Ubuntu

NetworkManager DNS

By relaying DNS queries to local dnsmasq instances, debugging DNS servers in newer Ubuntu releases is no longer strictly file-based.

Ubuntu Upgrade over IPv6

Even if there are already IPv6-enabled mirrors, that help to maintain an IPv6-only Ubuntu installation, it’s a little tricky to apply a release upgrade.

Java 7 for Ubuntu

Ubuntu announced to discontinue packaging of Sun/Oracle’s Java for Ubuntu, because Oracle changed the licensing.

Please be careful with upgrades on these packages, since it may drop your Java installation on the system, not only the browser plug-in.

iBook G4 Upgrade to Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

Upgrading all the gear to the newest Ubuntu release also includes Apple’s iBook. It took some time, but was in the end straightforward. Only 2 issues are currently worth mentioning, one about chvt, the other about Gnome Keyring.

Reduce Kernel Messages in rsyslogd

In the standard rsyslog setup of Ubuntu a kernel message goes to 3 log files (syslog, messages and kern.log), i.e. running LOG targets in your firewall setup can really hog your /var/log volume.

I decided to simply discard the kernel messages after logging them to kern.log.

iBook running Ubuntu Karmic Koala

A few days ago I managed to connect a new power adapter to the iBook G4 to reanimate it after more than a year of deep freeze.

I soon realized that the installed MacOS is definitely out-of-date including many of the applications (e.g. Safari, Firefox, iPhoto).

Since an upgrade would not only cost money, but the latest MacOS is no longer available for this architecture, I downloaded the unofficial Ubuntu PPC release.