kubuntu

Install Groupwise 8.0.1 client on Kubuntu 9.10 64 bit

While Novell supports Linux, it mostly supports SuSE, which uses rpm and not deb packages. But it's still fairly easy to install the Groupwise client on an Ubuntu based system.

First, you'll need some software to do this.

$ sudo apt-get install ia32-libs ia32-sun-java6-bin alien

Then download the client. After you download it, use alien to extract the contents

$ alien -t --veryverbose novell-groupwise-client-8.0.1-88138.i586.rpm

A little busy today

load average: 139.66, 112.91, 59.18

But not too busy to post this. The machine is still responding great.

top - 10:27:11 up 2 days, 3:02, 3 users, load average: 139.66, 112.91, 59.18
Tasks: 461 total, 6 running, 454 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
Cpu(s): 8.4%us, 10.1%sy, 44.1%ni, 36.6%id, 0.7%wa, 0.1%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 8077204k total, 7940096k used, 137108k free, 150324k buffers
Swap: 1911608k total, 139204k used, 1772404k free, 3818652k cached

My new laptop and the frustration of Windows

I'm typing this on the second laptop I've ever owned, and the first one that actually shows the color red on the screen. I purchased an IBM Thinkpad R51e on craigslist for $150.00. There's nothing really special about it. It's a very solid machine, has a 2.6 GHZ Pentium M with over a gig of RAM, a CDRW drive, and a 15" screen. It does have a 4200 RPM, 40 GB hard drive, but I can buy a 5400 RMB, 120 GB hard drive for less than $70.00 new.

Akonadi server process not registered at D-Bus

If you're using Kubuntu with KDE 4.2 and keep getting an error when akonadi starts up, which lists "Akonadi server process not registered at D-Bus" as the first error, try the following:

$ sudo aa-complain mysqld-akonadi
$ sudo /etc/init.d/apparmor reload

Kubuntu uses apparmor to block certain actions on the system. The new akonadi system KDE uses attempts one of these actions. The commands above simply tells apparmor to log the action rather than block it.

Then, use:

$ akonadictl stop

to stop the service, then

$ akonadictl start

KDE 4.2 so far

KDE 4.2 was released for Kubuntu on the 27th of January, 2009. This was a big deal because the 4.0 release, typically the "ready" release, was not so ready, and a bunch of nerdy types were not very happy about it. Being a software developer, I understand that a complete re-write, as 4.0 was, will have it's problems.

I use Kubuntu at work 10 hours a day/ 4 days a week, as well as at home, and I took the brave step of upgrading in a production environment, after testing at home first on a similar configuration.