Unix Revolution

Issue :  Xmms is the only media player that I am currently able to configure to play mp3s.  So.. what I have done, is to install a Fedora 16 VM and run banshee with my RHEL ~/Music directory NFS mounted in my VM.  Banshee is where I manage my playlists, etc..  My logout script then copies the banshee.db to my ~/Music directory (as opposed to .config/banshee-1/banshee.db) I then run the following script to create a "default" Xmms playlist. I replace the default XMMS .m3u file, then I create a ~/Music/xmms.pls file (optional to use). Resolution : [jradtke@neo bin]$ cat banshee-to-xmms.sh  #!/bin/bash BANSHEEMINRATING=3 BANSHEEDBFILE=~/Music/banshee.db TMPSYNC=/tmp/banshee2xmms.tmp PLSOUT=~/Music/xmms.pls echo "select Uri from CoreTracks where rating > ${BANSHEEMINRATING};" | sqlite3 $BANSHEEDBFILE > ${TMPSYNC} sed -i -e 's/file:\/\///g' ${TMPSYNC} # MORE GENERIC FILE CLEANUP TYPE STUFF # THEN... REPLACE/REMOVE SOME OF ...

I am running RHEL as my bare metal with KVM with a Fedora 16 guest. I'm sure there are a pile of different ways to have a working configuration.  However, I want to document the one I have found to work and seemingly works well. Display: Spice Sound: ich6 Why does this matter?  I like RHEL quite a bit, in particular if I am going to run KVM as my virtualization platform.  I also like Banshee to manage my music - because of the interface, it's ability to have ratings on the main page without a ton of clicks to access them and most importantly: it uses a database for the backend.  In this case: SqlLite3.

Issue : I was sorely disappointed when I was exposed to how poor "RAID" is on commodity motherboards (like ASUS and Gigabyte).  I had not put much thought into exactly what it meant when they claimed they had SATA RAID.  This whole epiphany was the result of when I had installed RHEL (or Fedora, I can't recall) on a system with a 1TB drive. Fortunately the drive that was headed for certain doom, failed shortly after the install.  No big deal, right? I'll just throw another drive in and it should take off... somehow?  Well, not even close, actually. fakeRAID is the term I see used in referencing this setup.  There most likely is some benefit to this approach when using Windows and the overlying fakeRAID software components.  It would seem that you could boot the system from one of the 2 mirrors and start the fakeRAID software and inform it that a replacement drive was installed. There may also be some sort of performance improvement using this stack....

I was not intentionally pursuing this particular validation, but I discovered that the DiskI/O on RHEL 6.2 seems to be much faster than Fedora 16. So - I am using the same exact laptop for both installations. I do format the volume between each base OS installation. I am using a Lenovo T520 with a 750 Gig 7200 RPM drive (don't recall specifically which one). I have been switching between using Fedora 16 and RHEL 6.2, both x86_64, as my base OS on my laptop.  Each platform has some minor shortcomings and I happen to have some time at the moment to work through a few things. When I installed Windows 7 Pro x64 using KVM on Fedora 16, I would be lucky to have iostat report much more than 15000 Blk_wrtn/s. I built the machine via the VMM using the VirtIO disk, NIC and Spice. I am currently installing Windows 7 Pro using RHEL as base OS and I just happened to glance at my iostat output and it said around 115,000!  Consistently reporting above 50,000.  The total in...

I think the encounter was rather interesting, as I had talked with him for a bit (not having any clue who he wsa) while we all were hanging out after our RHCE exam.  Troy, rather matter-of-factly, mentioned I made Scientific Linux. So matter-of-factly, actually, that I mistakenly simply I heard something to the effect that he "used" Scientific Linux.  At which point, I think nothing of it, but then I revisit the conversation with him and he told me again that he actually created SL. Anyhow - our conversation was cut short as we all had to leave the facility.  In hindsight, I wish I had been able to spend some more time chatting with him.

Solution :  disable existing repos by moving files to /etc/yum.repos.d/*.disabled create a /etc/yum.repos.d/dvd.repo file # WORKSTATION VERSION [dvd] name=DVD repo baseurl=file:///media/RHEL_6.2\ x86_64\ Disc\ 1/ enabled=1 #yum clean # yum list # SERVER VERSION [dvd] name=DVD repo baseurl=file:///media/RHEL\ 6.2\ x86_64\ Disc\ 1/ enabled=1 UPDATE : I'm not exactly sure why this happened... but, after I manually created my dvd.repo file and installed policycoreutils and policycoreutils-python a few more repos had appeared. This does not seem strange that it occurred. However, I am unsure what might have made this change for me. redhat.repo (previously existed) packagekit-media.repo

I accidentally downloaded (and subsequently installed)Windows 8 Server Beta.  I thought the email was inviting me to download the desktop preview. Anyhow - it's pretty cool looking thus far.  One notable thing that's missing is the "Start Menu" or the "Start Button" whatever you want to call it. So - after it started, I pretty much wanted to shut it down since I wasn't interested in previewing the Server release.  As I was fumbling around I noticed some cool tools.  It appears that the interface is made to manage server resources on a more global level.  I.e. when I ran power shell and shutdown /i  - the applet appeared to ask to control a number of machines, not just the one I was on.  I assume if I had some AD authentication setup, I could have listed a number of servers and rebooted them all? Anyhow - the procedure to shutdown Windows 8 Server Click on Tools Select Power Shell (towards the bottom) at the c:\ prompt enter   shutdown ...