dawgiestyle

03/26/05: Helpful "make" Tips

make for Nonprogrammers by Dru Lavigne -- If you're a typical FreeBSD user, you may never have compiled C source code on your own. Yet if you've ever issued a make command, it's compiled code for you. How does it do that? What does it do, anyway? And what else can it do? Dru Lavigne answers all of these questions.

Especially useful is this great way to help automate updating your system sources.

On my test system, I already had cvsup up and running and had created a sup file in /root/cvs-supfile. So, I added these lines to /etc/make.conf:

SUP_UPDATE= yes SUP= /usr/local/bin/cvsup SUPFLAGS= -g -L 2 SUPFILE= /root/cvs-supfile

Note: In order for this to work, you must have cvsup-without-gui installed and have configured a SUPFILE at the specified location. If you've installed cvsup-without-gui but haven't yet created a SUPFILE, replace that SUPFILE line with these:

SUPHOST= cvsup.ca.freebsd.org SUPFILE= /usr/share/examples/cvsup/standard-supfile PORTSSUPFILE= /usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile DOCSUPFILE= /usr/share/examples/cvsup/doc-supfile

When filling in SUPHOST=, please choose a mirror geographically close to you. Also, review the three files in /usr/share/examples/cvsup to pick and choose which parts of the operating system, ports, and docs you wish to update.

When you've finished, run make update from /usr/src to update the specified sources.

I highly recommend adding OnLAMP to your RSS reader, if only for Dru's FreeBSD articles. Always great information.

03/26/05: Novell Is Doing It Right

Having never used NLD (Novell Linux Desktop), I was a little taken aback when I saw such a beaming review.

Of the desktop offerings we have piloted, NLD offered the broadest range of functionality in what we designated as the desktop and mobility space. From the desktop point of view, the system provides a user-friendly environment, ease of administration and an excellent enhancement of the OpenOffice.org productivity suite.

I don't believe there was even one negative point in the review. Tom Adelstein also talks about how Novell is in the progress of switching their entire staff to Linux. It is, afterall, probably tough to sell linux from a windows box.

I remain mostly happy with Ubuntu, except for the occasionally annoying thing where the boot process hangs at "Configuring network devices" (usually solved by hitting the reset button, though I don't know the cause). In an office environment though, NLD probably fits better than any solution to date.

03/14/05: Ubuntu Linux "Hoary Hedgehog": My Experience

Ubuntu Linux is a fairly new linux distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux. Here's a description from Ubuntu's website:

Ubuntu is a Linux distribution that starts with the breadth of Debian and adds regular releases (every six months), a clear focus on the user and usability (it should "Just Work", TM) and a commitment to security updates with 18 months of support for every release. Ubuntu ships with the latest Gnome release as well as a selection of server and desktop software that makes for a comfortable desktop experience off a single installation CD.

The latest "Preview" release, 5.04, or Hoary Hedgehog (Hoary) was released just a few days ago, and, not liking to get too comfortable with any one distro, I decided to give it a shot. I started by downloading the live cd, just to make sure I wasn't going to have any problems. It started up with no problems, and it really impressed me with how clean it seemed. I had read beforehand that it included only the Gnome desktop environment. This was my main reason for wanting to try the live cd first. Before settling on Xfce4 on my Suse desktop, I was a KDE guy. I was a little surprised to find how far Gnome had come since the last time I used it (Redhat 7.3). On to the installation!

The install, not surprisingly, is not graphical, but ncurses based like Debian's. It differs from Debian's though in that it minimizes the amount of user input required. This is a big plus for newbies. I didn't get a real feel for partitioning from the installation since my partitions were already set up. All I had to do was select hda2 and set its mount point to /boot, and select hda4 and set its mount point to /. The installation detected my swap partition and assigned it automatically. The installation as a whole was very straight-forward.

One thing I don't like about the default installation is that the root account is disabled. I read about this beforehand as well, so I was ready for it. This is actually a good thing to have done, since all the launchers that require root access are run with sudo, prompting for the user's own password, but I do think it is still necessary to educate the user about sudo on the command line, just in case.

I had been using Suse long enough that I expected to be able to set up my LDAP authentication and nfs mounted /home right away. This software had to be added manually though. "That's ok", I thought. A perfect opportunity to check out synaptic, the gtk frontend for Debian's apt/dpkg package manager. I am impressed. I wasn't sure if it would stack up to Suse's YAST for installing/updating packages, but I believe it exceeds it easily.

I did run into some problems with LDAP and nfs, but admittedly, this was due to misconfiguration of my FreeBSD server (my bad). Most of the problem coming from the lack of nfs file locking capability. Enabling rpc.statd and rpc.lockd on the nfs server took care of those problems, and after editing 4 pam files, my LDAP authentication was up too.

Most of the software I regularly use was already loaded. Rhythmbox took the place of XMMS, though I did have to install the gstreamer-mad package for mp3 support. No problem. The default browser is Firefox, and other default software includes Evolution, Gaim, Xchat, the Gimp, Openoffice.org, and even a terminal server client. One disappointment was that I found I couldn't use Evolution due to yet more file locking issues stemming from my nfs mounted /home. I could compile it myself and disable file locking, but being used to Thunderbird anyway, I just decided to use it instead.

This is a preview release, which is a nice way to say open beta, so bugs are to be expected, but overall, Ubuntu is well on its way to becoming a very excellent desktop linux. As far as I'm concerned, it already is if you're like me and enjoy fixing problems as they pop up. It's how we learn. It is also very nice to see a distribution that doesn't try to please everyone by including every known window manager and desktop environment. It's not unheard of, but I would definitely like to see more of this. Ubuntu immediately struck me as a very cohesive experience, while avoiding severe bloat. It feels both very simple and very refined. I highly recommend this one to anybody looking for a new distro to try.

03/05/05: SCO v. IBM: The Short Version, by toads_for_all

For anybody like myself who is too busy to keep up with the SCO/IBM saga, here is a funny little summary.

Sure it's sort of a joke, but this is pretty much what happened.

IBM: But Caldera contributed parts of the original to Linux. Aren't we just doing what Caldera did, treating the derivatives the same way Caldera did the original by contributing parts to Linux?

SCO: Um, I mean, well, I guess.....Did I say contracts? I meant it's about copyrights.

NOVELL: But you don't own all the copyrights, we do.

SCO: Do not!

Read the rest here.

03/02/05: IBM Extends Workplace Reach to SMBs, Partners

This story could have significance, but I really only linked to it because I thought this was funny. Remember, they're targeting small and midsize businesses.

Known as IBM Workplace Services Express with AT&T Managed Internet Service, the new offering is designed for companies with 1,000 to 1,500 employees, according to Michael Loria, director of business partners and product marketing at IBM's Lotus Software division.

1000 to 1500 employees? I'm sure there are bigger and better things than what I know, but I come from a place where small businesses have 2 employees, and one of those is the owner.

The obvious argument here is that a business with 2 employees has no need for a server anyway. Fair enough. Locally, I do support for a few businesses of around 20 employees each. Certainly this is still a small business, but I've never run a 20 pc network as peer-to-peer, and I never will.

Granted, a fileserver for a 20 pc network can be run on pretty much any hardware. Of course, the same uptime/reliability requirements exist, such as a high traffic point-of-sale system which utilizes an SQL backend.

But 1000 to 1500 employees? Seems to me that Big Blue is really just targeting smaller large businesses.