Boy, did I have fun or what?...

Another Dirk the Daring story. I'm getting too old for this...

Installing AIX Patchset 8.1.7.4 at a client.

Get in there and look for the patch CD. No CD, only an image downloaded from Metaclick into a Windoze PC.

Good, FTP the darn thing into AIX. Unzip it.

Hang on a tick! *unzip* it? There is NO unzip in AIX!!!

Back to Metaclick. RTFM.

AH! "click here for unzip utilities".

Thanks Mr Oracle: put it in a format no one can read, then make us download the decoder separately. As if Unix didn't have a compress/uncompress native utility! Anyways...

Loaded the unzip thing in AIX and ran it. Worked.

Look for "runInstaller". Nowhere to be seen.

!@$%^ &^@!&#!!! idiots that installed the thing in the first place last month didn't leave the installer in the system! OK, get the original CD.

(you know what I'm going to say next, don't you? Yup...)

No one knows where CD is.

Chase one up, pronto. Got it. Load it. Start the runInstaller.

No DISPLAY. Error in locating X-server, yadda yadda.

Dirk the Daring:
"Mr Client, can I sit at a workstation with X-server installed so that I
can run the installer?"

Mr Client:
"WTF is X-server and why are you downloading porn?"

Dirk the Daring:
<sigh> 1-2-3-4-5-6-7.....

.
<...coffee pause, wonder if I should take up smoking again...> .

<spark of brilliance>
Get on the net, go to google.
Find an eval copy of x-server for Windows.

Download the darn thing. Install it.
Can't, gotta be administrator. Win2K. Site admin nowhere to be found.

Crank up my lappy, hook it up to the net, ftp the stuff from the other PC.

Install the freakin stuff and turn the ignition key.

telnet
./runInstaller
30 minutes later, patch installed.

Take off for lunch, 5:00 pm.

Now, what was that stupidly ludicrous argument? The one about how the Java installer is so much easier to use than the old scripted one?

!! #@## %^^&&!!!!!!!!!! thank you, Larry!

-- 
Cheers
Nuno Souto
nsouto_at_optushome.com.au.nospam