www.erlewein.net » Linux

Ubuntu 9.10 coming very soon

Oliver Erlewein — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:50:28 +0000

Ubuntu Linux is my trusty fellow at work. It is ideal for all those tasks I need to do. I have been running it from version 8.04 onwards. Now it is nearly time to upgrade again with 9.10 just around the corner. This will be another LTS release (Long Term Support). So here’s the countdown….

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.

Ubuntu 9.04 coming to a PC near you…soon

Oliver Erlewein — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 04:21:37 +0000

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).

Faster SSH by Using Blowfish

Oliver Erlewein — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:53:27 +0000

SSH is one of the staples when administrating *nix servers. One thing many people know but don’t use is that Blowfish SSH encryption is much faster than AES encryption. This comes in very handy if you are scp-ing large files or piping something over SSH.The speed difference is significant. It can be around 4-5x faster than using the common AES cypher. Blowfish is probably as secure as AES. I have not found any comments to the contrary.

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

ssh -c blowfish @

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

ssh -C -c blowfish @

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

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.

Crossover Office is the Missing Link

Oliver Erlewein — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 06:11:40 +0000

At least that is the case for me. I’ve been suffering for a couple of months now under the iron-handed rule of Vista (Business 64-bit) at my work PC. At some point in time it must have seemed like a good idea to me. But I certainly can’t remember why. The problems I have encountered are not big on their own but as a whole they disrupted my work-flow quite considderably.

◦    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.

VI my favourite Text Editor

Oliver Erlewein — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:23:51 +0000

VI has been around for…. wel…. I think I wasn’t even born then. So a bloody long time ago but it still is an obstacle for most people to learn. But as with old things that never die (see Cobol & Co) it is still around and I think most IT eople will have to use it at one time or another. So where do you get good documentation on it? Well…. ithink I found the PERFECT source here:

http://www.viemu.com/a_vi_vim_graphical_cheat_sheet_tutorial.html

And especially this graphic is excellent for all you “hackers” out there:

(thanks heaps to the guys at VIemu!!)

Throw away those Keyboards and Mice on your Desk

Oliver Erlewein — Sat, 31 May 2008 10:29:50 +0000

Most of us IT geeks have the dire need to have more than one MAC/PC on our desktop. Appart from the nice line of LCD’s starting to create a natural barrier to all around you, your desk gets cluttered by mice and keyboards. Hand-up who hasn’t had the problem of typing on a KBD while nothings happening. Just to see another machine rebooting. After a tirade of curses you wish you could solve that somehow. Well….

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.