14 March, 2011

There's a python in my shell

I guess I shouldn't have woken up this morning. I've just seen someone spend 24 hours around at my place, trying to get their machine to the point of being able to boot up a Linux system. They succeeded after a lot of asking questions in the machine's setup, and then they decided to try something I'd never seen before.

For what it's worth, they were installing SourceMage. But the flash in the pan was, once they'd installed gcc and gazillions of other programs provided with SourceMage, they set their init shell to /usr/bin/python. Then they rebooted and loaded the kernel, which started off Python, and typed:

>>> import os
0
>>>

It all went from there... sigh. Sometimes I like geeks and the things they do. I must admit though, I'd never thought of this one.

No doubt you lot would have already found out about the earthquake I was in, which wasn't as bad as the very recent earthquake in Japan—exacerbated by a huge tsunami. Still, our earthquake was bad enough, causing a few cracks in our house, our power and water to be off for more than a week, and internet took even longer than that. Still, I'm alive—unlike 200-odd others, the wife's great, and we're doing well while I type up this note. To all of you who asked, thank you for your messages of support. I was touched especially by one message that was forwarded by snailmail from an email from the Open Cobalt and SecondLife AWG groups—thanks to you all, especially. I'm only sorry it took me so long to get back to you all.

Please, if you haven't considered it yet, do think about sending support to Japan. They need it.

Later ...