“You and the penguin aren’t getting along.” It was Helaine. “I can tell.” She’s psychic about these things.
The penguin is ‘Fox housetalk’ for Linux, a computer operating system that’s sparsely used by folks at home. It is atop Linux that MythTV, my DVR software sits.
I know. This is really geeky. It’s my fun… when the penguin and I are speaking.
It hasn’t been good this weekend. Computers aren’t suppose to give you a different answer when doing the same thing multiple times. This Ubuntu Linux install did.
I’m a scrounger. I’m like the guys who built hot rods in the 50s and 60s–just with computers. That’s why I’m rebuilding something that worked fine, but could be coaxed to work finer.
I’m in the midst of rebuilding my DVR. It moved into a faster box, got a software update and acquired a digital tuner. I should be able to record non-scrambled high def shows in high def.
The problem is none of the digital station recording works! When it’s time to scan for channels it merely rolls through the dial without locking onto one. I can still record ‘old fashioned’ TV, but that’s not the point.
Others have had this problem and solved it. I will too.
At the moment it’s driving me a little crazy.
Meanwhile this newly assembled machine means two very old and now gutted computers will be thrown out. Though both are worthless the act itself pains me. It seems so wrong. It would be like throwing out wire or cable. You just don’t.
Sadly, old, gutted computers NEED to be disposed of. I just bit the bullet and passed a bunch of once-upon-a-time rather expensive, thoroughly obsolete hardware on to my favorite charity.
Try justifying it as a technology upgrade…older computers are just not worth holding on to. There’s a limit to how many tired computer cases we need, unfortunately.
Wire and cable truly does not get technology upgrades, because that technology has pretty much peaked. That makes some sense to hold onto, in SMALL quantities.
Yeah, as a fellow professionally registered packrat, it pains me to toss an old system, but consider that the alternative is to be personally buried in difficult to dispose of potentially hazardous waste material. It’s getting harder to find ways to get rid of the stuff without paying a massive fee, or having to schlep them off to a local ‘free’ recycling center. Dump the old stuff while you still can…
Old favorite tee shirts fall into the same category around my house as well. Wife tends to get upset when I attempt to wear some of them in public–and upset wife is NOT a ‘good thing’, as we both know.