Coredump

The server: dual Xeon 2.8 GHz, 4 GB DDR 333 MHz, 3 x 200-GB SATA HD. Thin-client desktop. Login screen. Provisional setup for the thin clients.

Finish migration of opapa to XAMPP. Build new Drupal database from dump.

Download Firefox 1.0.3: wget -t inf http://mozilla.mirrors.tds.net/pub/ \   mozilla.org/firefox/releases/1.0.3/ \   linux-i686/en-US/firefox-1.0.3.installer.tar.gz Download XAMPP Linux 1.4.13.

Drupal installation on opapa. Created Drupal database: mysql -u root -p > CREATE DATABASE drupal; > GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON drupal.* TO iandexter IDENTIFIED \\    BY 'password'; > FLUSH PRIVILEGES; > q Decompressed Drupal package on /var/www/html/ Load database schema for Drupal: cd /var/www/html/drupal-4.6.0 mysql -u iandexter -p drupal Edited configuration in sites/default/settings.php : $db_url = "mysql://iandexter:password@localhost/drupal"; $base_url = "http://cms.openacademy.ph/" Created files directory: sudo mkdir files sudo chmod 664 files/ Edited httpd.conf : <VirtualHost *>   ServerName cms.openacademy.ph   DocumentRoot "/var/www/html/drupal-4.6.0" </VirtualHost> <Directory "/var/www/html/drupal-4.6.0">   Options Indexes   AllowOverride All </Directory> Created cron task: su - -c "crontab -e" 0 * * * * wget -O - q http://cms.openacademy.ph/cron.php Opened installation in browser, c...

Follow-up to my initial Ubuntu LTSP post . The linux-2.6.10-5-i686 kernel recognized the 4-GB RAM, but registered only 3.5 GB (according to free ). The good thing is, with all 30 clients on and running Firefox and OpenOffice.org , memory use peaked at just about 1.4 GB. Bad news, though: CPU utilization maxed out at 100%! I could barely move the mouse pointer on the server. Clients just sailed along fine, though. Weird. I have a dual Xeon box, and with the rush of configuring the server in time for the IPR training (for which these critters will be used mostly: our organization is building up its IP management infrastructure) today, I forgot to add an -smp kernel. *Slaps my forehead!* Oh well, nothing that a Synaptic session couldn't accomplish. Snags. For one, while the clients rarely hanged, most of them took a long time logging back in (and I mean *lloooong*, as in 10-15 minutes) after lunch break. Seems I've set the DHCP lease time way too low, and it was continuously ...

Finally got LTSP to work. Right now, clocking in at 15 clients. Had to tweak /etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf to up the maximum allowable sessions. In a nutshell, here's what I did: Installed Ubuntu Warty. Using the main repo, did apt-get s for SSH, NFS, TFTP, DHCP3, and libwww-perl , along with dependencies. Installed ltsp-utils ; ran ltspadmin , then installed LTSP 4.1. Configured /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf , /etc/hosts , /etc/hosts.allow , and /etc/exports . Had trouble tweaking DHCP (mainly the root-path and filename directives), but finally got it right. Fired up one client, setting it to boot through PXE first. Voila! Ubuntu login screen! Ooopss: used an i386 kernel so the 4-GB DRAM wasn't recognized. Promptly got i686 kernel images. Tested on 15 clients first, but forgot to set limit on maximum sessions. Tomorrow, will boot on new kernel to see what happens. *crosses fingers* Update : Photos are here .

Configured Ubuntu Warty LTSP server. Had to manually point tftp root path in dhcpd.conf . Added NFS export entry.

Got public IP from the net admin. Connected eth0 to the WAN switch. In /etc/network/interfaces : auto eth0 iface eth0 inet static address x.x.x.x Modified /etc/apt/sources.list yet again, including the "Universe" Hoary repo. sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade Still taking too long. I think the 1-Mbps link is clogged. Too many users. Contemplating on using Apache Lenya . Looks promising, but I need to install Java, and maybe Tomcat. Lotta work ahead.

To access rich content such as video and images on the internet through a broadband connection, extension workers and farmers need not look further than the kitchen. In an effort to provide wider access to information for Filipino farmers and extension workers, information and communication technology (ICT) specialists from the University of Southern Mindanao (USM) and the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) have developed a "low-tech" solution to connect to the internet through Wi-Fi: using antennas made of pots and pans. Read full article at the Pinoy Farmers' Internet portal .

Came to work early, before 7:00 AM in fact. Added directory browsing restriction on PFI directories. Edited .htaccess : Options -Indexes Customized error messages on PFI. Configured Apache2 with PHP, SSL and Perl. MySQL doesn't work, though.

This 10-hour day is killing me! Aaarrrggghhhh! Edited PFI article . Writing PFI article on WiFi - ONGOING DONE Tested Typo3. MySQL hangs. Looking into it. Tweaked Apache2 settings. Changed /etc/fstab entries for shared Win partitions to mount them at boot-up: umask=000 . Added b2bpricenow.com link to PFI's E-Commerce section. Still upgrading Warty to Hoary. Buggy proxy connection. Finally able to mount USB flash disk on Warty. Issued sudo modprobe loop before mounting the disk loopback.

Muñoz Science City — Farmers and extension workers will soon have high-speed internet access similar to services available commercially. Read the rest of the story at the Pinoy Farmers' Internet portal .

Okay, start of the four-day, 10-hour-a-day work week. Sheesh. It's a pain, getting up so early, travelling for about an hour, then plopping into my cube still doozie. Anyway: Wrote news articles and uploaded to PFI . Submitted article for PhilRice Online . Updated Ubuntu packages — still Warty, as updates taking too long; gone selective, too — (Apache2, Perl, MySQL) using Synaptic. Installed WAMP + Typo3. Tested look-and-feel, just to get the hang of it.

Now, that is cool indeed. Nicholas Negroponte and several colleagues from the MIT Media Lab are developing a low-cost notebook to help bridge the widening digital gap in developing countries. Specs for the laptop: Modest processing power and storage. Battery capable of being recharged using a hand-crank (similar to hand-cranked radios used in Africa). "Electronic ink" or rear-projected 12" display. Wi-Fi access. USB ports for peripheral devices. Powered by Linux (what else? ;)). Worth looking into for our project , methinks. Update: They have a prototype already, and a wiki , too.

A revolutionary new product! How to get Gulped? You can pick up your own supply of this "limited release" product simply by turning in a used Gulp Cap at your local grocery store. How to get a Gulp Cap? Well, if you know someone who's already been "gulped," they can give you one. And if you don't know anyone who can give you one, don't worry – that just means you aren't cool. But very, very (very!) soon, you will be.

A tasteless April Fool's joke or the real McCoy? This article bares how Wordpress did it. A couple of interesting issues crop up: Since Google introduced its AdSense program, blogging, for some, has become a means to earn dollars. Not really unethical, but rigging Google to boost one's page rank is, for me, a bit questionable. The Wordpress excuse of the proceeds going to supporting the open-source project — thus benefitting the community — is just pretty hard to swallow, no matter how much sweetener you add to it. What does this say about the business model of open-source projects in general? Of course, funding can be an issue, especially if there's a dearth of volunteers to do worthwhile deeds. But gaming search engines to up the revenues? *shrugs* And this, coming from one of the proponents of the fight against search engine spams (the <rel="nofollow"> )? Ironic, isn't it?

Mounted shared disk, hdc1 . Edited /etc/fstab : /dev/hdc1 /home/iandexter/Shared vfat rw,user,noauto 0 0 Changed apt sources to Hoary. Upgrading packages — taking too long! Updated articles on PFI . Uploading to server taking too long — fiber link to FTIC timing out. Checked it out. Rigged link, connected directly to MDF. Still no go.

Got the 80-GB HDD from FTIC4. Installed the HDD as primary. Booted on primary slave WXP. Deleted primary partition (~35 GB) on hda . Installed Ubuntu Warty on hda . Booted on Ubuntu - SUCCESS! ... ... ... [Lots of goobledygeek lines later...] Ubuntu boot screen. Yay! Fired up terminal window, edited /etc/network/interfaces : auto lo eth1 iface lo inet loopback iface eth1 inet dhcp Ran sudo /sbin/ifup -a . Started Firefox, set up proxy config, and browsed Google.