I spent more of today going “what the hell is going on” than I’d expected, although I had expected to spend some time saying that.

For various complicated reasons, I have three laptop computers that as of right now are not being used much. I used to use the oldest at the school where I work until they suddenly cancelled all access to the network by computers that weren’t owned by the school. The second I got on a whim because it was cheap. The third is a netbook that was given to me by a friend when he no longer needed it (as he’d joined the Cult of Mac). All it cost me was a curry lunch.

I’ve used the oldest to test out various Linux distros. I mostly keep it because it has a great keyboard (at least it down NOW after I fixed it). The second and third as work computers when I have classes in Tokyo.

However, for the past few months all the computers have done little more than sit on the floor collecting mold and dust. As today was the middle of the Golden Week holiday, I decided I’d better turn to them on to see if they still work and, as necessary, update them.

I also needed to charge their slowly dying batteries.

I had no problems with the newer computers, but when I got to the older one, I had some troubles. I couldn’t update the Linux distro (which led to minor swearing) so I downloaded a couple others. I used to use Linux as my main operating system on this computer  (because English and FREE) until the school where I work changed printer models and I couldn’t get proper drivers. (Everything works well in Linux until it doesn’t and then you need a degree in computer programming to make it work.)

Eventually, after a couple ruined discs filled with distros that didn’t work, I got the old laptop working and then pondered getting rid of it. The newer computers have nice keyboards, too, and there’s no reason to keep the older one around.

Well, there is one reason, the DVD/RW drive on my desktop isn’t working so the old Linux machine is the only one I have that’s capable of burning CDs or DVDS which I occasionally need to do as part of my job. The trouble is, I now need to find a place to store all of these that’s not the floor.  But that may involve making other decisions. (More on that in another post.)