2/19    I program a lot by sshing to a Linux cluster.  So I'm used to using
        Xemacs to code.  This works fine from a Linux or Windows workstation,
        but sometimes I have to use a Mac.  On Mac, the meta is usually
        bound to option, but that often doesn't work over ssh for some reason.
        This makes using emacs a real pain.  Any suggestions on how to fix it?
        (Other than "use vi")
	...

8/26    Amazon medium instances (3.75GB RAM): 0.160/hour = $1382/year
        Generic standard Linux VPS (4GB RAM): $480/year
        Amazon costs more (but does offer superior scaling options).
        \_ Amazon is $670 if you buy a year's usage up front (heavy util).
           Why is heavy util less expensive than light util?
	...

1/4     I want to test how my servers behave during a disk failure and
        a RAID reconstruction so I want to simulate a hardware failure.
        How can I do this in Linux without having to physically pull
        a drive? These disks are behind a RAID card and run Linux. -ausman
        \_ According to the Linux RAID wiki, you might be able to use mdadm
           to do this with something like the following:
	...

7/21    Can I just use ifconfig to expand my netmask on a FreeBSD box?
        Are there any gotchas here? Linux forces me to restart my network
        to expand my netmask.
        \_ yes... and no, you don't have to restart your network on linux either
           \_ Rebooting is the Ubootntoo way!
              \_ Oooboot'n'tootin!
	...

7/22    Playing with dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/<disk> on linux and bsd:
        2 questions, on linux when <disk>==hda it always gives me this off
        by one report i.e. Records out == records in-1 and says there is an
        error. Has anyone else seen this?  Second, when trying to repeat this
        on bsd, <disk>==rwd0 now, to my surprise, using the install disk and
        selecting (S)hell, when I try to dd a 40 gig disk it says "409 records
	...

5/26    anyone use lxde?  supposedly it is less stupid than xfce and
        less bloated than gnome.  thoughts?
        \_ lol, does anyone still use desktop linux?  Get with the times
           buy a mac.  Now.  DO IT.  Go NOW.
           \_ but we prefer herring to Kool-Aid
              \_ "you have to yell, he's hard of herring"
	...

5/5     Does anyone know how to do custom install of Ubuntu 10.04? I can't
        even boot it up to give me the menu to custom install and it
        keeps installing a bunch of crap I don't need. It's getting
        just as slow and bloated as Winblows install. Dear lord,
        I miss the old Ubuntu.
5/5=1.0 Numerology FTW.    5+5=10
	...

4/22    In Linux is there an easy way to rename the scripts in /etc/rc?.d ?
        For example I want to set all the /etc/rc?.d/S91apache to S100apache
        so that it'll run the ramdisk BEFORE going to apache.
        \_ Sure, just move them.
           \_ I mean is there a script that will rename all of them
              for me? Like: setrc apache2 0 0 1 1 1 1
	...

12/4    A question to you old crufy alumni: So lately we've suggested
        VMs, and been asked why it's necessary. We've suggested top-of-the-line
        hardware and been told we don't need that much power. So I'd like to
        ask -- what exactly do you think the CSUA is supposed to _be_?
        \_ Noone said VMs weren't needed.  They suggested you use the
        \_ No one said VMs weren't needed.  They suggested you use the
	...

11/15   So if I have a process running in Linux and kill -9 isn't
        killing it, and killing its parent process didn't kill it,
        and now it's reading as though its parent process is 1,
        is there any way to kill it short of rebooting the machine?
        \_ Sure, but you dont want to be mucking around in kernel data
           strucures.  Most practical way is to reboot the machine.
	...

4/20    Soda now has a spiffy new kernel that, besides now having the SATA
        RAID and SCSI disk drivers built in, also, theoretically, doesn't
        have the lockd problem that has been causing so much trouble. It has
        currently been up without a hitch for most of the night, and I hereby
        pronounce it more "stable." (Waits for the expected crash.) In any
        case, thanks to marked and rfm for helping out with building it, and
	...

7/17    My western digital WD800UE 80gb 5400 RPM laptop HD sometimes
        gives off a few "clicking" noise. Although this has been going
        on for a while and I haven't run into any problems. Is this
        the click of death? Should I be concerned? I am using it in an
        external enclosure and had it shortly after I got it. (it
        started to make that noise when I was trying to "disconnect
	...

6/20    I have an MSA20 (a scsi attached raid enclosure) from HP that uses
        SATA disks.  My company is somewhat cheap and I'd like to keep an extra
        disk on hand, but not pay for the nifty drive carrier.  (this way when
        a drive fails, I can just remove it, swap out the disk in the carrier
        and slap it back in without waiting for shipping).  BUT, when I tested
        this it didn't work.  The drives are the exact same model, but there is
	...

1/6     Debian or Fedora for a corporate server? Discuss. Show work.
        \_ FreeBSD
           \_ I agree that FreeBSD is a far better choice in terms of
              stability (notwithstanding soda's hick-ups), performance
              and security. But if you have to use Linux and the only
              two choices are Debian and Fedora, debian is preferable
	...

12/8    Looking for a stat on the read/write time of a single 10K or 15K
        scsi disk.  don't care about scsi's ability to tranfer 320 MB/sec,
        I care at what speed I can actually write to the platter.
        Anyone want to point me to (or just give me) the info? tnx.
        \_ http://www.tomshardware.com should have the benchmarks you're looking for.
        \_ http://storagereview.com
	...

6/30    I have an old Apple SCSI HDD and I want to make an image of the
        entire disk. What's the easiest way (in linux) to mount particular
        partitions from the image without modifying the image file?
        \_ I'm not aware of mounting a specific partition within a disk
           image in linux.  It'd be much easier to just make the image of
           each partition to begin with.
	...

5/19    Is a 77GB disk considered big three years ago?  I just realized that
        one of the machines I got three years ago at work has a 77GB disk, ten
        times as big as what are on the other machines at work I got around
        the same time.
        \_ I've never seen a 77GB drive.  Do you mean 80GB or 74GB SCSI?
        \_ I dunno but 7.7GB was definitely really, really tiny.
	...

5/6     What do you people think of sticking four 250GB IDE Hitachi drives
        in a single PC and calling that the backup server for 8 people (each
        person gets 125GB for 2 sets of notebook images and other assorted
        files).
        I do know that SCSI is built for this and IDE is a hack-job /
        consumer-grade.
	...

4/21    Is it possible to boot from an external Firewire or USB drive? I'd
        like to install Windows XP on such a drive and occasionally boot
        my SCSI Linux box into Windows from it.
        \_ depends on your hardware.  -tom
           \_ What is the requirement in the hardware?
              \_ If your BIOS allows it, then yes.  If not, then no.
	...

4/19    I went to Fry's today and saw a 400GB HD by Seagate, with 5 years
        warranty!!! That is just amazing. By the way, what is the current MB
        limitation on size? I remember back in the 90s I had to get special
        HD card to go above 4G, and then in the late 90s a special card to
        go above 80G. I'm just wondering what the current limitation is.
        \_ Why would there be a limitation? Granted, I always buy SCSI.
	...