I learned a new word the other day: presbyopia. It means "old eyes" basically. The optometrist says it's kinda insulting, and it's OK because we're about the same age. Anyway I bought a new monitor: an acer 27" HD one with pixels just about big enough for me to read.
I wanted to connect it to the computer using DVI, so I got (from a colleague) a video card. I thought I needed a new driver for this card (this is silly part #1) so after some web searching, I downloaded the driver package from the manufacturer. I think.
This was a source package, and it needed kernel headers. I didn't have header files for the kernel version I'm actually running, so I downloaded header files for... another version. Of course then I needed to install the kernel sources for that other version. Then I built this newer kernel....
Somewhere in here I realized that I already had a driver for the video card; it was there in usable form in the kernel I was running, the old one.
Now for the silly part. I rebooted the box, not noticing that the default kernel was the new one. I mentioned above that I had built that kernel? Built and installed it in the /boot partition, actually. But I hadn't built the modules. So the video was in an icky mode, I had no network connectivity, etc. etc. etc.
I'm embarrassed to tell you how much time I wasted (don't tell my boss), but I ended up by putting a post-it on the monitor to remind me to use the 3rd option on the boot menu.
I'll fix it tomorrow.
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