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Installed Ubuntu 13.10 x86 under an ubuntu 12.04 KVM server.

Installation

VM Settings:

• 1G of RAM
• 500MB swap
• 10G of ext4 for /
• Cirrus video – 9MB

Install started at : 08:43:54 EDT 2013
Install ended at : 08:58:07 EDT 2013
Reboot.
forgot to remove the installation ISO file – remove and reboot again. ;)
Login.

About 15 minutes to install a full desktop OS? What is not to like?

All computers have network problems from time to time. Usually everything works fine, but sometimes something goes wrong. The first step to determining what to fix is to determine where the issue lies. Below is outlined the first troubleshooting steps to determine where the problem lies.

Have you checked the system logs?

$ sudo egrep -i ‘error|warning’ /var/log/*log

will find issues in the logs.

Almost any issue will leave a trace in the system logs.
Start with that to see any issues.

Log files are usually protected for security reasons, hence the need to use sudo.

Of course, sometimes it isn’t a system problem, but an application issue, so the important log file(s) will be with the application or in /tmp/ somewhere. Not all applications provide logging by default, but many support increased logging levels through an application setting. Sometimes an option passed into the program will control verbosity.

$ program -v 

or

$ program -vvv 

enable and increases the amount of logging output by the program. For some programs using more v s means more verbosity.

For networking issues, check the logs on other devices, especially the router.

If the commands above are not understood, then you probably should ask for more individual help from someone knowledgeable who can be in the same room. Getting help like that is possible from your local LUG, Linux Users Group. Also check with your local university or college for a LUG.

I attended a local Ruby Meetup last week where they showed how to get all the dependencies for a smart RoR setup on Ubuntu. I’ve only tested it on 12.04 myself, but something similar should work for 10.04. I have doubts whether installing on 8.04 is this easy for the current versions of RVM, Ruby and Rails.

The installation instructions came from a gist from Cajun_Code. Following those instructions makes this process fairly straight forward. We’ll install RVM, Ruby v1.9.3, Rails, SQLite3, nginx and thin to get started.

Updated for Rails4 and Ruby 2.0.0 at the bottom of the article.

One of the main reasons that people give for not performing backups is that it is too difficult. The Back In Time program solves that issue for anyone using Linux, Ubuntu, Redhat, Slackware, etc. Both Gnome and KDE version are available.

Back-In-Time uses file system hardlinks to manage snapshots efficiently. This trick has been used for 20+ years on UNIX operating systems to provide backups. That means it has been well proven, but it also means this technique doesn’t work on Windows because hardlinks in Windows work differently. After the first complete copy is made to the backup area, any snapshots made after that point use hardlinks for each file that doesn’t change. Basically, it costs ZERO storage to make additional hardlinks. Neato.

A picture is worth …. 1,000,000 words in this case.
This link shows the way that different distributions are related, started, and some died. It only shows the most popular distros, perhaps 300 of them. I didn’t count.

Updated 12/2014:
Jump to the bottom of the article to see the updates.

People new to Linux or UNIX often don’t understand that built into the GUI system is a way to remote into pretty much any server in the world and have a program running on the remote machine, but displayed back on your Linux desktop. It is built in and has been for 30+ year of X/Windows. It doesn’t matter if you use Ubuntu, Redhat, Solaris, AIX, or if you use Gnome, KDE, XFCE, MWM, TWM – this solution is at a lower level. If you have a GUI on Linux or UNIX, it is built in and actually works really, really well.

Remote Applications over the WAN

Just got a new laptop yesterday, but I didn’t like the way that the 500GB HDD is partitioned.

• Unknown (50MB)
• RECOVERY (18GB)
• WIN7 (whatever remained of the 500GB – over 400+GB)

Only a noob would want that partitioning because they simply don’t know any better. Why do manufacturers still do this? Ah – because it is easy. Sorry for the dumb question.

I want:

• Unknown (50MB)
• RECOVERY (10GB – it actually only uses less than 8GB – resize)
• WIN7 (60GB for apps and the OS – resize + move)
• Data (size determined by my backup disk … I’m guessing about 250GB) Much of it will be encrypted, since this is where my VMs are placed.
• Scratch area for local disk backups or snapshots of VMs or …. unimportant temp data.

Ah, if it were only that simple. Below I’ll discuss the methods used to shrink / resize disk partitions and re-align the data so reduce wasted areas on the disk.

Each of us use a computer for various reasons. Some just want a system that works, without any hassle. Most of us want to run specific software, work with specific file types, connect with everyone else, and possibly just do what the people around us are doing to be the same.

I’ll be as honest as I can and put the reasons in order.

Below are a few incidents that I’m personally aware of which impacted a few different projects. Some are from my personal desktop to production dispatching systems with 20K+ users to some that impacted a space shuttle launch data.

People like Top 10 Lists, but I could think of only 9 near disasters. Perhaps something interesting will happen this week? ;)

Ooops – beep, beep, beep ….