[Sussex] Dear Tech support

[Karl E. Jorgensen]

On Thu, Sep 16, 2004 at 02:45:35PM +0100, Gareth Ablett wrote:
> Dear Tech support
> 
> Last year I upgraded from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0. I soon noticed
> that the new program began unexpected child processing that took up a
> lot of space and valuable resources. No mention of this was included
> with the product information. In addition, Wife 1.0 installed itself
> into all other programs and now launches during system initialization,
> where it monitors all other system activity. Applications such as Poker
> Night 10.3, Football 5.0, Hunting and Fishing 7.5, and Racing 3.6 no
> longer run, crashing the system whenever selected. I can't seem to keep
> Wife 1.0 in the background while attempting to run my favorite
> applications.
> 
> I'm thinking about going back to Girlfriend 7.0, but the uninstall
> doesn't work on Wife 1.0 Please help!
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> A Troubled User.
> 
> _________________________

A reply from Karl's tech support:

The problem obviously is the upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0.
Although not obvious in the smallprint, this is rarely recommended,
regardless how amicable the licensing terms (as dictated by the parent
processes) are.

As others have noted, Wife 1.0 can be removed by installing Divorce.
Although a long, resource-hungry and protacted process, many find this a
viable option despite the fact it leaves incomplete jobs like Cleaning,
Laundry and Ironing.  Manual rescheduling fixes this problem.

Many who have the necessary resources take the option of running
multiple instances of Girlfriend instead of upgrading to Wife. This can
be much more satisfying.  As power users are already aware, one should
allow each program to be expert in its own area - no one program can do
everything well.

Running multiple instances of Girlfriend 7.0 has to be done carefully
though - they both tend to object to not having free access to the /home
directory, and have an irritating habbit of leaving files (sometimes
hidden ones) in the /home/bedroom directory.

As usual, it is essential to install anti virus software in this case -
Condom must be installed (even before installing the first instance of
Girlfriend). Any version will do, although many have reported the
Featherlight version to be the one reducing performance the least and
suitable for most uses.  For heavier use, the enterprise version
(codenamed Xtra-Safe) should be used as the Featherlight version does
not use strong encryption.  

Note that Condom must be run at all times while interacting other
programs.  This is easiest done by setting the LD_PRELOAD environment
variable.

Running multiple instances of Girlfriend can be fraugh with dangers if
not managed correctly.  

If running simultaneously, compatibility can be ensured by giving each a
different /home directory.  Unfortunately, this is inherently resource
intensive - be sure that all installations come with their own /home
directory.  If you allow access to your personal /home directory to an
instance, other instances should be denied access (until you have
performed the necessary clean-up).

Another approach at having two installations of Girlfriend is to *not*
run both at the same time, but use time-division-muliplexing.  This is
essentially a manual scheduler where the /home directory is backed up
after invocation of the first instance, and then restored immediately
before invoking the same instance again.  If you leave files created by
one instance visible to another instance, the second instance may
terminate abnormally.  This is easiest accomplished by undertaking a
rigid cleaning regime that allows you to present a clean /home directory
at all times.

Regardless of the multitasking approach taken, you still run the risk of
one instance attempting to interrupt[1] you when you are working in the
other instance.  This problem can be solved by using different methods
of inter-process communication with each instance - e.g. in the
/vodaphone and /orange directories. Just point each instance at a
different communication device and make sure that there are background
processes reading any data written by any non-active Girlfriend
instance.

PS: Yes: the fortune is actually random :-)

[1] The Girlfriend application appears to be triggered by external
    interrupts such as "Shopping", "PMS", "Birthday", "Anniversary" and
    possibly others - I forget which. 


-- 
Karl E. Jørgensen
karl at jorgensen.com   http://karl.jorgensen.com
==== Today's fortune:
The happiest time of a person's life is after his first divorce.
		-- J.K. Galbraith 
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