I have checked out the alpha and beta releases and they look spectacular. Definite improvements over 9.04. I’m also very interested in the advancement of the server side with cloud computing being the big new thing.

What had happened was that I had tried an apt update/upgrade (something like automatic updates on Windows) on my Ubuntu 8.10 server. It didn’t go quite swimmingly. Nothing new because my installation was a little wonky anyway. But as I restarted the machine it would not let me boot anymore. I was getting an immediate kernel panic. *shock*

So I did what I wanted to do a long time ago anyway (and was now forced to do) – upgrade my system. From a good friend I got an old 2.5″ 20GB HDD to replace my USB stick with that was running my web server. Not that the USB stick was a bad idea or anything but there’s the odd thing that is made easier by having a hard drive. I chose a 2.5″ model as I still am quite stingy when it comes to power use.

So I tried installing Ubuntu server 9.04. That failed due to whatever reason. So I installed Ubuntu server 9.10 Alpha 6. Very courageous here! …which went all fine.

It was nice to see that the USB stick was not all lost and could be read by the OS. So after installing some needed packages it was necessary to install my WordPress site (i.e. this site). Now that would be a challenge I thought. Not quite so….

1. Copied the WordPress directory,
2. changed the mySQL password in the wp-config.php file,
3. copied the apache2 site config files,
4. created the WordPress database I used for my site,
5. imported the database from my weekly backup file via phpmyadmin
6. and restarted apache2.

Voila, here is the site! Easy as. *phew* …. *PHEW*

So after the initial shock it took me less than 24hrs to recover my site. There’s still quite a bit of detail work left but that I can tackle at a slower pace. Impressed by both, Ubuntu and WordPress here. And of course my lucky stars that I could still read that USB stick. I think now it’s time for regular full backups of my web server!

Ubuntu 9.04 is just around the corner. The official Beta was launched today. Lots of new stuff. One thing fascinates me very much and that is the Amazon EC2 compatible cloud computing option (Eucalyptus). That has the potential of revolutionising the datacentre. Can’t wait to migrate one of our old 19″ boxes…

Other cool features are the new messaging mode for the desktop and the inclusion of the Ext4 file system.

So 9.04 is something definitely worth looking out for. Oh and also have a look at the Amazon EC2 beta program. There’s still people wanted for that (http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/serveredition/features/ec2).

For me that was always the critical issue with VirtualBox. At work I use VMwae for most of my stuff and on my Ubuntu box I use VirtualBox. So I could never use the same VMs. Now I can! How cool ist that?! So for all those not happy with VMware Player or the VMware Server 2.x here’s your answer. I’d probably also say now that VirtualBox does snaphots too there’s no big reason for going VMware Fusion or Parallels.

• 64-bit support on 32-bit guest OSes (not so hot for me)
• 3D support (getting warmer)
• Better Windows (who cares?!) and Linux networking support doing away with the manual TAP drivers (***YAY***!!!!!)
• Snapshots (***YAY***!!!!!)
• More speed (was it ever slow?! Ok, if they want to go even faster I won’t complain)
• Much, much more….

So go along and update. I’m sure it’s worth it. I’ll be trying it on my Ubuntu box once I get back to work….

You can activate the blowfish cypher by using SSH like this:

ssh -c blowfish <user>@<host>

Even better is to include compression. That would then be:

ssh -C -c blowfish <user>@<host>

But this is a lot to type and often gets forgotten. So how to activate it permanently…

In Ubuntu (and probably most Debian distros) edit the file /etc/ssh/ssh_config. Change the lines

#   Cipher 3des
#   Ciphers aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,arcfour,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc

to

Compression yes
Cipher blowfish
Ciphers blowfish-cbc,aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,cast128-cbc,arcfour,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc

If you want to see what is going on with SSH and what encryption is being used add a -v (verbose) to the SSH command.

The system complained about graphics xyz and only started on one monitor (I have two), the graphics acceleration was gone and it felt not much like my system I’m used to. A quick Google and voila it seems as if Nvidia is dragging their feet a bit on delivering the right drivers. I have a Nvidia 8400GS card and after getting a mild shock (and wondering how to downgrade) a little more googling gave me the answer.

Just do an apt-get install nvidia-glx-177 and it should all magically rectify itself. I still don’t know what I’ll need to do once Nvidia introduces the correct drivers but for now I’m happy anyway. Back to BAU!

Also have a look here for more details.

[Update] And apart from that Ubuntu 8.10 is great as always. ome minor touches here and there give it a much rounder feel. Definitely the distro of choice for all non-freak users.

vi has several really annoying “features” like using arrow keys when in edit mode. Anybody who’s done that will know what I mean. I’ve lived with that for years now and only today I find a small snippet that said “The default vi program has some strange behaviour on Ubuntu and Debian; to fix this, we install vim-full“. Call me backward but I really didn’t know. This update installs a really improved version of vi that fixes all those niggly bits. And no, it does not go overboard. You will still have the vi touch&feel.

What a difference a little snippet makes!!! So for all you VI fans out there do a…

sudo apt-get install vim-full

…for a happy ever after.

Thanks all for being so patient but I’ve been spending my time with Apache VirtualHosts, cpu clock timings, AppArmor and other fun things to get this server going. I learned a lot but all this is definitely not the easiest of thigs.

What is quite interesting is the set-up. I’m running all this on Ubuntu 8.04.1, a 1.8Ghz Pentium P4 with 512kb RAM and a 8GB USB stick as a hard drive. All this in a nice li’ll DMZ. The advantage is that this set-up uses very little power and is absolutely quiet. I activated the correct CPU speedstep scaling for the P4 and it now runs on 225Mhz most of the time saving HEAPS of electricity.

Since installing Ubuntu on my work PC I’ve very happily been using Crossover Office to “emulate“ the M$ software Office 2007 (see below). That does the job very well but…. There are some things that can only be run on a native OS. So I did need some virtualisation that can make this happen. I tried VMware Server and Player but Player is too restricted and Server especially in the Beta version 2.0 is just a dog to run. It is resource hungry to the extreme. So I went to look for some other software and found the newly aquired VirtualBox from Sun. It runs on all OSes it needs to (that would be Linux and Mac and a few more) and is blazingly fast. And all that for free too!

So if you need something virtualised on your desktop look no further than VirtualBox. I think it’s the best program for the price.
For servers and professional use there’s still no contender out there who can match VMware though. On large metal machines they are as good as it gets. Oh and so sorry gamers, there is no 3D in VirtualBox (yet?).

I think sun has a solid product here they can build on. I think in a couple of months/years they will probably try to get some of the VMware market. Also have a lookout for Parallels that is gaining ground fast in the server virtualisation world.

A nice feature of Mac OS X Leopard is also the Screen Sharing application.  With a little trick you can call it like any other application and then it asks you for the IP address of the VNC host. Enter the Ubuntu (or any other VNC machine) IP and away you go. Even my two monitors on an Nvidia 8600 graphics card in the Ubuntu system don’t cause a hiccup.

I’m also solving the last little nigglies with CrossoverOffice (mostly by now using Office 2007 instead of Office 2003 …. -yuck-). A couple of days ago I nearly thought I have to give up but now I’m perfectly happy and will stay on Ubuntu at work. Still need to license CrossoverOffice though….have to get that…

◦    Unable to print on network printers (Driver issues)
◦    Computer becomes unuseable after it has been RDPd into
◦    Slow, Slower, Slowest (how do you build a fast machine? You take a lighning fast machine and install Vista)
◦    Endless problems with diverse unneeded Vista “security features”
◦    No more d&d of folders into the DOS window
◦    Explorer window has become too confusing and unmanageable
◦    and many more…

When Vista then complained I had an invalid license I thought that I have put up with this long enough. I want at least XP back. The Vista migration was a failure.  So I went and installed Mac OS X on the HP DC7700. It worked and I deleted it again. Can’t have something dubious like that on a work PC .

Before I then sent the PC off to internal LAN to get it rebuilt with Windows XP I thought that I’d give Ubuntu 8.04 another chance at cracking the work-life Windows-monopoly. My first attempt had failed mainly due to the fact that Evolution could not access our company’s global addressbook.

This time round I thought that I would not kick-out the M$ Apps completely. So I’d need some kind of emulation. There’s two ways of doing that. Emulate all of Windows with something like VMware or semi-emulate the APIs with CrossoverOffice. Crossover (www.codeweavers.com) is the commercial side to the Wine project and was my first choice as I woulnd’t need to emulate a whole OS just to run some software. My attempts at using Wine were short lived as I’d gladly pay for saving me fiddling around to get things working. Especially in a work environment I have to make sure things work (well OK, by that rule all Windows versions would be disquallified….hmmmm). My worry though was how compatible this approach would be.

So I installed the 30 day trial version yesterday and had a first go. I installed the Office 2003 suite (bar Access which is known not to work). Then started Outlook and connected to our Exchange server. And to my extreme delight it worked right out of the “box”. I imported my valuable PST files and was all set-up. Word and Excel also started up in record time (about a second or less!). So there’s now absolutely no reason to go back to XP at all! What a happy chappy am I now?!?!!

I will still need VMware and Windows for some of my testing tasks but that is just on the odd occasion and I am sure I will miss some of the programs on Windows (can’t really think of one yet…). I’ll try and live with that.

Ubuntu gives me all the that I need for doing my development and testing work and with Crossover I am able to run all the things I need to from the Windows world. The next weeks will show how stable and usable the apps are under Ubuntu. I hope I won’t be disappointed. So far I can only give Codeweavers big kudos for a great product.

Welcome to the nice world of Synergy. This great little Open Source tool allows you to use one keyboard and mouse for an unlimited number of screens. The setup can be a bit complicated but it really is worth the trouble. There’s a funny feeling when you see a mouse move effortlessly between screens of different computers and especially OS’es!!! I think I will never give this one up.

I have it working now between a Vista 2-screen PC and an Ubuntu hardy machine and another setup With Mac OS X and Ubuntu hardy. So if you have more than on machine under your desk don’t waste any time. Go out and try Synergy.

Ingredients:
- Mac OS X… nope, sorry folks maybe in the next millenium
- Windows… nope, who’d want that?
- Ubuntu Linux 7.10 ISO (get from www.ubuntu.com)
- A 1Gb+ USB Stick although I’d recommend 2Gb at least and make sure it’s a fast one. Look on www.pricespy.co.nz
- A PC with Ubuntu (or other Debian-Linux installed)

The detailed instructions for the install can be read here: www.pendrivelinux.com
Follow the instructions by the letter and you’ll be OK. If you have a USB stick with more than 1Gb then I’d contemplate making the first partition 850MB or more (write +850M instead of +750M). I’ve tried this a couple of times and it works like a charm. The boot does take a while. I think it’s because the mounting of the file system takes a while to complete (the faster the stick the faster the boot!). Once started it is snappy enough to use.

Don’t forget though that even a USB drive needs some backups now and again! Sticks with up to 4GB fit nicely on a DVD-R.

Ubuntu 7.10 is by far the best Desktop Linux I’ve seen. It is starting to look good enough for proper use. Still nowhere near my Macs but enough for the surfer-email-crowd and excellent for all the uNiX geeks out there. It is also an option in companies where getting a Mac just isn’t an option. Ubuntu is the perfect mole. If you do that just make sure you keep the updates coming and install some kind of virus protection to protect your fellow Windows users.