Linux (again, again...)

Downloaded the Fedora 9 Beta over the weekend in all its 3.7GB worth of DVD ISO loveliness. Thought twice about it but then saw the "Fedora 9 released in 25 days" (or whatever it said) banner and thought "well, if they're only 25 days away it must be pretty good".

Nope.

Basically, it wouldn't install. The first few times I tried to configure it to UK settings (clock, keyboard, etc.) but eventually gave up and let it run through on defaults. Every time I tried to manually partition my disks the installer would through an exception.

Eventually I did get it to install fully by simply letting it run through using the default options. Great - at least I could configure it all post-installation.

Nope.

Grub couldn't see my installation. Now, bearing in mind I installed it on dedicated hardware (no VM nonsense here) I would have thought it would have flown through. Bizarrely, after a quick Google around, it seemed the issue was with my SATA drives.

Surely Fedora knows about SATA drives by now? They're not that new are they?

Anyway, gave up on it (I don't have much time/patience these days) and downloaded Fedora 8 instead. This installed a treat, until it rebooted and wanted to take me through the post-install configuration.

Then the keyboard and mouse (both PS/2) gave up responding.

Amazing.

Another Google and a quick "reset to safe defaults" in the BIOS and the mouse and keyboard sprang back to life but it was too late, I was bored by then so I powered the machine down and shoved it back in the spare room where it's in the queue of things-to-go-on-eBay.

What utter nonsense. I've always been a fan of Linux but I think I'm more a fan of the thought of Linux rather than the product itself. I'll probably have a go at installing FC8 and FC9 into VMs at some point but it's down the priority list now.

Hello World!

Just a holding post really. Last night our hosting provider took www.k23productions.com offline as it was affecting the stability of both the Apache and MySql servers that host it. Access was restored within 3 hours but - given that I can't control who and how my site is accessed from the www - I'm thinking a restructuring is possibly in order.

I finally managed to retrieve my Blog account information and have created this new blog primarily for k23 productions news. It's not set in stone yet but it's likely I'll move all downloads onto the relevant areas of sourceforge, use Blogs for news and updates and retain the old site purely for hosting the forum. If nothing, it should mean I can reduce my bandwidth/disk space requirements.

In fact, if you're reading this, that's probably what's already happened... :)