computer voodoo blues

[Edward Glowacki]

On Wed, 17 Jan 2001, Paul Donahue wrote:
> Hey there,
> 
> I'm going crazy trying to figure this one out. Up until newyears day I had
> my compaq presario 1215 laptop tweaked out running redhat 6.1 and a whole
> bunch of custom stuff after that. It was awesome. Ran smooth and everything.
> 
> THEN... 2001 CAME,
> 
> Now I have been fighting with it for the last 17 days trying to figure out
> why such commands as "ps, top, netstat, ntsysv, and startx" fail. I
> determined that glibc must be screwed up so I tried fixing it. No success.
> Well last night I finally broke down and restored from a ghost image I took
> back on 10/31/2k knowing that I would loose my customizations and updates,
> but hey at least it would work again right?!
> 
> WRONG!!!!  Still same problem being that these commands all fail miserably
> with a segfault and a proceeding coredump. doing some debugging determines
> failures around glibc just like it used to. The failure is usually around
> some of the string libraries.
> 
> HELP! I have no idea what to do, and having a laptop with just winderz 98 on
> it really sucks.
> 
> thanx,
> pd

Sounds like you're having a tough time.  Here are a few things to check:

1. Did you sacrifice a bucket of live fish to the great penguin god, Tux?

2. Did you perform the required dance ritual on the winter solstice?

5. Did *you* help the penguins in *their* time of need? (oil spills, etc.)

3. Did you give the programs their annual 2% raise?

4. Have you contacted the "System Core Binaries Union (Local 555)" to 
find out why your programs are refusing to work?

6. Libraries only work if everyone who borrows from them returns what they
borrowed.  Did *you* return all of your borrowed strings to the string 
library?  Have you encouraged your friends to do the same?

7. Have you tried not blaming Seg all the time, it's not always his fault.

8. Have you considered the possibility that the reason your laptop
"really sucks" is that it may be the center of a newly forming
black hole?  Check for the existance of an event horizon somewhere
around your boot sector or swap space.

9. "HELP!", "I'm going crazy", "I finally broke down" are all signs that
professional psychiatric help may be required.  Have you called
1-800-COMMIT-ME yet for your free trial membership?

10. Have you tried helping someone else with their problem in
exchange for help on your own?  I'm sure you could find a willing
partner if you could "develop a mathematical foundation for the
quantum theory of Yang-Mills fields; specifically, account for the
'mass gap' hypothesis."
(http://slashdot.org/articles/00/05/25/1211237.shtml)

Hope the checklist helps.  Let me know if you want some more suggestions!

EJG

-- 
Edward Glowacki				glowack2@msu.edu
GLLUG President				http://www.gllug.org
Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
                -- Jules de Gaultier