It's Time
Dropping Slackware 11.0 on the new box, so you now know that all is well in the end.
I had a bit of an odyssey to get to this point, and I can’t say it’s quite over yet. I can say that it has been a lot of fun, and for the most part I kept my cool through all of it.
My problems began when I couldn’t locate my screwdrivers for the build. The Phillips I have is perfectly sized for computer screws, and the one I had to borrow was not quite the same level of perfection. But it all worked.
The next big challenge was the size of my case, which is – of course – small. I mean small. So, there was a lot of wrangling. Like micro-screwdrivers unscrewing mounting brackets on power cord sockets just to get a motherboard screw in. Very challenging, delicate work.
Then, I was pretty dang sure after all that work that my motherboard was DOA. But, it turned out the generic power cord for my external AC power supply brick was actually the culprit, so that was an easy, RMA-avoiding $7.99 fix.
I used a voltmeter to figure that out, by the way.
Then, I figured out that I didn’t have a VGA patch cable to be able to use my monitor. RadioShack solved that problem for me.
Then, I figure out that the VIA BIOS doesn’t really enjoy USB keyboards natively (they work fine after an OS has loaded drivers). So, I need one of those blasted USB-to-PS/2 adapters that you get all the time and never carry to school with you.
But, it’s all doable.
NetBSD gets dropped on, which I thought might be a load of fun. Well, I’m not going to say “Boy, was I wrong,” but I also am not going to proclaim it a perfect fit. It’s…terse, perhaps. A bit outdated in terms of satisfying even an extremely conservative Linux semi-veteran.
I had to re-drop it in order to get a shell that allowed me to use backspace, for example (a non-standard option). Let alone all the control codes that were spraying onto the screen whenever I pressed tab for filename completion or an up arrow for history search.
I’m watching the n/ package series come on with Slackware now (which most people would consider conservative enough to be unusable these days), and I couldn’t be happier with the choice. Even though NetBSD has a bit of that “just works” effect when you play by their rules, it just isn’t quite worth the hassle for something that’s supposed to be fun. Maybe next time.