As I mentioned before, I installed the beta version of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS on the same system where I had installed Slackware 15.0. The official release of that version of Ubuntu is out and I have accordingly upgraded that system. A few things that I have noticed so far:
‘Marie was born and raised in Cuffe Street and that is where I live. Marie was baptized in Whitefriars Street. She made her first communion there. Mr. McCausland is doing well in the bank and he rented this house last year. Of course, I wouldn’t be here except that Marie needs help and Mr. McCausland is in the … hospital.’
| comaoineach | Communion | f |
| cíos | rent | m |
| seadú | Settlement; stay, wait | m |
| cúnamh | help | m |
Back in February I looked at the Slackware Linux web site. After years of working with Ubuntu, and occasionally its parent Debian, I decided to see if I could install Slackware and get it to work. I used it a lot in the first years of the current century. Could I still manage it now, or had the comforts of the Ubuntu installation process dulled my edge? From Slackware 15 – The old brigade:
Slackware is deployed using an ncurses interface, with a set of menus where you must make intelligent choices, including partitioning and package selection. And then, there’s LILO the bootloader. Not GRUB, mind! Feels a bit daunting, but then, if you’re careful and methodical, there should be no issues. That said, the approach automatically precludes Slackware from being a typical desktop choice, as most people would have no idea what to do with the installer.
Nodlaig, -lag, pl. -i, f. , oft. with art … .
N. mhaith chughat, I wish you a merry Christmas…
Week before Christmas. The weather was thoroughly unpleasant. Gales of wind,
sudden outbreaks of rain, sleet. Dineen was on his way to the WhiteFriars’ church.
It was about one and it was clear that the rainy, wet day would continue.
In the great hall of the Church, there were many prams, babies sleeping in them,
messages piled on them. There were people, mostly women, running in to confession or lighting up candles: preparation for Christmas in full swing[sail].
| míthaitneamhach | Displeasing, disagreeable; unpleasant, unattractive | |
| ráig | udden rush; sudden outbreak; fit, bout, attack | f pl ráigeanna |
| flichshneachta | sleet | m |
| anfach | Stormy, rough, tempestuous | |
| teachtaireacht | message | f |
| carn | heap, pile | v |
| faoistin | confession | f |
Tharla cruinniú coiste de chuid bhuanchoiste an aonaigh
saothair ar siúl ar ardán an halla nuair a bhuail an Duinníneach
isteach agus bhí an tAthair Merrigan ag déanamh eadrána idir
seastán na gcístí agus lucht roth an áidh. Chuir sé na mná uaisle
ar fad in aithne don Duinníneach, a gheall go dtiocfadh sé chun
aonaigh agus go gceannódh sé stocaí bána cniotáilte uathu dá
mbeidís ar fáil. D’éalaigh siad on gcruinniú ansin agus shiúil
siad thart ar an halla, idir na stainníní, agus iad ag caint.
‘I’ll go in here myself,’ said Dineen when they reached the church.
‘I would like to have a few words with Tom Merrigan.’
A meeting of the standing committee of the job fair was taking place on the hall stage
when Dineen came in and Father Merrigan was mediating between the cake stand and
the wheel of fortune. He introduced all the ladies to Dineen, who promised to come to the
fair and buy white knitted socks from them if available. They then escaped from the meeting and walked around the hall, between the booths, talking.
| coiste | jury, committee | m |
| buanchoiste | Standing committee | m |
| ardán | platform, stage, stand | m |
| eadráin | Separation of combatants; intervention in dispute; mediation, conciliation | f gs eadrána |
| seastán | stand | m |
| roth | wheel | n |
| ádh | luck | m gs áidh |
| lucht | Content, charge; fill, capacity; cargo, load; Class, category, of) people |
m |
| geall | pledge, security | m |
| stainnín | Stand, stall, booth | m |
As I wrote in September, my HP EliteDesk 705 G2 SFF desktop with an AMD PRO A4-8350B R5 processor was giving me messages about limited computer resources when using Zoom under Windows 10, though not under Linux. These sitll occur, even though I have added memory, taking it from 8GB to 24GB. This last time, I finally remembered to bring up Task Manager. It showed me that there was no memory problem, but that Zoom was using a lot of CPU. Why this occurs with Windows but not Linux is puzzling. For now I will have to have all of my Zoom sessions on that system under Linux rather than Windows.
I got a new 1TB SSD drive for Christmas. I used it to replace the 512GB drive that I had installed on my HP EliteDesk 705 G2 SFF system. That 512GB drive in turn went back to the old laptop I had taken it from. In both cases the copying was done by Macrium Reflect Free. There were no problems at all with the HP desktop, but the laptop refused to boot afterwards. So I got out my Linux USB boot repair stick and booted from that, ran the boot repair utility and everything was fine. Both Windows 10 and Ubuntu Linux 20.04 booted cleanly.
So I now have two extra 256GB SSD drives. Don’t really know what I will do with them. For now they are mounted in enclosures with USD 3.x connections.
Many years ago I used Slackware Linux. I switched to Ubuntu because I was concerned that Slackware seemed to be essentially a one man show, and that seemed like a single point of failure. But Slackware was good to me, and I have not forgotten it. Recently Slackware came out with a new and up to date release and I am looking at it again.
The web site looks much like what I remember from 15-20 years ago. That is OK with me, although I would like to see some more current content. I decided to download the Slackware book in its pdf form. Firefox just hung when I went to that page. However, I noticed that it was an ftp site, not http. 20 years ago I was accustomed to accessing ftp sites using ftp tools, not web browsers. So I guessed that this was what once known as an anonymous ftp site, and that such sites could be accessed with the ftp command line. Feeling like Gandalf recalling a thousand year old spell, I opened a Linux terminal window and proceeded to type:
As I wrote previously , Mia (my wife) and I spent last weekend at Capricon, a Chicagoland science fiction convention. We went to most of the Capricons in the ’80’s and ’90’s, but in our first years in Minnesota the pressures of parenthood prevented us from going. Those have eased somewhat and we have been to most of the Capricons (and Windycons) since 2009. While most Capricons have been in the Chicago suburbs, this year the convention was downtown, at the Sheraton Grand Hotel.
Mia (my wife) and I spent last weekend in Chicago for the Capricon, another science fiction convention that has been part of our life for decades. This year the convention was downtown, at the Sheraton Grand Hotel. Our room was on north side of the 28th floor and the view from our window was magnificent by night and day:
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 