When you have a workstation running some variant of Linux, the Gnome desktop and you have an nVidia graphics card in the box, do yourself a favor and install their drivers. Make sure that the "Driver" line in /etc/X11/xorg.conf reads "nvidia" and not "nv". And when you get around to configuring multiple displays on the same system, don't mess with Gnome's System->Preferences->Display utility, use the nvidia-settings utility to do it for you (it'll ask for the root password).
Something that VMware quietly changed with the release of VMware Server v2.0 was that they deprecated the use of their stand-alone management console application - if you try to use it to connect to a v2.0 server it just won't work. What you need to do is plug the URL http://vmware-server-host:8222 or https://vmware-server-host:8333 into your web browser and log in with a user account that has admin privileges (which basically means that the account is part of the vmware group). If you're using Mozilla Firefox v3.5.x, the web interface will ask you to …
Something that I keep meaning to write about is the topic of practical data backups - how to back your data up in such a way that you won't go bonkers trying to manage it, but if you blow a drive you'll be able to restore something at least. The thing about backups is that they're at once easy to overthink and confuse yourself horribly (which means that you'll never make or use them) and easy to do in such a fashion that they won't be usable when you need them the most. At the enterprise level, there are at least …
While I’m sitting here hacking around, here’s the exact command that I needed to run to get the Arduino development kit to install properly on Windbringer:
It should be noted that I’m using Layman to manage my overlays, which is why I had to specify the environment variable on the command line.
I discovered that GCC v4.1.2 didn't support the Atmega328, which is what my Arduino Duemilanove is based upon, so I had to upgrade GCC to the latest stable release for Gentoo. To generate code for the Atmega328, you need v4.2.2 or …
When you get right down to it, the best way for an attacker to get hold of your data is to shut the box down, pull the drive, and rip a sector-by-sector image to analyze offsite. It might not be quick (depending on the speed of the hard drive, speed of the storage drive, and a number of other factors) but if you're not there when it's done you might not know that it ever happened. However, if you encrypt data at the level of the drive, they can copy the drive all they want but they won't be able …
Maintenance on Leandra is finished. I took her offline around 2100 ESET5EDT on Saturday night to remove a dead DVD-ROM drive, remove a pair of 512GB memory modules that weren't doing anything, and swap out her 250 GB hard drive for a 500 GB drive. The RAID array has had 250 GB added to it; specifically, the logical volume holding everything but the /boot and / partitions has had 250 GB added to it. 15 GB from the free pool was added to /usr (so that more software could potentially be installed) and the rest of the free disk space was …
I'm a big fan of the open source pilot-link package to back the contents of my smartphone up to offline storage on the off chance that something goes wrong and I need to buy a new phone or restore data from the last backup. Ages ago, someone figured out the protocol implemented by PalmOS for uploading and downloading data from handhelds and worked it into a command-line app that does it all for you: it backs up, restores, installs, uninstalls, and basically does everything but let you make phone calls from your laptop (though there is other software available that …
Now that I've metabolized the caffeine from the two-and-an-unknown-fraction pots of coffee I've drunk today (don't ask), I have it together enough to write about an unusually annoying glitch that plagues Linux users from time to time: Automatic mounting of USB storage devices stops working after you tinker with the systemware, usually after recompiling something or upgrading a package. I ran into this a few days ago but didn't think much of it because I've mostly been using Windows XP for work (yes, yes, you may now all laugh) but I decided to sit down and figure out what happened …
Currently running kernel: sys-kernel/vanilla-sources v2.6.24.1
I'll put everything else behind the cut because it'll take up a few pages... Hardware assay
CPU: Intel Centrino Duo T7500 running at 2.20GHz x2
Memory: 2GB
Chipset: Intel ICH8M
Video: nVidia GeForce 8400M GS, 256MB video memory on-board. Using the closed-source nVidia drivers from Portage (x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers) with full acceleration. Haven't tried VGA or TV-out yet.
SATA: Intel 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M) chipset, using in-kernel drivers (CONFIG_ATA_PIIX)
IDE: Intel 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M) chipset, using in-kernel drivers (CONFIG_BLK_DEV_PIIX)
