Darryl's Personal Web Site & MainBlog

Well I have been busy with other pursuits and have not had the opportunity to do much on my systems except very late at night. Late nights aren't always good when you have other things pending in the early morning.

I'm posting because Autostatic (whoever you may be) posted a comment “http://www.dhoytt.com/mainblog/archives/2008/05/packagekit-new-default-manager.html#comments” to my initial post about “Pirut” being removed on how get the “Pirut” install bits and install Pirut of course.

Link to Pirut FC9 : http://ia64.koji.fedoraproject.org/packages/pirut/1.3.30/2.fc9/noarch/pirut-1.3.30-2.fc9.noarch.rpm

Well I installed Pirut from the link posted and it is working just fine.

Packagekit's Flaky Operation on New Fedora 9 Install

Since my initial post I had also installed “Pirut” on my backup web server because outside of “Packagekit's” lack of features I liked Fedora 9 and there was a version of a software package that came with Fedora 9 I really wanted.

On this second install of Fedora 9 Packagekit exhibited behavior I did not see or could reproduce on my first Fedora 9 install.

On the second Fedora 9 install Packagekit would show it had updates I would then go click on the Packagekit icon on my toolbar and it would flash for a second and go away.

I even ran the Packagekit debugger I got from “http://packagekit.org/pk-bugs.html” and looked in my log files every time this happened and I couldn't find the reason why Packagekit would flash and go away without letting me interface with the GUI.

This behavior did not occur on my first Fedora 9 install and went away after a reboot on my second Fedora 9 install but after the initial usage after a reboot Packagekit would once again flash on the screen and not let me interact with it's GUI.

I finally left Packagekit alone to deal with time sensitive non-computer issues. I was still deciding however to possibly go back to Fedora 8 or hope someone came up with a nice update of Packagekit or the Pirut Fedora 9 bits or start using the Fedora 8 Pirut bits.

Thanks to the post by Autostatic pointing to the Fedora 9 bits I can patiently await the new Packagekit when its fully functional

Pirut on Fedora 9

Pirut seems to be working fine in Fedora 9 so far. Pirut asks if you want to install source channels for Fedora 8.92 (beta sources possibly) but I said no. Pirut works fine after that and of course you can edit out any sources later in “Software Package Manager”. I have been unable to get this version of Pirut “Software Package Manager” to show available software from the repositories though.

Synaptic Package Manager

While looking for Pirut/Software Package Manager in the programs section I found “Synaptic Package Manager”! The “Synaptic Package Manager” GUI looks just like the Pirut/Software Package Manager I just installed but also shows the available packages.

Applications Locations

You can find Pirut Software Package Manager after the install:

Applications -> System Tools -> Software Package Manager

You can find Pirut Software Updater after the install:

Applications -> System Tools -> Software Updater

You can find Synaptic Package Manager:

Applications -> System Tools -> Synaptic Package Manager

Well looks like I will be using Pirut/Software Updater to update my system for now and Synaptic Package Manager to install any new packages while I await Packagekit's growth. I'll keep playing and see what I run into next!

Well I must say that for the updates Packagekit seems an improvement so far. Packagekit seems like is silent as it’s supposed to and so far handles dependencies very well even though I have only had my first initial couple of updates.

 

When updating the Fedora 9 OS Packagekit has multiple updates selected for several software packages at one time I and would like to know how I can select multiple software packages when selecting new software .in “Add/Remove Software”.

 

I’m anxious to see this full package in place they are speaking of in such glowing turns all over the internet. I hope this isn’t premature hype like I’m starting to see too much of in this industry lately.

 

I thought I saw where the full package will be pushed out hopefully in a couple of weeks through the normal update path, I am anxious to see how it works fully!

 

I still feel they could have helped bridge the old with the new better until the new was ready to fully roll as the primary with both Pirut still as the primary with Packagekit available to get acquainted with in the wings.

Why was Pirut replaced as the default front end in Fedora 9 by an unfinished package like PackageKit? I understand the current move from under the wing of Red Hat and more into the Fedora community with Fedora releases but if these are the types of decisions that will be made, oh my!

Does this mean the Fedora community will start making decisions to new projects just because you have a bias or dislike of certain portions of an older working project even if you don't have a working viable solution?

There is no way that PackageKit should have been included in its current state as the default software package handler with Pirut totally removed.

I like a lot of what I see in PackageKit as far as being able to go to the software projects home page with a simple click, the GUI looks nice, seeing what files will be written out or modified and the fact that you can go click inside of that box and save the list with a copy or paste for whatever reasons you feel you may need are good features.

I understand it talks to all of the back end package managers like apt, yum etc.., but the usability is not there yet. Why place it as the default package manager for Fedora 9, a major OS release?

You have negated any good that PackageKit does with its release while its in its beginning development stages. PackageKit is in a position it doesn't yet belong and you have put up blatant obstacles to using other front-end package mangers without uninstalling PackageKit.

The immediate usability issues I have are:

- I have to tell it to refresh application lists, this should be default or a more readily identifiable option. I first went through a few sub-categories getting a ”Query produced no results” type of error before I started looking for an option to view software I knew should be there.

• I found no way to select multiple software packages then say install and walk away. You have to sit there and click one package → Hit Install → Watch it download and install → select next package and repeat. I really hope I'm missing something here I do not have the time to install all of the packages I like to use one at a time after my initial install.

• When trying to install “pirut” from the command line using yum I get the following message:

#yum install pirut

Loaded plugins: refresh-packagekit

Existing lock /var/run/yum.pid: another copy is running as pid 10193.

Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit...

Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit...

Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit...

Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit...

Setting up Install Process

Parsing package install arguments

Package gnome-packagekit-0.1.12-12.20080430.fc9.x86_64 already installed and latest version

Nothing to do

I found the updated version of PackageKit but had some environmental/dependency issues installing the “tar.gz” and the “rpm”. I didn't want to deal with updating what someone has decide to be the default package manager for Fedora 9 when I had other things to do so in installed “Yumex”.

I did however use the install one package at a time PackageKit to install Yumex. I then started installing the software I want by clicking on them one at a time in Yumex and then processing the whole lot of them instead of with “pirut” selecting all and deselecting a few packages a several dozen more clicks per session than using Pirut. This is still better than installing packages one at a time (that's so MS Windows) with PackageKit.

Since this is installed on the system that will be my game server and I'm playing around with it now I'm seriously thinking about installing one of the other Linux Distros and then moving to the Distro I choose with my web servers.

Especially disturbing is the fact that they said that PackageKit would be an alternative and Pirut can work side by side with PackageKit but they have removed all of the Fedora 9 Pirut files from the repositories and the lower versions of Pirut conflict with PackageKit!

Well time to finish installing packages with......”Yumex”!

I reinstalled gallery2 and pointed the Apache Alias in /etc/httpd/conf.d/gallery2.conf to my preferred gallery2 installation.

I then had to let the install remove the storage (albums) and database information where I had the gallery2 info previously.

I then imported the albums without any data into my new Gallery2 install, installed the navigation menus, the additional "color pack" I wanted to use, corrected the heading to use my simple little pic file, corrected permissions etc..

I'll go and add captions to the various albums & pictures later.

I had a scary moment at lunch today with my server I use to stream my music which is separate of course from my Web Server or my someday to be presented to the Internet game server.

 

            What happened was I went to line up a few songs to listen too while at lunch and hit the KVM switch to go to the music server and the mouse would not work. Well no big deal but all of the sudden I couldn’t connect to any of my systems via the KVM.

 

This KVM draws power off of the system booted in the number one position. I think it also seems to sync the mouse and keyboard for the others as well. I had run into this before but I couldn’t get around it this time.

 

I then decided to “Remote Desktop” in from another system and control the music from there but my KVM started giving an annoying beep and wasn’t cleanly going to the other systems even though I rebooted them to sync with the KVM.

 

So I decide to reboot my music sever only thing is that it gave 4 or 5 beeps and didn’t boot. I then checked the connections and it got to SCSI bios but took forever to get past that and boot the OS. Now I’m thinking my boot drive may need replacing.

 

Finally I decided to take my system outside to the backyard and show it whose boss! That’s right I took that air can out there and blew all of the little dust balls out (there was mucho dust balls).

 

I disconnected all cables especially the SCSI cables to my hard drives and blew them out and reconnected. Doing this helped me notice that one of the SCSI connectors was slightly up off of the connector.        

 

I attribute the cable slightly being off the connector to moving all of the systems down on my rack narrowing the space between them and then having my music server cables brushed by the system above it as I slid that system above it in and out of the rack. I had left the top cover off of my music server and the cable sticking up slightly so I could observe a new type of CPU fan.

 

Well after blowing the dust out and reseating the connections everything came up speedily and working fine! I then tucked the cables down and placed the top back on my music server to keep the dust out and prevent bumping items in the system.

 

Just another lesson to place items back the way you need them when done with testing!

I just created a hot toddy that produced immediate results.

I splashed in some brandy lots of honey, lemon concentrate filled most of the remainder with apple juice and a few healthy dashes of hot sauce and then heated this in the microwave.

After a few sips I could fill my sinuses open up and a nice feeling spread over my entire body.

This is now my new "Hot Toddy" concoction every time I make one if the ingredients are there!

Goodnight!!!

Due to the nasty weather here today that featured high, wind and rain my site was down briefly after UPS power went out.

As you can see though the site is once again up after several power outages my site was down for a very short time as the last outage finished diminishing my UPS’s power.

Once again the UPS proved their worth giving me time to let geographically distant colleagues know I was without power and gave me ample time to shutdown and prepare.

I was also able to keep my site up through the first two power outages as well as keep working the job.

Just wanted to say Happy New Year for 2008 from the Capital of Cali, Sactown, and the West Coast and all over the world!

I will have my new site which I have mostly built up on my other system soon in 2008 so check back.

I will have my full E-commerce store shared out, some games you can play on my site, shoot-em ups as well as some other games.

I will have my music site http://www.dhoytt.com/snake-ice-radio-blog/up as usual with some local artist I currently have in my mix and more others hopefully with forums.

As far as the forums I will have them for the music artists and the games and possibly the E-Commerce site.

Right now I'm just writing up some FAQ's and site usage tutorials etc...

See ya in 2008!

My first rack of ribs on my new gas grill came out fantastic!

I cooked the ribs on my new Charbroil Dual Gas Grill stainless steel grill model 463268007 that's hooked to my natural gas line I had installed in my new home as an option.

I also tried some new spices and a nice dry rub rib mix of spices I blended for half the rack. I used the same spices for my wet half of the rib rack as well.

The combination of my new gas grill and my new blend of spices was ridiculously tasty!

My previous gas grills flared a bit sometimes even with two separate zones made for indirect cooking a bit dicey with the rocks they provided.

With this grills flare guards over all 4 separate burners the flare ups were virtually non-existent.

Indirect grilling is great with this grill since I could separate the two halves of the rib racks to different areas of the grill because the sizes were different and I needed to control the heat and flames on each individually.

I was able to thoroughly cook the ribs and yet had the meat coming off the bone just the way I like with good flavor.

Let me go back and clarify this was my first pork rack of ribs. I have earlier done some boneless beef ribs.

When I first got the grill about a month ago I also did some rib eye steaks and they were damned near perfect my friend brought some nice vegetables and we really enjoyed that meal. She cannot stop talking about how good those steaks turned out. Actually the chicken I cooked that day was pretty tender and tasty too.

I then had someone help me rototill my backyard and cooked some nice inch and a half thick porterhouse steaks that turned out very nice with a little indirect cooking every once in a while.

I cannot forget the salmon fillets I threw on the grill and with that and use of the side burner I have tested the grill fully and have become very familiar with the hot spots and how I need to cook each type of food I grill including vegetables!

I now feel I have the hot spots indirect cooking and timing, flame control how the grill cools and heats as well as proper cleaning methods down and I'm ready to really rock!