My dad's main computer is an Athlon XP 1400 (I think) and is about 5 years old now. This past year it has been very flaky, resetting itself while you're using programs, crashing etc... I looked at it a few times but tried to avoid formatting as much as I can because I really really hate doing that. It's 3-4 hour job backing up their files, format, install windows, a billion updates and reboots, reinstall all the programs again, all their files, printer, cameras, etc...

At one point we realized the motherboard was a bit loose and could move around. There was also a screw behind the motherboard! If you give the computer a knock it would reboot. I got that fixed, but the computer was still flaky. Last resort is to format. My dad decided to just go out and buy a brand new computer with Vista. We went through a bit of hell getting a wireless card working but were successful in the end. I copied 2.7 GB of data from the old computer onto it,then took the old computer home. It will become my sister's computer in her bedroom.

I'm going to try a bit of an experiment with her. When she gets it back, it will have Kubuntu linux on it. I use Ubuntu at home, the first linux distribution that shocked me because of how usable it was out of the box. Ubuntu uses Gnome which is a bit minimalistic compared to KDE.. so I decided she'll get Kubuntu. I'll load it up with Firefox, an MSN Messenger client, Open Office, Flash 9 plugin, Sun Java 6 JRE, and support to access the windows printer attached to the new computer. I think she'll find it very usable, and maybe my dad will give it a try too. I hope he will realize that linux isn't what he thinks it is. He doesn't realize that after 10 years it has become so usable now that even he could use it. Even if it was usable, he would rather Windows anyway.

Putting linux on my sister's computer will almost guarantee I'll never hear from her about it again. There won't be viruses, worms, she can't really screw it up because she'll use a normal user account, etc... If she does have a problem, it will probably be a hardware problem.

Once every week or two I sit down and spend maybe 3-4 hours swearing at my computer following various walk-throughs of setting up OpenLDAP + Samba + PAM, and not succeeding. I think I've been at it for 6 months now? Each time I try, I format the computer and do a fresh install of Ubuntu Server (which takes only a few minutes).

I can't believe how much bullshit you have to install, configure, and debug to get it working. I swear not one place on the internet has a working article. The closest I was to a working system was with this article. I had a working OpenLDAP server hooked up to Samba. I used special tools to create accounts that ended up in both Samba and OpenLDAP. I had a few problems though. I could not get PAM working (for linux to authenticate with OpenLDAP) and had some cryptic error. Google lead me to think it has something to do with certificates, which the article never mentions. I created a public share and that worked well. I think I was even able to access a home directory share for an OpenLDAP account. I could not access that share when in Windows though, even with the correct credentials.

All this bullshit makes me want to buy a Windows server just to have a central place for user and program accounts. However, I'm not sure if that solution will work with the apps I want to use which support LDAP. Active Directory is not LDAP. So I'm screwed? I have to use OpenLDAP? Or.. just maintain separate user accounts in every program.

Update : IT WORKS!!! After all these months, too many formats to count, and lots of cursing.. it works perfectly now! I spent my entire Saturday screwing with it and formatting a couple more times. I have tons of notes so if I have to format again, I think I'll be able to get it working fairly easily.

Now I can create an account that ends up going into OpenLDAP, and Samba. I can log into the computer using the LDAP account, it has a home folder, I have private home folder shares and a public share. The only problem left is when I reboot it seems some things that require authentication try to go to the LDAP server before it it started. It takes over 10 minutes before the computer gives up and becomes usable. I'm going to see if I can tweak the timeout periods and maybe even make OpenLDAP start as one of the first service.

So.. all that's left to do on this server is to set up BIND to be a DNS server for my internal LAN. One day I may look into setting up CUPS to make it a print server. I might also look into setting it up as VPN server. Those are not priorities at the moment so I will move onto server #2. I'm probably going to buy Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 for that machine because two of the programs I want to put on there won't run on anything but RHEL. It sucks, but for what the programs do, the $350 US fee isn't that bad.

I am so aggravated that almost ALL the software I want to try out will only work on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, or SUSE Enterprise Linux. I've tried installing some on other distros but they do not work. Some software even checks which version of the distro you are using and won't let you install if it's not the right one. I wonder if this is because they depend on specific libraries being installed, in specific locations? There's a free CentOS distro which is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but even that won't work for some of the software I want.

I want some of this software so much that I might be willing to shell out $350 US for RHEL. Before I do that I need to investigate my other options. So far there doesn't seem to be many other good options. The stuff I want needs RHEL.

After installing an OS on the second server for the first time I put the Sun Java Enterprise Systems CD in the drive and started to install the application server. I realized it was about to install version 8.1 which is from 2005 and uses Java 1.4. I want version 9.0 which uses Java 1.5 so went looking. I downloaded a setup program just for the application server, not a whole CD. I think this is going to let me install regardless of which distribution of Linux I use, like the NetBeans installer.

Anyway while downloading it, I started to look into Sun's collaboration suite which includes mail server, webmail client, calendar server, and possibly more. A while back I was dead-set on using this but it turns out the collaboration suite is not part of the Java Enterprise System, meaning it's not free. That was a bit dissapointing since almost everything else Sun has is now free for development and deployment. I decided not to use it.

While waiting for the first download to complete I started reading news. I found out the following:

• Java 1.6 has been finalized and is about to be officially released, if it hasn't already. My first thought was "What?! Java 1.5 is so new though".. I thought this because I don't know many/any people who have left 1.4 yet and some who are still using 1.3! These people are behind the times because 1.5 has been in the works since 2003 and was released in 2004. It has been out there for over 2 years and now 1.6 is out. That's great news. The language didn't get major changes like 1.5 did (generics, EJB 3.0 spec, etc), but there were a ton of new features added. For example, you can now write apps that use the system tray in whichever OS you're using. Swing is even faster than before.. and well I forget what else. I looked at the list and it seemed like over 100 new features. I'm going to continue with 1.5 for a while and will look at 1.6 more in 2007.
• Unbuntu and Sun are working together. Ubuntu is now certified for use on Sun's line of Opteron x86 servers and it is Sun's preferred linux distribution. That's great because for desktop use it's my favorite. I can't use some of Sun's server software on it though which sucks.
• Ubuntu is going to ship with Sun's application server in future releases!! They are shipping Glassfish, the open source version of Sun Application Server 9.0 Platform Edition. I believe Glassfish is where all the development happens (bleeding edge) and once and a while (once a year?) Sun takes a snapshot and makes it Sun Application Server. This is awesome news! I wonder what other Sun software will run on Ubuntu in the future? Probably all of it. That means I can switch from OpenSUSE to Ubuntu on my servers at some point. I like SUSE's yast system, but don't like a number of other things. For example, the update system shows me all updates for everything including software I don't have. I don't know which of the 200 updates I should be checking. Also when I tell it to install updates, it fails to even start because of libzypp? I don't like SUSE's default layout for Gnome, and how I'm forced to have all kinds of software I don't want on a server. There's no server edition of OpenSUSE.

I feel like I did when I was around 12-14 where every day I was discovering more new and exciting things about programing and computers. Anyway I really need to get back to my SCJP practice exams. I haven't touched it for a few days now. It's kinda hard sitting through 2.5 - 3 hour practice exams several times a week.

Today I decided to get back to the servers I bought in the summer. After numerous failed attempts at getting ANY LDAP server software working and client PC's authenticating against it, I put the project on hold for a few months and focused on the SCJP exam. After many many formats I learned a lot about Sun Directory Server 5.2. It's an old Netscape product written in C which Sun rebranded. I think RedHat/Fedora have their own rebranded version of the same product. Sun says it runs on Windows servers, Red Hat Enterprise, SUSE Enterprise and Solaris. Solaris is the only free OS of the four so it was the first OS I tried the directory server on. My hardware wasn't supported and I don't know any of the UNIX commands so I dumped Solaris. I'm using OpenSUSE now. I tried installing with no GUI (gnome or kde) and the directory server won't install properly (library dependancies or something). It will work with OpenSUSE 10.1 and Gnome.

Once I had a working LDAP server and config tool (Sun Administration Console), I wanted to configure PAM so the server could authenticate users against it. I used SUSE's graphical config tool and everything I tried failed. The screens kept talking about OpenLDAP (a different product) and didn't give me many options to configure. When I input what appeared to be correct information it said stuff like "Couldn't connect to server", "feature not supported" etc.. it let me save though. I tried logging in using an LDAP account and it didn't work. I rebooted and it still didn't work. Now I can't even open the settings screen for PAM because it can't connect to the LDAP server. I spent hours on google learning about ldap.conf, PAM, Sun App Server etc.. some places point to Sun's manual. Sun's manual tells you everything you need if you're using Solaris, or tells you to consult your OS's manual if you're using anything else. What an effing head ache. I wonder if I'm going to need to configure certificates, encryption, etc... to get it working. All the sites I went to showed very involved configurations. It's like you need special training to set up LDAP.

It made me think I shouldn't have spent $1300 on the two server computers (total) and should have bought one Sun server complete with Solaris and all the server software pre-installed :) Too bad they are all rackmount servers.. I don't want to buy a $2500 cabinet just for 2 servers.

I need a directory server so I can enable identity management for web services, portal server, and account authentication for various systems I'm installing on the servers. I want central administration of accounts for all my computers too (3 linux, 2 windows). I can't do ANYTHING until I have this effing thing working and I've been on/off it for months. If anyone thinks they can help please email me! If you can come into my computer and make it work, I'll pay you!

I wonder if I had used Red Hat Enterprise or SUSE Enterprise, everything might be super simple. They might have config tools and scripts already made for Sun's software.