Review of Sun Solaris 10

For some time now, I have been tinkering with Solaris 10; the robust Unix from Sun Microsystems. In the past, I have posted news of the free Solaris media kit and its pictures as well as published news of Open Solaris starter kit give away.

With Sun releasing Solaris source code under the CDDL license and naming it Open Solaris, a number of clones of Solaris have cropped up in the past two years or so, such as Nexenta, Belenix and SchilliX. But Sun also provides Solaris in the form of Solaris Express incorporating the latest advances. And Solaris Express acts as a sand box with many new features eventually make their way into Solaris OS after a period of incubation.

Even though Solaris was originally designed for SPARC (Scalable Processor Architecture) hardware, it also supports Intel platforms. This has thrown open the doors for the hordes of Solaris enthusiasts who couldn't afford a SPARC based computer, to install Solaris on their PC and take it for a run.

Once you get hold of the CD/DVD containing Solaris 10, the next step is to install it. Installing Solaris from CD/DVD is a very simple and straight forward process. As long as you have a minimum of 256 MB RAM, you can go ahead with installing it. But any less memory means you will have to upgrade your PC memory before you can start installing Solaris.

I did not encounter any problems at the time of installation. And in no time, I was able to install Solaris and boot into it. Solaris 10 bundles with it mainly two desktops - them being Common Desktop Environment (CDE) and the Java Desktop System which is actually the Gnome desktop built on top of the Java framework.

Fig: CDE Panel - can be iconized

Fig: Java Desktop System Menu

Those who are coming from a KDE/Gnome/Windows background might initially be put off by the CDE. But after working in it for some time, I found the CDE to be a very functional desktop. To put it succinctly, it has some elements of the AfterStep window manager in GNU/Linux with lots of additional useful features.

In CDE, each component including the Panel can be minimized to the Desktop and all minimized applications are neatly arranged as icons on the Desktop. CDE also saves the state of a running application when you log out. And when you log back in, the application is automatically opened and displayed in its previous position.

Sun provides each Solaris user a choice of subscribing to the Sun Connection. It is a paid subscription and once you join it, you can use the Sun update manager to provide you suggestions, automatically manage updates, prioritize and keep a history of updates. OR you can also choose to apply the updates manually without any assistance. You can also download the latest patches and driver updates at sunsolve.sun.com.

Solaris Management Console 2.11

Considering that Java language is being developed by Sun, it is no surprise that it plays a very important role in Solaris. For instance, to do system administration tasks, Solaris has an all-in-one GUI toolkit in Solaris Management Console which has been developed using Java.

While it is also possible to use commands to achieve system and network administration tasks, SMC happens to be the preferred way. Here you can know about the status of your system such as your system information, processes running, logs, performance and so on. More over, it contains options to do almost all system administration tasks such as managing users, system configuration, managing services, storage, devices and hardware.

Solaris Management Console uses the concept of a toolbox to provide a view of various system administration tools or applications within a common user interface. It has three components namely :

1. SMC client called the console
2. SMC server
3. SMC console toolbox editor
   

To start the SMC toolbox editor or the SMC client, you run the following command :

$ /usr/sadm/bin/smc

As you can see, you need not be logged in as root to open the SMC. But to view all tools, it asks for authorization.

Similarly to check the status of the SMC server, you run the following command as root :

# /etc/init.d/init.wbem status

Suppose I want to mount a disk partition in Solaris. It is a piece of cake and is as simple as opening up SMC, then navigating to Storage -> Mounts and shares -> Mounts. Here select from the menu, Actions -> Add NFS mount. And follow the instructions. Similarly there are tools to create and manage RAID volumes.

Fig: System Management Console

While the number of software bundled with Solaris 10 is no where near that offered by GNU/Linux such as Debian, it does come with a useful set of programs such as the text editor, music player, web browser and so on which makes it a practical solution as a Desktop OS.

To spell out some of the unique software Sun bundles with Solaris 10, you get the advanced StarOffice productivity suite which is build upon Open Office.org, a card game called JSpider developed using Java, a Java based media player, a disk analyser 'JDiskReport' which is a free graphical disk report utility; also developed using Java. JDiskReport enables you to visually understand how much space the directories and files consume on your disk drives.

Fig: A diagramming software

Fig: Get a graphical view of the disk space occupied by your files.

Solaris also has support for popular browser plugins for Java, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Realplayer and Flash player (ver 7.0). You can download the plugins here.

Apart from the software bundled with the official Solaris CDs/DVD, Sun also makes available a collection of GPLed software compiled to be run in Solaris, which you can download from the Sun Freeware webpage.

One thing which I found really strange was the fact that Solaris comes with Mozilla ver 1.7 web browser and not Firefox. So if you are too attached to using Firefox, you are out of luck, unless you succeed in compiling Firefox from source.

Another aspect of Solaris that is really endearing is the excellent set of online documentation which has been made available by Sun. In fact I do not know of any Linux distribution which has even half the quantity of documentation as that made available by Sun Microsystems for Solaris. The Solaris documentation is available at docs.sun.com where each and every technical aspect of Solaris is covered. You can also download whole sets of documentation and guides in PDF format for offline use too. This could be a reason why there are not that many Solaris textbooks in print as you find on GNU/Linux.

Even though Solaris has not attracted the same level of evangelism as Linux has succeeded to attract, it does not have any dearth of followers. There are a large number of websites which cater to providing Solaris specific packages of a variety of software not officially made available by Sun Microsystems. The notable among them being the following :

Blastwave.org - This is a website which provides a slew of GPLed packages for Solaris. The USP of this website is that it provides an easy way of installing its packages on Solaris - some what similar to the apt-get method used in Debian Linux. The script pkg-get that they provide automatically does dependency checking and installs the latest packages that you require. I was really surprised to find GNUCash ver 2.0 among the packages that they offer - some thing which I haven't yet been able to get for Slackware.

SunFreeware.com - This is another humongous (Should I say the largest?) unofficial repository available for Solaris specific packages. And this site is very popular among the Solaris users and administrators alike.

While reviewing Belenix, I had noted the advantages Solaris has over GNU/Linux. Apart from what I had listed, Solaris also has a new advantage which is the "Secure by default" tag that Sun has provided it. The latest version of Solaris comes with all the ports closed by default.

I believe this is an operating system which holds a lot of promise as a Desktop OS. And if the people steering Sun Microsystems take the right decisions (hint: GPL ???), it just might take the fancy of a large section of IT savvy public, enough to motivate many of them to start developing Free software for Solaris.

LOPSA-NJ Presentation

I'll be presenting some troubleshooting tips to the LOPSA NJ meeting on May 3 at the Lawrence Public Library at 7pm. My Impress presentation is included below. (Impress is part of the OpenOffice suite.):

(I moved the presentation's share to the top of the page.)

Date: Thursday, May 3, 2007, 7:00pm (social), 7:30pm (discussion)

Topic: An overview of some of the different ways to troubleshoot
problems in a Solaris 10 environment, with emphasis on the tools that
are specific to Solaris

Speaker: Scott Cromar

Description: The talk will be a discussion of a general
troubleshooting approach including the use of Ishikawa and
Interrelationship diagrams in troubleshooting. With a brief overview of
some of the tools available in Solaris 10 and a brief introduction to
DTrace.

Location: Lawrence Headquarters Branch of the Mercer County Library,
Community Room 2

Revolution OS - an award winning documentary which traverses the path of Free Software, Open Source and Linux

This is one of the finest documentaries created which traces the path taken by GNU, Free Software, Open Source and Linux. The whole documentary all of 1 hour and 10 minutes long consists of bits and pieces of conversation with various leaders of the community which of course includes Linus Torvalds, Eric Raymond, Richard M Stallman, Bruce Perens and many others.

In the documentary, Linus Torvalds calls RMS the great philosopher of the movement and himself the engineer.

It clearly brings to fore the idea of GNU and Free Software, GPL and copy left, the history of Linux, the concept of Open Source, and in what way Open Source is different from Free software. The documentary produced by J.T.S Moore also shows snippets of publicity the movement received in the main stream media such as in CNBC and The New York Times. The documentary even feature a couple of appearances of some prominent people from Slashdot.

And at the end of it all, you get to hear an excellent rendition of the Free Software song.

It is worth noting that Revolution OS won Best Documentary at both the Savannah Film & Video Festival and the Kudzu Film Festival.

All in all a beautiful piece of work worth watching which tells the inside story of the hackers who rebelled against the proprietary software model and Microsoft to create GNU/Linux and the Open Source movement. One way to support the cause would be by buying a copy of Revolution OS DVD from their website. For now you can watch the documentary below (Courtesy: Google Video).

Update (2nd May 2007): The google video link has been removed because of concerns raised that it could have been pirated and was made available without the permission of the producer. And I believe the right thing to do under the circumstance is to buy the video and watch.
You may listen to an interview with J.T.S Moore here. [Ogg File].

Kernel comparison between Linux (2.6.20) versus Windows (Vista)

For those of us who are used to dual boot between Windows and Linux, at one point of time or the other, we might have wondered in what way these two diverse OS kernels differ from each other. Other than the well known fact that one is open source and the other is proprietary, I knew very little about the technical differences of Linux and Windows kernels.

Johnathon Weare aided by Paolo De Nictolis has put together an extensive list of the inherent technical differences in Linux and Windows Vista. The Linux kernel used for the comparison is the latest one - 2.6.20.

A few things which caught my eye in the list were the following:

• Almost all the drivers for USB, Printing, FUSE and Graphics for Linux are in the user space where as in Windows they operate in the kernel space. And as Andy Tanenbaum put it, it is better if more and more drivers run in the user space than the kernel space as this makes the OS more reliable and secure. [Advantage Linux]
• Both Linux and Windows kernels are developed using C and assembly language but apart from that Windows also has a significant percentage of C++ code. Not surprisingly, the kernel size of Linux is just over half of that of Windows.
• Linux kernel boots on diverse hardware architecture (around 22) including some game stations such as Sony Playstation. Where as Windows support only a measly 3 architectures. [Advantage Linux]
• Linux kernel has inbuilt support for the most variety of file systems.
  

Having gone through the list, I couldn't think of even one area where Windows kernel was ahead of Linux except perhaps the types of hard disks supported where Windows kernel had support for flash and hybrid hard drive which Linux kernel doesn't.

If you are interested, do read the full list of comparison between Linux and Windows Vista kernels.

Free Security Apps for Linux - a comprehensive list

When you hear the words "security apps", as an end user, one always tend to think of virus scanners, rootkit detectors, firewalls, network tools and so on. And Linux does not have a dearth of these tools which make it one of the most secure if not the most secure OS. Of course, how secure you can make your Linux machine will ultimately depend on your choice of Linux distribution and in what way you configure your machine. You can make your Linux box as open or as closed as you want.

ITSecurity - a website related to security has assembled a list of 103 free security apps. A large number of them are for Windows and Mac users but still, a significant percentage of them for Linux have also made it to the list. The applications have been categorized into 13 categories them being, Spyware, antivirus, rootkit, firewall, email, web utility, network, Intrusion detection system, Virtual private network, temporary files, wireless, encryption and a miscellaneous section.

You won't find Linux applications in all the categories. For example, the spyware category contain only Windows apps ;-). But this is a comprehensive list which lists many applications for Linux that I am aware of for the first time. I thought that ClamAV antivirus was the only antivirus solution for Linux but I was wrong, there are many more. Do check out the full list which will throw light on many applications and then some more which may be of use to all Linux enthusiasts.

derStandard.at interviews Mark Shuttleworth

DerStandard.at runs a very open interview with Mark Shuttleworth - the founder of the Ubuntu project, where he is asked his opinion on a variety of topics, the chief among them not surprisingly that about Ubuntu Linux and the path it is going to take in the future. Ubuntu is by far the most popular GNU/Linux distribution and has held the top post for well over two years now on Distrowatch's most popular Linux distribution list.

The interview touches upon a number of things such as the advantages of using Ubuntu in the enterprise over RedHat or SuSE Linux which have better tools for centralized management which Ubuntu lacks at this juncture, His thoughts on OLPC and the potential role that Ubuntu can play in it, on why Launchpad - a software developed by Ubuntu has not yet been released as open source, why he feels that compiz and beryl are not yet ready for being integrated with Ubuntu by default, his thoughts on Debian, its relevance for Ubuntu and so on.

At the least, his answers are quite interesting which makes reading the whole interview a worthwhile exercise.

Desktop Tower of Defense - Play this game and you are guaranteed to shirk work

Tower of Defence games are by far the most enjoyable games I have played till now; barring perhaps the classic Pacman which is my all time favourite. Among the numerous Tower of Defence games, the Desktop Tower of Defence game outshines the rest of them.

This free flash based game can be played online and involves making sure the incoming horde of enemies do not pass through the space you control. And for defending your turf, you have access to numerous towers named pellet, dart, squirt, swarm, frost and bash tower. Each of these towers have different powers measured by its speed, damage caused, its cost as well as its range.

Fig: The game in progress...

When you succeed in killing each enemy (known as creep), you gain a set amount of gold. Accumulate enough gold to buy more towers or upgrade existing towers to enhance their damage skills and range. Even while the level is in progress, you can continuously keep on adding towers such that all the creeps are channelled through the path you create using the towers. These paths are popularly known as tower of defence maps.

The challenge you face in this game is to decide in which way the towers need to be arranged such that none of the creeps succeed in crossing your turf. For each creep which successfully cross your turf, you lose a life and in all you have only 20 lives. Once you lose all your lives or cover all the levels, the game ends.

Fig: My own unique tower of defense map.

The goal of the game is to achieve the highest score at the same time not lose any lives. It is a very enjoyable game - a game which will provide you hours of fun. What I found unique about this game is that even in its simplicity, it compels you to think out your strategy. There are decisions to be made, like for instance which tower to upgrade such that it provides you with the most value for your money spent or in which direction you want to grow your maze such that the creeps are confined within your turf for the longest time and so on.

I made a modest score of 5238 at the expense of losing two lives in the Normal mode which has two lines of creeps. I was able to cover all the 45 levels too. The experts among you might be interested in trying out the hard mode or one of the challenging modes which are way too challenging (pun intended).

At the end of the game, you have the chance of saving your score. You can either save it in an already created group or create a new group of your own. I have created a group called 'linuxhelp.blogspot.com' and have saved my score in it. Once you have saved your score, you are provided with an image of your maze which you used to play the game.

This game is highly addictive and playing it, you could end up shirking your responsibilities and could lead to loss of productivity. You have been warned!!

Play this game to get 20% off on all Logitech products

Planning to buy a keyboard or a mouse or some other PC peripherals ? Then here is a good chance to get 1/5th of the price of the hardware you buy slashed. All you have to do is play this simple game - well it is not that simple; and complete 10 levels of the game. Once you complete the first 10 levels, you are eligible to get 20 % OFF on all Logitech products.

The game called Jelly Jumper is a simple game. You have to jump the lump of green jelly from point A to point B. The point B is highlighted in green color. But as I said, the feat is not as simple as it looks because in between, there are a lot of pitfalls which you have to avoid while crossing from point A to B. More over, you have to use less than the maximum number of jumps (highlighted in red) for each level to be taken to the next level. At the least even if you do not cross the 10 levels to be eligible for the 20% discount, the game is a good time killer. So you might as well give it a try if you have enough time to kill. Who knows, you might just qualify for a 20 % discount.

Fig: "All About Linux" blog author is eligible for 20% discount of all logitech products.

Note: The offer is available only in the European Union. So the rest of us residing outside have to contend with just playing the game and having a nice time.

A word of caution though... If you are indeed buying any peripherals, make sure they support GNU/Linux ;-).

How to pronounce Linux ?

My friend once asked me how you pronounce the word Linux. While I have heard the way it is pronounced from the mouths of numerous Linux users to be certain how you correctly pronounce it, I have felt it would be nice to hear it being pronounced by the father of Linux himself - Linus Torvalds.

It seems Linus Torvalds has tackled this question and has even created an audio of him pronouncing Linux. Paul Sladen has uploaded an audio file on his site, in which Linus is heard pronouncing the word Linux. Take it from me, almost 99.9% of Linux users pronounce it right the first time. But still if you are doubtful ...

Humor: A hilarious job profile for a System administrator

I came across this very humorous post for a job related to system administrators or web programmers. And the job description goes thus ...

We are seeking some poor, misguided fool to be paid next to nothing for a fulltime position doing highly skilled system administration work and rearend penetration testing in a mixed Windows 2000 and Linux environment. We lost our last IT worker because he found a higher paying job standing in front of Subway while dressed as a sandwich.

Skills required:

* at LEAST ten years experience in the administration of Windows 2000

* administration of Linux
* speak with animals
* SQL Server/MySQL
...

Read the rest of the job description at craiglist - you will love it ;-).

A collection of tips for people new to BSD

The first time I was introduced to FreeBSD - a BSD variant, I came away really impressed. In my opinion, from an end user's perspective, the only difference between a BSD and Linux is the difference in licencing. If you setup two machines - one running FreeBSD and the other running a Linux distribution with both having a KDE or Gnome desktop and ask a neophyte to point out which is which, there is a good chance that he will consider them both as running one and the same operating system. So whether you choose Linux or BSD depends largely on your tastes.

On the down side, the BSD variants fall far behind when you compare the size of their community with respect to that of Linux which commands a community which is many times that of the BSDs. But if you consider the ratio of knowledgable people to newbies, the BSD's fare better.

If you are a potential BSD aspirant and wish to try out any of the BSDs which include FreeBSD, PC-BSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD and DesktopBSD, then you might find the resource page put up by Daemon News quite helpful. It contains lots of tips to carry out tasks which a neophyte in BSD might initially find insurmountable.

FSF hiring - Who said it didn't pay to work for Free Software Foundation ?

The Free Software Foundation, colloquially known as FSF is a non-profit organization based in Boston (USA) whose mission is to preserve, protect and promote the freedom to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer software, and to defend the rights of all free software users. Richard.M.Stallman is the founder and president of the FSF. Its board of directors include many eminent persons (many of them professors) from the academic field.

FSF is hiring and is on the look out to fill the post of "FSF Campaigns Manager". The job is on site and is based in Boston. The duties of the campaigns manager include writing, editing, speaking, and research related to FSF activist and program efforts; coordinating the GNU Chief Webmaster and the other webmaster volunteers to develop FSF and GNU web sites; planning and implementing proposals to increase fundraising; and serving as a main point of contact between the Foundation and the free software community.

The only pre-requisites for the post are that you have a passion for Free software and firmly believe in the principles of GNU apart from having excellent communication skills in English (reading, writing and talking) as well as have a flair for organizing events with some technical skills on managing a website thrown in. So those who do not have a professional degree but have the above qualification are also equally eligible for the post.

The Pay

Did you think working for FSF didn't pay ? Then think again. This post of "FSF Campaigns Manager" is a paid position and provides you $50,057/year not a small amount for the work at hand.

But wait! There is more... The other perks include the following and I quote :

• full family health coverage through Blue Cross/Blue Shield's HMO Blue program, and subsidized dental plan.
• four weeks of paid vacation annually (wow, a whole month),
• seventeen paid holidays annually,
• public transit commuting cost reimbursement,
• 403(b) program through TIAA-CREF,
• somewhat flexible work hours.
  

Tempted by the offer? Then you can send your resume to hiring@fsf.org . Better still, read the whole job offer at the FSF website.

Too bad if you are not based in Boston ...

Install multimedia codecs in Debian Linux

This guide will explain how to install in Debian all the media player codecs - which include multimedia codecs & libdvdcss which is necessary to play DVDs in Linux.

Because of licensing restrictions, Debian Linux does not ship with the multimedia  codecs necessary to play a variety of audio and video files. Instead, the users themselves have to download all the media player codecs and install it on their Debian Linux machine. Fortunately, Debian uses a fabulous package management system called apt-get which makes the end user's task in installing the codecs all the more easy.

Install Media Player Codecs

You can install multimedia codecs in Debian Linux in 4 easy steps.

Download the multimedia key ring package from here. It is a deb package which contain the keyring files for the repository you are going to add in Debian.

Logging in as root, install the keyring package as follows :

# dpkg -i debian-multimedia-keyring_2008.10.16_all.deb

Again as super user (root), open the file /etc/apt/sources.list in your favourite text editor.

Append the following line (shown in blue) to this file.

#FILE /etc/apt/sources.list
...
deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org stable main

It is assumed that you are running stable version of Debian. If you are running testing,unstable or experimental version of Debian Linux, replace the word "stable" in the line with testing,sid, or experimental respectively.

Update the package database using the apt-get command as follows:

# apt-get update

Install all the media player codecs as well as libdvdcss which is necessary to view DVD movies running the following command :

# apt-get install w32codecs libdvdcss2

After apt-get has finished installing the packages, try playing a movie or music. Chances are Debian Linux will play any and all media player files with ease.

Unix Processes - What constitute a Process ?

A process is a fundamental part of any operating system - irrespective of whether they are proprietary or Free. And all Operating systems usually have a lot of processes running at any given time. This begs the question, what exactly is a process ?

A process can be considered to be a container, bundling a running application, its environment variables, the state of the application's input and output, and the state of the process, including its priority and accumulated resource usage. In short, every single application that you run on your machine will have its own unique process allocated to it for the duration of the time it runs.

In Unix based OSes, each of that unique process has a parent process from which it is forked (cloned, spawned) initially. The very first process that is created by the OS when you turn on the machine is init process. This process will always have a process id of 1. All processes are ultimately descended from the one process called init. Try running the ps command to find the process id of init.

$ ps axj
PPID   PID  PGID   SID TTY   TPGID STAT     UID   TIME COMMAND
 0     1     0     0 ?       -1   S        0    0:04 init [4]

Martin Streicher has written an enlightening article throwing more light on the concept of a Unix process. He explains the semantics of a process, some very useful commands which give information about the running processes as well as talks about forks and daemons (a special kind of process which continuously runs in the background waiting for some application to connect to it).

Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 released

After waiting for so long (close to 2 years), Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 code named Debian Etch has been taken out of development cycle and is given the stable tag. A couple of months back, I had tried out Debian Etch while it was still in the testing stage and my impression of it was very good - what, with most up to date versions of popular and most used software packages and a pretty graphical installer to boot.

Some of the new features in Debian 4.0 are as follows :

• A fully integrated installation process with out of the box support for encrypted partitions.
• Graphical installer for those with enough memory for their PC
• Use of secure apt to enhance security while installing software (Read more on apt-get usage).
• Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 now runs on even AMD64 and Intel EM64T (amd64) apart from 9 other architectures.
• Now can be installed from various installation media such as DVDs, CDs, USB sticks and floppies, or from the network.
• Support for multi-architecture installation disks.
  

Those who are using an earlier version of Debian need just do an

# apt-get update

and an

# apt-get dist-upgrade

... to move their Debian distribution to the latest version.

Another important news especially for people administering Debian servers is that the Debian team has also updated the official Debian 3.1 version to include some much needed security fixes. The official Debian website has the full press release regarding Debian 4.0.

Ext3cow file system explained

GNU/Linux supports numerous file systems, some of them that come to my mind being ext2, ext3, xfs, jfs, vfat, ufs and so on. Here is another file system to add to this diverse collection. And the name of the new file system (which is still in heavy development) is ext3cow.

So how is ext3cow different from ext3 file system which we are most well versed with ? Ext3cow file system supports all the features of ext3 file system which include journaling. But other than that, it also has support for version control.

And to put it in layman terms, if you have formatted your hard disk with ext3cow file system, you will never lose a file - even when you overwrite it. What is more, you can go back in time and retrieve an older version of your files because this file system saves a snapshot of your files in any given time - which is what versioning is all about.

Let's look at a simple example. Suppose I have formatted my hard disk running Linux with the ext3cow file system. And I have created a file by name test.txt as follows :

$ cat "This is a test" > test.txt
$ snapshot
Snapshot on :. 10452736

The 'snapshot' command takes a snapshot of the disk. And then I overwrite the same file by entering some other text as follows :

$ cat "This is overwritten text" > test.txt

Now the file 'test.txt' contain the new sentence as is shown by the cat command.

$ cat test.txt
This is overwritten text

But as I have saved the file in an ext3cow file system, the original text is not lost and can be listed and retrieved as follows :

$ cat test.txt@10452736
This is a test

Where the number 10452736 is the unique snapshot number which we received when we executed the 'snapshot' command, which by the way is ideally run by the system at regular intervals.

And if you now cat the 'test.txt' file, you will find that it displays the latest changes. So the primary advantage of ext3cow file system over other file systems is that it is possible to take a snapshot of the disk at any given time and thus safeguard data.

Advantages of ext3cow file system

• Version control of all your files.
• Journaling support like in ext3.
• You can access past directories in the same way you access past files.
• ext3cow performance is at par with that of ext3
  

Drawbacks of ext3cow file system

• There will be a slight increase in the meta data required to support versioning - in between 5% and 15%. So ext3cow file system will take up a bit more space on disk than ext3.
• Currently there is no mechanism to delete a file in the past but this is an ongoing project and this feature might get included in future versions of the file system.
• Taking snapshots are not automatic and will require the user to execute the 'snapshot' command.
• The project is still in experimental stage but work is going on at a fast pace.
  

You may download and install the tools to create this file system at the ext3cow official site as well as take a look at a couple of ext3cow tools maintained by Tim. If you are interested in a unique project to provide a GUI interface to manipulate the files in the past, then check out the Time Traveling File Manager [Link].

OpenSuSE 10.2 Review

When you ask someone to name a couple of GNU/Linux distributions, in most cases, you will hear the names Debian, Red Hat, Ubuntu and then, SuSE Linux which is now a days known as OpenSuSE.

The reason is that apart from it being one of the oldest Linux distributions around, it has made a name as a distribution which is robust, secure and user friendly. Originally SuSE Linux was owned by a German company by the same name. But in January 2004, it was acquired by Novell which continued to further develop and fine tune it and include more SuSE specific features to it. The end result is a distribution which has grown to have its own unique identity. OpenSuSE is a community program sponsored by Novell and is developed in an open model.

One of the foremost reason to consider OpenSuSE Linux as a very popular Linux distribution is the mere fact that in the past couple of months, it has risen from the bottom of the heap to enjoy second place, just below Ubuntu Linux, in the Distrowatch most popular Linux distributions list.

This rise in popularity is not incidental. Rather it highlights the quality of this very fine distribution.

A couple of months back, I chanced upon a DVD of OpenSuSE 10.2. While in the past, I have installed a plethora of GNU/Linux distributions, this was the first time I happened to lay my hands on SuSE Linux distribution. And to tell you the short story, I was virtually blown away with its ease of installation and use. While the partition manager embedded in the SuSE installer is not as graphical as that found in Fedora installer, in all other respects it is very functional and intuitive. One thing worth noting is that OpenSuSE comes with flash player (albeit ver 7.0) and Sun Microsystems Java 1.5 runtime environment bundled with it by default and at the time of installation you have to agree to the license requirements of the respective software.

Fig: Redesigned Gnome Menu

The minimum specification for installing OpenSuSE Linux is a Pentium class processor, at least 256 MB RAM and plenty of disk space. The OpenSuSE installer detected all the devices attached to my machine without any problem. While it is pretty bleak to see a Linux distribution not detect any particular device barring wireless devices or internal modems, you can make sure that your laptop/desktop is supported by OpenSuSE by checking their hardware compatibility list (HCL). Once I finished installing the distribution and booted into it, I came face to face with a clean Gnome desktop. What is unique about the OpenSuSE Gnome desktop is that it includes a redesigned menu different from what you will find in the default Gnome setup. More over, the search is integrated in the menu with Beagle search playing a very important role in providing real time search. This is not surprising as projects such as Beagle search and Tomboy are developed by Novell engineers and is based on Mono language; which is also the initiative of Novell.

There is a central place called the "Control center" which can be accessed by clicking on the start bar (named "Computer" in OpenSuSE Gnome Desktop) and then clicking the "Control center" in the menu. Here all the applications are categorized by type or functionality which in my opinion makes it easy to navigate. Though the menu in the Panel of KDE is also redesigned, I found the Gnome menu much more pleasant to use than that found in KDE. But in KDE, there is an option to switch to the classic view which can be done by right clicking on the menu button and choosing "classic view". I couldn't find a similar method to switch in Gnome though.

Fig: Control center

By default OpenSuSE provides KDE and Gnome and you have to choose one over the other at the time of installation. But if you select a custom setup , then you can easily install packages specific to other window managers and desktops.

Over a period of time, Novell has also built a massive collection of documentation, tips, faqs and howtos related to accomplishing tasks in OpenSuSE which can be viewed here.

OpenSuSE Linux uses the RPM format to distribute its packages. And there are more than one ways of installing packages. But the most popular form of installing software in OpenSuSE is using YaST which does a good job of automatically checking for any dependencies.

A brief introduction to YaST

YaST is a unique tool found in OpenSuSE which allows one to do all the system administration tasks from within its GUI interface which includes package management, managing users, configuring firewall, configuring devices and almost all the other system maintenance and network administration tasks you could think of. It can also be used from the command line. YaST2 comes with three front-ends. GTK, QT and ncurses. And you can start the "YaST control center" using the command yast2. The correct front-end is automatically selected based on the available components and the current environment.

YaST supports the following modules to load the requisite GUI front-end. They are as follows :

answering_machine,  bootloader,  ca_mgm,  dhcp-server, dns, dns-server,fax, firewall,
groups, host, http-server,  idedma,  inetd,  irda,  kerberos-client,   keyboard,   lan,
language,  ldap,  mail,  mouse,  nfs, nfs_server, nis, nis_server, ntp-client, power-management,
powertweak, printer,  profile-manager,  proxy,  remote,  routing,  runlevel, samba-client,
samba-server, security, sound,  sysconfig,  tftp-server,  timezone, tv, users.

Here is how yast2 can be used from the command line.

To load the interface of a specific module you use the following syntax :

# yast2 <module name>

For example, if I want to add more users to the system, I can use the following command :

# yast2  users

... which will load the GUI front-end for adding users. For starting the power management utility, run the yast2 command as follows:

# yast2 power-management

.., and so on. You can also start YaST in interactive mode by passing it the phrase 'interactive'. For example, when you use the command :

# yast2 users interactive
YaST2 users> help

OpenSuSE will place you in the 'YaST users' interactive shell where you can run commands to add, remove or modify user data. After you are done, you can press 'exit' or 'abort' to come out of the shell.

AppArmor - OpenSuSE's unique security feature

While other main stream Linux distributions such as Red Hat and Debian have beefed up their defenses by incorporating SELinux into their structure, OpenSuSE has traveled a different path. Instead of SELinux, it comes bundled with its own security framework tool called AppArmor.

Novell claims AppArmor is equally robust and provides similar application level access controls with the exception that it is much more easier to configure and maintain than SELinux. The apparmor profile used by default makes OpenSuSE very secure. You can read more about Apparmor here.

Pros of OpenSuSE 10.2

• Robust and secure GNU/Linux distribution
• A good collection of software including easy availability of proprietary ones packaged in the SuSE RPM format. For instance, you can easily install proprietary Nvidia graphics drivers using YaST.
• Excellent GUI front-ends for almost all system and network administration tasks.
• Has incorporated some cutting edge features in Gnome and KDE desktop such as the redesigned Panel Menu.
• Good all round integration of Beagle search.
• Bundles with it Flash player and Sun's JDK 1.5 by default.
• Has an easy graphical method to enable/disable XGL if you like special effects on your desktop.
  

Cons of OpenSuSE 10.2

• To put it lightly, I found OpenSuSE 10.2 to be a memory hog. On my machine with 640 MB RAM, it was sufficiently slow. I attribute it to the number of services running on OpenSuSE by default.
• With the recent cloud formed over Novell striking a deal with Microsoft, many in the open source and Free software community are concerned about the direction in which Novell is going to steer SuSE in the future. There are also aspersions cast on whether this fine GNU/Linux distribution will remain Free at all.