Yaird, Yet Another Mkinitrd;
sparc32: ESP not included in initrd;
SPARC etch release notes;
removing unnecessary packages with deborphan;
cleaning up a debian system;
more cleaning up a debian system;
upgrading to apache2;
more apache2 upgrade goodness; and
perfect debian etch setup.
posted 22:32 [/podcast/shownotes]
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WOOOO HOOOO!!!!!
Debian etch is hotness. I finally got all the gotchas worked out and I am running Debian etch, kernel-2.6.18-4 and apache2.2 on my sparc ultra2 server:-) YEA ME! Only thing that I haven't got figured out is how to make the switch to udev from hotplug on the sparc. I got around the whole udev/hotplug/2.6.18-4 thing by installing Yaird,(Yet Another Mkinitrd). I had to specifically load some modules in /etc/yaird/Default.cfg to get it working; I am happy now.
posted 19:03 [/computers/linux/distros/debian]
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On debian and downtime
Yesterday, after 21 months of work, the debian developers released debian etch. Debian is a wonderful thing. I have played with etch 3 or 4 times since last fall, and debain stable has been on my web server for a long, long, long time. When woody passed the torch to sarge, I held off upgrading my server for about 6 months. When I finally did upgrade to sarge, I was amazed; debain upgrades are modern day miracles. With debain you really can just install the OS one time, and apt-get dist upgrade all future releases. As long as you don't go skipping releases, or going straight from stable to unstable, upgrading a debian system is a very very pleasant experience. So, when I read that etch had been deemed stable, I jumped all over it. Literally within hours (less than 4) of the upgrade announcement I was upgrading my old sparc ultra2 production web server.
There was a voice inside my head though, speaking softly to me, as I went about upgrading my trusty sarge box to debain etch. The voice was warning me to go slow, to be sure to read the release notes, to make sure i had all the bases covered, the i's dotted and the t's crossed. I mostly ignored the voice. I was aware of the pitfalls (or at least I was aware that there could be pitfalls), but another louder voice in my head said, "just do it, woody to sarge went so smoothly, what could go wrong?" I knew better, but I did it anyway.
First a little background info: this box used to be a desktop, and later became a server. It used to have a monitor and keyboard. Now it's a headless sun box in a corner of my youngest daughter's room. The reat of my computers are in other parts of the house. I do all my administration on this box via ssh. Beofre i stared the installation I did a trial run; i changed my sources.list file to call for etch repos instead of sarge and did the whole update upgrade thing-but stopping short of selecting yes and letting dpkg make the changes. I saw that a great many packages, that I have long since stopped using were going to be upgraded. So I changed my sources.list file back to sarge repos, and went about uninstalling any and everything X-windows related. As I mentioned before this box is a true headless server now, I don't need all that GUI stuff anyway.
After cleaning up the GUI packeges that I didn't need anymore, I stared the upgrade proper this time, and was pleased to see the number of files to be upgraded was significantly less than before. The upgrade itself went as I expected--perfect. Maybe too perfect. There were some tense moments though. The one foremost on my mind, was will the upgrade finish, before my wife wakes up and comes in and tells me that I have to be at work in 5 hours and need to get my butt in bed. The other thing I was concerned about was apache 1.3 vs 2. My server is still running apache 1.3 and I don't want to move to apache 2 yet. I sat there watching the text scroll by occasionally checking the time, and listening for my wife to wake up. I noticed that apache 2 was installed along side apache 1.3 and apache 2 took over web server and replaced my web page with a page that said "It works!". That was easily fixed though, by uninstalling apache 2. My box was upgraded, my site was only down 10 minutes (due to apache 2 taking over momentarily), and the wife didn't wake up and fuss at me, and I was in bed before 12:30 am. Life was good!
I woke up the next morning feeling great! My very old Ultra Sparc 2 box had new life. This is what is good about linux and debian. I got to work and ssh'd into my box and poked around some; it was then I noticed that the upgrade didn't upgrade my kernel from 2.6.8-3 to 2.6.18-4. "That won't do", the voice in my head said. What i did next was stupid. I have been using linux for 13 years, what I did was dumber than dumb. I upgraded the kernel, and removed the working kernel after I was done. I did this 40 miles from home, and then I rebooted my machine! Did I say that what i did was dumb?
What happened next was 10 hours of downtime for my website, for my blog, for my forums, and my podcast rss feeds. That, and a lot of fussing at myself. Was i really so stupid, or was it because I was feeling good (read smug) about myself and the upgrade the night before? Or was it because I was at work, and in a hurry? I have to think it was a little of all of those things. One thing i do know though, thus was my fault NOT debian's. I knew better, and did it anyway.
On the drive home, I hoped against hope that I hadn't done what I knew hat I had. I kept telling myself, maybe just maybe, you did a shutdown -h instead of a -r. When I got home my fears were realized. The sparc was running, but linux wasn't. Luckily, I did still have a 2.4 kernel on the system and was able to boot into that, and determine that the reason the box didn't boot was that the new 2.6.18-4 kernel and/or udev didn't recognize my hard drive or my cd. Uninstalling the 2.6.18-4 kernel and reinstalling the 2.6.8-3 kernel fixed the problem. The server is up and running etch. Life is good again.
I said earlier that this was my fault, not debian's. Either the new kernel or udev is buggy, at least on my hardware., but I have no one to blame but myself for rebooting a new kernel on a production machine from 40 miles away. Live and re-learn.
posted 22:05 [/computers/linux/distros/debian]
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Podcast 34 from lottalinuxlinks.com.
Topics include:
Recent run in with a eighteen wheel truck, why chocolate in your pocket makes for bad news for an iriver mp3 recorder/player, ordering an iAudio U3, slackware news, wordpress and podpress impressions, Cantenna goodness, why etch belongs on my power pc, converting WMA to MP3, more plans for wrt54gl's or sneaking linux in the church, and how to get back the virtual terminals that nvidia ate. Buckle up cause dave's driving record isn't perfect anymore.
lottalinuxlinks.com linux user podcast 34;
lottalinuxlinks.com linux user podcast 34 ogg vorbis format;
lottalinuxlinks the web blog;
lottalinuxlinks the forum;
Underground audio novel;
how to change bootup resolution;
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