May 31
Linux Mint
I just wanted to say that I thought I would give the newly released
Linux Mint 7 a spin because I have heard so many good things about it. I decided to give it a run on my Acer Aspire One since none of the Linuxen on there have yet satisfied me. Well, to my surprise, Linux Mint works fantastic on the AAO. It’s almost like they made Mint for this machine. Literally everything I have tried has worked flawlessly. The only things I have not tried yet are hibernate and suspend (I usually just turn the machine off), the right hand SSD slot and the camera. I am sure the SSD and the camera will work fine and I suspect that one or both hibernate and suspend will work fine as well. All I can say about this distro is WOW. It’s fast, it works great and it’s really good looking to boot. Seriously, folks, I’ll have to check this out a while, but it could be a contender for my main desktop linux!
May 22
As of late, I have come to think that I should perhaps throw my hat into the book author pile. Specifically, I have noticed that there seems to be a lacking of a concise book about good/logical Linux server administration. Now I am not talking about just setting up a home server, but rather correctly setting up and managing a number of servers, whether for your personal use, or professionally.
I have read a great number of books and documents on server administration, just none specifically designed with large Linux installations in mind. Maybe its time has come? Maybe this old Linux crumudgin, as Dave Yates put it once, has something left to contribute to the greater good.
One of my big questions is, do you think anyone would buy it? If there is really a want/need for something like this, do I pursue any particular publisher or do a lulu kinda thing?
The other big question is what is Dann going to say when I tell him he has to co-author? 
Things that make ya go Hrmmmmm…
May 21
I have been watching the news articles about netbooks since before I actually owned one. Lately, there has been an increasing sentiment that Linux on netbooks is on the way out and Windows is in complete command of the market. Even Lenovo jumped on the windows bandwagon about this. it’s really been pretty rampant. Well, today I read a news article about some netbooks running Windows that are already virus infected right out of the box. Now, granted, these just happen to be XP machines and not the supposedly fantastic Windows 7, but I remember the hype about Vista too
Personally I find this pretty funny. For those of you looking to purchase a nice netbook in the near future, please take this as a reminder to give a second thought to a faster, more stable, more cost effective and more user friendly operating system. Demand that your netbook run Linux.
May 04
Even though I wrote and use OSM I also use Nagios at work (along with OSM). Actually, I administer Nagios there, however I have never actually installed and configured it. It was in place before I started there.
That being said, my manager asked me how to get it installed and running today, as he wants to try using it at home. This sort of spurred me into setting it up at home tonight. It’s really nice having a server that can handle a few test VMs, by the way
I decided I would install it on CentOS, because I need to be able to get it running on RedHat for work, so off to Google I went. After a bit of searching I finally came across a WONDERFUL site which provides a quick and dirty script for getting Nagios installed and working lickety split. It works perfectly and the only adjustment I made to the script, other than changing the passwords in it, was to comment out the SELinux lines because I already have SELinux disabled.
That really was it. Pretty simple. Of course the rip here is actually getting Nagios to monitor your systems, and that is probably beyond the scope of this post, which was really meant as a reference for that install script. Configuring nagios by the command line is not for the faint of heart. The files you need to pay attention to end up in /usr/local/nagios/etc and /usr/local/nagios/etc/objects. Just keep in mind that the configs seem to reference eachother in a cyclical way and you really need to pay attention. I found a good starter-help at the bottom of this website for adding your first non-local machine. Once you get that working you’ll understand how to add more, but I still found it a bit of a frustrating experience for a few minutes.
I did note, however, that there are quite a few projects out there which claim to configure Nagios for you via a web interface. I hope to give them a shot or two in the coming days/nights. Let me know if any of you have tried any and how they fair.
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