Theovon - Slashdot User

Submission + - Dedicated compute box: Persistent terminals?

Submitted by Theovon on Saturday June 28, 2008 @06:47PM

Theovon writes: I just built an expensive high-end quad-core Linux PC, dedicated for number-crunching. Its job is to sit in the corner with no keyboard, mouse, or monitor and do nothing but compute (genetic algorithms, neural nets, and other research). My issue is that I would like to have something like persistent terminal sessions.

I've considered using Xvnc in a completely headless configuration (some useful documentation here, here, here, and here). However, for most of my uses, this is overkill. Total waste of memory and compute time. However, if I decided to run FPGA synthesis software under WINE, this will become necessary. Unfortunately, I can't quite figure out how to get persistent X11 session where I'm automatically logged in (or can stay logged in), while maintaining enough security that I don't mind opening the VNC port on my firewall (with a changed port number, of course). I'm also going to check out Xpra, but I've only just heard about it and have no idea how to use it.

For the short term, the main need is just terminals. I'd like to be able to connect and see how something is going. One option is to just run things with nohup and then login and "tail -f" to watch the log file. I've also heard of screen, but I'm also unfamiliar with that.

Have other slashdot users encountered this situation? What did you use? What's hard, what's easy, and what works well?

Submission + - Upgrading to Ubuntu Edgy Eft: "Nightmare"

Submitted by Theovon on Saturday October 28, 2006 @06:37PM

Theovon writes: It's only been two days since the announcement of the official release of Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft), and the fallout has been very interesting to watch. By and large, fresh installs of Edgy tend to go well. A few problems here and there, especially with installation of closed-source ATI and nVidia drivers, but for the most part things have been smooth. Many people report improved performance over Dapper, improved stability, better device support, etc. A good showing. But what I find really interesting is the debacle that it has been for people who wanted to do an "upgrade" from Dapper (6.06). Installing OS upgrades has historically been fraught with problems, but previous Ubuntu releases, many other Linux distros, and MacOS X have done surprisingly well in the recent past. But not Edgy. Reports are flooding into Ubuntu's Installation & Upgrades forum from people having myriad problems with their upgrades. One user described it as a nightmare. Users are producing detailed descriptions of problems but getting little help. This thread has mixed reports and is possibly the most interesting read. Many people report that straight-forward upgrades of relatively mundane systems go well, but anything the least bit interesting seems not to have been accounted for, like software RAID, custom kernels, and Opera. Even the official upgrade method doesn't work for everyone, including crashes of the upgrade tool in the middle of installing, leaving systems unbootable, no longer recognizing devices (like the console keyboard!), reduced performance, X server crashes, wireless networking problems, the user password no longer working, numerous broken applications, and many even stranger things. Some of this is fairly subjective, with Kubuntu being a bit more problematic than Ubuntu, with reports that Xubuntu seems to have the worst problems, and remote upgrades are something you don't even want to try. Failed upgrades invariably require a complete reinstall. The conclusion from the street, about upgrading to Edgy, is a warning: If you're going to try to take the plunge, be sure to make a backup image of your boot partition before starting the upgrade. Your chances of having the upgrade be a total failure are high. If you're really dead-set on upgrading, you'll save yourself a lot of time and headache by backing up all of your personal files manually and doing a fresh install (don't forget to save your bookmarks!).

Submission + - Decimated in the 1920's, chestnut trees return

Submitted by

Theovon

on Friday October 13, 2006 @10:13AM

Theovon writes: "Back in the 1920's a blight all but completely wiped out Chestnut trees in the United States. As such, my uncle's 1100-tree chestnut farm is a rare sight indeed. From the article, "... someone found a single tree in Ohio that the blight did not kill ..., crossed it with the Chinese chestnut, resulting in a nut with the characteristics of the Chinese variety but with the larger nut of the American tree." The article goes on to describe some interesting things about chestnuts themselves, such as the spiny burr that they grow in on the tree."

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