• Howto stop Ubuntu nagging you about Distribution Upgrades

    It's a fairly common scenario, you've just got your system set up the way you like it and then there's a new release. Your update manager starts nagging that you should upgrade, no matter how many times you dismiss it it just won't get the message!

     

    You can disable this using the method below, but don't stick on old versions for too long!

  • Republished: A couple of issues with Karmic Koala

    Originally published on Benscomputer.no-ip.org 05 November 2009

    I reviewed Karmic Koala a few days ago, and though I did encounter a few minor niggles, everything was running quite well. However that has now changed, I've discovered two issues, both of which I would class as pretty major usability issues.

  • Republished: Windows 7 vs Karmic Koala

    Originally published on Benscomputer.no-ip.org 01 Nov 2009 - (Images were missing at time of restoration)

    Ubuntu 9.10 was released a couple of days ago with the codename 'Karmic Koala', there were plenty of reviews written immediately after the release, but this one is different? Why? Because I've taken the time to actually use the system.

    I reviewed Windows 7 a few days ago, so let's start by taking a look at Koala. I'm using the Kubuntu release as I'm not a fan of Gnome.

  • Setting up Xen on Ubuntu 12.04

    In order to be able to run some destructive testing on customer's systems, I needed to set up virtual servers. The hardware I have spare doesn't have virtualisation hardware, so KVM is out. Due to time constraints, it means my usual choice of CentOS is out (as RH have dropped support for Xen in RHEL6 and I lack the time to risk delays).

    So, I figured I'd use Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin) for my Dom0.

    The hardware is an old HP G3 with dual Xeon processors and 3GB RAM. It's never going to be much use for testing dedicated servers, but as a lot of VPS configurations are set to 1 core/ 1GB RAM it just about passes the mark.

    This documentation details the steps I took to get Xen installed and set up - every step listed can be run via SSH (assuming you do a net install of the base system), but be aware that if something goes wrong you might need physical access to the system to resolve it.