Cafe Bucky

I’ve been putting off the day of upgrading this server (daniel.org, flexiphoto.org) to PHP 5. In order to start demoing FlexiPhoto 2.5, I’m going to have to bite the upgrade bullet.

One thought is to get PHP5 to coexist with PHP4, and only make use of PHP5 for FlexiPhoto. I kinda don’t like this, as it just seems to put off the day of “doing it right”. WordPress and MediaWiki are supposed to run fine with PHP5, so it would seem that a well-planned “swap of mod_php” would be the way to go. We’ll see! (and of course, things are backed up first …)

If you see nothing more than a splash page sometime in the next few days (hopefully for a brief time), it’ll be due to the swaparoo.

I completely agree with the Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols “There are too darned many Linuxes” opinion piece over on linux-watch.com.

There ARE way too many distros.

The point I would add to his piece is: for the outside world looking in (from Mac or Windows-land), the Linux landscape must look like utter confusion and anarchy. I gotta wonder how often an IT mammal is asked to “look at this Linux thing” by their management. They get back from lunch (one martini, because it’s only Monday), start poking around online, and panic - what the heck?! - what to choose?! By 3pm, they’ve worked up a sweat. By 4pm. they’ve located some Microsoft FUD article on how “Windows is cheaper to maintain”. By 5pm, they’ve sent off an email explaining why the company “should hold off on experimenting with Linux at this time, because there appears to be too much choice and crazyness to deal with”. By 5:05, the mammal is out the door, after ducking into their managers office long enough to agree that “maybe we’ll look at this Linux thing in Fiscal 2007″.

Although I may have embellished (what? me? embellish?!), I’m certain this isn’t too far from the truth. I’m firmly ensconced in the Mac & Linux camp, and cut my teeth on 4.1 BSD Unix in 1981 - and even I find it a little challenging to figure out which Linux distro to go with. (server: Debian, client: Ubuntu)

Hmm, maybe I should just make my own! Something like “Buckynix”. Then I could have it the way I want it.

Not!

A diagram of core web development interests, with a few comments …

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This is a quick followup to the post Commands, Scripting, and Wading Through 10,000 Files. I had mentioned that I like to keep a copy of a checksum file, but I didn’t show a script that really takes advantage of pairs of them. “comparesnaps.pl” allows you to see changes across the same set of files over time …

Without further ado, here is a link to comparesnaps.pl

This grew out of a thread from the FlashCodersNY.org group

Ever have to wade through tens of thousands of files, trying to decide which ones are duplicates? One scenario would involve comparing backups of the same thing (think “large dev project” or “email archives” or “500 photos named DC_something.jpg) made at different times. Inspired by an email from Jean-Charles Carelli, I’ve written up a perl-based approach. (this extends the “command line” thread on the list recently)

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What was it, a few days ago I was talking about all of the different Linux distros, and that there wasn’t enough of a common face?

Well, allow me to restate, update, and elaborate … There really ARE way too many Linux distros. I think many of them are more from the idea of “hey, I figured out how to make a distro!”, than the idea of “hey, let’s advance the state of the art in some way…” Consider what the situation looks like from the POV of someone still mentally stuck in Windows la la land - they peek at the Linux world, get scared at what looks like chaos, and go running back to the illusion of Windows comfort and safety. Keyword: Illusion.

So with that in mind, it’s been an interesting week, because Ubuntu Linux got a major update. It so happens that I’ll be doing a round of Linux installs soon, so I’m in the market to find something, anything, that saves me from the tedious process of dealing with Debian. (plus I know I’ll be dealing with new hardware…)

Ubuntu is based on Debian, but with some important differences:

• the install should “Just Work” - hardware detection is very good
• updates new versions available every six months
• more recent kernel

I also like the fact that it seems to have a very well developed web site, an active community, and what looks to be a commitment of money (free CDs shipped to you, if you’d like) from Canonical (which gets support from Mark Shuttleworth). It looks like it will be there for a while, and that a lot of thought and effort is going into it.

Winding back to “here and now”, I’m about to head back to NYC for a couple of months, and know that I’ll want a Linux box or two there. I figured I’d take a little time to install Ubuntu on an old iMac DV I have lying around [1]. I recommend using BitTorrent to download a disk image to burn.

Some things noticed installing to a Mac iMac DV (400 mhz):

• text installer - but so what, it detected everything
• there was a hiccup of the “multiseat” module not installing. Ignored this. (it turns out this has to do with multiple users simultaneously hitting the window system (x.org))
• didn’t have to answer any silly questions about my framebuffer, or my mouse. Gnome comes up, and it “Just Works” as advertised
• scrollwheel mouse works out of the box - w00t!
• Mpeg streaming (SomaFM) does not work out of the box, but a quick Google search gives me hope

All in all, Ubuntu seems to live up to the hype. It’ll be the distro I use on PC or PPC hardware when I get back to NYC (that’s another post).

[1] Sorry Sophia, I have co-opted your west coast box! But your old PowerBook may be getting a new friend soon :-)

Got OpenSSH on your Linux box?

Upgrade time: new ssh expoit?

Didn’t I go through this fire drill earlier this year? Yep …

Since I run my own box at a colo, I’m sort of forced to pay attention to Linux security issues. On the one hand, I’m glad that we’re past the ftp and telnet days, and have reasonable “more secure” alternatives. On the other, you would think we’d have some pretty solid code by now. In this case, I couldn’t find an automatic upgrade package (because it was too early for there to be one). I trot off, find the source, dutifully compile and install, and feel a small sigh of relief: “well, patched that one!”. Followed by “what next?”.

I can’t imagine being serious about running some sort of Microsoft server. How many massive security bugs do admins of that junk contend with every single month? The times where I feel compelled to jump on to my server and fix things are few and far between.

But still, it does get old. I’ve been upgrading software for, what … 20 years or so now? Geez, that’s a lot. I don’t mind if it’s some sort of application. It’s always the OS/Security stuff that gets me. I roll my eyes and think “c’mon, get it right already!”. I tossed in a photo of the Other Cat, a Burmese named Valentine. Think he cares about this security stuff? Heck no! He just wants to sit on the monitor, veg out, and make sure I keep Groove Salad going. What a bum.

Getting back to the solid code issue: it’s not that simple, of course. So I raise an Ale in the general direction of the White Hats that fix things and get alerts out there for us ServerAdmins to act on. I know it’s hard to nail down everything because the problem is fundamentally Difficult.

Well, that made for an exciting morning. Now where the fark was I? (that’s the thing about these security alerts - they are the railyard switch in your morning. “you WILL take this track right now!”)