Stinkfoot's Got a Brand New Bag.

I suppose I should have written this days and days ago, but I've been getting smacked around at work for quite some time now, and I didn't want to post this until I was *absolutely certain* I had completed what I set out to do... I finally have, and I appreciate you all bearing with me :)

Stinkfoot.org has _been_upgraded_ _BIG_TIME_. We're now running 2xG4(7410)@533mhz with 1G of RAM 133mhz bus. I'll be adding 512M more RAM in a few days. A new 18G ultra160 drive is on its way to accomodate the ever-growing PGP Keyserver database housed here..among other things. The DSL has been jacked up to 384k/1.5-4M... the best I can do for my budget =)

Most of you probably aren't aware of the fact that I started this box out as a Beige G3 with one 4G IDE drive and 128M of RAM =) Since then the machine has been "transformed" twice.. but the OS has remained a homebrewed Linux, compiled, edited, crashed, tested, erased, copied, and finally perfected by yous truly. Immense praise goes out to: The LinuxFromScratch Project , The Slackintosh Project and Russell Kroll, (its creator), NETBSD (for being so damn smart about OpenFirmware!), Ben Herrenschmidt (PPC Linux kernel developer, who's kernels run right here!), and many many others. The macintosh is a difficult platform to run Linux on, and I could dribble on for hours as to why.. But instead, I'll outline just a few of the more difficult points.

Booting from a SCSI controller using OpenFirmware is a pain in the ass! -- For one reason only.. typing in the OpenFirmware Path to a Drive sitting on an Adaptec 29160 looks like this: device=/pci@f2000000/ADPT,29160@14/@6: YIKES! Don't ask me how many times I used the keyboard to pound my head when I typo'd that one! IDE disks look like this: device=hd: (I guess Apple wants you to use IDE, heheh!) The other severe pain in the ass is that the majority of Linux development is geared toward Little-Endian (LSB) Wintel boxes. This doesn't mean it doesn't run well on Big-Endian (MSB) machines.. (As a matter of fact, it files!) It just means that certain packages need "special treatment"... including the Kernel itself. I won't go into why, those of you who are in the know regarding this issue.. well... you know! LSB=1234 MSB=4321 =) Last but not least is an issue that absolutely pissed me off to no end: The power fails, the UPS finally runs out of juice or automatically shuts down the machine.. A few hours later, the power returns... But the machine does not power-up. It waits for the power switch to be thrown. A server cannot exist in a situation like this, and although there are plenty of PPC-specific linux hacks to accomplish many "macOS specific" functions.. fiddling with the power settings isn't possible just yet.

So... your handy sysadmin dumped macOS on a cruddy old IDE disk, booted to it, set the "Automatically Power-On after Power Failure" setting to on.. and yanked the power cord several times to test. Walla! It works. I hope you all enjoy my new (and Improved!) creation called stinkfoot.org... and keep an eye out for my next upcoming project: oogieboogie.org (coming soon to a DSL line near you!)..
stay cool..

e-d0uble