Introduction to Linux Kernel Management
At the heart of the SLES operating system is the Linux kernel. As mentioned
in the "SLES
Startup Procedures" section of this chapter, the Linux kernel is
found in the /boot directory and is typically named vmlinuz-<kernel
version>. The default kernel with an OES Linux
installation is version 2.6.5-7.112-default. The kernel version number
can actually be divided into the following three important numbers:
-
Major Number—
This number represents the current major version number of the Linux
kernel. The Linux kernel is currently at a major number of 2.
-
Minor Number—
This number represents the minor version number of the Linux kernel.
Modern distributions are based on either minor number 4 or 6 of
the Linux kernel. SLES9 uses a kernel with a minor number of 6.
This kernel is commonly referred to as the 2.6 kernel.
The minor number can also be used to represent
the status of the kernel version. If the minor number is an odd
number (such as in kernel version 2.5), that version of the kernel
is a non-stable or developmental release of the kernel. Minor numbers
using an even number (such as 2.6) are known as production or stable
versions of the kernel.
-
Revision Number—
The final number of the Linux kernel version is the revision number
of the kernel. SUSE also adds some information to this field to
indicate the build of the kernel, as well as the specific environment
the kernel was intended for. In the OES kernel version number 2.6.5-7.112-default,
the revision number is 5-7 and the SUSE build number and environment
designations are 112-default.
NOTE
The uname -r command can be used to
display the version of the currently running kernel.
The most common administrative task relating to the kernel is most likely
applying kernel updates to resolve security issues. Applying kernel
updates through the YaST Online Update or Red-Carpet tools is a very
straightforward process, but if problems are encountered, you may need
to know more details regarding the layout of the kernel-related files.
Table 6.5
outlines the important kernel-related files found within the /boot
directory.
Table 6.5. Important Kernel-Related
Files in /boot
|
FILE |
DESCRIPTION |
|
vmlinuz-2.6.5-7.112-default |
The 2.6.5-7.112-default version of the
Linux kernel. |
|
vmlinuz |
A symbolic link that points to the current
version of the Linux kernel. The /boot/grub/menu.lst
file typically configures GRUB to reference this vmlinuz
file rather than the actual vmlinuz-<version
number> file. |
|
initrd-2.6.5-7.112-default |
Initialization RAM Disk used by the startup
routine to provide required hardware drivers to the initialized
kernel. This is used prior to the root filesystem being
mounted. |
|
initrd |
Symbolic link that points to the current
version of the initrd file. The /boot/grub/menu.lst
file typically configures GRUB to reference this initrd
file rather than the actual initrd-<version
number> file. |
|
config-2.6.5-7.112-default |
Configuration file used for the compiling
of the current kernel. |
|
kerntypes-2.6.5-7.112-default |
File containing information about data
structures within the Linux kernel—used by the Linux Kernel
Crash Dump facility for debugging purposes. |
|
system.map-2.6.5-7.112-default |
Map file containing address of symbols
for the current kernel. |
NOTE
As mentioned in
Table
6.5, the GRUB bootloader is typically configured to load both
the kernel and the initrd image using the symbolic links
rather than the actual filenames. This is normally a good thing,
but if a kernel patch fails to properly configure these links, the
bootloader process will be unable to locate these important files
and the boot process will fail.
Kernel SourcesCompiling your own Linux kernel is
not necessarily a difficult process, but because of the potential for
misuse and catastrophic side effects, Novell does not support compiling
your own kernel. As a matter of fact, if you do require support by Novell
and you're running a custom kernel, the first question you will likely
hear is "Does this problem occur when using the default kernel?"
Even though compiling a custom kernel is not a good
idea for a production server, there are a number of reasons why you
might want to install the kernel source code. One example might be that
a custom program you need to compile requires the kernel source to be
installed. An even better example is the potential ability to look through
the kernel source code to help track down error messages and their causes.
Using the grep command to search for a specific
error message within the kernel source code tree can often lead to the
exact error message. When you find the code surrounding the error message,
you can analyze it and the root cause of your problem may be apparent.
In order to use kernel sources in this manner, the
kernel-source package must be installed. This package is not typically
selected for installation using the default configurations, but can
be easily installed after the initial installation. When installed,
the Linux kernel source code is located in the /usr/src/linux
directory structure.
Working with Kernel
Modules
When the Linux kernel is built, it must be built
in such a way as to support as much third-party hardware as possible.
There are essentially two ways to accomplish this. The first is to compile
the kernel with specific drivers for all third-party hardware as part
of the kernel itself. Although this type of kernel does work, it is
generally not considered an efficient method of building the kernel
as any one server really only needs a somewhat limited number of third-party
drivers loaded.
The second and more common method of building the
kernel is compiling a kernel with internal support for common hardware
components (such as PCI support) and providing third-party hardware
support through the use of external modules. This type of modular kernel
is what is available with SLES.
When using external modules, the system must be configured
to load the appropriate hardware modules upon system startup. During
the installation of SLES, the installation routine will scan and detect
hardware devices and build the initrd image with the required
modules. However, when adding hardware after the installation or when
installing proprietary drivers for unsupported hardware, it may be necessary
to configure the server manually.
Table 6.6
lists commands used to manage kernel modules.
Table 6.6. Commands and Files Used
with Kernel Modules
|
COMMAND
OR FILE
|
DESCRIPTION
|
|
lsmod |
Lists all currently loaded kernel modules. |
|
rmmod |
Removes the specified kernel module from
memory. |
|
insmod |
Inserts a specific kernel module into the
running kernel. |
|
modprobe |
Inserts a specific kernel module into the
running kernel. If the specified module is dependent on
other kernel modules, additional required modules will be
dynamically loaded. |
|
/etc/modprobe.conf |
Configuration file used to load and alias
kernel modules at system initialization. Additions to this
file should be placed in /etc/modprobe.conf.local. |
|
/etc/sysconfig/kernel |
Configuration file used by the kernel during
system initialization. The MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT
directive can be edited to load specific modules at system
startup. |
After you have used the utilities listed in
Table 6.6
to load and test a required hardware module, you must configure your
server to automatically load the module upon server restart. This can
be accomplished by adding the module to the MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT
directive of the /etc/sysconfig/kernel file, or the module
can be added to the /etc/modprobe.conf.local file.
NOTE
If you have a complex loading requirement, such
as the specific ordering of more than one module, the /etc/modprobe.conf.local
file is much more flexible than /etc/sysconfig. For more
information on the syntax of this file, please see the man
page for modprobe.conf(5).
Op is a tool for allowing users to run root privileged commands
without the root password. It is described in detail in "Op: A Flexible
Tool for Restricted Superuser Access" by Tom Christiansen. From this
description Dave Koblas produced an impementation of op in C. Tom's
original paper is included in this distribution in the file "op.paper".
Differences between that design and the current implementation are noted
in the file "op.changes".
Oracle Enterprise Linux became more compatible with Suse. Suse users
can use Oracle version as an upgrade.
Yet Another Setup Tool. Yast helps make system administration easier
by providing a single utility for configuring and maintaining Linux
systems. The version of Yast available
here is modified
to work with all Enterprise Linux distributions including Enterprise
Linux and SuSE.
Special note to
Oracle Management Pack for Linux users:
Xen: Ready for OES2’s launch?
With the launch of OES2, Novell is trying
really hard to entice those last few NetWare
shops to make the leap to Linux. They’re doing
this by enticing them with virtual NetWare servers
running in Xen. That said, was Xen mature enough
for First American’s mission critical NetWare
applications? Would it perform as well?
At first glance, things were not looking
too good.
Kurt Johnston, a lead engineer on the First
American migration, wasn’t optimistic. “I did
not have high expectations for Xen," Johnston
told me in a call last week.
“With Xen being as young as it is, I was expecting
it to be very difficult to install and configure
a new domU onto dom0."
Johnston and his boss, IT director Dan McDougall,
were also wary of performance issues they had
read about in trade magazines and had heard
from other users throughout the year.
But they were
soon pleasantly surprised, and so was I. Xen
wasn’t VMware ESX Server, but it was close enough–at
least for First American. That,
at least to me, was the surprise. It’s been
a 24 hour VMware lovefest for the past two years
or so, and I hadn’t been up on the subject enough
to see any changes in that dynamic. When I talked
with analysts in 2006 and ‘07 I had always heard
Xen had plenty of potential, but like any new
technology it needed work. Illuminata senior
analyst Gordon Haff, speaking to me for the
same article, told me that much of the work
needed to prove that potential had been completed
throughout 2007. It was a collection of hard
work and bug fies; not any single thing, he
said.
“The fact is,
[Xen] was rather simple to install. It was the
ease of installation and configuration that
surprised me. I was expecting to use quite a
bit of [a command line interface]," Johnston
said. Fortunately for First American, there
was very little CLI, if any. No headaches, no
problems–save one.
There was one issue worth noting about Xen,
according to Johnson. He said one thing he would
like to see in Xen is in “the paravirtualization
side of things":
“I’d like to be able to somehow mask certain
virtual machines and only allow certain LUNs
[logical unit numbers] on the SAN [storage area
network] to serve and see certain virtual machines,
via Xen. I’d like to be able to build
in a limit to the different servers to see only
specific LUNs on the SAN."
He went on to say that having the ability
to visualize the host bus adapter (HBA) and
use Xen to manage virtual Fibre Channel ports
would allow LUN masking of these ports and give
the ability to grant access to only specified
LUNs.
This capability is also still an issue in
VMware environments as well, but a support update
for N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) in VMware
ESX 3.5 was announced earlier this month.
Fixes from XenSource, Novell
But what about XenSource, the corporate entity
behind the Xen hypervisor? Or Novell, which
was the first commercial Linux OS vendor to
bake Xen into its OS? Was a fix forthcoming
for those Novell OES2 customers, like Johnston
and McDougall, that wanted the same functionality
in their environments? Simon Crosby, CTO of
XenSource, responded to that question regarding
support for N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV)
via email this morning. He said:
“It’s planned ASAP for XenSource products
(Q1 08). The Xen project doesn’t have a storage
roadmap - just the hypervisor. Whether any vendor
puts a particular storage technology into its
product is up to that vendor."
Novell is working on a multi-vendor fix:
“We are working on N_Port Virtualization together
with Qlogic and Emulex," said Holger Dryoff,
vice president of management and marketing at
Novell. “This will be available in one of the
future service packs of SUSE Linux Enterprise
Server 10 and therefore to OES 2 customers as
well."
I find all of this interesting because it
will mean more choices. More choices means competition,
and competition means happier customers. Happier
customers are more apt to speak to the press
and tell their stories. Whether the technology
ultimately makes the customers happy, well,
that’s what we’re here to find out.
|
Desktop oriented and very superficial comparison. Deeper issues like
packages availability are not covered.
| |
| openSUSE 10.3 |
| Mandriva 2008.0 |
| Boot up |
38 |
52 |
| KDE |
10 |
12 |
| GNOME |
25 |
7 |
| OpenOffice.org |
7 |
7 |
| Firefox |
3 |
5 |
| The GIMP |
3 |
4 |
| Shut down |
17 |
19 |
A lot of pictures: might be useful for those who does it the first time.
From the 10.3 announcement:
The package management team have been working hard on improving
the new openSUSE package management, and there is a lot to show for
it now. It is reliable, more mature, and an awful lot faster. There
is no more parsing during startup, greater compatibility
with tools like yum and smart, and increased speed for the most
common use-case: installing a package.
HowtoForge
This tutorial is also available in German:
Der perfekte Server - OpenSUSE 10.3 (32-bit)
This is a detailed description about how to set up an OpenSUSE
10.3 server that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters:
Apache web server (SSL-capable), Postfix mail server with SMTP-AUTH
and TLS, BIND DNS server, Proftpd FTP server, MySQL server, Dovecot
POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc.
This tutorial is written for the 32-bit version of OpenSUSE 10.3,
but should apply to the 64-bit version with very little modifications
as well.
I will use the following software:
- Web Server: Apache 2.2
- Database Server: MySQL 5.0
- Mail Server: Postfix
- DNS Server: BIND9
- FTP Server: proftpd (ISPConfig
will not work with vsftpd on OpenSUSE 10.3)
- POP3/IMAP: I will use Maildir format and therefore install Courier-POP3/Courier-IMAP.
- Webalizer for web site statistics
In the end you should have a system that works reliably, and if you
like you can install the free webhosting control panel
ISPConfig (i.e., ISPConfig runs on it out of the box).
Device drivers from Novell and Intel allow unmodified
Windows Server 2000/2003/XP to run in Xen virtual environments on SUSE
Linux Enterprise Server 10 and Intel® Virtualization Technology
SAN FRANCISCO (InfoWorld Virtualization Executive Forum)— 12 Feb
2007— Novell and Intel Corporation today announced the availability
of paravirtualized network and block device drivers that will allow
Microsoft* Windows* Server 2000/2003/XP to run unmodified in Xen* virtual
environments on SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server 10 from Novell®, operating
on Intel-based server platforms featuring Intel® Virtualization Technology.
Combined with the existing ability to host unmodified Linux* on SUSE
Linux Enterprise Server, these new drivers will let customers confidently
migrate to newer and fewer energy-efficient servers, consolidating legacy
Windows or Linux solutions onto virtual servers.“With our SUSE Linux
Enterprise 10 platform launch in July 2006, Novell became the first
major Linux distributor to integrate Xen virtualization into a Linux
distribution," said Jeff Jaffe, Novell executive vice president and
chief technology officer. “In September, we became the first distribution
to support virtualized Linux workloads on Xen, and today we are the
first distributor to support virtualized Windows workloads on Linux.
Our commitment to innovation to solve customer problems has never been
greater."
“Intel has been working with the open source community to enable
Linux virtualization solutions to take advantage of Intel Virtualization
Technology, so that guest OS and applications can run unmodified," said
Doug Fisher, Intel vice president of Software and Solutions Group. “In
addition, our Quad-Core Intel Xeon Processor-based platform with its
outstanding performance, energy efficiency and reliability provides
unparalleled headroom for multiple Virtual Machines running varied data
center workloads. Getting Windows to run with Linux unmodified and vice
versa will bring an immense confidence boost to IT managers in making
decisions on corporate platform standardization and refresh."
In addition to providing cost savings when virtualizing Windows on
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, these drivers can improve the availability
of Windows- and Linux-based workloads via clustered virtual systems
and help IT staff respond faster to business needs by easily creating
and provisioning services on virtual systems.
Novell is sponsoring a virtualization pilot program for customers,
providing enterprise-level support for running fully virtualized Windows
2000/2003/XP workloads on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.
The paravirtualized device drivers are now available to members of the
pilot program. General availability is scheduled for later this year.
For more information on the pilot program and Novell virtualization
solutions, visit www.novell.com/virtualization.
For more about SUSE Linux Enterprise offerings from Novell, visit
www.novell.com/linux. For
more information about Intel Virtualization Technology, visit
www.intel.com/business/technologies/virtualization.htm.
Here is good news for SLES users. I'm happy to report that the OpenVZ
team resumed working on the SLES10-based OpenVZ kernel a few months
ago, and we now have pretty stable
SLES10 OpenVZ kernel.
I encourage all SLES users to try it out.
The SLES10 kernel itself is based on the Linux kernel 2.6.16, and until
SLES11 comes out, it remains the most "enterprise" (read stable and
supported) kernel coming from Novell/SUSE. So, what we did is we took
that kernel and ported our OpenVZ patchset to it. The only feature missing
is I/O priority support, which is because the disk CFQ scheduler used
in 2.6.16 is way too old. Other than that, it's a pretty decent kernel,
and while we haven't declared it as stable yet we will do so
really soon.
Here is a summary for all the other branches we develop/support as of
now, with download links:
Stable: 2.6.9 (rhel4
based), 2.6.18
(rhel5 based),
2.6.18 (vanilla
based). SLES10
will be added to this list soon.
Development: 2.6.22
(vanilla).
Some recommendations are plain wrong. For example Nvu is too
primitive and buggy to use for serious work. So sound and video recommendations
should be taken with a grain of salt:
Sound & Video:
- Amarok - audio player
- Audacity - free, open source, cross platform digital audio
editor
- Banshee - audio player, can encode/decode various formats
and synchronize music with Apple iPods
- MPlayer - media player (video/audio), supports WMA
- Rhythmbox Music Player - audio player, similar to Apple's
iTunes, with support for iPods
- gtkPod - software similar to Apple's iTunes, supports iPod,
iPod nano, iPod shuffle, iPod photo, and iPod mini
- XMMS - audio player similar to Winamp
- dvd::rip - full featured DVD copy program
- Sound Juicer CD Extractor - CD ripping tool, supports various
audio codecs
- VLC Media Player - media player (video/audio)
- Real Player
- Totem - media player (video/audio)
- Xine - media player, supports various formats; can play DVDs
- Brasero - CD/DVD burning program
- GnomeBaker - CD/DVD burning program
- K3B - CD/DVD burning program
- Multimedia-Codecs
Programming:
- Nvu - WYSIWYG HTML editor, similar to Macromedia Dreamweaver,
but not as feature-rich (yet)
- Quanta Plus - web development environment, including a WYSIWYG
editor
"With the one CD media the install downloads over 600MB. Didn't
they manage to put it all on CD?"
The one CD install media contain a complete functional desktop, either
KDE or GNOME, which can be installed offline. If you compare you will
actually notice that we managed to fit more applications on it than
most other CD distros which often miss bigger stuff like OpenOffice.org,
Firefox, Gimp or games. openSUSE 10.3 introduces the new concept of
registering online repositories before the installation starts. On the
screen where you choose whether to install or upgrade, there is
a checkbox "Add online repositories before installation" which is
enabled by default. If you want a quick offline installation, or an
'unbloated' installation, disable this option. Keeping it enabled will
give you the default installation like you would get from the release
DVD for one desktop, including eg translations and more games. And yes,
we didn't manage to fit the DVD content on a single CD.
"openSUSE is bloated"
This couldn't be further away from truth. openSUSE 10.3 has actually
the most lean footprint of all recent releases. All patterns have been
reworked and packages more splitted, eg you can install a very small
base system or basic X window. The desktop CD installations are coercively
optimized for size. You can call a full DVD or CD+online repos installation
bloated but then you opted for the wide range of applications option.
A nice example how a somewhat incompetent/incoherent review can hurt
important effort. There is a whole gender of such reviews by people
who generally has no use for the system after install :-). The guy definitely
does not understand that Suse is not for suckers; this is a distribution
oriented on professional sys admins who either work or plan to work with
an enterprise edition ;-). Note that he has nothing to say about quality
of distribution per se, only about extremely superficial things like time
of download, time of installation and problem with online install he encounter
(as if installation from DVD is such a problem). We also need to distinguish
between flows in the interface (and YAST is far from being perfect here)
from flaws in functionally -- and YAST does extremely good job with detecting
hardware and other non-trivial installation issues.
There was
a choice of downloads and I chose the CD which had KDE as its desktop
environment; KDE is one of the two main desktop environments for Linux
users, the other being GNOME.
The download appeared to be a full CD, coming in at around 690MB. Normally,
when one downloads a full CD one expects that it can be used on its
own to effect a full installation. I noticed an Add-ons CD, but since
this was said to contain software which was licensed under terms other
than those of the General Public Licence, I reasoned that this wasn't
really necessary.
After booting up, one of the first things one has to do is to agree
to a long licence. This is reminiscent of that other system called Windows
- maybe Novell's deal with Microsoft has been influential in this design.
After a few more screens, online repositories start getting downloaded.
This took me by surprise; with a full CD, I did not think that I needed
anything more from the worldwide web. I did not expect that the choice
of downloading repositories would be selected by default.
I expected there would be fair warning - something like "do you want
to add other software from online repositories?" or "do you want to
download security updates?" But these minor courtesies appear to be
unimportant for the openSUSE people so a few minutes went by with lists
being downloaded.
Then up came a list of software which had been selected for installation
- a total of 2.2 GB! Does one really need all that software? Anyway,
I went on and after some software had been installed from the CD which
I had created, the downloading began.
It took around half an hour in all for the software installation to
end - and then up flashed a screen which informed me "some packages
failed to install." Clicking OK on this took me back to a screen which
is part of the old SUSE text install.
I started all over again from this point and, this time, deselected
all the online repositories. Wonder of wonders, despite this a few packages
were still downloaded. A total of 1.5 GB was installed and when it came
to the end, up sprang that annoying message again: "Some packages failed
to install."
I tried using the "rescue system" option but this again brought me back
to the installation procedure. It's annoying to say the least.
In addition to this, two new tools were also created in order to work
with the new libzypp:
- zypper, an advanced,
featureful command-line
tool. Below are a couple of usage examples to see zypper in action:
Displaying your repository list:
opensuse:~ # zypper repos
# | Enabled | Refresh | Type | Name | URI
–+———+———+——–+—————+——————————————————————————–
1 | Yes | Yes | yast2 | 10.3 - Main Repository (NON-OSS) | http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/SL-Factory-non-oss/inst-source-extra/
2 | Yes | Yes | rpm-md | KDE:Community | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Community/openSUSE_Factory
3 | Yes | Yes | yast2 | 10.3 - Main Repository (OSS) | http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/SL-OSS-factory/inst-source/
Installing a package:
opensuse:/home/francis # zypper install filelight
* Reading repository ‘10.3 - Main Repository (NON-OSS)’ cache
* Reading repository ‘KDE:Community’ cache
* Reading repository ‘10.3 - Main Repository (OSS)’ cache
* Reading installed packages [100%]
The following NEW package is going to be installed:
filelight
Overall download size: 619.3 K. After the operation, additional 1.0
M will be used.
Continue? [y/n]: y
Downloading package filelight-1.0-6.1.i586, 619.3 K (1.0 M unpacked)
* Installing: filelight-1.0-6.1 [100%]
- openSUSE Updater, a software updater applet that notifies
you about software updates. The new one contains a small dialog
to notify you of its progress:
What kind of advantages does this package management have over
the old, pre SUSE Linux 10.1, package management?
The pre-10.1 stack, while mature, was showing its limitations. With
the ZYpp based stacks we got:
- A better resolver than before
- Predictable behavior supported by a testsuite of upgrade
and install scenarios
- More information about why a package is installed or no
solution is found
- A better integration of all those feature that were added over
the years to our package manager.
- A common handling of packages *and* patches together
- Dependency handling for update packages
- A better way to handle selections (we call them “patterns" now)
- More flexibility in handling of different repositories, e.g.
it is possible to have additional patterns for each repository.
- Additional dependencies based on language (for fonts, translations,
etc.) or hardware (for drivers)
And now in 10.3 you will get:
- Cleaner separation of different tasks like repository management,
repository refresh, dependency resolution, package download and
package installation. No more refresh and parsing during startup.
- More compatibility with tools like yum and smart, we use the
standard .repo files to list known repositories. The same format
smart and yum uses and the same files you can find in the openSUSE
build service repositories.
- More speed for the common use case: install a package, search
from the command line or upgrade your system.
- More user-friendly notification applets.
- A saner policy for 3rd party packages. They are not locked by
default.
Upgrade candidates are considered from the same vendor, so you don’t
jump automatically between feature-sets and vendors as new versions
are available.
... zmd.exe (the default updater) is a mono
app, and is prone to hanging.
by eimikion (973712)
I've just installed a new OpenSUSE. All these little bugs from previous
releases are gone. Yast software installer finally works with a good
speed. Desktop responsiveness is amazing - KDE 3.7 works faster than
GUI of Windows 2000. The default green artwork is very nice and gives
a distinct feeling to this distro. Hardware detection is very good.
My graphic card - nvidia 7600 and audio card - Creative Audigy 2 were
working out of the box. Even installation of ADSL modem was a breeze
- it is a cheap Sagem modem, used by the all telcos controlled by France
Telecom, and most linux distros has problems with it.
What is especially important to people in countries with stupid law
(read USA) - OpenSUSE gives you mp3 playback out of box, due to legal
fluendo gstreamer plugins. In addition, there are provided Flash 9,
newest Java runtimes, RealPlayer and seamless Wi-Fi support.
In the last year I've tried quite a few linux distros - Fedora, Ubuntu,
Sabayon, Mint, Mandriva... nothing even come close to the OpenSUSE.
Quality of Deutsch engineering.
... zmd.exe (the default updater) is a mono
app, and is prone to hanging. I've had to kill zmd and
restart novell-zmd several times to get updates to work whenever I notice
that a cron-run update is still in the process list 8-10 hours later.
by TheNinjaroach (878876)
Yes they have fixed those very annoying bugs from 10.1 -- I have been
using SUSE since 9.1 and you speak of my most hated release. It seemed
Novell crammed a bunch of their Zen Management tools into the 10.1 release
and they mostly came out broken. By 10.2, SUSE was back to its standard,
highly-polished state.
Sometimes you gotta go backwards before you can go forward.
I am usually on top of new SUSE releases,
but I'm so pleased with 10.2 I will stay put until a KDE4 version of
SUSE is released.
by WhiteWolf666 (145211)
The standard 10.2 install included zmd and mono, for sure.
Libzypp has since replaced zmd, and I think they made it the default
in one of the 10.2 updates, and then updated the disk images.
But I'm 100% sure that the standard backend at 10.2 release was ZMD.
by jeevesbond (1066726)
I know, don't feed the trolls, I'm sorry but someone might actually
believe this idiot and it's not going to take much effort to prove them
wrong.Look at this image:
http://news.opensuse.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/yast-list_thumb.png
[opensuse.org] that is YaST giving the user the option to install whatever
desktop environment they like, under the cursor is
XFCE [xfce.org]
whos tagline is '...and everything goes faster'. It's very lightweight,
ideal for older computers and does not include any of the things
you're complaining about.
Welcome to the GNU/Linux world, where you get the choice of what
software to run. That's rather the point with Vista, Microsoft will
force people to upgrade to it even if they have to buy a new computer
to do so. My apologies if that offends your sensibilities as an MS fanboy,
but I'm afraid we don't support bullying in the form of forced upgrades
'round these parts.
... ... ...
PS: If you want people to actually take you seriously, quit the name-calling
and immature attitude, stop SHOUTING, use a spelling checker and don't
use multiple exclamation marks. Each of these things is like a sign
telling everybody else you are a child.
by TopSpin (753)
*
SUSE is being pretty aggressive in terms of key packages like gcc, glibc
and the kernel. 10.3 provides GCC 4.2.1, glibc 2.6.1 and the 2.6.22.5
release of the kernel.
My one serious complaint with YaST is the time wasted waiting for the
package manager to download metadata every time you enter it. I've taken
to just leaving it running on a separate desktop. Please, YaST folks,
apply some caching; it should take at most only a few seconds to bring
up package manager if it has been run in the last few hours. If I should
need to ensure absolutely current metadata provide a simple means to
force a full update, otherwise get the thing open as quickly as possible.
Yes, it's probably possible to work-around, tweak or otherwise get this
behavior now... I want it out of the box.
by FranTaylor (164577)
My Fedora machine is running 2.6.22.9, what's so modern about 2.6.22.5?
YaST is a piece of junk. If you use rpm to install a package, you have
hopelessly screwed up YaST and it will never behave correctly again.
It's why I gave up on SuSE. Maybe there's a way to fix it, but there
are plenty of distributions that behave correctly and don't require
putzing around.
by WhiteWolf666 (145211)
That hasn't been my experience, and I install quite a few packages via
rpm command line.
YaST was borked for 10.1 and 10.2. It made sense to try and use an alternative
package manager.
As 10.2 matured, YaST started to work properly, but was slow.
In 10.3, YaST is quite speedy, very capable, and runs very solidly.
Plus, the one-click-install thing works really well.
by grommit (97148)
I wouldn't say that it's fast now but it is definitely faster than any
previous version of YaST's package manager. Ubuntu's package manager
is extremely fast and it would be difficult to match that speed but
thankfully I don't install/uninstall/reinstall packages very often so
10.3's package manager speed is fine for me. I would like it if the
OpenSUSE team would work on having the package manager do multiple package
processes at the same time such as downloading the next package while
the previously downloaded package is being installed. Currently it is
a very linear Download > Apply Delta > Install/Update > Download Next
Package process.
by WhiteWolf666 (145211)
I'm using it, and yes, its fixed. It's cached, and at each package manager
startup it checks the cache versus the online version, and even if it
needs update the cache update is an order of magnitude faster than a
normal startup of the package manager used to be.
It's quite useable now; time from clicking "software manager" to a usable
interface is similar to using SMART.
Speed seems to be one of the primary focuses of this release; from the
package manager to the boot sequence.
by griego (1108909)
Go into "Installation Source" in YaST and turn off Refresh for the slower
repositories. Then refresh them manually once a month or something.
Virtualization improvements might be valuable. openSUSE 10.3
will be supported with security and other serious
updates for a period of 2 years.
openSUSE 10.3 will be supported with
security and other serious updates for a period of 2 years.
This version contains new beautiful green artwork, KDE 3.5.7 and
parts of KDE 4, SUSE-polished GNOME 2.20, a GTK version of YaST, a new
1-click-install technology, MP3 support out-of-the-box, new and redesigned
YaST modules, compiz and compiz fusion advances,
virtualization improvements,
OpenOffice.org 2.3, Xfce 4.4.1, and much more! Read on for details of
what is new and available in openSUSE 10.3, and for all the necessary
download links.
Read on for details of what is new and available in openSUSE 10.3,
and for all the necessary download links.
Under the hood:
- Linux 2.6.22.5
- GCC 4.2
- libZYpp 3.26.2
You can put DVD image of existing FAR partition
and install from the ISO image of DVD.
... Selected install using HDD option. Selected
the drive and entered the directory as suse103. ...added the directory
path as /suse103. Enter. Wow!! Success!!!
Hping for suse.
Index of /repositories/home:/peternixon/openSUSE_Factory/src
hping-2.0.0-5.16.src.rpm 06-Sep-2007 15:19 105K
[ ] hping-2.0.0-5.24.src.rpm 06-Sep-2007 ... Apache/2.2.6 (Linux/SUSE)
Server at download.opensuse.org Port 80.
download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/peternixon/openSUSE_Factory/src/
- 5k - |
data=writeback
While the writeback option provides lower data consistency guarantees
than the journal or ordered modes, some
applications show very significant speed improvement when it is used.
For example, speed improvements can be seen when heavy
synchronous writes are performed, or when applications create and delete
large volumes of small files, such as delivering a large flow of short
email messages. The results of the testing effort described in Chapter
3 illustrate this topic.
When the writeback option is used, data consistency
is similar to that provided by the ext2 file system. However, file system
integrity is maintained continuously during normal operation in the
ext3 file system.
In the event of a power failure or system crash,
the file system may not be recoverable if a significant portion of data
was held only in system memory and not on permanent storage. In this
case, the filesystem must be recreated from backups. Often, changes
made since the file system was last backed up are inevitably lost.
August 7, 2007 |
KernelTrap
Submitted by
Jeremy on August 7, 2007 - 9:26am.
In a recent lkml thread, Linus Torvalds was involved in a discussion
about mounting filesystems with the noatime option for
better performance, "'noatime,data=writeback'
will quite likely be *quite* noticeable (with different effects for
different loads), but almost nobody actually runs that way."
He noted that he set O_NOATIME when writing
git, "and it was an absolutely huge time-saver
for the case of not having 'noatime' in the mount options. Certainly
more than your estimated 10% under some loads."
The discussion then looked at using the
relatime
mount option to improve the situation, "relative atime only updates
the atime if the previous atime is older than the mtime or ctime. Like
noatime, but useful for applications like mutt that need to know when
a file has been read since it was last modified."
Ingo Molnar stressed the significance of fixing
this performance issue, "I cannot over-emphasize how much of a deal
it is in practice. Atime updates are by far
the biggest IO performance deficiency that Linux has today. Getting
rid of atime updates would give us more everyday Linux performance than
all the pagecache speedups of the past 10 years, _combined_."
He submitted some patches to improve relatime,
and noted about atime:
"It's also perhaps
the most stupid Unix design idea of all times. Unix is really nice
and well done, but think about this a bit: 'For every file that
is read from the disk, lets do a ... write to the disk! And, for
every file that is already cached and which we read from the cache
... do a write to the disk!'"
31 Jul 2007 | www.ibm.com/developerworks
If you manage systems and networks, you need
Expect.
More precisely, why would you want to be without
Expect? It saves hours common tasks otherwise demand. Even if you already
depend on Expect, though, you might not be aware of the capabilities
described below.
Expect
automates command-line interactions
You don't have to understand all of Expect to
begin profiting from the tool; let's start with a concrete example of
how Expect can simplify your work on AIX® or other operating systems:
Suppose you have logins on several UNIX® or
UNIX-like hosts and you need to change the passwords of these accounts,
but the accounts are not synchronized by Network Information Service
(NIS), Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), or some other mechanism
that recognizes you're the same person logging in on each machine. Logging
in to a specific host and running the appropriate passwd
command doesn't take long—probably only a minute, in most cases. And
you must log in "by hand," right, because there's no way to script
your password?
Wrong. In fact, the standard Expect distribution
(full distribution) includes a command-line tool (and a manual page
describing its use!) that precisely takes over this chore. passmass
(see Resources) is a short script written in
Expect that makes it as easy to change passwords on twenty machines
as on one. Rather than retyping the same password over and over, you
can launch passmass once and let your desktop computer
take care of updating each individual host. You save yourself enough
time to get a bit of fresh air, and multiple opportunities for the frustration
of mistyping something you've already entered.
The
limits of Expect
This passmass application is an
excellent model—it illustrates many of Expect's general properties:
- It's a great return on investment: The utility is already written,
freely downloadable, easy to install and use, and saves time and
effort.
- Its contribution is "superficial," in some sense. If everything
were "by the book"—if you had NIS or some other domain authentication
or single sign-on system in place—or even if login could be scripted,
there'd be no need for
passmass. The world isn't polished
that way, though, and Expect is very handy for grabbing on to all
sorts of sharp edges that remain. Maybe Expect will help you create
enough free time to rationalize your configuration so that you no
longer need Expect. In the meantime, take advantage of it.
- As distributed,
passmass only logs in by way of
telnet, rlogin, or slogin.
I hope all current developerWorks readers have abandoned these protocols
for ssh, which passmasss does not
fully support.
- On the other hand, almost everything having to do with Expect
is clearly written and freely available. It only takes three simple
lines (at most) to enhance
passmass to respect
ssh and other options.
You probably know enough already to begin to
write or modify your own Expect tools. As it turns out, the passmass
distribution actually includes code to log in by means of ssh,
but omits the command-line parsing to reach that code. Here's one way
you might modify the distribution source to put ssh on
the same footing as telnet and the other protocols:
Listing 1. Modified passmass fragment that accepts
the -ssh argument
...
} "-rlogin" {
set login
"rlogin"
continue
} "-slogin" {
set login
"slogin"
continue
} "-ssh" {
set login
"ssh"
continue
} "-telnet" {
set login
"telnet"
continue
...
In my own code, I actually factor out more of
this "boilerplate." For now, though, this cascade of tests, in the vicinity
of line #100 of passmass, gives a good idea of Expect's
readability. There's no deep programming here—no need for object-orientation,
monadic application, co-routines, or other subtleties. You just ask
the computer to take over typing you usually do for yourself. As it
happens, this small step represents many minutes or hours of human effort
saved.
[Jul 30, 2007] Due to problems
on high loads in Linux 2.6.23 kernel the Linux kernel process scheduler
has been completely ripped out and replaced with a completely new one called
Completely Fair Scheduler (CFS) modeled after Solaris 10 scheduler.
This is will not affect the current Linux distributions
(Suse 9, 10 and RHEL 4.x) as they forked the kernel and essentially
develop it as a separate tree.
But it will affect any future Red Hat or Suse
distribution (Suse 11 and RHEL 6 respectively).
How it will fair in comparison with Solaris
10 remains to be seen:
The main idea of CFS's design can be summed
up in a single sentence: CFS basically models an "ideal, precise multi-tasking
CPU" on real hardware.
Ideal multi-tasking CPU" is a (non-existent)
CPU that has 100% physical power and which can run each task at precise
equal speed, in parallel, each at 1/n running speed. For example: if
there are 2 tasks running then it runs each at exactly 50% speed.
The Linux desktop multiplier for SUSE Linux enterprise desktop (SLED
10) and openSUSE 10.1 allows up to 10 users to share a single Linux PC.
Although Linux geeks are not often found on the sports field, this
week Linux computers will help in a fund raiser to donate a million
soccer balls to improve children's lives through sport.
Canada-based Omni Technology Solutions, Novell South Africa, Userful,
and Pinnacle Micro have teamed up to provide
Linux desktop computers for the "Let's Play a Million" South African
telethon on June 27.
The national telethon is a joint initiative of UNICEF, Supersport,
the department of education and five radio stations. The objective is
to donate a million soccer balls to South African youth and promote
child survival through sports and healthy living.
Each of the telethon locations will be equipped with a five-user
SUSE Linux enterprise desktop. Using the Desktop multiplier software,
the single computer will allow five operators to work at the same time
to enter pledges.
The Linux desktop multiplier for SUSE
Linux enterprise desktop (SLED 10) and openSUSE 10.1 allows up to 10
users to share a single Linux PC. Running off a single
computer, additional workstations can be added through adding dual-head
graphics cards, monitors, keyboards, mice and a powered USB hub to an
existing SUSE Linux enterprise desktop or openSUSE computer.
"After the telethon, the computers will be donated to schools and
further empower South African students", said Garry Hodgson, OEM business
development manager for Novell South Africa.
Newer version "s"
ksh-93s-23.x86_64.html |
Korn Shell |
OpenSuSE Factory for x86_64 |
ksh-93s-23.x86_64.rpm |
Package Notes and Changes
2007-03-28
Yes -- a new release in only 3 months. This release contains fixes
and features that address the issues raised on the { ast-users uwin-users
ksh-solaris-integration } lists. Thanks to all who helped. A summary
of recent ksh93 changes:
- Double precision floating point arithmetic with full C99
arithmetic support on systems that provide the C99 arithmetic
functions. The numbers Inf and NaN can be used in arithmetic
expressions.
- TAB-TAB completion generates a numbered list of completions
which the user can select.
- Support for processing/handling multibyte locales (e.g.,
en_US.UTF-8, hi_IN.UTF-8, ja_JP.eucJP,
zh_CN.GB18030, zh_TW.BIG5 etc.) has been extensively
revised, tested, and is now supported even on the language level
(e.g. variable and function identifiers may contain locale specific
codeset characters).
- /dev/(tcp|udp|sctp)/host/sevrice
now handles IPv6 addresses on systems that provide
getaddrinfo(3).
- The ability to seek on a file by offset or content with
new redirection operators.
- A new --showme option which allows portions of a
script to behave as if -x were specified while other
parts execute as usual. This simplifies the coding of make
-n style semantics at the script level by eliminating code
replication. In particular, io redirections are handled by
--showme.
- The [[...]] operator =~ has been added which
compares the string to an extended regular expression rather
than == which compares against a shell pattern.
- The
printf(1) builtin has been extended to support
the = flag for centering a field. The # flag when
used with %d and %i provides values in units of
thousands or 1024 respectively with an appropriate suffix added.
- Example screenshots from joint work with the Solaris ksh93
integration project are available
here.
See the
release change log for details.
2007-01-11
This release, almost a year from the last big release, contains
changes based on feedback from the { ast-users ast-developers uwin-users
uwin-developers } lists and the ongoing ksh93-solaris integration
project. Thanks to all who helped. Our resolution this year is to
increase release frequency to keep internal and external source/binaries
more in sync. See the
release change log for details.
2006-05-01
See the
release change log for details.
2006-02-14
This release fixes a few packaging missteps from 2006-01-24 and
syncs the ast and uwin source release. See the
release change log for details. The download site is being serviced
by a new host. The intention is to preserve www.research.att.com
urls, but intervening caches may foil that intent. Details of the
server change follow in case you run into trouble. The old host
www was sgi, the new one public is linux. Both
run apache. Urls prefixed by http://www.research.att.com/sw/download/
will go to the old server which will map the prefix to the new one
http://public.research.att.com/sw/download/. Eventually the
mapping will dissappear when www is retired and public
takes on the name www.
2006-01-24
Its been almost a year since the last release, but we haven't been
idle:
-
ksh(1) release 93r new features:
- The brace expansion option (-B, --braceexpand) expands
{first..last[..incr][%fmt]} sequences.
- Redirection operators can be immediately preceded by
{vname}, {n}>file, which allow the shell to chose the file
descriptor number and store it in varname.
- Redirection syntax <# ((expr)) added to position file
descriptor at offset specified by evaluating arithmetic
expression expr.
- Shell pattern matching extension for matching nested
groups while skipping quoted strings.
- The multiline option (--multiline) allows lines longer
than the column width to be edited using multiple lines.
- The integer and float aliases now default to the longest
integral and floating types on the system.
- ast-open
sort(1) now supports plugins, including
-lsum for record summation, -lsync for IBM dfsort
(aka mainframe syncsort), and -lvcodex for intermediate
and output file compression.
- The ast-open
vczip(1) command and
vcodex(3) base library have been added.
vcodex is a grand unification of compression, encryption
and data transformation methods. Software the way it should
be -- small, composable, influencing paradigms in unexpected
ways.
- The ast-open
dss(1) command, base library, and plugins
have been added. dss suports efficient data stream scanning,
schema specification, and dynamic data types. dss dynamic data
types will be integrated into
ksh(1) extensible types in the next release.
- And, not to be left out of the latest fad, not one but two
command line sudoku solver/generator programs in ast-sudoku
to burn cycles and brain cells. There is some good
math in there, including respectable order N QWH (quasigroup
with holes / latin square completion) results.
- Finally, see the
release change log for details.
2005-02-02
- ast and UWIN source and binaries are now
(finally) covered by the OSI-approved
Common Public License Version 1.0.
- The licence agreement prompt is back -- its either that
or we don't post source. The prompt mechanism works with text-only
and command-line browsers -- see the second paragraph of the
main download page for details.
- If the file $INSTALLROOT/bin/.paths contains the
line BUILTIN_LIB=cmd then the ast libcmd
enters the
ksh(1) command $PATH search when
$INSTALLROOT/bin is hit. i.e., if you place $INSTALLROOT/bin
before /bin or /usr/bin in $PATH then builtin
ast libcmd versions of cp, rm etc.
will be run instead of standalone executables. This may provide
significant speedups for some shell script applications.
- After 20 years AT&T
nmake(1) finally has regression tests -- up
to now packaging, bootstrapping and building ast packages
was the only test.
-
cp(1),
date(1),
ls(1),
nmake(1),
pax(1), and
touch(1) now support nanosecond time resolution,
due mostly to the fact that most of the new nmake regression
tests would have failed to detect sub-second changes from one
test to the next. As it is we have some machines that get >
10 compiles per second.
- This release has quite a few malloc and ksh/malloc bug fixes.
Thanks to the users who provided detailed bug reports through
many rounds of testing.
|
Older version "r" of ksh93.
| Name : ksh
|
|
| Version : 93r |
Vendor :
SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany
|
| Release : 41 |
Date : 2006-11-26 04:24:01
|
| Group :
System/Shells |
Source RPM :
ksh-93r-41.src.rpm |
| Size : 2017509 |
|
| Packager :
http://bugs_opensuse_org |
|
| Summary : Korn Shell
|
Description :
The original Korn Shell. The ksh is an sh-compatible
command
interpreter that executes commands read from standard
input or from a
file.
Authors:
--------
David Korn < dgkAATTresearch.att.com>
Glenn Fowler < gsfAATTresearch.att.com>
Phong Vo < kpvAATTresearch.att.com> |
Provides :
libast.so.5()(64bit)
libcmd.so.1()(64bit)
libdll.so.1()(64bit)
libshell.so.1()(64bit)
ksh
This page is for a version of op that is no longer maintained! Active
development of op is being carried on by Alec Thomas at
http://svn.swapoff.org/op.
|
I first came into contact with op at Octel in 1992. Over the
years I added a couple of things, and ported it to architectures
Octel cared about. Those included SunOS 4.1.x, Solaris 2.2 and greater,
AIX, HP-UX 9.x, BSDI 1.1 and Linux 1.x. I added support for SecurID
access control from Security Dynamics. This particular code has
only been tested under SunOS and Solaris. I also enhanced the syslog
stuff so it would log the command parameters that op executes as
well as the command name. Support for Solaris shadow passwords was
also added.
I left Octel in 1996, and payed little attention to op for over
a year. Recently, I had a need for op on Linux 2.0. I had to tweak
the shadow password implementation to get it to work. While I was
at it I cleaned up some of the logging code. It seems to work quite
well on Linux. I've tried hard not to break other platforms with
my mods, so they probably still work too. 8).I will test this code
on any platform I need to use it on. If you have ported or built
this code on other platforms, I'd like to hear from you. You can
reach me via email at hbo@egbok.com. I'll try to help out with bugs
time permitting.
**** Disclaimer **** This code has been extensively tested only
on the Sun architectures. We have noticed no egregious bugs on those
platforms, but that's no guarantee such bugs don't exist. That goes
double for the non-Sun architectures where testing has involved
building, installing and running "op sh" once or twice.
I'm grateful to Tom Christiansen and Dave Koblas for the original
design and implementation of op. I'm also grateful to all those
folks who, like Tom and Dave, have made my life easier by giving
away marvelous, useful source code. I'm happy to give a little bit
back, at long last. |
/* +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ */
/* | Copyright 1991, David Koblas. | */
/* | Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software | */
/* | and its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby | */
/* | granted, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all | */
/* | copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission | */
/* | notice appear in supporting documentation. This software is | */
/* | provided "as is" without express or implied warranty. | */
/* +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ */
Ditto for my contributions which are Copyright (C) 1995, 1997 by
Howard Owen. (hbo@egbok.com)
Download the gzipped tar archive:
op-1.11.tar.gz
You'll need a gzip compiled for your architecture to decompress
the above file. |
June 18, 2007
(PRNewswire)
Service Pack 1 Enhancements
- SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 SP1 enhancements include:
- enhanced virtualization support and management, updated high-availability
storage infrastructure
- support for new processor technologies, including Quad-Core
Intel Xeon* and Quad-Core AMD Opteron* processors.
- enhanced security features, audit subsystem enrichment
- support for Novell Open Enterprise Server 2.
- For the desktop, SP1 features expanded OpenOffice.org support
and an updated desktop user experience, along with a desktop virtualization
technology preview and advances in enterprise integration capabilities.
Benefits of Virtual Machine Drivers
With the release of the SUSE Linux Enterprise Virtual Machine Driver
Pack, Novell becomes the first vendor to offer a supported solution
for Xen virtual machine guests. The driver pack brings the performance
benefits of paravirtualization and enterprise-level support to a wider
range of fully virtualized workloads, giving customers more choice and
flexibility and enabling them to run legacy applications on newer, more
powerful, energy-efficient hardware.
The Virtual Machine Driver Pack includes
drivers for Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows 2003, and will ship
in July. Drivers for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5
will be released later this summer and will be added to the driver pack
at no additional charge via maintenance update.
A one-year subscription to the Virtual Machine
Driver Pack will cost $299 per physical server for up to four virtual
machines or $699 per physical server for unlimited virtual machines.
Xen drivers for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server are already
available and ship as part of the SUSE Linux Enterprise distribution.
[Mar 23 2005]
Developing
Perl CGI scripts on SUSE Linux (feature)
Because there are so many tutorials on the web about Perl the focus of this
article will be how to configure SUSE Linux for Perl CGI scripts and teaching
you the basics of developing and debugging a Perl script.
[May 14, 2007] Troubleshooting Suse problems
1. supportconfig -- collects
important system information for trobleshooting
2. Siga can be ran with /usr/bin/siga.
See Cool
Solutions siga System Information GAthering
3. For Dell servers useful set of information can be obtained using
Dset which is available from the
Drivers & Downloads link
|
Release Title: |
Systems Management: Dell
Dell System E-support Tool, Utility, Multi OS, English, Multi
System, v.1.4.0.8, A00 |
|
Release Date: |
5/10/2007 |
|
Criticality: |
lt" width="100"> Description:
Creates "System Configuration
Report" that can be used for troubleshooting or inventory collection
of a system. Dell System E-Support Tool (DSET) provides the
ability to collect hardware, storage, and operating system information
from a Dell PowerEdge or PowerVault server. DSET is intended
to be a small, non-intrusive tool that does not require a reboot
of the system to provide most functionality. DSET is intended
primarily to be used when instructed by Dell Technical Support.
Dell Technical Support reviews the report generated by DSET
when a support case is opened. |
- SUSE Linux 10.0
- SUSE Linux Professional 9.2-9.3
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9
PROBLEM: As part of my job as a support Engineer I often need
to get a detailed output of the configuration of a system. Trying to
travel around a customers system copying configuration files was a very
tedious time-consuming process.
SOLUTION: That was until I discovered "siga"!
This useful command grabs all the configuration files on a system
and saves them in one, easy to navigate webpage. When running it you
have the option to open it with a variety of browsers, save it to a
directory or storage media, or (coolest of all) even open it in a remote
display!
Also if you don't want to see every configuration file on a system
you can specify which subsystem you want the configuration files of,
e.g. sound, modem, mail, usb etc.
To have the output directed to a Konqueror type "siga kon". Want
more info or examples? Simply type "man siga".
whitepaper enhancements that SLES 10
Get it either by chapter or all in one
big tarball, the official book
website has a nice description by the author of why he wrote the
book and why it’s being given away...
[May 11, 2007] SUSE Enterprise Linux 10 service pack 1
might be released the next week
Novell will probably release “service pack 1″ for SUSE Enterprise
Linux 10 the next week.
The new
InstallLinux site is using HP's LinuxCOE server as the web interface
to a collection of scripts that are used to prepare CD images with all
the information needed for unattended install.
A very useful redbook. A lot of difficult to find into about kernel
tuning.
Over the past few years, Linux has made its way into the data centers
of many corporations all over the globe. The Linux operating system
has become accepted by both the scientific and enterprise user population.
Today, Linux is by far the most versatile operating system. You can
find Linux on embedded devices such as firewalls and cell phones and
mainframes. Naturally, performance of the Linux operating system has
become a hot topic for both scientific and enterprise users. However,
calculating a global weather forecast and hosting a database impose
different requirements on the operating system. Linux has to accommodate
all possible usage scenarios with the most optimal performance. The
consequence of this challenge is that most Linux distributions contain
general tuning parameters to accommodate all users.
IBM® has embraced Linux, and it is recognized as an operating system
suitable for enterprise-level applications running on IBM systems. Most
enterprise applications are now available on Linux, including file and
print servers, database servers, Web servers, and collaboration and
mail servers.
With use of Linux in an enterprise-class server comes the need to monitor
performance and, when necessary, tune the server to remove bottlenecks
that affect users. This IBM Redpaper describes the methods you can use
to tune Linux, tools that you can use to monitor and analyze server
performance, and key tuning parameters for specific server applications.
The purpose of this redpaper is to understand, analyze, and tune the
Linux operating system to yield superior performance for any type of
application you plan to run on these systems.
The tuning parameters, benchmark results, and monitoring tools used
in our test environment were executed on Red Hat and Novell SUSE Linux
kernel 2.6 systems running on IBM System x servers and IBM System z
servers. However, the information in this redpaper should be helpful
for all Linux hardware platforms.
October 10, 2006 (infoworld.com)
After install, finding the Windows network was as easy as doing so
with a PowerBook. Plug it into the network, assign the right domain
name and you're a minute or so away from connected bliss. The server
can even be setup to authenticate and respond to AD requests. All point
and click. Very slick--should have been that way years ago.
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat -
View as HTML
By its nature and heritage, the Linux distributions and the Linux
kernel offer a variety of parameters and settings to let the Linux administrator
tweak the system to maximize performance.
This chapter describes the steps that you can take to tune Red Hat
Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES).
It describes the parameters that give the most improvement in performance
and provides a basic understanding of the tuning techniques that are
used in Linux.
In this chapter, we discuss the following topics:
- 12.1, Disabling daemons
- 12.2, Shutting down the GUI
- 12.3, SELinux (RHEL 4 only)
- 12.4, Changing kernel parameters
- 12.5, Kernel parameters
- 12.6, Tuning the processor subsystem
- 12.7, Tuning the memory subsystem
- 12.8, Tuning the file system
- 12.9, Tuning the network subsystem
- 12.10, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10
- 12.11, Xen virtualization
BTW, many openSUSE users use the Smart Package Manager (get it from
guru's repo) in place of the Advanced Packaging Tool (apt). In many ways
smart is an improvement
over apt.
Anonymous said...
I dont understand your comments regarding package management - you
can add package repositories (which are similar to apt sources, see
http://en.opensuse.org/Package_Repositories
for details), and as soon you have added these, they will be integrated
to package management like the original installation media. You can
install packages as you like, have automatic dependency resolution,
all the package information is there, and if you want to install a specific
version (instead of the newest, which is default for update), just go
to the "Versions" tab. I may be a bit sluggish, yes, but otherwise ...
Abhay said...
I have tried Smart. Smart is much
better than Yast, but sometimes misses some files.
For eg. right now I cannot download and install K3b. Smart says
that it is available in pacman repository but cannot download it.
Similarly, Samrt does not give that much information about the packages
as Synaptic does...
People,dont worry.YAST-Package management and boot time will be faster
in openSUSE 10.3:-). Developers communicate and know about it. I look
forward to new openSUSE. Btw, as date for
the final release of openSUSE 10.3 the end of September is considered.
April 12, 2007 1:47 PM
Package Management on openSUSE is very
good if you add Packman on your "Yast Installation Source".
Just take a look on this guide and all codecs, DVD, flash
9, etc. will be automatically installed on your openSUSE box :
http://www.softwareinreview.com/cms/content/view/60/
With regard
to your Package Management woes, see
http://opensuse-community.org/Package_Sources
General availability
scheduled for May.
- Xen* hypervisor (version 3.0.4++) is now used.
- Updates to all key components of the infrastructure, including
the cluster file system, volume manager and cluster resource manager.
Improved support for workloads including SAP* running on Oracle*, DB2
and MaxDB, as well as Web services and virtual image storage.
- Support for new processor technologies,
including Quad-Core Intel Xeon* and Quad-Core AMD Opteron* processors.
- Enhanced security features.
The Novell AppArmor™ 2.0 security framework; includes support for Apache
Tomcat. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop now includes desktop lockdown
tools, secure disk partitions and encrypted home directories.
- Expanded OpenOffice.org support.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop now includes the latest version of the
Novell edition of OpenOffice.org (version 2.1), including the new OpenXML/ODF
translator to convert Microsoft Word 2007 documents to OpenOffice.org,
additional Visual Basic macro support, and improved Impress presentation
functionality, including the ability to play embedded video as part
of presentations.
- Desktop virtualization. SUSE
Linux Enterprise Desktop now includes Xen virtualization technology
along with improved management and auditing tools.
- Desktop enterprise integration technologies.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop now fits more seamlessly into existing
environments due to enhancements in Microsoft Active Directory* authentication
and network management, and it also now includes Firefox 2.0.
- Audit subsystem enrichment.
The updates include modules for security certification provided by the
Common Criteria for Information Security Evaluation (CAPP EAL 4+).
- Support for Novell Open Enterprise
Server 2. SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 SP1 has many new features
designed to support the workgroup services in Open Enterprise Server
2, including updates to the DNS, DHCP and LDAP modules, as well as support
for paravirtualized NetWare® 6.5.
So Novell fixed
the damage done by 10.1., but still has not addressed many of the lingering
problems with installation and configuration that have plagued SUSE
variants for the operating system's entire history. It's still a decent
desktop operating system, and has one of the industry's best configuration
frameworks (YaST), but it just doesn't compete with commercial GNU/Linux
distros like Xandros or Mandriva. It has a hard time competing even
with the free-of-charge Ubuntu Linux. Indeed, openSUSE is in danger
of losing relevance in a rapidly evolving market. You can't
have poor quality releases anymore -- those days of leniency are over.
Desktop GNU/Linux is now a mature market, and companies like Novell
need to start treating it like such.
Ok, so much for
the names. Now to the technical differences. If you think you can live
happily with the Internet edition you might be disappointed later on:
There are several programs missing compared
to the boxed version. Here is a somewhat longer sample:
- nessus, arpwatch, john (2), snort
(security)
- tinyca, pwgen (x509 cert mgmt, random password generator)
- eclipse, nvu, bluefish (development, html)
- cacti, nagios (monitoring)
- asterisk, sipset (VoIP)
- OpenPBS (batch compute system)
- pcp, pcpmon (SGI's performance copilot)
- ebtables, ulogd*, vlan ("bridge-iptables", alternate netfilter
logging target, VLAN tools)
- vlan, xsupplicant, pam_radius (needed for VLANs, RADIUS server
+ RADIUS authentication)
- drbd, heartbeat* (HA), nbd, ocfs2*
- ez-ipupdate, courier-imap, cyrus-imapd, exim (system daemons)
- cfengine, uucp/uudeview (system)
- amanda, bacula, dump, xfsdump (backup)
- clamav (3) (free anti virus solution)
- ncftp, pdksh, bash-completion, ghostview, git, webalizer (user)
- xfce, xplanet, scummvm (window manager and toys)
- gnokii, gsmlib (mobile phone tools)
- exif, exifprobe, exiftran, jhead (digicam exif)
- pdftk (editing PDFs), scribus (DTP), mdbtools* (converting MS
access files)
- lots of perl and python modules
- "suselinux manuals" in foreign languages (cs, de, es, fr, it,
pt, ja, zh, ...)
I was kind of surprised
about the fact that there are such tremendous differences. As it turned
out – more see below – the Internet version is basically useless for
myself (I don't normally use it for customers since 2 years update is
not enough, but that's a different story). You have to make a decision
for your own between the two Suse versions available, depended on your
needs and time, ability and laziness to compile the missing pieces.
For your help I've compiled a
complete list of the differences.
|
... ... ...
One of the changes in 10.1 compared to its predecessor
10.0 is that the architecture for the higher level package management
and online update changed completely.
Being used is a suite called ZENworks Linux Management which
is basically the client part of a client-server architecture. It is
supposed to ease management of systems, specifically if you're having
large installations. If you have had contact with Ximian Linux and
rug and their Red Carpet Daemon rcd you might know the
already client side a bit.
Providing this is in general a good idea, since Novell had nothing
really to offer to centrally manage Linux systems before ZMD and was
as far as this is concerned a little bit behind their competitors like
Red Hat (provisioning
module) and e.g. Sun (N1
System Manager and
Service Provisioning System).
According to some news the ZLM client – i.e. the tools around the
ZENworks Agent zmd, aka ZENworks Management Daemon – was one
of the reasons why the GA of Suse 10.1 and as a consequence the enterprise
products were delayed for some months. That wouldn't be a problem if
the result would be good. But Novell's new framework of Software
updates writing Suse 10.1 is very politely speaking not a piece of usability.
And not a resource effective piece of software either.
General availability scheduled for May.
SALT LAKE CITY (BrainShare® 2007)— 19 Mar 2007— “The market
has received SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 with open arms, and we are committed
to increasing the return on their investment," said Holger Dyroff, vice
president of SUSE Linux Enterprise product management for Novell. “In
addition to integrating maintenance updates into SP1, we have listened
to customers and added new functionality that will make it easier for
them to take advantage of the benefits of enterprise Linux, as well
as for hardware and software partners to ensure their products add maximum
value to users."
SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 includes SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, providing a secure and reliable foundation
for enterprise computing from the desktop to the data center – a lineup
of enterprise-class solutions matched by no other Linux* vendor. SUSE
Linux Enterprise 10 SP1 enhancements include the following:
- Enhanced virtualization support
and management. With the latest update to the Xen* hypervisor
(version 3.0.4++), organizations can reduce costs through server
consolidation and improved system management. New paravirtualized
network and block device drivers will allow Microsoft* Windows*
Server 2000/2003/XP to run unmodified in Xen virtual environments
on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 operating on Intel* Virtualization
Technology and AMD* Virtualization hardware. Seamless live migration
is possible for paravirtualized virtual machines across distinct
physical hosts.
- Updated high-availability storage
infrastructure. Service Pack 1 includes updates to all key
components of the infrastructure, including the cluster file system,
volume manager and cluster resource manager, to ensure data integrity
and availability. As a result, there is improved support for workloads
including SAP* running on Oracle*, DB2 and MaxDB, as well as Web
services and virtual image storage.
- Support for new processor technologies,
including Quad-Core Intel Xeon* and Quad-Core AMD Opteron* processors.
Through joint engineering with the chip vendors, SUSE Linux Enterprise
enables multiple virtual machines to run varied data center workloads
in native and Xen virtualized environments with outstanding performance,
energy efficiency and reliability.
- Enhanced security features.
The Novell AppArmor™ 2.0 security framework is integrated into the
SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 platform and now includes support for Apache
Tomcat. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop now includes desktop lockdown
tools, secure disk partitions and encrypted home directories.
Expanded OpenOffice.org support.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop now includes the latest version of the
Novell edition of OpenOffice.org (version 2.1), including the new OpenXML/ODF
translator to convert Microsoft Word 2007 documents to OpenOffice.org,
additional Visual Basic macro support, and improved Impress presentation
functionality, including the ability to play embedded video as part
of presentations.
Desktop virtualization. SUSE
Linux Enterprise Desktop now includes Xen virtualization technology
along with improved management and auditing tools.
Desktop enterprise integration technologies.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop now fits more seamlessly into existing
environments due to enhancements in Microsoft Active Directory* authentication
and network management, and it also now includes Firefox 2.0.
Updated desktop user experience.
Improvements include redesigns to the Novell main menu, control center,
and logout and screen-saver dialogs, and updates to the desktop effects
engine. The desktop also includes new utilities like an international
clock applet and a disk space usage utility.
Audit subsystem enrichment.
Major improvements and extensions to the audit subsystem enable SUSE
Linux Enterprise 10 to meet strict government standards and vertical
industry requirements. The updates include modules for security certification
provided by the Common Criteria for Information Security Evaluation
(CAPP EAL 4+).
Support for Novell Open Enterprise
Server 2. SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 SP1 has many new features
designed to support the workgroup services in Open Enterprise Server
2, including updates to the DNS, DHCP and LDAP modules, as well as support
for paravirtualized NetWare® 6.5.
Terri Hall, vice president of Software Solutions and Alliances for
AMD, said, “The public beta of SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 SP1 from Novell
continues their tradition of leading the market with support for new
hardware technology. The enhanced virtualization
capabilities in SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 SP1 take full advantage of
AMD Virtualization technology, providing customers with
the ability to consolidate operating environments such as NetWare 6.5
and Windows Server 2003. We look forward to the general availability
of SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 SP1, including significant support for AMD's
next-generation Quad-Core processor, code named 'Barcelona,' which will
provide customers with a seamless upgrade path to new levels of performance
and increased computing capabilities."
Availability
SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 SP1 beta software is now available, with
general availability scheduled for May. For more information about SUSE
Linux Enterprise 10 or to obtain the SP1 beta software, visit
http://www.novell.com/linux.
Just released, this prescriptive guide shows IT Pros
how to use Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Active Directory for both authentication
and identity storage within heterogeneous Microsoft Windows and UNIX
environments. |
In the next phase of the two companies' much-discussed collaboration,
Novell and Microsoft announced they are working together to develop
a method for using existing protocols for bridging network access between
eDirectory and Active Directory, with complete details to come sometime
during the first half of this year.
Though the two companies did not mention this explicitly,
the common bond between the two identity management services for their
networks is Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). Both are implementations
of an LDAP store, although Microsoft utilizes a kind of abstraction
layer that enables Windows Server-based networks to bind an LDAP application
to a replica partition rather than specifically to an IP address. Differences
in implementation such as this are why bridging the two identity services
is not an
academic process.
There are 2 alternatives to authenticate against Active Directory:
- Using the kerberos client (requires Active Directory)
- Using Winbind & samba client
In my opinion, option 1 is the cleanest. I definitely found it more
simple to setup. Option 2 offers some additional features, notably the
use of the net command through which you can enumerate domain users
and more. However on most workstations this will not be required. Therefore,
if you have active directory i recommend option 1.
Zenworks Patents Defend Active Directory -- jimcal80@...'s comment on
Microsoft patent peace--or patent war TalkBack on ZDNet
Zenworks Patents? Defend Active Directory
-
Novell can't sell the GPL -- it is legally
impossible. So what is Microsoft buying?
Zenworks and identity management. Back when I studied for an MCSE the
old line Novell engineers would say that Zenworks & Novell's identity
management software had better than the latest Microsoft features, "years
ago."
Microsoft's press releases and FAQ refer to systems management of real
virtualized systems and to identity management. So Microsoft wants Zenworks
and wants to be able to defend Active Directory against any patent claims
by Novell or a future owner of Novell. That is why Microsoft is paying
the upfront money, while retaining an annuity licensing income.
As for Linux, I believe Microsoft wants to use Novell SUSE Linux for
"account control." The key accounts are the large PC manufacturers (Dell,
HP/Compaq, Lenovo/IBM, Gateway) and large customers (corporations, governments
and universities). The kind of users that buy bulk or per PC licenses.
If a PC manufacturer that pays Microsoft a per PC royalty (regardless
of whether the PC has Windows or not) wants to ship Linux; Microsoft
will probably wind up saying, if you ship SUSE Linux we will credit
you the cost of Windows, but if you ship any other Linux, you will have
to pay us as if there was a copy of Windows on the machine. Microsoft
will use the argument that a non-SUSE version of Linux will just lead
to a pirated copy of MS Windows being installed on the PC.
... ... ...
Jim Callahan
Orlando, FL
In case of broken links
please try to use Google search. If you find the page please notify
us about new location
Getting the SLES 10 / SLED 10 Software Updater to work if you use a Proxy
Server
OpenSuse repository
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/10.2/repo/oss/
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/10.2/repo/non-oss/
Security and bug fixes
http://download.suse.com/update/10.2/
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|
2.6.9
ext3.txt
Re:Thoughts
(Score:4, Informative)by mj01nir (153067) on Thursday October 04, @03:26PM (#20856463)
From the 10.3 announcement:The package management team have been working hard on improving the new openSUSE package management, and there is a lot to show for it now. It is reliable, more mature, and an awful lot faster. There is no more parsing during startup, greater compatibility with tools like yum and smart, and increased speed for the most common use-case: installing a package.
Sounds promising.