Wednesday night I had a philosophy paper to finish before my 8am morning class. Which made it the perfect time to erase my hard drive. Yes, even the mighty Linux is not impossible to crash.
***Skip this part if you don't want nerdy techno-babble***
I had opened up Linux's automatic update system to import plugins from the multiverse spectrum, which includes updates outside Linux's approved web servers and programs list. This gives a lot more updates, but it means not all of them are compatible. The computer froze up while compiling one of these. When I rebooted, my kernel was totally gone. In tears, I called up Vanderbilt's ITS help desk, only to find out that no one there knows how to handle Linux. I have nothing.
***Okay you can start reading again***
I was not even able to start the paper until after 3am. Luckily I had my old Ubuntu live CD in my desk drawer, which means I wrote my paper on about 650 megs of Operating System and entirely in gedit. I finished the paper despite all this 'cause I'm a trooper like that. My professor was very understanding when I explained the reason the font was Courier New instead of Times New Roman and there were no headers, footers or citations. I was planning on going to the Apple store this weekend and buying Leopard so I would have a plan B if Linux flakes out again, but my paycheck was late so I'm still running my laptop on a Live disk (gross). I'm also refusing to reinstall the same distribution I had before, which, puts me in a precarious position, system-wise.
