James Titcumb

I’ve been using Linux on servers for years, since before I started learning to code. Finally, after something like 7/8 years I am almost fully confident in severing the ties to my highly underused Windows installation on my personal laptop, but there are still a couple of exceptions. With the release of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, I’ve finally settled down using day-to-day tools that are equivalent to their Windows counterparts. Much of the software I use already have Linux compatible versions such as Eclipse, Google Chrome, FileZilla, Skype etc., however not all software does. Some I am happy to use (and work quite well!) in Wine (Spotify, Adobe Photoshop). Here’s what I’ve had to switch though:

• Windows Live Messenger > Pidgin or Empathy
• Microsoft Office > Google Docs
• Pinnacle Studio > OpenShot (although I am testing other packages still)
• Microsoft Money > Same, but in Virtualbox
• Winamp > Rhythmbox

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This sort of thing really angers me and displays the fact that the web developers of the Parcelforce website will happily display total ineptitude at developing websites. To block off an entire operating system for no reason whatsoever, is simply astounding, and I can’t believe companies still employ such idiots.

Why should I not be allowed to send a parcel, just because I use Linux? There is no reason for it – especially as they support Mozilla Firefox! There is no difference between Windows Firefox and Linux Firefox, and no reason to stop me using Linux to send a parcel. Thankfully plug-ins like the User Agent Switcher exist, to circumvent such inept and naive programming.

Update: User Agent Switcher didn’t work. I used Firebug to enable the submit button though, which let me through happily…

On Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) I always get an error something like this when I shut down:

CIFS VFS: server not responding
CIFS VFS: no response for cmd 50 mid 0

This started happening when I added a CIFS mount to our NAS box at home in /etc/fstab. Basically what is happening is that the wireless network interfaces (set up by NetworkManager in Gnome) are being shut down prior to the CIFS mount being unmounted, which causes a timeout trying to unmount… because there’s no network connection.

Turns out this is a very well-known issue, but won’t be fixed for Jaunty Jackalope (the next Ubuntu version). Read more here.

There are some proposed workarounds, some of which aren’t suitable in all cases (hence why the Ubuntu team haven’t got a fix for it yet):

1. Do not use system-wide CIFS mounts but use Gnome VFS pseudomounts like typing smb://foo/bar in nautilus
2. Define your network in /etc/network/interfaces rather than in NetworkManager
3. Hacking the shutdown sequence to make it unmount network filesystems earlier (for example moving S31umountnfs.sh to S14umountnfs.sh in /etc/rc[06].d) : will fix it if you aren’t executing anything on those network filesystems

Method 2 and 3 require a little technical knowledge, and method 1 (pseudomounts) aren’t really suitable as they’re not permanent. Another solution not listed here is to add a kill script to the shutdown sequence that runs pretty much immediately to unmount the directory you want unmounted. Again though, that requires a little Linux knowledge.

So for those of you who aren’t Linux savvy, unfortunately there isn’t a simple solution out there yet. I haven’t got around to fixing it on my own laptop yet, but when I do, I’ll probably post a quick tutorial!

Since we started using Eclipse PDT as our primary IDE at Netbasic, there is nothing stopping us from moving to use Linux (for me, specifically Ubuntu) as our operating systems.

Except for one thing… Outlook. It’s a huge drawback because, like most corporate offices, we use calendaring functions, tasks, global address books, and loads of other features on our Exchange server. I did a bit of Googling and found out that since 2007-odd, Evolution (the default mail client with Ubuntu) supports Exchange out of the box. Always wary of things like this, to check it worked, I loaded up a new Ubuntu VM and fired it up. There was a bit of confusion getting it to work, and it repeatedly asked for my password. Once it finally got it working, it slowly loaded. I tried going through a few folders, and it was repeatedly slow. I did another quick Google, and others shared the problem. I restarted Evolution and then it repeatedly asked me for password.

Essentially, it’s obviously a hack to get it working efficiently, which really isn’t what a corporate environment needs. The beauty of Outlook is that you stick in the name of the user, and it loads up everything. In any corporate environment, this is a huge stumbling block for people considering switching to Linux who use Exchange servers.

There are two solutions I see to this – fiddle with Evolution more until it works, or use VirtualBox to run a little VM of Windows with Outlook (see this guide). Personally, I wouldn’t mind running VirtualBox to do it at work, it would provide me with other advantages too…

Update 23rd Oct ’08: Well it turns out I was wrong. I’m not sure if it was simply a problem of me running it in a VM and having network issues or something, but I just tried it here at home using exactly the same settings and it actually works like a dream!

Unfortunately, I asked our tech lead, Kelvin, and I’m not allowed to install Linux on my work PC (unless it’s in a VM) due to him “being able to access stuff”… although I don’t see why not as I can set up everything just the way other networked PCs are set up in Linux. I tried to set up Ubuntu in a VM image, and supposedly VMware supports multiple monitors, but I couldn’t get it to work, so until I can convince Kelvin otherwise, I’m stuck with Windows….

I followed some guide on the interwebs this evening to set up a password-less SSH connection to my server. I followed all the steps correctly, but kept getting “Server refused our key” in PuTTY.

Thankfully, after a quick Google, this guide helped me out and got it working.

The solution is that Windows sucks, and you should always generate your keys in Linux.