noel alanguilan

some issues came up with my web development setup when i did a clean install of ubuntu 9.10 (karmic koala) and migrated my data from backups.

i have a web/php server running off my workstation on localhost being used to test html and php pages i develop. i have apache serving up name-based virtual hosts–one for each client website. accessing http://client1 would give me the local index page of client1, accessing http://client2 would give me the local index page of client2 and so on. this little webdev symphony got messed up when i performed a clean install of ubuntu 9.10. all i could get was a “403 forbidden” error message which i eventually attributed to a permission problem rather than to my server setup.

click to enlarge

the not-so-elegant solution i found is to move all of my development files inside the public folder in my home directory, edit the httpd-vhosts.conf file to reflect the move and changed the base directory in bluefish. i also propagated the permissions from the public folder to all the files and folders it contains by right-clicking on the public folder, click on properties, choose the permissions tab, and clicking on the “apply permission to enclosed files”.

and you’re done. hopefully. i consider this a temporary solution and it worked for me. it may not work for you. your mileage might vary. don’t do this without a proper backup.

painful. not a lot but painful nonetheless. it was mostly because if grub–ubuntu’s boot loader. after going through the install process and restarting my workstation grub had other plans and didn’t load up the filesystem and therefore could not start linux and most of everything else. its apparently an issue with karmic koala as i found out from the forums. this ubuntu version is painful.

on first boot after the install, i got a message from the bootloader saying it couldn’t load … something named after a bunch of numbers with dashes in between. restart. on second boot it gave me the grub menu with the option of editing the boot commands before booting. i took the opportunity and tried editing the commands. after some why-the-heck-not deliberations i took out the line that started with the word “search” and proceeded to boot. and it did! now, i wanted to see if the settings stuck so i restarted the computer. i was presented with the grub menu again which means the initialization file (menu.lst) of grub is messed up or non-existent (it was the latter ). after a couple of hours of axious searching in the ubuntu forums i was able to reinstall grub and had a proper menu.lst file.

the rest of the installation went fine. restoring my settings from backup was easier.

admitedly, there are really nice changes to the system but it is not the best ubuntu released mostly because the grub bootloader gave a lot of people headaches, me included. i later found out that the bootloader is a beta version that was included in the final release. bad idea. and then i get an occasional “pause”—application windows start to dim as if in deep thought and couldn’t be disturbed and after a few seconds wakes up again. i still have to find out what causes that. but at the moment i’m just glad my workstation is up and running again.

i’m actually a bit excited about the windows 7. after the publicity, the waiting and attention its getting one can’t help but be a little excited.

and then a few days after windows 7 launches comes ubuntu 9.10—karmic koala. i’m excited about that too.

for me, what will likely happen is that i will upgrade to karmic koala as soon as its out and i’ll wait for the ideal time to get windows 7. when is the ideal time?, you ask. and my answer is, when i get the extra money (which is so not now). or when someone gives me a license (like that’s going to happen).

now, if i want to run windows 7 on my computer i would be compelled to upgrade the memory and the graphics card or maybe even, heaven forbid, purchase a new computer altogether. and then i’d have to buy a license. that’s a double whammy right there. as it is, my current workstation barely clears the minimum system requirements of windows 7 but its already okay at running windows xp. i suspect that with the upgrades it would run xp even better than it would running windows 7. ibm and canonical even suggests that running ubuntu on the old hardware is a better (and economical) option. i would agree. as things stand, most of the computers i take care of need more memory or need to be replaced altogether just to run windows 7. and that’s a more money out of the coffers.

still, windows 7 is ‘new’ and i get interested with new things. its like a grown up toy. i try to learn about it, see how it works and, eventually, get to know how to break or hack into it. ha! i do that with almost everything technologically related. curiosity is a habit of mine. i will eventually get to play with windows 7. and ubuntu 9.10. my curiosity will be quenched for the moment until something new comes about again.

but at the end of the day, it all comes down to economics. its cheaper to deploy linux. there’s no going around it. free is free. still, there are people—and companies—willing to shell out the money for staying in their comfort zones. to each his/her own.

ubuntu 9.10 aka karmic koala is set to be released sometime end of october 2009 (hence the 9.10 version number).

notable changes–at least for me–are:

• linux kernel 2.6.31 which is supposedly a little speedier than the current kernel (2.6.28-15-generic).
• gnome 2.27.xx as opposed to the current 2.26.1. i do not know yet if there will be any big changes. emphathy replaces pidgin as the default internet messanging program.
• ext4 filesystem will be used on a clean install of 9.10. i suppose they have ironed out the kinks in that system. note that if you’re upgrading, the existing filesystems will not be upgraded to ext4. i’m not 100% into ext4 yet but i haven’t heard (or read) anything bad about it either so i may give it a run in 9.10. the mission critical server systems will stay in ext3 for now.
• new intel video driver architecture. this will hopefully solve the intel driver’s performance problems in 9.04.

more changes may be added as weeks pass but so far i think its worth upgrading to those changes.

update: kernel 2.6.31 includes support for usb 3.0.
update: if you want an extensive and explained list of changes look here.

ubuntu checks the file system every 38th boot (at least in my system) using fsck. it cannot perform this checking while the drive is in use (or mounted). to force ubuntu to check the file system the next time it boots up, at the terminal, issue:

sudo touch /forcefsck

i noticed a couple of things that changed when i ugraded to ubuntu 9.04

• the menu entry of grsync was moved from applications – internet to applications – system tools
• opera disappeared. i don’t exactly know how but the .opera subdiretory with my previous settings was still there. i just had to download the latest .deb package directly from the opera website. it wasn’t in the add/remove applications program and there’s one dubious looking entry in synaptic so i decided to do a direct download.
• skype disappeared too (there’s a pattern here). so i had to download the .deb package directly from skype. because of the relative newness of ubuntu 9.04, the available versions are for ubuntu 8.10 but these should work as before.
• after ugrading to firefox 3.0.9 flash videos became choppy. i remember uninstalling the flash plugins–all of them–via synaptic. then downloading and installing the latest .deb from the adobe website. i also noticed that firefox’s memory footprint became quite a bit larger–a little over 500 megabytes in my case–especially after spending a good amount of time in javscript and ajax-heavy sites i.e. facebook.
• the booting, shutdown and login screens are new.
• when shutting down the computer there’s a new confirmation dialog box with a 60-second countdown timer confirming if you really want to shutdown or not. this also applies when you want to restart the computer.
• booting seems faster–around 20 seconds on one workstation.
• there’s a new theme called new wave which i switched to.

i’m just wondering how it performs with older computers (pentium 4, 256 meg ram). if you know, please leave a note.

this is a listing of helpful web sites of the software that are commonly found in a linux installation. most of these programs, with the exception of linux, also have a windows version. i’ll add more help sites as we use more programs.

evolution mail:
documentation, faqs

gimp:
documentation, tutorials, faqs

open office:
documentation, community forum, tutorials, faqs

thunderbird:
knowledgebase, support forum, faqs, help & tutorials,

ubuntu linux:
official ubuntu documentation, unbuntu forums

i have here with me a temperamental laptop. it has a new hard drive, you see. i have reinstalled windows xp and religiously downloaded and applied all the updates. lately, it seems that the laptop has the impression that something went wrong the last time it was used that it has been giving me the option to login in windows safe mode almost everytime i start it up.

i finally got fed up and decided to install linux on the thing just to spite it. i happily slathered interpid ibex (ubuntu version 8.10) on it. that took all of about 20 minutes. after thats done i immediately upgraded it–via the network–to the jaunty jakalope release candidate (ubuntu version 9.04). the upgrade took about four hours (slow internet connection, mate).

initial impressions. nice. very nice. it has that tiny bit more polish than the previous interface–showing signs of a “maturing” gnome. i good step, i think. and although i haven’t tested it yet, the kernel version that came with jaunty is suppose to support more usb wireless cards. i am also interested in trying out the new file sytem (ext4) but i’ll wait until they fix some issues with it.

before i forget, there’s this nice touch with the shutdown process in jaunty. before, when you click shutdown, the system immediately does shutdown. with jaunty, when you click on shutdown, there’s a dialog box that pops out with a 60-second countdown before actually shutting down and there’s a cancel and shutdown button. cancel, obviously, cancels the shutdown process and the shutdown button shuts down your computer immediately, ignoring the countdown. i think its a nice touch which eliminates that “dooh!” moment the old version that immediately arrives right after you click on shutdown option. but then that’s just me. some people would be irritated by the additional click or two just to power off the computer.

so now i sit here in front of my own workstation which is still sporting interpid ibex and i’m seriously thinking if i should upgrade to jaunty jakalope now even though its  still a release candidate. the other laptop is taunting and tempting me.

i’m going to sleep on it for now. and start backing up my data…

the stock papt introductory letter

a client of mine recently received a letter from the pilipinas anti-piracy team shown on the left. with the exception of to whom the letter was addressed to, i received this exact same letter about a year ago. when i first got this letter i had the impression that the company i was working for is using pirated software. that’s strange. i know for a fact that all the software programs in the office are either properly licensed or legally free. reading the letter the second time puts it in perspective–its a reminder not to use pirated software, albeit worded rather aggressively so the first tendency is to panic. some might even consider it a veiled threat.

its nice to know that some people in government are doing their job.

so what do you do when you get a copy of this letter? first, do not panic. read that letter again. no one is actually accusing you of using pirated software. its just a notice.

next thing you do is to take their advise and perform a software license check. remember that for each kind of software there is a single corresponding license. so, if you have a windows set up like most of the world, each computer should have one license for microsoft windows and one for microsoft office. there is no one license to rule them all (we’ll get to the linux license later).

and the cost of those licenses add up–php7,700 for microsoft windows and php18,000 for microsoft office 2007; php25,700 in total. multiply that by the number of computers that you have. if you have 10 computers the cost is going to run up to a quarter of a million pesos. that’s jusT for 10 computers. that’s quite a hefty sum considering the recession and all.

if you do not want to spend that much on software there are legal alternatives. you can replace microsoft office with open office. that’s a savings of php 180,000.00 already for 10 computers. and yes, it can open all your word documents, excel spreadsheets and powerpoint presentations.

if you want further savings, replace your pirated microsoft windows with linux. that’s savings of php 77,000.00 for 10 computers. there are so many distributions (loosely, types of linux) out there. off the top of my head, ubuntu is a nice alternative if you’re coming from the windows world. you can look for more distributions over at distrowatch.

if you want to stay within the microsoft world then be ready to pluck down a hefty sum to use their software.

i have been preoccupied of late with security stuff. the first one is what they’re calling conficker.c which will activate on the first of april. no one knows what it will do but i would bet a beer that its not entirely good. symantec has a removal tool for this and previous versions of conficker (aka downadup).

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another news item that has been in that particular corner of my brain is the network bluepill aka psyb0t botnet. its a new botnet targeting routers/modems instead of pcs. these router/modems are the gadgets that give you access to the internet. imagine what bad things can happen when that’s been compromised. you can’t scan for the botnet either because the botnet code is not on your pc. according to dronebl–a real-time tracker of abusable ips–you are vulnerable if:

• Your device is a mipsel (MIPS running in little-endian mode, this is what the worm is compiled for) device;
• Your device also has telnet, SSH or web-based interfaces available to the WAN, and
• your username and password combinations are weak, OR the daemons that your firmware uses are exploitable.

the best way to ensure that you don’t get infected (or reinfected) is to perform a hard reset of the device, update the device’s firmware to the latest and change the administrative passwords to stronger ones, maybe use a passphrase instead.

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and then there’s the next version of ubuntu–jaunty jakalope or version 9.04–coming out by april (2009.04). that’s something to look forward to. at the same time i’ve been studying/ evaluating the server version of ubuntu as a replacement for some (or all my server installations).

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i have taken on a new project making a new website which will act much like a repository of information about a famous person. this will replace another project that i had to let go. its another php/mysql/apache install (spelled as web 2.0). this should prove interesting.