Linux on Nanikore

NaNoWriMo 2014

Fri, 24 Oct 2014 12:17:32 +0000

It has been three years since my first (and last) attempt at National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in 2011, and though I enjoyed it, and was successful, I just didn’t get to do it in either 2012 or 2013. However, that was then, and this is now, and I’m ready to do it again. I even have a story in mind, and potentially, just potentially, a title. I’m terrible at coming up with story titles. Also, I use too many commas.

If you have no idea what NaNoWriMo is, check out their FAQ, and by all means give it a try - it doesn’t start till November 1st., so there still the option to create an account.

This year again, I’ll be using Scrivener (also a sponsor of the event) but this time, it’ll be mostly written on my GNU Linux based laptop in the beta version of Scrivener.

Leaving Product: Microsoft Technet

Fri, 26 Jul 2013 14:52:28 +0000

Actually, to be more accurate, Microsoft is retiring it’s venerable TechNet, with renewal only available until the end of August 2013 for one final year. Mine was actually due for renewal this month for one last time, but I’ve decided to bite the bullet and not renew. It used to cost ~ 20,000yen to start, and 16,000yen to renew, so that’s [sort of] saved.

TechNet [Standard] was a way people in the IT business could get a massive range of Microsoft products to install, test, break and generally play with and get to understand, all at a reasonable price. The caveat: no production use - should really be for lab and test setups.

I started mine in 2010 and have used it a lot for learning bits about aspects of Windows and other MS products I didn’t know about, and trying to get time with systems I would never have otherwise been able to touch, or have reason to use.

Microsoft hasn’t definitively stated a reason they’ve retired it, but many things point to, if not piracy, at least abuse of the system. Some sites, including reputable places like LifeHacker had suggested Technet Standard as a cheap way to get all your software. Over the years then, Microsoft had dropped the number of licenses per application/OS, from 10 to 2, and whereas previously the EULA said the licenses for installs would work after a subscription had ended - that’s no longer the case. That does point a finger in the general direction of abuse in some ways

I actually asked Technet support how long my installs would work after my July 31st finish date, and all they would say was that I was required to remove all Technet subscription software by the end date. That’s fine.

The only long term installs I had was a Windows 8 Pro box, and a recent Server 2012 server I was using on my home server to play with Storage Spaces, both of which I’ve already rebuilt - the former with a Windows 8 Standard license I bought, and the server with a GNU/Linux Mint install, using LVM to replace Storage Spaces.

Microsoft has said that many wont need Technet going forwards, since their 30-90 day trials should be enough. Given that many of my installs were VMs, that sounds fine to me, and since it’s taken very little effort for me to get off Technet, I don’t have too negative a view of it.

However, I can understand a lot of IT Pros, small businesses and such feeling a bit annoyed by this by this - the Action Pack may be an option for some, but a full blown MSDN license is likely to be too expensive, and rebuilding machines every 90 days may be a burden (if it can’t be scripted). We’ll see.

It’s possible Microsoft’s shift to cloud offerings means these small system builders and integrators will no longer be needed by the mothership - don’t build an Exchange server, use Outlook.com, don’t have a file server, use SkyDrive Pro and so on. I can see it, but what with Microsoft’s erratic view of it’s customers of late, and that most TechNet users were the people who build for end users it may cause some ill will, but what would their alternatives be? Suddenly offer Open Source alternatives? That’s a lot of retraining.

For me then, not much change, except I have to get the time limited versions, so I can no longer tinker when I have time with a VM as I used to. A good thing is that it’s putting me back into GNU/Linux for servers again, and that’s already been fun - it’s been a while.

"Typhoon" Upgrade Completed

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:03:58 +0000

Finally, the “Typhoon” Upgrade was completed. Just to explain the title, ‘Typhoon’ is my old Linux box. After a while of little interference save the recent fan and GPU replacement, it’s been happily churning away since April 2008 when I rebuilt it to merge my Windows and [even] older Linux box.

The reason for this upgrade was simply that the two 320GB drives which act as my rsync’d archive drives have essentially become full and thus in need of swapout. After a bit of looking around and review reading, I went for two 1TB Western Digital Green drives. I used to only use Seagate, but over the last few years I seem to have drifted to WD. These are 32MB cache and 5400rpm drives - I didn’t need more speed, just power efficiency and capacity. Thus far I’m happy with both.

Essentially then, one of the 320GB is now wrapped in a safe place just in case (TM) and all that data is now on the two terabyte drives. The other 320GB drive has replaced the 160GB drive as the home of my GNU/Linux OS itself. On that subject I took the opportunity to upgrade from Xubuntu 8.04LTS to 9.04. there’s another one out next month, but it’s somewhat nice to know this version has been hammered a while.

It’s been running for a few hours and passed all the tests I’ve thrown at it, so I’d say that was mission accomplished.

Zenwalk Linux 2.4

Tue, 11 Apr 2006 15:58:49 +0000

All my computers have specific functions: the Mac is the day to day box, Windows is for games and mild browsing, and my old faithful, made-from-all-the-old-bits Linux box runs (somewhat noisily) in the corner as a file server and general workhorse machine.

I first tried Linux in 1999 (OpenLinux 1.3), then left it for a couple of years (no hardware), then got into Mandrake, then RedHat/Fedora, then Gentoo, back to Fedora, and now, I’m on the Slackware based Zenwalk. I never became proficient beyond what I needed: a backup desk top, and a basic file server.

Gentoo is a lot of fun, but it demands a certain level of dedication and tinkering (for me at least). Fedora on the other hand does most stuff out of the box (except MP3s!) but just seems to get bigger and bigger (5 CDs now!) whilst what I need to use stays pretty much the same. I tried Debian, and that was nice. I tried Ubuntu, and that was OK, but I wanted something in the middle - Debian’s stability, but with that small, perfectly formed feel Gentoo has. In the end, I found Zenwalk, which is a stripped down version of Slackware…yeah, I’ve become a Slacker (officially now).

Zenwalk comes on a 420MB CD, installs in minutes, runs the XFCE window manager, and comes with the best of class in most apps; GAIM, Firefox, Azureus, nmap. All the things I actually use on my Linux box. No more, no less. It’s fast, simple and it runs great. I can see this surviving on the box a lot longer than most distros.

MacOS X 10.4.2 and Samba problem

Wed, 21 Sep 2005 14:06:01 +0000

I’ve just finished about a 45 minute troubleshooting session, I’ve discovered why my Mac wouldn’t connect to my Linux box to let me back it up. After going through the Mac logs and trawling through some web sites, I found the problem - a bug in the OS X Samba client when used with certain versions of the server - specifically 3.0.14 and variants of it, which just happens to be the version I have on my Fedora Core Linux box. The workaround is to use the command line rather than the ‘browse’ function, and then update the Linux Samba server as soon as possible.

The reason I mention this is because as I’ve found quite often, when troubleshooting an OS X problem, never forget that it’s closely related to BSD, and those people really know their hard core stuff. The BSD page I found is here, the Samba bug note is here, which is then referenced on an Apple Support discussion, which illustrates why it’s better to follow BSD pages.

Gentoo Typhoon

Mon, 30 Aug 2004 14:27:59 +0000

After Saturday’s fun, Sunday in the apartment with the constant humid rain outside didn’t seem like nearly as much fun.

At times like these you look to those projects you’ve been putting off for a while (OK, you could tidy the trunk room too, but who wants to do *that*?). I decided it was time to rebuild my little Linux box, and add a few things I’d been meaning to, and take off some other bits.

The bottom line is that that box is now based off Gentoo kernel 2.6.8 (2004.2 distro), with an X.org display system, gnome and even audio now (I forgot to get that sorted out before), which is an improvement all around in my humble opinion. It can go back to work as my backup server, test web server and general utility machine. Hardware spec is here.

The link to the typhoon by the way, is not just the weather, but that the box is called ’typhoon’ as it used to have a really loud fan system in it.