The hard drive on my Dell died (which is a whole separate story that I had hoped to tell, but may never get around to it). For the past few weeks, I’ve been running Knoppix on that computer. I started using Knoppix in an attempt to recover some of the data from the hard drive, but last week I even disconnected the drive and have been using the computer without a hard drive (the last time I did that was before Windows 3.1, I think).
Today I bought a new drive (an 80 GB Seagate for $36 after rebates) and just finished installing it. It went rather well, considering it was only the second time I’ve attempted such a feat. The first time (many years ago) ended with calling in a professional to do the job, but this time seemed much easier; technology must have improved dramatically since that failed attempt.
One thing I hope to do this time around is set up a Linux server. I chose Debian, partly because that’s what I have at Dreamhost, partly because it’s free and has tons of packages available. I’m going to start with a dual boot configuration, because I have some tools that I need to run on Windows (until I find a Linux equivalent). Once I get things set up, I hope to run Linux almost exclusively. I’m also planning to implement Xen virtualization. I’m mostly doing it just to learn it, but I hope to have one virtual “production” server visible on the internet and another as a playground. More details will follow…