Oh Dear...

[aluminumspleen]

Just when I thought I knew a thing or two about Linux, I go and do something dumb.

So, I installed CRUX 2.5, right, and it all went pretty well (I mean, it took me a bit to get the kernel right, but all in all it was much smoother than 2.4!). I was super psyched about it until I realized, hey, I'm back at school where I'm not allowed to get internet access on my linux box! Dang!

But, since I know how to unzip and install a tarball, I thought "hey, I can do this easy, just get the source for everything and compile it myself! I mean, that's what ports is all about!"

Well, Openbox went fine (there were no dependencies), so I needed a panel. I went to try PyPanel, downloaded all the dependencies and the source onto my flash drive, and brought it over to my Linux box.

Everything was going fine (I was reading the pkgfile, which describes exactly how to issue the commands) until I went to compile one of the dependent libraries. In the pkgfile, right after "make install", it asked me to "rm -rf $PKG/usr/bin", which (I believe) would remove the binaries created by the compilation in the unzipped folder, where they wouldn't bother the actual binaries in the /usr/bin.

However, I had not defined a variable for PKG. Nor had I taken the time to make a new user without root permissions. Byebye /usr/bin! Oops!

[Dapper Dan]

Oh no!! Man that's far worse than my night. I've been fighting Ubuntu 8.10 over an old Dell for hours with only dial up. That's really too bad. However, the fix should be easy enough. Just reinstall CRUX to the root partition. Be sure to save /usr/src/2.6.*/.config so you can use it again though...

[aluminumspleen]

Can I also save the kernel? (I'm sure it's not perfect, but I did spend 4 hours compiling, checking, panic-ing, compiling, etc. to get it to boot).

Or is this the /usr/src/2.6.*/.config?

[Dapper Dan]

I think it can be done but I don't know what else you might run into. If it were me I'd just save the .config somewhere, then use it again after installation to compile the kernel. That will make the new kernel configuration the same as it was.

[elija]

And to think I'm nervous about having a go with Slackware

[Bemk]

Now you know why we all say, use a non-root account for normal things, and only use root when absolutely necessary!

[aluminumspleen]

Now you know why we all say, use a non-root account for normal things, and only use root when absolutely necessary!

Agreed, I'm just used to the distros that automatically create and put you into a non-root account, and when I finally got it booted I was just so eager to start working!

[Bemk]

If you don't mind, I'm still laughing my ass of.

[aluminumspleen]

It's all good, Bemk . I'd be way more pissed if it was my main system, but it's not, so it's just an inconvenience. Living proof, though, that you really shouldn't do things as root unless you know what you're doing!

[elija]

Agreed, I'm just used to the distros that automatically create and put you into a non-root account, and when I finally got it booted I was just so eager to start working!

Congratulations! You have just gained what we old farts call "experience".