I am wearing my new stress tonight

[j4]

No, obviously I can't install Mac OS X (Tiger) from the CD that came with someone else's laptop, because it's someone else's CD, and -- imagine! -- Apple guessed people might do that, and prevented it. Duh. Of course, I wouldn't have needed to upgrade if it wasn't for the fact that 10.3.what.ever's Perl is apparently broken in a way that means I can't install modules, and I can't compile Perl from source because I don't have gcc, and I can't get gcc unless I download the Apple SDK (actually, this may not be true, but that seems to be the recommended route...), and I couldn't get the SDK without registering as an Apple Developer Whatever, and then, and then, the SDK for 10.3 is deprecated, and when I decide that I don't care and download it anyway, it turns out the disk image is broken.

Furthermore, the Powerbook has decided that all my shiny new blank CD-RWs from TescOS are top secret invisible read-only CDs, so I backed up the hard drive to my 4GB USB drive, and it took hours and hours, and the USB drive is now so slow that it takes 5 minutes to eject safely, and if I'd known I wasn't going to be able to do the install anyway I would have put the time into sorting out CD backups instead.

ALSO, I need more RAM, kthx. I am sick of waiting a week for my avatar's trousers to download.

I know this is all just trivial whinging, and mostly workaroundable, but it's making me stressed, all scratchy around the edges, all frayed. Impending-new-job stress, partly (how can I do a proper techy job if I can't even get my laptop working the way I want?) but also a more general stress that I don't have a good word for -- the feeling that everything just gets in more and more of a mess and if I could only stop for a day, or a week, or a month, or long enough to Sort It Out, then I'd be able to keep it tidy, but in the meantime the little bits of tidying I can do are just like trying to empty the ocean with a thimble. It's nowhere near as much of a problem with physical tidying, the house and stuff, as it is with computers; it's somehow easier to get a handle on the problem when you can pick it up and put it in a box, and when keeping random junk "just in case" is actually taking up space that you can see.

Still, computers may be bad, but minds are worse. I think I need to defrag my brain.

Comments

[aardvark179.livejournal.com]

I have a DVD which might help you, I need to send you something anyway.

[j4.livejournal.com]

If you mean an OS X install DVD then no need -- I've ordered a real copy (or rather my dad has ordered one for me, as he can get the educational discount) -- but thanks for the offer!

What's the other thing? *curious* Or is it a surprise? :)

[aardvark179.livejournal.com]

Something small and badger related.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Ooooh! Is it ... A VERY SMALL BADGER?

[aardvark179.livejournal.com]

It's a very small teledu.

[keirf.livejournal.com]

That is indeed badger related. How accurate your first comment was.

[sparrowsion]

Rats—I was hoping to be able to do an upgrade to 10.4 like that too.

SDK type stuff (including gcc) should be on the original install CD or one of its companions—I distinctly remember doing this.

[j4.livejournal.com]

I think there's a difference between the install CDs which come with a laptop and the install CDs which you buy -- AIUI you can do an illicit upgrade from the latter but not the former. So, um, when I've got mine, you can borrow the CDs if you want to try it... 8-)

Good news about the SDK stuff though -- hopefully that means that getting a kosher tiger (!) CD should solve the Perl problems as well. I don't entirely understand what's broken but it seems to be missing some kind of hook that the modules need. *waves hands* (Sorry, can't brain today, I hav teh dumb.)

[sparrowsion]

I was planning on just skipping 10.4 and getting a legit 10.5 upgrade. But seeing as how that latter's being pushed back for iPhone reasons….

Looks like 10.4 ships with XCode 2.0, and the download you need to sign up for (*spit*) is 2.1.

[j4.livejournal.com]

I had to sign up to even see the list of types of XCode... unless I'm looking in the wrong place. Wouldn't surprise me if I was -- that whole area of their website is a complete dog's breakfast.

Still, I'm signed up now, so if their disk images work, I should be okay...

(Gah. All this stuff should Just Work.)

[ewx.livejournal.com]

My XCode claims to be 2.4.1, and IIRC I've done no more than accept automatic software updates as they were offered (the Mac is now claiming to be 10.4.9). BICBW.

[olithered.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on the IfOnlyICouldStopForAWhileI'dBeAbleToSortOutEverythingProperlyOnceAndForAll feeling!

[ewx.livejournal.com]

When I had my mac repaired the repair shop insisted I produce the OS media that came with it, saying they were locked to the machine (or presumably rather the other way around, in the sense that it's the computer that makes the decision). I wasn't sure whether this was true or not at the time since the machine obviously just needed a new video card and they were being somewhat slow and pedantic in other ways.

Presumably this doesn't apply to new versions bought in the shop.

[j4.livejournal.com]

the repair shop insisted I produce the OS media that came with it

So does that mean that if you'd upgraded since then, you'd have to reinstall from what came with the computer and then re-upgrade?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I've no idea though I imagine they'd accept the upgrade media. As it happens there'd been no new major releases since I bought the computer and I think indeed since that model had been released, making it impossible for the situation to have arisen.

[aardvark179.livejournal.com]

Nah, retail versions can be installed on any Mac they support, doesn't matter what's on it.

My only guess for why they might have wanted ewx's discs that came with the computer was for the right version of the hardware test stuff.

[aardvark179.livejournal.com]

Oh, and there's no retail version of Tiger for Intel macs because the Intel Macs came out later, so it might well have been there only option if they needed to do a reinstall.

[camellia-uk.livejournal.com]

Hum, I think I just got gcc off Fink (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/8128)...