💾 Archived View for xchg.cc › posts › occ.gmi captured on 2023-07-10 at 13:09:36. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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Check here for more info on the challenge!
This is my first year doing the Old Computer Challenge, and I have chosen to use my trusty Thinkpad x61. I will be updating this page throughout the week with updates. I have my system set up as follows:
So I already had AntiX on this system, and had it set to boot directly into the console. I had it set up this way to write code and fiddle around at the console with the distractions of having a window manager and web browser pulling my attention away. It was not used frequently, so I figured this was a perfect starting point and should be easy to get ready.
One of the first things I did on this setup was remove slim to boot directly to the console and not have a graphical login. I used the system only at the console several times, and did not realize the problems I had created for myself until earlier today. I booted up, went into the BIOS and turned off the additional core on the system. Easy, off to a good start. After booting into the system, I changed my grub config to mem=512MB. update-grub and a reboot and we're off to the races, or so I thought.
I decided to start X and see how a browser would function with the restrictions I had placed on the system. I was greeted with a mouse cursor frozen in the middle of the screen, and a non functioning keyboard. I was doing some of this setup while at work, so I simply forced a shutdown and figured I'd get back to this later.
By the time I got back to working on this, it was almost the end of the day on the 9th, mere hours before the beginning of the challenge. I eventually discovered X would run with a functioning mouse and keyboard if I was running as root. I thought about simply running as root all week to avoid additional troubleshooting, but I decided I wouldn't be happy unless I solved the problem.
I decided to do all the troubleshooting from the console, using lynx as my browser. After stumbling around various links and many failed searches, I eventually found a solution with chmod o+rw /dev/inputs/*. This allowed my user to have access to the mouse and keyboard as a non-root user.
I anticipate running into more issues as the week progresses, but onward to day 1!