I was doing a YouTube challenge from Chris Pirillo and thought I would do it on the great SVN client called Versions. You might have remembered that I done a written blog about this app when I first got it. So I I got it up on Youtube or you can watch it here
I am sorry that my theme was not allowing people to post comments. I have fixed that now and if you hit the comments link in the upper right of a post you can now add some. Sorry if this caused any issues.
Well I know the first thing that people are saying is, “Oh no not another distro debate.” I myself hate these debates so I am going to try my best to not make this one. My purpose here is to explain the difference between the two. One of the things Linux offers is a lot of choices of distributions. There is no regulations on who can create one. For more on that you should visit Distro Watch.
Gentoo is an operating system that beginners should not get into unless you like to live dangerous. Unlike most distro’s it is not a click next installer. You have to edit configuration files and work via the command line. Now I know that Gentoo is working on a GUI installer so that might make installing a little bit easier.
The one of the things I do like is that you can set the USE flag for installing applications. What I mean by this is you can tell Gentoo when install an application what you want to build with it. For example you can build apache without MySQL support. So if you wanted to add mysql support you just have to add the word mysql to the USE section in the make.conf.
Now one of the con’s of Gentoo is that all applications from portage (the system Gentoo uses to install applications) are built via source. So on some systems to install KDE it takes over 10 hours. This of course can depend on your system. So I would recommend that you try installing Gentoo in a Virtual Machine first to see how you like it or of course you can try the Live CD.
Ubuntu to me is the Windows of the Linux world. You install it by answering some questions, hitting next and all the work is done for you. Ubuntu is the distro I recommend for the beginner to the Linux world. There is hardly no configuration change at all. I have rarely seen an install that you had to mess with configuration files to get it to work.
The apt-get system is like portage but it does not build the application’s from source. The only con that I can come up with is that it is too simple. This is a preference to me. Let me explain this logic here. There was a time that installing Linux was not an easy task. Everyone could not do it. Gentoo is one of those examples. When you could install it you felt good about it. When you install Windows you feel nothing. This is how I feel about Ubuntu. But being easy is need because then Linux has no chance of overtaking Windows. Well that is for another blog post at another time.
In conclusion I believe if you are new to the Linux world you should try using Ubuntu and mess around with that and get your feet wet. Then when you are ready for a challenge and ready to take the next step, install Gentoo.
Zenoss is a monitoring tool that everyone should start to look at. In the past when you mention system monitoring software, people would say Nagios. Now do not get my wrong there is nothing really wrong with Nagios but it lacks somethings for my taste. Now I could continue on with comparing Nagios to Zenoss but this is not what I am looking to do in this blog post. I want to share with you the features that have attracted me to start using Zenoss.
First thing I like is the support for getting help with Zenoss. On freenode via IRC, the #zenoss room is filled with people who are will to help you with your struggles. I would mention some names but I will leave that for the reader to decide if they every have to visit there. The next thing I really like is that when you are setting it up for the first time you can put in your subnet or IP range and it will scan for all available devices. I got my devices added within 5 minutes of getting into the interface.
GUI administration is something also that I really like. Now I know there are a ton of command line guys out there but sometimes is makes it easier. It also helps if some people you work with do not like the command line. I really like the Google map API interface that will let you map out your servers and see them on a map of the world. If you were like me and have some older servers that finding packages for are just a little bit hard; Then you are in luck. With Zenoss you can run commands via SSH.
Now the cool thing is that you can specify your username and password so there is no copying your RSA keys or anything like that. Now I am starting to catch on to the SNMP protocol which I use for my newer machines. SNMP will give you more data than the SSH commands will. You can also connect to Windows computers with the username and password from that box as well. Another big thing I like is that you can get graphs from one application. So no need to run Nagios and Cacti.
There are tons more features that could make this into a novel to post about. Zenoss has already done this with their PDF manuals. Go ahead and download them here. Trust me you will love this system monitoring tool.
Yesterday October 18, 2009 I went to and Open source conference in Harrisburg PA called CPOSC(Central Pennsylvania Open Source Conference). Basically this conference discusses applications that are open source and can help you or your company. Another thing this conference gives you is the ability to meet other people that you can network with. There were a lot of different seminars that you could attend to. Each seminar you had 3 choices that you could only choose one.
Nagios
Well you have seen me do a tutorial on this app but it was a good thing for me. I learned about how you can manage your critical and warning levels. That was hugh. I learned about how you can connect multiple servers.
Drupal
This seminar talked about how you can use Drupal on your site. Drupal is a CMS tool and they have definitely come a long way.
IRC
IRC chat is something that a lot of people go for help. I learned about how you can setup your own channel for your friends and or customers to get instant help. I learned that Freenode which is a popular server has about 51,000 users. In the next few days I will be setting up #jcwebconcepts for my readers to come ask questions.
Python
The next seminar I watch was about the programming language called Python. Now I did not get a tutorial on how to make an application but I was shown some ways that Python makes some difficult code easier. Might have to look into learning some python but I am not sure.
VirtualBox
I got to learn on how to use the nice tool to setup virtual machines. I learned on some ways to setup development servers to test things rather than using real hardware. I definitely will be setting it up on my Linux machines since on my Mac’s I use Parallels.
In between seminars in the lobby there were sponsors from places like Ubuntu, Fedora, and Zenoss. What was cool is you got to talk to these people and make contacts with their companies. There were more classes but I ended up leaving early. Now this conference was not free but it was well worth the information I received. To get more information you can visit CPOSC site for more information.
Well I have been in search for a great text editor for my Mac and I might have found one. I have tried demos of BBEdit, Text Wrangler, and TextMate. These were ok editors but I really like an application called Coda. This app has what every web developer / IT guy needs.
Basically this application gives you several options in one application. If you are like me I so a lot of SSH work and have to open up the terminal and or putty. With Coda you can click on the Terminal tab and you can SSH into your server of need.
Are you the type that you do not really like CSS and do not want to understand it? Well with the CSS tab you can add CSS styles the way Dreamweaver does it. It is self explaining and makes it easier. Now I do not use this function myself but it is very friendly.
The last thing I need to discuss is the sites section. This will let you setup site folders for easy site management. I really like this feature. I do not use it cause I personally put everything in an SVN but it is a nice one. For more information visit their site.
I am starting to develop my own World Of Warcraft website. You are probably asking me why am I doing this? Well when I was playing it was hard to find help about the game. I am not talking about how to solve a particular quest or raid. I am talking about how to make a particular build of a Paladin or a Mage. I want to share how you are suppose to dress your character.
So I will post again on this when the skeleton site is up. If you have an recommendations please leave a comment.
So I was thinking the other day about how I have not gotten a new PS3 game lately. I went onto EB Games to see some cool games but they are $59.99. Now the game might be worth it but I am unsure. So I go and fire up the Playstation store and download the demo. Some demos are long while others are not. So then I say ok let me go to the local Blockbuster and rent the game. So after giving them almost $10.00 I have the full game for about 5 days. Now when I was a kid this was not bad cause I had no life. LOL. I have a family so I can only play after they go to bed. So when the game gets good I have to return it or pay a fee. It is frustrating.
So I decided to sign up for a service called Gamefly. They are like NetFlix but for games. So after the trial period it is $15.95 a month for the cheapest plan. You get the game and you keep it as long as you want. No worry about I have to stay up all night to play a game. Some games if you like them a lot you can buy that game for a reduced price then you pay from the game store. They have games for all the consoles, PS3, PS2, Xbox, Wii, Nintendo DS, etc….. The only con I think I will run into is the more popular games might be hard to get, but heck even at a rental store you run into this problem. So I recommend signing up.
