Taking a week off while Open World is on might not be such a great idea, but being disconnected from the net for a week was pretty refreshing.

Oracle has decided that Kernel development needs a shove, and has decided to release its own variant of the kernel for Linux. With what I can see there is no real reason to be concerned with what Oracle has done, the API fro the kernel still support the standard glibc for that level of kernel. Oracle says that if an application runs on Oracle Linux without the modified kernel then it will run on a system using it. Seriously from my way of thinking, if I run Oracle Linux, I can always run Centos or Redhat to support my non Oracle software.

I have been working with a site that has been looking at setting up a RAC cluster and the question was asked of me as to what should we do about this event. incorporate the kernel or avoid it. As the project is still in its early phases I have said adopt it and test it. There is always the fall back in the event of real issues being identified that provide a severity one bug case and no timely fix.

I will be doing some testing of the system with some other non oracle products to see if I encounter any difficulties.

I guess from the point of what Oracle does  with this, if they radically alter the kernel and stop other software running then it is always Linus’ choice to look to revoking the Linux License from Oracle on the basis that it is then no longer Linux. I highly doubt that Oracle is really interested in treading that path.

Summing it all up I think this is good for Oracle and good for Linux as sooner or later these enhancements will filter back to Linux

See ya round

Peter

I have finally gotten around to getting a small but decent Server set up to build a set of Oracle servers on to create some testing environments. To do this I have a with box with an Asus P5KPL-CM motherboard with a Intel E2200 CPU and 4Gb RAM, probably sort of small but this is a start to being able to do some half decent testing of new products.  For reasons not quite clear I tried to do this on Citrix Xen Server. No great drama, download the CD and the Linux Pack and get to installing this was around 300gb in total.

Next was to install Oracle Linux and I also have a Centos Server on this configuration to build non Oracle products Download a few ISO’s and there in is my problem. I should have installed and got Xen working first.  The problem I encountered is that Xen has types of templates it uses to create a build environment for installing various Linuxes and Windows.  I had in my wisdom downloaded Centos 5 Update 3 and Oracle EL 5 update 4. Xen is not able to install either. So two more Downloads and I had the appropriate version of each 5.2 for Centos and Update 2 of OEL.  I am not sure what is involved with the bits required to support newer versions but it is a bug bear when there is nothing obvious about this.

While that was happening I had tried to install Xen on the host in question, cannot recognize the Atheros drivers used on many mother boards.  Most Linux has problems with those. I went back to the computer shop I use FTC in Sunnybank and obtained a network card for it. this time a TP-link with Realtek chipset on board. Xen could see it, it could use it but the driver made this about as flaky as it could be.  So download the driver development kit try and install it to build a better driver. Installation of the VM into the server kept failing due to the flakiness of the river being used. Just to clarify that is probably a fine driver with the correct chipset, I think mine was a borderline case of a match. After a few days of trying out went the TP-link for an alternative. I finally settled on a D-Link 503 which is on the HCL and can be obtained for around $50. Using the Xensource HCL is a must it seems for some of your kit to get this working. In the end it is just plain easier..

So I have succeeded to get 5 update 2 of Centos and OEL installed and have yum updating the installation of OEL as I write this. Should have a 5upd4 install after this is finished, might yet bump that to update 5, but can do that later some time

To get the update to happen you need to link back to the public repository using the following

# cd /etc/yum.repos.d# wget http://public-yum.oracle.com/public-yum-el5.repo

Activate the repositories you want as per the instructions on Public YUM server

Information available from Public YUM Server

Certainly a challenge without a bit of foresight and knowledge learned

See ya round

Peter

The latest release of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala is a dream install, well done guys. I have been using linux since 1995. It was a brutal exercise getting things installed even basics like storage could be a pain and getting an Xserver going was never for the faint of heart. i don’t think I succeeded for some time back them. Time warp forward to today and the ubuntu install was 6 questions, and sit back whilst the installation runs. Now this was onto a VM which limits a a few issues like monitors to choose however the whol process was so straight forward and simple it is probably no longer a tech persons job to install this. I have not tried to install Windows 7 so no comparison is available. I will say for someone wanting to set up a system for people that dont need to be able to run specific Windows application, there is possibly a Linux alternative and there would appear to be little reason to install Windows. This is the sort of desktop product the Linux community has required to place some pressure on Windows as the primary desktop for running applications. I think this could provide computing opportunities for many different places beyond the home user

It may be that in the home of all the computers you only need one with Windows and the rest may be acceptable with Linux using this build of Ubuntu

Well done to the Ubuntu team for a great distribution

Duck over to the Ubuntu site and grab a copy and if you are just interested but not certain then either create a dual boot system a bit more difficult or create a Virtual Machine with free VMWare Server 2.0 which was also a dream to install, but that is for a different article

See ya

Peter