Epson scanners on Linux systems

I’ve got a Epson Perfection 1260 Photo scanner. Fedora like other distributions such as OpenSuse are recognizing the device since a long long time. The back end chosen for the device is plustek. Unfortunately when using the default configuration one experience very strange effects with colours. The left and the right 50% of the picture have a colored background, even when scanning a empty page. I had this problem with OpenSUSE since years and still got it with Fedora 1x. ….Read More

Usability Fedora vs Windows

I’m writing this post sitting in a train, connected to the internet via UMTS. The device is a Huawai E220 HSDPA modem connected via USB. Guess who is the winner? Procedure to get the device running on Fedora (first time usage): Plug in the device on any USB port Enter the PIN in the pop-up Enjoy mobile Internet connection Steps: 3 Time: approx. 5sec. Procedure on Windows XP (first time usage): Decide on what USB port you will plug in ….Read More

Deploying RHEL as ESX guests – Kickstarting or using ESX templates?

Some time ago I asked my self the question if it is better to kickstart systems or working with ESX templates when deploying RHEL as ESX guests. I also had some discussions with friends working in the same industry. I tried it and came to the following conclusion: Kickstart the systems is the way to go. Pros: Kickstarted Systems are already up-to-date after installation. Proper SSH host keys. Using ESX templates ends up in having identical SSH host keys, from ….Read More

RHN Inter-Satellite-Sync is kind of tricky and picky

If you try to establish an ISS (Inter Satellite Sync) between two RHN Satellites, do not fully trust the documentation. A slave Satellite must be named by a hostname (IP is not enough) and must have an A and a PTR DNS record or have an /etc/hosts entry. Check it before restarting the satellite by issuing rhn-satellite restart. The check is simply done by entering gethostip rhn.example.com and getent hosts <IP-address> on the commandline. When Quoting the documentaion at Red ….Read More

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS released

End of April 2010, Ubuntu 10.04 was released. As always it is based on Debian’s Testing-Release. Canonical “stabilizes” the testing tree of Debian and adds its own look. This time, Ubuntu radically changed its look. From my point of view it looks ugly, very ugly. Strange colors, low contrasts in menus, orange icons in Nautilus… window buttons on the left side… At the end of the day an usability-horror. Under the hood Ubuntu is a very stable distribution with recent ….Read More

A brief test of RHEL 6 Beta 1

As promised yesterday, I publish the results of a brief test of RHEL6 Beta 1 and the most important findings. It is my point of view as a system guys daily business. If not stated, this overview is based on a default installation with no customization. General There are new package groups such asĀ  “Minimal” with 228 Packages and “Basic Server” with 523 Packages. “Basic Server” is the default installation, which means the default click trough installation compared to RHEL5 ….Read More

Roadmaps on the Red Hat Summit 2010 in Boston

Finally Red Hat disclosed the agenda of its summit in 2010. For more informations see http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/2010/agenda/. RHEL6? Tim Burke of Red Hat will talk about the new features of RHEL6. It sounds like the present, not the future. Does this mean I’m right with my guess that RHEL6 will be released end of June like I wrote in earlier blog article? Roadmaps Count how many times the word “Roadmap” appears in the agenda. It seems to get even more interesting ….Read More

Kernel questions about RHEL6, ESX support and experiences with F13a3

Still no official informations Red Hat is still refusing any questions about the features of RHEL 6 and its Linux Kernel. However: Since Vanilla Kernel 2.6.33 vmxnet3 and pvscsi is supported. Fedora 13 Alpha 3 is shipped with a derivate of Kernel 2.6.33. I still hope that Red Hat is switching to 2.6.33 or back-porting the VMWare code to its 2.6.32 derivative Kernel as known by RHEL 6 Alpha 3. Experiences with F13a3 so far Installing F13a3 on a ESX ….Read More