Learn how to maintain a woman distro. Includes secrets of flawless booting and file management, and solutions to frequently encountered errors. By Mike Street So you found a woman. Congratulations! But after you take her out for a night on the town at the local LUG meeting, you can't just slink back to the basement and forget about her. Many women require regular maintenance, just like your beloved *nix box. If you're having problems and can't understand the suggestions of typical male support mechanisms, read through the "Linux Users' Guide to Women." This guide is written in a familiar format, and it can help you cope with many common relationship configurations. And umm... it's a joke. We were going to post a similar "Linux Users' Guide to Men," but the subject matter was far too simplistic. ================================= Linux Operator Guide to Women ================================= Dated: 03-29-2004 ================ Revision History ================ Revision 1.10 -- Revised by Eugene Poindexter Revision 2.0 -- Revised by Linux community (Major rewrites to lower swapping of slap file) Revision 2.2 -- Revised by Tipsy McStagger (major additions to the "alcohol" headings of the Booting, Tips and Tricks, and Frequently Encountered Errors sections) ====================== Preamble and Licensing ====================== This guide may only be used in the rare event a women takes an interest in you as an individual. Any use of this guide by webmasters posing as profitable multinational companies is expressly forbidden. You may use this guide to help you understand and deal with your woman. However, any additional submissions, special tricks, nuances, methodologies, etc., must be made public under this license. (Because, you know, we need help too!) =========== Disclaimer =========== This guide is intended as humor, meant for an obviously fictitious audience of Linux users bereft of the social skills necessary to court and/or woo a woman. In other words, please don't hurt me. ============ Introduction ============ This guide will help you understand your woman, and may even elevate you to the most sacred of social interactions, that which is known as "second base." Follow through to learn tips and tricks to caring for your woman, the secrets of flawless booting and file management, and solutions to frequently encountered errors. ======================= 1.0 General Information ======================= 1.1 What is a woman? By definition, a woman has more lumps than a man. All women use a unique OS that's embedded into the woman's hardware. Though difficult and delicate, a user may flash the woman's OS to update the algorithms for toilet seat placement, information extraction, and so on. However, manual flashing is not recommended, and may lead to doubling over in pain and even incarceration. 1.2 Why do I want a woman? The benefits of having a woman far outweigh the costs of maintenance and upgrades. You may begin forum posts with, "Yesterday I was talking to my girlfriend, and..." Your empty pizza boxes will disappear (many women are wired with a periodic reminder system). And you'll finally have a valid reason for the pent-up frustrations you express so clearly in "Battlefield: Vietnam." 1.3 Who created women? Some users believe women were originally created as a companion for Microsoft's Bob. Others have postulated the creation of women was an elaborate biological hack. No one theory has proven valid. 1.4 Do all women look like the women in CG movies made on Linux render farms? No, but wouldn't that be a wonderful world? Actually, each woman is beautiful in her own right, and as a user, it is your duty to maintain these characteristics (see "file management"). 1.5 How do I pronounce "woman"? The pronunciation of "woman" varies by cultural hearth, but the widely accepted version used by men is pronounced "Yes, dear" (yes dir). 1.6 How many people use women? Approximately half. (Kidding!) 1.6.1 Can I tell how many people have used my woman? Yes, but only with highly advanced knowledge of her core dependencies and system libraries. In addition, you will be required to include your own personal data to seed the execution. If you lack experience with women, producing this information may lead to quasi-random behavior, such as pointing and laughing or extreme cuddling. ==================== 2.0 The Woman Kernel ==================== The woman kernel is a set of low-level programming designed to make a woman's hardware functional. The kernel also interacts with other programs that control the operations and day-to-day use of hardware. For example, the kernel programming for many distros' (a user term for "woman") torso components are often linked directly to the "butts.a.wigglin" libraries. These dependencies and relations make possible a woman's incredibly complex operation. This hierarchical programming of women differs greatly from male hardware. Most often, males are hardwired for instantaneous reaction to female hardware with simple data outputs such as "Boobies!" and the initialization of sub-routines for drooling. 2.1 What male platforms does the woman kernel support? Though many women are highly adaptable, not all are well-suited to some typical male platforms. For example, a kernel configured for "supermodel" will not likely mesh smoothly with a male's core "fishing" modules. 2.2 How can I tell what version of the woman kernel she's running? The woman kernel-versioning format is based on an easy-to-use and familiar number-decimal-number-decimal-number system (e.g. 2.4.12). The first number indicates any major revisions that were made, which may break dependencies and programs known to work in earlier versions. Since kernel versioning began, this number has only changed eleventy-two thousand times. The second number indicates if the kernel is stable (signified by an even number) or unstable (an odd number). Obviously, most kernels have an odd number by default, with some distros divided further into coincidentally named "irrational" number branches. The third number denotes exactly which kernel version is running and is updated most frequently. Many users choose not to utilize these "let me tell you about my day" updates, but this may lead to premature system failure and a complete loss of hardware access. 2.3 Has the woman kernel been ported to other platforms? Yes! Some woman kernels have been ported to other female-based hardware platforms, and some videos display a virtual Beowulf cluster of kernel-sharing applications (Note: All such videos are permanently Slashdotted). However, these ports usually result in a user's (but more often, an observer's) self-gratification procedure, which is well-defined elsewhere on the Internet. 2.4 What devices does the woman kernel support? Each female distro has a fairly specific device support library. While some are fully automated, others require manual translation layers for even the most basic devices. Though some women are equipped with standardized device support, these libraries are incomplete and may result in mishaps such as diesel fuel in gas-powered cars, hammering with a knife, and so on. 2.5 Can a woman use more devices by sharing interrupts? The interrupts of a woman are unfamiliar to even the most highly advanced users. More study in this area is needed. ========== 3.0 Drives ========== 3.1 What drives does a woman support? Each female distro provides a complex support mechanism for drives. Most every distro provides at least some support for sex-based drives, though many require extra support for these functions. See the "tips and tricks" section. Other drives, such as consumption, have a far higher degree of support implementation, especially in the dessert and diet areas. 3.2 What about external drives? Most female distros are equipped with an automated location monitoring routine, but these must be periodically updated with fresh data. Male users seem to lack the ability to poll for these "directions." 3.3 Do women support redundant arrays? Distros that include the "Does this make me look fat?" library certainly do. However, women with sub-routines for "Well, I told you last week when you were sleeping" do not support redundant arrays. =========== 4.0 Booting =========== Every distro has a unique boot process. Some distros even boot by a dynamic process that initializes the day's components. The dynamics appear random, but a power user can manipulate which components get selected for initialization. 4.1 How can I manipulate my distro's dynamic boot? Hacking the boot process of a distro is delicate work, and it can often result in cold shoulders. Many power users run specialized hardware processes (such as breakfast in bed or a hot bubblebath) to assist the manipulation. 4.2 My distro doesn't automatically load window managers during the boot. What's up with that? Many distros boot into a "safe" mode, which doesn't load any of the makeup or eyeliner libraries which make a fully optimized window manager possible. Depending on the user, the distro, and the topic on "Oprah," this "safe" mode may last an entire day or longer. Luckily, a user can manually load these components and achieve a complete desktop with a minimum of commands in the distro's CLI, including "Hey, let's go for dinner at that fancy place" and "Wow, is that Aragorn from LOTR?" 4.3 The distro I woke up to isn't the same distro I brought home. Help? This is a common problem, most often the result of a user's experimentation with an application called "beer goggles." This software is very buggy, and may sometimes misread data from optical sensors. Somewhat oddly, it comes highly recommended. ======================== 5.0 Application Software ======================== A woman is much more than her kernel; she also comes complete with an extensive library of application software. This software may include routines for decorating, gossip, dancing, and so on. Women are extremely flexible, and may compile "judge," "firefighter," or any other freely available application. 5.1 My woman booted and I found applications I didn't compile or install. Does she have a virus? Possibly, but it's more common that a woman will add these applications automatically. There is very little a user can do to stop these additions, and experimentation with denial-of-service hacks can lead to complete system loss. 5.2 My woman autoloads an application for clipping toenails while watching television. Can I modify her boot sequence to exclude this application? Unfortunately, most scripting languages lack the proper syntax to rewrite a woman's boot process. After much frustration, most users console themselves with a short walk. 5.3 Is there any way to turn off my woman's automatic reminder application? No. =================== 6.0 File Management =================== Though all distros are unique, most allot an enormous amount of storage to data that seems superfluous to even the most guru-ish of system administrators. Luckily, the means of collection, storage, and recall are completely autonomous processes. 6.1 Why do some women insist on external hardware file managers? Many women rely heavily on an external hardware file manager for organizing hardware specific to their window manager components (i.e. lipstick), security applications (i.e. keys), and more. The capacity of these external storage devices is not known or fully understood. 6.2 Why do other users make a whip sound when my woman asks me to mind her external hardware file manager? This involuntary sound is an evolutionary holdover from an earlier time when users had full manual control over their women. Today, distros include autonomous processes that are impossible to override. Most notably, these sounds are only produced when the other users are away from their keyboards. ============== 7.0 Networking ============== Women are fully optimized for networking, with highly advanced branching mechanisms and specialized hardware to assist in information dissemination. Networking components work together with some software applications (i.e. gossip) to produce a highly efficient peer-to-peer network. 7.1 What speed does the woman peer-to-peer network achieve? No male user has ever successfully measured this network throughput, but it's estimated as an equivalent to the proposed "Internet 27" specification. 7.2 Is it possible to "seed" the network with information? Yes! Some users purposefully add disinformation to the network for their own amusement. This "info spoofing" is most often associated with main characters of a soap opera being killed off. However, the consequences of said actions are extreme. 7.3 Why does my woman refuse to share information with me? The answer to this isn't clearly understood, and likely varies depending on the circumstances and your actions of the last 24 hours. The virtual remedy for this bandwidth issue is also hazy; you may have luck with offering solutions, while others are better to wait for the woman's data output. =================== 8.0 Troubleshooting =================== Sooner or later (probably sooner), you'll encounter problems when interacting with your woman. These problems can occur within a woman's application software or even the lower-level kernel programming, but these are most effectively dealt with as a user error. 8.1 My woman's core libraries for independent operation are missing. What can I do? This problem is most often encountered when an inordinate amount of time is spent at LUG or EQ clan meetings. Though a core dependency may be broken, most often this problem is remedied by time spent engaging the woman's systems. 8.2 My woman has triggered an "Am I sexier than her?" loop. How should I respond? A firm and reassuring "yes" followed by an integrated praise command will usually break this loop. Any other user response usually triggers a cascading dependency crash and may result in sleeping somewhere uncomfortable. 8.3 My woman has clearly suffered some sort of general protection fault. What should I do? As stated earlier, these faults are most effectively solved when tackled as a user error. As a user, you must conclude that you made some sort of mistake while entering data or performing a routine task. =================== 9.0 Tips and Tricks =================== This section includes several generic processes users have initiated to make their woman run smoother and more efficient. Please note that these are distro-specific, and may result in ridicule. 9.1 Flowers Introducing flowers to a system is an art form requiring timely integration and fore-knowledge of the woman's configuration. Flowers are most effective when not precipitated by a massively destructive user error. 9.2 Chocolate Introducing chocolate to a woman is much easier than flowers, but may reduce the support given for drives (i.e. sexual). Chocolate should only be administered if the woman is not closely self-monitoring her consumption components, else an endless "Am I sexier than her?" loop may emerge. 9.3 "Yes, dear" This almost-magic user entry will usually improve performance, but usually requires considerably more manual labor than initially requested. Under no circumstances should the "Yes, dear" command ever be issued with the condescending "-c" flag. ================================== 10.0 Frequently Encountered Errors ================================== By most accounts, the relationship between a woman and a user is delicate, and may often cascade into processing errors, broken dependencies, and even general failures and government-mandated loss of access to the system. Here are some commonly encountered errors. 10.1 Multitasking with other distros You're on your own, buddy -- using another distro while your main system is in the shop is highly dangerous. You're prone to viral attacks, intensive user explanation, and a host of more serious maladies. Multi-taskers are usually found out by the distro's extensive peer-to-peer networks. 10.2 Growing list of idiosyncratic libraries Over the course of a distro/user relationship, a user may find an enormous library of idiosyncrasies hidden deep in a distro's sub-directory. In time, the distro may increase dependency on this directory, depending on how well the distro interacts with the user. Instead of the aggravations associated with deleting this directory, most users move it to their own /dev/null directory. 10.3 Alcohol and other "fuzzy-logic" algorithms The use of alcohol to influence the processes of a woman is highly unstable, and may result in a wide variety of aberrant behaviors. In addition, the self-administration of alcohol by a user, even when not in the presence of his distro, can cause user errors. Presently, the alcohol libraries are in beta testing, and are not well-integrated with shared libraries for physical coordination. Discuss this document in our Linux Women Operator message board.