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What to run on a new workstation?

by | Sep 12, 2007 | evilzenscientist, Uncategorized

New hardware for Jon and Laurence:

>> Now if you’ve got a 2 x dual CPUs, 6Gb ram , gigabit NIC etc.. then  
>> naturally you want an operating system that can make full use of this.  
>>   
>> Dell have supplied such a beast  
>>   
>> FreeDOS.  
>>   

Now we all know that Dell supply FreeDOS to keep the license and bundling police happy.. But what could you run on a new machine that’s less than useful..

Our ideas so far:

NetWare 2.2 with WordStar in the DOS memory
OS/2 Warp
DOS 6.2 with MAME as an arcade emulator
GNU/Hurd for the purists
Digital Research GEM
CP/M-86 with Wordstar and dBase II

So may sad ideas – here’s a list of current alternative OS:

http://www.freeos.com/compare/

What do you think?

Linux will not displace Windows – proof

by | Aug 31, 2007 | fun stuff, Linux, Uncategorized

Haha. This was forwarded to me and made me smile.

Why Linux will not displace Windows

Here’s the incredible response:

You are kidding arent you ?
 
Are you saying that this linux can run on a computer without windows underneath it, at all ? As in, without a boot disk, without any drivers, and without any services ?
That sounds preposterous to me.
If it were true (and I doubt it), then companies would be selling computers without a windows. This clearly is not happening, so there must be some error in your calculations. I hope you realise that windows is more than just Office ? Its a whole system that runs the computer from start to finish, and that is a very difficult thing to acheive. A lot of people dont realise this.
Microsoft just spent $9 billion and many years to create Vista, so it does not sound reasonable that some new alternative could just snap into existence overnight like that. It would take billions of dollars and a massive effort to achieve. IBM tried, and spent a huge amount of money developing OS/2 but could never keep up with Windows. Apple tried to create their own system for years, but finally gave up recently and moved to Intel and Microsoft.
Its just not possible that a freeware like the Linux could be extended to the point where it runs the entire computer fron start to finish, without using some of the more critical parts of windows. Not possible.
I think you need to re-examine your assumptions.
 
Posted by: jerryleecooper Posted on: 03/14/07

Summer listening and reading

by | Aug 26, 2007 | Books, Uncategorized

Another update on books.

I just finished Churchill: A Biography by Roy Jenkins on audiobook from Audible. That was forty hours or so of unabridged listening.

Laurence got me into Jasper Fforde – so far three down on that side.

There has been a lot more – but I’m trying hard to remember everything.

ZCM agent debugging

by | Aug 26, 2007 | evilzenscientist, Technology, Uncategorized, ZENworks

More how-to guides. This one is turning on ZCM agent-side debugging.

First set the zmd logging to be at debug level; there are two ‘true’ settings in the conf file:

%ZENWORKS_HOME%conflogger-zmd-conf.xml

<configuration>
<log4net>
    <!–Appender to log event to console–>
    <appender name=”ConsoleAppender” type=”log4net.Appender.ConsoleAppender”>
    <param name=”Threshold” value=”DEBUG” />
    <layout type=”Novell.Zenworks.Logger.SimpleLayout, Novell.Zenworks.Logger”></layout>
    </appender>

    <!–This section is used to enable or disable the above configured appenders –>
    <logger name=”ZEN_LOGGER” additivity = “true“>
        <level value=”DEBUG”/>
        <appender-ref ref=”ConsoleAppender” />
    </logger>

    <!– This section is used to Enable component Logging –>
<!–
        <logger name = “ZEN_LOGGER.TestLogger” additivity =”true”>
                   <level value=”DEBUG”/>
        </logger>
–>
</log4net>

<ZenworksMessageLogger>
    <!– This section is used to turn on/off the Global Debug Flag –>
    <param name=”FileDebug” type=”Boolean” value =”true” />
</ZenworksMessageLogger>
</configuration>

Next restart the ZENworks agent

net stop “novell zenworks agent service”

The Novell ZENworks Agent Service service is stopping.
The Novell ZENworks Agent Service service was stopped successfully.

net start “novell zenworks agent service”

The Novell ZENworks Agent Service service is starting..
The Novell ZENworks Agent Service service was started successfully.

The log file for the agent is in %ZENWORKS_HOME%logsLocalStorezmd-messages.log

The log rolls – so you might need to collect the zip as well.

MySQL tuning

by | Aug 23, 2007 | evilzenscientist, Uncategorized

I use mysql a lot. It is the underpinning of these blogs, my online photo albums, my new drupal sites – a lot.

I found this collection of great scripts to help even the seasoned mysql admin tweak some more.

I especially liked the tuning script:

SLOW QUERIES
Current long_query_time = 10 sec.
You have 9 out of 8370223 that take longer than 10 sec. to complete
The slow query log is NOT enabled.
Your long_query_time may be too high, I typically set this under 5 sec.

TABLE CACHE
Current table_cache value = 64 tables
You have a total of 288 tables
You have 64 open tables.
Current table_cache hit rate is 0%, while 100% of your table cache is in use
You should probably increase your table_cache

Very nice work. I’ll be working on squeezing that extra 1% out of mysql tomorrow.

Time off

by | Aug 23, 2007 | Technology, Uncategorized

Back from travelling – I’m taking a few more days off to decompress.

Working on a website for Grania – I’ve decided to use Drupal again. I’m a bit rusty (it’s been 18 months since I touched Drupal 4.7) and I’ve been exposed to too much WordPress. I need to get my head around Drupal templates again rather than WordPress themes.

Also looking at migrating the production webserver from Apache to lighttp – I’ve been testing lighttp for a while and it is incredible.