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How do people here manage updates (or not)?
by Chris G 06 Nov '07

06 Nov '07

Now that I have been running Fedora 7 for a while I'm beginning to see its strengths and weaknesses. One area that worries me slightly is what seems to be the 'normal' way of keeping it up to date which is to run 'yum update all' (or an equivalent) automatically at regular intervals. Most of the time this works fairly smoothly but every so often there is a hiccough and you see as a result hundreds of messages in the Fedora mailing lists saying "it's broken". For me one of the major disadvantages of this approach is that when the kernel gets updated (which is quite frequently) I have to recompile both my Nvidia display drivers and Vmware. The Vmware recompile can be a bit difficult as Vmware is only guaranteed to build against certain kernel versions and you often have to use third-party patches to get it to compile with more recent kernels. So I don't update all the time now, at least not the kernel. I'm wondering if there is a 'happy medium' somewhere between Slackware which was very conservative and stable (only went to a 2.6 kernal just recently) and Fedora which seems a bit frantically on the bleeding edge. Is there a distribution which offers pretty close to latest versions of everything when it releases but then just maintains things with only security updates and such until the next release? General requirements are:- Not too "GUI and Windows oriented", Fedora is definitely as far as I'd want to go in this direction. A reasonably good package management utility, Fedora's yum makes life a lot easier than Slackware. I run FVWM2 as my window manager so any distribution that makes it difficult to do this is out! Must run Vmware fairly smoothly, I think most probably will, Slackware was slightly messy because of its different initialisation script structure. Vmware is important to me as I need MS Access to run our company's accounts. Running them via Vmware on my desktop is just *so* much nicer than running on a separate machine that I'll never go back. It's all well backed up and, if the Linux/Vmware goes completely pear shaped I could easily enough just put them on a dedicated machine so absolute reliability of Vmware isn't necessary. -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] How should my hostname *really* be configured
by mbm 05 Nov '07

05 Nov '07

Chris > > I have a CNAME record in the zone file at the hosting provider that > hosts isbd.net so that home.isbd.net has the address > 84-45-228-40.no-dns-yet.enta.net which is my home machine (via ADSL). I'm assuming that enta.net give you a fixed IP address here. It certainly looks that way from their website. So the external world view of your "home.isbd.net" server will be OK and will resolve to the external address of your ADSL router. I also assume that you are either port forwarding 22 and 80 to your "home" machine or have it publicly available on a DMZ. > > So far so good, it all does basically what I want so that I can 'ssh > home.isbd.net' and log in to my home machine and http://home.isbd.net > in a browser gets to see the apache web pages on my home machine. > > > However I still don't seem to have the 'local' setup fully sorted, > i.e. how do I get things on my local intranet to work totally > correctly? As it is things work but there are some 'infelicities'. > > > In particular apache when it starts up has the message about "Could > not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name ...." > and I'd like to know the proper way to get the result of 'hostname' to > be right. Ther apache error is probably not a DNS issue, but more likely caused by a configuration problem in apache2.conf (or httpd.conf). Try setting the ServerName directive to the FQDN "home.isbd.net". Apache will then use that and should stop complaining. > My home network is behind a router and most machines have static IP > addresses in the 192.168.1 range, the router is set up to allow ssh > and http through (with limitations). > > In my /etc/hosts file I have:- > > 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost > ::1 localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6 > 192.168.1.1 home home.isbd.net > 192.168.1.5 garage > 192.168.1.10 chris > 192.168.1.40 netpr > 192.168.1.44 hp7310 HPEDDBB7 HP000D9D068F7D > 192.168.1.254 speedtouch > > Searching in google suggests that I need to add my proper hostname > (i.e. home.isbd.net) to the 127.0.0.1 line in /etc/hosts but that > sounds like it's incompatible with the 192.168.1.1 line. I recommend you don't alias your hostname to local loopback. Leave that to localhost. The 192.168.1.1 entry is fine. So long as all your hostfiles are in synch and your machines all look at local hosts files first (/etc/host.conf says "order hosts,bind") then they will all resolve "home.isbd.net" to 192.168.1.1. Alternatively you could run a local DNS server (possibly on your router) but for a small network that is probably more hassle than it is worth. > I want to end up in a situation where:- > > /bin/hostname returns 'home' (as opposed to home.isbd.net, so that > my prompts and window titles are sensible) > > home.isbd.net is a valid address on my local network and connects > to the linux server machine > > There are no complaints from apache (or others) at startup Just set each hostname locally to "foo" and ensure that /etc/hosts has alias entries for "foo.bar.net" as appropriate. Your example hosts file is fine, but you should have aliases for "garage.isbd.net", "chris.isbd.net" etc. to ensure proper resolution. HTH Mick

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YUM: missing baseurl
by Yvonne Everett 05 Nov '07

05 Nov '07

I've just installed Fedora 6 and am having problems getting YUM and Software Updater to work properly. For instance, the extract below shows the "Error: Cannot find a valid baseurl for repo: core" error which is exactly the same error I get with Software Updated: [root@ukl20943l etc]# su -c 'yum grouplist' Loading "installonlyn" plugin Setting up Group Process Setting up repositories Could not retrieve mirrorlist [url]http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/mirrorlist?repo=core-6&arch=i386[/url] error was [Errno 4] IOError: <urlopen error (-2, 'Name or service not known')> Error: Cannot find a valid baseurl for repo: core Any ideas anyone? Thanks -- Yvonne Everett Email: ye103910(a)googlemail.com

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Boot question
by Chris G 05 Nov '07

05 Nov '07

My Fedora system has two (identical, but that doesn't matter) disk drives. Fedora is installed on /dev/sdb which uses LVM. Currently /dev/sda is partitioned the 'old fashioned' way. Now that I'm happy with the Fedora installation I want to tidy things up and use LVM for /dev/sda as well. Backing up and copying the data across is straightforward enough, I can cope with that. I have enough space that I can empty /dev/sda completely and partition it from scratch. However what worries me slightly is that there is presumably an MBR (that's what DOS used to call it) on /dev/sda which the BIOS goes to when the system is powered up. If I repartition /dev/sda will I lose this boot record? How does this get created in the Linux way of doing things? -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] How do people here manage updates (or not)?
by Bev Nicolson 05 Nov '07

05 Nov '07

FWIW.(Maybe not much but anyway...) Yes, it would be helpful if the Ubuntu update dialogue box gave more information about what was being fixed (when there is something to fix.) Mildly ironic given how user friendly it is. For relative newbie like myself the tech speak is not helpful so unless it actually looks useful I don't install it. On the other hand, most of the time you don't have to faff about configuring anything as it does it for you, although there are exceptions. I have had to venture into apt (with assistance) to get a program I wanted installed. Bev. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Srdjan Todorovic" <todorovic.s(a)googlemail.com> > To: "ALUG ML" <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> > Subject: Re: [ALUG] How do people here manage updates (or not)? > Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 10:27:37 +0000 > > > On 05/11/2007, Brett Parker <iDunno(a)sommitrealweird.co.uk> wrote: > > On Mon, Nov 05, 2007 at 09:45:59AM +0000, Chris G wrote: > > > Is there a distribution which offers pretty close to latest versions > > > of everything when it releases but then just maintains things with > > > only security updates and such until the next release? > > > > I believe that is the goal of most of the Enterprise versions out > > there... > > But Slackware's been doing this for ages. Also, doesn't Ubuntu do > this already? > I can't believe that Fedora Core would not have this capability. > > What I've found frustrating with Ubuntu (well, Kubuntu really), is > that when doing updates, there is very little information about what's > been fixed. Adept just > doesn't seem to list the security CVE codes. Maybe I've missed it and need > better glasses. Don't know much about Fedora's update mechanisms. > > Srdjan > > _______________________________________________ > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > http://www.alug.org.uk/ > http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above! > -- _______________________________________________ Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com Powered by Outblaze

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Compiling backages for Debian-based distros
by Mark Rogers 05 Nov '07

05 Nov '07

I'm still trying to get my head around the correct way to configure a typical source tarball installation to fit into the Debian way of doing things. The best I've found so far is: ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc \ --sharedstatedir=/var --localstatedir=/var \ --libexecdir=/usr/lib Does all that look correct? The general idea is that if I want to try and build a replacement .deb for an existing package, using a more up to date source tarball, then I want all the files to end up in the same places as would have been the case for the original package. (For all the documentation I've found, the best so far was an answer to a similar question on a dbus mailing list: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dbus/2006-September/005618.html) For the time being I'm only looking at i386 packages but I think the only thing that would change for 64-bit would be /usr/lib to /usr/lib64? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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How should my hostname *really* be configured?
by Chris G 04 Nov '07

04 Nov '07

I have a CNAME record in the zone file at the hosting provider that hosts isbd.net so that home.isbd.net has the address 84-45-228-40.no-dns-yet.enta.net which is my home machine (via ADSL). So far so good, it all does basically what I want so that I can 'ssh home.isbd.net' and log in to my home machine and http://home.isbd.net in a browser gets to see the apache web pages on my home machine. However I still don't seem to have the 'local' setup fully sorted, i.e. how do I get things on my local intranet to work totally correctly? As it is things work but there are some 'infelicities'. In particular apache when it starts up has the message about "Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name ...." and I'd like to know the proper way to get the result of 'hostname' to be right. My home network is behind a router and most machines have static IP addresses in the 192.168.1 range, the router is set up to allow ssh and http through (with limitations). In my /etc/hosts file I have:- 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost ::1 localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6 192.168.1.1 home home.isbd.net 192.168.1.5 garage 192.168.1.10 chris 192.168.1.40 netpr 192.168.1.44 hp7310 HPEDDBB7 HP000D9D068F7D 192.168.1.254 speedtouch Searching in google suggests that I need to add my proper hostname (i.e. home.isbd.net) to the 127.0.0.1 line in /etc/hosts but that sounds like it's incompatible with the 192.168.1.1 line. I want to end up in a situation where:- /bin/hostname returns 'home' (as opposed to home.isbd.net, so that my prompts and window titles are sensible) home.isbd.net is a valid address on my local network and connects to the linux server machine There are no complaints from apache (or others) at startup -- Chris Green

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mount conundrum
by Chris G 04 Nov '07

04 Nov '07

Maybe I've got too involved in this and need to leave it for a while but I'll ask anyway..... A per the lvm thread I now have a whole new disk that has been lvm'ed. I think I probably want to move all my home directories and other such bits and pieces onto it. I.e. I will have one 'system' disk which has all the OS stuff on it and one 'data' disk which has home directories and anything else which is bascially data rather than programs (such as pictures, vmware guest images, etc.). So, how do I do it? If I create a /home directory on my root partition and then mount the new logical volume on /home it means that *everything* I create on that logical volume will appear as /home/<something>. That maybe alright for actual /home directories but doesn't make much sense for other stuff. Should I:- Split the new disk into more than one Logical Volume? Use lots of symbolic links? Stop drinking so much wine? I'm stopping now, doing things as root when I'm even slightly inebriated is probably not a good idea. :-) -- Chris Green

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How to use pvcreate?
by Chris G 04 Nov '07

04 Nov '07

OK, so I have cleared everything off my /dev/sda (except, presumably, the MBR) and all is well still, Fedora still boots and my Windows guest virtual machine is still working. How do I now set up /dev/sda using LVM? As I understand it the sequence is to create a Physical Volume using pvcreate, then a Logical Group that uses the Physical Volumes I have created and then I create a logical volume in the Logical Group. The problem is that I don't understand how you tell pvcreate what disk it is to use. The 'synopsis' on the pvcreate man page says:- SYNOPSIS pvcreate [-d|--debug] [-f[f]|--force [--force]] [-y|--yes] [-h|--help] [-t|--test] [-v|--verbose] [--labelsector] [-M|--metadatatypetype] [--metadatacopies#copies] [--meta- datasizesize] [--restorefilefile] [--setphysicalvolumesizesize] [--version] [-Z|--zeroy/n] PhysicalVolume [PhysicalVolume...] Which doesn't seem to give much clue as to what disk it uses, PhysicalVolume is (as I understand it) the name that pvcreate gives to the chunk of disk you want to use, so what disk does it use? -- Chris Green

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Some PDF printer jobs just hang (CUPS)
by Chris G 02 Nov '07

02 Nov '07

I have two printers on at home. both networked, an HP7310 which has its own network interface and an HP1320 which is networked via an old Axis print server. Most of the time they work fine with Word documents from Maxine's XP machine or my XP Vmware guest and documents from my Fedora box, etc., etc. However I'm having trouble printing some PDF documents, sometimes PDF prints OK and other times it just hangs leaving CUPS telling me that the job has been "Processing since ......". It even starts feeding paper on the HP7310, then stops. I *think* this may be on more complex printouts, e.g. when I have selected part of a PDF page to print but I'm not absolutely sure. Does anyone have any ideas what the problem might be? -- Chris Green

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