[ from the have-you-updated-your-blog-yet? dept. ]
Screenshots: Phoenix (Solaris 9) and Perihelion (Debian testing) Updated.
General Update
For the last few weeks I have been working on various Linux kernel hacking and continuing to read up on various items of interest, including hardware design and digital logic. I bought the book “Panic! UNIX System Crash Dump Analysis” for bedtime and train reading…and because I do actually dig that stuff.
I went to Liverpool on Saturday and enjoyed my visit to the point where I am encouraged to travel more over the next few weeks – I want to discover parts of England I have not been to, and other parts of the UK too. I switch to a three day working week soon so have some more free time.
Driving lessons will be arranged soon as I want to start within the next couple of weeks really. Swimming is going to also shift around so I go evenings Mon-Wed and mornings on Thu-Fri for the time being. Randomly got yet another recruitment call the other day – I like that 
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Machines Update
The 4.5GB SCA SCSI disk I ordered from a guy on ebay (who it turns out I already knew through a mailing list anyway) works fine and is happily running Solaris 9 now. Phoenix was running Solaris 8 for a long time but had been offline for the last few months during moving. I am now using both Solaris and Debian on my desktop partly to compare the two in daily use and also to keep my Solaris skills up to date. I generally prefer a Linux desktop though it does have to be said – Solaris is very stable but library configuration and binary location should not have to bother a desktop user.
Hacking Update
I bought an PIC for updating the firmware on my older PICSTART programmer but since I only get one shot I will do it when I am less tired. Have been reading and planning to get a Xilinx Virtex II Pro evaluation board or a Spartan but still waiting to hear back about pricing.
Some ideas for my Genesis redesign (I have decided to do it properly now that I understand more of the PowerPC Architecture) have been forming and also for getting Minix to run also. The trouble before was that various non-existent interrupt handlers were getting called that I could not debug.
Jon.