2718.us blog » ‘nix http://2718.us/blog Miscellaneous Technological Geekery Tue, 18 May 2010 02:42:55 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 Small *nix Devices http://2718.us/blog/2008/05/22/small-nix-devices/ http://2718.us/blog/2008/05/22/small-nix-devices/#comments Thu, 22 May 2008 07:35:22 +0000 2718.us http://2718.us/blog/?p=38 Today, not only did the NSLU2 that I bought on eBay arrive, but the red anodized aluminum case for my Alix arrived, too.  Getting the NSLU2 to run “unslung” from a 1GB flash drive was a royal pain.  If I do a second one, I’ll have to verify my technique, but it seems that the direction to format the drive before reflashing is just a mess (since it’s nearly impossible to get the Linksys firmware to format a flash drive), but once the firmware is reflashed to non-stock, it’s easy to format the flash drive, then run the script to move the boot stuffs off to the flash drive, where there’s room to install stuff.  The problem is that the device seems to be spending about 90% of its time completely hung and non-responsive (telnet and ssh freeze ior maybe just hang, web interface unresponsive, intermittent “thrashing,” if you can call it that, of the flash drive) for reasons I can’t quite figure out.  It may not turn out to be as useful as I’d hoped, but even if it doesn’t do what I want, it will have been an interesting experiment.  Plus, I realized it’s the only linux box i’ve got on hand (my other machines are various Macs and OpenBSD boxes and a few PCs).

Speaking of OpenBSD boxes, the Alix seems to be much closer to usable than I’d expected now, having restarted from a newer pre-built flashdist image.  The hokey thing I’d forgotten about is how few of the standard basic *nix command programs are in the base flashdist, so I end up copying over program after program from another running OpenBSD box.  I’m hoping to get BIND and dhcpd up and running soon, get pf all set up for router/NAT/firewall use, and try it out with a DSL modem before the weekend is up.

And, with a little luck, by the end of the weekend, all these various devices will be self-updating the various common config files (BIND zones, dhcpd.conf, etc.) from a common server.  I’ve already got a shell script that can check for an update to itself and replace itself with the newer version; I just have to make it check for and retrieve updates for the actual config files.

]]> http://2718.us/blog/2008/05/22/small-nix-devices/feed/ 1 The Argument for a Mac http://2718.us/blog/2008/04/10/the-argument-for-a-mac/ http://2718.us/blog/2008/04/10/the-argument-for-a-mac/#comments Fri, 11 Apr 2008 02:16:53 +0000 2718.us http://2718.us/blog/?p=13 I have about as many WinXP machines as OS X machines around here (and a few OpenBSD boxes, but that’s beside the point), and yet I find it’s rare that I touch anything other than the Macs anymore.  Why?  Well, I suspect it’s the same reason I keep seeing little things here and there that suggest developers are increasingly working on Macs–if I want a Mac program, well, duh, I’m on a Mac; if I want a PC program, I’ve got Parallels, so I don’t even have to deal with dual-booting; if I want a ‘nix machine, I just look under the Mac GUI and there’s a BSD-type ‘nix (oh, and OS X can run a standard X11 server, too).  I can use virtually any tool out there and work in all three worlds with one machine.  I no longer need to have two or three machines on my desk at home, just my Mac desktop.  I probably won’t be taking more than one laptop on the road with me anymore (I have travelled with two on several occasions in the past), just my Mac laptop.

Why do I want all these different facets?  Well, much as I hate to use it, damn near everyone in “the business world” uses Microsoft Office, and the Mac versions suck (I don’t know about 2008, but I’m not optimistic) and I’d rather use the PC version (2003, since 2007 is a disaster best described as MS openly giving the finger to all its customers).  Graphics work and page layout are in various Adobe Creative Suite products under OS X (I suppose that there exist PC versions, but really, who does graphics work on a PC?).  I also prefer web and email on the Mac side.  Then, when I have to deal with network/server/etc. stuff, I dive into terminal and I’m off.  For actual programming, while I love using WinSCP + TextPad under Windows, LOVE it, I tend more toward Transmit + Komodo Edit nowadays (this is largely a side effect of having a huge project hosted on a server that only supports FTP, not SFTP, and for whatever reason, WinSCP can’t seem to maintain a stable FTP connection with that server, so editing led to all sorts of nasty corruption and whatnot when the connection would drop mid-edit).

Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that my day job is in an all-Mac office.

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