Fedora Core 2 Install Problem with IBM Intellistation M Pro

I got a nice IBM Intellistation M Pro from work about 6 months ago. It sat in my office for want of a copy of Windows XP. Well today I decided to go ahead and put a copy of Linux on it and put it to some use. I chose Fedora as my distribution. I have outlined the steps I followed during the install below.

1. Go to Fedora website and download the iso cd images.
2. Checked the md5 sum of the downloaded files
3. Made cd's from the iso images
4. Booted off cd 1
5. ran "linux mediacheck" and received the following error: "The Fedora Core CD was not found in any of your CDROM drives." Now how could this happen? I mean I just booted of the CD and it worked just fine. Now all of a sudden it can't find it?
6. Googled
7. Tried booting with "linux cdnodma". I had high hopes for this one, but alas it failed with the same error.
8. Began to download the dvd iso image to put on my webserver for use with an HTTP Install
9. Googled
10. Tried booting with "linux ide=nodma".... The media check actually appears to be working
11. Googled "ide=nodma" to find out what this option actually does.
12. Checked discs 1-4 and rescuecd and they all passed
13. Proceeded with the install. The GUI install screen showed up and my USB mouse even started working
14. I picked a few options and the rest of the install ran without incident.
    

The bike is back

I finally got my mountain bike back from the shop today. Turned out to be $370. They replaced the bottom bracket (4th one this year), rear cassette, chain, cables and housings, brake pads, and the rear triangle. They also "tuned" up the bike and overhauled the rear shock. The new cables make the shifting feel real nice, but overall I got to say I'm not too impressed. There were a few problems, like the front tire being put on backwards, the shop forgetting to put my chain guard back on, and the shock being put back on the bike in a different setting then when I left it. But all those things were minor. The most frustrating part was that 5 minutes into the first ride with the bike I came to a hill and attempted to down shift. The chain immediately got sucked up between the chain rings and the frame and managed to scratch the brand new rear triangle. While I suppose this isn't necessarily the fault of the shop it is a bit dissapointing.

Bike Woes

I had my mountain bike, a Gary Fisher Sugar 3+, in at Cycling Spoken Here to have the bushings serviced and the shocks overhauled. Unfortunately while they had my bike up on the stand they found a crack in the rear triangle. Apparently this is a rather common problem on these bikes and they are doing a warranty repair. Unfortunately this means at least another week before I get my bike back.

post count not advancing

My post count doesn't seem to be advancing. I sent an email to support. Hopefully they will be able to correct this for me.

Business Trip to Dallas

I was in Dallas all last week for work. It was good to socialize with the Dallas portion of our team again, although I'm not sure we accomplised anything we couldn't have done from home. On the positive side they put us up in the Omni Hotel at Park West, which turned out to be a pretty nice place to stay. The only downside of staying at the Omni was that eating breakfast there about wiped out my entire meal allowance for the day. The trip back was a bit of a nightmare as our flight to Raleigh got diverted to Atlanta due to bad weather at the RDU airport. Unfortunately Delta decided that instead of refueling the plane and heading to Raleigh once the weather cleared they would instead cancel the flight and attempt to rebook us all for later flights. Well the majority of us ended up on standby for the later flights. At this point I really didn't feel like another night away from home so I went ahead and made reservations to fly into Greensboro, NC instead and then drive a rental car back to Raleigh. When I got to Greensboro I found that my luggage had not arrived. I went ahead and filed a claim and then drove to Raleigh hoping it would show up there. When I arrived at RDU airport around 1:30am I found that my luggage wasn't there either. It all ended well though as my luggage turned up the next day and I only had to brush my teeth with the Delta Airlines toothbrush twice and use their gender neutral deodorant once.

Home Shopping

I decided a while ago that I wanted to buy a house. I have been renting my current townhouse for about 7 years and and it really didn't make sense to be throwing my money away as rent. Also my current place doesn't have a garage and storing three bikes in the kitchen is not an ideal long term solution. So last week my parents came down from Louisville, KY to visit my sister and I. Normally they spend most of their time at my sister's house since she lives at the beach and they can make a vacation of it. This time the remnants of Hurricane Frances drifted by and the weather deterioted enough that they decided to come back to Cary to help me look for a house. After the first couple days we found a nice ranch. On the positive side it was in immaculate condition with lots of plants and trees in the yard. It was even in a great neighboorhood. However, it was at the high end of my price range so it was with some apprehension that I went ahead and filled out the paperwork to submit an offer. When we tried to submit the offer we heard back that the property had gone under contract earlier that morning. In retrospect this turned out to be a good thing as after another day of looking I found a townhouse I liked. I felt much more comfortable putting in an offer on this as it was at the lower end of my price range and it was in a great location right near the end of the Black Creek Greenway. We ended up going back and forth a few times but by the end of the next day we agreed on a price and we were under contract.

Townhomes in my new neighborhood