Category Archives: Linux
Leviathan Servers
Leviathan toys with Zeus. Part I. A mythic allegory describing what Joyent perceives as an evolution from the Google model of cheap generic boxes running Linux (back) to Sun hardware and software with virtulization, new file systems, and new boxes with dozens of CPUs. A great post, even if you don’t agree with the conclusions. (I’m still on the fence.)
Cross-Datacenter File Replication
Anyone have any favorite tricks for geographically diverse real-time file replication on Linux? It seems like most information is pretty dispersed, and suggestions range from every-30-seconds rsync to putting all files as BLOBs in MySQL and replicating that. There has to be a better way. (The scariest part is Microsoft seems to show up first for most Googles I can think of, but Windows is not an option.)
New Mac Mini
I’ve been looking to get the two noisy linux boxes under my desk into a closet somewhere, because they’re so loud. One is a very very old PII or something running Gentoo that I had to put by the window and open because one of the fans was breaking down and the box was overheating, which caused it to make an alarm-like sound for hours at a time. AHEM. The second box is a fairly new Dell but it’s a server-class machine with TB+ of storage and it sounds like a plane taking off sometimes. The Dell is running Ubuntu, and also using the third screen on my desktop full-time. Having Linux right there (and on the same mouse/keyboard thanks to Synergy) is incredibly helpful for debugging and testing things, plus I could run X-chat full-time. When the new Mac minis came out they caught my eye — something not as dog-slow as my Powerbook, with a proper monitor and keyboard/mouse, could really be a great OS X experience and I’d still have all the command-line goodness at my fingertips. I ordered the maxed-out one online (they didn’t have any in stock at the SF store) and it arrived. So far so good! Almost as fast as my PC (AMD FX55 + 4GB).
More on Ubuntu
So after starting the installation a few minutes ago, Ubuntu is up and running! I’m really more shocked than anything, I had already put 6-10 hours in getting Gentoo running and then it just wouldn’t work, probably something to do with my SCSI card. Ubuntu just worked. I’ve got a beautiful desktop running right now. I plugged in a USB mouse and it works with the scroll wheel. That might not seem trivial, and it is if you’re on Windows or a Mac, but my previous experiences with desktop (as opposed to server) Linux have been so awful, this is like heaven by comparison. And installation was so easy… Ubuntu is the WordPress of Linux distributions.
PyMusique
PyMusique lets you purchase music from iTunes on Linux and apparently when the music comes from the server it has no DRM. I just read a News.com story on them and noticed their blog was also on WordPress.
Local Area Security
Local Area Security, the Linux security project, is now run by WordPress.
Open Source Blogs?
So I’m playing around more with Newsburst today, and one thing that struck me was the organization of the defaults. Where in the world did they come from? You could do this with most any category, but let’s take a look at “Open Source”:
- Builder.com.com — not sure what the site is doing, but the feed does have two mentions of open source software, but it seems to just be re-branded stories from News.com, so I’m not sure what the point is.
- Linux Dell Blog — Frequently down but hardcore open source.
- jfleck — I suppose the connection is he contributes to Gnome. Okay… No posts about OS on the front page, and even the category they subscribe to looks to be updated about twice a month.
- Kuro5hin — A great site, but nothing about Open Source in the feed lately. It’s more tech-culture.
- Linux.com — dry, but valid.
- linux kernel monkey log — valid.
- Miguel de Icaza — Good choice.
- NewsForge — groovy.
- Lockergnome Tech News Watch — covers tech but not too much OS
- Scripting News — Many things, but not an open source blog. Besides, it’s listed several other places already.
- Slashdot — who would argue with this?
What would be cool if Newsburst let me tag a feed when I subscribed to it, then highlight popular tags and the most popular “sources” within them. Forget what they think “open source” is, I want the opensource tag.
The way to get people hooked on blogs has nothing to do with RSS feeds or river of conciousness displays or whatever, it’s all the fantastic content that’s being created out there by people in the trenches. If you had a passing interest in learning about open source, you would get 60+% junk if you subscribed to that channel group. Where is Blake Ross’ passion about Firefox, Mitch Kapor, ZDNet’s OS Blog, Sitepoint’s, Spread Firefox, or anything from the people that are creating the applications that are changing the way we live, work, and play? Are blogs that talk about open source that hard to find?
MySQL not Buggy
Study: Few bugs in MySQL database, which is good to know, since an increasingly large portion of my life is being put into MySQL. (And Apache, and PHP, but not so much Linux anymore. I’ve been setting up a new FreeBSD server and it rocks.)
The Weather
It is definitely a stay-at-home and drink-hot-chocolate kind of day here in San Francisco. And I’m totally okay with that. Now if only I could get the 64-bit Windows installation disk to recognize my SATA controller, life would be good. I’m not a fan of Linux for desktop usage yet (I’ve tried it about once a year for 4+ years now) but I might be pushed in that direction, ironically, because of better hardware compatibility. This might be easier if I had a non-USB floppy drive, but I’m not inclined to go out in this weather just to get one.
Linux Journal
Son writes in that there is a good review of WordPress in this month’s Linux Journal, including a mention on the cover! I had no idea this was coming so I went to Border’s and lo and behold there it was. I picked up two copies and I’ll post to the dev blog later with a response to the article.
Gnome 2.8
Some screenshots of Gnome 2.8. Looks nice. Like any true geek, I’m more interested in the nice shadows on everything than the actual improvements. Are the shadows stock? 😉 I keep going back and forth on my Linux desktop. I’ll use Gnome for a while because it seems cleaner and then I’ll switch to KDE because I seem to get more done and I like things like being able to press Win + M to minimize all the windows. Hat tip: Wes.
Zoto
Zoto looks pretty neat. I signed up earlier and also set up an account for my Mom. But why isn’t WordPress a “supported blog”? Only a 136 users so far as I write this. Go sign up and try it out. They’ve done some interesting things with the interface and they have an open source photo client available for Windows, OS X, and Linux. I couldn’t get the Linux client working on my Mom’s computer, had no trouble at home on Gentoo though. I think it was an old version of Python.
I uploaded a few not-yet-on-the-photolog photos to my Zoto page to get the party started. (The fact that some of those are from Christmas and New Year’s means I really need to catch up.)
Apple’s Challenge
If I was Apple I wouldn’t be worried at all about Windows, I would be worried about the next generation of Linux desktop software. The main reason I’m considering a G5 for my next desktop purchase is that I want a powerful machine that Just Works when I plug stuff in and can still run all the open source tools like Subversion, rysync, PHP, MySQL, etc etc that I rely on. It’s also interesting that all the software I regard these days as truly essential isn’t desktop software, it’s server software. I can survive switching text editors or graphics programs or even operating systems, but if I had to use ASP and SQL Server instead of Perl/PHP/Python and MySQL I’m not sure what I would do. I can function without these things on my desktop, but having to access them remotely (if it’s pretty transparent) prohibits some pretty cool stuff and diminishes my productivity.
Windows and OS X are tools I use to get things done. Linux desktop software (X, KDE, Gnome, etc) is a hobby. If I could focus on getting work done instead of getting my wireless card to work I could consider as a serious and cheaper alternative to a OS X desktop. (No matter what I want one of those new Cinema displays though.)
To preemptively clarify, my comments do not at all apply to Linux in the server space, where it by far the most mature and capable platform out there and I would hardly consider anything else.
Yes!!!
I did it!! I finally got a wireless card working on my Gentoo box. I can finally unplug that unsightly ethernet cord that’s been stringing across my house while I’ve been trying to get this working. The problem was there was a driver I had to download and then put into a directory which I also had to create. I didn’t find much to help me, but this thread put me on the right track. The card is a Harris Semiconductor D-Links DWL-g650 A1 (rev 01). I have been trying to get this (and other things) to work for almost a month now. This is a huge relief, and I can’t believe I’ve been held up this long by something so simple.
MMCache
Turck MMCache Vs PHP Accelerator. I used to use PHPA and then migrated to MMcache recently, however I had to turn it off because it kept segfaulting when compiling KSES files. However the caching functions and shared memory stuff is really neat.
WRT54GS
So I’ve tapped into Linux on my WRT54GS using the Sveasoft firmware, and it’s pretty sweet being able to SSH into your router. Should be very useful when I’m on the road as well. Local DNS cache is running great. Security stuff seems solid. Finally, Wonder Shaper is keeping my roommate’s games from bothering me. 😉
Public keys for SSH authentication
They Said It Couldn’t Be Done
I installed Windows XP on a 200mhz, 64MB, 3GB computer yesterday. I tweaked it a bit and it runs great. Is there nothing that OS can’t do? I’m really impressed with the variety of situations where it functions really well. Of course I could have put Linux on it, but I’ve come to realize that there are some situations where that’s just not right. (At least not yet.)
Lazy Night
Interesting day, woke up early (for me) to head to Fry’s and pick up some computer parts, then headed straight to HPUG. Once I got to HAL-PC by luck Cheryl (leader of the Web-Tech SIG) was giving away a 1.4GHz Athlon box and I nabbed that; there’s something wrong but I suspect it’s just the power supply. It has a really nice motherboard with RAID too so this will be perfect for my Linux file-server box.
Later tonight I took Joe his new Athlon XP box I built for him, and it’s running really great. When the sound card comes in he’s going to have a very nice setup. It’s surprisingly fast and it reminded me that I really need to upgrade my processor on my desktop, more so now that I’m doing .NET development stuff on it. (More on that later.)
Tonight after some testing I finally upgraded the server to PHP 4.3 and MySQL 4.0.10, and things are running beautifully.
What I’ve been avoiding writing about (and thinking about) is the part of today that wasn’t technology related. Helsa had to be taken to the Vet Hospital because she started throwing up several times and also apparently sometime between last night and this morning her skin got this yellow tint. The doctor said that she isn’t in any pain, but because she lost weight so fast her liver is probably overloaded with fat. They don’t know why she stopped eating in the first place, and we have no clue. They did blood tests, an ultrasound, and x-rays, and hopefully we’ll have some better data to know what’s going on. The doctor was very optimistic, so I’m feeling better about things, but it was still painful to se Helsa like that. They’re going to get some fluids and food in her through IV so that should help as far as the liver is concerned. It sounds like if they can get her body some nutrients so it stops trying to process the fat, that will help the liver. The only problem is that “fatty liver” is generally symptomatic of something else, and we haven’t determined the deeper cause.