Thoughts on operating systems, software engineering and beyond
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”
I have tried XenServer and XCP (Xen Cloud Platform) but was not impressed by the tools provided to manage such an environment, in terms of ease of use for just a Home Server. Also I did not find a proper abstraction layer for storage.
If you have any advice please drop by SuperUser.
I just order an HP Proliant MicroServer N40L and my plan is to convert it in a Home server using virtualisation. It is the first step stone of my own personal cloud infrastructure. The idea is to have a core server on top of which I can launch VMs when needed.
Adobe released yesterday a preview of Flash Player “Square”. It includes native 64bit support and IE9 hardware acceleration enhancement. Yes, you’ve got it! Adobe is again supporting a 64bit release of their plug-in and for all 3 platforms: Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.
I have updated my previous article on surfing the web in 64bit with the new details.
To get more information, jump to Adobe Labs.
Note: there is a free (libre) alternative to Adobe Flash product called Gnash, however it is still far from being stable enough on all web sites to be widely use. But anyway, it is a highly interesting project which have made recent huge improvements towards reliability and speed. You should try Gnash first and if it doesn’t work for you, then go for Adobe.
Update: Flash Player “Square” is now Flash Player 11, and there is a second beta released this August 2011.
The major problem faced by 64-bit Linux users is getting Flash Player to work properly on the platform. With the latest version of Ubuntu, it installs the 32-bit release of Adobe Flash Player along with the necessary 32-bit libraries so it can work.
However, using 32-bit Flash is sometimes buggy (when it is working). What about a 64-bit version of Flash Player?
Gnash, the free (libre) alternative is not enough mature to work on all web sites. But Adobe is currently working on a 64-bit version of its player. It is now available in the labs for download. This is still a beta, so using this plug-in could make your browser unstable (also see warning at the end of this post).
Before installing it, you should remove any previous installation of Adobe Flash Player, you can use Synaptic (System -> Administration) for this purpose.
The downloaded file has the extension .tar.gz, it is a compression format like ZIP. You can double-click on it and extract the file (libflashplayer.so) to your home directory, or use the command line: “$ tar zxf flashplayer11_rc1_install_lin_64_090611.tar.gz“. Now, you need to copy the extracted file to a system directory, close all internet browsers before doing so. It is assumed that the extracted file is in your home directory.
$ sudo cp $HOME/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/
You can now launch Firefox or Chromium on your 64-bit system and watch Flash media content. My own experience is a more stable system! But do not forget, Flash is not a free software.
Updated 2010-06-08: Adobe issued a security warning for all Flash players (all platforms) covering 10.0.45.2 and earlier release. Which most probably means that it includes the 64bit version as well (this is not confirmed). The only safe version (recommended by Adobe itself) at the time of writing is Flash 10.1 RC which is sadly 32bit-only.
Updated 2010-09-16: Adobe released yesterday a new preview of its 64bit capable Flash Player. Links in this article have subsequently been updated.
Updated 2011-08-13: Adobe released a second beta of Flash Player 11 which as 32bit and 64bit implementation. This release includes also an Adobe Flash system preference. Just uncompress the .tar.gz file in a temporary directory and copy the uncompressed usr folder to your root ‘/’ directory.
Updated 2011-10-01: Updated for the first release candidate of Flash Player 11.
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.
First of all, no I do not boycott Opera, but some persons do want that for the reason that Opera Software triggered the whole antitrust browser case in Europe. In support of Opera Software, I am now writing this news using their browser!
The big news that triggered it all is that Microsoft, in response to the EU antitrust browser case, will be removing Internet Explorer 8 from Windows 7 in Europe.
I have to say that I am happy and delighted to hear this news. My point is that Microsoft should only be shipping a raw Windows. The computer manufacturer should then integrate Windows with a software solution of their choice, a software solution that integrates of course a browser and other tools. Just like Windows does not shipped with an office pack, but major computer vendors are adding office software applications to their computers offers.
Continue reading “Microsoft vs. the European Union: let’s boycott Opera!”
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?”