David Duncan

How to run module load in a script

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 22:21:08 GMT

The module environment has not been loaded as it is for a normal user session. Add the following to the beginning of the script:

 . /usr/share/Modules/init/bash

That will source the environment script and you will have the appropriate MODULEPATH and MODULESHOME values.

 [root@master iozone]# set | grep MODULE
 LOADEDMODULES=
 MODULEPATH=/usr/share/Modules/modulefiles:/etc/modulefiles:
 MODULESHOME=/usr/share/Modules

After that, you will be able to add the module command in your scripts. Consider the following:

 #!/bin/bash
 . /usr/share/Modules/init/bash
 module list
 module purge
 module list
 module avail
 module load mpi/openmpi-mellanox-interconnects-gcc
 module list

If you add the above commands to a file ''~/sandbox/modu.sh'' you will get the following:

 sh ~/sandbox/modu.sh
 No Modulefiles Currently Loaded.
 No Modulefiles Currently Loaded.
 
 ----------------------------------------------- /usr/share/Modules/modulefiles -----------------------------------------------
 PMPI/modulefile                           mpi/mvapich1-platform-interconnects-gnu
 dot                                       mpi/mvapich2-platform-interconnects-gnu
 module-cvs                                mpi/openmpi-mellanox-interconnects-gcc
 module-info                               mpi/openmpi-mellanox-interconnects-intel
 modules                                   mpi/openmpi-mellanox-interconnects-pgi
 mpi/mvapich1-mellanox-interconnects-gcc   mpi/openmpi-platform-interconnects-gnu
 mpi/mvapich1-mellanox-interconnects-intel null
 mpi/mvapich1-mellanox-interconnects-pgi   use.own
         This module will prepend the openmpi-mellanox-gnu bin, man and lib directories
         to the PATH, MANPATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variables,
         respectively.
 
 Currently Loaded Modulefiles:
   1) mpi/openmpi-mellanox-interconnects-gcc
 [root@master iozone]#

Texas Linufest is just around the corner.

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 15:46:21 GMT

I hope you are planning on going to the Texas Linuxfest Yourself. I know that I will be there this year. I am going to be splitting my time between the Fedora and the Dell booths this year. </p>
Adam Miller, you may know him as maximillion on the Fedora mailing lists and irc channels, has done a smash-up job of organizing the affair and providing some funding to support travel and board for out-of-town participants. He was able to get a Silver funding for the fest itself. A testament to his dedication to the Fedora team.
</p>
I hope to see you there!

CTLUG Meeting this week.

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 23:59:17 GMT

Jack Mckinney is leading a discussion on IPv6 for the Central Texas Linux User’s Group. The discussion will be held starting at 7:30 PM on February 16th, 2011. http://www.ctlug.org for details.
The meeting will be held at Mangia’s Pizza, at the Domain location.
That’s at 12001 Burnet Road, next to Taco Deli for those of you familiar with the area.

Texas LinuxFest 2011 Call for Papers is upon us!

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 02:49:08 GMT

For those of you who did not attend the inagural Texas LinuxFest 2010 last April, this is a serious conference built by the local Texas Linux community. This grass roots effort provided a fantastic experience. If you have something you would like to present, don't be shy. This is a supportive group of users who are interested in all levels of technology!

http://www.texaslinuxfest.org/callforpapers/ will get you what you need to submit a proposal. You need to hurry, they are due by Midnight, Feb 14.

I will be there with the Fedora Ambassadors this year as well.

I know

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 16:14:45 GMT

I upgraded yesterday to the 2.6.34.7-56.fc13.i686 on my primary notebook. An XPS M1530 in which I have an Intel 3945ABG Wireless controller.

On initial boot of both 2.6.34.7-54 and the 2.6.34.7-56.fc13.i686, the wireless controller was unavailable. NetworkManager saw the device as "off". It appears the rtkill switch may have been read incorrectly. I installed the smbios-utils on my laptop and the problem went away at reboot.

The smbios-utils and the corresponding libsmbios are available from the dell-community repo. That repo is maintained by Dell. The bios revisions for the M1530 appear to be considerably out of date. A run of yum install $(bootstrap_firmware) returns no updates. I figure that means that there are no other XPS M1530 squeaky wheels (such as myself) or there are just no better updates than the A08 I am currently running. As I recall my last attempt to update beyond A08 crippled my mousepad.

So the good news is that the Wireless controller is working. The bad news is that BIOS update A12 is out there waiting for me to rip the .hdr out with . . . what? I don't know. extract_hdr is gone and firmware_tool doesn't have the --extract method I was hoping to use to remove it.

Sad thing is that I know whose fault it is that it isn't working. It is mine. I am Fedora.

PyTexas in Waco was a huge success.

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:21:03 GMT

This past Saturday, August 28th, I attended the PyTexas Convention. There have been four PyTexas conventions I know of, but this is the first I have been able to attend. I made Fedora goodies available to all who attended and saved the case badges for those who were interested in a conversation on python's use in the Fedora project.

I learned a lot. There were several Baylor grad students in attendance who accelerated my python learning during the morning's "Python Teach-In". Jeremy Dunck gave me a great lesson on working with ipython which I will use across platforms, but mostly on Fedora. Jeremy Lowery helped me to install and get started with the Python Koans. I highly recommend the Koans for beginning developers and python enthusiasts.

After the Teach-In, there were several great talks delivered by local enthusiasts. I attended the keynote given by Jeff Rush. For you Fedora users, Jeff is the guy who first created the Zope RPM's. Later in the day I attended his fantastic lecture entitled The Deconstruction of an Object. My head was swimming with information from that discussion. Jeff politely broke that talk in to four sections so that there was a break at each topic change. It was very helpful as the hour was PACKED with information on efficiency and inheritance at every step.

I attended two talks by OpenStack Object Storage Architect, Chuck Tier. Chuck's talks were simple and very descriptive of the mechanics of the swift data storage. Both of his talks ended with some very promising looks at the future for the project. He has some great times ahead of him and it was nice to hear his positive attitude towards his employers, RackSpace. He really enjoys working for a company that "gets it". The proverbial "it", in this case, being OpenSource.

I also attended a talk by John Dickinson on Version Control. John did a fantastic job of developing a vision of his topic sans presentation slides when the projector refused to play nice with his laptop.

RackSpace threw a great party afterwards at the Z-Bar on 6th street (in Waco). The beer was great, the 1554 got my vote. They gave away $250 in SouthWest Airlines gift certificates to one lucky winner.
Great job RackSpace!

One thing I now believe very important to have as an Ambassador is a 30-second plug for Fedora. One you can use at the drop of a hat. At the lightening talks 30-second plugs were available. The 30-second vendor plugs were introduced as filler for the prep time involved in the lightening talks. There are so many things to market for the Fedora project that a series of plugs prepared for infrastructure, packaging, ambassadorship, etc. could have easily filled as many available slots as we could take. It's easy to ask to be fit in for 1/2 a minute to talk about your favorite distro, but it is easy to get a second slot when you use your time well for the first one.

The hope for next year is to hold this event in College Station, TX at Texas A&M. The conference or unconference this year exceeded 100 participants from as far away as Kansas City, KS. I think this is a great event and could use more participation in the future from the Fedora ambassadors.

The com.com problem with my postfix server.

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:06:22 GMT

I am sure that the majority of my Linux friends would not make the same mistake I made on my latest installation of postfix. I am most dependent upon the use of google apps to manage my mail service over the last few . . . years(!) Wow! Has it really been that long? Well . . . anyway I made a simple mistake and only 5 minutes on #postfix on irc.freenode.net (donate!)

So what did I do? I set my hostname to thekaratekidsband.com and then I let postfix use that. What does postfix do with a hostname like "thekaratekidsband.com"? It uses the second section of the hostname to populate the second level of the domain name. Then it uses the last section of the hostname to populate the third level. This is the automated method of populating the value $mydestination. This isn't helpful if your hostname is not very basic.

I was using a hostname of thekaratekidsband.com and the result was the domain name com.com and that wasn't what I was expecting. If you are using postfix, then you will get your best default results from a simple 3-level hostname. If you are not using a simple host configuration or you are using a simple configuration that does not match the basic configuration then you may need to modify your $hostname or $mydestination.

I was looking for a real method for troubleshooting the construction of this name. I did not actually find the method for debugging the rewrite. It didn't seem to happen in a way that was exposed in the expanded vars or in the debug, but I did find two users on #postfix who queued the channel bot to tell me how it worked. They pointed me to $myorigin to show me the problem. On my server $myorigin returned the same value as $domain. I just assumed that the rewrite described for the mydestination was the problem.

I look forward to reading a better explanation or getting one in the comments. :-)

http://www.postfix.org/BASIC_CONFIGURATION_README.html#myorigin for informaiton (note that's the first page)

SWAG! Texas LinuxFest 2010

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 03:29:25 GMT

SWAG! Texas LinuxFest 2010
Originally uploaded by davdunc

There were some great goodies in the Texas Linuxfest Supporter goodie bags. I mean. . . $40 for a super conference AND a goodie bag with swag like this. Shame on all of you who missed out. You know who I am talking about!

Texas Linuxfest 2010

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 22:04:52 GMT

Texas Linuxfest 2010
Originally uploaded by davdunc

This is before the pipe and drape went up, but you can see the bar. Yea! A bar.

Texas Linuxfest 2010

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:15:11 GMT

Texas Linuxfest 2010
Originally uploaded by davdunc

April 10 2010. Set up for the front room. Seated, in black hair, at roughly center is Matt Ray. Matt was a huge part of the team that put this Linuxfest together. I am really grateful for his effort and enthusiasm.

Texas Linuxfest 2010

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 13:46:35 GMT

Texas Linuxfest 2010
Originally uploaded by davdunc

Scott Collier at the Fedora booth. Texas LinuxFest
Uploaded on 11 Apr 10,

Red Hat Booth, Texas Linuxfest 2010

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 05:24:35 GMT

Texas Linuxfest 2010
Originally uploaded by davdunc

Red Hatters are setting up. Fedora ambassador and packager Scott Collier (right) sneaks a look from behind the Fedora Banner. Thomas Cameron (middle) shows us his best side. Shawn on the Left.

Texas Linuxfest 2010

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 03:08:09 GMT

Texas Linuxfest 2010
Originally uploaded by davdunc

Thomas Cameron shows off his Extreme Linux Hot Sauce. Max and Marsha are in the background. John "Maddog" Hall gave this to him.

Fedora Ambassador Report on Texas LinuxFest

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 02:32:25 GMT

I am very happy to report a successful first event as a Fedora ambassaador at the Texas LinuxFest. The event lasted only one day. Booth participants were Max Spevack, Adam Miller, Scott Collier, Julio Villareal, and myself. We took turns manning the booth in groups of two. Our booth was a simple table with two chairs and a white tablecloth was transformed with the event kit into a wonderful playland for new and old Fedora users.

Adam and I had our own little installfest with a fellow whose Dell laptop was running Windows. He told us that his wireless networking was the problem. It took almost an hour to find a suitable internet connection to get the appropriate firmware for his BCM4312 wireless device. Once Adam installed and built the DKMS module for the wireless card and the laptop was on the wireless network, the gentleman paraded his laptop around to other tables showing them how Adam had made his laptop work with wireless. He called Adam "the Fedora guy". It was a small triumph, but apparently it had a serious affect on this gentleman, an Educator from the local area.

The XO laptops were a very big hit. A local developer, Mikus Grinbergs, gave us a fantastic overview of his work as a developer for the platform and even showed us how his was running a full Fedora installation. One gentleman even used Inkscape to create a handmade version of the fedora logo.

Adam also brought a tablet pc running Fedora 12.

The fantastic feature of this tablet PC with fedora 12 is that it just works. People were enamored with the tablet and the little Sony Vaio handheld that Julio brought for show.

I went to only two talks, but I happened to catch Max's talk on the role of academia in the digital world. His discussion was amazing and his management skills really showed as he sculpted a conversation surrounding key ideas in academic development and process. He pointed out the importance of Professional OpenSource Software Experience in the educational process. Max pointed out some of the efforts he was directly familiar with and some that he considered laudable. His presentation was, in my opinion, flawless.

We started off the weekend on Friday night with a Dinner hosted by Matt Domsch and his wife Celeste. The dinner was amazing and the conversation was fantastic. Matt cooks a mean steak and a yummy grilled portobello. We were all happy to have an opportunity to talk to him about his experience and he was very happy to give us good pointers for the festival.

There were more than 394 registered participants on Friday evening and many who paid at the door. We provided a small amount of media for some non-profits and some
My images are up on flickr, but I will post them on to the blog to have them blast by on the Planet Fedora. Thanks to everyone who made this possible, but I have to say a special thanks to Scott Collier, who picked up a lot of slack for me without a word.

cduffy_1

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:44:06 GMT

cduffy_1
Originally uploaded by davdunc

If you did not participate in this month's show, you are definitely unfortunate. Thanks to Charles for a smashing discussion.

Big thanks to Charles Duffy.

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:52:47 GMT

Charles Duffy was kind enough to present a talk on the use of several emerging technologies used by MessageOne to support their business needs.

The Central Texas Linux Users Group was grateful to have him speak for us. Key projects used by the systems engineering group include:

Charles did a splendid presentation on the build process for creating test environments at MessageOne
The group is working on a process that allows all of their provisioning to be managed on the fly. The whole system allows the environment to be created without requiring root access to the physical servers upon which the virtual environments are provisioned.
Charles coworkers Alex and Larry added to the conversation and the whole discussion was very enlightening.

I wish you had all been there to hear such a fantastic conversation on the use of FLOSS -- and especially Fedora projects -- in Enterprise business.

SQLITE3 dump of versions.

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 05:24:37 GMT

This isn't perfect, but this is a dump of my initial information database in sqlite3 for keeping up with version information from one kernel to the next. It is just RedHat and VMware at the moment. It will grow. This is based upon the spreadsheet formerly championed by David Percer at Dell, Inc.

BEGIN TRANSACTION;
CREATE TABLE redhat(
idk Integer Primary KEY ASC,
kupdate integer,
kversion text,
kname text);
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(1,0,'RHEL 5, Gold','2.6.18-8');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(2,1,'RHEL 5, Update 1','2.6.18-53');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(3,2,'RHEL 5, Update 2','2.6.18-64');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(4,3,'RHEL 5, Update 3','2.6.18-128');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(5,4,'RHEL 5, Update 4','2.6.18-164');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(6,2,'RHEL 2.1, Update2','e24');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(7,3,'RHEL 2.1, Gold','2.4.9-e35');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(8,4,'RHEL 2.1, Gold','2.4.9-e40');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(9,5,'RHEL 2.1, Gold','2.4.9-e49');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(10,6,'RHEL 2.1, Gold','2.4.9-e57');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(11,0,'RHEL 4 – Nahant, Gold','2.6.9-5');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(12,1,'RHEL 4 – Nahant, Update 1','2.6.9-11');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(13,2,'RHEL 4 – Nahant, Update 2','2.6.9-22');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(14,3,'RHEL 4 – Nahant, Update 3','2.6.9-34');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(15,4,'RHEL 4 – Nahant, Update 4','2.6.9-42');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(16,5,'RHEL 4 – Nahant, Update 5','2.6.9-55');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(17,6,'RHEL 4 – Nahant, Update 6','2.6.9-67');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(18,0,'RHEL3 - Taroon, Gold','2.4.21-4');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(19,1,'RHEL3 - Taroon, Update 1','2.4.21-9');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(20,2,'RHEL3 - Taroon, Update 2','2.4.21-15');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(21,3,'RHEL3 - Taroon, Update 3','2.4.21-20');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(22,4,'RHEL3 - Taroon, Update 4','2.4.21-27');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(23,5,'RHEL3 - Taroon, Update 5','2.4.21-32');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(24,6,'RHEL3 - Taroon, Update 6','2.4.21-37');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(25,7,'RHEL3 - Taroon, Update 7','2.4.21-40');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(26,8,'RHEL3 - Taroon, Update 8','2.4.21-47');
INSERT INTO "redhat" VALUES(27,9,'RHEL3 - Taroon, Update 9','2.4.21-50');
CREATE TABLE vmware(
idk Integer Primary KEY ASC,
vbuild integer,
esxversion text,
releaseDate text
);
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(1,22701,'ESX 3.0','9/25/2006');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(2,32039,'ESX Server Version 3.0.1','9/25/2006');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(3,22704,'VirtualCenter 2.0','9/25/2006');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(4,32042,'VirtualCenter Version 2.0.1','9/25/2006');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(5,42090,'VMware Consolidated Backup 1.0.2','4/5/2007');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(6,50618,'VMware VirtualCenter 2.0.2','7/19/2007');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(7,52542,'ESX Server Version 3.0.2','7/31/2007');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(8,51389,'VMware Consolidated Backup 1.0.3','7/31/2007');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(9,64201,'VirtualCenter 2.5','12/10/2007');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(10,64559,'VMware Consolidated Backup 1.1','12/10/2007');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(11,64607,'ESX Server 3.5','2/20/2008');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(12,82663,'ESX Server 3.5 Update 1','4/10/2008');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(13,84767,'VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 1 ','4/10/2008');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(14,84782,'VMware Infrastructure Management Installer','4/10/2008');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(15,104629,'ESX Server Version 3.0.3','8/8/2008');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(15,104629,'ESX Server Version 3.0.3','8/8/2008');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(16,119826,'Virtual Infrastructure Client','10/3/2008');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(17,119598,'Virtual Infrastructure Client','10/3/2008');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(18,119801,'VirtualCenter 2.5 Server Update 3','10/3/2008');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(19,119598,'VirtualCenter 2.5 Server Update 3 ','10/3/2008');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(20,123630,'VMware ESX Server 3.5 Update 3','11/6/2008');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(21,147694,'Virtual Infrastructure Client','2/23/2009');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(22,147633,'Virtual Infrastructure Client','2/23/2009');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(23,147704,'VirtualCenter 2.5 Server Update 4','2/23/2009');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(24,147633,'VirtualCenter 2.5 Server Update 4 ','2/23/2009');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(25,153875,'VMware ESX Server 3.5 Update 4','3/30/2009');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(26,4240,'VMware vCenter Orchestrator (vCO) 4.0 ','4/15/2009');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(27,164009,'ESX 4.0 or ESXi 4.0 Installable or Embedded','5/21/2009');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(28,162902,'vCenter Server 4.0 ','5/21/2009');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(29,150805,'VMware Consolidated Backup 1.5 Update 1','5/21/2009');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(30,161418,'VMware vCenter Converter for vCenter Server 4.0 ','5/21/2009');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(31,162871,'VMware vCenter Update Manager 4.0','5/21/2009');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(32,174841,'Virtual Infrastructure Client','7/10/2009');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(33,174841,'VirtualCenter 2.5 Server Update 5','7/10/2009');
INSERT INTO "vmware" VALUES(34,174791,'VirtualCenter 2.5 Server Update 5 ','7/10/2009');
CREATE TABLE suse(
idk Integer Primary KEY ASC,
kupdate INTEGER,
kversion TEXT,
kname TEXT
);
COMMIT;

My Script for changing my ip address in my putty session HostName field.

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 04:51:42 GMT

I like to access one of my dynamic IP addresses from PuTTY sessions.
I have a couple that the hostnames cannot be used from some of the places because the names are from dynamic hosting agencies. In order to access them while visiting said locations, I must use the IP address which isn't blocked (most of the time). Well that's annoying to me, because the nature of a dynamic IP address is just that . . . dynamic! I wrote a little script to get the ip address based upon the host to ip address resolution from the bind utility "host" and deliver that address for PuTTY config file modification.

The configuration ends up in a dictionary. You could change any variable you want.

#!/usr/bin/python

import subprocess
import sys

dynamicHost = 'yourhost.resolvit.net'                                             # the hostname I decided to query.
PuttyFile = '/home/userific/.putty/sessions/HOMECONNECT' # the session file I want to change.

newSessionConfig=[]                                                                        # prime the new configuration.

def writeSessionConfig(newSessionConfig):                               # write to file
    sessionInfo = []
    for I in newSessionConfig.keys():
        line = "=".join([ I, newSessionConfig[I] ])
        line = "".join([line, '\n'])                                                             # I had difficulty here. I wasn't sure how to properly handle newlines.
        sessionInfo.append(line)
    sessionInfo.reverse()
    fileToConfigure = open(PuttyFile, 'w')
    fileToConfigure.writelines(sessionInfo)
    fileToConfigure.close()

def getSessionConfig(filename):     # create a dictionary of the configuration
    sessionDict = {}
    session = open(filename, 'r')
    sessionConfig = [ line.strip() for line in session.readlines() ]
    session.close()
    for line in sessionConfig:
        k,v = line.split('=', 1)
        sessionDict[k] = v.strip()
    return sessionDict

def setHostName(sessionDict,NEWIP,OLDIP):                         # replace the old ip address with the new.
    for K in sessionDict.keys():
        tempItem = sessionDict[K]
        sessionDict[K] = tempItem.replace(OLDIP,NEWIP)
    return sessionDict

def setSessionConfig(filename, config):
    session = open(filename, 'rw')
    session.writelines(config)
    session.close()

def getCurrentHostName(hostname):
    execute = 'host'
    command = [execute, hostname]
    proc = subprocess.Popen(command, shell=False, stdout=subprocess.PIPE )
    output = proc.communicate()
    if output[1] == None:
        HOSTINFO = output[0].split('\n')
        HOSTINFO = HOSTINFO[0].split()
        NEWIP = HOSTINFO[-1]
    else:
        print "Error %d\n" % output[1]
        print "Not Found"
        sys.exit(output[1])
    return NEWIP

if __name__ == "__main__":
    sessionConfig = getSessionConfig(PuttyFile)                                             # type {}
    OLDIP = sessionConfig['HostName']
    NEWIP = getCurrentHostName(dynamicHost)
    newSessionConfig = setHostName(sessionConfig, NEWIP, OLDIP)
    writeSessionConfig(newSessionConfig)

That's all there is to it. I am sure you will find ways to improve it. I am interested in your feedback.

Another Fedora Tattoo pic.

Wed, 20 May 2009 02:33:59 GMT

Another image. This one freshly applied.

Fedora Tattoos are Here!

Wed, 20 May 2009 02:25:00 GMT

So excited about the look.

Password Lock Time in RHEL 5

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:32:03 GMT

I had to look this up to pass along to a customer when a technician asked me how to handle this. Well, I couldn't find the article in my original searches, but Greg, the technician, came back with a search on Red Hat's Knowledgebase that did find the article in the top ten results.

Greg searched for "unlock password" and found the best results.

The Red Hat Knowledgebase Article ID: 9771 shows how to set a timeout in seconds after the number of login attempts and how to unlock accounts manually. I like this article and the "More Like This" section covers RHEL 2.1,3 and 4.

You can also refer to the /usr/share/doc/pam-/txts/README.pam_tally for information on more specialized configuration.

Installing Citrix Client in Fedora 10

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:53:58 GMT

No it isn't just as simple as installing the rpm provided by Citrix for Citrix Presentation Server. No no. Citrix Presentation Server clients are dependent upon the Open Motif libraries dropped from the Fedora Core project (when there was such a thing) for issues with the license used for Open Motif.

I found information on the fedoraforum site describing the condition and then user brunson pointed to the Citrix forum where they describe the problem.

I particularly enjoyed the description by Hans-Rudolf, but user Tim Fletcher created a stub rpm for satisfying the prerequisites for ICAclient installation. Thanks Tim.

HDR Lettuce After

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:10:26 GMT

HDR Lettuce After
Originally uploaded by davdunc

This is my first attempt to create an HDR photograph using Gimp. I am not very well versed in the use of Gimp so I learned a few neat tricks about working with the photos in tandem. Next step is to learn how to correct my colors. Once I have a better idea of how to correct color, I should be able to make a nicer, less cartoon-like photograph.

The photo itself was managed from import to finish with tools pulled from the standard repository for Fedora 10. No additional package repositories or non-osi approved software was used.

The garden itself is a product of my wife's strong desire to reawaken the victory gardens of the depression before this one.

Ambassador T-Shirts Arrived today.

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 03:14:40 GMT

Fedora Ambassador T-Shirts arrived today. I was very impressed with the quality and cut of the shirts. I will be very proud to wear them to any event. I am very grateful for Pascal Calarco's assistance in obtaining the shirts. Outstanding work Pascal!

Easiest laptop recovery with the best results.

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 04:49:48 GMT

I just had my easiest recovery ever. I really took to heart the need for a good version control system when I took the rh333 class with Paul Morgan. I have always maintained code repo's for various developer groups, but never had anything interesting for myself. Now I keep them for my website material (all 10 bits) and the parts of my home drive I can't live without. Previously I simply rsynced to a usb drive and then restored from the backup drive and that works, but this restore came across wireless network from my server where my content was just waiting for my reconnection. It contains my profile setting, my most recent cache data and many other things I am grateful to have back including my repo files for yum.

I used a liveusb to reinstall the OS and I used the method outlined on the Fedora wiki to create my liveusb. The graphic installer was fantastic and I created a custom LVM configuration from the installer. During the installation process I was able to encrypt the partitions.

This also cleared up a problem with the iwl3945 driver in the XPS M1530 laptop.