For some time I have had two 10 Mbps hubs that extend my network from my router. The router is 10/100, but for many years my machines were all 10 Mbps interfaces. With the upgrades over the years, now most of the motherboards have on-board 100 Mbps and with the transfer of video, images, and music, I'd really like to get my speed up to 100 Mbps.
For $9.99 each (no rebate) I purchased three D-Link DES-1105 5-Port Unmanaged 10/100 network switches. The switches autosense speed, duplex, and uplink, so there is absolutely no configuration. No need for crossover cables, which is always a bonus.
The upgrade went flawlessly. I plugged in the switches and everything sensed and came up fine. My days of autosensing paranoia are finally over.
Easiest upgrade ever.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Bread Pudding
I have liked bread pudding since I was a kid and so, finally, I decided to try to make it.
Here's my modified Internet Bread Pudding recipe:
6 cups of stale bread ton into pieces.
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice (didn't have plain nutmeg)
4 tsp cinammon
4 cups milk
2 large boxes of cook-n-serve Vanilla pudding
Put the bread in a large cake pan. Cover with spices and pudding. Add 4 cups of boiling milk. Mix slightly and bake on 350 for 30 minutes.
It turned out with too little pudding and too much cinnamon. Next time 3 tsp of cinnamon, 3 boxes of pudding, and 6 cups of milk, I think. I'll update this when I try it.
Here's my modified Internet Bread Pudding recipe:
6 cups of stale bread ton into pieces.
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice (didn't have plain nutmeg)
4 tsp cinammon
4 cups milk
2 large boxes of cook-n-serve Vanilla pudding
Put the bread in a large cake pan. Cover with spices and pudding. Add 4 cups of boiling milk. Mix slightly and bake on 350 for 30 minutes.
It turned out with too little pudding and too much cinnamon. Next time 3 tsp of cinnamon, 3 boxes of pudding, and 6 cups of milk, I think. I'll update this when I try it.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
New Server Requirements
So, it is time to start thinking about the new server. This post is where I am going to keep track of things to configure and install. First let's see what is on it currently:
- squid -- set up as a proxy server with a whitelist, might want to add filtering
- sarg -- a report generator for squid
- wordpress -- never really used it
- php shopping list -- I need php, but I think I want to replace this shopping list with a Java servlet
- cvs repository -- hmmm, maybe it is time to move to subversion
- nwn admin -- I definitely want to run a nwn server, since my daughters and I can play
- nwn server -- see above
- D&D Character generator -- Yeah, we need that
- Samba -- gotta have a central place to keep stuff
- Apache -- the basis for a lot of stuff
- MySQL -- basis for lots of stuff, too
- Tomcat -- A Java servlet container, aka application server
- Planet -- A feed aggregator that I haven't found a free host for
- Nefu-- A network monitor
- Wiki / Blog software -- I have free hosting options.
- Picture / Media Site -- A file server and free hosting are the best options
- DNS / DHCP / Firewall -- Other solutions already in place
- Email -- free hosting
The New Machine
I just got in my new system from cyberpowerpc and it is awesome.
Specifications:
500 Watt Power Supply
Extra Case Fan
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+
2 GB of 800 MHz RAM
Sparkle 8600GT Video Card, 1GB (PCI Express)
160 GB SATA Drive
Windows XP SP 2
My old system was an AMD 3800+ with 1.5 GB RAM, and IDE Drive, and an ATI 9600SE video card. It would not run the 'Big 3' properly: Second Life, Eternal Lands, and BZFlag. The new system can run the Big 3 all at the same time while watching a YouTube video. Wow.
Specifications:
500 Watt Power Supply
Extra Case Fan
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+
2 GB of 800 MHz RAM
Sparkle 8600GT Video Card, 1GB (PCI Express)
160 GB SATA Drive
Windows XP SP 2
My old system was an AMD 3800+ with 1.5 GB RAM, and IDE Drive, and an ATI 9600SE video card. It would not run the 'Big 3' properly: Second Life, Eternal Lands, and BZFlag. The new system can run the Big 3 all at the same time while watching a YouTube video. Wow.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Lag, Ping Jitter, and Negative Pings
So my new machine rocks, but for some reason I start having problems with jitter in BZFlag. This is the weird jitter that makes the tanks jump around in time like a mexican jumping bean. I check my lag stats and sure enough... jitter in my ping times.
Ping time jitter is bad. Imagine that the server has a model of all the tanks and your computer has a similar model that is being synchronized to the server. If the time it takes a packet to get to your computer is some constant, then your view of the world will always be off by that offset -- some small lag.
Insert random changes in this offset and now packets arrive out of order and the tanks start stuttering like some sort of weird Star Trek time warp.
Tonight... a revelation... maybe I should check my server to see if it has the same problem, cause, well, we all know that Comcast is doing evil things to packets.
Server -- Linux -- Same Subnet -- No Jitter
Old Computer -- Windows XP -- Same Subnet -- No Jitter
New Computer -- Windows XP -- Same Subnet -- Jitter out the Wazoo
Hmmm... I switch network ports with no change. I turn NIC card offloading on and off with no change. I lower the speed -- no change.
Suddenly I notice negative ping times on my computer. This is getting really weird. I knew it -- I have discovered how to make a time warp.
A quick search of 'negative pings' turns up this page:
Negative Ping Time - Luke Jackson
And sure enough he and I have the same processor. I install the AMD patch and voila -- no more ping jitter.
Computers are just too damned quirky.
Ping time jitter is bad. Imagine that the server has a model of all the tanks and your computer has a similar model that is being synchronized to the server. If the time it takes a packet to get to your computer is some constant, then your view of the world will always be off by that offset -- some small lag.
Insert random changes in this offset and now packets arrive out of order and the tanks start stuttering like some sort of weird Star Trek time warp.
Tonight... a revelation... maybe I should check my server to see if it has the same problem, cause, well, we all know that Comcast is doing evil things to packets.
Server -- Linux -- Same Subnet -- No Jitter
Old Computer -- Windows XP -- Same Subnet -- No Jitter
New Computer -- Windows XP -- Same Subnet -- Jitter out the Wazoo
Hmmm... I switch network ports with no change. I turn NIC card offloading on and off with no change. I lower the speed -- no change.
Suddenly I notice negative ping times on my computer. This is getting really weird. I knew it -- I have discovered how to make a time warp.
A quick search of 'negative pings' turns up this page:
Negative Ping Time - Luke Jackson
And sure enough he and I have the same processor. I install the AMD patch and voila -- no more ping jitter.
Computers are just too damned quirky.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
How To Fix Disappearing USB Drives
I have a Linux server, and much to my dismay, my large USB drive for storage appears disappear after non-use in some sort of power-down mode. I tried automatically remounting the drive periodically using cron, and though that seemed to extend the time of usability, it still didn't ultimately fix the problem.
This is a big problem since the drive is home for my served music and my squid files. Whenever it disappears I lose my music server and my girls lose their whitelisted internet access.
Stage 2, which is now being tested, added a second cron job to move a file back and forth between the IDE root partition and USB drive every 5 minutes. My hope is that the periodic use will keep the drive from powering down.
Cross your fingers and we'll see how it goes.
Darn -- it stays on, but randomly gets remounted as READ-ONLY.
The next step is to try a newer version of Linux: Yes, that's right -- time to rebuild the server.
This is a big problem since the drive is home for my served music and my squid files. Whenever it disappears I lose my music server and my girls lose their whitelisted internet access.
Stage 2, which is now being tested, added a second cron job to move a file back and forth between the IDE root partition and USB drive every 5 minutes. My hope is that the periodic use will keep the drive from powering down.
Cross your fingers and we'll see how it goes.
Darn -- it stays on, but randomly gets remounted as READ-ONLY.
The next step is to try a newer version of Linux: Yes, that's right -- time to rebuild the server.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Linux Reviews Part 1
I have been tracking Linux since the RedHat 5 days. Periodically I switch through a few linux distros and check to make sure I have the best solution for my needs. My needs vary widely. I run linux on a 333 MHz laptop Compaq Armada 1750 in my garage. I run it on my main gaming machine (currently a AMD 3800+). I also have high end machines across the spectrum of laptops, workstations, and clusters. I run servers. I need live CDs/DVDs.
I figured it was about time that I started sharing some of this information. This is marked Part 1, because tracking Linux distros is a continuous process, and it is never finished.
So first, lets take a stab at some classes of linux.
How about we list a few criteria:
Detailed distro information can be found here at distrowatch.
Need 1: Minimal on Compaq Armada 1750 33MHz
I tried MEPIS, DSL, and ZenWalk. ZenWalk had the best overall hardware detection, application base, and customizeability in this realm of computers. Before ZenWalk, I also ran a stripped down version of SuSE with the blackbox window manager, but SuSE is really just too large to use on small machines.
With the ZenWalk configuration, I have been running the Compaq Armada in an unheated garage for months without a failure. The system is always responsive, though really I only run two main apps: GAIM to talk to my wife in the house and Firefox for researching whatever.
It will play YouTube video, but I have gotten around to recompiling the kernel with ISA support for the sound card.
Overall, I am impressed with ZenWalk.
Need 2: Old Gaming Desktop
PCLinux OS was my old gaming desktop of choice, mostly because it was quick, responsive, and dealt with video cards well. It had everything I wanted until the video card support just ran out -- not on the OS -- but for my old ATI video card.
In this case I also tried serveral distros including Ubuntu. The boottom line problem was always the video card. PCLinux OS had help that brought me the solution quickly. The other distros left me hanging.
Need 3: New Gaming Desktop
This will be a future post. I will be comparing the possibilities of OpenSuSE, Mint Linux, Ubuntu, and PC Linux for use on my new system.
Need 4: Low End Home Server
You just can't beat SuSE Linux for a fully functional server. It takes time to dig through the install process, which will soon be better with the release of SuSE 11. For now I am going to run openSuSE 10.3. With a minimal X install it is reasonaly small and responsive, but still alows easy remote access. It comes with everything, and the update system is easy to use.
Fedora is always an option to consider, but it has historically been too leading-edge for stable use. I consistently run into problems on my old Fedora install with bugs and problems. The latest is a USB disk problem. I never did get the update system to a state I liked.
Need 5: Take-Anywhere Live CD
Knoppix is king, but I choose to settle for the customizeability of Puppy Linux. I like the fact that my changes are saved back to the CD. One minor issue is that the more changes you save, the longer it takes to start up. I need to look into remastering the CD to get rid of that problem.
Don't get me wrong, I keep a couple of copies of Knoppix (CD, DVD) around just for those times I need more than just basic functionality, like for sysadmin stuff. Puppy, however, is my mobile platform for hardware du jour.
Need 6: Quick Server Distro
If you need a server in a hurry, there is nothing faster than Ubuntu. In my faster server install ever, I got a full LAMP system up in no time. The system has been stable and efficient. There aren't as many packages on the Ubuntu server, but sometimes you just don't need them.
Need 7: Full Server/Workstation/Cluster OS
openSuSE 11 Alpha 2 with KDE 4 -- KDE 4 is slick. The KDE 4 install neatly organizes things so you can find them. I uninstalled beagle with no problem. There are some glitches, especially with Yast. Firefox is up to date. Lots of good solid apps. I had problems with the video installation and couldn't up my resolution. No nano/pico. Performance seems good overall. Shutdown was fast. Bootup was quick too. Still, at the end of the day, I can't recommend jumping on board with an alpha version. Wait for the release of 11. It will be sharp, I am sure.
openSuSE 10.3 -- I have to admit that I was disappointed with the releases of SuSE 10.x. Quite frankly, there were a lot of problems with 10.1 and 10.2. 10.3 is much better. It is easier to navigate from a command-line perspective. There are a lot fewer documented issues with 10.3. It just runs.
The one drawback I have found with 10.3 is that it doesn't clone well over netcat. Next time maybe I will use the yast autoinstall system instead of cloning.
I figured it was about time that I started sharing some of this information. This is marked Part 1, because tracking Linux distros is a continuous process, and it is never finished.
So first, lets take a stab at some classes of linux.
- Minimal -- small installs for low-end processors, small hard disks, and vintage machines
- Live -- CD or DVD-based live installs that don't leave anything on the harddrive
- Gaming / Workstations / Desktop -- distros for a good user experience on modern hardware
- Clusters and Servers -- distros for taking care of business
How about we list a few criteria:
- Hardware Works -- Of course, this is only relevant for my hardware and quite frankly, anyone that has hardware that didn't work has a bad experience with any OS (i.e. Vista)
- Workable Software State -- There are certain software packages I need everywhere (pico/nano) and there are certain software packages that are required for a user (Firefox). I am only slightly annoyed if they aren't included, but if they aren't, they better be easy to install. And don't annoy me, the user, with you philisophical "I can't include this free software because" crap. I need software that works. If you don't like somebody elses license, rewrite the functionality so I don't care, give me their software, or give me a way to easily install it.
- Performance -- The last thing I want is an OS that wastes the resources I need on stuff I don't. For example, if the system has beagle desktop search, I had better be able to easily disable it.
- User Efficiency -- User efficiency is hard to measure. My expectations are that *I* can easily do the things I need to do. All it takes is a bit of a hassle in doing a simple thing and I am deeply annoyed.
- Documentation -- Ok, so if I have a question, I don't want to deal with people. I want answers on the web so I can get to them with google. This, of course, tends to draw me towards widely used distros so I can find another user with the same problem (and hopefully a solution). Thankfully, linux is standard enough in most cases that underlying problems are common across distros, but not always.
- ZenWalk -- the current distro I have on my Compaq Armada 1750 333MHz
- PCLinuxOS -- the current distro I have on my gaming machine
- SuSE/openSuSE -- my favorite server/cluster OS
- Ubuntu -- a solid distro and the basis for many other distros
- Fedora -- an OS I use on one of my servers
- Mint Linux -- an Ubuntu derivative
- DSL -- a classis small OS
- Mepis -- interesting little distro
- Puppy Linux -- unique live distro
- Knoppix -- THE classic live distro
Detailed distro information can be found here at distrowatch.
The Review
Need 1: Minimal on Compaq Armada 1750 33MHz
I tried MEPIS, DSL, and ZenWalk. ZenWalk had the best overall hardware detection, application base, and customizeability in this realm of computers. Before ZenWalk, I also ran a stripped down version of SuSE with the blackbox window manager, but SuSE is really just too large to use on small machines.
With the ZenWalk configuration, I have been running the Compaq Armada in an unheated garage for months without a failure. The system is always responsive, though really I only run two main apps: GAIM to talk to my wife in the house and Firefox for researching whatever.
It will play YouTube video, but I have gotten around to recompiling the kernel with ISA support for the sound card.
Overall, I am impressed with ZenWalk.
Need 2: Old Gaming Desktop
PCLinux OS was my old gaming desktop of choice, mostly because it was quick, responsive, and dealt with video cards well. It had everything I wanted until the video card support just ran out -- not on the OS -- but for my old ATI video card.
In this case I also tried serveral distros including Ubuntu. The boottom line problem was always the video card. PCLinux OS had help that brought me the solution quickly. The other distros left me hanging.
Need 3: New Gaming Desktop
This will be a future post. I will be comparing the possibilities of OpenSuSE, Mint Linux, Ubuntu, and PC Linux for use on my new system.
Need 4: Low End Home Server
You just can't beat SuSE Linux for a fully functional server. It takes time to dig through the install process, which will soon be better with the release of SuSE 11. For now I am going to run openSuSE 10.3. With a minimal X install it is reasonaly small and responsive, but still alows easy remote access. It comes with everything, and the update system is easy to use.
Fedora is always an option to consider, but it has historically been too leading-edge for stable use. I consistently run into problems on my old Fedora install with bugs and problems. The latest is a USB disk problem. I never did get the update system to a state I liked.
Need 5: Take-Anywhere Live CD
Knoppix is king, but I choose to settle for the customizeability of Puppy Linux. I like the fact that my changes are saved back to the CD. One minor issue is that the more changes you save, the longer it takes to start up. I need to look into remastering the CD to get rid of that problem.
Don't get me wrong, I keep a couple of copies of Knoppix (CD, DVD) around just for those times I need more than just basic functionality, like for sysadmin stuff. Puppy, however, is my mobile platform for hardware du jour.
Need 6: Quick Server Distro
If you need a server in a hurry, there is nothing faster than Ubuntu. In my faster server install ever, I got a full LAMP system up in no time. The system has been stable and efficient. There aren't as many packages on the Ubuntu server, but sometimes you just don't need them.
Need 7: Full Server/Workstation/Cluster OS
openSuSE 11 Alpha 2 with KDE 4 -- KDE 4 is slick. The KDE 4 install neatly organizes things so you can find them. I uninstalled beagle with no problem. There are some glitches, especially with Yast. Firefox is up to date. Lots of good solid apps. I had problems with the video installation and couldn't up my resolution. No nano/pico. Performance seems good overall. Shutdown was fast. Bootup was quick too. Still, at the end of the day, I can't recommend jumping on board with an alpha version. Wait for the release of 11. It will be sharp, I am sure.
openSuSE 10.3 -- I have to admit that I was disappointed with the releases of SuSE 10.x. Quite frankly, there were a lot of problems with 10.1 and 10.2. 10.3 is much better. It is easier to navigate from a command-line perspective. There are a lot fewer documented issues with 10.3. It just runs.
The one drawback I have found with 10.3 is that it doesn't clone well over netcat. Next time maybe I will use the yast autoinstall system instead of cloning.
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