Then your best bet would be to create a local repository out of the contents of cds, or a dvd. Which should be a basic thing you are going to do anyway if you have more than a few servers that don't have access to the internet. Then you would mirror in updates, and let them update from that.

There is graphical software that will let you install stuff straight from discs, and even ask for the right disc.

Is "yum install httpd" really that hard? I know I have done this before on plenty of servers.

I recently diagnosed two desktop machines. One ended up having a bad stick of memory, with the original symptoms being a corrupted copy of Windows XP that wouldn't boot. The other a bad hard drive, the symptoms being it would hang during use randomly and even during boot.

I used Prime95 and Memtest86+ to detect the bad stick of memory. Prime95 quickly came up with a error during the stress test, and Memtest86+ also came immediately came up with errors. In the past I have since subtle errors with Memtest86+ that only show up in later tests or with multiple passes. Instant answers isn't how it always goes.

For the bad hard drive I ended up doing a variety of tests. I tried Prime95, and since it was a Seagate drive, Seagate's Seatools. I didn't get any clear answers from them. At a later point I booted into a Fedora 11 Live cd, which popped up with a SMART error. Which ended up being a bad sector that needed to be remapped. I then tried using Spinrite to fix it, but ended up seeming to just hang on this one spot. So I replaced the hard drive. Afterword I reran Spinrite against the new drive, and it came up with nothing. I also played with Sandra Benchmarks at the end to stress the machine.

A lot of firmwares, like DD-WRT, have issues with binary only drivers and programs. I ran into it with the nas process in DD-WRT a few months ago.

  I had decided to move to WPA2 Enterprise. It sort of worked, but there is a long standing bug in DD-WRT relating to WPA2 Enterprise. WPA2 Enterprise depends on Radius. The nas process will only try a Radius server once. If it fails, then it won't try again. The only workaround is to kill the nas process one way or another. Then to make it all the more fun, the nas process is binary only.

  I ended up having to go back to the official Linksys firmware for my WRT600N to get working WPA2 Enterprise.

I wouldn't say it is snake oil. Putting versions in a page allows you to Google for it. Which makes the attack a lot easier. It also allows the attacker to do reconnaissance a lot less detectably a hold of time, and then spring it on everyone at once.

I have two setups like that.

  At home two 24" monitors on one computer, along with a second computer with a 20" monitor. They are connected with synergy and a ps/2 kvm. The kvm is good for when the main one is down. I can just hotkey over and use the second computer. I use it mainly for IM, but also sometimes for a second browser. Both computers are running Fedora I find having two computers comes in handy regularly. I also use the second computer as a iscsi server for the first. The first computer already has six drives in it. So the second computer allows me to expand to ten.

  The office setup is two 20" monitors on one computer, along with a second computer with a 20" monitor. They are connected with synergy. In this case I actually have two keyboards and nice. The main computer has no ps/2, and I have no usb kvms. I use a two port ps/2 kvm to share one keyboard between the second computer and a third computer. Then I toggle the monitor between dvi and vga. I do it this way since 99% of the time I don't need console access on the third computer. I access it via ssh for CUDA programs. The first computer runs Fedora, the second runs Vista, and the third runs Fedora. Vista is good in the office. It lets me do things like VMware Infrastructure client(currently Windows only), Internet Explorer(just today I was told to use IE on the HR site, since it works better), and other little things.

Sounds like it is either using MyISAM for tables, or you aren't using the --single-transaction option of mysql-dump for INNODB.

This sounds like a problem I have had. It isn't ever time I reboot, and has gotten better with newer kernel versions. Mine is a 4tb ext4 filesystem on linux software raid5.

I just bought a eVGA GTX260 216(core) SC at Fry's for $200+$20 tax. But it had a mail in rebate for $50. Which will bring the price down to $150+$20 tax. I bought it not as a gaming card, but as a second CUDA card. I already had a PNY GTX260(192 core).

CUDA doesn't play nice with regular graphics usage. Your machine will be really jerky every few seconds. I also didn't have room in my main computer, motherboard or power supply wise. So I put it in my second desktop that I use for iSCSI and a third monitor via synergy. The machine already had a 6600GT, which then became the secondary card. I run X off it. Which leaves the eVGA card just for CUDA. Then I can run it all day and not even notice a performance hit.

I have two setups with three monitors. One at work and one at home. Both use two desktops. Home is two 24" at 1920x1200, along with a 20" at 1680x1050. Work is three 20" at 1680x1050. The third monitor is on the second machine, and is accessible via synergy. The third monitor is great for IM, especially for work related stuff. I can look at it at a glance, along with a spreadsheet on the second monitor, and four terminal windows on the first monitor.

At home the second desktop is another Linux box that I use for additional storage for the primary desktop via iSCSI. At work the second desktop is a Windows machine.

I only recently went to three monitor. I looked at doing it with a second video card in the main desktop, or using a Matrox splitter box to run two monitors off one DVI connector. A second video card in Linux just doesn't work that well, and the splitter boxes are expensive. Plus a second computer has some advantages. More segregated CPU and memory, more storage, different OS, etc.

No, they are all of the same base architecture, but aren't the same card. The 8800GT and the 9800GT are pretty close. Probably the biggest difference is some 9800GT cards are 55nm chips instead of 65nm. On the other hand there is a lot of difference between 8800GT and the GTX260. The GTX260 has 32 dedicated double precision processors that the 8800GT does not. My rough understanding is that those double precision processors are roughly equal to 1.5x a Q6600(quad core), or 6 cores. The GTX260 also comes with more streaming(single precision) processors. The 8800GT is 96/112 and the GTX260 is 192/216, depending on model.

Just look at this graphic.

http://pyrit.googlecode.com/svn/tags/opt/pyritperfaa3.png