At 05:43 PM 4/18/2006, Charles Hallenbeck wrote: >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Hash: SHA1 > >Hi John, > >I am still enthusiastic about unstable, even after this problem. It >turns out that modutils was pretty much replaced by another package, but >was still installed, and when I got up enough courage to remove it and >purge its files, everything cleared up nicely. Evidently I overlooked >something in a changelog or somewhere that would have told me in advance >to do that. But the advantages of keeping current with Sid far outweigh >the occasional problems that might arise. This is the first problem I >have had with unstable in -- let's see -- closer to a year than to six >months now. One thing that helps is to install apt-listbugs and >apt-listchanges, which warn you during the upgrade process about known >problems. Of course you have to pay attention to those warnings, though. That is a great tip. I was running unstable on my laptop for quite some time because it's very old. That may sound contradictory but by running unstable, i was able to get some driver fixes i needed. Actually, i switched back to testing just about 2 weeks ago because unstable sounds dangerous. I guess i thought i was asking for trouble by running an "unstable" version of linux. Maybe that was unnecessary. I was worried though because I've become quite dependent upon my laptop to do my job. We run stable/sarge here at the math Department at the University of wisconsin. But when I build a new machine, i use a kernel downloaded from http://people.debian.org/~shane/speakup/kernel ./ Building my own speakup enabled kernel is on my to-do list for this week. I've built kernels but never with the speakup patches. I couldn't get it to work last time I tried because I didn't have time to do it right. I was trying to cut corners and it didn't work. I need to see if I can build a kernel for pebble linux with speakup enabled. Pebble linux is a debian derivative runs on compact flash drives. If I get that working, then I can use this very small computer called a Soekris that runs linux off a cf drive. Then I can leave my laptop at home. This Soekris computer is only about 8 inches by 4 inches by 1 inch. It has a 512 Mb compact flash (which i bought myself), 1 PCI slot, 128 Mb RAM, and a 266 Mhz processor. It has a USB port, 2 serial ports, and 3 ethernet ports. No hard drive. No video. If I can get it to talk, I plan to use it to troubleshoot networking problems. The cool thing about this machine is that the BIOS setup program runs through the serial port. You get a command line interface on the first serial port and that's how you control the BIOS. Very nice for a blind guy.