Re: Wishing I could cancel that last e-mail.

[hitchhiker <hitchhiker cybermail net>]

jason@whizzird.net wrote:
> 
> it's not windows, so you shouldn't have to reinstall. what are you trying to
> install? and what distribution do you have? if you find tarballs aggravating
> get redhat 6.0 (chances are you have redhat already--it's the most popular in
> the us i hear) and just use rpms. that's how i install everything. the only
> things i tarball are things i can't get in rpm (like xfmail) or things i write
> myself (not worth putting in an rpm). and you can even get the rpm utility for
> other distributions. i've been using linux since last year and have seen a huge
> jump in the percentage of things put in rpms.

yes,I have red hat.  I have a 6.0 disk laying around somewhere.
one of the reasons I want to reinstall is that lots of things have
turned up "missing".  gone.  vanished.  and I didn't delete them.
like the red hat control panel, for example.

as for using RPMs, I do it only when I can't find the source.  compiling
a source package I know exactly where it goes and what is going on with
it. 

I haven't had these problems up until last week.  everything up until
then installed fine...
I think I did something screwy with the settings in my linuxconf...
somehow going through there I got my ppp connection to allow users to
dial out (good) but now I get error messages about not finding 40 kinds
of ethernet modules and a screen that wants to know if I want to start
up as a graphical workstation or a text workstation. (bad).
this is pissing me off.  and I hoped a new kernel would fix most of it,
but nothing above a 2.2.4 will boot for me.

so there you have it.
my logic here then:
there is a HUGE mess on my system right now.  I CAN fix it.  It will
take FOREVER.  Backing up my data and re-installing will erase the old,
put in newer, and let me start fresh from a (possibly) more up-to-date
system.

is there any flaw in this reasoning?



-- 
- The Hitchhiker

"The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false.  The opposite of a
great truth is also true."
				-Neils Bohr