In which Amy pulls an epic fail of the Error Occurrs between Chair and Keyboard sort.
So, those of you who expressed concern when I posted my bitchy entry via text message about the lack of live Linux CDs (all one of you) can rest assured that the problem has been fixed. I determined it was an error occurs between keyboard and chair issue. Once I finally started thinking, and taking my time in getting things done, problems mysteriously disappeared. Crazy concept that, huh?
It started by trying to install the video card that drwho4 had given me in the name of attempting to get my shiny Christmas present dual monitors running (a joint gift from him and my mother's boyfriend, which I suspect my mother might have contributed to, but I'm not sure). When he handed me the card easily a month ago, he'd mentioned that the card was such a power hungry little bitch that it needed to be plugged directly into the power supply, in addition to the AGP slot providing it power, however since I hadn't yet had time to play with it, I forgot this detail. I plugged in card, powered up computer again, and got a high pitched whining out of the gorram computer. After walking away to cool my head (thank you daddy dearest for giving me your gorram temper *growl*) and talking to both jrl3001 and drwho4, I figured out what I needed to do to resolve that problem, but created another one in the process.
At first, I figured I'd just done damage to the main hard drive which I have the kubuntu installed to, as I was just getting a blank screen with a blinking underscore cursor, and went in search for a live CD to investigate further. Finding I didn't actually have one on hand, I cursed to high heavens, read for a bit, and went to bed. The next day, it took a good portion of the day to download the iso file to the mother's boyfriend's computer to burn me a new live CD, and after I finally had my shiny new live disk in hand, I ended up in the BIOS where once I actually paid attention to what I was looking at, I realized the computer just wasn't seeing the smaller hard drive with the kubuntu install, at all. After mucking around in my case a little bit, I found that I'd plugged that hard drive into a power cord that didn't actually connect up to the power supply (it was for a couple of case controlled fans that I didn't realize I didn't actually have hooked up). Once I dug up a splitter cable for the power connector and got that hard drive plugged into a jumper with power to it, the computer booted up correctly again. Hooray.
However, my woes didn't end there. Oh no, I just hadn't learned my lesson yet to slow down and take my time, instead of trying to zip through and cut corners without checking my work. So, I am encouraged to see both monitors running at this point, but only until such time X starts and I'm booting into kubuntu. However, I am quickly encouraged by kubuntu popping up a dialog saying I need restricted drivers to make my video card work. I tell it to go ahead and install, then muck around in my system settings and menu to try to figure out how to configure these new drivers. After some trial and error, I eventually find something called NVIDIA X Server Settings, and start poking around in that. It stupidly takes me two restarts of X to realize I need to be using super user authority for this to be doing me any good, and fix the menu setting for it to use kdesu to prompt me for my password to do damage^W configurations. Not being entirely sure what settings I want, it takes a few more trial and error sessions to figure out what works right for what I wanted, but I am happy to now report that everything is shiny, I picked out desktop images from Digital Blasphemy and I am very happy to have dual monitors working correctly again. :D
What's really cool about the setup I got is that one of the monitors is actually a HDTV, so I have my Playstation2 hooked to one input, my computer to another, and my mom's boyfriend is finally working on setting us up with a satellite TV service (I think Dish Network) which I will likely have a box installed downstairs here for my use, and will run into one of the inputs on the TV. I renamed the connection going to my computer to my computer's name (nilpferd), and the one hooked to the Playstation2 is labeled PS2. Also really cool about the new video card is that it can keep up some the eye candy stuff in KDE4 I hadn't been able to play with yet. My plasma panels are now all transparent and pretty, and I can enjoy the effects like the non-focus windows are all transparent, the whole desktop becomes shadowed when I have a super user prompt come up, and other awesome things like this. :D
In other news, I'm developing an expensive vest habit with New York & Company. At least this last one I bought was on sale for only $10, and it's a solid black, so I can wear it with more things than the two pinstriped and one plaid one I bought before it. At least they all seem to be well made, well tailored vests, so they'll hopefully last me years to come. I've also found they sell the tank tops with the built in shelf bra that while useless to me for daily wear, are awesome for sleeping in because they give me just a little support without being uncomfortable to actually sleep in. Hooray for that. The annoying thing is that they mostly carry 'em in synthetic fabrics that don't breathe well, and therefore are not well suited for sleepware, but I did find a couple that were 95% cotton, with just enough spandex to help them retain their shape without making them uncomfortable to wear. I will have to keep an eye out for more colors in this style, as my older tank tops like this are starting to fall apart due to my having had them for easily a decade at this point.
So, my laundry just finished in the dryer, and I should have been in bed an hour ago, but I'm going to quickly summarize the rest of my Christmas presents received this year before I go crash into bed. The biggest present was easily the monitors and they're awesome, but there were a couple smaller presents that really made me happy. There was the copy of Munchkin from drwho4 which is a game I'd been intending to own forever, and finally had the chance to play very recently. Then there was the copy of Pentago which is both awesomely simple and delightfully complex and I'd forgotten was on my Think Geek wishlist, but am glad that one of my friends in the friday night game group decided to get it for me. This game is so awesome that when I showed it to jrl3001 when we were hanging out at Chipotle that another customer actually came up to us to ask about the game after we'd put it away once we'd finished playing it. Then there was the most awesome little toy that flamingchords gave me, and has been living in my pocket most of my waking hours since I've received it, a ToolLogic Firesteel Knife. I haven't seen him since he gave it to me, so I haven't had the chance to express how delighted this toy has made me, but I suspect he knew from the grin that was on his face when he gave it to me, and the squeal of delight I made when he handed it to me. At any rate, he has this journal friended, so if he didn't know before, he should know now that the gift is greatly appreciated.
Properly thanking people for gifts seems to be something I fail at, so I will have to make an effort to actually go around and properly thank everyone for the awesome gifts I got this year. There are other goodies that didn't get mentioned here that were appreciated too, so I will make a point to thank the gift givers for them when next I see them. Proper Thank Yous are a think I really need to improve, so I will make efforts to do just that.