spinning thoughts spinning - linux category

Server change

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 16:26:46 GMT

If there is something that I hate, it is changing servers. However the old one was starting the crumble under the pressure. When I installed it 4 years ago it was based on what I needed then using Slackware as the distro of choice.

The server then needed to perform quite some tasks like being the router for the pc's here, webserver and application server (apache 1 and tomcat), dns server, firewall, mail server and samba. 4 Years ago setting everything up was not fun but once done, I was pleased :). Maintaining it proved to be not too much fun either. As my interests changed I wanted to spend less time fiddling and more time just using. Slackware stopped being developed for some time and I found myself more and more hacking, debugging and configuring software.

4 Years ago an ADSL connection meant a modem with a connection for 1 pc, so the server really needed to work as gateway and router. Nowadays we have a Thomson ST780 router that does just about everything I need, it routes, it has a dhcp server, it's an AP and it has a firewall. It even has two VOIP ports. Basically the old Swallow was getting swamped with what I wanted and it was getting more and more trouble maintaining it. Enter the Hawk.

Kitten's desktop had to be replaced because she needed more CPU power and memory. So her old motherboard and memory came available. A nice AMD xp1800+ athlon and 1gig of memory. I also had a nice 80gig harddisk handy.
Nowadays I use Ubuntu on my desktop and laptop, all software well configured and using apt it practically maintains itself. Ubuntu is based on Debian, so I decided to use Debian for the hawk, installing was a breeze. Just about all the software went on it without any problems. The biggest problems I had was with the mail software and tomcat. It took me quite some reading and trying to get it setup the way I wanted, I am still not happy with it, but for now it works.
Tomcat was another story. The way the debian packagers have set that up defeats my understanding completely. So I decided to install the normal package from tomcat.apache.org.

Using the speedtouch's interface all external connections are routed to the Hawk and I don't have to do a thing.

Again I am pleased.

gaim 502 connect error

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 07:15:00 GMT

how to fix it

on syncing

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 09:11:00 GMT

Syncing a palm pda with a linux environment was/is a piece of cake. using pilot-link programs and the evolution plugins, all part of a standard gnome environment, you're completely set. With newer palms like the lifedrive, the T5 and the TX you can use "drive mode" to change the palm into an usb drive.

This is not yet the situation with pocket pc. I found 1 project working on syncing:

SynCE-Wiki - SynCE-Wiki

It kinda works, but not in the way I would like. Contacts work, agenda doesn't. So I decided to see if I could set up something that would work for me.
You will find a lot of blogs and pages that deal with this. So apparently this is not as clearcut as one might think.

Let's begin with defining what I want.

Contacts

This one should be very simple. I want a single place where I store my contacts and phone numbers. Now here is a typical place where for example funambol might be great. I would love to store all this stuff in an ldap tree. Evolution works great with an ldap tree for information. Let's hope funambol does too.
Regarding contacts I would love to sync my phone, my ppc and evolution.

calendar

This is for me the most interested and important thing. Syncing the ppc, evolution, outlook (at the office) and optionally google. Preferably this should be done live. Meaning the minute I open one of them the information is as uptodate as possible. This should be possible with google and evolution. The outlook is behind firewalls and such and not under my control. I cannot add or change settings in the exchange server. At the same all the appointments that get into exchange are either there because I put them there (using outlook) or because of a meeting request that I have to approve. So allthough that will not be too hard to work around. I wonder if funambol will be of assistence here.