Woe is my computer
Just before I started college (over four years ago, oy vey), I got a brand spankin' new Gateway laptop, the 9100 XL: Pentium II 266 MHz processor, 8 gig hard drive, DVD-ROM, 14.1" display. In 1998, this was really something. In my sophomore year as the techie in me began to take over my life like an unstoppable rebel force, I decided that it would be a good idea to put Linux on there, specifically Debian, as a dual boot with Windows 98. I knew very little about it and was dependent on a friend of a friend (in that case, brother of a friend) to get it up and running. This was a bad idea and left me without a computer for long periods of time, much to my roommate's chagrin. Not long after that, I acquired access to another computer through my marriage (not a bad deal, in all) and I was able to wipe Windows off the laptop and go full-time with Debian.
Since then, my relationship with that laptop has been rocky at best. Over the past two years, I have slowly and painfully found out that there is something very wrong in the innards of this machine. The symptoms were at first hard to diagnose but eventually I realized that it would randomly lose large chunks of valuable personal or OS-dependent information. I quickly recognized that I would not be able to keep anything of significance on this machine and learned the value of backing up data. At first I suspected that it was a hard drive problem, so I replaced it, yet there was no change in its shifty ways. Now I assume it's something on the motherboard and I've learned to cope with it as best I can.
Don't get me wrong, I love this computer. It has probably caused me more frustration than anything else I've ever owned in my life but it has given back so much more. Over the course of at least three months' worth of late nights, it has taught me everything I know about Linux. Every time I think I have it mastered, it gives me a new challenge. "You think you're pretty smart, don't you?", it would say to me. "Try working without your /etc/pam.d/ directory then, tough guy." I would spend hours filled with maddening frustration, rage and disbelief attempting to salvage the system, only to have it impossibly lose some essential kernel modules behind my back. Then comes the reinstallation, of which there have been many. I feel like I could put a Debian system on my VCR in under 20 minutes, I know it so well, or so I will go on thinking until disaster strikes again and I discover that I know so little.
So in the wake of the latest reinstall (Tuesday), I would like to say thank you to my good ole laptop. We've seen the best of times (2.4 kernel works with network card support!) and the worst of times (why does everything keep SEGFAULTING?!?). I hope that it will not mock my appreciative tone but instead choose to accept my gratitude and give me a few trouble-free months. Maybe at my next reinstall, I'll name it "woe."
p.s. If you've sent me an email and are waiting for a response, please resend it, as my inbox was the latest victim in a long line of important personal information lost. I wish I was kidding.