« February 2004 | Main | April 2004 »

March 28, 2004

The Weekend Time Warp

What is it about weekends that make them go so damn quick? It was just Friday, for crying out loud, and here it is Sunday night at 9pm.

Bleh

Posted by ed at 08:56 PM | Comments (0)

Mandrake A Stay-Stay

Okay, so I lied. Mandrake is still here.

I tried to install Fedora Core 2 Test 1 last night, but it was a huge failure. I couldn't get the damn installer to boot properly. Since I was having so many issues with just getting the installer to boot, I decided that it would probably be a better idea to stay away from Fedora until it's finally released. Hopefully they fixed that fucking annoying ATI card issue.

So, I re-installed Mandrake 10. This time, however, I went and did some things a bit differently. Instead of installing everything and the kitchen sink, I decided to go the minimal way and just get Gnome and a few other items installed and running. Since the install was completed, I installed XFce as a WM backup in case if Gnome decides to crap out again. Here's a screenshot of XFce up and running. It's a very nice, but minimal, GUI for Linux. It still needs a few things here and there, but it's lightning fast to boot and that's the developers main goal.

XFce running RPMdrake, an RPM update tool.

So, anyhow, I'm still on Mandrake. I like the 2.6.x kernel way to much to even really think about going back to an older distribution with the slower 2.4.x kernel. I debated putting Fedora Core 1 and even Red Hat 9 back on the machine to get me back up and running, but the more that I thought about it ... the more that I realized that I'm ready to move forward and not backwards.

Posted by ed at 03:35 PM | Comments (0)

March 27, 2004

CD Burning in Linux

I try to explain how far Linux has come as a desktop operating system to people all the time. Most people don't believe me or say that Windows has 95% of the market and that no OS will ever take away that from them, so they couldn't care less what Linux can do. Well, after seeing and using applications like K3b for Linux, I honestly think that these people will be singing another tune in the near future.

So, here are two screenshots of K3b that I thought I would share. This is from when I was burning Fedora Core 2 Test 1 earlier today. Notice how K3b automatically checks the Md5 sum and displays it for you to check to make sure your ISO is proper before burning? I don't think I've seen a Windows burner that does that yet. Also note that the interface is very clean and make sense. I have a friend who says his 87 year old grandmother can use Windows, but couldn't use Linux. I say with an interface like this, she needs to get new glasses and take another look.

Configuring K3b to burn an Fedora ISO.

Burn successful! Perfect Fedora CD ready to boot!

I love Linux and open source software.

Posted by ed at 08:08 PM | Comments (0)

Mandrake a go-go

Soon, my Mandrake experience will end. While I love the distribution and the 2.6.x kernel, I can't live without Gnome.

It seems as if Mandrake 10 Community is having a rather big issue with Gnome at the moment. I've installed it twice since the day that I downloaded it, and Gnome has screwed up on me twice. I've been using KDE for the past couple of days, but the honest to goodness truth is that I simply can't stand it. Everything is just too fucked up in KDE for me to ever consider using it as a primary Window Manager ... at least for the time being.

So, I decided that I'm going to give Fedora Core 2 Test 1 a try. Yes, I know that I've been having problems with one release candidate, so why am I jumping to another? Well, I want to stay with the 2.6.x kernel if I can. I just can't help myself... I've become very spoiled with it's speed and stability. Too bad that Gnome doesn't have the same stability that the 2.6.x kernel does in Mandrake 10... I'd probably stick with it.

So, I'm in the middle of downloading the last two of four CDs for Core 2. I'm hoping that it's a stable build, but I'm not going to be keeping my fingers crossed. I figure that if anything, I can use the beta and be a bug reporter ... my way of giving back to the community. I've wanted to do something for the longest time to give back, but there's nothing that I can really think of other than to try to help spread the word of open source and to use open source products.

It sorta makes me feel weird to be such a big supporter and advocate of open source, yet here I've just purchased new Dell servers with Windows 2003 and I'm using Active Directory. There's not a bit of open source software on any of my new servers. Kinda makes me feel all dirty inside. The real truth is, however, that our corporate offices are much more familiar with Windows servers than Linux servers, and from what I hear, all corporate will be making a transition to AD sometime in the near future.

Oh well... I stll like the idea of Linux on the desktop. Maybe one of these days I'll put it out there somewhere for someone to use and see if they notice a difference. I'm sure I can modify a system enough to where someone wouldn't even notice a difference. Also makes me wonder if iNews will run in Wine.

Posted by ed at 04:38 PM | Comments (0)

March 24, 2004

Good days do come

They just seem to be few and far between. Alas, today was a good day.

I spent the morning taking on several generic PC issues, but the late morning and most of the afternoon was spent working on the rack for the new servers. I managed to get two of the three rack rails that I have installed, and I'm waiting for the 4th to arrive. I called Dell today to see where the thing is, and apparently there was some kind of mixup. It explains why I have a 770n rack-to-tower conversion kit sitting in my server room.

On another note, I got my review today. I've been told that it was a really good review by typical review standards, and that it's difficult to get some of the things that I received on my review. I'm glad to see that my hard work over the past year and a half has paid off, and I'm looking forward to what the rest of this year will bring.

Posted by ed at 04:51 PM | Comments (0)

March 20, 2004

Unreal Tournament 2004 and other things

I've possibly got a new favorite game in Unreal Tournament 2004.

Why developers don't like to put vehicles in games is beyond me. It was one of the main reasons why I liked Halo so much. The Warthog was just too damn cool. UT2k4 is super sweet tho, and the vehicles, both ground and air, are awesome. They each have some great strengths and weaknesses, and if you don't watch yourself, you can get your ass toasted rather quickly. What a great game.

Now, I'm running UT2k3 on my Linux box and it's fast as hell. What was really interesting is that the other PC, which is a Athlon 1GHz with 512MB of RAM and a Geforce 3 Ti200 is running the game like it's nothing as well. The graphics are crisp and clear, and apparently no hesitation or frame-rate dropout. I must say it, I'm very impressed.

In other news, I've been working on the new Win2K3 servers at work. They're also sweet as hell, and you can quote me on that. I have to hand it to Microsoft, they may be underhanded, but their server OS is an amazing piece of work in Active Directory. I've spent the past few days dcpromo'ing and setting up user accounts/groups and printers. What's really nice is that the new domain is hella quick since you don't have to wait for anything else, like Novell, to authenticate before Windows.

Lets see... what else... oh... I got a hell of a deal on Lexmark re-branded printers from Dell. They had a 2-4-1 option going on for their M5200n model printers. I had originally planned to purchase a total of five printers for the entire station, but with the deal that they gave me (practically 70% off each printer), I was able to get 10 of the M5200n's and have enough left over to purchase two w812 (with 11x17 capacity) for the engineering department. I've already gotten four of the Dell printers distributed, and have three more to distribute throughout the rest of the building. That leaves me with 3 backup printers that I wasn't expecting to have at all. Talk about a sweet deal.

Hmm... what else? I got the sales department their laptops, and sales management seems to be really happy that their people are all mobile now. While I'm glad that they're satisfied, my real goal has been to get everyone up to the same speed and on the same kind of OS. There's only a few Win9x machine left in the building, which should all be replaced before we go live with the new domain. While this may not sound like that big of a deal, when I first started at the station, almost EVERYONE was on Win9x and a few Win2K boxes. By the time this summer rolls around, most of everyone will be on WinXP, there'll be a few Win2K boxes, and our servers will be on Win2K3 and Win2K.

Life is good on the PC front these days. I'm enjoying my new Dell Latitude laptop as well.

Speaking of life being good, I went to the doctor on Friday to get one of those overall exams. It wasn't like I thought it would be, however, which I thought was a physical. Instead, this checked for mental health and other things that have happened to me in the past in regards to medical issues. As a result of the visit, I was able to get back on some stomach medicine (yay!) and I'm going to go back on Prozac. What's good about Prozac these days is that it's officially a generic drug now, so it doesn't cost me $30.00 a bottle. The Aciphex, on the other hand, is still expensive and costs $20.00 a bottle. Thank goodness for insurance.

I think that it's a good time to get back on Prozac. I've been off of it since early 2001, and the way I stopped taking it was the wrong way. It was abrupt, and you're supposed to ween yourself off of the stuff. Not me ... I gotta do myself harm and stop taking it completely. Bleh, I don't know what I was thinking back then. Anyhow, I'm going to be slowly getting myself back up to my regular dosage, which I'm looking forward to the results. I remember what it was like being on Prozac back in the day. Everything seemed to be much better, and I was in a much clearer state of being.

I found out something that really didn't surprise me during the doctor visit. I have VERY high anxiety, but a minor bout of depression. The doctor was expecting it to be the exact opposite ... but there I go fooling everyone again. I knew I wasn't really depressed tho ... although I knew that I was feeling a bit down recently and my mood certainly reflected that. I did know that I've been overly anxious as of late, and I blame that mostly on work and trying to cope with the amount of pressure that is put on me on any given day. I'm hoping that with the Prozac back in my system, I'll calm down a bit more and not worry nearly as much. I'm also hoping that I'll be able to sleep better at night and that my stomach, in combination with the Aciphex, will stop hurting me all the time.

I'm starting to take steps in the right direction.

Posted by ed at 11:27 PM | Comments (0)

March 14, 2004

Mandrake Part 3

Okay, so I got the whole 3D issue figured out.

Apparently, when the ATI driver/module tries to install, it sees if it has a compatable module for the kernel running on the machine. If there isn't a compatable kernel, the program looks in the /usr/src/kernel/ directory and makes itself a custom module.

Well, in my Fedora installation with 2.6.x kernels, I neglected to create a symbolic link to any of my installed kernel sources, so the ATI driver couldn't find the kernel source. The same thing was happening in the Mandrake install as well, but my problem with it was that I didn't have a kernel source installed on the machine.

Oops.

Anyhow, everything is working much better now. I'm going to download UT2k4 and see if there is any noticable speed improvements. I was messing around with glxgears earlier and the frame rates were quite impressive. Can't wait to see how well UT2k4 permorms.

Posted by ed at 07:35 PM | Comments (0)

March 13, 2004

Mandrake Part 2

Okay ... so I can't get ATI 3D working properly in Mandrake 10. Of course, I couldn't get it working on any of the 2.6.x kernels I had installed on my Fedora box either...

Posted by ed at 10:14 PM | Comments (0)

Making the move to Mandrake

Okay, so I decided today that I was tired of fucking around with the 2.6.x kernel and wanted a distribution that already had it available. I looked around and decided to give the Mandrake Community 10 a try.

Man, I'm not exactly missing Fedora at the moment.

Mandrake has definately got their version 10 version of Linux right. Easy to setup, easy to configure, and they've got a good 2.6.x kernel compiled into the system. This thing is WAY faster than any kernel that I tried from RedHat or compiled myself. It's something to see, that's for sure.

One thing that I'm definately digging about Mandrake at this point in time is the menu structure. It just makes sense. Everything isn't thrown around, leaving you to guess where things might be located. Instead, everything is under a simplified menu that has several options.

The only thing that I haven't figured out yet is if there is an APT repository for Mandrake or not. I've found a version of APT for Mandrake, but I haven't bothered downloading and installing it as of yet. I want to make sure that whatever I get will be compatable with the newest version that I'm running. I'm not too terribly worried about doing software updates as of yet, but down the line I know that I'll want an easy to install way of updating my system.

Anyhow, I'm pleased with the newest version of Mandrake. I'll keep you posted on the things that I discover along the way.

Posted by ed at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)

March 12, 2004

Kernel 2.6.4

Geez... these kernels are getting pumped out fast these days. I had just downloaded 2.6.3 and here's 2.6.4.

Anyhow, I downloaded the 2.6.4 RedHat RPM last night. I'm going to recompile it shortly, but first...

I got a phone call about an hour ago. It was my sister Brenda, asking me what I was doing. I told her I was prepping for dinner this evening (steak sandwiches, yum), and she asked what we were doing this evening. I told her nothing. She said that she was going to be in town and was wanting to stay for the night.

!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, for those that don't know, Brenda isn't a sister by blood ... she's actually a sister by marrage. My dad married her mom. That doesn't matter, however, as we've been close since the day we met. I think the world of her, and have considered her my sister since day one. After her mom died, she just became an official part of the family. She lives with Deb in Minnesota, and is a truck driver by trade.

Anyhow, I'm excited to see her. I'm going to go and get the rest of the apartment picked up and finish working on dinner, then work on that 2.6.4 compile until she gets here.

Posted by ed at 02:24 PM | Comments (0)

March 09, 2004

Another one of dem days

Everyone has a bad day at work from time to time. I swear that I've had a bad 4 months.

Today, I got a call at 7:30am from our news department. Apparently people were having trouble logging into their machines. This isn't the first time that this has happened. The issue was a result of having two WINS servers, one for the old address range we've been moving from, and one for the new address ranges that we're moving to. In the past, we've gone into safe mode and manually added the WINS servers to the networking properties, which has fixed the issue. Well, it happened again with a machine that had already been fixed.

I've been holding off on doing anything with the WINS servers until we get our new server infrastructure in place. I'd spoken with corporate about the issue, which they recommended going ahead and switching over the existing servers so that we could eliminate the problem. So, I decided that the only way to get around this problem once and for all was to go ahead and make the move.

I came into work about 45 minutes early, which I considered more than enough time to change 3 IP addresses and any DNS, DHCP, and WINS configurations. Initially, everything went off without a hitch. I re-IP'ed the domain server and pointed it to the new WINS address. Following reboot, the machine came back up and logged in with no problems. Next, I changed the print server, which was also acting as the old WINS server. I turned off all of the services, turned off their boot up options, re-IP'ed the address, and rebooted the machine. Again, I was able to log in with no problems. Finally, I did the same thing with our e-mail server, changing the IP addresses and the like, making sure that the DNS was pointing to the new address, etc.

Before I rebooted the e-mail server, I went into the WINS and DNS server and made sure that everything was pointing at the correct addresses. I removed all old DNS and WINS references and replaced the DNS references with the new IP addresses of all the machines. I then restarted the e-mail server and left the room, heading back to the news department. I told users to reboot and to log back in to make sure that everything was working properly.

Problems popped up immediately.

Problem #1: No one in news could print.
Apparently the sales printers were unaffected by this change, but for some reason the printers in news, in addition to several other printers throughout the building could no longer print. Apparently, these printers were unable to speak with the print server on the new IP address range, so I configured the print servers that they were connected on with IPs in the new address range, in addition to pointing them to the new WINS server. Problem resolved in about 20 minutes total.

Problem #2: People started telling me that they couldn't get into e-mail.
Someone in news said to me "Microsoft isn't working". Since this was extremely vague (it could've been anything, if you think about it), I stopped what I was doing and went to their machine. Apparently, whenever someone tried to log into Outlook, it would pop open a box asking for the user name, password, and domain name. I tried logging the user in several times, but with no luck. I was able to get Outlook to see the Exchange server only once, using the administrator password.

I logged into the e-mail server remotely, and noticed that an error message had popped up. It seems that upon the last reboot, some services had failed to start. I opened the event viewer and looked at the error logs. The logs reported that the machine hadn't logged into the domain properly, and therefore the service didn't start.

I went back to the server room and sure enough, all of the exchange services weren't running. I rebooted the machine, a common fix for NT servers that are being screwy, and logged back in. Again, I'm given an error saying that the services aren't running. In addition, I'm given an error saying that the domain controller couldn't be contacted.

Great. So, I go into the networking properties, thinking that I mistyped an IP address in wrong. Nope. Everything was in correctly, so I opt to re-join the domain. As the domain was already selected, I typed in the administrator account and password and waited. Got another error message saying that the domain couldn't be found.

At this point, I was in a panic. It was 8:20am and everyone would be coming into work in roughly 10 minutes. I called corporate and spoke with the corporate IT manager, asking him to relay a message to the exchange guru that I needed help. It would still be another 40 minutes before she got in, so I started looking through other machines to make sure that IP addresses were correct, WINS and DNS entries matched what they were supposed to be, and any other thing I can think of.

Finally, I get a call from the exchange guru, and she gets into the e-mail server. Her and I start going through different scenarios, each leading to a dead end. We worked for close to 4 hours total, trying different machines, reconfiguring DNS and WINS, using LMHOST files, and everything else that you can think of. Nothing was working.

Finally, we came to the conclusion that a master browser must either be corrupt on one of the domain controllers, or that another machine in the building had taken over the master browser and was chatting up the network, keeping other machines from authenticating. We try turning off the PDC and leaving the BDC up, then restarting the e-mail server. No good, still can't find the domain. We take down the BDC, leaving the PDC up and restart the e-mail server. Still no good.

We noticed when trying to get netbios to talk to the PDC that it's not communicating properly. Desparate, we try one last thing before we break out the network tools ... promoting the backup domain controller to primary. We made the change, rebooted the e-mail server, and tried to add the e-mail server back to the domain.

Success.

Now, I'm the kind of person that believes in luck, fate, and bad/good karma. This machine somehow knew that it was going to be replaced, and decided to fuck up. I'm sure of it. There's no other reason why a simple IP address change would cause this machine to fart out on us like it did. Well ... all I have to say to this machine is ... FUCK YOU!!!! I can't wait to take a fucking sledge hammer to this piece of shit and destroy the fuck out of it. Think of how those guys in Office Space destroyed that printer, and multiply the damage by 10. You won't recognize this piece of shit when I'm through with it. It's been a headache all along, and destroying it will do me good.

There ... I'm done.

Posted by ed at 07:04 PM | Comments (0)

March 07, 2004

Linux Kernel 2.6.3 Part 3

I've recompiled the kernel again. This time, I selected all configurations from scratch. Some interesting things have happened as a result.

- I get some weird USB errors on boot. What's even more strange is when I actually get into the GUI, everything works just fine.
- I get an error saying that eth0 can't be recognized. Again, when I get into the GUI, it works just fine.
- Despite any errors that I've recieved, everything seems to be working well. In addition, I've actually noticed a dramatic speed improvement, especially on the network side.

I'll post more as I continue to play around with the kernel and keep trying compiling options. I think I'm going to do a comparison between my recent config file and the RedHat config file to see exactly what the differences are, and why I might be getting the errors I've been getting on boot.

Posted by ed at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)

Linux Kernel 2.6.3 Part 2

Okay ... so I decided to take another look at the 2.6.3 kernel.

I got it to work. :D

Apparently, even though IPtables reported that it was turned off, the fact is that it was really running. I downloaded a program called Firestarter from Sourceforge and used it to configure my firewall settings. After doing some testing in the 2.4.x kernel, I rebooted into the 2.6.3 kernel and gave it a go. Success at last.

A couple of thoughts on the new 2.6.3 kernel:

1. I'm really digging ALSA. The mixer settings more much more robust than OSS. As a result, my audio sounds MUCH better. I'm using a SB Live! MP3 card, which was detected with no problems at all. Alsaconf is a great utility.

2. I'm waiting to see exactly how fast this new kernel really is. I haven't noticed that much of a difference as of yet. I'm sure that'll change down the line.

3. The new xconfig utility is completely different than previous versions. The jury is still out on that one.

4. I completely screwed up my initial attempt of compiling the kernel that I downloaded from kernel.org. So, I cheated and used the config from the RPM available from RedHat. I just made a few corrections, like NTFS and Athlon support, and recompiled. It worked like a charm.

5. I used to be afraid of compiling the kernel. I think that in order to get past that issue, you really need to do it a couple of times to get the hang of it. Now that I've done it a dozen or so times with the 2.6.3 kernel, I really feel comfortable with it. After all, it's really just a couple of steps:

make clean
make mrproper
make xconfig
make bzImage
make modules
make modules_install
mkinitrd /boot/kernel#.img kernel# (you usually name it with the kernel version)

Once this process has completed, you just need to move a couple of things:

mv /boot/System.map /boot/System.map.bak
cp /usr/src/kernel#/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/bzImage# (you usually name it with the kernel)
cp /usr/src/kernel#/System.map /boot/System.map

Finally, you just need to edit your boot loader ... in my case I use Grub. The example below shows my grub config with the 2.6.3 kernel:

title Linux 2.6.3
root (hd1,0)
kernel /bzImage-2.6.3 ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi rhgb
initrd /initrd-2.6.3.img

BTW ... this is a great resource for leaning how to compile the 2.6.x kernel. It's a complete re-write of the original kernel how-to. Good thing too, that old one was REALLY out of date.

Posted by ed at 12:55 PM | Comments (0)

Before I Forget...

I just wanted to make a rundown of all the capital projects for Feb and March:

- Newsroom Script Printers
Two T634tn printers with 4 500-sheet drawers, 1 2000-sheet tray, and 5-bin mailbox each.

- News and General PCs
6 Dell Latitude D505 laptops (one is mine, muahahah)
2 Dell Optiplex desktops

- IT Backbone
5 APC Backup power units
2 Lexmark W820 printers with 11x17 capacity
12 Dell M5200 printers

- Server Upgrades
1 Dell 2650 with Windows 2003 and 50 CALs
1 Dell PowerVault 770n with Windows Storage Server 2003 and 1TB of file storage
1 Dell PowerVault 112T dual tape backup system with 160 tape capacity

A note about the 12 Dell printers ... I'm literally getting a 2 -4 -1 deal on the M5200. For every printer, they're giving me one free. So, I'm spending under $500 (with s/h & tax)per laser printer that normally goes for over $1000 (with s/h & tax).

By the time May and/or June hits, the IT department will be doing VERY well for itself.

Posted by ed at 12:55 AM | Comments (0)

Linux Kernel 2.6.3

So I decided to give the new Linux kernel another go today.

Believe it or not, I got most of it working... with the exception of one minor thing.

Internet connectivity.

It's actually quite weird. I initially tried using the RedHat kernel RPM, but ran into the problem of having network connectivity, but no Internet connectivity. So, I decided to take the config file from that kernel source, make it my own, and rebuild the kernel. I even went as far as to build the modules directly into the kernel itself. Still the same problem occurred.

Here's the gist of it:

- I can ping sites outside of my home network, like yahoo.com.
- I can do an nslookup of sites outside of my home network.
- I can't open a web browser and type in an address, either DNS or IP, and have the page load.
- I can't open a web site using an ftp client using either DNS or IP.
- I can ping and navigate inside of my home network using IP addresses.
- Using IP addresses, I can use programs like VNC to connect to other machines on my home network.
- I've manually edited all network config files, but nothing has helped.
- I've manually restarted the networking service, but that hasn't helped either.
- I've tried different network cards, based on the tulip module and other modules. No good.

This thing is acting like the 2.6.3 kernel doesn't like either the module, something is blocking DNS, or something has closed off all the ports in my PC. I've tested everything I know to test, but am still having the same problems.

What's really weird is if I go back into 2.4.x kernel, I have absolutely on problems at all. The same is also true for Windows.

I've gone over my kernel config file at least a dozen times trying to see if I missed anything, but at the moment everything seems to be set properly. I've posted my problem to a couple of different forums to see what kind of ideas that other people might have. I've found that usually if you give someone else a problem you've been busting your noggin on for a while, they can give you a fresh perspective that you haven't considered. Let's hope that this is the case with this particular issue.

On that note, I'm going to bed. I'm tired of messing around with this thing for today.

Oh... before I forget... I did get Alsa and USB working with no problems at all. I played some MP3's through ALSA, and man did it sound great. Can't wait to try some gaming with it.

Posted by ed at 12:40 AM | Comments (0)