Coders Edge
 FC13
  Tomorrow is the day.


Every 6 months there is a
new Fedora Core.  I upgrade
right away.
This sunday I tried to upgrade
a 2 year old HP from an fc9 to
an fc12.  Anaconda is unable to
find the boot drive.  I read something
about updating one of the
utilities so that Anaconda can
then find the drive.  However,
then I burned an fc12 install DVD
and even that could not find root
when it tried to upgrade.
So . . . it is something with
the volume and lvm and the way
that the fstab file is.  I remember
that there was a mandatory
labeling of partitions . . . or 
converting to the UUID of the
device . . . but those kinds
of topics are . . . just so 
damn unimportant that when you learn
them you only learn them for enough
time to allow for you to fix the bug.
I used to try to document
all that stuff.  I'd waste countless
hours writing documentation that
I would not even need later.  Why?
Because the interfaces are built
on quicksand.  Things change rather
rapidly.  What seemed like a key part
before is suddenly depracated and
there is a whole new way to do everything.

So it is in the real world of
Linux and the modern Unix operating
system.

My theory:  Microsoft was cave and
obsolete their own OS's just like
Apple did.  It would be good for
everyone.  It would finally move us
to a place where the shifting sands
of change down drag us down and 
bury us with too many needless
planned obselecences.  If Microsoft
would finally admit that they are 
nothing without Linux, that they
need Linux upon which to host the MS
OS. . . . would that not do a lot
to unify and move forward and start
doing more real things with 
computers?

Are there anti-trust concerns?  Is
there anti-trust concerns because
there is essentially only one power
grid?  One set of roads?  One sky?
One Earth?

I suggested this scenario to a friend
of mine who is deeper in it.  He
seems to think that it will never 
happen, that Microsoft will admit
to no dependance on Linux.  They aren't
going to use a Free BSD fork like
Apple did to make OSX.  That was
a very wise move on Apple's part.
See who is in the public's mind
more now as far as fun and consumer
products go.  Maybe MS is happy with
their big corporate lock on so many servers,
etc.  They must be very happy with the
perpetual upgrade thing that
costs so damn much each time.
So as long as folks are dumb
enough to let MS keep them on this
tredmill, there will be a MS OS.

OK.  

And as for if everything were Unix,
as it should be, what does this
really mean?  It means that people
follow best practices.  There is no
reason at all that Microsoft couldn't
have their own version of a Unix.
It is, after all, a convention, 
a 'best practices' thing.  They
can make their OS be a UNIX and it
would still be their OS.  Like
Solaris.

But then, like Solaris, they would
probably then need to open source it
at some point.
I don't have a problem with closed
source as long as folks are not 
preditory and capricious in their
interface redefinitions.  Interface
is everything in software as well as
hardware.

Any way, more next time.  Tomorrow:
FC13.  And, no, I don't think
that I will care to document it.
I just want to get it done.  I had
a problem the last time because the
partition didn't have enough space
on it for the preupgrade and I had to
do a very scarey thing with that
leap of faith edit that I knew would
work, but if it didn't it  could be
very damaging.
I don't like having to deal with
the boot sectors and grub.  But if
I need to, I can hack my way out
of a bad grub installation.  Sometimes
you just need to reinstall grub.

I will reread my notes (found in my
bit bucket columns of last year
and on eht coder's edge pages 
(different from this column).

  WP. May 24, 2010