Tag Archive
Re: Version Controled Configs
Ok, so I just ended up backing up my configs and diving in head first. It is really much easier than I thought, although I had to fiddle with subversion to do the in-place import. Answering my earlier questions…
- Repository location – I know how to use the old RCS version control software, which kept everything in the same directory of what you were controlling. So with SVN I would designate a different location in the filesystem (say /var/lib/svn) and store everything there? This seems nice as it would be the same root location for all my repos (assuming an increased usage of SVN down the road). Answer: Not a big deal. I ended up placing the repo in /var/svn/systems/<hostname>/etc hoping this will prove to be a generic enough layout to hold more system stuff in the future. Then /etc is just a working copy of the repo; no need to edit the files in one location and check them out to /etc. However, that turns out to be the added benefit as I could… To any machine running subversion too.
- However, in the normal daily routine would I have to checkout everything to a different directory so that I can edit it using my non-su account? Using my regular user account would be the preferred route (and more SA-correct way) but really I’m the only one who access the files so do I just use root for everything? Answer: Not really an issue. I su to root, make modifications, then when checking everything back into the repo I use the –username arg and specify my name. It is not error-proof, but it works.
- File owner/group permissions – How would this work? If I use my regular account, would I simply su to root and checkout files to /etc to “activate” them? Answer: This might be the only real problem. It appears that subversion doesn’t keep track of either of these which could pose quite a problem. However, there isn’t an issue with editing as I am doing so with root (or sudo) anyways.
The main thing to remember is once I’m done with editing, I have to run some additional subversion commands. Namely, svn update to verify what’s changed, make any add or rm’s depending on additions or deletions, then svn ci -m “whats changed” –username <myname> to check it all in, and finally svn up to keep everything in line. Now I can run svn log to see my change history. Schweet.
Power Problems
Well, the power supply in my “server” finally went south and took the site offline for a week and a half. Should have been proactive and purchased a new one ahead of time. But of course that only was the first thing that went wrong.
Swapping the power supply was not as easy as I had hoped. The newer one packed 50 more watts so the manf was nice enough to change the MB connector. They really shouldn’t be allowed to call it an ATX power supply if the connector is different; I’m a firm believer in a change in form/fit/function = change in naming/numbering. Anyways, the new connector has an additional 4 pins on it. Now they were nice and notched the connector so that it would be backwards compatible. However they didn’t take into consideration MB manf who place small caps next to the power input connector. The work-around: bend the caps. I was able to bend them far enough that the connector makes contact. Just don’t bump the case or it may loose power.
Then if that wasn’t enough when I brought the server back up, a number of daemons didn’t want to start including mysqld. And with a database-driven website, if the database doesn’t work neither will your website. Turns out “bind=127.0.0.1″ was set in my.cnf. Commenting that out allowed mysqld to start. Now I don’t believe mysql has been updated recently so I’m questioning my recent kernel upgrade as I’m still having problems with a couple of other daemons and it just so happens that they are network related ones…
Version Controlled Configs
I’ve been reading up on using subversion to manage my various system config files, namely /etc. While not familiar with using subversion (only knowing about it and what it does), I have been using a couple of websites as role-models: Scott Scriven’s how-to, Peter Murray’s gentoo specific how-to, and Noah Gift’s Red Hat Magazine article. Of course the official subversion docs have been helpful as well. Right now, the bits have me hung up are:
- Repository location – I know how to use the old RCS version control software, which kept everything in the same directory of what you were controlling. So with SVN I would designate a different location in the filesystem (say /var/lib/svn) and store everything there? This seems nice as it would be the same root location for all my repos (assuming an increased usage of SVN down the road). However, in the normal daily routine would I have to checkout everything to a different directory so that I can edit it using my non-su account? Using my regular user account would be the preferred route (and more SA-correct way) but really I’m the only one who access the files so do I just use root for everything? Which leads me to my next question…
- File owner/group permissions – How would this work? If I use my regular account, would I simply su to root and checkout files to /etc to “activate” them?
I’m sure more questions will come but I wanted to get these down on “paper” before I forget them as Renee is now home and this means it is time to put up the toys for the day…
And now the road to OLF
Ohio LinuxFest that is. I got myself all signed up: attending the OLFU on Friday, the conference on Saturday, and LPIC-1 or bust on Sunday. Since I typically stay in the shadows with respects to Linux, it should be good to get out an expose myself. Wait, that doesn’t sound right…
I’m looking for people to sync up there, be it current friends, new ones or ones yet to be discovered. I didn’t realize that this is a pretty big event (claims are the biggest in the Mid-West) so it should be a good time. I’m even talking Renee in attending the after-hours party. That should be a hoot!
The Road to Xen
Well what good is a stupid fast computer if all you do is poke around the terminal. So I decided to dump playing with VMware and give Xen a try. The lure of near hardware speeds for VM’s seemed like a no-brainer. But Xen is a much more difficult beast to tame.
With VMware server, all I needed to do was an emerge vmware-server, set a few config values and create a VM. A cinch! With Xen the road is a bit more rocky. Now you must ignore the fact that I’m playing with the razor’s edge so to speak and using the Xen overlay to get me the 3.1 version (versus the current stable v3.02). It seems to me that an open-source package with commercial backing usually doesn’t contain any mind-blowing problems, so I figure the gains will far out way the losses. But throw in cutting edge hardware and the goal of keeping home-user OS settings in the mix and you’re now playing with fire.
For starters, I got my stable config nicely setup to step down the CPU from 2.2GHz to a nice 1.0GHz when sitting idle (which is like most of the time). Not only does it save on electric, but the core temps drop by almost 20 degrees. Nice! Next I got the latest and greatest nvidia-drivers and alsa-driver keeping the action coming. All great if you’re using the standard disto-spiced Linux kernel. But switch to the Xen patched one and none of these guys wants to play nicely with each other.
I decided that I can not live without the official nvidia-drivers versus Xorg’s nv driver as the latter eats way too much CPU when doing nothing; as much as 20% across both cores! So I used this post to patch up an older version of the nvidia-drivers. However, stepping the CPU frequency still gives errors and the alsa drivers seems to constantly crash. In addition to those exact issues, the whole system still seems to be a little unstable, with weird jerkiness and odd pauses here and there.
The beauty of it is all I have to do is reboot and choose my stable kernel and all is sane again. Ahh, the fun of Linux.
KDE’d Firefox
I love firefox, but hate it’s GTK’ish interface in KDE. The Gentoo Wiki comes to the rescue by giving Firefox a make-over: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Integrate_Firefox_with_KDE.
This ones for Scott
I thought this post would be especially good for Scott who likes not understanding what I’m saying. 
I decided to open up Google Reader this morning as it has been a long time since I’ve had a few extra cycles that weren’t already claimed. Some people like to browse the newspaper on a fine Sunday morning. Some like to watch the TV news to find out whats going on in the world. Me, I like to get caught up with my feeds.
Anyways, the very first post was Ravi’s mention of a kernel comparison between Linux and Windows on All About Linux. Nothing like reviewing system calls and memory allocations routines first thing in the morning! I must admit though, I was not surprised that Linux comes out ahead, and in my take, the clear winner. I think the crowning achievement with Open Source is definitely not the UI, but the underlying meat of the system, the kernel. Although the UI portion is really catching up and (sh|c)ould surpass Windows this year; more on that later.
In particular I think it has been the organization of the kernel team and their less than democratic process of overseeing the kernel. Don’t get me wrong, democracy is good, but sometimes it gets in the way. It seems this happens more often than not on large open source projects that have a very large, diverse developer base. As long as you have someone in charge that can lead the ship in the right direction, then it will smooth sailing for everyone on board. Linus definitely fits the bill and has surrounded himself with a core set of brilliant developers.
The only worry I have would be if a new kernel development philosophy would come along that radically differs from the current mindset. One that would require a major change in direction. I think that could really hurt the Linux rhythm and where Microsoft could jump to the head. Since they have a lot of resources at their disposal, they can shift direction immediately and still turn out a relatively good kernel (and OS) at the same time. In contrast, it would take some time to build up enough momentum on the open source side to get anything outputted worth using. And then you’d have to wait on the other surrounding groups to digest the output and build up the rest of the OS.
But at the same time, MS’s size is its Achilles heel. Collectively they miss a lot of the new and revolutionary ideas that the OSS groups experiment with and offer releases for. Of course, MS could be experimenting with these new technologies, but since they are closed source and guard themselves from prying eyes, we, the ever loving consumers, never see the fruit.
It would be interesting to witness this theoretical change as it goes down. Would the Open Source crew have the advantage with their early adoption and experimentation practices? Or would MS gain the upper hand with their shear size and budgets?
xfce
Somehow I missed this one when they were handing out DE‘s… Wow! A minimalist’s dream; clean and simple, yet still full featured and easy to use. And since it is based on GTK, gnome apps fit in perfectly. It is one of those things that once it is set up, you never need to look back. To date, I have switched all of my desktop system (running Gentoo and Xubuntu) over to it.
Only having a little difficulty setting up some keyboard shortcuts on my IBM T23 laptop. Also need to figure out a remote desktop solution. I would really like to run NX, but since they are not a pure open-source app, the availability in Linux distributions seems to be hit or miss.
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