My bank allows customizing the front of the card with an image of your choice. So, I figured why not represent Free Software and Linux everywhere I use my card? I struggled for some time finding the right image to represent Free Software. The GNU logo is almost as horrid as Tux, the Linux kernel [...]
At work, we have an RHN satellite that is registered against RHN, and pulls down all the updates as necessary for the 32-bit and 64-bit RHEL servers that we have in our network. We currently have 34 RHEL servers in operation, with the expectation to grow past 40, all without virtualization. When we really start [...]
When I taught Linux system administrators, I would go through a series of rules, and rule #1 was always: Whenever you’re editing config files, and a tool exists to make the change, use the tool instead of editing the config by hand. The logic is easy to follow. We as humans are capable of error. [...]
Last night, I spent a few hours migrating this production server from Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy Heron” to Debian 5.0 “Lenny”. Many have asked me online and in person why I would make the switch, especially being a heavy Ubuntu advocate. I hope I can explain that in a clear manner in this post. But first, [...]
Debian released 5.0 codenamed “Lenny” last night, after just 1 month shy of two years since 4.0 “Etch” was released. I’ve been running it on my messaging server for nearly a year now, and it’s great. I had one hiccup with the kernel not wanting to communicate with my HappyMeal ethernet cards, but a fix [...]
With the release of Ubuntu 9.04 about 2 months out, Mark Shuttleworth will be announcing the codename of Ubuntu 9.10 fairly soon. This gets the community excited, as historically, Ubuntu releases have had entertaining codenames with interesting patterns. For example, the first three releases were after badgers: Ubuntu 4.10 “Warty Warthog”, Ubuntu 5.04 “Hoary Hedgehog” [...]
I’ve had this discussion a couple of times with some friends about which looks better: Ubuntu or Fedora. So, I decided to take a poll from my readers, and see what you think. Which vendor does a better job at artwork? I’ve provided screenshots of the default wallpaper for each release on both distributions. Now, [...]
I can’t sleep, so what do I do? Hit the Google Machine, and begin wasting time, hoping I’ll get sleepy, and go back to bed. During my time wasting, I come across an old article (5 months old) about the top four alternatives to Ubuntu Linux. Of course, everyone who reads the article are going [...]
After about 4-5 hours last night, and early this morning, I finished creating a board book for my 15-month old daughter. Of course, what better topic to choose than that of operating systems? So, I settled with GNU/Linux, UNIX and other operating systems as the main categories for the book, and it turned out great! [...]
Quick reminder for the US Teams Mentoring Project. There will be a meeting in #ubuntu-us on irc.freenode.net. The time is scheduled for 8pm EST, and will probably last about an hour, maybe more depending on who shows up. The agenda can be found on the wiki page. All are welcomed to attend. See you then.
I’ve grown more and more accustomed to that phrase. Being on IRC, blogs, forums, mailing lists, and other forms of digital social gathering, it still never ceases to amaze me the responses that come out of people these days. Case in point? The tragic ending to what should have been a happy one. I’m referring [...]
I was faced with an interesting challenge tonight. But first, why I was faced with the challenge to begin with. I had been teaching Linux to system administrators for more than a year before taking my current job as a system administrator myself. During a couple of the courses, the students had the chance to [...]
DISCLAIMER: This works on Debian testing, Debian unstable, Ubuntu 8.04 and Ubuntu 8.10. I have not verified it to work on other systems. If you hose your box, because you gave it a try, and it didn’t work, don’t blame me. You’re the stupid one for trying it out on a production machine. If you’re [...]
For those looking to put their CPU to work on their computer, I have the perfect job for you: Distributed.net! There’s no doubt that many of you already are participating in some distributed computing project, such as SETI@home, or Folding@home, BOINC, or others. I have joined different distributed computing projects in the past, and currently, [...]
I was hanging out in ##linux on Freenode this morning, willing to help anyone out who needed it, and I came smack into the middle of an argument about why Gentoo is the best distribution in the world, and Debian is the worst. As the conversation progressed, it was clear that the one running Gentoo [...]
