> I have been running the Hurd six months. The Hurd is
> reasonably stable, I have only wrecked it once. I can do
> native builds of the Hurd, gcc and TeX. I can make it
> "buy the farm" by doing a large Java build; by the
> way, why is buying large quantities of land bad?
>
This thread was brought up once before by Marcus. From what
I remember, the answer is as follows:
Basically, "Bought the Farm" is a slang term used in the United
States to mean someone died, e.g., "He bought the farm". I'm not
sure of its origin.
With regard to the Hurd, the "bought the farm" error is
also signalled by the "EIEIO", which is also very similar
to the old nursery rhyme/song:
"Old MacDonald Had a Farm, ee -- i -- ee - i --oh"
And so, they were mixed into the error message you
see today.
(TSB can probably provide better details about this).
-Brent
