Similar to the way studying math that feels weird to me helps us to humbly acknowledge the limitations of our mental capacity, experimenting with various Linux operating systems also grounds me in reality.
I like to set up a machine with 2 or 3 operating systems, one being Windows 10 since Microsoft gave it to us for free during the summer of 2015 - a rare event, indeed. For the linux distributions I like to install Arch Linux and Slackware Linux since they require me to learn about pacman and installpkg, respectively. On another machine I keep a version of Ubuntu and Debian (BunsenLabs) so as to not forget how to use apt-get or aptitude, and to set up something like PC-BASIC in a linux environment when it is impossible to do in either Arch linux or Slackware.
Since I screwed up my Slackware environment while trying out slackpkg upgrade-all, I found myself wanting to check out
Gentoo Linux, and even though I succeeded in creating a bootable usb drive from the iso image (which requires
iso-to-usb program that handles UEFI booting, my brain is just not feeling up to the task of setting Gentoo up from scratch. As I do not want to mess up the other systems (I "multiboot", obviously), I am going to try out
Sabayon Linux which is based on Gentoo but provides an easier installation process.
The iso image is taking hours to download.
I always feel like a second class citizen when it comes to such things. It is very similar to how I feel about my amateur hobbyist status with regards to my lifelong engagement with mathematical concepts.
So, where do I stand? There may be parallels of this situation throughout history in various religious cults.
There are the high priests of the craft, and then there are acolytes (followers/students).
I suppose I am surfing the learning curve of Sisyphus. There is a time for caution and humility when I am in over my head in deep water. Sometimes we need a lot of assistance.
People all over the world may think their religions are a big part of their identity. Rather than ask someone what their religion is, ask them what operating systems they use or have explored or tried to set up.
I wonder if there is a relation between those who stick with the mainstream operating systems and also remain loyal to the world religion of their prospective regions, as opposed to those who explore the bleeding edge experimental distributions. Are such "mad scientist" types more likely to be those who do not identify themselves with a "world religion"?
Maybe there are those, like me, who are intimidated by the thought of a pure Gentoo installation from the command line, so I will place these keywords here in hopes they may find Sabayon while searching for an automated Gentoo installation.
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UPDATE: Rufus (for creating bootable USB from ISO image), while it did create a bootable usb drive, when Sayabon intallation tries to find necessary files, it looks for CD rom. So I was going to create iso-to-usb with
unetbootin.
Then, playing around, I switched usb flashdrive from 3.0 port to 2.0 port. Then, when extra entries appeared on my
rEFInd multiboot menu, I chose the last of the 3 new entries, as it appeared to be the actual usb drive labeled "SABAYON GNOME".
I apologize for my ramblings. For all we know, there might be some crazy mad scientist lurker who stumbles upon our weird message board by searching for things like Gentoo USB "No media found."
In between these operations I am working ever so slowly through proving the most basic theorems using axioms. I am beginning to suspect that the unconscious knows more about what is going on than the conscious mind (ego?). Didn't Schopenahuer and Kant say that the Will can not know? But what part of us knows what it is doing?
The conscious "I" can't keep track of all that it is doing, and it seems as though the unconscious mind does what it does without knowing in the proper sense.
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UPDATE 2: OK, Sabayon (Gentoo-based) is installed next to Arch Linux and Windows 10. Slackware Linux is on old machine that is left off due to overheating. Now ... back to the math.
Mental Note: Dad still in hospital and has not moved bowels EVEN AFTER SURGERY. Intestines 10 times normal size. I have to drive the Mother to church in the pouring rain ... so I'll have a chance to look at pure math in the car. I've been feeling a little guilty for eating so well while my dad is laying in a hospital bed in such miserable agony. Helpless. It doesn't look good ...
By the way, from what I am seeing already, needing to learn about "overlays" and "portage", this gentoo environment will require a great deal of reading documentation. Oh well, I suppose I'll have to be very careful setting up sagemath and anaconda (python) and other essentials. LibreOffice comes with the Sabayon distribution.
It's almost as though I get into being disoriented. Maybe this is as good as it gets for me ...
Before barreling through with my obsessive setting up of sage and anaconda, it is best I do a little "learning" first. I may post little trails with their own headings in this thread so that the search engine will find them. I'll have to remember I placed this thread in Why Laugh?
Please do not feel at all obligated to read these unless you are absolutely curious, as I imagine it could be quite boring unless you were in need of the specific guidance.
sage-on-gentoo "overlay" ... did not work for me, so tried to
just build from source, but during 'make' it failed to build "linbox".
Anaconda installs smoothly. Download Anaconda3-*.sh and just : bash Anaconda3-*.sh
After Python3 is installed, just add Python2 with:
conda create -n vpy python=2.7 anaconda
source activate vpy
conda install --channel
https://conda.anaconda.org/vpython vpython
test with: jupyter notebook
Vpython Session:
from vpython import *
b = sphere()
exit
source deactivate vpy
..... next? libre-office, calibre?