Colin Charles Agenda

VirtualBox 1.6 is out. Note that now you can use Mac OS X and Solaris as a host platform. Naturally, having Mac OS X support excites me.

I tried installing a Ubuntu 8.04 server guest. Found a tiny issue - 64-bit guests aren’t supported yet :( So I pulled in the 32-bit ISO, and that installed just fine. Note that PAE support for guests exist now, and this is a good step in the right direction.

Sun’s building an OpenxVM community, which currently focus on xVM and xVM VirtualBox. It also harnesses technologies like Open Service Tag. All in all, I think a lot of MySQL users should be interested in virtualization, as there is a growing amount of hardware out there with many, many cores available for use.

Installing Ubuntu 8.04 server and getting past the kernel not booting
This is more of an Ubuntu problem, than a VirtualBox problem, but I faced an issue:

The kernel requires the following features not present on the CPU
0:6
Unable to boot - please use a kernel appropriate for your CPU

Turns out, the problem was the wrong kernel was installed. Rescue Ubuntu, and install linux-generic. For reference, look at Unable to boot 8.04 Alpha 3 Server install on laptop and also the fix.

If CentOS (and by the same vein, Oracle Enterprise Linux) claims compatibility with RHEL, why is Zimbra saying that the issue with ZCS 5.0, Scalar::Util, and Perl, is caused by CentOS?

QA’ing against RHEL, and not CentOS is expected, but saying there’s no compatibility between CentOS and RHEL, sounds like a bit of a fib, don’t you think?

Even better, the recommendation to use Ubuntu. Will there be a LTS release, at some stage soon? It looks like Canonical are behind schedule for another LTS release…

Technorati Tags: zimbra, zimbra collaboration suite, zcs, zcs5, qa, scalar:util, centos, perl, compatibility, rhel

Statistics are interesting. Every Fedora Project Contributor gets an @fedoraproject.org alias. So I’m presuming, this number is greater than just package maintainers…

Fedora, via Max Spevack:

• non-RH maintainers: 276
• RH maintainers: 202

total @fedoraproject.org aliases for package maintainers: 478

Ubuntu, via Daniel Robitaille:

• 348

total @ubuntu.com aliases: 348

By the above, does it mean Fedora is way more successful than Ubuntu? Some detractors will say, RH has a lot more package maintainers than Canonical can afford. Sure. But an @fedoraproject.org “Fedora Membership” also extends to ambassadors, translators, etc. and not just package maintainers (so the number, 478 up there, is woefully under-reported). Sadly, I couldn’t find a nice easy way to show all the @fedoraproject.org aliases via the online pkgdb application.

Long gone are the days where these aliases were maintained in /etc/aliases by Seth and I ;-)

Technorati Tags: fedora, ubuntu, inflammatory, statistics

One of the reasons I like Ubuntu is because they have a really swanky commercial repository, and they make it easy for me to get some commercial software, without pulling an RMS-styled “Freedom is a feature” on me. Don’t get me wrong, I still love Fedora with all my heart, but when you get out of the distribution business per se, you feel that you might just want your primary machine to “Just Work”(tm). And long gone are the days where I carry 2-3 laptops when I travel - I just aim for one (I have lots of photo gear to worry about, instead).

The Feisty Fawn, was a pretty good Ubuntu release. That is, I got my commercial software fix - Sun’s JDK (moot these days, hello IcedTea in Fedora, for instance), VMWare Server (its free, kind of useful for running other distributions), and even Opera (sometimes I’m bored with Firefox, Galeon, Epiphany, I need to test things in another browser).

When Gutsy Gibbon got released, I couldn’t wait to update to the next, best thing. You expect things to move forward, never regress right?

Well, Sun’s software still works. As does Opera. But VMWare, has since, stopped working. Kernel 2.6.22-14 does not come with appropriate VMWare modules. Yes, that means, there’s no vmmon or vmnet loaded (or even, loadable, to be exact). Effectively, they’ve broken VMWare. I wondered why, so I hopped on to a package search, only to find out that VMWare has been removed from the commercial repository. No real explanation that I can find as to why it doesn’t exist.

So, my next option is to maybe build-my-own-package. There’s a guide titled VMWare in Ubuntu Gutsy - Kernel 2.6.22 that might be a good read for those that want to use this. Then I recall why I moved to using Ubuntu daily - I did it to get away from the frustration of having to build things myself. I did it, for the “Just Works”(tm) experience.

My options are to move to using some free software, quite obviously. There’s KVM, Xen, or even VirtualBox. Hey wait a minute, I can get all this in Fedora 8 too, can’t I?

The Gutsy Gibbon was supposed to come with a rocking new tool, displayconfig-gtk (i.e. System -> Administration -> Screen and Graphics). Unfortunately, it is broken beyond all thought. Then I remember an old friend, system-config-display, from Fedora - at least it works, and it has been around for ages (since what, Red Hat 8?). displayconfig-gtk is supposed to give me all the wonderful hotplug goodness of an external display, but it doesn’t. I can manually push xrandr to at least mirror my display (Intel chipset, might I add), which I’m sure I can also do in Fedora 8.

So I’ve come to the realisation that things are broken, and I’m going to have to do things manually, if I want them to work. This is irrespective of if I run Ubuntu or Fedora. Being just an “end user” is hard, to almost impossible.

My needs-to-work-list:

• sleep/resume - this can also be kernel version dependant, Ubuntu has the advantage for a less aggressive release policy, but it seems Fedora is catching up with wanting to ensure laptop stuff, just works
• wifi - ipw3945d is my poison, and it seems that both Fedora and Ubuntu have this working out of the box (a stark improvement to previous Fedora’s where you had to get the firmware yourself). Of course, repeated sleep/resumes tend to make WiFi die, and that just annoys me
• video out - this is hacky at best, Ubuntu works if I tweak things manually, I wonder if Fedora 8 will have this any better. Nonetheless, xrandr should come to my rescue
• sound - well, my laptop is my primary music listening device as well as video watching device. Ubuntu and Fedora should have this working just fine
• codecs - I need to watch DivX, play MP3s, and so on. Ubuntu provides this via Medibuntu and Fedora via Livna
• media keys - Ubuntu and Fedora should have this working fine, and GNOME in both environments is highly friendly
• virtualization - I don’t care if I end up using KVM (which is looking like what I’m going for), or Xen (no ACPI, and obviously can’t sleep/resume), but I think I’ve had it with VMWare unless they have sensible packages. I have useless VMs sitting on my laptop now.
• fully 64-bit OS - I plan on moving on from 2GB of RAM to 4GB of RAM (its kind of cheap nowadays), and want a fully 64-bit OS. Ubuntu works, sure, but I have to have ugly chroot hacks for a 32-bit environment. Fedora just works, some say because RPM is broken but I say, if that’s the case, its broken in a good way. Mixture of 32/64-bit rpms, are sweet
• Skype, GizmoProject - closed source, install your own, works on Ubuntu and Fedora

My “it’ll be nice if it worked” list:

• compiz effects - Doesn’t seem to work on Ubuntu, I wonder if Fedora will have it any better
• hibernate - not quite suspend/resume, but it can be handy to have around
• sd/mmc/memory stick card reader - Doesn’t seem to work on Ubuntu (Feisty, last I tried it)
• tv out - Never tried, but if video out is this bad, I doubt s-video is any better

I take it that’s enough ranting for today. Congratulations to the Fedora Project for releasing Fedora 8 today. I think Werewolf will be a gutsy release alright.

And a happy Diwali/Deepavali to all Hindus. As an aside, the number 8 is interesting - in Chinese, it loosely translates to being lucky. And November 8 2007 seems to be the “festival of light”. The only way it could’ve been any more numerically lucky is if it were released on 08-08-2008 (a day for a lot of weddings, I assume).

I seem to enjoy asides today, so here’s another. I ran dict gutsy, and it has some interesting definitions:

  gutsy \gutsy\ adj.
     1. marked by courage and determination in the face of
        difficulties or danger.
       Syn: courageous, plucky.
      2. rough or plain; not sophisticated or refined; earthy.
        Opposite of {sophisticated}, or {refined}.
       Syn: earthy, lusty, robust.

I wonder if, definition-wise, Gutsy Werewolf is #1 and the Gutsy Gibbon is #2?

Technorati Tags: fedora, ubuntu, gutsy gibbon, gutsy werewolf, ubuntu, commercial repository, virtualization, everything’s broken, linux on laptops, werewolf

Resisting an upgrade, is hard, so I finished some work on Friday, and proposed to upgrade away to Gutsy Gibbon. I’ll talk about what I like and don’t later, but I still face a problem. I can’t seem to get X/xrandr working as well as I’d like it to. I also can’t get all the desktop effect bling going, but that is not as significant a problem as working VGA out.

lspci says, I have a Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03). I drive my laptop at 1440×900, and externally, I’ve got a 17″ LCD panel that can go 1280×1024 (FWIW, I tested against an external 19″ wide panel capable of 1440×900, but it made no difference). However, xrandr thinks I can only, at most, display 1440×1440, and I think that’s why I’m not being able to get a nice “stretch screen” (i.e. two desktops, not mirrored displays) experience going.

xrandr -q
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1440 x 900, maximum 1440 x 1440
VGA connected (normal left inverted right)
1280x1024 59.9
640x480 60.0
LVDS connected 1440x900+0+0 (normal left inverted right) 303mm x 190mm
1440x900 60.0*+
1280x800 60.0
1280x768 60.0
1024x768 60.0
800x600 60.3
640x480 59.9
TV disconnected (normal left inverted right)

So, mirroring works. My desktop looks a little shitty, but at 1280×1024, all is well and dandy. I have a feeling that when I plug it into an LCD projector, I might get away with things working, for a change. That alone, is impressive. So, how do I magically get a dual-display, stretched desktop experience? My xorg.conf file for reference, is tacked to the end of this.

My heart goes out to whomever decided to write displayconfig-gtk. This is a step in the right direction. End-users will want a GUI to choose external displays and stuff. I love the idea of location profiles (so, at home, maybe I’m tacked to an external 1280×1024 monitor, at another location maybe another, a roaming locating that just creates a 800×600 display, etc.). Of course, it would help if this utility actually worked. It doesn’t, and is currently broken, from my experience with it. Why is it included, under the guise like it might work?

Kudos to Intel, and their page on How to setup Dual Head for Intel Graphics with RandR 1.2. Everyone says, stick to Intel and you won’t go wrong with Linux. Why then, does such a page need to exist? Why is my out-of-the-box experience, still so bad?

If it helps, here’s the xorg.conf configuration file (I didn’t muck with it, its dpkg configured). Help appreciated, and remind me to buy you a beer when/if I see you next.

Section "Files"
EndSection

InputDevice "Synaptics Touchpad"
EndSection

Technorati Tags: xorg, xrandr, gutsy gibbon, ubuntu, displayconfig-gtk, usability, external display, keeping it real, linux, intel, intel graphics, intel 945gm

There didn’t seem like a clear way to make a copy (or clone) of a virtual machine with VMWare Server. Not with the 1.0.3 build-44356 which comes standard with the Ubuntu Commercial repository (one of the good virtues of Ubuntu).

So, I fired up the console, and did:
cp -ax Centos\ 5/ Centos\ 5-new

It took 4m5.643s to copy this on my laptop hard disk (only 1.5GB). I loaded it into VMWare, via their Open a virtual machine option, renamed it in the inventory, powered my new virtual machine on and was asked if I’d like to create a new UUID for it. I’d advise you to create one, and once that was done, my virtual machine is ready to go.

Create a new UUID, and you’re set

Exactly what I like. Not re-installing CentOS everytime. Just create a “golden” image and start cloning from there. Maybe with some slack/puppet integration in the future, if I end up using a lot of VMs.

Technorati Tags: linux, virtualization, vmware, vmware server, cloning an image, image, clone, testing, testbed, test environment

Today, I had a problem. I’d been used to doing rpm -q –changelog <packagename> and generally piping that through less. I sat at a Ubuntu terminal, and wondered how to do this. Poring through the man pages for apt-get or even dpkg, proved worthless. So, I hopped on to #ubuntu on Freenode, to have a rather enlightening conversation:

Oct 11 10:11:37 <ccharles>      hi! does anyone here know the dpkg/apt equivalent to rpm -q –changelog ?
Oct 11 10:12:10 <Pelo>  ccharles, man apt and man dpkg see what it says
Oct 11 10:12:46 <ccharles>      Pelo: you’d think i had already tried that, and failed, which is why i came here

At which point, I’m wondering what the clue-level of the channel is. So I hop onto #luv, the channel for my local LUG, and ask there. Not long after, I post this back on #ubuntu:

Oct 11 10:34:19 <ccharles>      pelo: the correct answer next time, is apt-listchanges, or even zless /usr/share/doc/<packagename>/changelog.Debian.gz or if you have internet access, aptitude changelog <packagename> (with thanks to cafuego for telling me)

I remember in my active Fedora days, we used to refer to #fedora as a bit of a wasteland, largely populated by meat-heads. However, it was also the primary contact point for non-meat-heads, for a non-development question. And a lot of folk on #fedora-devel never ever joined #fedora. This is probably largely the same with #ubuntu/#ubuntu-devel. This creates a disconnect within the community.

rpm -q –changelog equivalents on Debian

• apt-listchanges is written by an Ubuntite (is that what they’re called?), and requires installing. It also requires access to the package .deb, which seemed counter-intuitive.
• aptitude changelog <packagename> - useful, but seems redundant. It connects to the Internet to fetch this data for you, chewing up your bandwidth, and requiring you to have Internet access
• zless /usr/share/doc/<packagename>/changelog.Debian.gz - the winner, quite clearly. No Internet access required, it pulls directly off your disk, and its all in less

However, RPM still seems to shine quite this bit more, in comparison. Maybe someone wants to update the Switching to Ubuntu From Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Fedora guide.

Technorati Tags: fedora, ubuntu, rpm, dpkg, apt, changelog, apt-listchanges, aptitude, irc, community

Just to ensure, because it seems some people don’t understand English, but I never said people would sue Dell or IBM for non-functional software (arguably, the crap that comes from Microsoft, isn’t functional). But you can sue your hardware provider for non-functional hardware. Big difference there - software usually comes with indemnification and some explicitly come with no warranty.

Indemnification is such that if Microsoft Office eats up your data, the best you can ask for a “warranty” claim might be USD$5 or something absurd like that.

However, buying a piece of hardware, and then finding out say, it can’t drive the external display, or the SD card reader that comes with your laptop doesn’t work - that my friends, are hardware faults. Arguably, caused by software that lacks support for it, but still, not your problem.

The ACCC has a good guide on refunds, and on warranties and claims, and so on. Its not like I’m unhappy - I’m just saying someone might be, and then the real blow will come. Remember, refunds come via faulty, unfit for purpose, defective equipment. IANAL.

BTW, Dell responds, so kudos to Marco. They offer remastered ISOs which fix known issues, and assure me Gutsy Gibbon fixes all these issues.

Technorati Tags: linux, dell, ubuntu, laptop, suspend, resume, wireless, display