JDPFu.com 2025

Xen as a Dom0 is not supported in Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) by Canonical. Both Canonical and Redhat have decided to get behind the KVM virtualization method instead. I think this was a choice driven by the required maintenance effort, since KVM hooks have been in the baseline Linux Kernel for about a year and Xen inclusion into the Linux kernel doesn’t seem likely at any point in the future. Supporting Xen kernels is just too tough.

Solved – Ubuntu 10.04 Dual Monitor with nVidia Driver

With every Ubuntu OS version update, we risk losing our dual monitor support. Through a cockpit error, I found myself performing a fresh install of Ubuntu this week. After getting all the important things working, it was time to correct the dual monitor issue.

If you are running any version of Lucid Lynx with X/Windows, these instructions should work. There is nothing specific to Gnome or KDE or any other environment here. Heck, they may work for older releases too.

My Setup

What’s that saying? Some days you eat the bear and other days the bear eats you.
Or perhaps Stupid is as stupid does fits.

Ooops is something you never want to hear your system/network admin say. I’ve heard it said elsewhere and then watched as 200+ NASA servers all started rebooting. No time to save your work. No time to do anything before the screen flickers and a bios screen is displayed.

Today, I said, “ooops.”

I do system patching on servers every Saturday morning during a maintenance period. Almost always, nothing goes wrong. I’ve seen some really big patch sets for huge, complex systems go in cleanly … then there’s Java. Every Java update causes some kind of problem for Adito.

Here’s the fix to the latest and most future Java update issues with Adito … I hope.

I came across another Top 12 List today. This one is about Live System Monitoring Tools# for Linux.

We use most of them almost daily.

Here’s the list from the article.

If you have more than a few accounts, you should be using a password manager. I didn’t use one for years and years, then I tried one about a year ago and became addicted. I bet you’ll like it too after you try it.

I have a TiVo connected to a digital box from the company and a Windows7 Media Center PC with a Hauppauge ClearQAM tuner. Today I planned on catching up on a little TV that should have been recorded last night, but wasn’t.

See, now that my VCRs are worthless since Comcast went 95% digital and requires a tuner box to get all but 5 network channels (ok, they also give 15 shopping channels and 8 community access channels too – great huh?), I use the 7MC PC to record programs when there’s a conflict with another or when I really don’t want to miss a specific show due to a screw up with the channel changing on TiVo or QAM tuner.

Be certain to check the comments for updates as I learn them.

In a prior article here, I outlined some important things to ensure when you’re looking for a new laptop. With the release of Windows7, some of those things aren’t necessarily as important as they were under Vista and I’ve learned some new things in my shopping for a new laptop myself.

If you use a portable device, like a smart phone or if you use a computer at all, then you’ve come across the URL shorteners like bit.ly, goo.gl, etc. The title of this entry is URL Shorteners are Dangerous, but why?

The main reason I consider them dangerous is when you click on a shortened URL, you have no idea where it will really take you. None whatsoever. It could be a simple redirector or to download a file or embed javascript or download anything. Javascript is still dangerous.

We’ve all heard not to click on any links in an email, yet most of us still do. I know some people who won’t click on any link from anyone in an email, period. There’s a trade off.

I’m not suggesting there isn’t any place where a shortened URL isn’t more convenient or easier to type. I am just saying that without more information about the final link location, I’ll not be clicking on any of those … ever.

There are tools to preview the final location of the shortened URL. I’ve never used any, but suspect they make money just like free DNS services and URL shorteners make money – that is by selling our use data .

Call me paranoid, but also call me unhacked and aware of internet privacy. I surf without javascript enabled, BTW.

I use virtualization … a lot. I started writing an article entitled Converting WinXP from VirtualBox to KVM today, but couldn’t due to issues.

The latest thing I’m trying to accomplish is to migrate to KVM for all the current VM needs that I have. This may not be a good idea since we’re running Xen, VirtualBox and ESXi VM hosts. Today I attempted to convert a WindowsXP Professional install running under VirtualBox 3.x to KVM. I’ve attempted this conversion before, but it failed, badly. This time, I’m using VMware Converter and it failed before it even got started.