Been Awhile

Wow… well over a year… since my last blog?!?! Ohh well.

I’m setting back my MythTV box… but i need to share some files across my little network.Since i have nix boxes i figured I would set up a NFS share. I’ll set up a samba share also for those times i need to share files with a windows machine.

NFS Server

On the server:

apt-get install nfs-kernel-server nfs-common portmap

then vi /etc/exports

/depot/tvshows  192.168.2.0/255.255.255.0(rw,sync,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check)
/deposit        192.168.2.0/255.255.255.0(rw,sync,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check)
/winstorage/appz        192.168.2.5/255.255.255.0(rw,sync,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check)

I chose the 192.168.x.x format to allow anyone on that particular network access to my NFS shares.

By using no_root_squash we tell NFS access should be made as root.. why you say? Mainly because I also want to be able to write to the direcctory (if our /home share was read-only, this wouldn’t be necessary).

Whenever /etc/exports is modified, we have to run

exportfs -a

to make the changes effective.

NFS Client

First I created the directories where I wanted to mount the NFS shares, e.g.:

mkdir -p /media/nfs/winstorage/
mkdir -p /media/nfs/deposit
mkdir -p /media/nfs/tvshows

To test it out I decided to mount my exported folders

mount 192.168.2.5:/depot/tvshows /media/nfs/tvshowsmkdir -p /mnt/nfs/home

No Love I received the below error:

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on 192.168.2.5:/depot/tvshows,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error
(for several filesystems (e.g. nfs, cifs) you might
need a /sbin/mount.<type> helper program)
In some cases useful info is found in syslog – try
dmesg | tail  or so

i noticed I forgot to install nfs and port map stuff on my client… DUH!!!

apt-get install portmap nfs-common

Afterwards, we can mount them as follows:

enigma@andromeda:~$ mount 192.168.2.5:/depot/tvshows /media/nfs/tvshows
enigma@andromeda:~$

No Error!!! Yippe!!!

Hardy is it worth it?

I’ve upgraded my desktop to Ubuntu Hardy Heron the day it was released no big issues there. So last week I decided to upgrade my Dell D820 work laptop to Hardy… fllllaaawwweeddd plan!! If it’s not the annoying system beep it’s program freezing for now apparent reason. Your special function keys just stop working (you have ANY idea how hard it is to work on some machines without your special keys for eg. caps).

This keyboard thing though seems to be contributed to having VMware installed on your computer. The CTRL, ALT, Shift, etc. keys will stop working on the host machine but will continue to work in the VM machine. After doing some searching I found out that if you run:
setxkbmap
You get your stuff back after you type that in. Granted at times you may have to type it in a few times but that is better than rebooting your damn machine.

UUID… Is it really better?

Ubuntu started using UUID’s from around Edgy Eft I believe. I must
admit though when I upgraded to Edgy. I noticed the change to UUID in
my /etc/fstab but I never paid it any mind; “If it ain’t broke don’t
fix it!!”. I’ve since did a network upgrade to Hardy from Gutsy… that
‘install’ messed up my partitions !!!!!

First let me give you the wikipedia definition of UUID:

The intent of UUIDs is to enable distributed systems to uniquely
identify information without significant central coordination. Thus,
anyone can create a UUID and use it to identify something with
reasonable confidence that the identifier will never be unintentionally
used by anyone for anything else.

UUID is good for people who use alot of removable devices.By using UUID you  don’t have to worry about disk label issues. While normal desktop users who don’t really change or add hard drives to their up an running system will see UUID as just more headache in the *nix world.
Not sure where I picked up this info from but this is put as simply as possible I believe:

No matter if you change how the hd is connected to your system (for example primary/secondary master/slave for IDE) the UUID never changes, whereas the device node can change. Thus the association between mount point and partition is more robust when using UUIDs.

Which do you prefer:

UUID=855c621e-cc8b-4a2c-9b22-e01aa751b870    /media/layover    ext3     defaults           0          2

or

/dev/sda5 /media/unno ext3 defaults 0 2

If you are interested in finding out what your UUID is for a particular partition type:

sudo vol_id -u device

Linux Friendly Vag-com

I’ve obtained a REAL vag-com cable… no more second rate testing for me . I must say initially I was disappointed that I getting the serial version but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Vag-com installed seamlessly with wine on my nix box. I was thinking about running it through my windows VM but I continuously get COM errors… so i started searching for ways on how run vag from linux. Pallad at vwvortex had a little write up on HOW-TO Install VAG-COM in Ubuntu Linux using Wine which i decided to follow… after which I was on my way gathering info on my VW in no time.

Woopppie!!!!…. Wubi

All you windows users who wanted to try out linux … but was afraid for your system?? Well here comes Wubi, If you can click a icon you can install one of the three flavours of ubuntu:xubuntu, ubuntu or kubuntu. They are all basically the same except for the fact that they each run a different desktop environment… XFCE, Gnome and KDE respectively.

Grab a ISO of your choice or let wubi download it for you… either way give *buntu a try.

Here is a excerpt from th wubi wiki page:

How does Wubi work?

Wubi
adds an entry to the Windows boot menu which allows you to run Linux.
Ubuntu is installed within a file in the Windows file system
(c:\ubuntu\disks\root.disk), this file is seen by Linux as a real hard
disk.