The package cron-apt is a great example of powerful flexibility. By default, once the package is installed, a cron job is set to run at 4am to check for new packages (apt-get update) and download any new packages (apt-get dist-upgrade -d. Of course, running at 4am is good for servers (unless you want them to check for updates more frequently) but the average desktop user may not have their computer on at that time.

I’ve always been concerned about the potential performance impact of a system confgured to use LVM. Reports on the internet have been conflicting, with some people reporting a significant loss of performance while others report no difference, or even a s light improvement, in performance. LVM adds a level of manageability and flexibility to partitioning that is welcome to most system administrators. However one must also be concerned with the performance of a filesystem, especially on servers where the filesystems are the bottleneck. To satisfy my curiosity I decided to run some benchmarks and see what the performance delta between a system with LVM and one without would be.

An enduring legacy of UNIX is the paradigm of partitioning a disk into several partitions for various purposes. While this might still be appropriate in certain scenarios I think it would be wise for modern GNU/Linux operating systems, especially when used on a desktop, to move toward a single physical partition model. The default for Ubuntu when not using LVM is to create 2 partitions: a root partition and a swap partition. I think the default should be 1 partition for root and that swap should be handled by a file on the root partition instead of on a dedicated partition.

In the tradition of Debian Package a Day (defunct) and Debian Package of the Day (active) I will present detailed information about 1 package every week. I figure this is a little more sustainable and a little less overwhelming than trying to write an informative article each day about a particular package.

I just completed my first install of Ubuntu Server 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) Beta and I ran into some networking problems that were difficult to diagnose until I came across the right command to show me what the problem was. Then everything was simple to fix though I’m still at a loss to why the problem occurred in the first place.

Why would a system administrator want to consider Ubuntu as a server operating system? Ubuntu is a young GNU/Linux distribution and a newcomer to the server market. Still I think a case can be made for Ubuntu as a capable and beneficial operating system for servers. As well as why, for many scenarios, Ubuntu might be preferable to Debian.

A few weeks back I had my first attempt at recovering files deleted on an ext3 partition. The operation was not trivial but in the end it was successful. I’ll recount a little about what I learned, and share some resources and tips.

With the release of the beta version of Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) a couple days ago I thought it was worth spending some time writing about what I saw as the highlights in this new release, from a desktop user perspective as well as from a server administrator perspective.

Virtualization is the future of computing. Virtualizing servers has many benefits which including increased manageability, reduced hardware costs, strengthened security, and others that are outside the scope of this article. Among the array of virtualization solutions Xen stands out as the one I am most interested in pursuing at this time as it is Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) and provides the functionality and performance I desire.

This site is dedicated to all things Ubuntu. I have been using Ubuntu as my desktop OS of choice for a couple of years now and I’m increasingly preferring it for servers. I wanted a site where I could share my experiences and thoughts with regard to desktop issues, server administration, hardware research, and more. It is also important for me to reach other Ubuntu users and build relationships to further our mutual knowledge and understanding.