Darryl Hoytt's Personal Blog

In the background on my others servers I'm working on a completely new look for the site with a new CMS\Blog platform! Seems that my current platform has been somewhat bogged down in the development area and the others are taking nice stride forward and will give me the functionality to really craft my site it seems more to my liking. I think that the pieces and parts will be more but the customization that I'm running into is great but I just need to get up to speed on it!

I will be able to have more forms more interaction and that should make it more user friendly with more to do and integrate with other sites you may use.

Stay tuned!

Looks like "systemd/systemctl" are taking over from System V service controls in Linux. Fedora 16 this is the default manager for controlling the services on Linux. I was attempting to use "chkconfig" and it kept forwarding the request to "systemctl" so I was finally forced to look at the man pages and the Fedora page and so far I like what I see except the assigning of start levels takes too many keystrokes and too long to check status.

Not completely sold on "systemd" but I will work with it and see how it does for now it seems to be working just fine.

Here are some helpful links:

Fedora SysVinit to Systemd Cheatsheet
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SysVinit_to_Systemd_Cheatsheet

Fedora Systemd Page
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Systemd

I performed a fresh install on my boot disk of Fedora 16 moving from Fedora 13 after using the "linux noprobe" to see my devices on the HP DL580 smart array as mentioned in my previous post. Once I had Fedora 16 properly installed and updated now was the time to bring in the other drives I didn't want the installation to touch into use.

I didn't have to perform  "vgimport". When I ran the "vgdisplay -v" command to find what the current state of LVM and names the volume groups and logical volumes were already imported so all I had to do was enter them into "/etc/fstab/" and mount the directories.

After mounting "/home" and the other directories in "init level 3"  I entered "init level 5" to start the desktop and after trying to login into my users I created on the system I get the error "call to lnusertemp failed (temporary directories full ?).Check your installation".


I restarted the system in "single-user mode" and well "/tmp" or the mountpoint it was connected to "/" wasn't full and the permissions were wide open. I looked at a few more items and checked log files then decided to  copy the files from the "/home" created by the system which I had renamed to "/home.orig" before mounting my old logical volume to the newly created "/home" and still couldn't login.

After rebooting again into single-user-mode, I then looked at the permissions of the user directories in /home and noticed that the numeric values were being used and not the user names. I then looked in "/etc/passwd" (#cat /etc/passwd |grep <username>) and of course the numeric values in the new "/etc/passwd" didn't match the numeric values from my previous install.

to correct the issue I performed the chown command for each user's directory:
#chown  -R <username>:<username> /home/<user-directory>/

Now "ls -al /home/<user-directory>/" shows the  user name instead of the numeric value and I can login just fine into each user on the system.

Who is making the decisions about what to include in the Fedora distributions? I have noticed Ever since at least Fedora 10 and maybe sooner you have had to jump through various hoops to get SCSI and RAID controllers to operate properly.

 Does the Fedora project have a lot of people unaware of the enterprise part of computing as far as the hardware layer is concerned?  I'm trying to do a simple base installation on an HP DL580 with a smart array and I have tried the suggestions on Fedora's kernel issue page @ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_kernel_problems but still I'm unable to get Fedora 16 to recognize the RADI/SCSI controller on my DL580. Every other Distribution I have tried without any alterations to the boot parameters recognize the devices without fail and also pick up on the current  custom  LVM partitioning I have setup so I can preserve the data on those partitions to save me having to restore after boot!

I really have been a Fedora fan since its inception and Red Hat going back to the really early versions in early to mid '90's but I really don't want to have to insert or exclude certain kernel drivers or parameters for fresh install all of the time when other distributions of Linux like Ubuntu & Centos, see the devices in question right away without any further action from myself! I have other things to worry about like rebuilding my web sites, studying up on new software/hardware, fishing, etc.., don't make me have to jump through hoops just to see standard hardware other Linux distro plans for!

Time to expand my horizons and check out the other Linux distributions to save my precious time which is the reason I  have always used  Fedora it used to save me time hunting down drivers/software etc..!

*****************************UPDATE***************************************

Okay after blowing off some steam I did finally get the Fedora 16 install to recognize my Smart Array on my DL580 by sspeciffying the following as boot options during the install: "linux noprobe acpi=noirq askmethod". I then selected SmartArray2 and presto I can see my drives!

Credit due to old post on Linux forums though I do recall doing this before I had not recalled it until seeing this post: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-hardware-18/cannot-install-scsi-driver-for-compaq-smart-array-in-fedora-core-v-438887/

I did this after installing Centos and looking around it for a while. I just really like the glob of software that I get with Fedora. I have discovered so many helpful programs with Fedora its addictive and hard to give up even with some of the install issues I have had to work around with what seems to be a devalued view of some SCSI/RAID/SAS controller cards or maybe I'm missing the maintainers vision. I will still be playing with Centos since it mirrors so enterprise Red Hat so closely which I see in the work place so much but without the cost. I will also play further with Ubuntu & OpenSUSE to get familiar with those distributions software they package with.

I just purchased a smoker made out of a 55 gallon steel barrel last weekend from someone based out of Riverbend right outside of Modesto. The unique part of this is that it is a standup vertical pit not laid down horizontally. He also put a design on it but when I burnt out the insides Tuesday or was it Wednesday it ran the design off the pit but left the impression in a spooky manner I like.

I actually found a local place here in Sacramento that has steel barrels for sale and I think I will design my own pit and create a vertical and horizontal smoker then sell off a few of my purchased pits. I'll also buy a barrel for my dad who made his own horizontal pit about 20 something years ago and he wants to replace his in the stand he created.

Here are pictures of my new pit BBQ Pit Smoker as it joins my grilling lineup:

I am replacing one of my main routers to the internet so there will be some brief interruptions as I place my newly configured router in place.

This year my vegetable garden has taken on a different look. The grapes vines I planted the year before came out like mad this year along with the raspberry bushes. I tried to build some structure for the grapes to grow over and still may get a trellis. The artichoke plant that overran a huge part of the garden last year is gone replaced with its smaller runt cousin.

The collards are looking hearty, along with my Armenian cucumbers and one of my zucchini plants. Beans & peas didn't come up as I wanted so I may replant some more. My Okra wasn't doing great so I planted another plant in a different part of the garden and that plant seems to have stabilized.

Overall I have a promising looking garden plus an ultrasonic pest deterrent device I picked up because of the rodent issue I had last year in my garden. Take a look and hope your garden does well if you have one!

I have been getting back into my work outs in fits & spurts so I re-examined my approach and mentality as I always do with all areas of my life to find the reason for the inconsistent effort.

Well one of the largest issues but not the only issue for sure is that I haven't been keeping true to my extensive stretching routines as I used to! I started sliding off of my stretching in part because my body doesn't feel as beat up after a run like it did before I started running in the VFF's (Vibram Five Fingers). Since my back and legs weren't beat up I wasn't as dedicated to my stretching especially after the runs and actually before the runs the stretching activities were half assed!

Well I am back into my stretching routine where I stretch without taking shortcuts before the run]workout after the workout and prior to going to bed whether I worked out or not. Today this was very important since I had a hard gym workout last night along with a nice stroll on the treadmill after hitting the weights & abs.

Besides the stretching I need to be more dedicated to hitting push ups, leg raises, crunches & trunk twists after my runs. My runs are plodding right now when I do back to backs but I feel the body ready to move forward to shed weight and firm up. Man I have been through this enough times I shouldn't let myself get in this shape anymore.

One of the things I read that made me re-examine is this article from Active.com which helped me realize I wasn't doing my all:
http://www.active.com/running/Articles/A-Full-Body-Strength-Workout-for-Better-Runs.htm?cmp=291&memberid=105296370&lyrisid=22276275

Well I wasn't feeling great and needed to get out and wanted some fresh but hot air so in the late afternoon here in Sacramento this past Sunday so I went and bought a fishing license and headed to the American River parkway, to of course fish the American River from the banks.

I took my special fanny pack with lures, a couple of select poles and for some reason my large tackle box and my KSO VFF's (Vibram Five Fingers). I have been so busy with so much lately I realized I hadn't been out on trails fishing with my VFF's. I took the KSO's instead of the Flows since it was hot and I still needs to wash all of my VFF's and I generally like to wear the Flows without my Injinji toe socks in warm weather. I wore the socks with my KSO's to prevent the after funk. I just really need to remember to wash these things.

Anyway the KSO's felt so nice on the dirt trails even on the sharp rocks next to the raised train tracks while uncomfortable I didn't have to worry about my ankle turning on the uneven surfaces. I really liked the way I was able to get to those special casting spots by crawling on fallen tree trunks, soft dirt outcrops jutting into the river without the usual foot sliding due to not getting a grip.

 I really love how I was able to stand on a thin strip of dirt right next to the water beneath tree roots, keep my balance while casting in all the directions I wanted without getting into an unbalanced stance.

Walking back past all of the oak trees, wid licorice smelling plants on the horse trail felt great on my KSO's. I will definitely be taking out the VFF's on the trails fishing a lot more now.Come to think of it I think the VFF's are intended for this type of outdoor activity on trails and climbing not just the running I have been using them for.

This years garden is a little late getting together due to needing to get the rental together and the weather but here's the start of the garden front & back before I get time to smooth the details out.  I need to grab some bark for the front where I put down weed block and make the grapes climb my structure I built out of PVC pipe. The PVC pipe was there from when I put the sprinklers in (yes all by myself) a few years ago. This project cleaned up some clutter and provided a needed solution to how I want my grapes to climb for now.

I will also employ a net trellis for my peas and beans to climb if the rodents don't eat them this year!

I have employed an ultrasonic rodent repellent this year to keep the rodents out of the garden.

Here are some pics of the gardens with still a few things to do.