Updates going wrong

One day, working at college, update manager notification appeared and I had the great idea to start downloading them while I was working. Big mistake. College network is the worst thing I’ve worked on, sometimes as fast as a roadrunner (over 1 Mbps… yes that is a megaBit) and sometimes as slow as a snail (335 bits per second the slowest I’ve seen), so as I expected, connection was broken in a few minutes and a message saying “failed” appeared on the download of a header update.

From past experiences, I know the result of ignoring the error and proceeding to install updates. The complete package tries to be installed, ignoring the fact that there was a mistake and when it completes the update, a message titled “broken packages” appears and then the entire system starts having trouble. That was on an update to evolution-mail, and I don’t want to imagine what would have happened on a header update.

I ended cancelling the update process, and starting looking for a solution in google, but any answer was simple or satisfying to my problem. A friend of mine finally gave me the solution: a simple line command written on a terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal).

When you open the terminal only write the next line:

sudo apt-get clean

After this, it will ask for your password.

This command safely deletes the downloaded packages (including those which were kept from precious installations). After cleaning, just refresh the Update Manager and the whole download will start again.

This command is also useful if you want to release some space in your disk. Every time you download an update or any complement from Synaptics, the file is saved first and then installed. By this way, system can access the package again without downloading it again in case of needing it. Many times packages will not be used again, but they are not deleted from your system.

The first videogame

The first big project performed since I have memory. Completely full of ideas, creativity, funny moments and long hours spent programming and eating pizza improving what would become the first thing I can be really proud of.

Since the beginning, any kind of imaginable problem started appearing. The main one: Programming in Java ME becomes annoying after you realize that you are not free to do what you want. Many problems start when you notice about the null extremely short memory aviable you have to work with, the enormous differences between cell phones and screen resolutions.Your mind starts exploting working hard  when you try to figure out how to deal with that.

And when you think you are progressing, the size of the whole project starts becoming a monster, growing and growing with no apparent control until editors appear and everything apparently solves. At last, you realize that everything is not so bad and external problems appear.

Anyway, at last you end with a lot of new knowledges, an (even more) improved ability to work with stress and a perspective to work with limted resources.

Starting a new stage

This is the first post… and I hope the first of many ones. Being constant is not as easy as it sounds, especially when you are a student, and your school makes you work as if you were  machine… Anyway let’s start with this.