…but I didn’t think it would turn out to be that bad.
(Public service announcement: This entry is rather technical in nature, and may not be suitable for people who are not interested in Linux. It does contain human tragedy though.)
See, I really, really like my Linux. I spent hours, days, weeks tweaking my system to create the perfect working environment (the fact that work always came a bit short due to tweaking the system should not be of importance at this point). And while usually uptime is perfect, meaning I can put my computer through its paces for a whole day without having to restart anything, not even my browser, I know that this performance is based on a system that can crash with the blink of an eye. If it’s the wrong eye, and you’ve got root privileges.
Well, crashing it all is what I thought I had done today. After installing all the available updates, I spent the better part of today trying to get my system up and running again, because it always crapped out on me with a system freeze, meaning my mouse suddenly stopped moving, as did the rest of what was on my screen. The only way out was a hard reboot. I attributed that to the fancy things I had installed to make my desktop look pretty, and dug deep to find out where exactly it was going wrong. After a few hours I caved in and booted Windows, just so I’d be able to do a Google search on the problem – without having to fear the system would freeze up again. But lo and behold, Windows froze too.
So there you have it. The Linux upgrade didn’t botch my system, it’s actually my hardware that’s having a slight problem (I’m guessing it’s the CPU fan that just doesn’t do a very good job at keeping it all cool). So, in a weird way I’m glad it’s like that. Goes to show that upgrading Linux isn’t that bad after all.
In another way though, I’m devastated, because it means there’s something wrong with my computer I’m not able to fix. I will, with all probability, have to send in my computer. And that, dear readers, is breaking my heart (note to girlfriend: I’m not entirely serious).
PS: I was able to pen this whole thing without a single hard reboot! Hail to the gods of CPU cooling systems, who seem to be alright with me using my computer as long as it’s typing and not editing images or anything fancy like that.