HI SYN!

A couple of weeks ago I took ClanBase.com’s old DB server offline.  The server (Dual Xeon 3.2Ghz, 6GB memory) was a workhorse for sure and required little maintenance during it’s production time.

The final #uptime was:

05:29:04 up 794 days, 22:58,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

It actually amazes me that we never ran into a problem with this server even with the amount of high traffic we were throwing at it.  I forget it’s average QPS, but it was around 300 on average and that’s with caching enabled.  I think over it’s 2 year life span I had to restart MySQL maybe 3 times. Hopefully this new DB server has the same track record

For the past month and half I’ve been trying to use Ubuntu 7.10 exclusively.  However, the same old story happened to me as it’s happened to others.  Here’s the recap of some of the issues I ran into:

- Exchange client: I tried the thunderbird exchange client, didn’t work and webmail is no substitute for the full client

- IRC: X-Chat is awesome, however I use BNC’s that require both a password and a different port on connection; something X-Chat doesn’t like

- Flash: It’s “supported” but not fully since some flash movies work (ie> most of youtubes) and others do not (ie> just about all of yahoo.com’s)

- Java:  Hit and miss for websites (ie> SmugMug).  I trialed SmugMug and generally like the service but I wasn’t able to fool with the easy to upload features during the trial.

- Nvidia 8800GT: It’s not new but yet the drivers are considered beta and need to be MANUALLY installed (and reinstalled for every kernel upgrade/recompile)

- Creative X-Fi: Not supported at all and I had to install a SB Live! card to get sound!  This card is not very new so I’m not understanding the hold up here.

- Dell Webcam: I got spoiled by this little puppy for the first month I had this monitor before I switched to Ubuntu but it’s not supported in any way in Linux right now

- Games: I had WoW running under emulation

Things I will miss

- (Good) Virtual Desktop: Windows has it but it’s not as good as Ubuntu implementation.  I really liked the ability to use the scroll button to switch between 2 Virtual Desktops

- Overall Unix Desktop feel: The only way I’m getting this back is if I switch to a Mac… and if OS X ever supports (not via hacks) my XPS 720, I just might pull the trigger on that.

- Compiz: The wobbly effect is an immediate disable in my mind but I do like this engine after all

- 4GB memory usage: The most I used was 3.2GB but having all 4GB available was nice!

As I thought before, Linux on the Desktop is a good idea but won’t be fully realized outside of nitches and devices like the Asus EeePC.  I still think the ultimate (Open Source) OS will be something based around a design like BeOS…. now if Haiku can only get to beta stage I can start considering a switch to it!

By far the coolest & smartest host provider I’ve seen in a while is Mythic Beasts. They are a host provider in the UK that are pretty much focused on dedicated + colo hosting of Mac Mini’s! Talk about being green about your servers, that’s a great idea if you require a dedicated server but don’t really need the full power of a 1U rack server (mostly lots of memory and RAID).

I’m tempted to switch my hosting over there since my needs are little but I’ve switched hosts enough for work and play… this VPS through TekTonic is technically “Green” so I think I’ll stay right here, unless THEY start offering very cheap mac mini hosting!

An article about Mythic-Beasts:

http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/mythic_beasts_02

If it weren’t for Exchange, I would be using Ubuntu 100% of the time. At first, I thought I found a solution in Evolution but it seems their Exchange interface is a bit buggy. Other than that, it’s been smooth sailing again using *nix as a desktop. It’s been quite a while but nowadays there seems to be a GUI interface for nearly everything.

The coolest thing I’ve been fooling with all week, when I’ve actually had time, is Nagios. I’m not sure how it slipped thru the cracks but it’s definitely the most flexible monitoring solution out there, perfect cost too!