I’ve been struggling to get Linux installed on my macbook pro running 10.4. OpenSUSE installed fine, but rEFIt wouldn’t boot it from either USB or Firewire drive. So I shrunk my HFS+ partition using diskutil patched by the expired beta of Apple Bootcamp. Installed openSUSE, with the rescueCD workaround to get MBR updated and booted. Thinking I am done I ejected the DVD, but then I realized I’ll probably need something installed without grabbing it off the net, I put it back in. Well I though I have, but instead I put in the damn PowerPC DVDRW I failed with on the iMac. It is cursed. Like seriously cursed.

The mac wouldn’t boot. If I let it boot, it showed the rEFIt logo and spin the drive and that’s it. Woudln’t even dim the screen if I closed it. Took about 10seconds holding the power button to actually shut down. I couldn’t eject it holding eject button. It was just a grey screen waiting for the drive before I could do anything useful. Time to disassemble, I thought. Luckily I still had my miniscule Phillips and Torx screwdrivers from my PSP experiments.

So I opened the machine up and disconnected the drive. Booted to OSX. Removed rEFIt. Power down. Attached connector. Booted to OSX. System info shows that no drive connected. Powered off. Made sure the connector is really attached properly. Rebooted. No drive. Wha? Rebooted using the option key to ‘Windows’ (insert MS&Novell deal jokes here). No CD drive under Linux either. Wow. That DVD is really damn cursed. It makes whole drives disappear. Turned off and continued disassembly. Finally got the DVD out and put the machine back together.

How does that make me feel about slot loading drives, Apple? Gah. Now I need to find a way to ritually destroy the damned DVDRW. Suggestions welcome.

Operation successful. The patient is alive and well.

I managed to break my PSP on Saturday. I dropped it onto a concrete floor when it fell off my jacket pocket as I was dressing up. The battery popped out, the drive shot the media out. It was quite a pectacular crash. My friend noted “if it survived this, I’m getting one”. So I put the battery on and power it on. Smile on my face. “Look”. But then the UMD drive went reading on and on …

After not getting any specific date from a local SONY Service and the need to ship the PSP to Prague, I decided to order the drive and apply czechnology. If you’re not in a hurry, these guys have the drive fairly cheap. I wasn’t sure to trust the $8 shipping either.

The process went fairly well, except it took a lot longer than I expected. I did manage to screw things up in the process. When trying to open the outer drive bay door, my screwdriver went a little too deep and broke the knob on the side. Superglue saved the day. Also when putting back the controller buttons I didn’t position the pad precisely (it fits into the LCD frame) and the right button didn’t work properly. Apart from that it went fine. So now I can compare the insides of the PSP and the gp2x too as I broke the gp2x’ headphone connector as soon as I got the console. It’s like comparing a macbook pro to a didaktik M (my first computer). A milimeter is a lot of space inside the PSP. Being inside the gp2x is like being inside a rintimpin.

Now I need to start looking for a decent case.