The week so far has been quite a ride actually. Got a new Dev. server on Friday which refused to start either in the Ubuntu 'Live CD' or the Fedora Core 4 installation CD, both of which seem to hang when a keyboard input was required. (Keyboard layout selection in case of Ubuntu & CD check prompt in FC4). This initially led me to believe that probably it was because of the USB mouse but despite my replacing it with a classic PS2 mouse it refused to budge. Kinda reminded me of my days in college when there used to be an ISP called Net4India which became pretty popular among my friends as they said it was better than other dialup offerings. But whenever I used to sit in front of a machine with an active connection it simply lay dead or so it seemed as you couldn't even open google's start page, the same was the case with Linux installations if I was asked/forced to install (no matter what flavor) it refused to install. I had never seen a successful installation happen with my own hands. But instead of giving up (there was no choice) I took up the challenge and installed FreeBSD 5.3... The most dreaded of all distributions of Linux! The installation was pretty simple to my surprise, though I couldn't get to successfully enable the X Windows system but the installation was pretty satisfactory, I'd say.
Anyways, I did some research on Sunday evening from home and found that I'm better off installing Fedora Core 4 as it will give me Apache, MySQL, ImageMagick, CVS installed saving me precious time. And from the FAQs on FC4's online installation manual. I found out that my problem could be resolved by disabling either MUX or ACPI.
Monday morning, I installed FC4 by turning off ACPI (finally, success at last!). And despite spending 5 hours on preparing end user's guide for the Admin area of World Press Photo seminars site, I managed to setup 2 virtual hosts as well. Yippee, things are looking promising. But by the evening the rain gods seemed to have taken some pity on Delhi and nearby areas, it rained for almost 12 hours non-stop that day. It might have been good for the crops or perhaps everyone/everything else, but not for me. I waited in the office until 9.30 in the night hoping that the rain would stop or at least slow down a bit but it didn't. So I finally leave for home 36 km away at 10 minutes to 10, knowing I would get drenched completely.
I actually enjoy getting wet in rains, but driving on Delhi streets during the rain is no fun, its rather frustrating mainly because everybody is racing to reach home and the traffic just stops and even with me being a quite skilled rider on my bike, I got stalled at a number of places. Moreover I didn't want my helmet to get soaked which I had purchased only last week. This further made me restless. So I finally reach home all soaked up at 11.15pm. Thanks go to Daksh, who lent me his bag to put my stuff in, I was able to get my wallet and cellphone back without it getting soaked.
Tuesday, was not that great! Had to struggle with trying to setup MySQL and phpMyAdmin. MySQL was relatively easy but phpMyAdmin got me to a stage where I felt like pulling my hair out, not that I've already lost a lot of it! No thanks to the pollution and water in my area. Anyways something kicked into my brain and I realised that since I used an Application to extract the zip files to the folder I made the root of the phpMyAdmin vHost, perhaps I should make a new folder (as vHost root) and copy files instead of using any app to extract files from a zip file. And voila it worked! But it started to rain again! This time it stopped at around 6 so I race back home only to get all soaked midway. By the time I reached home I got really depressed. Wondering about if I'll ever be able to get in a better situation.
Today it was another battle on the new Linux Box. This time for the FTP server. I don't understand the philosophy behind Unix/Linux permission system. Especially how its translated by various other components and applications. If I set permissions to a folder say /var/www/html to 777 shouldn't a user who is logged into the FTP be able to traverse it?
Anyways, since I already had 2 other major tasks planned for today I left the FTP thing for later and started on the other tasks. Prepared a new Self Installable Windows 2000 CD for Vinay, a fellow Developer, with SP4 Rollup 1 slipstreamed. After that of course I had to set up his box so that when he returns on Thursday he can start work right away, such that his productivity doesn't get hurt in any way. And I'm happy that I was able to restore his machine in a couple of hours.
The other more grueling task was recovering the MySQL table structures (and possibly data) from the crashed hard disk of the old Dev. server machine, though it was my fault in the first place that I didn't take a backup of the databases. I downloaded a tool to help me view EXT3 partitions on Windows and when I was successfully able to export data from the /boot partition which had developed CRC errors with the hopes that somehow maybe the disk will work maybe just as once, gave it a try. Was really delighted to see the machine boot up. woohoo! 
So I immediately backup all the required DB structures and data. So that this machine can finally rest in peace now. Although it rained in the afternoon, fortunately the clouds scattered by the evening and I was able to reach home with one less worry in my mind.
The week started with a really fast paced and in the past 3 days I have experienced so many emotions, delight, frustration, depression, guilt, success, proud, gaiety, happiness. I know I shouldn't be using both delight and happiness here. But that's really how it was! But the most profound of all the emotions I experienced was hope!
So maybe I am still the lowest earning guy from my graduating class, I don't have a large number of friends (actually they won't be more than half a dozen), I recently lost my best friend in an accident, I have no social life, don't have a girlfriend. I've been wanting to move out and stay away on my own, And I've been struggling to learn .net for more than 1 year now, I still have hope that things will get better. Though its progressing at a snail pace my .net learning is moving ahead. I'm still at least a year away from having a life of my own, but at least I now see that happening for real. Once that happens my social life has a better chance of improving. And its only a matter of time that I'll find a better job offer.