Deagol - Slashdot User

Best Linux distro and tools for a FreeBSD user? 3

Submitted by Deagol on Wednesday February 04 2009, @06:06PM

Deagol writes "About 5 years ago, I jumped ship from Fedora to FreeBSD for my workstation OS. Sadly, due to a dearth of viable virtualization options for FreeBSD/amd64, I've made the decision to move back to Linux. I haven't exactly kept up with Linux developments in the interim, so I'm at a total loss as to what the good distros are. I know that the 2.6 kernel, LVM2, ext4, and a bunch of VM options are now available, but that's about it. Things I'll miss the most are the ports collection, the GEOM framework (which gives me good, solid full-disk encryption), and ZFS. I'm hoping that recent FreeBSD-to-Linux converts, or those who have a foot in each camp, will relate their experiences. I've accepted that Linux is currently the best tool for the job, but I need to learn how to smoothly make the transition."

How to deal with vigilante mail admins? 0

Submitted by Deagol on Friday July 18 2008, @01:59PM

Deagol writes "I admin for a small company, and after recently moving to a new hosted server (and IP space), I discovered that much the company's opt-in monthly newsletter is being blocked by various sites. No public black lists (that are still maintained, anyway) list our domain or our IP space, yet we're blocked due to presumed bad behavior of the previous owners. There are a smattering of smaller domains that simply reject or stall the connection. Some of the larger ones are at least kind enough to provide a link in their 5xx SMTP responses. I will name names here. The ones responsible for the most rejected traffic are Yahoo, Comcast, and Verizon. I've submitted my information to the online forms, multiple times in some cases. Comcast hasn't fixed the problem yet, in spite of my receiving multiple emails saying they would. Verizon summarily rejected my first request. Yahoo, however, was very quick to fix the issue. How do other mail admins deal with this problem?"

Good Locations for Expatriate Tech Workers? 2

Submitted by Deagol on Wednesday April 16 2008, @11:42AM

Deagol writes "After a long, hard winter in my region of the US this year, I find myself itching for warmer, greener pastures. Initial thoughts were of looking at other states, such as Hawaii and southern Arizona. However, domestic housing and cost of living are progressively becoming prohibitive. So I started wondering if there are good locations where a UNIX admin could find work, and make a decent living by the local standards. Year-round gardening (or nearly so) is a requirement, so sub-tropical places are a first consideration. Northern New Zealand looks nice at first glance. There are tons of sites dedicated to expatriate communities, but most smell of snake oil peddlers who promise tax evasion and local under-aged women. I'm curious if there are any tech workers (fellow Americans, in particular) who have found a second home in a welcoming community abroad who would tell their stories. I have a wife and kids to consider, so a place with some semblance of law and order would be nice, preferably some place where local government is not much more corrupt than those in the US. Oh, and internet access is a must. :)"