Blogs of the House of LAN
ATi Graphics Cards and Kubuntu
I've had bad experiences with ATi cards and Linux before. Happily it was not the case this time. Here's how I set up my Sapphire ATi Radeon 3870 HD. I also throw in the desktop effects install at the end.
Essential XP Software
This list is kind of the younger, skinnier, not-any-good-at-sports-or-maths brother of my essential Kubuntu software list. XP doesn't come with bugger all software, so the first thing to do is get some.
Essential Kubuntu Software
Unlike Windows, Kubuntu comes with a large amount of software already installed, like OpenOffice, Amarok, Kaffeine, etc. However I always find I need to install a few more, and whats more, its pretty much always the same. I figured then it would be easier to keep this list online so I can find it, and other people can use it and make suggestions on it too.
Rebuilding a PC
Installing update 1 of 86... Do not power off or unplug your computer...
Grif gets an upgrade
As I posted in 00000080 bytes of pain, my main PC (Grif) has been having issues, which turn out to be memory related. The nice folks at Unleash have given me some temporary memory while my dud memory is being returned under warranty. It turns out all I had was DDR1, but my motherboard supports 1 & 2, so I've got a 1GB stick of DDR2 at the moment. Meanwhile I've been busy ordering upgraded parts. I've got 2x 1GB sticks of Kingston goodness on its way, as well as a couple of 320GB SATA2 drives with a lovely 16mb of cache.
Backup your LAMP
Continuing with the backup theme of my last post, I've needed to back up our local LAMP server because its starting to hold some important data. Maybe I'm getting paranoid because of my first hard drive failure in 10 years (the last one was a 2GB HDD that got progressively larger areas of dead sectors, so it was a nice gradual death). Maybe I've just been taught a lesson and am starting to do what I always should have done anyway. In any case, here is the little script I wrote:
Backups are go
My Zimbra server's hard drive burnt out the other week while I was on holiday in Nelson. Crap no backups! Luckily I had only recently downgraded from my Network Edition trial to the Open Source edition, which involved backing up the old install. Hence how my Zimbra on Ubuntu tutorial came about.
00000080 bytes of pain
My computer has started suffering from BSOD's recently. A memory test reveals that one part of the memory is failing its check by 00000080 each time. Sigh. Luckily Kingston has a lifetime warranty, although I'm probably going to have to deal with a smaller amount of DDR1 while it is being returned to base. Good thing my motherboard supports both DDR1 & 2.
New site layout
Most designers want their websites to be pixel perfect and look exactly the same across every computer, operating system, and browser possible. Not me! I prefer usability. Introducing my new dynamic layout.
Kubuntu with fakeraid
Updated! This page now reflects Kubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04 LTS)