2016 — 14 May: Saturday
One of my gurus1 has been digging into what's actually going on 'inside' my new NAS device:
"The Western Digital units mentioned below use a proprietary file system and cannot be reformatted as FAT32, NTFS, or a Mac File System.
The file system on the My Cloud and other WD NAS devices support access from Windows, Mac and most Linux based computer systems through a SAMBA network sharing connection."
Needless to say the list included what I think is your device.
He had earlier sent me (inter alia) this long tutorial on an Ubuntu forum all about the necessary root-level command line incantations needed to access the thing via NFS. It struck me as an interesting read, but also as a lot of work for no real benefit to my arguably over-casual way of working, which is (of course) but one of the reasons why he's a Linux guru and I am not.
The sun is...
... shining, the tea is already freshly drunk, and I forgot to mention spotting several glorious rhododendrons2 while out and about yesterday.
Given my purchase of a couple of bottles of "Highland Black" whisky in Aldi — one now already gifted, as it happens — I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised to learn from the random selection of Google news items on my Android SHIELD Tablet this morning that chaps between 45 and 64 in the UK are somehow managing to drink their way through an amazing average of 37 units per week. As I don't expect to open my bottle until the next time Big Bro darkens my doorstep, I'm clearly not doing enough for the anti-sobriety brigade.
What I know...
... about Systemd — the new Linux startup system used by Ubuntu 16.04 — could be carved in large letters on a small pinhead. Being curious, I decided to see what happens if I powered on all three PCs, but only used BlackBeast initially (among other things, to write this nonsense).
[Pause]
OK, now let's check in on the NUC and Skylark. They have both been on for a couple of hours. I used NoMachine on BlackBeast to connect to the NUC, logged in, ran Software Updater (since it's been a couple of days since I last used the NUC). OK so far. Now for Skylark. I'll use NoMachine just for fun — what could possibly go wrong?
I wasn't surprised to find that, by this time, the unfixed kernel regression had killed off Skylark's desktop. I ducked out of NoMachine and "reset" Skylark. Counted to 20 or so. Back into NoMachine. "Yes, create a display for me". The window it opened up in was only 1024x768 but inside it, at full resolution, was Skylark's desktop. That was a little odd. I logged in. OK? Well, sort of...
Some "things" are slightly different. The application icons on the left hand panel have moved around. Firefox won't start up. Nor will Software Updater. OK, shut the thing down properly, switch the Dell screen physically over to the mini-DisplayPort input, and start it up again "properly". Get to the desktop. All is well. The panel is present and correct. Then an error message window pops up about detecting an "internal system problem" that "might be cured by a restart". It seems "Some of my packages need updating" to avoid the previous crash. The list includes Systemd. Ubuntu's error report suggests this may be a fresh installation that needs updating... Cheek! I updated Skylark just yesterday.
I ran the Software Updater. It says Skylark is already up to date. KBO.
I loathe Boris Johnson...
... even more than most politicians. He plays the buffoon without the merit of actually being one. That makes him dangerous.
... let's pay attention to the words that came out of his mouth, such as his critique of David Cameron's speech on Monday, which had focused on the national security implications of a Brexit. Johnson hit back: "I think all this talk of world war three and bubonic plague is demented,
frankly."
And who could disagree? Who but a cretin would suggest that the black death would be the result of a British break from the EU? And yet a scan of the text of Cameron's speech yields no results for either "bubonic" or "world war three". Who was it, then, that introduced "all this talk"
of such perils? Why, it was the former mayor himself.
Well, golly, there's a surprise.
I think the technical term...
... for this collection of CDs by Kathryn Williams, eight of which are appearing here for the first time...
... is a "full house". The last one showed up today. I'm predicting a ripping time back on BlackBeast (Skylark lacks an optical drive). Some lunch first, though. All the scanning has worked up an appetite.
I switched Skylark's connection...
... back to use HDMI on the 34" Dell, and repeated the "switch on, then ignore it" test. It was still displaying its desktop when I finally peeked some three hours later. I've yet to try this test with BlackBeast, which uses a DisplayPort connection but a different graphics card and an older Linux kernel.
While waiting to see...
... what happened, I was pottering around, and browsing through a copy of Ambrose Bierce's "Devil's Dictionary". The word "plan" happened to catch my eye:
Its definition is identical in both my 24-year-old Dover edition of the original 1911 text, and the 1967 "enlarged" version — a Penguin Modern Classic I bought a mere 45 years ago. Yes, of course I checked!