More precisely, I swapped my nice ASUS 3500L for the same brand’s X51RL. I was tempted by a gigabyte of RAM, a SATA hard drive at 5400 RPM, a glossy widescreen display. And the ATI graphics with Wi-Fi won’t hurt either.

The first discovery was the quirky driver situation for this model. I already knew it ships with FreeDOS and the bundled drivers only target Vista. But there’s the internet, there’s the manufacturer’s website, where you can grab whatever software you need. I armed myself with the previously-mentioned Kubuntu — it spotted the monitor just fine (though that’s arguably XOrg’s credit), set up a PPPoE connection without any trouble, and recognised the flash drive — everything works. So I head to the ASUS site. Finding only Vista and XP drivers there didn’t really bother me. I downloaded them and went to install my old friend Microsoft® Windows™ 2000. No need to have been afraid of the SATA drive — it recognised it natively (and I almost bought a USB floppy), installed just fine, looking all ugly at 640×480… ugh…

Today during the day, the first experiment with the African Linux was conducted. It served as a vivid illustration of the fact that you cannot install operating systems without beer :) Problem statement: install Kubuntu on a virtual machine. Purpose: evaluate the installation process, anticipate subtleties in order to account for them when installing on a real machine.

Procedure.

Introduction. The Kubuntu disc I have (7.04 for i386) is a live distribution. Booting it gives you a KDE desktop with a lone “Install” icon sitting on it. I loaded it on my long-suffering computer (750 MHz), allocating 180 MB of RAM to the virtual machine. It booted with noticeable lag. No reaction to clicking the aforementioned icon was observed. The obvious conclusion: “can’t hear without legs”… The experiment was moved to a 1600 MHz processor with 256 megabytes allocated. Still with the same lag (slow hard drive), but at least there was a reaction now. The graphical installer launches (hooray) and walks through six steps. 1. Language selection (for installation and system). Chose Ukrainian. 2. Keyboard layout selection. Fairly broad. Chose the national layout. 3. Time zone selection — UTC+2. 4. A choice between two options — install automatically to the entire drive or partition it manually. Chose manually. 5. The partitioning process itself. Reminds me of the FreeBSD graphical partition editor, to which a partition bar from PartitionMagic was added. (Right now, while writing this, it hit me — why on earth didn’t you take screenshots, huh?). 6. The question “Are you sure? All data on the hard drive……..”. With a firm index finger (why worry — it’s a virtual machine after all) I click “Yeah, sure”.

It turns out that my household members have a completely different daily schedule.

By the time my grey cells wake up and start doing productive work — calling for reinforcements in the form of tea (continuously) and cigarettes (once every 60 minutes) — everyone at home is already asleep, not at all pleased with the noise of the boiling kettle and the banging of doors. This, in fact, explains both the absence of journal entries and a certain pause in other forms of remote communication. It’s just not in me to turn on the computer in the morning and write a letter. And in the afternoon, household chores come up. Or more precisely, the people who come up with them do :)

The event everyone had been preparing for so long has finally happened! It took much less time than hauling all the stuff to Zaporizhzhia. Packed everything into boxes/bags/suitcases in two days, and two bicycles were placed on top (yep, that’s me — I’ve also got four wheels :) A gloomy thought crossed my mind: my entire life, even together with a pile of useless junk, fit into a single passenger car. Everything was transported in a Slavuta — which turned out to be a surprisingly spacious vehicle.

So, here is the first installment of the battle against Ukrtelecom in pursuit of some “WOW”-worthy internet. It turns out the existing line is not of adequate quality for ADSL. The segment resistance is 1100 Ohm, distance is under a kilometer — maybe the specialists will have something to say about the telecom folks?

And if the chukcha wants internet, then let the chukcha run a new line. But the chukcha is no fool (and, between us — not a chukcha at all :), so he decided to get away with minimal effort. The key decision was proposed and agreed upon: run the line through the air. Between the trees, yep. Through an area roamed by packs of alcoholics who, out of the wholesome childlike curiosity typical of all idiots, might easily yank on a rope — just to see if something rings somewhere.

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The most noticeable change will probably be swapping out the greedy carrier phone number. Besides that, I’ve made a final decision — I’m going home. Capital-H HOME.

There’s so much unfinished drinking business waiting there. True, most of it has already collapsed or is well on its way, but that’s all the more reason to charge through the off-road chaos and general sloppiness!

Fulfill the five-year plan in three years! Hooray for the rise of agriculture! We shall build communism on one individual street!