Thoughts on operating systems, software engineering and beyond
Today, I will present Ajenti, a remote administration tool for Linux and FreeBSD.
This article is part of a series about remote administration of Linux-based server (actually some of the tool work on *BSD systems too). You can find all article pertaining to this series using the Tag remote-server-admin.
Continue reading “Ubuntu Server remote administration – Ajenti”
Today, I will present Munin, a tool to monitor various health measurement of a system (essentially resources).
This article is part of a series about remote administration of Linux-based server (actually some of the tool work on *BSD systems too). You can find all article pertaining to this series using the Tag remote-server-admin.
Continue reading “Ubuntu Server remote administration – Munin”
I have recently tested some remote administration tools for Ubuntu server (or any other Linux-based server). I have recorded here my findings and installation steps.
Today I present Monit, a monitoring and control tool for Unix and Unix-like systems.
This article will be followed by others with different tools. Stay tune, and you can find them all using the following tag remote-server-admin.
Continue reading “Ubuntu Server remote administration – Monit”
After making the chromes shine on Ubuntu, let’s make them flashy! In the previous article you learned how to have Google Chrome and Chromium installed, now that you have used them for awhile, you perhaps find out that you cannot play video on youtube.com or dailymotion.com, that you do not have annoying advertisement, etc. Yes, Google Chrome and Chromium Linux versions do not yet support Adobe Flash!
However, since you are not afraid to try a test version of these browsers on your favorite OS, you will not mind activating a test feature: plug-ins.
Google Chrome is an internet browser (or navigator) based on the free software project Chromium. Chrome is long available on Windows, but only really recently is it available on Mac OS X and Linux, though still under “beta” (meaning testing/experimental) stage.
I have been using Chrome or Chromium without any obvious differences (at least on Linux).
So why Chrome/Chromium when there is already Firefox? First it is a matter of choice, I could answer you why so many different vehicles? Second, I like the look and feel of Chrome, it optimises the use of screen real estate, it is not cluttered with many menus or actions on the toolbar and it seems to always know where I want a new tab to be opened. Third, it launches really fast.
Déjà Dup is a Gnome-based backup tool that aim for easiness. It provides transparent encryption of your data, can store to an external hard disk or a remote storage (SSH server or Amazon S3) and offers schedule backup.
The tool is extremely simple to use. It offers two big buttons, one for manual backup and one for restoring. Those two functions are accessible in the menu too, as well as preferences and help. That is all.
So how does it work?
Continue reading “Déjà Dup, an easy backup tool! Déjà vu?”
In reply from The Indulgences of Open Source (by Jonathan Cogley).
Jonathan, the author of the above linked post, is talking about free software projects and their relation with the understanding of “customers“. To illustrate his writing, he provides two examples of free projects: DokuWiki and AWStats.
Before I go in deeper analysis, let’s talk semantic. I am not an English native speaker, but I figure that English might be close enough to French so I do not make a misunderstanding. A customer is the person that buys or receives a product, it might not be the “end-user”, the one who is actually using the product. Knowing the philosophy behind free software, I also feel uneasy to call an end-user a customer when they go and download the project. Free software give the end-user the same rights and freedom as the producer, he can therefore be an actor and/or contributor of the project. Something not possible in the traditional producer and customer view.
Products and customers are bound to the commercial world, whilst projects and users belong to the free world.
Now, Let’s analyse Jonathan’s train of thought on each subject separately.