I got up about 11am.

My dialup connection had dropped out, so I reconnected it, and continued the dist-upgrade.

I checked email, and watched some tv.

I heard someone turn up, and some talking outside. I kept watching tv.

A few minutes later, Dad dragged a couple of PCs. They are from someone who I fixed the PCs for before, (it's one I've fixed before, and another one). Apparently the one I've fixed before is stuffed, and the other one needs some work. Great, just what I need at the moment, more bloody work.

Dad came in again later, told me he was going out, and that he'd leave the door open if I wanted to look at their foxtel (it wasn't working) (already emails had gone back and forth of how to fix it).

I went in to look at it. Three of the four wires connecting the interface had been ripped off the board. Gee, I wonder why it doesn't work.

I pulled the box out, reattached the wires. Took the box back, it still would not work.

I dragged it back out, and started testing it connected to my machine. It worked, but it was a mongrel to get working, had to put the card in an out about 30 times, and keep restarting the software to get it to work.

The dist-upgrade finished downloading about 1pm.

I kept working on the box, it was working ok, but it was just really fiddly to get it working.

I tried putting it back in place, still refused to work. I put one of the old galaxy boxes in place, it worked.

Hmm, now I don't know what the problem is.

I decided to put one of my powered interfaces in, it then worked properly every single time, attached to my pc. I went and put it back inside, but it wouldn't work.

I then went about putting the old galaxy box back in.

As I was doing this, I heard my mate (with the adsl) turn up.

I kept putting the box back in.

After fiddling around for another couple of minutes, my parent's phone rang, it was my mate.

I went out to see him. He told me the details of getting my bike reregistered, it'll get done in a month or so.

I told him about the treatment I had received lately, and we had a chat about me starting my business and everything.

He left after about an hour, and I went back to fixing the foxtel again.

I put the old Galaxy box back in again, and it wouldn't work either.

I eventually found it to be because the serial ports on my parent's machine were upside down (the top port is com2), but it was very weird, it was like they were switching around or something.

I then put the newer box (my 660) back in again, with the powered interface, plugged into the correct serial port, and it all worked. That only wasted about 4 hours.

I then went back to the machine, the dist-upgrade had finished, so I started configuring all the updated packages.

It finished, I tried to compile the kernel again, and it still failed. Issues with ncurses libraries. I googled around, but could not find the answer.

I found there is a debian kernel package of 2.4.25, so I started apt-getting it, 30mb, a couple of hours worth.

I went back to watching tv while I waited.

It was about 7.30pm, I was just thinking about making some dinner.. I have to do the washing up, there's no clean plates or cutlery.

Hmm, there's a box of savoury biscuits, I could just eat those.

My phone rang, it was my mate who came around earlier. He asked if I'd had dinner, no, did I want Chinese, yeah, sure. He told me to go around to his place in about 1/2 hour.

I went back to watching tv again. He called me again a couple of minutes later, what did I want at the Chinese, heh.

I got off the phone, watched more tv, then realised I would need to start getting ready.

I had a shower, got dressed, and left.

The kernel package finished downloading just before I left.

I got around to my mate's place about 7.10pm.

He wasn't there, not back yet I assume.

I hung around, and he turned up about 15 minutes later.

We sat and ate dinner, my mate, his wife, and myself. My mate had borrowed "Bringing Down the House", which he put on, it was an ok movie.

I had a couple of glasses of wine with dinner, it was nice.

I ended leaving about 10.30, and came back to keep working on getting the servers up.

I tried to compile the kernel, same nonsense about missing ncurses libraries. I tried to configure the kernel just using the text mode interface, it worked, but I answered a couple of questions wrong.

I went to vi the Makefile, to fix the errors I made, but vi segfaulted everytime I tried to run it. Along with every other editor.

The machine had run out of memory too, 384mb, there's only 5mb available, yet nothing in top is taking over 1%.

I rebooted.. got "LI". D'oh! I got the install CD, used a rescue image to boot the machine back up.

I still could not use vi, or any other editor.

This machine must be stuffed.

I used scp to backup all the debs I've spent the last couple of days downloading, onto a different machine, in case this disk turns out to be stuffed.

First I'll check the memory, if it's ok, then I'll reinstall it all, and do bad block checks when I format the disk.

I downloaded the new version of memtest86, and booted it up on the machine. I read how the "badram" kernel module works, and went to bed, watched a couple of episodes of the Simpsons.