Although I was away for a week, I managed to get a few things accomplished over the weekend. I’ll go ahead and relist my list of things to do now and then add some comments about them below…
- install VirtualBox (done but not running/needs configuration)
- install VMWare Workstation (I have a license for either 6.0 or 6.5 on ebay for linux x64 a while back for $5, I was the only one who bid. I have the iso somewhere on one of my drives)
- mount all my ntfs drives and setup nfs support (all done before I started writing this except for 2 folders I want mounted in specific places)
- test my remote and local network ssh login (should be setup already, except forwarding the port on the router)
- get Google Chrome working
- test audio and video playback (can I watch hulu?)
- get my VM’s to launch and successfully run programs (should be easy after installing the correct apps and configuring them, worried about the ATI drivers)
- install Firefox (my backup browser for when web pages don’t work in chrome)
- test remote access to FreeBSD for my mounted ntfs drives (I have a friend in Korea that is willing to help)
- begin converting my ntfs drives to a better FS
- convert my drives from MBR to GPT to utilize GUID’s
- find a port/package manager GUI interface for KDE
- eliminate all traces of Gnome from my computer (several packages I have installed have dependencies that have Gnome in the name, need to find out if they are necessary and nuke em if not!!)
- build my first kernel
- get wine installed and working (in case I have something that will refuses to run in a VM)
- either install some older DOS games (<—two different links there) or find something newer out there install and get them working (VM or wine, just for fun and to say “oh yeah I love that game, I still it installed on my system…”)
- get Xorg port forwarding to work with cygwin.
- setup a respectable backup system (currently my backup drive turned into emergency storage when I had a few HDD’s all fail within weeks of each other last year, now I have new drives and enough storage space, I even copied the data off the external backup, but have not yet done a backup of FreeBSD. Might make this item number one!!)
- get java working (part of getting hulu to run)
- get flash working (part of getting hulu to run)
I guess I’ll start at the top.
1. 75% in progress, troubleshooting and more testing needed. I have gotten my user added the the “VirtualBox” user group, but I get this error when I try to execute VirtualBox from the command line ”VirtualBox: supR3HardenedExecDir: couldn’t read “”, errno=2 cchLink=-1“ I tried loading VirtualBox from KDE and it was loading for about 12 seconds then nothing happend, also it did not install a manual page. I’ll have to do some forum surfing to figure this one out. this exact error is referrenced in the FreeBSD handbook noting that it should only occur if you are using an older version on VirtualBox.
2. 0% not started. no updates yet, holding off till I get some of these other tasks complete.
3. 100% complete. everything is automounting at bootup and it is doing it where I want it to.
4. 100% complete. I am working almost exclusively via ssh now and can connect to it remotely as tested via an Android cell phone ssh client (props to connectbot)
5. 10% in progress, researched only. Chrome can be installed as a Debian, Ubuntu, openSUSE, or Fedora package, I just need to set my system up to handle RPMs and I might be able to get it to install, hopefully the newest version will work easier than last august when everyone was trying to hack the install to make it work, especially since every forum I went to never had a successful complete port available and there were no posts from 2010.
6. duplicate issue. going to delete this one, as #19 and #20 pretty much sum it up.
7. 30% in progress, trouble shooting and additional testing required. as noteded else where VirtualBox is installed but not able to run, and I have not started on VMWare.
8. 90% complete. Firefox 3.0.14 is installed and running. this appears to be the newest version available for FreeBSD according to the ports tree, as FreeBSD does not get listed on the Mozilla Download Page. Ha HA the jokes on me, when 3.6 came out they moved it to /usr/ports/www/firefox and left 3.0 in the /usr/ports/firefox3 folder, so I apparently have installed the older version… now I have to uninstall it and install the newer one…
9. 90% in progress, trouble shooting and more testing needed. self testing shows that a user is able to ssh in and access the drives, but is not able to ftp in and access the drives. I used “sudo ln -s /mnt/<directory> /home/<user>/<directory>” I haven’t used links much and need to see if the -s (symbolic) is what is preventing the user from accessing the data via ftp.
10. 0% not started. no updates yet, holding off till I get some of these other tasks complete.
11. 20% in progress, 1 out of 5 drives is currently running with GPT. the new 1.5TB drive was setup with GPT when installed into the system. the new 500GB drive (FreeBSD boot drive) is still MBR as the FreeBSD fdisk application did not have an option for setting the drive boot record to GPT, although I have found documentation on converting the FreeBSD boot drive to GPT.
12. 0% in progress, initial research turned up nothing useful.
13. -30% not started, situation worsening, additional packages labeled as “gnome-xxxx” or “xxxxx-gnome” have been added as dependencies during other package installations. 
14. 10% in progress, initial research has turned up useful information; however I am not currently in a possition to proceed.
15. 0% not started. no updates yet, holding off till I get some of these other tasks complete.
16. 0% not started. no updates yet, holding off till I get some of these other tasks complete, will require at least one of #’s 1, 2, 7, or 15 to be complete before work can begin.
17. 0% not started. no updates yet, holding off till I get some of these other tasks complete, not a priority and very near the bottom of the list of things to do.
18. 20% in progress. I know it is not recommended for backups, but I have rsync installed and am looking into using it. I will continue to look for alternatives; however I like the this setup. I would like to have the system fully setup before I start making backups, but I will probably get this completed in the next 48-72 hours, even if just running it with rsync.
19. 60% in progress, I thought I had it installed, but when I went to the test if you have java installed page of www.java.com it failed to test my java installation (might need to add the plugin for firefox, will check); however the java download page only lists “Windows, Mac OS, and Linux” as OS choices, so I will have to do more research.
20. 40% in progress, I thought I had it installed, but when I went to hulu it told me I need java 10.0.22, also amd.com told me I need the flash plugin installed; however again there is no FreeBSD listing on the download page as a supported OS, so I will have to do more research.
21. 100% complete. (I know I added this one) get Yakuake working in KDE, well I did a “sudo pkg_add -r yakuake” and it started downloading, it has about 6 dependencies and those had about 150 dependencies, most of which I already had installed. the problem I saw was it force downloaded KDE 3.5 and all of it’s dependencies, I hope that doesn’t screw anything up. If I remember correctly from when KDE 4.0 first came out they specifically named the port KDE4 instead of just KDE so that there would not be conflicts on systems that had both versions installed. after it finished I ran a “sudo pkgdb -F” it found a lot of stale dependencies and fixed them, one thing I noticed fly by was firefox 3.0.## which tells me I need to check my firefox and see if it is 3.0 or 3.6…
22. 10% researched only. Get Picasa installed and working, this will be just like chrome and will require using RPM packages.
start off with some non-techie stuff first…
I head back to see my surgeon next Monday, where he will tell me that in another week or two I should start putting some weight on my leg (toe touch, or partial weight bearing?) when at my PT. I am also hoping he will tell me it is okay to get my incision wet, as it has been making it very difficult to take showers!
ok, on to the good stuff.
So, I am not at home and do not have my desktop machine available for use for the last week, I have been going through withdrawal… but having to work on someone else’s machine, and my wife’s laptop (I think I mentioned before, I gave her mine, and sold her old one) has taught me one important lesson, why I prefer Linux.
My number one reason for preferring Linux over Windows is system maintenance. What do I mean? well, I mean keeping everything up to date, this latest round of Adobe patching should make this make sense to everyone. I don’t use Acrobat on my Linux machines for this reason. However; back to the point, when I need to check for updates on my Linux machine I open Yakuake with a quick hit of F12 and type “sudo yum update” and it comes back and tells me every single thing installed on my system that has an update available, period, end of statement. On windows, I have to launch 5-8 different apps, find their “check for updates” button/link and wait for the results (I have learned by doing this that OpenOffice.org does not notify you of a new version being released, only if there are updates for your version. example, I have 3.1 installed, and 3.2 is now available. clicking the check for updates menu option tells my “There are no available updates for this version” (maybe not word for word, but that is just about what it says). I run windows update, Acrobat Update, Java update, Picasa update, Chrome update, Firefox update, and on and on… (yes I know there is an Adobe Updater, but I don’t know how to initiate it in Windows, and never cared enough to look it up, but now that I have mentioned it I sure I found instructions and have put a link to them here).
Simple and easy to manage, most distros even let you run their package manager and it has a button to click to check for updates for your system, making it easier and more time consuming all at once to do the same thing. (Yakuake is always running and it takes me about 1.5 seconds to type that line into the terminal, it takes a lot longer to load the package manager from the application menu and then click the check for updates button, but you don’t have to type that way!)
The actual GUI interface for Windows an Linux and even MAC are so similar these days, that I don’t care which I am using as far as that is concerned. I have come to the understanding that there will always be applications/games for an OS, other than the one I am using, that I want to use/play (take iPhone for example, they have the best Air Traffic Controller game I have played, and I’ve hunted those down and played quite a number of them, but I don’t own anything made by Apple, and probably won’t ever, unless the 2nd gen iPad totally rocks… but I will be getting an Android Tablet this year (possibly the Notion Ink Adam, or the HTC Google Chrome OS tablet), so I still probably won’t get an iPad). My concern at this point, as I spend more and more time as a Unix Admin is maintenance. The system I use at home needs to be practically maint free, as most Linux and Unix machines are, they will run for years without being touched by an admin, the best I know of are an AIX Server and a OpenVMS server, the AIX server has been running since 1991 and has never been patched, updated, reconfigured, or messed with in any way. It is setup to contact a NIM server for logins, so no new users have ever been added to it, it has never crashed, never lost power, never been rebooted. That to me is the greatest achievement of humankind (in technology anyways, and some of these companies need to take a look at the AIX OS and learn something from it!!!). The other machine, the OpenVMS machine has been running since before 1994, but has not been patched, never been upgraded, never been rebooted, since 1994. now I know next to nothing about OpenVMS, and have not personally logged into the machine itself, but a friend and co-worker of mine used to be the sole admin for the OpenVMS machines at that company and although that one is the only one like this, it is still running today without interference from humans. I am sure some other machines are out there doing the same, but these are two that I know. The longest Windows Server I have heard of running without rebooting or crashing was about 2.5 – 3 years, after which the hardware components in the server failed and the machine was replaced. Some people have told me about Windows servers being up for 4 years and then being restarted by some new guy, but I have no validation of it and they could not give me a more exact time frame.
not sure if I made a compelling argument or not, but I need some medication and to go prop my leg up, so I am done here. Also expecting UPS sooner or later for an over night supersave shipment… and it takes me 5 mins to get downstairs… :)
First, I went with Occam’s razor on my ATI driver issue. after reading close to 20 web pages (mostly forum posts, but some blogs too) and came up with renaming the xorg.conf file and rebooting… This got me up and working again, now I just need to check and find out if it is still using the ATI drivers (I think not, but I’ll get there sooner or later… not on the top of my list of things to do, considering my leg). So, I’ll get back to that later. Now, on to a very popular topic, the Apple iPad, I love the jokes, made many of my own, but all things considered, I won’t be buying one unless the price drops significantly. Else maybe when the gen 2 comes out. My main complaints are the same as most everyone else. No flash support pretty much kills it, I mean that covers nearly 50% of the web, and closer to 70% of the websites I frequent. Not that I like having to deal with flash on websites, but there are just too many web pages that will not function at all without flash that I find it to be a major FAIL on any business to not support flash at this point in time. The multitasking issue is another big one for me, as on my computer I frequently have 20 or so different windows open (mostly web pages) sometimes as many as 30 web pages plus 3 or 4 other programs. Now I understand this allows the system to devote 100% of it’s processing power to the app you are currently using, but most of the things I leave open need constant, even if its once every 10 seconds, attention from the OS/CPU. Last complaint… NO E-INK!!!
Now for some good things, I think the price is great for what you get, the storage sizes are fantastic at those prices, they included bluetooth which although I use it semi-regularly with my current devices I find it to be one of those Boy Scout things you need, in order to “be prepared” at all times. The battery life, well I’ll believe it when I see it. a 1 GHz processor is also fantastic, although not unheard of, nor top of the line. I like the fact they kept the iphone’s compass, accelerometer, it auto detects the ambient light to auto-adjust the back lighting (I hope), it supports 720p and can output 576p via component cables. So there are a lot more good things than bad, but for a WEB and ebook reader (the things I see as it’s main purpose) I think it just plain fails by not supporting flash. Now if Google can get it’s chrome browser on it, then I may just be tempted to get one. Else I am holding out for a Android/Chrome OS tablet that’ll rock my socks off…
Seems to be handling both the Java and the Flash with no problems, just a bit of formatting issues, as I cannot get it to change the default 800×600 resolution. Tried to watch a video on Hulu earlier too, took several minutes to load the starting commercial and then the page went non-responsive, check out the screen shots below…
right looks like the flash is not happening… the pages were actually locked up and non-functioning. so no hulu, no youtube, and no file uploads for my blog… will give it a shot again later. But for now, I’m finishing this post via Win7. Hulu did load and I was able to select a video clip to play, and then everything went down hill… will try again later…
I did notice a couple more things, first you have to log into Chromium using your google account, but everytime you go to a google website, you have to log in with your google account… second, besides not being able to change you screen resolution, I can’t change the screen saver time out either, so basically there are no system wide configuration options yet (ie. windows control panel).
On a good note, the web browser is faster in the virtual machine than IE is in Win7…
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