Day: September 27, 2007

PatchTime
Last weekend I downloaded the latest patches for VMS directly from Diana, but for some reason, the files were corrupted and couldn’t be handled properly. Tonight I got them all via Aphrodite. In preparation of installing them, I made an image backup of the system disk. Of course, some files were locked for write so the latest updates will be missing – but these are all log files and these are not of interest on restore.
The most basic ones have been installed – within half an hour, including 2 reboots. The only problem is that the T4$BATCH queue doesn’t start. The current collection has been stopped on first reboot…. Well, not much lost there.
There are some more patches: DecWindows, the TCPIP stack and the printer control system (DPCS) have ECO’s and I downloaded them all – except for the latest DCPS because that one seems to be missing on the HP site.
I also will install the latest versions of development tools and languages so I’m up-to-date then. MySQL 5.1 is another possibility, I don’t know whether I have to retrieve a newer kit. For Python and related stuff, I’ll need one anyway. RdB? I have the kit, but the PHP module is missing; I might be able to use the Oracle extension when SQLServer is installed as well (which will be the case).
I may run out of memory so Diana will need some tuning. It’s needed anyway, even without these installations 🙂 Or I should get myself a new box – with more memory. There are other machines, these could be enabled – with a local system disk and limited functionality. We’ll see.
Another thing to watch is WordPress 2.3, just out. I’ll wait some time, it requires database updates and that is something to be checked before. Perhaps on the new MySQL version may require a rebuild of the extension, as done before. Or Jean-Francois must have one at hand.
Anyway, Diana seems to be happy – it appears faster than before the patches.
Suse troubles
Iona – running Suse10.2 – refuses to play audio CD. Without notice. Helix pops up when an audio CD is inserted, and disappears as soon as the CD is to be started. Even manual access causes the program to hide away -0 somewhere. The music can be imported, so I can play the CD but only after it has been copied to the harddisk. That is not what I expected.
Firefox has some bits hanging when stopped and the machine needs a reboot – logout alone is not enough. Even login as a different user doesn’t work.
Another annoying thing is that the box is really slow when importing music, and it looks like processes are swapped out of memory. Firefox didn’t do anything, at some time. So I stopped it – using the Gnome monitor (which consumes a huge deal of CPU as well: I found over 33%! )
Would 512Mb internal memopry really be too small for Suse to run?