundel, only lies and liars have resorted to the courts to enforce adherence to dogma.

We do not jail people who think Elvis is still alive. We do not wreck the careers of people who claim to have been taken for rides in UFOs. We respect the First Amendment rights of those who choose to believe in the Loch Ness Monster and Big Foot.

On several different occasions, Jesus told the Sanhedrin if He were lying, they could simply allow His own words to catch Him. But they could not ignore His miracles, to include raising Lazarus from the dead. Indeed, they plotted to kill Lazarus again, even as they laid plans to arrest Jesus. There were times He would go off into the wilderness just to get away from it all.

While Jesus lives in me, I am not Him. There are times when I just wish I could go off into some remote corner of the world away from people lost in their lies. It's not as if no one listens to me, and I am hardly bothered by how few respond. But sometimes I wonder if it's worth it to fight people just so I can have my say. If I'm just a freak, fine, ignore me. If my words grab you, take what you can use, and leave the rest.

I can't go and hide. But I often avoid addressing things I'm pretty sure I understand, because fools don't want the truth. They want to hear things they already believe.