After dealing with DSL tech support last night, and showing up to work an hour late this morning, I'm feeling especially spiritual. What better time to continue to weave my sad tale of woe and command line syntax.
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So with my weighty volume of Linux insight (RH Linux 7 Unleashed by SAMS), a SSH connection, and the root password, I began my journey of a million syntax typos. So to start I try to log in as root using my nifty password, thus learning my first lesson. You cannot remotely log in as the user "root", you must login as an existing user and use the "su" command. Fortunately the previous admin had set everyone up with a username and email. Maybe I'll send him a thank you gift of "Anal Ease" and a pack of KOOLs. I couldn't use the primary username b/c the password had been changed (maybe I'll add some itching powder to the lube before I send it).

Anyway, so I get logged in using my humble username. Second lesson:

[quizme2000 @www quizme2000]$

Its not called a cash sign thingy, it referred to as the bash shell prompt. Now I know I'm screwed, what the hell is a shell, and second "bash"?! So I the true fashion of being a know-it-all computer geek, I say "What the hell let's go ahead with this 'su' thing, how hard can it be?". The cash sign thingy ask for the password, so I type in the fancy rack space generated root password string that I will never be able to memorize. Don't worry I'll change that later to something simple, like 'password'.

So now the goddamn thing just says:

#

Insanity and his best friend terror now begins to setup shop in my little irritable discontented life. I close the terminal, put my head in my hands, and listen to the soothing sounds of my stomach starting to digest itself. My ego will simply wouldn't allow me to say "I don't know what the fsck I'm doing I need help with this." Not to be out done by a little incomprehensible demoralization, I top of the afternoon by proclaiming to my boss and co-workers that I'm now a Linux God! I'm going to need more than a few (6+) drinks tonight.

Anyway, I few weeks coast on by with the help of my local drinking establishment and the 7/11. Then the day of reckoning arrives.

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I hope everyone returned safely from from their weekend of 'fun'. I still have bills to pay this month and my boss wants the new windows server to be working by the end of the day. So that's all for now.

I thought I give this journal thing a try 'cause I'm to lazy to blog but too important to keep my thoughts to myself.

It's migration time again at the office. We're going from Linux to Windows!

If your a little curious about this and have no life, please read on. If you don't give a flying egg about my life, experinces, or sage wisdom in matters affecting life please leave your flames in your "drafts" folder. I'll pray you'll remeber me when your face catchs on fire if you decide to send them. Now to the juicy bits.

First we (the startup company I work) had a crappy little shared server from earthlink about 3 years ago. We moved to a RH 7.0 Linux server at rackspace to host the company's brochure-ware website.

Our first sys admin was a hotshot JAVA guru type A asshole who thought he knew everything about anything. After becoming property of the State of MA, and the big black guy in cell block A, the job of administrating the Rackspace server was givin to your's truly.

I cut my Linux teeth using this machine. SSH termnial only baby, not of that GUI crap. Anyway, I was pretty retarded around Linux. I was lucky if I could edit a text file without having RTFM. Having come from a hobby-type PC and MAC helpdesk/game background, I was truly humbled by the power that Linux had to offer. I was also humbled by the fact I didn't have an effing clue how to use a command line operated OS. Thus becoming my own personal nightmare.

I remebering about 8 years ago my Mom saying, "You should learn about Linux, its' free and is becoming popular with computer guys."

I replied, "Give me a break! Its probably a piece of junk. Of course it's free. Only Microsoft and Apple make good computer OS'es."

With hindsight (20/20 of course) I truly see why my life has always had a slight odor of bullshit.

Back to the present minus 18 months. So I go and buy the biggest know-it-all Redhat 7 Linux book I can find at the book store, place it on the bed, cover with pillow, and slept on it. It didn't work, I was going to have to read the damn thing.

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Stay tuned to the adventures about what happens when a lazy know-it-all bastard computer geek tries to use a remote command line to adminstrate a Linux Server.