Ninja Blogging » Unix

Ubuntu Causing Unnecessary Drive Wear

Administrator — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 02:58:01 +0000

I bug has been confirmed where Feisty and Gutsy versions of Ubuntu are allowing hard drives to spin down to conserve power and causing excessive wear. In short a drive has an average number of load/unload cycles before it wears out. If the drive isn’t allowed to spin down during use, then there are less load/unload cycles which extends it’s life. It’s not clear whether desktops are affected or not since it’s the Advanced Power Management that is allowing the drive to spin down, and thus extending battery life. I’m not sure why one would put trust into a “Mechanical”
Hard disk Drive to archive data, so as long as you make frequent backups it shouldn’t be a huge deal. But it’s nice to be aware that your Hard disk may not last as long as one would expect.

openSuse 10.2 Server Running on PII

Administrator — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 03:24:49 +0000

Yes you read it right, I’m installing the latest openSuse on a PII 400mhz with 196MB of Ram and a 10GB hard drive. I’m installing a text gui only, no xserver on this biatch. I have already installed Suse on another box and made it dual boot with windows. It was really simple to install and I didn’t have to install any extra drivers with my first install and was a little bit easier since it was a newer system. This second experience has not been that easy. In short it has been the eqivilent of putting a cadillac motor into a Ford Pinto.

First let me reiterate my hardware:
Compaq Deskpro
PII 400mhz 196MB Ram 10GB Hard Drive
Linksys NC100 Network Adapter
Unknown CDRW

First off I had to create a swap partition since I did not have the required 256MB of RAM. I did this by booting up in Knoppix and creating a swap partition roughly double the amount of ram I had: 196MB X 2 = ~400MB of Swap partition.
After this I had a warning message of this nature
“Error occurred while creating the catalog.
cd://?devices=/dev/hdc,/dev/hdd
Unknown error: unable to copy media directory
to /var/tmp/TmpDir.j4jPSa/MEDIA”
There are four reasons that I have found to cause this message:
1.) The media or the original .iso download is corrupted. Check the .iso with MD5SUM (do a search).
2.) The IDE driver in SUSE doesn’t like your ide controller. Try booting with the insmod=ide-generic boot option.
3.) The DVD was burned at too high of a speed. Try 4x or slower
4.) The drive is incompatible with the DVD media. Try a firmware update or a new drive. I knew my disc was not corrupted since this is my second system to install Suse on so I tried using the generic IDE driver with the boot option insmod=ide-generic to no avail. I then tried a different cd drive and had to end up using the boot option anyway. After beginning the install I then used This Custom Server Setup for OpenSuse 10.2, since my goal is a server for at home. I am looking forward to some extra hardware from my friend Dan who has a bunch of parts for this obsolete machine. I would like to install another hard disk, and a PIII as well as some more ram. I’m not sure how Suse will handle me installing newer hardware. I hope I don’t have to do another install. I guess we will find out. Cheers

Desktop Eye-candy

Brad — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 03:51:05 +0000

For a long time now I’ve been obsessed with my computer desktop and whether or not it helps me work efficiently. I find desktop eye-candy fascinating yet in the end it always seems to get in my way or distract me from doing serious work. Because I’m always worried that I’m not making the most of my desktop, I always like to ask people what their desktop looks like. In the spirit of my obsession, I thought it would be fun if everyone posted a screenshot of what their desktop looks like. Since the purpose of this idea is to see what everyone’s work environment looks like, it is only fair that you post a screenshot of your everyday desktop not one beefed to the max with eye-candy. Also, if you have an unusual setup or don’t check the site often, please include a description of what environment/programs you use.

Running Azureus on a Remote Linux Box

Druid — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 17:00:56 +0000

This is a quick tutorial to download, install, and run azureus remotely on a Linux machine. The purpose for this is to remotely que downloads on your Linux box without having to be at your box and then be able to logout of your box and keep azureus running in the background. It’s useful to be able to add/remove torrents remotely as well as check on each torrents status.

To start off you’ll want to make sure you have the latest version of Java installed on your box which can be found here, I installed the JRE version. You may have to compile java and put it’s location in your environment path variable. This may be located in your .{csh,bash,…}rc file depending on which shell you’ll be running azureus under.
Next you’ll need to download the Java version of Azureus which can be found at SourceForge’s Azureus – Bittorrent Client. You’ll want to pick the appropriate file which will probably be Azureus_x.x.x.x_linux.tar.bz2 which you’ll have to untar using the “tar -jxvf filename’ command.
Next you’ll need to grab 2 more files, placing them in the root azureus directory, to get the client to run without an XWindows session (from the command line). The most current of the two files, log4j.jar and commons-cli.jar, can be located here.

Next you’ll want to run azureus to make sure everythings working fine. You’ll do this by using the “java -jar {directory location}/Azureus2.jar—ui=console” command. Or just “java -jar Azureus2.jar—ui=console” if your in the azureus directory. I edited my .alias file to alias the name azcon to start it up.

Now you have the ability to run azureus from the command line. Now all you need to do is have a means of remotely accessing Azureus. I recommend running a SSH server on the computer you’ll want to have Azureus running on.

Once you’ve remotely connected to the box you can start up azureus with the command:

java -jar Azureus2.jar—ui=console

useful commands for Azureus console:

add /path/to/file.torrent —for adding torrent files

show torrents —shows the status for all torrents being handled by azureus

remove (# of torrent)—removes a torrent, requires looking at show torrents to find number

If you want to run the job and sign out you’ll want to run azureus as a screen job. This can be done with the command:

screen java -jar Azureus2.jar—ui=console

Screen may need some tweaking to get it to work and there have been a few known issues with java and screen. You may want to start up the console session before trying to remote login so you won’t need to use screen.

Adding torrents can be tricky. I’d suggest using WinSCP or SCP if your on a linux machine to copy your torrent files to your computer remotely. Or just run an FTP server on your remote machine.

And there you have it. You’ll now be able to remotely login on your box from where ever you’re at and feel proud knowing that if you wanted to you could manage torrents for Azureus remotely.

Linux Kernel

Brad — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 03:17:24 +0000

Having been a Linux user for many years I’ve come to know a great deal about my preferred operating system. I truly believe the most enjoyable way to learn to use Linux is to tinker with every little thing until you figure out how it works. A good deal of my knowledge comes from endlessly playing with new programs and poking around in configuration files until I master whatever project that occupies my mind this week. I am driven by my determination to one day use Linux as my primary operating system, finally casting Windows off of my hard drives and banishing it to the nether-dimensions from whence it came. In the quest to gain total mastery over Linux I have kept clear of the one task that haunts my dreams and mocks my very existence…compiling the kernel.

For lots of Linux users the kernel is a dark and mysterious thing that should be worshipped as a god, lest it become angry and smite you. So when I was forced recently to recompile my kernel in an attempt to gain ACPI functionality on my new laptop, I was prepared to endure ritual and torment to appease the kernel god for a successful compile. Miraculously, after my fourth day of Googling in preparation for building my kernel, I stumbled across a wholly wonderful post on how to recompile the 2.6 kernel without the need for a blood sacrifice.

I have to tip my hat to the author as this is one of the easiest to read articles on how to compile a kernel ever brought my way by the wide and wonderful internet. After following the instructions, I made short work of my valiant task and was running my custom-compiled kernel in no time. One thing I must note however, is after building the kernel modules I simply needed to do a make install before the kernel would boot properly. I haven’t yet investigated whether this is a step exclusive to Mandriva 2006, or simply an oversight. If anyone out there would like to share their experience with this matter, please add a comment below.