Matt D's Web Log

I just came back from the 2012 International New York Auto Show. Here are my thoughts about my experience.

1. It was really hot. That walk from 8th Ave to 11th Ave is brutal.
2. I'm never going back on a weekend. I definitely have to make time to get it done during the week as there's just way too many people there to make the experience pleasant.
3. There were a lot more plug-in hybrids, EVs, and alternative-fuel vehicles. This is a good sign.
4. Tesla Motors was not there, I guess I mis-read the list on the web site, that kinda sucked.

Overall, as usual, the show was not bad, but not insanely exciting for me, as it has been the past few years. With the way the economy is, companies just aren't spending nearly as much on cool concept cars, though it's definitely on the positive trend this year.

Cars I really liked from the show:

Scion FR-S
This was one of those vehicles I barely knew anything about, but there was a guy near the car that knew quite a bit about it, and was able to get me enthused about a car I would otherwise pass over. I for example, did not know that up until the auto bail-out, GM owned 35% of Subaru. Then Toyota bought out that stake, and now Toyota owns about 40% of Subaru, which explains the collaboration between the two companies on this vehicle. Rear-wheel-drive, limited slip Torsen differential, Boxer engine with direct-injection. Gets 22 MPG in city / 30 on hwy for manual (assuming a bit aggressive driving), and 25 / 34 for automatic (it shifts conservatively).

SRT Viper
Yes, there's nothing wrong with that title. SRT is now it's own entity. The new Viper looks awesome. Talked to a rep there who said she got into a bit of trouble in a 2010, and we both agreed the car is aptly named.

Ford Focus Electric
Looks awesome, and is electric. What else needs to be said? $38k price, same as Leaf. Not sure which I'd pick.

Nissan Leaf
It's back again, just as cool as ever. As mentioned above, $38k before tax incentives.

VW Jetta Diesel Hybrid
Not a huge fan of VW, but the combo could be cool.

DMC DeLorean
They had an original on display, as well as their EV. That was pretty awesome.

Acura NSX Hybrid
Awesome styling. Practicality, well, who knows.

Dodge Dart
The Dart is back! They had a rally car model too.

Mazda
They had a concept car which was really nice looking.

SmartForTwo
They had their EV model on display.

Fisker Karma
Looks awesome, totally impractical.

Infiniti EV-L
They had an EV concept which was nice, but likely pricey when it comes to fruition in 2014.

Lincoln
They had an awesome old car on display in excellent condition. Unfortunately I know nothing more then that.


So it was worth the trip, but next year I totally need a wider lens, or bring the canon instead of the Fuji, because between idiots getting in front of me, and me sucking at manually focusing the Zeiss, I'm certain some pics didn't come out as well as they could have.

So I've read articles about how the Debian GNU/kFreeBSD port is nothing but a 'toy OS' and that Debian should focus on other things instead.

Well, I have to disagree. One of the awesome things about Debian, is that it tries to keep all its platforms in sync, like NetBSD. It has like 60+ ports, and that's one of the reasons releases take so long. That being said, the state of this port is entirely dependent upon what you want to use it for.

As a desktop OS, it's got some rough edges yet. DBus is not quite right, so things don't quite work perfectly. XFCE desktop is nice, but logout doesn't work correctly. I had to use xdm instead of lightdm. Little things like that. On the upside, flash kinda works (gnash) and my sound worked out of the box. (This is on my Dell laptop.) Wheezy is greatly improved over Squeeze in the respect of things working right in kFreeBSD. So I think by the time the release is ready, it will be fairly usable.

The installer is better now, zfs root works, it's pretty speedy on an SSD. Boot-up time is comparable to Linux 3.0 with Ubuntu 10.10. (I was running the older release for some video conferencing software that broke after I upgraded X, so I will probably update to something like Linux Mint 12 at some point...)

As a server OS, I have no idea, but I'm planning on testing it on a few things later today. I think it will do well in the capacity that I want to use it for.

-Matt

It's simple, it's easy.

Go to the start menu, Accessories. Right click on Command prompt, and hit run as administrator.

Type:

netsh winsock reset

then type exit
and restart your PC. iTunes will no longer suck 50% CPU and Apple Device the other 50% CPU.

Worked like a charm. It was just finding it that was the problem.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO DELETE OLD BACKUPS OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT. THIS IS THE UNDERLYING CAUSE.

Now, in the past, Ubuntu was good to use. It was not that much heavier then Debian, but much easier to get installed, and usually came with more drivers.

Now, it's heavy. Not only is it heavy, it's being designed for idiots.

There are no options for anything. Power management is near non-existent. It's got this thing called Unity which is the worst UI ever. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING looks like a freaking Mac. I moved to a PC laptop to use Linux, not Mac OS. I have that on my other machine at home.

Trying kubuntu to see if that is better then the default, as with 11.04, they included the full GNOME as a fall-back, called "classic." That's gone now in 11.10.

Not happy.

Install the headers from the newly generated kernel package.

Download the source for the version of DRBD you're using.

Build the module

make KDIR=/usr/src/linux-source-2.6.32.46-xen

make install

The configuration files I used for DRBD:

root@cnc:/etc/drbd.d# cat res0.res
resource r0 {
protocol C;
net {
cram-hmac-alg sha1;
shared-secret "FooFunFactory";
}
on cnc {
device drbd0;
disk /dev/cnc/centos;
address 172.16.1.15:7789;
flexible-meta-disk /dev/cnc/centos-drbd;
}
on remote {
device drbd0;
disk /dev/sysvg/instance13193-disk;
address 172.16.1.99:7789;
flexible-meta-disk /dev/sysvg/instance13193-disk-drbd;
}
}
root@cnc:/etc/drbd.d# cat res1.res
resource r1 {
net {
cram-hmac-alg sha1;
shared-secret FooFunFactory2;
}
on cnc {
device drbd1;
disk /dev/cnc/centos-swap;
address 172.16.1.15:7790;
flexible-meta-disk /dev/cnc/centos-swap-drbd;
}
on remote {
device drbd1;
disk /dev/sysvg/instance13193-swap;
address 172.16.1.99:7790;
flexible-meta-disk /dev/sysvg/instance13193-swap-drbd;
}
}


Create metadata:

root@cnc:/etc/drbd.d# drbdadm create-md r0
Writing meta data...
initializing activity log
NOT initialized bitmap
New drbd meta data block successfully created.
success
root@cnc:/etc/drbd.d# drbdadm create-md r1
Writing meta data...
initializing activity log
NOT initialized bitmap
New drbd meta data block successfully created.
success


Attach DRBD to real disk:

drbd attach r0
drbd attach r1

Make this the primary node:

root@cnc:/etc/drbd.d# cat /proc/drbd
version: 8.3.9 (api:88/proto:86-95)
GIT-hash: 1c3b2f71137171c1236b497969734da43b5bec90 build by root@vmh1.drobnak.com, 2011-10-10 00:49:36
0: cs:WFConnection ro:Secondary/Unknown ds:Inconsistent/DUnknown C r----s
ns:0 nr:0 dw:0 dr:0 al:0 bm:0 lo:0 pe:0 ua:0 ap:0 ep:1 wo:b oos:10485760
1: cs:WFConnection ro:Secondary/Unknown ds:Inconsistent/DUnknown C r----s
ns:0 nr:0 dw:0 dr:0 al:0 bm:0 lo:0 pe:0 ua:0 ap:0 ep:1 wo:b oos:2097152
root@cnc:/etc/drbd.d# drbdadm -- --overwrite-data-of-peer primary r0
root@cnc:/etc/drbd.d# drbdadm -- --overwrite-data-of-peer primary r1
root@cnc:/etc/drbd.d# cat /proc/drbd
version: 8.3.9 (api:88/proto:86-95)
GIT-hash: 1c3b2f71137171c1236b497969734da43b5bec90 build by root@vmh1.drobnak.com, 2011-10-10 00:49:36
0: cs:WFConnection ro:Primary/Unknown ds:UpToDate/DUnknown C r----s
ns:0 nr:0 dw:0 dr:200 al:0 bm:0 lo:0 pe:0 ua:0 ap:0 ep:1 wo:b oos:10485760
1: cs:WFConnection ro:Primary/Unknown ds:UpToDate/DUnknown C r----s
ns:0 nr:0 dw:0 dr:200 al:0 bm:0 lo:0 pe:0 ua:0 ap:0 ep:1 wo:b oos:2097152

Update the configuration:

drbdadm adjust r0
drbdadm adjust r1

Wait until the daa isUpToDate on both sides.

Once it's uptodate you do a live migration.

It's been fun.

But shared hosting is no longer for me.

I've moved to linode.com instead. It's faster, and only slightly more expensive then before, in reality. And it's month-to-month.

DNS should be pointing to this new IP shortly.