Toid.net 2.0
As Toid.net approaches version 2.0.0, I have now completed the revamped forum for everybody that was waiting! If you haven’t checked out the forum before, now would be a great time to do it! It’s really fun, and there’s going to be a lot going on there! There are so many features, I don’t even know where to begin. You can post messages, obviously, but that’s only the beginning. I like to think of it, more like a place to hang out on the web. It feels like home. What you say in there will be viewed by lots of people and you can get their input on a range of topics! The possibilites are endless!
Also, by the number of posts you submit, you can go up in ranking status! That’s right, there’s even rankings for how often you post, the forums are searchable, there’s even a FAQ for those of you that may not know exactly how to sign up or what to do, or even how to post. I’ve covered most the basic questions. Do you not like some of Gugals articles? Come join us and let us know! We would love to hear your thoughts. You can post a picture by your posts, so we can see who you are, and if you’re not sure how to do this, you can E me, or you can u2u (user to user) inside the forum, once you sign up! The forum automatically keeps track of what threads are viewed the most, and what generates the most replies. It’s all extensible programming via php. Here at Toid.net we take security seriously! Your passwords are encrypted so even I can’t see what your password is! I can reset it, but I can’t see it. As of right now, there are even two themes installed, so you can even change the color of how it looks! I’ll be installing more whenever I have time, I’ve been busy looking for a job this last week.
There are many more features, such as adding smilies that animate within your posts, there’s a way to contact people via AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, or MSN, and you can create new threads and respond in old ones! Please, join in the fun, as I would not just like to create a website of me, and what I’ve done, but more of a whole web experience, where people can come in with their problems, and ask everybody what they should do! Have you watched a good movie lately? Post it! Let us know, so that others can go out and rent the movie! There are more stats than I even know what to do with! You can see who the forum user of the day is! Check it out! Alright, enough blabbing about it, show me the forum! Ok, well you can click any one of the numerous links that take you to the forum.
Gentoo
All things Gentoo
Well, it’s now about noon on the 20th of September, 2002 and I am writing this to you from my main computer running Gentoo. For the last few weeks I’ve been running RedHat’s (null) beta’s. They were making me upset because of the general slowness that RH seemed to be creating with all their bloatware. Meanwhile, I kept hearing good things about Gentoo, both from linux-friendly sites, and friends (mainly Trojan, who btw still runs that “other” OS, but hangs out in an IRC channel where everybody runs Gentoo). I kept getting more and more interested in Gentoo, so I finally had to take a look for myself. Reading the instructions on the Gentoo website made my head spin. But if everybody says it’s worth it once it get’s compiled, I’ll take their word and try it. Below is my story containing the details of my road to glory. Warning: This isn’t a distro for the faint of heart. If you want something that comes together out-of-the-box, please go to RedHat or SuSe or Mandrake.
Here we go
I began downloading Gentoo 1.4rc1 just after midnight on the morning of the 18th. You download this 100 MB file and put it on a cd that they refer to as the “livecd”. This may seem like a lot, but it isn’t. Redhat has you download over 2GB from the start! Yikes! 100 MB doesn’t seem so bad now. About an hour later I was done downloading the file, and began to realize what would happen if this entire install borked. If it borked I would lose all my files, so I needed to back them up. So, one hour later I had finished backing up about 20 GB of stuff onto Lelu, my server, and I had the livecd burned. I was now ready to begin.
Thirty minutes later, I began bootstrapping my computer after setting up basic computer functions such as my filesystem and networking. This wasn’t so bad because the instructions on the Gentoo website are really informational and while they may be overwhelming at first, taken one line at a time, they aren’t so bad. THREE and a half HOURS later, I now had a Stage 2 system. The website said it would only take 1-2 hours, but bootstrapping on my computer took what seemed like years. I didn’t know who was going to die first; me or my processor.
Another 1.5 hours passed and I had the greenlight to go on to Stage 3. This consisted of actually compiling the kernel. Well, about an hour later, I had everything set, including most of my /etc files configured correctly and was ready to hit the reboot. This would be the one time I didn’t want to screw up compiling my kernel. *Whew* My computer booted just fine! By 5:15pm that evening, I had Gnome 2.0.1 merged. And about 30 minutes after that I had my mouse working. Now, if you haven’t been keeping track of the time. Let me point out that I’m now 17 hours into my install process. And I just now got my mouse to work. Heh. 
So I wasted 30 minutes trying to get my nVidia driver to work. It wasn’t playing nice. Oh well. I’ll worry about that later I said.
Three hours later I had sound. What joy sound is when you have waited over 20 hours to hear the precious sound of a mp3 playing. I was very happy when I finally started seeing results. Gnome 2.0.1 looked very nice. There were a few “issues”, but I wasn’t going to deal with those right now. I have to continue emerging. By 1am (a day after I started) I had a web browser and could now read the instructions on the web as I actually performed them. Before I was using one of my other computers to do this, which while it worked, was irritating to have to switch back and forth. I love my OmniCube. Two hours later I had Evolution and gFTP. My mail transferred smoothly and I was in a good mood. Two hours later I had my screensaver installed and themes, but the themes didn’t work. I wasted a good amount of time trying to get them to work. By 9am I had more of a system…I had mplayer, gphoto2, gqview, gimp, gnupg, gnapster, realplayer, nmap, licq, xchat, and cups all merged successfully.
The entire rest of the day was figuring out what was going on with the gtk1 and gtk2 stuff. Compiling certain things with gtk1 caused them not to carry a theme, but some programs weren’t gtk2 compatible yet. So, it made for a little confusing. But thankfully portage makes use of the USE command, and this seemed fairly intuitive. I found that evolution and mozilla still needed gtk1, and everything else could go gtk2. However, at this point, I still had about 10 problems that needed to be worked out. I needed to get my printer working. I needed to get my digital camera working. I wanted my nVidia drivers up and running so I could test out the new UT 2003 and of course play Quake3. I wanted my font problem fixed. I had this quirky error with my keyboard where it wouldn’t let me use my apostrophe key or my quotation key. The titlebar’s seem unresponsive to theme changes. Gnapster doesn’t want to work. Galeon was the only program that crashed, and I didn’t really take time to look into why it’s crashing. And did I mention I had a font problem? Hehe. Oh yeah. I needed sleep. And on the second day Toid finally took a nap.
Later that night though, I came home from work and went at it with renewed hope. I wanted it to work. I wanted THIS to work. Gentoo is what the heart of every penguin hackin’, fragging, non-llama wants in an OS. It’s fast, and it compiles everything by source. The speed was noticeable over a system running RedHat’s (null) betas. (Which I tried, but didn’t like, which is why I got mad enough at RedHat and tried Gentoo…ps – Thank You RedHat, I’m not going back to your product for a while) Two days after I started I finally got my nVidia drivers to work. How I did this I’m not really for sure. All I know is I kept trying and eventually they booted. An hour later I had my printer working! Yes! Even though I hardly use my printer it was a sign saying I did something right. I had change back to 1.1.14 version of cups, but hey, it solved the issue 1.1.15 was having.
Now, for some reason, I must have lost my head for the next few hours. I recompiled my kernel 8 times for no real reason at all. You see, I was trying to get my digital camera to work. I had the latest gphoto2 emerge along with gtkam. I kept thinking I had usb issues, and had them compiled wrong in my kernel. Let me say this, I had compiling a kernel down by the time I finally gave up on it. I timed it. It took 13 minutes on my 733mhz. That’s fast, IMHO. I don’t think RedHat could touch that. The biggest speed difference between RH and Gentoo is definitely Nautilus. It opens when I click it, not twelve seconds later. So anyhow, I decided to screw my digital camera and go get a coke. Ahh, the power of coke. It dawned on me that I had the right USB things intalled otherwise my USB printer wouldn’t be working. Maybe it was a permissions problem. Sure enough, I ran gtkam as root, and what do you know, there were my pics. Sheesh. I felt so stupid.
So that was at about 8 am, and here I am around noon, typing this up. Since then I have emerged Gnome 2.0.2rc1, and many other things. I’m starting to get the hang of it. I also solved my keyboard quirk (I had my keyboard mapped as us_intl, instead of just us) The fonts I’m still working on, but you know what? It’s time for a little sleeping action. That might be good. Seems how all I have been doing the last two days is sitting in front of my computer.
My Thoughts
If I may reflect back on the whole process and share my thoughts with you, I’ll do that right now (since, ya know, it is my website and all) Gentoo is here to stay. It’s not just a fad. It’s a revolution in the making. It may not ever take out RedHat, but it’s definitely in the heart of every linux power user. If you like to download bleeding edge packages, or even not so much bleeding edge, or if you like being able to pick and choose which packages you want installed without getting trapped in dependency hell…by all means…give Gentoo, or any other distro like it a shot. Yes, the installation instructions may sound difficult, and they might be. Depends on your outlook. If you’re willing to put the time in compiling, Gentoo will save you it in time waiting for your apps to launch later on. The Gentoo community is great, and most every answer to your questions can be found on the Gentoo Forum. And if I could say one last thing….Gentoo 0wNz.
Mt. Columbia – Rabbit Ridge
Date: September 1, 2002
Elevation: 14,073′
Rank: 35th
Route: Rabbit Ridge, Grade II, Class 2, 13.5 miles, 5900ft vert.
GPS: N 38° 54.233′ W 106° 17.816′
Team: Matt Esser (Toid), John, Daniel
Pre-climb: A week ago I did the Decalibron, and my knee was still a little tired from the scree slope descent of Bross. However, it’s not often that you get a three day weekend I guess, so I had to take advantage of it. After reading through Roach’s guidebook, I chose Harvard and Columbia because it sounded like a pleasant hike and I had time to spare. So on Saturday, I took my time and headed west.
Climb: It was a wonderful afternoon hike in to Horn Fork Basin. I hadn’t done an afternoon hike before, and I must say I really enjoyed it. I had a full pack on because my plan was to camp in the basin and then go for Harvard and Columbia the following day. I crossed the creek after 45 minutes, and then made it into camp a little after 2 hours. From my tent, I heard constant rockfall from Columbia, so I sat out and watched the hikers go down the scree most of the evening.
I woke up around 6:30am, and was ready to go by 6:45. I think this had to do with my lack of food. It suddenly dawned on me that 6 poptarts, 2 cliff bars and one snickers bar, was going to have to last me 2-3 days. At least I had plenty of water.
The entire way up Harvard, I kept thinking I saw the summit. First it’s the two peaks that stick up behind Bear Lake, then you see the ridge which appears higher. No wonder back in the day some people who were trying to make Harvard the highest mountain in Colorado got the wrong peak! At about 13,700ft, I ran into four guys from Waco, Texas. These guys were a riot! Here’s there story. They drove all the way up from Waco, then thought they could bag Harvard that NIGHT! They made it to where camping is at around 11,600ft before they decided to bunker down. The only thing is, they didn’t have any shelter! They said they spent the night huddled together trying to stay warm, woke up 80 times a night to get up and walk around to warm up while they waited for the sun to rise. I know my thermometer showed about 40F out. That must have been a long night.
I continued with them up the last little bit to the summit of Harvard. It starts to get pretty steep towards the top, with the last little bit requiring a little hands on scrambling. We were taking breaks every 75ft of elevation gain, I could tell that I was getting up there in elevation. We were the only ones on the summit for a while, but since the guys didn’t sleep, they thought now would be a good time. I truely enjoyed their company, and even though I wanted to give Columbia a go, I stayed with the Waco guys while they joked about everything from the trailhead being higher than anypoint in Texas, to their fear of being attacked by a bear while they slept. A little past an hour after we got to the summit, it started to become a pretty busy place. People who were doing it in one day were now making it to the top. They felt better and we decided that we all wanted to try the traverse across Rabbit Ridge to Columbia.
Remind me again that whenever Gerry Roach says the word “arduous” that he means every bit of it. He didn’t waste space on paper with that word concerning this traverse. The traverse is over 2 miles and if you follow the ridge, you do some lower fifth class moves. About 30 minutes into the traverse the boys from Waco started noticing the effects of being above 14,000ft for the amount of time that they have been. I will leave out the details of what ensued for the next hour or so, but I will say that two of them dropped out halfway across. We started along the ridge, because it looked fun, but we got to the point where Roach points out that if you want to descend off the ridge before it gets really tough, now is the time to do it. We swallowed our pride and descended into the boulder filled gully. We got down to about 12,900ft when we found some cairns. This was tough work going down. The loose rock was not compatible for hiking. If I were to do the traverse again I would suck it up and stay on the ridge. Once we made it to the bottom we knew that at least we could go up now and not farther down. However the tricky part was traversing along the loose rock to gain the other ridge that leads up Columbia. Eventually we made our way to the Ridge more to the North of Rabbit Ridge. If you want more details about this traverse, email me and I will gladly explain, my feet get blisters just thinking about it.
After a long 5 hour traverse, we were on top of Columbia. The clouds looked heavy, and it was now afternoon, and we knew we could get hit at any moment. We didn’t spend long on top, we ate the last of our food, drank the last of our water and headed down the newest worst scree slope ever. I don’t even know how this thing is a route. It’s more of “a way down”. It’s pure agony on your feet and knees after hiking all day long. Not fun at all. Frenchman Creek looked a million times better than what we were on. Ugg. I hate to not be happy when I’m in the mountains, but I have to admit this wasn’t my idea of a good time. The traverse, while tiring, was at least enjoyable with the views and the effort it took. I don’t mind a little hard work, I enjoy it, otherwise I wouldn’t go climb, but that scree slope has me wondering what it’s going to look like in a few years.
Back at camp, I quickly took off my shoes to access the damage. Not too bad, but not good either. I decided to sit it out another night instead of humping it all the way back to my car at the trailhead. I filtered some water from the creek, and went to bed early again. The next morning I felt all of the 5 hour traverse. It was hard for me to hike back down the trail with a full pack on. I made it back to my car and it was hard for me to push the pedals to drive home. Don’t even get me started about how much it hurt to work the clutch in the traffic on I-70.
So you’re probably wondering about whatever happened to those boys from Waco? Well, truth is, I’m not for sure. As we were going down the scree slope on Columbia, we were all at different paces. John, who was ahead of me, I told him how to get to my tent and meet me there whenever Daniel made it down (who was behind me). They never showed up. After checking the register at the bottom, it looks like they all signed out, and the two that cut out halfway across the ridge went to go sleep in the car so that when the other two got done, they would be ready to drive back to Texas.
Cliff Notes Version: The hike in to Horn Fork Basin was really pretty and relaxing. Not much elevation gain and on a nice trail. Heading up Harvard from the basin is misleading, Harvard doesn’t rise up until you’re almost there. The traverse is well-earned. Stay on the ridge if you can, otherwise you are going to be dropping down quite a bit, however both are doable. I’d say the ridge would almost be quicker. The descent off Columbia is a nightmare, and the hike out is once again enjoyable.
Drive: 3.5h
Ascent: 5h
Summit: 1.25h
Traverse: 5h
Summit: 30 min
Descent: 3.25h
Drive: 3.5h
Total: 15h
Mt. Harvard – South Slopes – Solo Ascent
Date: September 1, 2002
Elevation: 14,420′
Rank: 3rd
Route: South Slopes, Grade II, Class 2, 13.5 miles, 5900ft vert.
GPS: N 38° 55.466′ W 106° 19.2′
Team: Matt Esser (Toid)
Pre-climb: A week ago I did the Decalibron, and my knee was still a little tired from the scree slope descent of Bross. However, it’s not often that you get a three day weekend I guess, so I had to take advantage of it. After reading through Roach’s guidebook, I chose Harvard and Columbia because it sounded like a pleasant hike and I had time to spare. So on Saturday, I took my time and headed west.
Climb: It was a wonderful afternoon hike in to Horn Fork Basin. I hadn’t done an afternoon hike before, and I must say I really enjoyed it. I had a full pack on because my plan was to camp in the basin and then go for Harvard and Columbia the following day. I crossed the creek after 45 minutes, and then made it into camp a little after 2 hours. From my tent, I heard constant rockfall from Columbia, so I sat out and watched the hikers go down the scree most of the evening.
I woke up around 6:30am, and was ready to go by 6:45. I think this had to do with my lack of food. It suddenly dawned on me that 6 poptarts, 2 cliff bars and one snickers bar, was going to have to last me 2-3 days. At least I had plenty of water.
The entire way up Harvard, I kept thinking I saw the summit. First it’s the two peaks that stick up behind Bear Lake, then you see the ridge which appears higher. No wonder back in the day some people who were trying to make Harvard the highest mountain in Colorado got the wrong peak! At about 13,700ft, I ran into four guys from Waco, Texas. These guys were a riot! Here’s there story. They drove all the way up from Waco, then thought they could bag Harvard that NIGHT! They made it to where camping is at around 11,600ft before they decided to bunker down. The only thing is, they didn’t have any shelter! They said they spent the night huddled together trying to stay warm, woke up 80 times a night to get up and walk around to warm up while they waited for the sun to rise. I know my thermometer showed about 40F out. That must have been a long night.
I continued with them up the last little bit to the summit of Harvard. It starts to get pretty steep towards the top, with the last little bit requiring a little hands on scrambling. We were taking breaks every 75ft of elevation gain, I could tell that I was getting up there in elevation. We were the only ones on the summit for a while, but since the guys didn’t sleep, they thought now would be a good time. I truely enjoyed their company, and even though I wanted to give Columbia a go, I stayed with the Waco guys while they joked about everything from the trailhead being higher than anypoint in Texas, to their fear of being attacked by a bear while they slept. A little past an hour after we got to the summit, it started to become a pretty busy place. People who were doing it in one day were now making it to the top. They felt better and we decided that we all wanted to try the traverse across Rabbit Ridge to Columbia.
Remind me again that whenever Gerry Roach says the word “arduous” that he means every bit of it. He didn’t waste space on paper with that word concerning this traverse. The traverse is over 2 miles and if you follow the ridge, you do some lower fifth class moves. About 30 minutes into the traverse the boys from Waco started noticing the effects of being above 14,000ft for the amount of time that they have been. I will leave out the details of what ensued for the next hour or so, but I will say that two of them dropped out halfway across. We started along the ridge, because it looked fun, but we got to the point where Roach points out that if you want to descend off the ridge before it gets really tough, now is the time to do it. We swallowed our pride and descended into the boulder filled gully. We got down to about 12,900ft when we found some cairns. This was tough work going down. The loose rock was not compatible for hiking. If I were to do the traverse again I would suck it up and stay on the ridge. Once we made it to the bottom we knew that at least we could go up now and not farther down. However the tricky part was traversing along the loose rock to gain the other ridge that leads up Columbia. Eventually we made our way to the Ridge more to the North of Rabbit Ridge. If you want more details about this traverse, email me and I will gladly explain, my feet get blisters just thinking about it.
After a long 5 hour traverse, we were on top of Columbia. The clouds looked heavy, and it was now afternoon, and we knew we could get hit at any moment. We didn’t spend long on top, we ate the last of our food, drank the last of our water and headed down the newest worst scree slope ever. I don’t even know how this thing is a route. It’s more of “a way down”. It’s pure agony on your feet and knees after hiking all day long. Not fun at all. Frenchman Creek looked a million times better than what we were on. Ugg. I hate to not be happy when I’m in the mountains, but I have to admit this wasn’t my idea of a good time. The traverse, while tiring, was at least enjoyable with the views and the effort it took. I don’t mind a little hard work, I enjoy it, otherwise I wouldn’t go climb, but that scree slope has me wondering what it’s going to look like in a few years.
Back at camp, I quickly took off my shoes to access the damage. Not too bad, but not good either. I decided to sit it out another night instead of humping it all the way back to my car at the trailhead. I filtered some water from the creek, and went to bed early again. The next morning I felt all of the 5 hour traverse. It was hard for me to hike back down the trail with a full pack on. I made it back to my car and it was hard for me to push the pedals to drive home. Don’t even get me started about how much it hurt to work the clutch in the traffic on I-70.
So you’re probably wondering about whatever happened to those boys from Waco? Well, truth is, I’m not for sure. As we were going down the scree slope on Columbia, we were all at different paces. John, who was ahead of me, I told him how to get to my tent and meet me there whenever Daniel made it down (who was behind me). They never showed up. After checking the register at the bottom, it looks like they all signed out, and the two that cut out halfway across the ridge went to go sleep in the car so that when the other two got done, they would be ready to drive back to Texas.
Cliff Notes Version: The hike in to Horn Fork Basin was really pretty and relaxing. Not much elevation gain and on a nice trail. Heading up Harvard from the basin is misleading, Harvard doesn’t rise up until you’re almost there. The traverse is well-earned. Stay on the ridge if you can, otherwise you are going to be dropping down quite a bit, however both are doable. I’d say the ridge would almost be quicker. The descent off Columbia is a nightmare, and the hike out is once again enjoyable.
Drive: 3.5h
Ascent: 5h
Summit: 1.25h
Traverse: 5h
Summit: 30 min
Descent: 3.25h
Drive: 3.5h
Total: 15h
