When I saw the new name and the new website, my first thought went towards the licensing. After checking the site (and checking with Rainer) I was glad to see that the software remains free and GPL’d. The explanation about the name change on the project site also mentions non-GPL components, which I am not a fan of, and that they will refer to the software as Adiscon LogAnalyzer.

I can understand why they choose to prefix their company name to the software name, since it’s also “free” publicity and it’s clearer that Adiscon is the company behind LogAnalyzer. Adiscon has put a lot of time and effort into this product and they deserve credit for this. If you want or need commercial support, check out their support pack.

A fair heads-up to potential contributors: communication goes through the forums (e.g. no mailinglist). The GIT repository can be found here.

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Lately I have been fiddling around with PHPlogcon. I wanted to consolidate logs from our servers on a single machine, which is a breeze to set up using any standard Linux syslog daemon. Furthermore I wanted a graphical front-end (a website is just fine) to enable access to the logs for the not-so-linux-savvy admins. So PHPlogcon fit the bill perfectly. It supports flat-file logs (yay) and even MySQL.

The Windows servers need an additional piece of software to get it to forward the “Eventlog” messages. The default “Windows Eventlog parser” which is shipped with PHPlogcon only works with a proprietary Windows Eventlog forwarders (Adiscon’s EventReporter and MonitorWare Agent), so I wrote my own parser for the Open Source SNARE Eventlog Agent. (sourceforge)

Just put the parser in classes/msgparsers/msgparser.eventlogsnare.class.php and add something like the this to your configuration file and you are done:

$CFG['Sources']['Source5']['ID'] = 'Source5';
$CFG['Sources']['Source5']['Name'] = 'EventLog';
$CFG['Sources']['Source5']['ViewID'] = 'EVTRPT';
$CFG['Sources']['Source5']['SourceType'] = SOURCE_DISK;
$CFG['Sources']['Source5']['MsgParserList'] = "eventlogsnare";
$CFG['Sources']['Source5']['LogLineType'] = 'winsyslog';
$CFG['Sources']['Source5']['DiskFile'] = '/var/log/win_eventlog.log';

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Since USB is still ‘all the rage’ I thought I might take the time to show you some of my USB devices, which are compatible with Linux and which I personally find useful.

USB - IDE/SATA

Konig Electronic USB 2.0 to IDE / S-ATA adapter (external, CMP-USBIDESAT2)

Just useful if you have some harddrives around which you need to test, format or fill and then want to put away again (or destroy). It ships with an external power supply, so you are all good to go.

swat@decius:~$ lsusb
 Bus 002 Device 008: ID 152d:2338 JMicron Technology Corp. / JMicron USA Technology Corp. JM20337 Hi-Speed USB to SATA & PATA Combo Bridge

USB - RS-232

Belkin USB RS-232 (F5U103v)

RS-232 is still used when you configure switches or as a back-up interface for a server. Unfortunately netbooks do not tend to have a RS-232 port anymore, so this is the perfect solution.

swat@decius:~$ lsusb
 Bus 005 Device 043: ID 067b:2303 Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2303 Serial Port

USB - Ethernet

Apple USB ethernet

If you need more than your standard (one) ethernet port on your laptop, this is a good solution. It is small and just works. The downside is that it is an Apple product and it’s only 100Mbit/s.

swat@decius:~$ lsusb
 Bus 002 Device 012: ID 05ac:1402 Apple, Inc.

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This is not meant as a Microsoft Windows bash post, but just as a reminder of the new Free Software Foundation campaign. The previous “Bad Vista” campaign was focused on Microsoft Windows Vista and had extremely valid arguments. Just as this “Windows 7 sins” campaign has valid arguments about the newest Microsoft Windows release. Sometimes it is just good to hear (or in this case read) the other side of story and not only what the MarketingMachine(tm) wants you to know. Check it out!

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This little gem of a magazine got my attention during the previous HCC dagen. It contains the basic information a newbie could/would need to get started with Linux. Topics in the magazine are, but are not limited to: drivers, cd/dvd burning, desktop layout, netbook remix, music/video, fspot, firefox, evolution, ekiga/skype, empathy etc.. These are topics which I get a lot of questions about from new converts and this saves me precious time and energy. Another advantage of this ‘publicity’ is exactly that, publicity. There are not that many Linux magazines around, but there are dozens of magazines which focus on other operating systems. This is the kind of magazine I could give to parents to get them hooked on Ubuntu, good stuff!

P.S. Yes, the magazine is focused on Ubuntu (9.10 a.k.a. Karmic Koala)

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Vandaag organiseerde Proxy het “Proxy Open”, een kartevenement bij Raceplanet in het mooie Delft. Raceplanet heeft een erg mooi parcours in Delft, namelijk 2 banen die verdeelt zijn over maar liefst 4 verdiepingen!

Proxy organiseerde dit evenement voor professionals die werken met Open Source en Open Standaarden, een nogal nobele zaak. Laten we het erop houden dat het goed geregeld was en bovendien ook erg gezellig. Er werd behoorlijk wat rubber verbrandt en het blijkt dat de Open Source mannen toch best wel een zware voet hebben, wanneer ze een voertuig besturen

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Has it been 6 months already? Time flies when you are having fun or when you are very busy, it seems. The Dutch and English announcements can be found on the official Ubuntu wiki as well as the Dutch and English release notes. Another great upgrade, loaded with new stuff and changes. Here are some tips to get you through the potentially “rough” part of it

Fast upgrade

I gave a friend of mine a great tip. That tip enabled him to upgrade his system in less than an hour and downloading the updates took less than 10 minutes (at about 1.6 MB/s). I told him that the default is to use the official nl.archive.ubuntu.com as an update source and he should use an alternate local mirror if the main one is slow. Just add a line to your /etc/hosts :

ip.of.the.alternate.mirror nl.archive.ubuntu.com

Do not forget to undo this after the upgrade though

GNOME-RDP

Apparently the GNOME-RDP database “breaks” again if you upgrade. This bugreport also contained the “fix” (by Mick K), but make sure sqlite and sqlite3 are installed:

sudo apt-get install sqlite sqlite3
cp ~/.gnome-rdp.db ~/.gnome-rdp.db.backup
mv ~/.gnome-rdp.db ~/.gnome-rdp.db.old
# Open GNOME-RDP to create and initialize a new database and then close the application:
gnome-rdp
sqlite ~/.gnome-rdp.db.old “.dump session” | fgrep INSERT | sqlite3 ~/.gnome-rdp.db
# Keyring support slows it down a lot (and produces errors) so disable it:
sqlite3 ~/.gnome-rdp.db “INSERT INTO appOptions VALUES(’UseKeyring’,'False’);”

Note: please keep your backup file in place (an extra backup is never a bad thing), since GNOME-RDP seems to have database issues when upgrading. I can not ensure this is ‘the’ best way to fix your current database, so use with caution.

Compiz and Intel

I suddenly found myself unable to enable compiz (”Blacklisted PCIID ‘8086:2a02′ found”). After a quick Launchpad error search I found this bug which referenced the Dell site, which eventually contained the workaround. Just edit /etc/xdg/compiz/compiz-manager and add the following line:

SKIP_CHECKS=”yes”

CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE

I really do NOT get this. This shortcut was disabled because some people accidentally triggered it and this restarts X. Which idiot accidentally presses CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE? Anyway, this is how you get the famous shortcut back and working as intended:

sudo dontzap –disable

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De titel is heel erg wervend, maar met een reden. Ik weet namelijk niet hoeveel Ubuntu gebruikers in Nederland weten dat we meerdere mirrors hebben. Na diverse gesprekken bekroop mij het gevoel dat lang niet iedereen wist dat er mirrors zijn en waarom deze handig zijn (en wat ze doen), dus bij deze een korte uitleg. Zeker met de release van Jaunty Jackalope (9.04) morgen, kan dit ervoor zorgen dat je de updates sneller binnen hebt dan je buurman

Wat doet een mirror?
Een mirror is een spiegel (letterlijk vertaald). Een mirror in deze context is een lokale server, die onder andere de officiële (initiële) pakketten, updates en releases bevat. Met lokaal bedoel ik een server in je eigen land, in mijn geval Nederland. Het is namelijk een nogal zinloos om je updates/pakketten vanaf een server in Amerika te halen, als er ook een lokale server ter beschikking staat. Dit scheelt iedereen tijd, moeite en bandbreedte!
Opmerking: De officiële mirrors zijn te herkennen doordat de URL’s eindigen op .archive.ubuntu.com

Welke mirrors zijn er in Nederland?
Inmiddels zijn er 3 mirrors in ons kikkerlandje, welke onder andere te vinden zijn op de Ubuntu wiki.

• nl.archive.ubuntu.com gesponsord door Bit
• nl2.archive.ubuntu.com gesponsord door Universiteit Twente
• nl3.archive.ubuntu.com door PCextreme

Je kunt dus voor een andere mirror kiezen, als blijkt dat deze (tijdelijk) traag is omdat meerdere mensen van die server aan het downloaden zijn. Dit is natuurlijk enkel voor diegenen die weinig geduld kunnen opbrengen.

Alternatief: BitTorrent
Je kunt natuurlijk ook de Jaunty Jackalope (alternate cd/dvd) via BitTorrent downloaden, waarbij je niet gebruikt maakt van een centrale server. Hierdoor zul je dus waarschijnlijk erg snel kunnen downloaden en vervolgens kun je deze CD/DVD gebruiken om je systeem te upgraden. Let wel, dit is eigenlijk enkel bedoeld voor systemen die niet met het internet verbonden zijn.

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