I have been working on the volcano computer in the little time I have available with my in-laws in town from Mexico. I might have mentioned that I got PuppyLinux up and running on the thing. It works great, but very, very slow. The problem is that the microprocessor in the computer is the equivalent of an old Intel 486sx. It does not have a floating point processor. That means that we have to recompile the kernel so that floating point emulation is enabled. Still, we will have to run the computer without a GUI which is OK because we are going to run it headless (without a monitor) inside the mountain anyway. In all the time I have been using Linux, I only compiled the kernel one or two times when I was using Gentoo. In the meantime, we are waiting for the next Ubuntu (8.04 Hardy Heron) to come out on Thursday. We plan to install it on the homeschool computer as soon as we get a chance to clean up and store the files there. The VERY cool thing about Ubuntu is that it is so predictable. We know that it does everything we want it to do already (Skype, Firefox, Thunderbird, Blender, OpenOffice.org, GIMP, Samba, CUPS) so any improvements are just icing on the cake.
Our buddy Lyle from Oregon is joining us on the chart. I am pretty worried because the guy runs massive miles every day, tracks it on his iPod, and is WAY younger (and better looking) than Bryan and I. Bryan and I are definitely going to have to make some kind of a plan to send him jelly donuts on a regular basis. Good grief, he keeps his running log on his blog! We have no chance. The only downside other than that is that he uses a Mac. Pretty sad, really. At any rate, his blog is here.