I am what I am because Ubuntu is not

I got sick of wanky pseudo-African named-operating systems.

Actually, that’s a lie, but I’m feeling a little vitriolic (oxymoron?). Ubuntu didn’t work at all, and of a sudden CentOS did. It’s not quite as polished but I could grow to love it (maybe). I just need to look past this whole RPM thing, which really is ugly compared to the breadth and depth of apt options available. IMO, of course. And the whole ports gig just scares me so I’m gonna stay away from FreeBSD here for a while longer (until this one breaks in another two years?)

I’d forgotten how much work I’d put into making Samba shares behave as well as they had been for the last forever, too. And was convinced there was nothing of value left on the computer (I didn’t delete the home directories, just in case… that was really easy because they’re even on a physically separate volume, it was basically less effort to just leave them there) and consequently (yet again) deleted a MySQL database with StuffOfValueâ„¢ in it. In this case a CYIADA survey database I’d built because there were no other options available and (you probably guessed it) I hadn’t sorted out hosting by IT at work yet.

So the aim now is to setup a similarly solid server that’ll last me another two years, barring hardware upgrades (this thing desparately needs more RAM even though it’s got half a gig–I have no idea where it all goes). This time around it’ll be more web-production-esque in its role, which basically means it’ll have more than just being a quiet Samba PDC and file server and web dumping ground on its plate, at least until everything I’ve got planned for it today reaches maturity, or my situation changes to the point that paying for a VPS or real dedicated server somewhere else is a viable option. Loki does, indeed, work quite well, but I can’t screw with it quite as much as some things make me want to (not that I’d want to do that to Loki… in between catastrophic hardware failure it’s amazingly stable and the lack of general screwing-around-ness is probably a big part of that! Probably… :P)

No aspirations surrounding the idea of a media server this time around. Though there’s a possibility I’ll look at maybe building a terabyte RAID server later this year, which would mean rethinking whisper’s role somewhat. It’d probably be relocated to downstairs (it’s cooler there) and replaced by a case with better ventilation and requiring better ventilation. The EPIA board I’ve got isn’t passively cooled, but I reckon it can deal with getting toasty that much more because it’s got a fan stuck to it. It’s a borderline fan requirement, anyway — the hard drives get hotter than the processor (highest I’ve seen the drives is about 62° C, the processor would only hit 55, tops) on forty-something degree Sydney days. If the storage upgrade is called for I’d probably look at getting something with a bit more grunt though, just because if the space requires better ventilation then that lets me stop constraining the system power according to temperature!

Anyway. Now I’m a CentOS kid. Which makes me feel kinda dirty inside because of the whole Prominent North American Upstream Provider All In Title Case issue, but I think I can live with myself for the time being.

Connection speed test breaks layout

I found this mildly hilarious. CNet’s speed tester obviously doesn’t quite accomodate ADSL2+. I was thinking the speed was a little slow, actually ;-)

TPG/iiNet/Internode/whoever should use a screenshot like this for their ads.

Adobe CS2

Just got home with it. 9 discs. Cost-per-disc works out cheaper than most games. Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign/GoLive/Acrobat 8 (read that
twice, free upgrade goodness!)/Dreamweaver plus two resource discs (lots of fonty goodness and some templates I’ll probably never use), a video training thing, and a partridge in a pear tree.

The box is nearly big enough to fit a partridge (whatever that is) in, too.

Steve Jobs on DRM

Steve Jobs writes some thoughts on the state of digital music which cause me to smile quite a lot. Maybe it’s time to download iTunes afterall.

Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free.  For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard.  The largest, Universal, is 100% owned by Vivendi, a French company.  EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly.

Drowning Torrents

3fl run a great file mirror service for PIPE-connected ISPs in a variety of Australian states, but they still have .torrent files in their mirror. Just for kicks I tried it out… predictably (well, predictable based on my past experience of P2P) it maxed out at a bit under 200KB/s, which, uhh, sucks.

I went back to the mirror and started downloading from it directly, and all of a sudden my 1 hour long download became a six-minute special. I’m holding a shiny Ubuntu CD here in my hand that would still be downloading thanks to the brilliance that isn’t torrent-style P2P downloads.

I think I’ve had one or two lightning-fast P2P experiences in my life, but, really, they just don’t seem to be able to compete with a maxed out link on a good FTP server!