/dev/blog

Seriously, how long does it take a tech-savvy person such as myself to copy a 4.2GB file from one partition to another? 5 hours. But considering that I learned something, it was well worth it.

Here’s what I discovered won’t work:

• I can’t write directly to NTFS from Fedora, which is understandable as NTFS is by far the largest, yet undocumented, project ever reversed-engendered.
• FAT32 has a size limit of 4GB, so using my iPod wasn’t an option. The file was already compressed, otherwise I might have been able to get it down enough with bzip2.
• Just like FAT32, it is not possible to burn a file over 4GB to a DVD-RW.
• Uploading it to my server and redownloading it wasn’t possible as Apache will commit seppuku if you try to serve files larger then 2GB. It seems to be a 32bit limitation resulting in a 403 Forbidden error message.

Not wanting to go out of my way and install Samba or a FTP server I figured I’ll split the files into 1GB chucks and recombine them with the Windows Command Line.

$ split -b 1024m bigfile.img

I copied the pieces to Windows using one of the above methods, then started MSDOS cmd.exe and combined them.

> copy /b xaa + xab + xac + xad + xae bigfile.img

Installing Windows XP Professional was very demanding. When people ask why I listen to death metal remind me to send them a link to this article.

1. Boot to CD
2. Format partitions
3. I don’t give it permission to write over GRUB’s MBR, but it assumes I won’t be using anything else
4. Set the time and various network settings
5. Enter product key
6. Reenter product key
7. Boot to HDD
8. Get a rather amusing error message when I open IE
9. Activate Windows over the internet
10. Windows refuses to activate over the internet for no reason, but I get a 1-800 number
11. Spend ten minutes arguing with voice recognition software
12. The software also can’t help me, so I get forwarded to a human being
13. Elevator music
14. Some guy in India picks up the phone and I beg for permission to use the software
15. Have my gender insulted by being called “Ma’am”, but at least he was being proper
16. Patch Windows
17. Reboot
18. Patch Windows to SP2
19. Reboot
20. Patch Windows some more
21. Reboot
22. Install drivers
23. Reboot
24. Install (a real) firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware, and anti-adware programs
25. Reboot
26. Install software
27. Patch software

And people say installing Linux is difficult, installing Ubuntu Dapper 6.06 for the most part was automated.

1. Boot to CD
2. Format partitions
3. Set the time and user accounts up
4. Boot to HDD
5. sudo apt-get update
6. sudo apt-get upgrade
7. sudo apt-get install software
8. Restart X and allow the new Nvidia video driver to take affect

Windows is the only OS that I know of that is designed to knowingly screw you over. But at least I can sleep easily tonight knowing that Windows Genuine Advantage and DRM is keeping me safe from, well, myself.