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Patrick Volkerding Back to Work

Posted by michael on from the stop-slacking dept.

AndreaP writes "Patrick Volkerding, the maintainer of Slackware Linux, is apparently recovering from his health problems and is back to work. From the ChangeLog of Slackware-Current: 'I'm back in California and I'm happy to let you all know that I'm feeling much better. :-) Here are a few updates so you can see that I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. Hopefully 10.1 won't be too far off ...'"

31 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. So... that's it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Where's HIS changelog? I want to know what bug they fixed on him.

    1. Re:So... that's it? by Tezkah · · Score: 5, Funny

      I hope he has learned his lesson and makes nightly backups from now on.

    2. Re:So... that's it? by cipher+uk · · Score: 3, Informative

      changelog

      not exactly what you asked for but it does tell you what happened with him etc.

    3. Re:So... that's it? by dotgain · · Score: 3, Funny
      Wow, how selfish of him.

      Last time I recovered from a major, I was itching to get the details into my blog...

    4. Re:So... that's it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, considering that he told the entire world he was sick (in detail) and asked for our help in finding out the problem/treatment, it'd be nice if filled us in on it now that he knows. Perhaps someone else will have the same problem he did?

    5. Re:So... that's it? by iminplaya · · Score: 4, Funny

      They removed the SCO code.

      --
      What?
    6. Re:So... that's it? by cygnus · · Score: 5, Funny

      i backup to the toilet every night, but i've never had the courage to attempt a restore.

      --
      Just raise the taxes on crack.
    7. Re:So... that's it? by Angostura · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Scolding? A lot of it was fairly sensible advice about how to manage the medical profession... i.e don't keep swapping doctors all the time, because they will tend to begin at the beginning again.

    8. Re:So... that's it? by plj · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'd call that logrotate, not backup.

      --
      “Wait for Hurd if you want something real” –Linus
  2. Man! by Faust7 · · Score: 4, Funny

    And just when Slackware was beginning to live up to its name... ;)

    --
    The coolest voice ever.
  3. Great! by chrisgeleven · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Thankfully this guy has finally appeared to be cured or on the road to being cured. That was one scary story we all read just a month or two ago and it is great to hear all turned out well in the end.

  4. Impossible! by Average_Joe_Sixpack · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hate to break the news to you Pat, but Wikipedia says your still ill.

    1. Re:Impossible! by xgamer04 · · Score: 3, Funny

      says your still ill.

      His "still ill" what?

      --
      When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
  5. Welcome Back Pat by MoThugz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...I for one, hopes that he and his family will be in good health always.

    I guess this is as good a Christmas present one could wish for. Health really is much more meaningful than wealth.

    Cheers from a happy Slacker :)

    --
    Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
  6. He's back by psi42 · · Score: 5, Informative

    His health:
    Well, I'm back in California and I'm happy to let you all know that I'm feeling much better. :-)

    His intelligence:
    and then we can look at what exactly needs to be done to try to switch over to the new kernel series for 11, or sometime later on. I still don't think it's time for that yet (it will be best to wait until 2.4 can be abandoned)

    And his sense of humor:
    It's the closest thing to a blog I've ever done. (ooooo! ;-)



    Looks like slackware is back in the running. Welcome back!

    --
    Defenestrate Windows...
  7. WTF by evel+aka+matt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, WTF happened to him? Miraculous recovery from unknown symptoms, or what? One minute he's dying, and now he's just dandy. Chicken soup? What? Did he say anywhere what he had, how it was cured, or anything?

    1. Re:WTF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you really followed the story, here is it in a nutshell (© O'Reilly)

      He was horking up things from his lungs that resembled the plaque from teeth. His dad is a dentist and has always had Pat use an electric whirling toothbrush since he was a kid. Pat always wondered where all that plaque-cloud that he was breathing was going to end up. It seems the bacteria in the plaque found a nice home in his lungs, and grew. The designer antibiotics the doctors were giving him had no effect - he needed the classic old school cillins. He got with the classic drugs, and the evil bacteria are losing.

    2. Re:WTF by caluml · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hey downloaded a corrupt ebuild, which hosed his glibc, but he booted from a recovery CD, and make HUPd the floogle, which he rscp'd over from the InterMX satellite, and after rdev'ing his kernel, he can now syslog to the console. Or something.

      --
      Get your own free personal location tracker
  8. Re:No wonder he got better... by Stephen+Samuel · · Score: 4, Funny
    It's hard to get sick (in LA), and even harder to stay that way.

    Try breathing...

    --
    Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
  9. Already Updated! by neoshroom · · Score: 5, Informative

    You forget that by sending thousands of geeks over to Wikipedia one of them was bound to edit the article. It now contains the update that "On December 19, Slashdot carried the story that he is recovering and returning to work." Eat that turnaround Britannica!

    --
    Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
    1. Re:Already Updated! by elronxenu · · Score: 4, Funny
      Eat that turnaround Britannica!

      I'll bet they don't even have an entry for Patrick Volkerding!

  10. Cancer probably by PoderOmega · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you RTFA he is plugging a cancer specialist he either has or cancer or maybe a benign tumor that could they thought could be cancerous. But I doubt it is benign if he was having symptoms. Either way he doesn't want to come out and say it.

    1. Re:Cancer probably by Limburgher · · Score: 3, Insightful
      . . .which is totally his decision. While I'm hightly curious and even more concerned, it's None Of Our Damn Business. I can think of nothing more private.

      It's enough for me that he's feeling better, and presumably on the road to recovery. Best wishes and good health, Pat.

      --

      You are not the customer.

    2. Re:Cancer probably by Limburgher · · Score: 4, Insightful
      At the point you make the matter public, it DOES become the publics business.

      While in principle I agree with you, think of it this way: If you come to me for advice meeting women, does that entitle me to watch the resulting sexual activity?

      Ignoring of course the issue of whether I WANT to. . .:)

      --

      You are not the customer.

  11. No if he'd done that, by nlinecomputers · · Score: 4, Funny

    He would be dead because we all know that BSD is dead. *ducks*

    --
    Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
  12. PubMed by blackula · · Score: 5, Informative

    Use PubMed as your medical information source. It's where the scientists and docs publish their research and is considering a "real" datasource (as opposed to citing "the internet". Your doctors will know the name Pubmed when you mention it. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi My daughter has a heart condition and we found the doctors weren't interested in really discussing anything until we started using the "right" terminology. The terminology I picked up after reading a number of PubMed publications about my daugher's condition. I highly suggest that anyone researching any condition (but especially something exotic like Patrick) hit PubMed. Make it your source you cite when talking to your docs. Make it your primary source of information. All the other websites you read are just summing up the papers published here.

  13. No. by aluminum_geek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You're wrong.

    Patrick said (in his original "someone help me" email) that the plaque/toothbrush scenario was one if his theories. Since then, he has not mentioned it in any of his updates (that I could find).

    All he mentions is that he wants to thank his doctor, and he's feeling better, etc, etc.

    Personally, he always sounded like a bit of a hypochondriac prima donna, and I was anxiously waiting to be proven wrong.

  14. Patrick, you picked the wrong Holiday... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Christmas is for giving virgin births, it's Easter that's meant for rising from the dead.

  15. Re:Welcome back! Glad for the update! by Limburgher · · Score: 4, Funny

    Your IP address is what again?

    --

    You are not the customer.

  16. This just goes to show you... by eeg3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...Projects that are centered directly around one person are a bad, bad idea. OpenBSD would suffer from this, too... specifically because Theo owns copyrights and whatnot. What happens when he quits, dies, or gives up?

    All major projects should have elected core members, and shouldn't be dependent on them.

  17. So WTF was wrong?? by EllynGeek · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Come on, man! You spray the Internet with in-depth descriptions of your symptoms, theories, research, and how you ran from one doctor to the next when you couldn't get an answer within five minutes... and now you don't say what you have, or what fixed it? sheesh dood. All those people who expressed concern and genuine care for you, and that's the best you can do? Not cool.

    --

    we will end no whine before its time