dawgiestyle

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.

02/19/05: Suse 9.2, Cdrecord, and Cdrdao Weirdness

Maybe somebody can help me understand what's going on here. I've been googling like a madman to no avail. Here is the problem I was having: I use K3b to burn CDs. Now, the problem I was pulling my hair out over was that burning bin/cue images would always force the burner to go into burnfree mode at speeds over 24x, where iso images could burn at my burner's full 40x. Note that K3b was using Cdrecord for both types.

After some googling, I found that the 2.6.8 kernel had some problems involving burning, so I installed a vanilla 2.6.10 kernel and tried it out. I also found some obscure tip to add hdc=ide-cd to my grub file, so I did that as well.

Surprisingly, burning worked great, but what I noticed was that K3b was now using cdrdao for the bin/cue image and was having absolutely no problem burning at 40x.

Here's where it starts to get weird. I changed back to the 2.6.8 kernel so I could find out which change worked. Still K3b was using cdrdao for bin/cue and working great. So I removed hdc=ide-cd from the grub file, and still it used cdrdao!

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with the change, but I can't handle not understanding something like this. If anyone has seen any similar behavior, please let me know about it, and any solutions that worked for you.

02/08/05: Linux Kernel Security is Lacking

Jason Miller wrote on Security Focus that Linux Kernel Security is Lacking.

While I don't necessarily disagree with him, I could tell from the very beginning that this was a BSD user. Not that BSD users are bad, but for some reason, whenever anybody speaks negatively about linux security, it turns out to be not Microsoft, but a BSD user. So naturally I was a little tickled when I saw this.

Although personally I'm a huge follower of BSD-based operating systems, I keep an open and analytical mind when looking at any OS.

Hey, I love BSD too, and I do also believe that the BSDs have a better security model, which is why I have a FreeBSD fileserver, OpenBSD router, and Suse Linux desktop.

And really, Jason may be on to something here.

For the BSD-based operating systems, the point of contact can be found in a few seconds by searching for the word "security" on the official web site of the associated operating system. ... As for Linux, however, one could search through several web sites such as linux.org and kernel.org, sites associated with the Linux kernel, and find nothing whatsoever related to a security contact. Even our good friend Google will lead us nowhere fast.

I can't decide if this is a fair complaint. The biggest difference between Linux and the BSDs here is Linux is just a kernel that is built into many distributions, and the BSDs are distributions in and of themselves. For many users, the instinctive place to look for security updates is the distribution's website. Of course, getting the updates is not Jason's issue. The distributions all seem to stay on top of things in this regard, upgrading their distribution's kernel quickly. The problem is not having a definitive method of reporting security issues. I have never thought of this point since I am not a programmer, or anything near what it takes to be a kernel hacker.

Ok, I think I am leaning toward agreeing with the guy. He raises a good point, and it will be interesting to see if and how the kernel developers handle it.

02/06/05: Cygwin: Changing the Face of Windows

This article is a nice introduction to Cygwin for anyone who isn't already familiar with it.

Cygwin is a dynamic link library (DLL) that acts as a Linux API emulation layer. Included with the Cygwin suite are most of the common Linux command-line tools and quite a few graphical applications, giving you the look and feel of a Linux machine on top of your MS Windows box.

Sometimes, when working on a windows server, I find myself crippled by dos when writing batch files. Most notably, copy and xcopy seem to hold me back the most. Neither command will copy a directory along with all files in the directory, and subdirectories. It was when I had to schedule a simple backup of a directory full of files and subdirectories that I realized this limitation, and looked to cygwin. With it, I could write a bash script to copy the entire directory, and I could schedule the script to run in the native windows task scheduler. A very simple thing, but it sure did save me some headaches.

Definitely a handy tool for any sysadmin's kit. I'm not even 100% sure that this could not have been done with dos commands, but the fact that I am more comfortable with unix and that it was readily available made it a non-issue.

The desktop issue aside, I don't think anybody can dispute the superiority of the unix command line.

01/16/05: More Differences Between Linux and FreeBSD

More FreeBSD for Linux Users by Dru Lavigne -- BSD and Linux are both Unix workalikes. How different can they be? In certain cases, very! Though the systems share a family tree, their differences sometimes stand out. Dru Lavigne explains FreeBSD's directory layout, devices, kernel modules, and terminology to Linux users.

I love these articles, mainly because I use both operating systems and FreeBSD is my newest addition. I've heard many *BSD users trash Linux for various reasons and I just don't really understand why. Sure it has advantages over Linux, but that works both ways. I just think this all or nothing attitude is counter-productive. Take some time to decide what the best tool for the job is, and keep an open mind to alternatives. The results can be surprising.

01/12/05: Buffer Overflow in Exim Mail Server

The Exim mail server software is among the latest security concerns. This is listed as a Debian issue since Exim is the default mailer for the Linux distribution.

This being a blog, I don't mind tossing in a little editorial. Exim has achieved the position of least favorite mta on my list. The thing is, I have absolutely no concrete evidence against the software, just a feeling I have about it. Anytime I have experienced emails mysteriously disappearing and other weird problems, Exim has been the software in use at the time. Personally, having never really tried Postfix aside from allowing it to remain on my Suse 9.2 system, I prefer Qmail. Ease of installation and administration plays no small part in this.

Other security concerns included the glibc package for Debian; pdftohtml, hylafax, o3read and poppassd_pam for Gentoo; and nfs-utils for Mandrake.

01/10/05: Microsoft: Windows 2003 Outperforms Red Hat

This is too good:

According to a "massive" study conducted by the impartial Microsoft Marketing Department, Windows 2003 servers outperform Red Hat Linux in every possible configuration.

"This was a real eye-opener," explained Microsoft spokesperson Harold Fudd. "There was simply no competition between the two. We can only conclude that people still clinging to the legacy, mediocre Linux platform have absolutely no clue."

Check out the rest of the fake article at humorix.org

01/10/05: Serial ATA (SATA) on Linux

Jeff over at nethub.org has found a good article about Linux's support of various SATA chipsets. SATA RAID is near the top of my list of things to try, and for anyone else considering it, this is a must read. Jeff writes:

...not all Serial ATA controllers are created equal. Most Serial ATA controllers claim to have RAID capabilities built in, but keep in mind that true hardware RAID capabilities are only available from a very few cards. I've seen many headaches related to the "fake" or "software-based" RAID that many of these cards cause.

After the many good things I have heard about Linux software RAID capabilities, I may just go that route rather than buying a much more expensive hardware RAID solution. Afterall, I'm cheap and stubborn. Still, how disappointing it would be to buy incompatible hardware, especially with a 25% restocking charge. Keep that in mind before you run out and buy a bunch of SATA drives.

11/19/04: Differences Between Linux and FreeBSD

FreeBSD for Linux Users by Dru Lavigne -- BSD and Linux are both Unix workalikes. How different can they be? In certain cases, very! Though the systems share a family tree, their differences sometimes stand out. Dru Lavigne explains FreeBSD's runlevels, startup scripts, kernel configuration, and documentation systems to Linux users.

As noted in a comment to the original article, there are exceptions the the usual sysV runlevels initialization style in linux. Slackware, for example, uses a BSD-style layout for init scripts. Overall this is a great article for anybody interested in trying the other OS. I recommend trying both and I use both myself for different tasks.