Tellico from http://www.periapsis.org/tellico/ is the best option that I found. Using it I started to catalog all my books [allowes you to fetch all the data from amazon/library of congress/etc] based on ISBN numbers, titles/etc. You can easily add/remove/edit fields for your collection, thus expanding based on the premade templates, which include everything from music, movies, books to coins.
The only thing I'd love more about it would be a windows version that could use the same databases.
We have about 30 or so dell servers, and 300 or so dell workstations, plus we're a part of a much bigger dell customer [a big.edu], I guess that's why we get quite a decent support. Not to mention that if anything goes wrong, one phone call to the regional sales rep gets things moving very fast.
It's all about how much money you spend, you want to spend, and how often you buy. If you buy a few hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment from say IBM, Sun, etc, the tech support will be excellent [I still find IBM's support to top all others]. Dell is not bad when you're also a bigger spender.
oddly enough, we tried to purchase one in mid/late November. At the end of January, we decided to cancel the order, because of this delay. It took us a week to cancel it, with the sales reps calling 'are you sure you want to cancel it?'.
As soon as we tried to cancel, the first response was 'the parts will be here in 4 days!'. The same afternoon 'Ohh, the parts just came in!'. Whatever. We ordered a dell, with better specs for the same price [no wonder, it was two months later], and it came in two weeks later.
I haven't tested reiserfs4, but recently I've been trying to figure out which iSCSI initiator is best for my purposes. I've used iozone for the benchmarks, and the results are at http://staff.vbi.vt.edu/dom/iscsi/testing
Pretty graphs would help, and eventually I'll get them finished.
Recently I've been doing some benchmarks to test iSCSI initiators on linux. So far [until 2.6.15], XFS is the only filesystem that got damaged after some kernel panics. On 2.6.15 I've damaged JFS almost everytime I got a kernel panic, very frigthening.
I think we need to clarify something, because it seems that majority of the geek slashdot users have the same baffled look on their faces as I do:
1) 3 individual linux administrators were put to a test. Each one had 5 years of experience. 2) Each one of them decided to upgrade glibc:
2a) one decided to do it from scratch, "from GNU site" [I assume that meant compiling it] 2b) second went to upgrade using packages for a new version of suse, and only that 2c) third did something similar to the second one.
Now, call me crazy, but somehow points #1 and 2a/b/c do not match up. Nobody with that much experience should ever consider the solutions taken by those three people. Especially 2a - nobody in their right mind would ever consider that. It's just way too risky. That's why I'm wondering - were they asked to go that route? Where they given instructions to go beyond of what the vendor supports?
Considering that it is mentioned that a new version of suse was available, why nobody decided to upgrade the entire distribution?
You may be right, the ability to perfom #2a is something that wouldn't be possible in the windows world, thus eliminating the possible problems it may cause. However, something still doesn't add up. Those admins should have never attempted those routes.
Let's clarify something here. First, it's not the 'real' mounting. The filesystem will be available only to kde apps, not everything else. Second, you can use the same method for ftp/rsync/samba. Instead of using 'fish', you use 'ftp', 'smb', and so on.
Not to mention the quickie acronyms. Type 'gg:whatever' in that alt+f2 dialog, or any konqueror, and you'll be taken to google. Same thing for imdb, fm [freshmeat], etc.
On a semi related note, we actually have an 'IT Production Lead' position opened, which a person with your experience and qualifications would be possibly interested.
When it comes to the entry/mid level sys admins, I'm not sure what the cause for lack of interest is. Whether it's a tad too specific job description [I'm starting to think it should be trimmed down], this area [not exactly the world's center for technology], or the timing [holidays, end of the year, snow, full moon, etc].
We're hiring:) jobs.vt.edu [ or https://www.vbi.vt.edu/careers ]. I'm looking for people with roughly that amount of experience: enough to get them started, and the rest will be learning on the job.
Regarding that internship/college dillema, my usual advice is: work study and/or bugging the college's network admins to help them, even if it means doing it for free. If you're willing enough, you can get great experience, right where you study.
"How do you reset the root password on a server when you don't know the current root password?" That's a trick question. A smart interviewer would never acknowledge the need to do this. He always remembers his password. -
No, it's not a trick question. The question never mentions 'your root password'. When you work with multiple admins, stuff that's been left by your predecessors and never documented - that's when those skills come in handy.
However, I agree with you on the rest of your comments. I prefer generic questions that don't have 'I can google it in less than 30 seconds' answer, yet that get more out of the person who is being interviewed. Even something as simple as 'tell me about your SAN or NAS experience at the last job' would be more interesting than 'what's the partition type for linux swap' [that was an actual RHCE exam question. to actually make it worse, it was multiple choice, 82, 83, and a couple others. That's when you begin to doubt yourself]
Uhmm, how is your lack of experience something that should be remedied by your potential employer?
See, today not many companies are interested in doing things the old way: taking in young people, investing tons of money in training, and keeping those people around for life. Why? People no longer are interested in working for one company for life.
Now, if you want to get experience in IT, before you get 'real world' jobs, here's a simple advice: work study and internships. Do them as much as you can. Heck, volunteer to do something in that field. Work on projects in your free time. Run some errands for the college network admins, and they'll let you sweep the floor in the server room. Eventually, you will work your way up, and by the time you graduate - you will have a lot of experience AND a degree.
In terms of doing work, let me be frank. The theory behind technologies you learn in the class room, and the actual real world implementation of them, working with people on random projects - those things often differ. At this point you're questioning the reasoning behind 'needs to have 2 years of unix experience'. Work for 4 years, and you will be putting the same thing on job descriptions for your junior admins.
Few weeks ago, I didn't think I would agree with you. However, when we opened up 3 sys admin positions [mostly linux oriented, entry/mid experience], I was stumped by the low amount of interest. Sure, we're not in the silicon valley [virginia tech], but I was expecting to see a few more applicants. As it stands, I'm highly discouraged...
This summer I interned at a national lab and part of the requirements of the internship was creation of a scientific research style poster highlighting what I did. The people in charge of the posters were of the belief that there were only two correct tools for creating a poster: MS Powerpoint and Adobe Acrobat.
I suggest you try to deal with posters created with other tools. It's less fun than it sounds like it. PDFs have their share of problems [at least on hp designjets], and PowerPoint is even worse [forget about correct printing in windows powerpoint, while the presentation was created/modified on a mac powerpoint, same version].
Uhmm, most likely they do use ups systems. Ones that reside outside of the racks. See, not everybody bothers with separate ups for each individual server, that's just silly. The breakers that got tripped were most likely between the pdu's and the racks.
There are a few differences between NFS and this. First, with NFS you are aware about its limitations and shortcomings right from the start. Nobody hides that. Second, you can still restrict NFS share to be read only. Third, I don't use arkeia, but after quickly glancing at the exploit page, it seems to indicate that there is no way to enable authentication for this.
An irc server being a basic server app? somehow I don't think that will be included anytime soon. pgsql could be a nice addition, but squid/socks/irc is a bit too much.
Gnucash may be nifty, but try having a wide range of accounts in it, including your 401k/403b, credit cards, investment, and so on - and have the ability to import all of it automagically from your financial institution.
Getting the degree won't matter without much experience; however, it's important to get you past the HR folks. Now, on top of that, without much experience, you won't get far either. Catch-22 it would seem.
Well, there is a solution: get work experience while you're getting your degree. Go slave and be a grunt for the CS department. Offer to work for free. Do whatever it takes to get on board with some decent work study program where eventually you can get your hands on what you like. Start small, do it for free or for peanuts, be a grunt. It will be painful at first, but eventually you will get to work on better things, and you will have something on your resume the day you graduate. You will have an edge over all the other folks who at your age may: a) have degree and no experience, b) have experience but no degree. Trust me, it worked for me, and it will work for you.
Slashdot Mirror
Ever heard of the 'workstation' concept?
Same thing on opera 8.5x on linux
Tellico from http://www.periapsis.org/tellico/ is the best option that I found. Using it I started to catalog all my books [allowes you to fetch all the data from amazon/library of congress/etc] based on ISBN numbers, titles/etc. You can easily add/remove/edit fields for your collection, thus expanding based on the premade templates, which include everything from music, movies, books to coins.
The only thing I'd love more about it would be a windows version that could use the same databases.
We have about 30 or so dell servers, and 300 or so dell workstations, plus we're a part of a much bigger dell customer [a big .edu], I guess that's why we get quite a decent support. Not to mention that if anything goes wrong, one phone call to the regional sales rep gets things moving very fast.
It's all about how much money you spend, you want to spend, and how often you buy. If you buy a few hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment from say IBM, Sun, etc, the tech support will be excellent [I still find IBM's support to top all others]. Dell is not bad when you're also a bigger spender.
oddly enough, we tried to purchase one in mid/late November. At the end of January, we decided to cancel the order, because of this delay. It took us a week to cancel it, with the sales reps calling 'are you sure you want to cancel it?'.
As soon as we tried to cancel, the first response was 'the parts will be here in 4 days!'. The same afternoon 'Ohh, the parts just came in!'. Whatever. We ordered a dell, with better specs for the same price [no wonder, it was two months later], and it came in two weeks later.
Thanks, but no thanks.
So which category does this one fit into: http://dogcow.atspace.com/IMG_8264.html ? creative or tasteful...
I haven't tested reiserfs4, but recently I've been trying to figure out which iSCSI initiator is best for my purposes. I've used iozone for the benchmarks, and the results are at http://staff.vbi.vt.edu/dom/iscsi/testing
Pretty graphs would help, and eventually I'll get them finished.
Recently I've been doing some benchmarks to test iSCSI initiators on linux. So far [until 2.6.15], XFS is the only filesystem that got damaged after some kernel panics. On 2.6.15 I've damaged JFS almost everytime I got a kernel panic, very frigthening.
Anyway, for anybody interested, the results are at: http://staff.vbi.vt.edu/dom/iscsi/testing
I think we need to clarify something, because it seems that majority of the geek slashdot users have the same baffled look on their faces as I do:
1) 3 individual linux administrators were put to a test. Each one had 5 years of experience.
2) Each one of them decided to upgrade glibc:
2a) one decided to do it from scratch, "from GNU site" [I assume that meant compiling it]
2b) second went to upgrade using packages for a new version of suse, and only that
2c) third did something similar to the second one.
Now, call me crazy, but somehow points #1 and 2a/b/c do not match up. Nobody with that much experience should ever consider the solutions taken by those three people. Especially 2a - nobody in their right mind would ever consider that. It's just way too risky. That's why I'm wondering - were they asked to go that route? Where they given instructions to go beyond of what the vendor supports?
Considering that it is mentioned that a new version of suse was available, why nobody decided to upgrade the entire distribution?
You may be right, the ability to perfom #2a is something that wouldn't be possible in the windows world, thus eliminating the possible problems it may cause. However, something still doesn't add up. Those admins should have never attempted those routes.
other than that, interesting paper.
From a purely technical point of view, I was mostly interested in seeing the following question [and thread] addressed:
8 949&cid=14084692
http://interviews.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=16
Let's clarify something here. First, it's not the 'real' mounting. The filesystem will be available only to kde apps, not everything else. Second, you can use the same method for ftp/rsync/samba. Instead of using 'fish', you use 'ftp', 'smb', and so on.
Not to mention the quickie acronyms. Type 'gg:whatever' in that alt+f2 dialog, or any konqueror, and you'll be taken to google. Same thing for imdb, fm [freshmeat], etc.
On a semi related note, we actually have an 'IT Production Lead' position opened, which a person with your experience and qualifications would be possibly interested.
When it comes to the entry/mid level sys admins, I'm not sure what the cause for lack of interest is. Whether it's a tad too specific job description [I'm starting to think it should be trimmed down], this area [not exactly the world's center for technology], or the timing [holidays, end of the year, snow, full moon, etc].
You may find more at https://www.vbi.vt.edu/careers
We're hiring :) jobs.vt.edu [ or https://www.vbi.vt.edu/careers ]. I'm looking for people with roughly that amount of experience: enough to get them started, and the rest will be learning on the job.
Regarding that internship/college dillema, my usual advice is: work study and/or bugging the college's network admins to help them, even if it means doing it for free. If you're willing enough, you can get great experience, right where you study.
"How do you reset the root password on a server when you don't know the current root password?"
That's a trick question. A smart interviewer would never acknowledge the need to do this. He always remembers his password.
-
No, it's not a trick question. The question never mentions 'your root password'. When you work with multiple admins, stuff that's been left by your predecessors and never documented - that's when those skills come in handy.
However, I agree with you on the rest of your comments. I prefer generic questions that don't have 'I can google it in less than 30 seconds' answer, yet that get more out of the person who is being interviewed. Even something as simple as 'tell me about your SAN or NAS experience at the last job' would be more interesting than 'what's the partition type for linux swap' [that was an actual RHCE exam question. to actually make it worse, it was multiple choice, 82, 83, and a couple others. That's when you begin to doubt yourself]
Uhmm, how is your lack of experience something that should be remedied by your potential employer?
See, today not many companies are interested in doing things the old way: taking in young people, investing tons of money in training, and keeping those people around for life. Why? People no longer are interested in working for one company for life.
Now, if you want to get experience in IT, before you get 'real world' jobs, here's a simple advice: work study and internships. Do them as much as you can. Heck, volunteer to do something in that field. Work on projects in your free time. Run some errands for the college network admins, and they'll let you sweep the floor in the server room. Eventually, you will work your way up, and by the time you graduate - you will have a lot of experience AND a degree.
In terms of doing work, let me be frank. The theory behind technologies you learn in the class room, and the actual real world implementation of them, working with people on random projects - those things often differ. At this point you're questioning the reasoning behind 'needs to have 2 years of unix experience'. Work for 4 years, and you will be putting the same thing on job descriptions for your junior admins.
Few weeks ago, I didn't think I would agree with you. However, when we opened up 3 sys admin positions [mostly linux oriented, entry/mid experience], I was stumped by the low amount of interest. Sure, we're not in the silicon valley [virginia tech], but I was expecting to see a few more applicants. As it stands, I'm highly discouraged...
This summer I interned at a national lab and part of the requirements of the internship was creation of a scientific research style poster highlighting what I did. The people in charge of the posters were of the belief that there were only two correct tools for creating a poster: MS Powerpoint and Adobe Acrobat.
I suggest you try to deal with posters created with other tools. It's less fun than it sounds like it. PDFs have their share of problems [at least on hp designjets], and PowerPoint is even worse [forget about correct printing in windows powerpoint, while the presentation was created/modified on a mac powerpoint, same version].
Uhmm, most likely they do use ups systems. Ones that reside outside of the racks. See, not everybody bothers with separate ups for each individual server, that's just silly. The breakers that got tripped were most likely between the pdu's and the racks.
There are a few differences between NFS and this. First, with NFS you are aware about its limitations and shortcomings right from the start. Nobody hides that. Second, you can still restrict NFS share to be read only. Third, I don't use arkeia, but after quickly glancing at the exploit page, it seems to indicate that there is no way to enable authentication for this.
An irc server being a basic server app? somehow I don't think that will be included anytime soon. pgsql could be a nice addition, but squid/socks/irc is a bit too much.
The default kernel is 2.4.29, which includes similar support for sata drives as 2.6.10. Simply boot to 'sata.i' for the installer.
Gnucash may be nifty, but try having a wide range of accounts in it, including your 401k/403b, credit cards, investment, and so on - and have the ability to import all of it automagically from your financial institution.
Getting the degree won't matter without much experience; however, it's important to get you past the HR folks. Now, on top of that, without much experience, you won't get far either. Catch-22 it would seem.
Well, there is a solution: get work experience while you're getting your degree. Go slave and be a grunt for the CS department. Offer to work for free. Do whatever it takes to get on board with some decent work study program where eventually you can get your hands on what you like. Start small, do it for free or for peanuts, be a grunt. It will be painful at first, but eventually you will get to work on better things, and you will have something on your resume the day you graduate. You will have an edge over all the other folks who at your age may: a) have degree and no experience, b) have experience but no degree. Trust me, it worked for me, and it will work for you.