Here’s a little different peice on Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara. Still want to wear that t-shirt after reading this?
Monthly Archives: July 2005
Fool Moon
After finishing my last book I switched genres a little and started in on the Dresden Files series. I read the first book a while ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. So, having an Amazon gift certificate burning a hole in my pocket I picked up books 2 through 5. Fool Moon picked up where the previous book left off, a little recapping along the way, and started in on a new case and some seriously nasty werewolves. These books are light, quick reads and I got through this one in about 2 1/2 hours spread out over a couple days. Lots of fun and I’ll be chewing through the rest of them, at least until Friday when my copy of Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince is supposed to show up.
My First Day Back At Work
Even though I’ve been working from home while I healed up, it still didn’t prepare me for how wiped out I’d be after a day at the office. This surgery took a little bit more out of me than I’d thought. I got home and was totally wiped out, so I did a little school work, configured Big Brother on the new server, and went to bed.
The New Server Is Up
I had a heck of a day getting the new server running. It seems that somewhere between BIND 9.2 and BIND 9.3 the syntax of the zone files changed enough that my 9.2 zones didn’t work. I ate up a bunch of time getting those cleaned up. Once that was done the rest went in easily, and it’s been running well ever since. There’s still configuration that needs to be done, but the basics are there. Mail’s flowing, the web server is (obviously) up and running, etc.
lm_sensors configuration
I’ve got the lm_sensors configuration working now. There’s a few lines that don’t appear to be connected, so they’ve been ignored. They would be the +5v, -5v, -12v, and VStdby lines. The only quirk was that the Venice core Athlon 64s change their clock speed and hence the VCore voltage depending upon the load on the CPU.
Here’s a link to my sensors.conf file. This is specifically set up for a Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939 motherboard with a Venice core Athlon 64 3000+. The VCore should be the only difference if you’re running another CPU, so check that. Oh, and my power supply fan is connected in to the SYS_FAN connector on the motherboard.
Post Captain
I just finished Post Captain, the second book in the Aubrey Maturin series by the late Patrick O’Brian. Captain Aubrey’s on the run from his creditors and dealing with the consequences of past actions. A good read, and I’ll be moving on down the series when I clean off some of the stack of other books I’ve got queued up.
The Last of the Server Parts
Variable Clock Speed
I just started configuring lm_sensors on the new Athlon 64 server and had a tough time getting VCore to stay out of alarm. It turns out that the processor runs at 1GHz when it’s idling, and cuts the VCore voltage to 1.1 volts. When there’s some load on the CPU it pops right back up to the normal 1.8GHz, consuming 1.4 volts. That’s what threw me off. So now the VCore line has a larger range. Sheesh, I’m so far behind on technology. The only other thing that’s bugging me is that the motherboard’s BIOS doesn’t show the power supply voltages, just an OK if they’re within some predefined range, so I can’t use them as a guide to set the rest of the lines.
London Bombings
Well, the Islamofascists have again demonstrated their courage by attacking women, children, and the elderly. This time it was in London. It’s a real shame as I’ve been through the Kings Cross station a few times and am slightly familiar with the area. Those people did nothing to deserve this and soon enough the West is going to get fed up with these subhumans. What’s going to happen when we “spare no method” to attack them as they gloat that they are doing?
It Lives!
The new server’s up and running. It turns out that it was a couple things. First, the DVD burner was bad. Once that was replaced the CDs passed Fedora‘s validation tests. I also ran Memtest86 and found that the brand new Corsair memory was bad. So I replaced it with a new pair and everything fired up and just plain worked. Fedora‘s installed and boy is this Athlon 64 a screamer. I’m working on configuring everything now and will be trying to do the cutover this weekend. For the time being it’s running on the side of my desk, but it’s been solid ever since I swapped the CD drive and the RAM.