[TriLUG] Linux success story (and please help me)

[gregbrown at mindspring.com]

Well here I am.  I've been in Korea for over a month now (date of arrival:
6/4/2002).  My company-provided laptop was running Windows 2000 and things
were going pretty well over here.  I could ssh into my home box using Putty
and SFTP files around the Internet (and even get into my work LAN thanks to my
VPN connection).

Then my hard-drive tanked.  The problem cropped up slowly but it soon became
clear that my HD was dying.   "No problem", I thought, "I'll just get a new HD
and re-load all my work software".  Only one (big) problem: I'm in Daegu,
Korea, not the USA.   Nobody sell English versions of MS Win2k (or XP, win98,
blah, blah).  "No problem", I thought, "I intended to get a Mac laptop running
Mac OS X upon my arrival back in the states so I'll just ramp up the schedule
and get one here in Korea".  Only the same problem came up: Apple resellers
only sell "Korean-izied" versions of Mac OS here in Korea.

Now I'm in a bind.

(If there are any ROK-SOFA Army (or military/DOD otherwise) servicemen/women
are out there here's what I did)  

I found a small Korean-owened computer store called Johnny Com near the front
gate (Jung Moon,  in Korean) of Camp Walker.  He happened to have genuine
Mandrake 8.1 CDs which he burned for me for the small fee of 10,000 won (just
under $8.50).  At that to the $150.00 (US $), 20 gig, HD and I was back in
business.

Now I'm running Mandrake with a few patches and I can communite with world
again.  Thank you Linus.  Thank you Linux!!!  You can't appreciate just how
much this Linux helped me until you are in my position - which I hope you
never are.

For the record I couldn't install Linux "over the net" because I would have
had to do that from my hotel (the fantastic Hotel Inter-Burgo in case your
future travels take you to Daegu, Korea) because the cable-modem REQURIES you
to sign in over the Ineternet via a web page - so the "install over HTTP
option would have not worked"; believe me I tried.

So what can anyone back in the US do for me?

Please please please give me the IP address of the American-English version of
google.com.  When I try to hit www.google.com or www.altavista.com the DNS
servers and routers assume since I'm originating from Korea I can read Korean
(almost true; I can read a little bit but not enough to work with search
engines).  So, if anyone can provide a http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx address to
google I would be most appreciative.  Or, even better, if you are bored can
provide me with a link were I can enter my serach where that CGI search is
forwarded to Google magically?

Con Sa Me Day (thank you)
Aon Ya Ha Sey Oh (have a good morning/afternoon/evening/night)

Greg