Life in the breakdown lane
Jan. 18th, 2015 22:20![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillToday, I was still depressed and struggling some... yet I managed to whip my laptop into shape, for the most part. Debian 7 doesn't implement touch-to-click for touchpads by default, so it takes editing one of the x.org config files. However, I was sent off on a tangent by the fact that it doesn't install sudo either (bwah?). In the process of fixing that, I discovered that it looked to the CD for packages first (sigh), so when I went to edit the sources list (logged in as root) I found that vim wasn't installed.
See why I consider fixing this machine an achievement?
Yes, I can use vi, though I find its lack of indicators disturbing. Yes, I could log in as root (since I had given the machine a root password on installation, and thank goodness for that). Yes, I could have fetched the install CD. But none of it was correct. Meanwhile, I found that adding a user to the sudoers list is not a matter of editing a config file, or of running visudo, or of adding them to the sudo group, but of using the "adduser" command. It would have been nice for sudo(1) or sudoers(5) to have mentioned this somewhere in their manpages. Once I had actually logged on to the wireless here (sigh) it took a Debian forum post to tell me that. Ubuntu does it automagically, and when I ran Red Hat variants I didn't use sudo.
I now have all of it fixed, as far as I know. (Oh, and I turned off the screensaver while I was at it.) So I'm fine, until I find the next thing that Debian figures either nobody wants or everybody knows how to do.
After that, I helped Alex run ethernet cable through two attics and a 20-foot conduit. He says he'll finish nailing it down and finishing off the ends tomorrow, at which point we're a hop and a skip from getting a temporary connection between the houses. And at that point, we can leech off of their broadband while we give Megapath the finger and sign up with Sonic. It will be nice to get speeds better than dial-up, finally. (I think we're hovering between 0.9 and 1.2 megabit these days.)
I cooked myself chicken with feta cheese for dinner, as a low-carb alternative to the duck and wild rice stuffing that everyone else was having. I seem to put in more garlic than my mom does; it tasted very Italian despite the feta.
After five days, I think I'll ditch the low-carb... I'm not getting hypoglycemic anymore, but my digestion is complaining, I'm colder than ever, my CFS is starting to kick in, and I know I didn't eat enough today. In addition, my mood is in the tank, I'm too worn down to deal with the cravings, and I can't have any of my comfort foods. Maybe if I just stay off sugar and limit simple carbs I'll be okay. I'll at least feel warmer and happier. (Though I'm pissed that I can't have sugar in my tea.)
I'm not quite dead yet -- I think I'll sweep my bedroom, as I'm starting to accumulate sand in my bed. I don't know how it gets there (it seems to appear sometime during the day, cats maybe) but sweeping the floor usually helps. And that should be quite enough accomplishments for a day of being half-dead.
See why I consider fixing this machine an achievement?
Yes, I can use vi, though I find its lack of indicators disturbing. Yes, I could log in as root (since I had given the machine a root password on installation, and thank goodness for that). Yes, I could have fetched the install CD. But none of it was correct. Meanwhile, I found that adding a user to the sudoers list is not a matter of editing a config file, or of running visudo, or of adding them to the sudo group, but of using the "adduser" command. It would have been nice for sudo(1) or sudoers(5) to have mentioned this somewhere in their manpages. Once I had actually logged on to the wireless here (sigh) it took a Debian forum post to tell me that. Ubuntu does it automagically, and when I ran Red Hat variants I didn't use sudo.
I now have all of it fixed, as far as I know. (Oh, and I turned off the screensaver while I was at it.) So I'm fine, until I find the next thing that Debian figures either nobody wants or everybody knows how to do.
After that, I helped Alex run ethernet cable through two attics and a 20-foot conduit. He says he'll finish nailing it down and finishing off the ends tomorrow, at which point we're a hop and a skip from getting a temporary connection between the houses. And at that point, we can leech off of their broadband while we give Megapath the finger and sign up with Sonic. It will be nice to get speeds better than dial-up, finally. (I think we're hovering between 0.9 and 1.2 megabit these days.)
I cooked myself chicken with feta cheese for dinner, as a low-carb alternative to the duck and wild rice stuffing that everyone else was having. I seem to put in more garlic than my mom does; it tasted very Italian despite the feta.
After five days, I think I'll ditch the low-carb... I'm not getting hypoglycemic anymore, but my digestion is complaining, I'm colder than ever, my CFS is starting to kick in, and I know I didn't eat enough today. In addition, my mood is in the tank, I'm too worn down to deal with the cravings, and I can't have any of my comfort foods. Maybe if I just stay off sugar and limit simple carbs I'll be okay. I'll at least feel warmer and happier. (Though I'm pissed that I can't have sugar in my tea.)
I'm not quite dead yet -- I think I'll sweep my bedroom, as I'm starting to accumulate sand in my bed. I don't know how it gets there (it seems to appear sometime during the day, cats maybe) but sweeping the floor usually helps. And that should be quite enough accomplishments for a day of being half-dead.