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I guess I was bored...But after having Linux on my laptop for over 2 years without wireless internet access, I guess I got bored. ;) I finally got it working after lots of troubleshooting and tinkering (IE: I have to actually turn the radio on, then off, then on again to make it work, don't ask me why).
Hmm... What next? >:)
Figured it out...My linux box has been plagued by hard drive error messages over the last couple of months. Errors have been creeping up about nore being able to read from the hd when heavy data access goes on... I don't have the error message on me, but a quick Google search I did about two weeks ago had everyone who was experiencing that error chuck the hd out the window.
So I joined the bandwagon and jumped off the cliff too. Got a brand new "cheap-o" 80gb hard drive (sheesh, I remember when a 2gb hard drive was a couple hundred bucks and some motherboards couldn't support it). What blew me out of the water was when I did a fresh Debian install on the new hard drive, the same messages popped up.
OK... So what else coule be affecting it? The damned cable. Replaced it, and guess what? I now have 80gb more of storage on my Linux box. =)
The next rant...The past week has been really rough. Really high highs and some really low lows (read second last entry)... Work has stabalized back into a norm and thing are returning to as normal as they can. Buts thats enough about that...
On the upswing, side jobs are picking up. I've taken on two webmaster positions with companies in the area. I'm also now the DBA of a third company that I work for part time. They all look like a decent challenge but I'm looking forward to puling through for all of them. Plus, I get some practical experience in the workplace instead of personal experience which is a great advantage...
Three days ago I was followed home, literally. Totem and I were coming home from lisalou's house, Totem was taking an odd route, and well, I had a little case of road rage. ;) We approached an intersecion with a green light, turn into the left turn lane, stopped, and then verred into the right lane and continuted going straight. So I'm fuming, but I notice a car behind me turn on his blinker to turn with us, turn it off and then follow us back on the road. I'm like WTF and I tried to figure out what was going on... Left turn, followed. Right turn followed. OK, now my paranoia has got the best of me. I let Totem drive home while I keep driving (she does not know this is happening BTW)... She turns and the person keeps following me. Left turn, followed. I did a "S" drive up and down a couple of streets and I'm still being followed. Now I'm creeped out... I manage to get a block ahead and park my car in front of a house. He/She (I couldn't tell) pulled onto the street and waited. About two minutes later, they drove off. I never saw them again. I have a feeling a punk a$$ kid was just trying to see what would happen if he keep following me. Whoever it was, they had a souped up neon with fog lights, spoiler, and decals... I didn't get the lics though. I'm just glad I figured it out and didn't lead whoever it was to my house... globe
I also started playing Final Fantasy XI this week. The online one. I'm not that impressed. The game is huge and very detailed, I'm not putting that down. What got to me early on was the lack of info for newbies to the game... It took me a really long time to get used to the interface and when I did, there wasn't much for me to do. Again on the expansiveness, there are a tons of things to do, but for a newbie, many of those are in areas that I couldn't survive. So, for the time being, I'm limited to local areas with low end monsters. Needless to say, I'm only level 8 and things are very, very repetitive. I don't know if I am going to renew my subscription, maybe one month more, but I don't see me going beyond two months unfortunately.
When Totem and I buy a house, I want to it be one level. Now that the computer is up, I'm spending way to much time upstairs. Totem's even said I can go and disappear now. While being on the same floor won't eliminate me using my computer, we'd be essentially togther. IE: Me sitting on my laptop in the living while we watch TV is better than me going upstairs to play a game...
Onward and upward. New project, I'm redoing my Linux box with a new kernel. It's a biggie redo b/c I tried to upgrade from 2.4 to 2.6 and was not too successful... Plus the box needs to be rebooted every couple of days to make sure it still works... I think it's because I did a hardware swap without a new install (pulled all hardware out of old 350mhz box and put it into 700mhz box with no OS reinstall). Should be fun...
Adventures in SSL...I've got another job (like you didn't know this was coming) to setup a storefront online to sell auto parts. Pretty cool if you ask me. A decent project to undertake as well as a new field I get to dabble in...
The majors concerns I'm butting up against are security (to make people feel comfortable when giving personal information on this website) and cost. Working on a minimum budget, I have to find a way to accept payments on the website without breaking the company's bank on day one...
To my surprise, it really is not that hard. And, of course, Dreamhost has pulled through once again. ;) For about the cost of $135 a year ($15 domain registration, $60 for SSL cert from InstantSSL and $60 for a tatic IP to use the SSL certificate) I can get a storefont going. Why did Dreamhost help??? Because they include a Miva Merchant license for the plan I currently have. =)
So once I get some corporate info from them, I'll be on my way to my first sub-$300 costing store. ;)
The kewl thing about all of this was that I've been learning a lot about SSL that I didn't know before. First of all, I've always wondered by these companies are charging so much for security. Well, I found out. The main thing is that you're using their name. People come to your website and expect to be secure. The root CA issuers are doing a LOT of work to verify the identity of you when you request a certificate. So I guess you're paying for the use of their name and the work they do to verify everything...
But, what I really never really understood, was how does Jo Schmoe, who does not want to spend tons of money on paying for a certificate but just wants to make sure his email and website information is being transmitted securely, go about being secure? The answer? Trust yourself. ;) Make a cert, sign it, and when you're browser asks if you are trustworthy, say yes. ;) I found a great article on how to do this on a Linux box with Apache and OpenSSL. Both free...
How to SETUP SSL Apache MODSSL
And for people who don't want to pay for certificates, but want to use a recognized Certificate Authority, use CACert. While it does not have the browser ubiquity that a lot of the pay services have, it is free and a good start for a company not looking to spend a ton of money...
Another huge project...But this time I brought it upon myself. In a good way. ;) I recently signed up to take a training course to become Novell CLP Certified. To my surprise, the course I signed up for was a study at home training course with books and software and dvds. The one neat thing about is was that the course came with a copy of SuSE Linux Enterprise Server Version 9.
Guess who's starting over with their Linux box again? =)
Plus, it gives me an opportunity to give SuSE a shot. I've only used Red Hat, Debian, Gentoo, and Knoppix in the past...
More customization...While working on getting my Linux box more locked down and up to date, I started to tackle some of the things that I left behind when I started over. You know, the things you like but don't really need like sound drivers, X Windows, and some scripts that were "nice" but not required. Well, I tackled my backup scripts. Went to mount the new DVDRAM drive that backed all my data up to from before the "re-do". Got a message.
/dev/sr0 is not a valid block device.
...well $hit. Start sweating because almost everything you needed to save was one that disc. Try it again. Same message. Try it again specifying a file system. No go. Hmm... Now is where my years of "learn by breaking the fscker" kicked in. I tried:
mount -t ext2 /dev/sr0 /dvdram
mount -t ext2 /dev/sr2 /dvdram
mount -t ext2 /dev/sr3 /dvdram
mount -t ext2 /dev/sr4 /dvdram
mount -t ext2 /dev/sr6 /dvdram
mount -t ext2 /dev/sr /dvdram
mount -t ext2 /dev/scd0 /dvdram
mount -t ext2 /dev/scd9 /dvdram
mount -t ext2 /dev/scd7 /dvdram
And guess what?
/dev/[WHATEVER THE FSCK I TYPED] is not a valid block device.
OK. OK. OK. So maybe it isn't a really valid device. It worked before. It worked for any of the LiveCD's I tried. How do I know? A.) The DVDRAM drive just worked. B.) A message during bootup found the drive. So I checked the logs... No DVDRAM drive found. Rebooted. Nothing. Looked a little harder and found the Adaptec SCSI card was not found either...
DOH! I didn't compile SCSI drivers into the kernel. Son of a... Recompiled kernel with SCSI drivers. BAM! DVDRAM drive found...
Oh but it wasn't over. ;) So, happy that my drive was now working, I went over to my laptop to check my email. No connection. Odd... It got an IP address and was on the network but couldn't access any websites, check my email, or ping anything that was not on my network. Because I had just looked at it, I went right for the kernel as being the problem. Guess what? That was it... Apparently when I added SCSI drivers, IPTABLES was dropped from the kernel. Just my luck, huh? ;) Recompiled, again, and bingo, everything back to normal.
People ask me a lot how I know all this stuff. You just found out how. I break it. I tinker. I break it some more. Then I fix it. If most people wouldn't be afraid of computers, they'd really be able to do a lot. IMHO, this can go for everything in life. I'm afraid to touch a car out of fear that I'm gonna do something to it. My brother is the opposite. His car was Kia until he started "modifying" it. Now, he's his own mechanic and if I have any troubles with my truck, he's there to help just like I am if his computer goes south. Point? There is some aura around computers that just gets people scared. Break down that aura and there's really not much too it.
Well son of a...And like clockwork, they try again today...
Jan 4 10:02:35 voyager PAM_unix[1832]: authentication failure; (uid=0) -> root for ssh service
Jan 4 10:02:37 voyager sshd[1832]: Failed password for root from 81.191.97.214 port 56947 ssh2
Jan 4 10:02:41 voyager PAM_unix[1834]: authentication failure; (uid=0) -> root for ssh service
Jan 4 10:02:43 voyager sshd[1834]: Failed password for root from 81.191.97.214 port 57068 ssh2
Jan 4 10:02:47 voyager PAM_unix[1836]: authentication failure; (uid=0) -> root for ssh service
Jan 4 10:02:49 voyager sshd[1836]: Failed password for root from 81.191.97.214 port 57214 ssh2
I wish I had found out this was happening earlier... ::starts to write an email daemon::
Busy Weekend...Things are finally wrapping up with the box building switching thingy type project. The Linux box is back. Ended up putting Debian back on. Right now it's giving me some issues with X and other GUI type applications, but since all I really wanted to do was get the firewall and NAT back up, everything overall went smoothly. My backups are back, DHCP, DNS, SAMBA, and Seti are all back. X windows is... Meh. Not important at the moment...
Spent a couple hours with Jay at a friend's house. New brakes and rotors are a good thing. =)
We saw Stomp too. Unfortunately, we left in a slightly better mood than "Eh". Don't get me wrong. The synchronization between all the actors was great and some of the stuff they did was awesome but Totem and I just didn't have fun. I guess we have our standards set high after seeing the Blue Man Group... All in all, not a bad show, but we won't be going back if they come back to town.
Buckling...Things aren't going as well with Gentoo as they did a while ago when I installed it on my laptop. I'm just getting errors after errors, even when I start from scratch and try a different route...
When I started to seriously consider starting using Gentoo from Stage 2, I realized, I just might as well go back to Debian. It's still minimal, and if I don't do the bootstrap, I really won't have an OS that is optimized for my system (just like any other version of Linux that you don't start from strach with). Even on that note, how optimized can you get for a 700mhz system? This isn't going to be a high availavbility internet server. Just a firewall, router, and storage system. Will I really notice a speedup or even need one???
In any event, I've got a day to work out these bugs and get my Linux box back up or I'll be usng Debian again... Totem's getting ancy without internet access. ;)
On the ball...Last night was a big push. Normally, I would have just held off all the work until I had my new desktop built but Totem convinced me to work backwards. I'm now desktop-less (which is really really wierd for me), but a plus is that when I do get all the parts for my new desktop, I can focus on it and not be rushed to get everything else done.
All data has been pulled off the desktop and intiailly stored in the Linux box. Desktop was then "parted". Things I'm holding onto (video card, modem, memory, dvd burner) are now sitting on my work bench waiting to be installed. Then I took the old desktop hard drive and installed it in my Linux Box. Copied all data from Linux box to the old desktop hard drive (it was 20gb larger) and then removed the Linux storage drive. While in there, also removed x2 9.1gb scsi drives, my scsi tape drive, and an old 100mb scsi zip drive. I figured I can try and get a couple of bucks off the stuff on ebay (yeah, right, 100mb scsi zip drive... Can I have a quarter? Ok, a dime? ... Nickel? Penny? Ok, this is as low as I go. A canadian penny?).
The good news is that I got the new DVD-RAM drive in. It's pretty neat. Formatted the disc as ext2, mounted it rw, and copied data over just as if it was a hard disc. I know the discs are only good for 100k re-writes so all I did was unmount it when I was finished backing up the data. The big bonus was that I copied 4gb of data in 10 minutes verus the 2 hours+ time it took to do that on tape... Makes backing up my stuff a LOT more managable.
So the "new" makeshift linux box is back up with more memory, more hard drive space, and a faster backup method. I then switched attention to my old desktop, which is becoming Jay's new desktop. Installed Windoze and I'm getting that up and running. Once that is done in a day or two, I'll get his old video card back from his girlfriend's system in exchange for a sound card on her system (she doesn't need the video processing power, plus with a 600mhz, there's not much in terms of high end gaming that the system can do, and on the other hand, she really doesn't do high end computer gaming anyway, that what her PS2 is for :) ). So now they'll both have complete systems that they can really play with (and Jay's new computer will be faster than his old computer too).
The computer I'll be getting back from Jay will become my new Linux box. Basically, I'll just be taking the mb and cpu (750mhz versus the 35mhz it has now) out of it so I'll have a third space system sitting around. I'll probably build it up, put Seti on it and let it sit until someone needs a computer or I need a spare... On that note, when everything else is done or if I'm still waiting for parts for the new beast, I've got a 266mhz system I need to build up for my inlaws. They want a computer to be able to get online if they need... That will be more than enough speed for a computer that can do a best of 14.4 with a 56k modem (their so far away from the CO).
Finally, its nice to have stuff to do... ;)
andy@voyager:~$ uptime
18:13:28 up 70 days, 1:41, 1 user, load average: 1.00, 1.00, 1.00
8)
Apache Response Time...I've got a lot of entries in my .htaccess file. Does anyone know how much processing goes on with Apache and if a huge .htaccess file will slow down a website???
Shuffled...Plans for the new Linux box have been shuffled around a bit with others plans that I've had for the summer. Turns out Jay got screwed out of an on time bonus (its coming, just a month or two after it is supposed to) so he can't get his new system... The replacement Linux will be staying with him for a bit...
So, all the design work that I have had on the back burner is now coming up. Five sites. All different focuses (sp). One is nearing completion, one of my sites designed to promote a lot of the scripts I have written here. Mostly custom jobs of pretty popular tools out there on the Internet... Why can't I have a piece of the pie??? ;)
Who knows, hopefully some of them will work out in the end. UnknownGeek is still my flagship but it is doing nothing in terms of the financial department. :\ The other sites should be a big help b/c they will be more focussed and static than UG is... Plus, they'll actually have a purpose versus just reading about a crazy nerd... :p
Onward and upward...With the long gap without badnwidth, I've gotten used to Gentoo. So when I booted up my linux box the other day for the first time in about 4 months, i didn't realize how much I loved the setup I have with Gentoo on my laptop...
I think when I gets Totem's old system back (a 700mhz versus my current 350 mhz box), I'm gonna give Gentoo a shot again... Last time I tried, 3 days went by and I wasn't even sure if it got anywhere...
At least now I have a MUCH better idea of the process and hopefully, even though it will be a "slower" system, it will be better optimized the what Debian has it at right now... Not that Debian is bad or anything. ;)
The last week...The last week has been kinda hectic, but in a good way. The job is going great. My days are flying by. I'm not looking at my watch every five minutes only to see that two minutes have gone by. (Intentional play on words...)
Sorry to everyone I normally see in person. Things are finally settled down at the new apartment enough that I can arrange my office so contact to the outside world has been slim to none via phone, and virtually non-existant online. Kirk, I know you called and I'll be getting back to you soon. Smilemore, I owe you a movie with Totem sometime. Acw, I owe you a firefly night. And lisalou, I owe you a dinner once you recover from your wisdom teeth surgery.
But all things considerred, Totem and I are doing better than we have for any other move we've been through. We're actually calling the new place "home" which is a welcome change. :)
In the Linux world, the tweaks to the laptop are coming along smoothly. I've got wireless installed and since I have access to an insecure network from my house, I should be able to test it. ;) From what I can tell, there really isn't any good support for WEP yet, outside of writing the drivers yourself...
On the network side, I got my 1000ft spool of cat 5 dropped off a day or two ago. Totem's office is now networked with my office on the third floor. Once I get the cable drops put in, my Linux box will be up an running like it used to. It really only serves as a firewall and file server so it's not doing much right now. ;) The advantage of broadband though (outside of the speed) is I'll be able to let the box "do its own thing" during the day. Once I get my other computer back from Jay, I'll be starting over. Well, since I'm either going to use Debian or Gentoo, I haven't decided yet, I need a broadband connection for the box to sit on. In come advantage of cable internet...
OH! Totem and I did our pre-cana today. Not much to say on that cause I don't even wanna touch the religious stuff (way too sensitive of a subject) outside of that the big day is getting closer and closer. Thats not a problem, either, so don't get me wrong. It's just coming faster and faster... ;)
I'm feeling pretty accomplished. And not because I've officially graduated college with a BS in Computer Engineering... (WOHOO!!!)
I've managed to get Gentoo installed and running along side Windows XP on the laptop my parents bought me. Seeing that last time I tried Gentoo, I failed miserably, I think I did a pretty good job this time around. Only had some small bugs to work out before things started running. Then I got KDE and Mozilla on right afterwards and guess what I did then? ;) Yup, I'm using them right now.
Goals: Tweak the hell out of this thing and get some kicka$$ screens up so I can compete with everyone else out there... :p
Doom 3...OH YEAH BABY!!! Doom 3 is coming out this summer!!! W00T!!!
Press Release Here...
Doom 3 Site with Kicka$$ Trailer Here...
There's even a Linux client!!! 8)
This past weekend (and some of last week), event after event just kept coming. Final exams, work, job interviews, apartment finding, graduation, work again, 2 week notice, work... I'm pretty surprised at myself. Not too much stress...
Exams went better than I had hoped for on Thursday last week. Software Engineering was OK. No surprises, nots of writing, and lots of "can you convince the teacher that I know what I am talking about" questions. Everything was subjective. Good or bad, I don't know. I'll let you know after I get the grades. ;) My Operating Systems was almost an exact duplicate of the practice questions she had given us. So when she allowed us to bring in two sheets of notes, you can bet what myself and the rest of the class did. None of us thought she would make the questions so similar so we were all pretty happy after the exam...
Friday morning was work, followed by an afternoon at job interviews. Made some critical decisions that evening. One was to not take the apprenticeship that I was offered. Everyone I spoke too said it was not worth it. Let me put it this way... The program offerred two years of work along with certifications to boot (MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA, A+, NET+, Security+, yadda yadda yadda). The only hitch is that I had too pay for it. Yeah, pay. The student loans would have cost me 28K by the time I was done paying them. That's more than half of what I spent on college. While no one doubted that having certifications was a good thing, everyone said there were cheaper and easier ways to get them (IE: Not having to fly to another state for training, then be sent to another state for two years as an apprentice). Luckily for me, the interview went VERY well, and I won't have to fall back on the apprenticeship for work... :)
After all that, Totem and I went apartment hunting again. We had our minds on a place that was going to be nice, and a place that we'd be willing to live at for more than a year. First one we looked at had everything we wanted. Great price. LOTS of space. And is it right by everything we would ever need to get to, and in the middle of our parents (20 mins to each house instead of living near one and have a 40 min ride to the other). That got us pretty excited and started the weekend off right...
Saturday was all graduation. Lots of names. Lots of sitting. Glad it is done. Had a nice dinner with my family and Totems. Congrats to you too, Starfire!
Mothers Day was fun. We worked in the morning (kind of a gift to Totem's Mom who normally works, we coverred her morning shift). Spent the rest of the day with my parents. Spring cleaning actually was good this year. We got a lot done. Mom won $100 on a lottery ticket. She was happy. ;) Dad treated us all to dinner. First time in a while that Mom and Dad had both of their sons and their significant others at one place.
This morning was work again. Handed in my two week notice. Tonite, I think I'll be playing on my computer since I don't have any school work to do (YESSSS!!!). If I'm lucky, I'm gonna see if I can get Gentoo up and running on my laptop. I downloaded all the files I needed when I was at my parents house so hopefully I won't have to try and get a PPP connection up...
Anyway, things are still looking up. For a change...
Sweetest poster EVER!!!Tux Crossing
Oh yeah, I want one! :)
Fun fun fun...Some of you probably noticed that I got a new laptop as a graduation present from my parents... It was only attached to my hip for the last few weeks of school... ;)
Well, anyone can probably guess what the first thing I did was... YUP! Dual boot Windoze with Linux. 8) I've managed to get Debian on there but I'm having problems with X Windows [TO PLEASE SOMUS] (it looks like driver problems with the video card on my laptop) [/TO PLEASE SOMUS]... I don't want to try RH or Fedora b/c of all the extra stuff that gets installed that I will never use...
Then I remembered an distro I tried a long time ago, but backed off from b/c of the compiling time... Gentoo. On my Linux box, running at 350 mhz, it was taking a day or two to finish compiling. That was expected, just because of the sheer amount of compiling you have to do for that distro. (It results in an uber optimized box that is almost custom to run on your hardware... That a good thing if you don't understand. ;) )
Well, now that I have a speedy little 1.3 ghz processor, I figured why not give it a shot. 8) I've got the partitions setup and I know I can dual boot b/c I was able to get that working with Windoze and Debian. Now I just need to head over to my parents house so my laptop can "sit" on the Internet for a couple of hours, downloading and compiling packages as it needs. ;)
Next stage...Now that I've hit 60 days of straight uptime (WOHOO!), I'm gonna tackle my linux box this weekend. If all goes well, by monday I'll have it running its own automated backups on the DVD-RAM drive and tape drive. Yeah, it seems a little paranoid, but since I can't sell the stuff, I might as well use them right???
Relax...I need to relax... What better way than to tackle a project on one of my computers. I'm gonna try by the end of this weekend to get the DVD-RAM drive in my Linux box at least... That shouldn't take as long as getting it to mount and unmount with scripts. Why? B/c a disk only gets 100,000 write per block or something like that and the header of a disk can get pretty active...
I think I'm gonna tackle another project that's been on the back burner for awhile too. I wanna write a script that will first check to see if network shares are available (Totem's computer isn't always on), connect to them, and copy data. Afterwards, back it up and delete the copy it made... Useless? Yeah, but it helps easy my mind if one of our comptuers ever died (which they have before) and it'll get my mind off of the world for a while...
The new computer case for my Linux box came in yesterday. At least I'll have something to work on this weekend and I'll be able to pick up where I left off on my network revamping... I hope I'll be able to get my tape drive working again too... It's been awhile since I did my last back.
Can you tell I'm bored and for the first time in two weeks I have (almost) nothing to do? ;)
Now SCO is going after the US government... ::chuckles:: This is getting really good... >:)
http://www.washingtontechnology.com/news/1_1/daily_news/21384-1.html
Wohoo!!! Another major distro is joining the fight!!!
http://www.suse.com/us/company/press/press_releases/archive03/sco_redhat.html
::grabs popcorn and takes a seat, waiting for someone to make the next move::
Long story short, SCO found out that the Linux Kernel version 2.4 and 2.5 are using some code that was directly related/used-in/part-of the Unix operating system. SCO owns the IP (Intellectual Property - the trend that ideas/concepts/thoughts are property and can be treated as such, including copyright violations) of Unix meaning that they own the code that part of the Linux kernel uses. Because of this they are alleging (sp) that all Linux users are violating copyright laws and must purchase a license from them in order to make the usage legal...
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030805/latu094_1.html
So now to avoid future copyright infringement violations, I must purchase a $699 license that would allow me to use a single CPU computer at my house as a desktop Linux system. The price goes on for more CPU's but SCO puts a cap saying each additional CPU costs $749. I don't think my University is going to be too happy about shelling out 2000 * $749 = $1,498,000 to keep their Supercomputing center. (It's the 12th fastest computer site in the world and the fastest site at a University if you really want to know what college I go to - you should know how to use this info to find out anyway).
That being said, I don't think ANYONE is going to be willing to shell out that kind of money to keep their Linux systems. I think it's all a bunch of BS and pretty crappy the way they are doing it. First, THEY HAVEN'T EVEN SAID WHICH PART OF THE KERNEL IS THEIR IP!!! They don't want to because once it is found, distributors and kernel hackers everywhere will be removing the code and making a free alternative so this is their ONLY bargaining chip. Until that is proved, that the IP is actually in the kernel, I don't think SCO is going to get much money...
Now here is the other shady aspect which really really REALLY pisses me off. They are using the scare tactics to get companies, and ONLY companies atm, to buy the licenses. It says on their website that they are only concentrating on the commercial market. After they get TONS of cash corporations around the world, they're probably going to turn that money to their lawyers who will then focus on the non-commercial market... IE: At home Linux User.
The fit is definately going to hit the shan...
On the semi-bright side, RedHat had setup a counter-suit against SCO saying that RedHat software (IE: Linux) does not infringe on SCO copyright and they want to hold SCO accountable for their deceptive behavior. They've committed 1 million dollars to create a fund to help protect Linux worldwide. This is a big step, and a good one, from the largest distributor of Linux. I know that if/when SCO actually does anything about this whole issue, there is going to be hell to pay. If the world did not know about a geek or nerd or whatever community that worked on computers before, they'll be sure to know of them when it happened. You think only hackers know how to DDOS a corporation... ;)
Disclaimer: None of this has actually happened yet, so to speak. The IP license info was released today and I can almost guarentee (sp) that no one has paid SCO a penny. The RedHat counter suit has been out for a couple of days and many think this SCO license crap is a result of it. The whole situation is just a precursor of what could come. And it's not going to be an easy battle when it gets here, that is for sure...
My Two Cents: It's a dying company's tactic for making a huge amount of money. If they lose, nothing happens. The company was failing anyway. If they win, they're big wigs go home happy. We are already seeing this in the fact that their company's share price has increased $2000 per share over the past 4 months when all of this news about "Linux using Unix code" stuff came out. What they are doing is wrong in my opinion. If they own the code that Linux uses, fine. Fair. Let them fight for their rights. I could even understand a license that everyone must follow. But why not make it free??? Make a name for yourself in the open-source world... But since the majority of companies that use Linux cannot afford the Micro$oft products (their reason for using Linux) or choose not to because of a free alternative, how are they going to afford (or willing want to purchase) this new license? Especially if it is more than what Micro$oft charges... Hell, I'd be willing to pay them some money if it is found in court that the Kernel is infringing on their copyright. Tack another $5 or $10 on the boxed distro fees. Charge a download fee... I can do that. But $699??? Come on... The only thing they will ever get out of me is a new user learning FreeBSD...
Click here...
Looks like another loss for Micro$oft. (YIPPEE!!!) What really turned me onto this article was how it really showed the user that Microsoft can name their own price for their software and do whatever they want to get a deal. It's a long read but it is really good. I hope more people, governments, school, and corporations start switching to Linux (or any *nix at that) to get away from Micro$oft. I myself don't like what Micro$oft is doing (bullying the market) and would prefer to use Linux full time but unfortunately, most things are not written for Linux (not to mention MACs) and I have to use Windoze. While I could switch since there is now free equivalents of almost everything Micor$oft makes, it's just too time consuming seeing that I don't have to do it. I would in a heartbeat if I learned of something shady going on... I'd like to see them "share the wealth" some more. Get some competition into the (desktop) market. Linux is starting to look like it just might do that...
After running Debian Linux for the past week or so, I'm much happier thn I have ever been with RedHat... Debian allowed me to install only the packages I needed in a pretty easy to use install interface. My core setup (IPTables, DHCP, Samba, Bind, Cron, Seti, Quake3 ;)) was all I installed and it ran flawlessly for 3+ days. (Much better than RedHat had lately, I would have to reboot it every night. Not much better than windoze.) Earlier today I installed X Windows and setup KDE as the window manager. It runs SO much faster than Gnome did before. It might be KDE. It might be Debian. It might be the simplier system running that freed up resources somewhere.
I don't care. It works better and I'm happy. =)
The only thing left to do now is beat my RedHat uptime record of 57 days... ;)
The base Debian Linux system is up with a running version of Samba and my firewall... Just the bascics for my network (and all the things Totem needs). Hopefully it will stand up to a lot more because of the little amount of software installed...
Now to studying... Feh... :\
Ever since I've started using Linux, I've used RedHat Linux. For three years that distro has been the choice for all my ugrades and support...
Well, ever since I had to redo my Linux box because of a power outage, I've been asking myself if there is anything better. It's not that RedHat is bad. Its that it carries around so much baggage with it. I mean, I've got 4 gigs of software on my Linux box and probably use 200 megs of it on a daily basis. Plus, having to install, uninstall, upgrade, and downgrade has really gotten to me. (Originally had 6.2 on my box, then 7.2, 7.3, then 8.0, 9.0, back to 8.0, back to 7.3)
I found out that I'm not the only one feeling this way. There's a whole initiative out there called LFS (Linux From Scratch). It's exactly that. Linux from scratch. You start of with a shell and build everything else you want. Think of turning your windows boot disk into the full blown Windows XP, by hand, on your own, just using a compiler. Just like that... Yeah...
So that idea really appealled to me... As I dug deeper, though, I found a distribution that almost does all that for you. Gentoo. But instead of configuring everything and optimizing for a standard install (like RedHat does), YOU configure everything. The core install is just that, a core. Once that is installed, it expands and optimizes itself for YOUR system. Plus, it's not too bulky and has a small amount of programs that come with it. I think the only thing that I will have to add once I am done is Samba.
So probably this weekend, I'll be pitching the Linux box once again to install this new distribution. Kinda excited.
If that fails, I'm falling back to the LFS option.
The ONLY downfall I see about doing this:
1.) Gentoo will probably take 8+ hours (The author of the documentation said it took his Athlon 1200+ 2 hours to install, so I think my AMD 350mhz won't fare much better. ;) )because everything that it installs has to be compiled. The plus is that this entire process is controlled by scripts and is automated. Even the downloading and installing of newer packages.
2.) If Gentoo fails, LFS will probably take me about two weeks to install. None of it is automated and I have to compile everything by hand. While nice because I get to learn how EVERYTHING is setup and installed, I have a LOT of waiting time inbetween compiles and lose the nights (when I'm supposed to be sleeping) as compile time. Damned sleep. ;) Thats where those automated scripts come in handy...
At least I'll be keeping myself busy at home...
I've lost count of the amount of times that this has happened to me... And it ONLY happens when I am messing with computers...
I have a (bad) habit of doing as much work as I can on a computer in the fastest amount of time. It's called multi-tasking. ;) Anyway, after getting the box back to a semi-normal state, I ran Redhat's update program which began to install 300+ mb of updates, including a kernel upgrade. Since I didn't want to sit there the whole time waiting for it to finish, I installed some of my other "essential" programs. PoPTop, Nessus, Webmin, the config for all the "normal" servers, and last but not least, Quake3 (oh yes, I have the Linux version :) ).
1:30AM last night and the Redhat updater was not done. I went to bed. Still not done in the morning, it actually was stalled. I killed it and rebooted, figuring half or so of the updates should have been done.
Wrong... (Quiet Dad. ;) )
Computer boots up. Named no longer works (my DNS server). IPTables is now corrupt (thats the thing that allows my windoze machines to get on the Internet). And most importantly, X got trashed somehow...
So, now like a good boy, I'm gonna take dad's advice and make baby steps with this machine... Even if it takes my calculated 20+ hours to finish... :\
Back to the drawing board...
A full reinstall of the Linux box fixed the networking issues... Now I have to get all the individual servers and their configs back up and running, not to mention the firewall and NAT so Jen and I can get back on the Internet... ;)
Just for once??? Please?!?!?!
Last night at 11:00, I decided that I was going to upgrade my Linux box to Redhat 8.0 from Redhat 7.3. Don't ask. I just get in my I-need-to-reinstall-something-or-overhaul-a-system moods every once in a while.
When it gets going, it says 2 hours are left to install stuff. I was not staying up that long. I head to bed, and wake up the next morning to a disc change an 20 mins remaining.
Jen is still home and she is on her computer (a rare thing). Anyway, I let er know that she won't be able to get on the Internet because I am reinstalling Linux. She flips. I need the Internet for my homework! How come whenever I need to use the computer, it does not work?!?!?! I mumble and let her know that only 18 mins are left in the install and it should work when I reboot. She asked if I was sure. I said yes.
Wrong answer...
System reboots. Loads fine. Much smoother. Gnome 2.0 rocks. But a single, back breaking problem is there. I can't reach the internet... All requests for the Internet are being routed to my local network... Grrr... I mess with the routing tables. I reconfigure the network cards. Change settings. Turn off and turn on servers. Nothing. Crap. I find out that in the current setup, the Linux box (only) can be on the Internet or the local network will work without the Internet. Double crap...
So I'm hacking away at this thing when I look at the clock. It's 9:20. My first class starts at 9:30. It takes 30 mins for me to get to school... Fsck... I plug Jen's computer directly into the cable modem and tell her to be sure that she unplugs the cord before she leaves (I know what can be done to her computer from the Internet. I've done it trying to secure the system. ;) )
So with bad traffic, I get to school at 10:10. I didn't even go to my first class and now I am in a public lab writing this... It's just been a LONG day already... I've got homework to do. Studying for an exam to do. A project to finish, and now a broken Linux box to attempt to repair...
Yippee...
I didn't have to redo my Linux box after all... Thats a good thing because a complete redo takes me about 27 hours. (Yes, I clocked the last time I did it.)
For some gawd known reason, the config file disappeared for my second ethernet card. If you don't know linux, none of the following will make sense. Since the cards are identical and sharing the same IRQ, every time Linux booted, it would detect the second card and then proceed to change the settings on the first. It drove me up a wall. Finally, 6 hours into screwing with stuff, I figured that out. Then after straightening that out, all I had to do was change some settings in my DNS server (since I changed my ISP) and I was all set...
Ahh, another reason why Linux will never make it into the desktop arena... :\
Are you into this arguement? If you are, you'll find this sound clip REALLY funny...
Click here...