Short note – I reinstalled the Debian OS on my Libretto to 1. Partition the hard drive so I can use the Libretto Hibernation Mode, and 2. to document the process to post here. The documentation went prett well, but the hibernation still does not work. The command “apm -s” gives me a scary “insert a disk” image – not sure what really happened there. It took me FOREVER to figure out how to get this command line blog posting program to work. I documented what I did, but I have a feeling I could get it to work much more easily next time. Problem is, I would have to reinstall again to test it out, unless I can figure out how to undo all the perl scripts I installed.

This is my second post from my Toshiba Libretto 100ct. I am feeling pretty empowered by this little thing, if only because I got it to work with a decent Linux distro (Debian). I have gotten it to be a functional little machine despite its 64MB of RAM. I am now able to do the following:

• Browse the web on my wireless network with a Netgear MA401 PCMCIA card using lynx, the text browser
• Post to my blog using the Linux command line program ‘wppost’
• Write music using lilypond and listen to the midi files produced using timidity
• Check my Gmail and nathanbibb.com email with mutt
• Maintain my project, work, personal, and lilypond files using my Subversion version control repositories
• Track my ‘todo’ list with Gina Trapani’s excellent todo.txt program
• Learn cool Linux command line tricks I would never have learned if I were using a graphical user interface, like the ‘screen’ command
• Annoy my wife to the point that she calls the Libretto my ‘Tiny Baby Precious’
• Post to Facebook using the ‘fbcmd’ program

I’m a little concerned that I didn’t fully document the process I used to get this machine up and running with Debian GNU/Linux while I was in the process, so it might be a little hard to get all the details right from memory. One day I might redo the whole thing just to get the steps correct. Plus, I love installing operating systems. It’s like a new beginning.

When I re-install, I might right down the steps I took to get the latest stable Debian GNU/Linux system working on the Toshiba. It definitely involves removing the hard drive and using another machine, which was a lot of fun for me. I love taking machines apart.

In other news…

There have been other things going on, of course. I have continued to work on my Untitled Piano pieces, but at a slower pace than I expected. I am planning to be my son’s cub scout den leader next year – that should be a lot of fun. I am still trying to figure out how to build a home theater PC – the combo boxee/dvr system does not seem to be ready for me yet. My wife has been making a lot of really cool hats lately – you might be able to see them soon at Andromeda’s Attic, but we’ll see. She might just keep them.

That’s all for now. I might post again in another six months. Or maybe more often, now that I can do it from the Libretto…

So for Christmas, I got a little computer from 1998 – a Toshiba Libretto 100ct. My son called it my future computer from the past. It’s about the size of a VHS cassette, and from the same era. I was able to load Debian GNU/Linux on it, which was a fun tinkering exercise. Later I’ll write up my experience getting it to work – it was pretty interesting.

More command line madness: I did not load a graphical user interface on the computer, so I have to do everything on the command line. I am posting this using a command called ‘wppost’ that was a bit involved to compile, but seems to work now.

Now it’s time to test some html formatting:

• Here’s an unordered list
• and a second item in the list
• and a third

Bold Text, and then italicized text and underlined text.

More to come on this stuff…