Softpanorama (slightly skeptical) Open Source Software Educational Society

May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-)

A Slightly Skeptical View on Major Commercial Linuxes

The biggest recent development in commercial Unixes space is that Oracle pledged to support Red Hat Enterprise Linux -- charging less than half of Red Hat's support prices ($99 for minimal level -- patches and RPMs only).

See:

• Oracle OpenWorld Keynote: Larry Ellison unveils Oracle Unbreakable Linux
• Oracle Unbreakable Linux: FAQ, Data Sheet, Press Release, Consulting / Migration, and Customer and Partner Endorsements
• Now Until January 31, 2007: Free Trial for Oracle Customers; 50% off Purchase for Everyone
• Data sheet: Oracle on Linux (PDF)
• Technical resources: Visit the Linux Technology Center page on the Oracle Technology Network
• Free magazine: Read the Oracle Magazine Special Edition for Linux (2006)

As a news this was certainly on par with Google buying UTube for $1.6B hoax, which might be Sequoia capital trick of selling one of its properties to the other making 2 billions on 15 million investment in the UTube and helping Google to maintain its exorbitant share price a bit longer; or for a change with IBM hoax of buying ISS for over a billion. Still this is was an interesting development that reminds dot-com bubble mergers and acquisitions. Reminds us that the traditional Open Source (GPL-based Open Source), is a very problematic business model. It is often used as a smoke screen for the VCs to get software engineers to work for free, NOT EVEN Minimum Wage, but for free!  Then they take their hard work, pump $20M in marketing and either sell the resulting company to one of their other portfolio companies or take it public and dump the shares on the public. Meanwhile the software engineers that worked to develop that software for FREE, aka Slave Labor, get $0.00 for their hard work while the VCs and Investment Bankers make a killing. And of course then they get their buddies in Big Media hype the GPL-based Open Source id the best thing after sliced bread.

Oracle will also supply a RHEL clone. Oracle pledged Linux support from its own army of employees--including several Linux kernel programmers. Internally Linux is used by Oracle as a development platform along with Solaris. That makes the move somewhat similar to Sun buying Star Office: cutting internal costs. 

Anyway a good news is that the price of Linux support will be 50% lower and RHEL AS support model with its fat margins essentially died by quick painless death: customers now have a viable way to drive down the cost of maintaining RHEL and are likely to use this information in contract negotiations, even if they don't switch.

Eventually this move might divert major part of Red Hat's support subscription revenue stream into Oracle coffers.

Along with Red Hat, Novell is also under new pressure.  There is no longer much sense to use Suse as an enterprise distribution as its main selling point was lower support costs in comparison with Red Hat.

Subsystems to be deleted/disabled for a server to increase stability of Suse 10 SP1/SP2.

1. iptables (Firewall, can affect stability of network layer, especially on high network traffic loads; in such cases a separate appliance-based firewall is a safer bet)
2. AppArmor (security framework for applications)
3. cups (printing subsystems)
4. Samba (Microsoft filesharing)
5. Alsa (Sound subsystem)
6. power management
7. ReiserFS (ext3 should be used instead)
8. synaptic modules (laptop only)

Old News ;-)

[Sep 19, 2008] A Comparative Look at Compact Sysadmin Distributions

Things go wrong. Hard disks fail and whole servers crash. Luckily, many Linux-based distributions are available to help systems administrators handle minor catastrophes. We looked at four of the most portable, all of which fit on a 210MB mini CD -- SliTaz, Parted Magic, GParted, and RIPLinuX.

Each of these distributions is easy to use -- just insert the CD or plug in the USB drive on which it's installed, then boot. Each gives you access to a variety of open source tools that you can use to manage disks, partitions, and files and perform diagnostics and network troubleshooting. These distributions provide most of the tools that you might need in an emergency situation.

To choose the most appropriate sysadmin distribution, you have to consider several factors. One is the supported boot devices. Most distributions can boot and run from a live CD, but you may want the flexibility of being able to boot from a USB device or even network Preboot eXecution Environment (PXE). Another factor is size: can it fit onto a 128MB USB drive or a mini CD, or do you need a DVD? If you like a smaller distribution, make sure that it holds all the tools and utilities you need. Lastly, consider usability. Does the distro offers tools that have a GUI, or only those you can use from the command line? The CLI may not pose a problem for system administrators, but a GUI may expedite the solution and increase the user base of the distribution, often resulting in greater support and more frequent updates.

Parted Magic

 ,,, ,,, ,,.

Parted Magic is a Linux From Scratch (LFS) distribution, and only 45MB in size. The latest version, 3.0, runs on the 2.6.26 kernel. You can boot and run it using a live CD, USB, or even PXE. It features an aesthetically pleasing GUI based on Xfce. However, be wary of its memory requirements. The latest version removed the live boot option, so the whole distribution is loaded into memory. You must have at least 300MB of RAM. Failure to meet this minimum requirement will result in problems loading Parted Magic. You may not be able to load all the programs, and even if you can, you might not have access to the graphical desktop.

This distribution's primary component is the popular GParted tool, but it also includes the data recovery tools TestDisk and PhotoRec, as well as a disk imaging program called Partition Image. Other tools include Xarchiver for viewing and extracting archives,

• Xfburn for CD burning,
• ISO Master for creating ISO images.
• Use the graphical Leafpad for text editing,
• the latest version of Firefox (3.0.1) for Internet browsing,
• Grsync for backing up data.

Parted Magic includes several command-line tools; most are disk related and include dd, ddrescue (for disk recovery), cfdisk, and fdisk. The variety of disk tools enables Parted Magic to support many file systems, including ext2, ext3, ext4, FAT16, FAT32, HFS, HFS+, JFS, Linux swap, NTFS, ReiserFS, Reiser4, and XFS. It includes some advanced network tools too, such as tcpdump.

Parted Magic is a great distribution for its intended purpose: filesystem and partition management, manipulation, and recovery. Its GUI makes it easy for average users and system administrators alike to perform disk-related tasks.

GParted Live

GParted Live is a Debian-based distribution from the GParted team. The latest version is 0.3.7-7, running on the 2.6.24 kernel, and is only 90MB in size. You can boot and run it via live CD, USB, or PXE, and you can even install it on a hard disk. You will need a Pentium II or higher and at least 64MB of RAM, with 128MB recommended.

GParted's boot menu is simple and mostly related to the type of video display. Like other live CD sysadmin distributions, it offers Memtest86+ as a choice in the boot menu. Upon boot, it asks you about the keyboard type you'll be using.

GParted Live's graphical desktop is simple and shows a shortcut to the GParted tool on the desktop. It utilizes a Fluxbox menu in which you can run other disk programs and editing tools. The Fluxbox menu has a limited set of tools:

• Vim and nano for text editing,
• GNU Midnight Commander for file management,
• Partition Image for imaging,
• TestDisk for partition recovery, and PhotoRec for file recovery.

As with Parted Magic, you can access other disk tools using the CLI. An extensive collection of tools enables GParted Live to support the same filesystems as Parted Magic, and a shortcut for live USB creation is also available on the desktop. However, unlike Parted Magic, GParted Live doesn't have network support. This means it's missing Internet browsers, commands like ping and netstat, and features like rsync and Grsync, because they're dependent on a network connection. Likewise, the distribution offers no CD-burning software.

With no network support or ability to burn data on a CD, GParted is designed solely for partition management and manipulation on a local machine. You can recover data, but you need a locally accessible device, such as another hard disk or an external drive, to save the recovered data.

If you're concerned only with disk partitioning and related tasks, GParted Live is easy enough to use for both system administrators and average users. However, if you're able to meet its higher memory requirements, Parted Magic may be a better way to go.

[Sep 11, 2008] The LXF Guide 10 tips for lazy sysadmins Linux Format The website of the UK's best-selling Linux magazine

A lazy sysadmin is a good sysadmin. Time spent in finding more-efficient shortcuts is time saved later on for that ongoing project of "reading the whole of the internet", so try Juliet Kemp's 10 handy tips to make your admin life easier...

1. Cache your password with ssh-agent
2. Speed up logins using Kerberos
3. screen: detach to avoid repeat logins
4. screen: connect multiple users
5. Expand Bash's tab completion
6. Automate your installations
7. Roll out changes to multiple systems
8. Automate Debian updates
9. Sanely reboot a locked-up box
10. Send commands to several PCs

[Aug 29, 2008] Hans Reiser Sentenced to 15-to-Life Threat Level from Wired.com

OAKLAND, California – Linux guru and convicted murdered Hans Reiser was handed a prison sentence of 15-to-life Friday, putting a final capstone on a case that began as a murder mystery, and ended with Reiser leading police to a makeshift grave a short distance from where he strangled his wife.

"I wish to humbly apologize to society for my crime," Reiser said in a statement before his sentence was pronounced. "Every human life is sacred. I took the life of a human being and I'm very sorry for that."

Hans Reiser killed his wife, Nina, at about 4:30 p.m. on Sept. 3, 2006, according to the belated confession Reiser wrote as part of his deal, said prosecutor Paul Hora after the sentencing. He first punched her in the mouth, cutting his hand, then strangled her to death.

He briefly stored the body in the bathroom, then moved it to his car, where it stayed for two days while he searched for a place to bury her.

 Nina Reiser, at age 31, was last seen alive at Hans Reiser's house in the Oakland hills on the day of her murder, when she dropped off the once-happy couple's two young children to stay with him the Labor Day weekend. The couple were in the middle of a heated divorce.

The developer of the ReiserFS file system becomes eligible for parole in about 13 years, having already served two years since his October 2006 arrest.

The 44-year-old defendant's jury trial here concluded in April this year with Reiser's first-degree murder conviction. That carries a 25-to-life term, but the authorities, in a backroom deal, later offered him 15-to-life if he produced his wife's body and waived any rights to appeal his conviction.

[Aug 21, 2008] Intel on Quad-core vs. UltraSPARC Linux Magazine

December 13th, 2006

I’m pleasantly surprised at how much I’m enjoying the IT@Intel blog. Over the past couple of weeks we’ve seen posts about how the culture of Intel — and IT in general — is too focused on performance and Eleanor Wynn’s attempt to explain information technology themes in the context of Martin Heidegger (That is, once you get past her largely inaccessible first paragraph. “xtreme weight loss program and reappending appendages from one place to another” Huh?) All-in-all it’s considerably more interesting than one would think an official Intel blog would be.

As an added bonus, they’ve opened up comments and that’s where something interesting came up on a quad-core post by Sudip Chahal.

The post itself doesn’t really shed any new light on quad-core technology but Sudip does a excellent job of responding when someone asks him to compare Intel’s quad-cores with SUN’s UltraSPARC processors with CoolThreads technology, 8 cores, and 32 accessible threads on a single chip.

b. Additionally, if the application is not very multi-threaded e.g., some batch jobs or optimizer solvers, then the Sun solution is simply not competitive as its cores are very simple and much lower performance on an individual core basis as compared with the Intel Clovertown Core 2 micro-architecture based cores.

That, it turns out, is pretty easy to verify. AnandTech put Intel Duo Woodcrest Xeons up against SUN’s 8-core UltraSPARCs back in June and Intel whipped SUN handily in Apache/PHP/MySQL processing, Java webserving, and every other category where they compared the two processors.

Sudip also had something to say about software.

c. While the Sun solution can deliver good performance for �throughput� applications (heavily multi-threaded applications) - the point remains that the applications have to be SPARC applications and not x86 applications which is where the vast majority of the software market is.

And that’s a pretty big point. SUN can pack as many threads as they like into a chip but if the apps aren’t written to take full advantage of the infrastructure, it’s moot.

Take Linux, for example. I talked with SUN engineers at OracleWorld earlier this year about their Fire servers and their comment was Linux in it’s current form probably couldn’t use all the threads on even one of the UltraSPARC chips.

Which is another way of saying Linux would probably run better on something else.

While this looks like a post comparing processors, that was just the set-up. It’s really about software development and the challenges facing developers next year on the new infrastructure available. A sentence in the AnandTech article linked above sums that idea up well when talking about the UltraSPARC T1s.

PostGreSQL and MySQL scale better on Solaris than they do on Linux, but both RDBMS have trouble scaling over multiple cores.

Do you know how to scale your application across multiple cores?

The shift in thinking required to go from traditional programming to multi-threaded programming was described to me by one vendor recently as “Herculean” and will make the challenge that developers faced of moving from procedural to Object-Orientated Programming several years back “look like child’s play.”

And it’s a challenge that you may not be able to avoid like some were able to with OOP. Because while some platforms will run multi-threaded apps better, some practically demand threading.

What do you think? Is multi-threading where application development is headed? Should we not be so quick to discount SPARC since they opened up the spec earlier this year? If you’re doing multi-threaded programming, what tools are you using? Drop me a note.

Comments

Sun has bought up MySQL. They will be rewriting parts of their database to better perform on the UltraSPARC processors. Sun has got the technical people of getting this out the door in a very reasonable period of time. This will make use of almost all the processing power available on their chips.

The chip design itself is also open source. I expect it will evolve quickly to fill in required missing pieces for attracting a number of other high end applications.

In the meantime SUN can also provide Intel processors in the boxes they are selling. The buyer chooses the machine that best fits their application. The money still goes to SUN….

I am forcasting SUNny skies in six to 12 months.

[Jul 30, 2008] scdbackup 0.9.0

scdbackup is a simplified CD/DVD backup program for Linux. It can back up large amounts of data on one or more media, with no special tools needed for reading the backup. It supports ISO9660 filesystems and afio archives. Its special features are automatic division of data into multiple volumes, verification of write success, incremental backups, a search and restore helper for large ISO9660 backups. CDs get written via cdrecord, wodim, cdrskin, or xorriso. DVDs and BDs get written via growisofs, cdrskin, or xorriso.

Changes: The configuration now allows the choice of xorriso as the ISO9660 formatter and as the burn program. This enables scdbackup to split oversized files without needing a large disk buffer. Remote scdbackup installations may be used via SSH instead of a burn program. Regular expressions can exclude files from the backup if their leafnames match. Media types BD-R and BD-RE are permitted but have not been tested yet.

[Jun 20, 2008] BitRock Download Web Stacks

BitRock Web Stacks provide you with the easiest way to install and run the LAMP platform in a variety of Linux distributions. BitRock Web Stacks are free to download and use under the terms of the Apache License 2.0. To learn more about our licensing policies, click here.

You can find up-to-date WAMP, LAMP and MAMP stacks at the BitNami open source website. In addition to those, you will find freely available application stacks for popular open source software such as Joomla!, Drupal, Mediawiki and Roller. Just like BitRock Web Stacks, they include everything you need to run the software and come packaged in a fast, easy to use installer.

BitRock Web Stacks contain several open source tools and libraries. Please be sure that you read and comply with all of the applicable licenses. If you are a MySQL Network subscriber (or would like to purchase a subscription) and want to use a version of LAMPStack that contains the MySQL Certified binaries, please send an email to sales@bitrock.com.

For further information, including supported platforms, component versions, documentation, and support, please visit our solutions section.

[Feb 28, 2008] Mk-boot-usb a Script to Create Multiple-Bootable USB Sticks

Mk-boot-usb is a perl script to create multiple-bootable usb sticks (usb keys / usb flash drives). It wipes out an entire usb stick, partitions it, creates file systems on it, installs grub, and installs a minimal linux on it. Mk-boot-usb is meant to speed up and lower the barrier of entry for creating bootable usb sticks. The usb stick will immediately become bootable (using the minimal linux), and more useful distributions can then be installed into other partitions manually simply by (1) copying any Live CD into each partition (2) modifying grub's configuration file.

This program will destroy all of your data in the usb stick. It may even destroy all of your data in the harddisk and/or those on any storage device attached to it if you are not careful! Additionaly, this program is written with absolutely no security consideration in mind. Please use it at your own risk.

A snapshot of the most current version is here: mk-boot-usb.tgz

This program is distributed under the terms of GNU General Public License, version 3 or later.

The following utilities are used by mk-boot-usb: perl, sfdisk, mkfs (mkfs.vfat and mkfs.ext2), grub, wget.

In addition, it will use wget to download ttylinux into its working directory the first time it is executed.

It is recommended that you also install qemu so that the usb stick can be immediately tested after it is processed.

This program is written with absolutely no security consideration in mind

Interactive Usage

Say you have a 1GB usb stick and you want to put into the usb stick Damn Small Linux 4.2.5 and slax 6.0.0 (other than the default ttylinux). Mk-boot-usb's default grub boot menu happens to contain entries for these two distributions, and therefore they require the least of your efforts. These are recommended to users who try mk-boot-usb the very first time.

So we will allocate rougly 60MB and 240MB for them, respectively, leaving about 700MB for your usb as an ordinary storage device.

First make sure that this usb stick is _not_ attached to the computer. Then extract mk-boot-usb.tgz, cd into the directory, and run mk-boot-usb as follows:

        ./mk-boot-usb

Mk-boot-usb will ask you to insert the stick. Please do so, and wait a few seconds for the lcd on the stick to flash and stop flashing. Also make sure to close all file managers that popped up after the insertion if your version of linux auto mounts usb sticks. Now press enter to continue. Mk-boot-usb compares your /dev/sd* before and after the insertion to figure out which stick you want to wipe out.

Next mk-boot-usb will display a partial listing of the files it finds in your usb stick. Make sure that this is indeed the stick you want to wipe out. It then determins the true size of the usb stick (in MB) and ask you to type in a list of numbers that add up to the true size exactly. It will refuse to proceed if the sum does not equal to the total size exactly. This is to ensure that you are wiping out the right usb stick. (or at least one that happens to have exactly the same size :-) ) Let's say it shows 968 for the 1GB stick. Then you would type something like:

        668 60 240

Leading and/or trailing spaces are ignored. Once you agree to proceed, it will create a primary vfat partition of size 668MB, where it will install grub and ttylinux, plus two ext2 partitions of sizes 60 and 240 each. (Ext3 is too slow for usb sticks.)

Now you can test your bootable usb stick by typing qemu -usb /dev/sdz (or whichever device you are processing) if you have qemu installed. ttylinux's login id is 'root' and password 'root' (both without quotes).

Batch Usage

Please read the first page of the source code, where the options are commented. Be very careful in batch mode, especially with the -d option. Dangerous!

Installing Live CD's into Other Partitions

For DSL 4.2.5 just copy everything on the live CD into one of the appropriate empty partition of the usb stick, and modify /boot/grub/menu.lst in the first partition of the usb stick. Note that with grub syntax, the first primary partition is called (hd0,0) when this very stick is being booted, and its first logical partition is called (hd0,4). This is about all that you need to modify.

Ditto for slax 6.0.0. BTW, slax automatically records any changes you make during the session into the /slax/changes directory of its partition. Think about it: you copied from a live CD which packs 400MB worth of software into 200MB space, and yet now it works like it cared nothing about having had to deal with a read-only device in its prior incarnation! Slax just rocks!

For other live CD's, you have to translate syslinux's configuration file syntax into grub's. Use DSL and slax entries as successful translation examples.

Installing a Live System into the USB Stick

Let's say you use Ubuntu daily on your desktop and you would like to install it to a usb stick. First of all you need a usb stick with large enough memory since such a live system is not compressed like DSL and slax are. Secondly you have to boot from some other device (maybe from a live CD, or maybe from the slax partition of the usb stick you just created!) and copy everything from your Ubuntu partition into one of the stick's empty partitions. By now you also know that /boot/grub/menu.lst on the usb stick's first partition has to be modified.

Here are a few additional important steps to take:

1. Modify /etc/fstab on the target partition of the usb stick. Root device should be specified by UUID or LABEL since you don't know its true name in a mobile environment. Add 'noatime' to the options. Remove most static entries. Mount /var and /tmp as tmpfs.
2. Anything else? Your comments please.

[Feb 19, 2008] Discover the possibilities of the -proc directory by Federico Kereki

February 15, 2008  | Linux.com

The /proc directory is a strange beast. It doesn't really exist, yet you can explore it. Its zero-length files are neither binary nor text, yet you can examine and display them. This special directory holds all the details about your Linux system, including its kernel, processes, and configuration parameters. By studying the /proc directory, you can learn how Linux commands work, and you can even do some administrative tasks.

Under Linux, everything is managed as a file; even devices are accessed as files (in the /dev directory). Although you might think that "normal" files are either text or binary (or possibly device or pipe files), the /proc directory contains a stranger type: virtual files. These files are listed, but don't actually exist on disk; the operating system creates them on the fly if you try to read them.

Most virtual files always have a current timestamp, which indicates that they are constantly being kept up to date. The /proc directory itself is created every time you boot your box. You need to work as root to be able to examine the whole directory; some of the files (such as the process-related ones) are owned by the user who launched it. Although almost all the files are read-only, a few writable ones (notably in /proc/sys) allow you to change kernel parameters. (Of course, you must be careful if you do this.)

[Jan 24, 2008] freshmeat.net Project details for cgipaf

The package also contain Solaris binary of chpasswd clone, which is extremely useful for mass changes of passwords in corporate environments which include Solaris and other Unixes that does not have chpasswd utility (HP-UX is another example in this category).   Version 1.3.2 now includes Solaris binary of chpasswd which works on Solaris 9 and 10.

cgipaf is a combination of three CGI programs.

• passwd.cgi, which allow users to update their password,
• viewmailcfg.cgi, which allows users to view their current mail configuration,
• mailcfg.cgi, which updates the mail configuration.

All programs use PAM for user authentication. It is possible to run a script to update SAMBA passwords or NIS configuration when a password is changed. mailcfg.cgi creates a .procmailrc in the user's home directory. A user with too many invalid logins can be locked. The minimum and maximum UID can be set in the configuration file, so you can specify a range of UIDs that are allowed to use cgipaf.

[Dec 21, 2007] LXER interview with John Hull - the manager of the Dell Linux engineering team

The original sales estimates for Ubuntu computers was around 1% of the total sales, or about 20,000 systems annually. Have the expectations been met so far? Will Dell ever release sales figures for Ubuntu systems?

The program so far is meeting expectations. Customers are certainly showing their interest and buying systems preloaded with Ubuntu, but it certainly won't overtake Microsoft Windows anytime soon. Dell has a policy not to release sales numbers, so I don't expect us to make Ubuntu sales figures available publicly.

[Dec 21, 2007] Red Hat to get new CEO from Delta Air Lines Underexposed - CNET News.com

"When you take them out of the big buildings, without the imprimatur of Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Oracle, or HP around them, they just didn't hold up."

Szulik, who took over as CEO from Bob Young in 1999 just a few months after its initial public offering, said he's stepping down because of family health issues.

"For the last nine months, I've struggled with health issues in my family," and that priority couldn't be balanced with work, Szulik said in an interview. "This job requires a 7x24, 110 percent commitment."

Szulik, who remains chairman of the board, praised Whitehurst in a statement, saying he's a "hands-on guy who will be a strong cultural fit at Red Hat" and "a talented executive who has successfully led a global technology-focused organization at Delta."

On a conference call, Szulik said Whitehurst stood "head and shoulders" above other candidates interviewed in a recruiting process. He was a programmer earlier in his career and runs four versions of Linux at home, he said.

Moreover, Szulik said he wasn't satisfied with more traditional tech executives who were interviewed.

"What we encountered was in many cases was a lack of understanding of open-source software development and of our model," he said. During the interview, he added about the tech industry candidates, "When you take them out of the big buildings, without the imprimatur of Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Oracle, or HP around them, they just didn't hold up."

The surprise move was announced as the leading Linux seller announced results for its third quarter of fiscal 2008. Its revenue increased 28 percent to $135.4 million and net income went up 12 percent to $20.3 million, or 10 cents per share. The company also raised estimates for full-year results to revenue of $521 million to $523 million and earnings of about 70 cents per share.

[Dec 1, 2007]  Linux Initial RAM Disk (initrd) Overview

developerWorks

The initial RAM disk (initrd) is an initial root file system that is mounted prior to when the real root file system is available. The initrd is bound to the kernel and loaded as part of the kernel boot procedure. The kernel then mounts this initrd as part of the two-stage boot process to load the modules to make the real file systems available and get at the real root file system.

"The initrd contains a minimal set of directories and executables to achieve this, such as the insmod tool to install kernel modules into the kernel..."

[Nov 30, 2007] Got more than a gig of RAM and 32-bit Linux Here's how to use it By Bruce Byfield

September 21, 2007 | Linux.com

Nowadays, many machines are running with 2-4 gigabytes of RAM, and their owners are discovering a problem: When they run 32-bit GNU/Linux distributions, their extra RAM is not being used. Fortunately, correcting the problem is only a matter of installing or building a kernel with a few specific parameters enabled or disabled.

The problem exists because 32-bit Linux kernels are designed to access only 1GB of RAM by default. The workaround for this limitation is vaguely reminiscent of the virtual memory solution once used by DOS, with a high memory area of virtual memory being constantly mapped to physical addresses. This high memory can be enabled for up to 4GB by one kernel parameter, or up to 64GB on a Pentium Pro or higher processor with another parameter. However, since these parameters have not been needed on most machines until recently, the standard kernels in many distributions have not enabled them.

Increasingly, many distributions are enabling high memory for 4GB. Ubuntu default kernels have been enabling this process at least since version 6.10, and so have Fedora 7's. By contrast, Debian's default 486 kernels do not. Few distros, if any, enable 64GB by default.

To check whether your kernel is configured to use all your RAM, enter the command free -m. This command gives you the total amount of unused RAM on your system, as well as the size of your swap file, in megabytes. If the total memory is 885, then no high memory is enabled on your system (the rest of the first gigabyte is reserved by the kernel for its own purposes). Similarly, if the result shows over 1 gigabyte but less than 4GB when you know you have more, then the 4GB parameter is enabled, but not the 64GB one. In either case, you will need to add a new kernel to take full advantage of your RAM.

Managing Initscripts with Red Hat's chkconfig

This article was EXTREMELY useful! Thanks for writing it!

[Oct 31, 2007] freshmeat.net Project details for fio

fio 1.17.2
 by axboe - Tue, Oct 30th 2007 10:39 PDT

About: fio is an I/O tool meant to be used both for benchmark and stress/hardware verification. It has support for 12 different types of I/O engines (sync, mmap, libaio, posixaio, SG v3, splice, null, network, syslet, guasi, and more), I/O priorities (for newer Linux kernels), rate I/O, forked or threaded jobs, and much more. It can work on block devices as well as files. fio accepts job descriptions in a simple-to-understand text format. Several example job files are included. fio displays all sorts of I/O performance information. It supports Linux, FreeBSD, and OpenSolaris.

Changes: ETA display fixes. A new psync I/O engine. A man page has been added. There are documentation improvements. I/O verification fixes have been made. A --readonly option has been added. There are vmsplice() improvements. CPU burn engine fixes. Updated to the newest syslet kernel support.

 

[Aug 26, 2007] How To Use NTFS Write Support (ntfs-3g) On Fedora 7

Write access to NTFS permits some using it virtual machines

"Normally Linux systems can only read from Windows NTFS partitions, but not write to them which can be very annoying if you have to work with Linux and Windows systems. This is where ntfs-3g comes into play. ntfs-3g is an open source, freely available NTFS driver for Linux with read and write support. This tutorial shows how to use ntfs-3g on a Fedora 7 desktop to read from and write to Windows NTFS drives and partitions.

See also:

How To Use NTFS Drives/Partitions Under Ubuntu Edgy Eft
Our-Picks: Access Your Linux Partitions Under Windows(Mar 05, 2007)

zfs_linux

data=writeback While the writeback option provides lower data consistency guarantees than the journal or ordered modes, some applications show very significant speed improvement when it is used. For example, speed improvements can be seen when heavy synchronous writes are performed, or when applications create and delete large volumes of small files, such as delivering a large flow of short email messages. The results of the testing effort described in Chapter 3 illustrate this topic.

When the writeback option is used, data consistency is similar to that provided by the ext2 file system. However, file system integrity is maintained continuously during normal operation in the ext3 file system.

In the event of a power failure or system crash, the file system may not be recoverable if a significant portion of data was held only in system memory and not on permanent storage. In this case, the filesystem must be recreated from backups. Often, changes made since the file system was last backed up are inevitably lost.

[Aug 7, 2007] Linux Replacing atime

[Aug 7, 2007] Expect plays a crucial role in network management  by Cameron Laird

31 Jul 2007 | www.ibm.com/developerworks

If you manage systems and networks, you need Expect.

More precisely, why would you want to be without Expect? It saves hours common tasks otherwise demand. Even if you already depend on Expect, though, you might not be aware of the capabilities described below.

Expect automates command-line interactions

You don't have to understand all of Expect to begin profiting from the tool; let's start with a concrete example of how Expect can simplify your work on AIX® or other operating systems:

Suppose you have logins on several UNIX® or UNIX-like hosts and you need to change the passwords of these accounts, but the accounts are not synchronized by Network Information Service (NIS), Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), or some other mechanism that recognizes you're the same person logging in on each machine. Logging in to a specific host and running the appropriate passwd command doesn't take long—probably only a minute, in most cases. And you must log in "by hand," right, because there's no way to script your password?

Wrong. In fact, the standard Expect distribution (full distribution) includes a command-line tool (and a manual page describing its use!) that precisely takes over this chore. passmass (see Resources) is a short script written in Expect that makes it as easy to change passwords on twenty machines as on one. Rather than retyping the same password over and over, you can launch passmass once and let your desktop computer take care of updating each individual host. You save yourself enough time to get a bit of fresh air, and multiple opportunities for the frustration of mistyping something you've already entered.

The limits of Expect

This passmass application is an excellent model—it illustrates many of Expect's general properties:

• It's a great return on investment: The utility is already written, freely downloadable, easy to install and use, and saves time and effort.
• Its contribution is "superficial," in some sense. If everything were "by the book"—if you had NIS or some other domain authentication or single sign-on system in place—or even if login could be scripted, there'd be no need for passmass. The world isn't polished that way, though, and Expect is very handy for grabbing on to all sorts of sharp edges that remain. Maybe Expect will help you create enough free time to rationalize your configuration so that you no longer need Expect. In the meantime, take advantage of it.
• As distributed, passmass only logs in by way of telnet, rlogin, or slogin. I hope all current developerWorks readers have abandoned these protocols for ssh, which passmasss does not fully support.
• On the other hand, almost everything having to do with Expect is clearly written and freely available. It only takes three simple lines (at most) to enhance passmass to respect ssh and other options.

You probably know enough already to begin to write or modify your own Expect tools. As it turns out, the passmass distribution actually includes code to log in by means of ssh, but omits the command-line parsing to reach that code. Here's one way you might modify the distribution source to put ssh on the same footing as telnet and the other protocols:
Listing 1. Modified passmass fragment that accepts the -ssh argument                   

            ...
         } "-rlogin" {
            set login "rlogin"
            continue
        } "-slogin" {
            set login "slogin"
            continue
        } "-ssh" {
            set login "ssh"
            continue
        } "-telnet" {
            set login "telnet"
            continue
           ...
     

In my own code, I actually factor out more of this "boilerplate." For now, though, this cascade of tests, in the vicinity of line #100 of passmass, gives a good idea of Expect's readability. There's no deep programming here—no need for object-orientation, monadic application, co-routines, or other subtleties. You just ask the computer to take over typing you usually do for yourself. As it happens, this small step represents many minutes or hours of human effort saved. 

[Jul 30, 2007] Due to problems on high loads in Linux 2.6.23 kernel the Linux kernel process scheduler has been completely ripped out and replaced with a completely new one called Completely Fair Scheduler (CFS) modeled after Solaris 10 scheduler. 

This is will not affect the current Linux distributions (Suse 9, 10 and RHEL 4.x) as they forked the kernel and essentially develop it as a separate tree.

But it will affect any future Red Hat or Suse distribution (Suse 11 and RHEL 6 respectively).

How it will fair in comparison with Solaris 10 remains to be seen:

The main idea of CFS's design can be summed up in a single sentence: CFS basically models an "ideal, precise multi-tasking CPU" on real hardware.

Ideal multi-tasking CPU" is a (non-existent) CPU that has 100% physical power and which can run each task at precise equal speed, in parallel, each at 1/n running speed. For example: if there are 2 tasks running then it runs each at exactly 50% speed.

[Jul 11, 2007] Tectonic Text freedom with Red Hat's Liberation fonts

[Jun 14, 2007] developerWorks AIX and UNIX Technical library view

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Using Samba as a primary domain controller Open source Samba turns a UNIX(R) or Linux(R) system into a file and print server for Microsoft(R) Windows(R) network clients. Tom Syroid dishes up a juicy tutorial that shows you how to configure Samba as the primary domain controller on an xSeries(R) server.

 

Red Hat What me worry Between the Lines ZDNet.com

Dan Farber & Larry Dignan

December 21st, 2006

Red Hat: What me worry?

When Red Hat holds court with financial analysts later today to discuss the company's fiscal third quarter results the conversation is likely to go like this:

Analyst: What is the impact on Oracle's Unbreakable Linux on your business? How can you compete?

Red Hat exec: We're not seeing any direct threat. Billings are looking up.

Analyst: What about this Microsoft-Novell partnership?

Red Hat exec: Can't we talk about our quarter just a little here?

And then you'll get a lot of questions about Red Hat's forecast for future billings so analysts can surmise the answers on their own. Red Hat, which provides Linux and open source software, is expected to report earnings of 12 cents a share on sales of $104 million.

The competition is circling around Red Hat, but it's too early to see the effects. Are folks going to jump from Red Hat? Possibly, but it won't be this quarter. Or the next.

How do I know? Let's evaluate what those aforementioned Red Hat killers are saying lately. Oracle said it had 9,000 downloads of Unbreakable Linux in the first 30 days after announcing it. Big question is what happened beyond that 30 days and were the downloads front-end loaded indicating waning interest.

As for the Microsoft-Novell deal, the two parties announced that three financial services firms are getting SUSE Linux Enterprise Subscription certificates from Microsoft.

What's all of this mean for Red Hat? Probably a decent quarter after a lot of worrying. What's it mean for technology buyers? Some serious leverage as Red Hat subscriptions expire in a few months.

UBS analyst Heather Bellini said it will take about six months to see any dent in Red Hat's business.

"Our conversations with Linux channel partners indicate that Red Hat's business in the third quarter was largely unaffected and any impact will take at least six months to play out. While the resellers were equally split on whether Red Hat will have to lower prices, we believe pricing pressures are inevitable as customers will at the very least use Oracle's pricing to negotiate deeper discounts."

WR Hambrecht analyst Robert Stimson said in a research note that Red Hat's products are "sticky and deeply embedded within its enterprise customers."

"We are expecting a roughly in-line quarter to both our and Street estimates, as we believe recent concerns over competitive pressures from Oracle and Novell/Microsoft have been overblown. We believe investors will be most closely focused on billings growth as the most meaningful metric to determine any negative effect from competition, as well as management's commentary on the JBoss integration process."

In fact, the integration of open source software maker JBoss is the more immediate worry about Red Hat. Rumors have swirled for weeks about Marc Fleury leaving, but thus far no formal announcement.

The skinny from Stimson:

"Comments from JBoss head Marc Fleury in late November regarding a perceived lack of investment from Red Hat raised investors' concerns about the integration of the JBoss business into the Red Hat stack. Shortly after, Fleury took paternity leave, which some investors read into as a sign of discord. Although we believe these concerns are overblown, we will be looking closely at commentary from management regarding the progress of the JBoss integration."

[Dec 21, 2006] Linux Today - OSNews Has the Desktop Linux Bubble Burst

Linux Today is not responsible for the content of the message below. Don Ferguson - Subject: Excellent Points ( Dec 21, 2006, 17:07:53 ) I am no fan of glossier, fancier and more processor and memory intensive user interface graphics. But a lot of people are. More importantly, there is real movement on the Mac and Windows front from a user interface perspective and these changes will define computing experiences and desires. I do not think Windows Vista is a Linux killer. But, Leopard is. Apple has proven you can do *nix and make it a visually pleasing, easy to use, and productive environment for people. Macs run Linux programs, Mac programs, and Windows in VMs or as a dual boot option. Apple has created everything that Linux ever wanted to be but couldn't achieve because it was unable to attract enough people to the KDE and/or Gnome. I almost wonder if what we are seeing with KDE and Gnome is symptomatic of "open source". The movement relies on coolness to bring in new, young coders, and its anti-establishment exture to bring in rebels. Linux, KDE or Gnome are getting less cool by the day. And Linux and several open source projects are so tied into corporations that the work of rebels is simply being used to increase the fortunes of billionare wannabees.

Slashdot Oracle and Red Hat begin battle for the Enterprise