Just to let you all know there is planned server downtime tonight from 10.30pm to 7.30am CET whilst the servers are being moved to a new location.
Thanks,
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Just to let you all know there is planned server downtime tonight from 10.30pm to 7.30am CET whilst the servers are being moved to a new location.
Thanks,
The worries are when something on the server prevents the reboot and services all starting up again.. can be hard to pinpoint.. On this server however everything seems to have gone smoothly, on my other one however it's a different story so looks like i'm in for a long morning....
Yes, don't look forward to having to reboot machines. Our home Linux desktops get rebooted only every 4 months or so, and our household file server only when a power failure outlasts its UPS.
Good luck tracking down the issue! This reminds me I am overdue to backup our server onto a couple of external drives.
Thanks, got it working fairly rapidly thank the lord! turned out to be a problem with my Grub configuration! (that'll have people raising an eyebrow! lol)
Not me! Nearly every machine I have has multiple OS's installed, so I fool around with various GRUB setups all the time. Coolest one for our student machines is to have GRUB installed in its own one cylinder partition (and chainload the OS's). Trivial to reinstall it into the MBR when the students inevitably muck up the MBR.Quote:
Originally Posted by dave
Glad to hear you found it fast! Oops, I still didn't do the backups (and there are thunderstorms about)!
:001_unsure: dont know who Grub is but the site is loading much quicker for me now :nod:Quote:
Originally Posted by dave
GRUB = GRand Unified BootloaderQuote:
Originally Posted by Louie-Louie
Okkkaaay,I understand it all now .......
And you call yourself a computer expert? Oh, I guess you don't, actually...Quote:
Originally Posted by jckkerrison
GRUB is some software that boots (starts) an operating system as part of the PC boot process. It is used on most machines that have Linux (a non-Windows OS) installed, and in particular on machines that have multiple OS's installed so that you can choose which to boot. Being a computer science prof., I have some machines that have five or more different OS's installed (e.g., Windows + multiple Linuxes). Linux is heavily used for server machines, and some of you may be unknowingly running it on devices like routers or your cellphones (e.g., Android phones). Linux is immune to Windows malware, and has little of its own. My wife's desktop machine runs Linux. It uses no anti-virus software, I spend less than an hour per YEAR doing admin tasks on it, and it has never had issues. By contrast, my daughter's two Vista machines each require more than an hour per month of my time, and her laptop has had three malware issues in the last two months despite running AV software. (Thanks Facebook!) She starts college next year, and she is absolutely not taking a Windows laptop off to school with her.
Oops, guess you should not have encouraged the CS prof to start talking computers....
You knew I was lying NCarver,still as clear as mud reading your next posting although I think that was your intention!!!! I envy all of you who are up on computer knowledge,my daughter is pretty good & her partner even better but I only hope no one listens in to the phone calls when I have got a problem with mine,I wonder that either of them can keep their patience with me,which button did you say,where do I find that on this thing....! All good fun though.
You know what I found impressive was the server had been running for a year and a half since it's last reboot! - That's what I love about linux boxes, they just keep on going. Now I don't want to have a go at Microsoft as I don't manage any windows servers any longer(on the other hand, why not?) but I'd put money on it that if it was a windows server, I'd have encountered problems over that year and half span...
These days I've actually done what I never thought I'd do.. switch to a Mac for my main computer.. I don't look back at all! Feels like I get the best of both worlds.. A great underlying linux OS when I need it which provides stability and performance with a very pleasent to use UI on top. I made the switch about 6 months ago when my main computer was a dual monitor windows PC so quite a lot of wires and desk space taken up. I actually went out looking for a laptop upgrade but decided to have a play around on an iMac in the apple store when the macbook prices scared me and just found it very very easy to use.. They don't tell you but you have Apache/MySQL etc already running so setting up as a development machine was actually so much quicker than it takes on a windows box..
So these days I've turned into a Proud Mac user, something I never thought I'd say lol
As for the server issue I had, From memory I'm pretty sure the problem I had with the reboot was a semi bodged dist-upgrade and then got it running on the previous kernal and just left it as it worked and didn't want to cause any more harm!
Our sysadmin and a couple other Linux users I know have ended up going to Mac's. A Mac may turn out to be the best option for my daughter to take to college, but I am still looking for alternatives. One problem with getting her a Mac is that I am not familiar with it so could provide no assistance at all. The other downside is the cost. I can get a quite nice laptop for not much more than $500 but a similarly equipped Mac is $1000. The downside with Linux is lack of support at the school. I know my own university, for example, provides no support to students for using Linux, even though virtually all of the campus IT infrastructure now runs on Linux. I looked at some schools she is interested in and see the same situation--they support Windows and Mac but not Linux for students (some do support Linux for faculty). That would put the entire burden on me for support. One possibility is to have Linux with Windows in a VM in case any Windows only software was required. So only one thing is certain at this point: Windows will not be her primary OS due to its proven lack of reliability in real-world use. Actually, she will be getting an Android phone soon, so perhaps I can use that to convert her to something like Chrome OS by next summer.
Difficult choice, especially cost wise. I quite fancy a macbook pro as a new laptop but over here to get one without a tiny screen would be £1500-£1800 quid for good spec!! Where as you say I could have an army of windows based laptops for the same price... so it just seems crazy how much more they cost than regular laptops. Maybe they'll eventually follow suit and also come down but I don't hold my breath.
I have to use windows for development of an old product we still support, and use Oracles(was Suns) VirtualBox for that.. Very reliable, quick and I highly recommend it then of course if you did need to support your daughter you could always remote desktop to it to.. but I'd bet it's safe to say she wouldn't need anywhere near as much support with the Mac as anything else.. I'm amazed how easy it is to do pretty much anything... The other day I installed MS Office with about 7 clicks.. Very quickly too! There are dual boot options too which I believe are pretty easy to setup(parallels & bootcamp) but I've never gone down that avenue... I don't like the idea of having to reboot everytime I want to swap, would drive me mad!
Oh, oh. Daughter's (cheap) Compaq laptop screen quit working last night. She doesn't want to sit in front of her desktop doing all her college essays, so will have to do something about a new laptop now I guess. Macbook Pro w/15" screen will be $1900 + $150 tax, and that includes the education discount. For that I can get her two Dell laptops with similar hardware. Quite a "tax" just to get the Mac OS. And then she has a $2k laptop to have at college and has to absolutely avoid having it get stolen? Looks like I am going to be spending some time on laptop research this weekend. If only schools would support Linux, kids could save big bucks and still have secure machines, and the schools would save money not dealing with malware on student machines (I know my university spends a major portion of its IT budget dealing with Windows malware issues). Unfortunately, most of the IT directors know only Windoze, so make stupid choices. Seriously going to see whether she couldn't get by with Linux as host OS and run Windows just in VM (I too use VirtualBox quite a bit--much easier than VMWare). All her critical writing could be done in Linux so it would be safe despite periodic Facebook browsing.
Hmm yeah, I didn't consider risk of theft.. a $2k shiny mac is certainly a prize for opportunists. Open Office should get her by more than adequatly for an office replacement unless she's an advanced office user. At least she'd be safe when online. I guess if you're a basic user of linux and just happily use the programs set up on there without wanting to fiddle around with settings too much or change hardware (like we both would!) then it should be more stable and faster than a windows box.. it's just when you screw something up you need someone who really knows it to help get back up and running, but I doubt she'll messing with fstab or anything eh lol
Good luck with your decision anyway :-)