Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2008-06-28 11:53 am
tenlittlebullets) wrote2008-06-28 11:53 am
Mucking through.
So I did it. I sent off emails to eight of the apartment listers asking about availability for the first two weeks of August. Two replies so far. One person sent back an incredibly polite email to say that the apartment--which is the one I secretly wanted most, right in the middle of the Latin Quarter--was taken. Oh well. The other reply was in uncapitalized and mangled French, but said that the flat was still available and (I think) that she could have photos of it on Monday. It kind of made me feel better about my French skills.
Installing software on this computer is turning out to be a royal pain in the ass. I am not sure whether HP (who built the computer) or Novell (who are responsible for this Office-Productivity flavor of Linux) are to blame, but it turns out that a lot of really, really basic programs and libraries were 'included' but not installed. And I put disbelief-quotes around 'included' because the packages apparently live on a DVD-ROM that might or might not have been shipped with the computer. The computer that does not have a CD/DVD drive because it's so tiny. What fucking genius thought of that?
For an idea of what I mean by really, really basic: a lot of Linux software doesn't get 'installed' in the Windows sense. Instead you get an archive with the necessary files and the source code in it, and you compile and run the source code yourself. So one of the things you'd think would be absofuckinglutely necessary is a C compiler. But no. GCC is off on 'DVD 1' and I'm left banging my head on the keyboard.
Also it would be really nice to enable client-side DNS caching, because right now it's looking up the DNS server with every request and adding five or ten seconds onto all of my pageload times. And somehow mouse gestures got enabled, although I'm not sure whether Firefox or the OS is to blame for that--all I know is that at random moments when I'm using the touchpad, it'll take me back a page or two. I've lost a bunch of half-written posts and had to rewrite them. Stupid thing. The good thing is that those two issues--DNS caching and mouse gestures--should be fairly easy to turn off if I can ever find where to do it.
/kvetching
Installing software on this computer is turning out to be a royal pain in the ass. I am not sure whether HP (who built the computer) or Novell (who are responsible for this Office-Productivity flavor of Linux) are to blame, but it turns out that a lot of really, really basic programs and libraries were 'included' but not installed. And I put disbelief-quotes around 'included' because the packages apparently live on a DVD-ROM that might or might not have been shipped with the computer. The computer that does not have a CD/DVD drive because it's so tiny. What fucking genius thought of that?
For an idea of what I mean by really, really basic: a lot of Linux software doesn't get 'installed' in the Windows sense. Instead you get an archive with the necessary files and the source code in it, and you compile and run the source code yourself. So one of the things you'd think would be absofuckinglutely necessary is a C compiler. But no. GCC is off on 'DVD 1' and I'm left banging my head on the keyboard.
Also it would be really nice to enable client-side DNS caching, because right now it's looking up the DNS server with every request and adding five or ten seconds onto all of my pageload times. And somehow mouse gestures got enabled, although I'm not sure whether Firefox or the OS is to blame for that--all I know is that at random moments when I'm using the touchpad, it'll take me back a page or two. I've lost a bunch of half-written posts and had to rewrite them. Stupid thing. The good thing is that those two issues--DNS caching and mouse gestures--should be fairly easy to turn off if I can ever find where to do it.
/kvetching