Windows

From WHS to Ubuntu Server

Pedro Rainho — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:09:17 GMT

A few months ago I bought a license of Windows Home Server to the home server pc I built (see this post). My first encounter with WHS was terrible I did a stupid mistake and I almost delete every single file I had.

The second encounter was much better and every thing was running fine until I noticed here at home and confirmed in the web that WHS is not green and everything was always running at full speed, even when I’m not using it.

So I start looking for alternatives and I saw a project called Amahi that basically It’s a Linux home server with steroids (lots of options and software) and runs on top of Fedora.

I decided not to continue with Amahi, for a few reasons, and started looking for a simple OS that allows me to share files and alternatively have a source control, some databases and then I tested two. One was FreeNas and the other was Ubuntu Server. Since I’m a Ubuntu fan I decided to give a try and create a VM with Ubuntu server + SSH + Apache + MySql + Php (LAMP). Note FreeNas is also very good and it has a impressive web UI.

My first impression wasn’t good because the UI of Ubuntu Server It’s just command line. Alternatively I could install gnome by running this command line: sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

But since I want something simple I decided to continue with the command line but needed something visual that could help me configure the home server. I search around and found Webmin.

Webmin has a demo and lots of screenshots here and Webmin it’s spectacular, a very good web user interface that allows me to configures almost the entire home server and that was just what I needed.

Install Webmin is very simple I just need to run this:

On my computer I opened a command line and run the command ssh [serverIP] and login.
- By doing this I’m now able to run commands on the server. Then I just did
sudo apt-get install perl libnet-ssleay-perl openssl libauthen-pam-perl libpam-runtime libio-pty-perl libmd5-perl
- To install a few dependecies and the this
wget http://www.webmin.com/download/deb/webmin-current.deb
- To download the Webmin, and then since the latest version is 1.500 I just need to run this command
sudo dpkg -i webmin_1.500_all.deb
- To Install Webmin

Now I that I have Webmin Installed I just need to open a browser to the URL https://[serverIP]:10000 and I have a UI that allows me to configure my server.

After given a test in a VM I decided definitely to switch from WHS to Ubuntu server with SSH and LAMP and I don’t regret my decision.

Next post will be about install and configure Subversion and WebSvn on Ubuntu Server… And yes my home server also have a source control.

New year new post

Pedro Rainho — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 11:34:52 GMT

It’s been a long time since my last post… my apologies.

The first post of this new year will be about Ubuntu. It’s been 9 months since I stop using Windows at home and at work and start using Ubuntu as my primary OS (only use Windows in a virtual machine). The reason for the switch was because Ubuntu offers me everything I need, FOR FREE. I only use Windows for developing.

I shift because since Windows XP hadn’t saw any good reason to shift to any other version of Windows. Why? Because I don’t need and OS that eats all my memory doing stupid things like shiny colors, stupid effects, etc, etc, etc. You can say you can turn that stupid things off… Yes but that doesn’t solve the problem it just minimize it.

At home and at work almost every thing is running linux. Even the home server I switched for a windows home server to a Ubuntu server. The only thing It’s no using linux, yet, it’s the phone.

So for this new year I will do some posts about .Net and about Ubuntu and you should also expect some news about a project I’m working on at home.

BSOD on windows guest with VirtualBox

Pedro Rainho — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:24:04 GMT

Today I came across a blue screen in VirtualBox 3.0.2 in host Ubuntu and guest windows xp. The problem was related with a file intelppm.sys. The solution was simple:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Intelppm

And changing the 'Start' value to '4'.

Check this post here and you will get more info. The post talks about Virtual PC but the solution is the same for VirtualBox

Office 2010 promo movie

Pedro Rainho — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 20:51:43 GMT

From Windows to Ubuntu

Pedro Rainho — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:29:33 GMT

A few months ago I was using my home pc, with vista ultimate, and since the beginning I had problems like:

Network card should be connected at 1gbit/s and some times was connected at 100mbit/s why, I really don’t know.
- Solution sometimes I had to restart others I had to disable and enable my network card. Never found the problem and had always the latest drivers.
One other problem that I had ever since the beginning was with my creative 5.1 speakers, the sound was not stable. Sometimes the sound goes up and sometimes went down, why??? I don’t know. A friend had exactly the same problem solution…. buy new speakers… stupid when I told him the problem was not with speaker was with vista :P
One other problem that I had was copy files from usb disk to my pc… speed 15mb/s – 20mb/s note that the speed of usb 2 is 400mbits/s. Even on my notebook with xp I got better speeds.
Copy over lan using 1gbit/s values are between 10mb/s to 15mb/s, impressive hummm
copy over ftp speed between 10mb/s to 20mb/s

And there was lots of other problems.

After I become very irritated about this… I had two choices downgrade to xp or use Ubuntu.

I start using Linux back in 98 with Redhat and I stop using it a few years ago… shame on me.

After doing some search about programs that I use in windows and similar programs in ubuntu, I did the switch and format, and install Ubuntu. And this was probably the BEST choice I had done recently why???

It’s much more faster that vista and Ubuntu has visual effects too.
took me just a few seconds to boot Ubuntu. Next release of ubuntu will be even faster on reboot.
Ubuntu only uses 350mb – 400mb of memory after reboot. Vista after reboot consumes me 1.5gb of memory.
Every single driver was detected no need to search for drivers and install drivers. The only driver I had to install was the ATI driver and took me one mouse click.
The problems I had with network card and speakers are vanished now you understand why I told my friend was stupid buy new speakers lol
Now copy usb to disk 35mb/s – 40mb/s more than double the speed
copy using ftp 75mb/s – 80mb/s with 1gbit/s network card. Three to four times faster that vista.

The most impressive is that I can do every thing with ubuntu, let’s see:

Windows	Ubuntu
Explorer	Nautilus
Windows update, just updates windows and MS programs	Update manager, updates every single application in ubuntu
Notepad	Gedit
Messenger	Pidgin / Empathy
gtalk	Pidgin / Empathy
Remote desktop	Terminal server client
Windows media player	Banshee, much better can every subscribe podcasts etc…, Movie player
Calculator	Calculator like win 7
mspaint	Gimp
MS office	Openoffice
Outlook	Evolution, much better
Filezilla	Filezilla
VirtualBox	VirtualBox
Nero	Brasero
Firefox	Firefox
Tcpview	Net Activity viewer
deamon tools	Gmount-iso
Acrobat reader	Acrobat reader
AVG	Avast
Windows Firewall	Gufw
Tweetdeck	Tweetdeck
.Net	Mono
Silverlight	Monolight
Flash	Flash
Netbeans	Netbeans
Ruby	Ruby

And the list continues…

The only, and only program I miss Is Windows Live Writer the rest every thing you can imagine it’s at one click of distance.

I just had to click on “Add and Remove…” type the program you want to install and that’s it… no need to use browser, search for a app, and then download, and then install…

No in, ubuntu, just open “Add and Remove…” type, for instance Filezilla, check it for install and that’s it…

In Ubuntu I even can mount ntfs usb disk. And I can read and write… what do I need more :)

what you need more…

Now there is only one reason why I still have a Windows VM…. It’s because I’m a .Net developer and need I need Visual Studio and other tools… despite this in my home pc I just have Ubuntu.

How much it costs ubuntu… zero euro. Now everybody knows that vista ultimate is too expensive.

I’m even planning on migrate my work notebook into ubuntu and work with VM.

I definitely invite every one to do a test drive on Ubuntu just download VirtualBox and download Ubuntu and create a VM to test Ubuntu and I think every one will love it.

It’s fast…….

How to unlock a user in Vista

Pedro Rainho — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:01:21 GMT

Today my cat locked my Windows Vista password in my home pc. Don’t ask me how but the cat locked my password.

In this computer I only have two user one that is a user that belongs to the admin group and other user that belongs to users group.

So the question is, if you lock the only administrator user how do you unlock it???

There is various options some are payee and others are free. So today I found a tool named Trinity Rescue Kit (TRK) that solve my problem.

How???

First I had to download the TRK and the I burn it to the CD

Then I boot the cd after restarting the computer

Next I only had to write this in command prompt winpass –u MyUser (be careful because the user is case sensitive)

This magical command first presented me with a option to choose where is my windows installation drive, then presented me with some options and I choose unlock password, or something like this, and then reboot the computer again and the password was unlocked :)

It was all very fast.