It has been about 2 and 1/2 years since I built a dedicated server and chose CentOS instead of Fedora. Since I installed CentOS 5.1 I have used the upgrade process 4 times with no problems bringing me to version 5.5 with practically no re-installation, re-configuration or troubleshooting upgrade issues. This is the goal of enterprise linux. A long term stable solution with no major changes to preserve compatibility with every piece of software that was provided since it was released (in this case April 2007). In the time I’ve been on CentOS I’ve upgrade/replaced Fedora at least 5 times on other machines. Each time learning the changes to software, languages, security and many other components.

I’m very pleased with CentOS knowing that after the next yum update all my software will keep working. And everything is 100% secure.

However the exact reason enterprise linux is so great is also the exact reason why it can be a major pain. Once a main component is locked down, Red Hat will not provide updates unless needed for security or stability.

An objective for my server was for web development. The state of web as defined in 2007 when RHEL was created is coming close to obsolete. CentOS 5 includes PHP version 5.1.6. However PHP 5.2, which was released before RHEL 5, has become the default standard requirements for many PHP applications. I was updating some code to utilize JSON when I realized I would have to deviate from standard updates to install PHP 5.2 on CentOS. (This wasn’t too bad)

Another objective was a file server and backups. I’ve been playing with DropBox (*) as means of an off-site backup solution. What makes it great is it’s support for Linux! Even text-based linux which is what my server is. However the first requirement is Python 2.5. CentOS uses 2.4, and you can’t do a major update of Python in a CentOS/Fedora install without breaking many things since this is a critical component. You can do a parellel install for Python 2.5 but this is a bit annoying to maintain as you have 2 versions of python installed. (I have yet to get Dropbox working well on my server)

I also have been writing C++ software using boost. I recently realized the asio library was standard in boost 1.37 and later. I was locked to 1.33 in CentOS 5. No big deal since, the boost package was not critical for me in CentOS and it could be easily replaced. So I decided to recompile a newer Fedora boost src.rpm. However I would see errors like this:

error: unpacking of archive failed on file /home/mirandam/rpmbuild/SOURCES/boost-1.41.0-iostreams-zlib.patch;4c7880e5: cpio: MD5 sum mismatch

The above error is simply because Fedora 12 changed the RPM compression algorithm used and rendered older versions of RPM incompatible with newer packages. I don’t dare meddle with RPM as it is a core component, so I ended up compiling an older Fedora 11 version of boost 1.37 src.rpm which did the job.

Overall I’m still happy with my setup, but slowly I’m spending a great deal of time patching different pieces as my needs have slowly evolved. Interestingly Red Hat recently announced extended support lasting up to 10 years. That seems way too long considering the state of software (although everyone still uses Windows XP - now 9 years old).

I’m getting a little antsy running 3 year old software. The good news is that RHEL 6 is in beta, which means that soon after release the totally free CentOS 6 will follow as well. Which I’m eagerly waiting for, because all my issues will be addressed … at least for the time being.

(*) Affiliate link - I highly recommend Dropbox.

I got my EVO on May 19 with 1 free month of service till June 20. During that time I didn’t use the phone much. I switched my primary account after I returned from India. In doing so I found that in my absence an update was available. The points that caught my attention:

• Improvements to Wi-Fi performance
• Addresses Facebook sync issue which can improve battery performance

Until this update I was never using WiFi on the phone, and I don’t use Facebook for addresses (or anything else for that matter).

So it has been about less than 2 weeks of usage as a primary phone, and for the most part I think the battery life is completely acceptable.

My typical usage has been less than 1 hour talk time per day. At home I leave WiFi on (even through the night) and while at work I turn WiFi off. At work my 3G coverage is not great (3/5 bars) and often does data roaming (4/5 bars). I haven’t really used much BT or GPS. I haven’t even seen any 4G so that’s off. … I do minimal web browsing (only when I’m not near a computer). However I do lots of email. I have 4 email accounts setup (with push email) which seem to *beep all day long*. I usually don’t run the task killer to quit any background battery wastage. I have haptic feedback enabled, use a starfield “live” wallpaper and leave the default brightness. I don’t have very many apps installed and I don’t use any widgets that constantly update. However I do use auto-sync for Google calendar.

With that, I can go well over 36 hours before I hit the 15% battery critical alarm. If double the talk time or do equivalent surfing (as talking), that comes closer to 24 hours.

Yesterday I chronicled my usage in detail. I had the battery at 100% charge at about 3:30pm yesterday. I hit the 15% critical at 1:30pm today (22 hours later - 21:52:41 to be exact). In that time I have done:

• 1:10 hours BT music streaming in my car (two 35 min trips, no GPS)
• 1:30 hours talk time (WiFi on)
• 0:15 min talk time with BT handsfree (WiFi on)
• 0:20 min GPS navigation in my car (with some GoogleMaps looking for a place)
• 0:30 min 3G web surfing (with some youtube)
• 0:30 min of email

During the bulk of the usage last night there was a major thunderstorm and the signal was a little weak. I did have one dropped call (which is why I disconnected the BT hand’s free).

I’m not saying this is amazing (even though the EVO 4G has one of the biggest batteries on the market). However I don’t find this worthy of my complaint.

In contrast:
I have a Motorola Droid (currently disconnected), which I only leave WiFi on. In less than 24 hours (with practically no usage) the battery is completely dead. Pushing the power button does nothing.
Previously when I used the Palm Pre, I would have to be very careful at night. Randomly I would wake up to the battery at critical. I would usually have to charge at night. And I disabled everything (no WiFi and no email updates).

The one major need for power on my phone is that it should (1) last all day for my typical usage and (2) if the battery is not close to critical when I go to bed, it should not be critical when I wake up. Currently my EVO seems to do this much better than my other phones.

I do plan to monitor this further in the future.

* Full disclosure: I got this device for free, but I was planning on buying it anyways. I do pay for service.

The email there is quite comprehensive, so please take a look at it. Otherwise you can read the release notes in 1 page.

I have not had much time to spend with F13 in the beta period, but from what I have used, I’m quite pleased at how many things work with little to no effort. I encourage the upgrade.

Please download Fedora 13 using the standard mirrors or using the Torrent (recommended).

(Note: I have not published any guides/information for this release yet. This will happen in the next few days. Most of the Fedora 12 information applies.)

The wiki has the Release Notes. Most major changes can be found in the RHEL 5.5 release information (which CentOS is based).

Running
yum update
should update your system. Keep in mind the recent post-release updates should be syncing with the CentOS mirror soon.

As always, relatively smooth sailing with CentOS!

I am looking for suggestions (recommendations really) for a high end/quality LCD monitor.

Resolution must be 1920×1200 or higher (NOT 1080), and most likely 24in display.
It would be really nice with dual-inputs so I can add both my desktop and laptop.
A built in USB hub would also be pretty useful.

Price is not an issue (it is, but I care more about quality), so I have an open mind. I don’t care for another TV, just more screen space.

My top picks are the Dell UltraSharp U2410 and the NEC MultiSync EA241WM. I’ve always been interested in Samsung but too lazy to figure out which series are cheap and which are quality.

If you own or use any of the above monitor or know of one you really love please let me know. I want to buy something in the next 1 to 2 weeks. (Apologies for all the messages).

Leave a comment or Contact me.

Think of the issue in a simple scenario:
Should Fedora 12, which was released in Nov 2009 with KDE 4.3 receive the recent KDE 4.4 update? Or should KDE 4.4 be reserved for Fedora 13 which will be released in June 2010? And who benefits or loses in each of those options?
(In case you don’t know, KDE 4.4 was available as stable update at the end of February).

My personal opinion is that it really does not matter FOR ME. I do not mind 4-6 month wait for software. (BUT Some people are impatient) And on the flip-side if I get a massive problematic update, I am experienced enough to work through it. (BUT Some people are total newbies)

I read the Stable Release Updates Vision, and the only thing I can express is surprise. I don’t know if Fedora as it exists will accommodate this or if it can work out as envisioned. I would think this puts more responsibility on the contributors (who are mostly volunteers).

I would love to see more stability in Fedora, but I don’t know what the fair cost should be.

Please read the Updates Vision and if you partake in this debate please be considerate of the many different types of users and contributors involved in Fedora.

I thought I might share the Fedora and Linux blogs that I enjoy. (Sorry I don’t have an OPML link).

Fedora

• Hans’ hacking log (Hans de Goede)
• i, quaid (Karsten Wade)
• James Morris
• Jef”I am the pusher robot”Spaleta
• Kevin’s World (Kevin DeKorte)
• knurd (Thorsten Leemhuis)
• mairin (Máirín Duffy)
• Mether’s Fedora Blog (Rahul Sundaram)
• poelcat (John Poelstra)
• Rex Dieter
• Richard WM Jones
• Single Point of Failure (Jesse Keating)
• Tom Callaway
• Will Woods, Fedora Testing Guy
• wtogami (Warren Togami)

CentOS / Red Hat related

• Field Commander Wieers (Dag Wieers)
• Mark J Cox
• Michael Tiemann’s blog
• Red Hat Magazine
• Software Testing (Len DiMaggio)

Linux miscellaneous

• Havoc Pennington
• Technical Blog of Richard Hughes
• Linus’ blog
• Linux Hater’s Blog
• linux kernel monkey log (Greg Kroah-Hartman)
• /home/kOoLiNuS (Nicola Losito)

If you don’t know about Planet Fedora its a great place to peruse through some blogs. The volume is way too high to subscribe.

There are few other Fedora/Linux blogs but they either seem dead or their authors have moved onto other things. Right now, I like my mix of technical snippets as well as general Fedora discussion - especially from the people who put their dedicated effort into it.

ps. Even though I generally don’t read many “Howto” style blogs, I am always interested in recommendations.

Pretty cool, but too bad it eats up 99% CPU and 15% of my memory with Fedora 3.5 in Linux! Maybe 20% ram …

11/27: 1pm EST Still 8 left.

I noticed a problem with the Fedora 12 Anaconda Installer. If I chose to install grub to the First sector of boot partition instead of the MBR, I get an un-bootable system.

It is easy to see the problem if you compare fdisk output. (I reduced the output for clarity)

Before I installed Fedora 12 32-bit to /dev/sda10

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        2089    16779861    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4            6268       36479   242677890    f  W95 Ext’d (LBA)
/dev/sda10          23762       25589    14683378+  83  Linux
/dev/sda14          34076       36192    17004771   83  Linux
/dev/sda15          36193       36478     2297263+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

After I installed Fedora 12:

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1        2089    16779861    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4            6268       36479   242677890    f  W95 Ext’d (LBA)
/dev/sda10  *       23762       25589    14683378+  83  Linux
/dev/sda14          34076       36192    17004771   83  Linux
/dev/sda15          36193       36478     2297263+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

The boot flag is set to the wrong partition.

To fix this problem

Just boot with a CD/DVD, choose “Rescue” mode and run fdisk at the shell to change the boot flag. If you need more help, details follow:

1. Boot with the system using your Fedora DVD or CD#1.
2. Select “Rescue installed system”. (Select the proper settings, networking is not necessary)
   At the “Rescue” screen, you can “Skip” the mounting of your installed system.
   At the “First Aid Kit quickstart” menu, Select “shell”.
3. At the shell prompt, use fdisk (BE CAREFUL!)

   bash-4.0# fdisk /dev/sda
   	
   Command (m for help): a        (toggle bootable flag)
   	
   Partition number (1-15): 10    (the partition you installed Fedora)
   	
   Command (m for help): a        (command needs to be run twice)
   	
   Partition number (1-15): 1     (the partition with MBR)
   	
   Command (m for help): p        (verify everything looks correct)
   	
   Command (m for help): w        (write table to disk and exit)
   	
   The partition table has been altered!
   Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
   Syncing disk.

4. Reboot.

I doubt this will affect many people since most people choose to install Fedora directly to the MBR. However I am reporting here in case someone else might find this useful. I noticed this a few days ago on Fedora 12-Beta 64-bit, but I had been too busy to check the bug reports. Will do that soon.

If you run into this problem (or similar) please leave a comment or contact me.

UPDATE: Should be fixed for Fedora 13. Bug 533658

This release has received a great deal of polish, and with that plenty of media and documentation to go along with it.

Please see what’s new in Fedora 12. Some of the highlights include:

• Optimized performance - The 32-bit packages have been compiled for i686 systems
• Faster updates - The yum-presto plugin is default and RPM has updated its compression format
• More comprehensive networking and broadband support
• Next-generation (Ogg) Theora video
• Bluetooth on-demand
• Moblin graphical interface for netbooks
• Gnome 2.28
• KDE 4.3 (with updated “Air” theme)
• Better webcam support
• Better tablet support
• Improvements to Virtualization

There is also available a condensed form of the release notes in 1 page, also in PDF.

As always, you can download Fedora 12 using the standard mirrors or using the Torrent (recommended).

When reading through all the information and documentation, it is easy to tell that a great deal of polish went into this release! Happy installing.