rearrange a package. And, if you do it habitually you may not notice that.
     I don't recommend upgrades where you don't pay attention to such details.

     The package that came to mind a long while back was vim. With merely
     'upgrade' Debian would have been glad to leave me in its older style of
     package splits. If only it could be told to offer the same care when a
     package changes its config files under the hood. -- Heather

     2. There is more to life than keeping up with the Joneses...

     [Jimmy] Yeah, of course. There's keeping up with the Smitheseseses.[1]

     [1] Why yes, I am quite drunk. Why do you ask? :)

   The  real  way  in  which  I  was  wrong is that neither 'upgrade' nor
   'dist-upgrade' keywords break holds, and I claimed that the latter does.
   D'oh! 

   If you're gonna throw tomatoes, let's try to completely dunk the target,
   shall we? 

   /me enjoys another big glass of tomato juice... 
            ____________________________________________________

Linux Master Boot Record

   Fri, 19 Nov 2004 11:23:37 -0800 (PST)
   Didi ([40]didi from dancephotos.ch)

   Ciao Ben,

   thank you for the the description of

   "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1"

   it almost saved my life.

     [Ben] Ciao, Didi -

     Glad you found it helpful! I appreciate your note... even though it was
     sent to a very old (and nearly unread) address of mine and thus took a
     long time to come to light.

     (Didi's comment refers to my "Clearing out the Master Boot Record" article
     back in LG#63, which many people have found helpful over time; I keep
     receiving  grateful comments on it even now, years later. It's very
     gratifying to know that I've been able to help so many folks with it. The
     reason I'm making this reply a public one is for the new readers of LG who
     may not be aware of this useful technique; the article can be found at
     [41]http://linuxgazette.net/issue63/okopnik.html .)
            ____________________________________________________

Perl One-Liner of the Month

   Sat, 06 Nov 2004 08:11:03 +0000
   Hans Wennborg ([42]hawe from bigfoot.com)
   Reply by Jimmy O'Regan

   Thanks for a good e-zine! 

   Thanks for reading it.

   Just wanted to tell you that I miss Ben Okopnik's Perl One-Liner of the
   Month imensely! Those articles were what made me start loving Perl. 

   Will they return? 

   Well,  that's  up  to  Ben,  but we did have a mini 1LotM in the Linux
   Laundrette:
   [43]http://linuxgazette.net/108/lg_laundrette.html#laundrette.moreandmore

   Woomert and Frink only get a brief cameo, but the one-liners are there.

     [Ben] Hi, Hans -

     Thanks for the compliment! For the moment, I've written Woomert and Frink
     into a blind alley; I think I need to put that particular story aside, to
     be revised at another time (I mean, what kind of a Perl one-liner can save
     an alien civilization, and from what threat??? Those guys get themselves
     into the craziest predicaments...) and write another one, not quite that
     deep.

     POLOTM isn't dead, just resting... but it's notes like yours that can get
     me motivated to start it rolling again. Look for Woomert and Frink in the
     future issues of LG. :)
            ____________________________________________________

thanks for -Great- article

   Sat, 6 Nov 2004 08:13:08 -0500
   BellyOfTheBeast ([44]swroomjnu from admin.state.ak.us)
   Reply by Ben Okopnik

   Ben O's review of the Averatec laptop is exactly what I'd like to see more
   of. It is accurate about the important things and gets right to the point.
   Far and away the best laptop review I've even seen. Thanks very much; I look
   forward to reading others as they become available. 

   -BA