Automation Adventures

Last Friday our first ‘official’ Linux server went live at work. It’s a 6.06 LAMP server installation, which was remarkably smooth. The main problem was trying to figure out why the Compaq Proliant ML370 would hang after pretty much the first line on the screen (unpacking the kernel) and giving a cryptic 4294672.157000 error message. It turns out there is a problem with the APIC support in Ubuntu 6.06, and adding the option noapic on the command line before the last — is the solution.

The rest of the installation was like I said remarkably smooth. We’re setting up a Wiki on the server, and transferring it from our Fedora Core 4 testserver was pretty easy (it would have been real easy if I’d remembered to fix some hard coded paths).

Next steps are setting up a virtual webserver, so we can access the site as wiki.medeco.com, and enhancing the security…

I’m thinking about upgrading my (slightly aging) Ubuntu 6.06 to 6.10. However, some horror stories have been floating around the ‘net warning of the impeding disasters…

Regardless of that, Steps to Upgrading Ubuntu To The Next Release : Ubuntu (6.06.1 / 6.10) describes the steps necessary to upgrade your Ubuntu distribution to the next release, without downloading a CD or DVD directly.

As soon as I have a solid backup, I think I’ll give it a try…

This article was promoted to the Digg front page recently: Using your iPod on Linux. At first I was excited – maybe there is some useful information in this article!

Unfortunately, it turns out to be a simple three step article, showing how to install gtkpod, how to start it, and how to sync your music between gtkpod and your iPod. The comments point out some of the shortcomings, like video files, purchasing from the iTunes Music Store, etc.

I’m staying with Banshee for now!