I was hoping you might have a solution to the problem of keeping /etc/config/system and /[flash|mnt]/config/system in sync.

and mentions another howto that does a bind mount of /etc between the flash and USB filesystems, so they stay in sync.

There’s an obvious problem with a bind mount of /etc, which is that the contents of /etc/config depend on the software in the rest of the filesystem. Let’s say you’re booted to the USB root filesystem. If you install a new package, or a new version of a current package, then you might inadvertently create a config file that’s incompatible with the software on the flash root filesystem. Most likely you won’t discover the incompatibility until it causes a significant problem. (Imagine if the webif or ssh doesn’t come up when you do an emergency boot off the flash root filesystem!)

My perspective is that having a completely separate root filesystem in flash is a feature, not a bug. When I deliver OpenWRT routers to remote locations, I configure the flash filesystem with the minimum requirements for remote maintenance: generally, this is the firewall, dynamic dns, and ssh with a key. Any added-value software goes on the USB root filesystem – generally this software is bigger or has more complex configuration.

If something goes wrong in the remote location, especially if somebody misconfigures OpenWRT, then recovery is easy: pull out the USB drive and reboot. (If the USB drive dies, simply rebooting is enough.) There’s a separate, known good configuration which will be sufficient for me to have remote access.

In a past life I helped design embedded network devices that got delivered to remote (unstaffed) locations. We used dual flash partitions and a custom boot ROM, to ensure that the devices would always be able to boot. Even a cosmic ray flipping the wrong bit wouldn’t brick the device: it would simply boot from the alternate partition. Similarly, software upgrades that affected the flash image would only be written to one partition, so you could fallback by booting the alternate.

My strategy for OpenWRT borrows from this prior experience, and also from the hidden “recovery” partition on many Windows computers, where there’s a stripped-down partition to allow restoring the original software in case of disaster.

A Presidential peak is generally considered to be Mt. Washington, and one of the major peaks on the ridges connected to Washington. North of Washington, these are Madison, Adams, and Jefferson. Mt. Clay sits between Jefferson and Washington; it is not an official 4K peak (for the usual insufficient col reason), nor is it named after a President. There are 5 peaks in the Adams group; the tallest is named after John Adams, the next tallest is John Quincy Adams, then Sam Adams, then imagination failed and the call the smallest bumps Adams 4 and Adams 5. (I and many others think Adams 4 should be called Abigail.) John Quincy Adams, by the way, sits across the col from Mt. Madison and is in fact taller than Madison.

South of Washington the Presidential ridge is Monroe, Little Monroe, Franklin (an even smaller bump on the ridge than Clay), Eisenhower, Pierce/Clinton, Jackson, and Webster. Of these peaks, only half are named after Presidents: Monroe, Eisenhower, and Pierce. (But the Clinton is a former governor of NH, not the President). The Jackson was a state geologist.

There are several other ridges leading to Washington. The Montalban ridge is just east of the Southern Presidentials: its highest peaks are Isolation and Davis, as well as the very recognizable Giant Stairs. The Rocky Branch Ridge, to the east of Montalban, has no major peaks. Then the ridges to the east, which define Washington’s ravines: Boott Spur, Glen Boulder, and Chandler Ridge (where the auto road runs). The peaks on Chandler Ridge, all higher than the Southern Presidentials, are named Ball Crag and Nelson Crag. None of these peaks are considered Presidentials.

Why is this such a mess? Mountain naming is necessarily haphazard (don’t get me started about the peaks named after Native American chiefs who never set foot in New England), and necessarily represents a moment in time. The Presidentials (Adams through Monroe) were named by a group of “prominent citizens”, who climbed Washington (named after George Washington when he was a general and not yet President) and named the next 4 highest peaks after the next 4 Presidents. They got it wrong, by the way, because Monroe – named after the fifth president – is actually the fourth tallest, and Madison is only fifth tallest.

None of this accounts for Lincoln, which is named after President Lincoln, but is not in the Presidential range. (It’s on Franconia Ridge.)

I wrote above that Clay is not named after a President, but that is not entirely true. There has been a national drive to rename features after President Reagan, and Clay is the peak that was targeted in the Whites. The New Hampshire legislature has renamed Clay to Reagan, but the US Bureau of Geological Names, which has its own rules, does not recognize the renaming. So Clay has two names, depending on whether you answer to NH or the US.

Roar and More, which grew out of Ms. Kuskin’s graduate school project at Yale, was one of the classic books of my childhood. We can still recite many of the poems (“Fish is the wish / Of the cat on the mat / Or maybe his dream / Is catnip and cream”). And then the next page is a drawing of the cat’s reaction (“PRRRRRrrrrrrrr”).

My wife and I read Roar and More to our son when he was young, but he didn’t cotton to it. We were horrified to discover that he thought the Kangaroo noises (“whamp thrimp thrump”) were of the mother kangaroo falling on the joey!

But I’ve never read anything else she wrote. I like some of the work quoted in the NYT obituary, I’ll have to keep an eye out next time I’m in the library.

In May I wrote “She may yet prove me wrong” and she did just that, for another 8 months. She was clearly uncomfortable towards the end, but never in pain; she knew who her people were and was feisty to the end, up on the dinner table where she didn’t belong and generally ruling the roost. She was a tough old girl and she had a good run.

We got a second cat in the early days, to keep her company, but it didn’t turn out well. The new kitten – from the litter of a work friend’s much-beloved cat – had feline leukemia, and had to be returned. I think that was the end of the whole litter, and probably the mother cat as well. Very sad – but somehow our cat survived it. Feline leukemia is sometimes called AIDS for cats.

A couple years ago she had a bad decline and lost a lot of weight. We thought it was the beginning of the end, but we changed a few things, and she rallied. She’s never regained all the weight she should, but she’s much improved from when you could count each vertebra in her spine.

Her hearing went a year or so ago, although it’s always been an open question whether she can’t hear or is just ignoring you. She sure figures out when it’s dinner time. Around the same time, she got more obstreperous – she especially enjoys jumping up on the dining room table, poaching on M’s cheesy popcorn or other food. (M doesn’t know how to prevent this.)

Recently, though, her rear legs have been going, and I’m thinking – again – that the end may be near. It’s not just a question of not being able to jump up things (it takes two jumps to get to the table now: first chair, then table.) She doesn’t land well when she jumps down, and sometimes she staggers sideways. Worse, she has started falling off the coffee table when she’s just walking along the edge.

20 years is a good run for a cat found on a street corner. She’s a good friend and a tough old bird, and who knows? She may yet prove me wrong again.