[256] in athena10
Athena 10 on ashdown04 cluster machine: installation report and status
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Kenneth Arnold)
Sat Jun 21 17:34:13 2008
Message-ID: <485D73A1.6050602@mit.edu>
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 17:33:21 -0400
From: Kenneth Arnold <kcarnold@MIT.EDU>
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To: ashdown-webmaster@mit.edu, athena10@mit.edu
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I've installed Debathena on ashdown04, a cluster machine, as a
technology preview and an experiment. System is a P4 2.8 GHz with 512 MB
RAM and a 40 GB disk. Here's what I did:
* installed Ubuntu 8.04 from Alternate CD. 250 MB /boot, rest LVM: 20 GB
root, 1 GB swap
- I messed up a few things during the install, and the CD hit a read
error (looks fine!), but I coaxed it to still work. Hopefully everything
still works.
* set root password to cluster machine standard (maybe later we can just
use sudo, and rescue boot if network fails)
* removed CD entry from sources.list
* switched archive to ubuntu.media.mit.edu
* full upgrade with aptitude
* install debathena with the script
- printing: default
- kerb login: yes
- graphical workstation: yes
- aptitude complains about a missing debathena-evolution-data-server
dependency => cancel debathena-evolution-wrapper installation for now
- aptitude also wants to downgrade bash. ok.
- manually installed all the debathena base packages, and all
debathena-workstation deps except the evolution-data-server dep
* set PermitRootLogin to 'no' in /etc/ssh/sshd_config
* installed flashplugin-nonfree
* removed fash-user-switch-applet (which removes ubuntu-desktop)
* installed Thunderbird, so there's a mail client while Evolution is broken.
Logged in as me... user experience:
* the login screen is ugly. I know that's on the list already.
* evolution spat an error on load. I canceled because the wrapper
didn't install right; maybe that fixes it.
* Firefox 3: usual extension incompatibility report: fine. Add-ons
window pops up too, saying "3 new add-ons have been installed" (the
Ubuntu Firefox Modifications extension and the two English language
packs). Start page is "Welcome to Ubuntu 8.04 LTS"; should be changed to
an Athena page or nothing.
* my keyboard layout change (Dvorak) was not applied; not a big deal.
* With the Flash plugin, youtube works.
* PRINTING DOESN'T WORK to the ashdown printer. I can get around that
by using mit-lpq etc., but that shouldn't be necessary. And it doesn't
seem to be using the cluster info to get the printer.
* MATLAB starts really slowly. Might just be these machines' slow
network connection. Then the Java stuff crashes. Known issue?
* group ownership in my home directory is weird. (libuuid?) Though
it's weird on linerva too.
* I'm not listed as being in the 'mit' group (though on linerva I am).
* Zephyr works fine.
Questions:
* any issues running Firefox 2 and 3 on the same profile?
* should sudo be open to all console users?
* if we leave ekiga installed, should we preconfigure it for MIT voip?
* should fast user switching actually be enabled? I think it would just
encourage people to forget about their cluster machine logins even more.
* how do we get that option to log out after a certain time in
xscreensaver? (screensaver doesn't even lock screen by default now)
* do we want to do the LVM snapshot thing? snapshots work just fine on
this install.
* How should automatic updates work?
Modified configuration files:
/etc/fstab (should be automatic)
/etc/apt/sources.list
/etc/ssh/sshd_config (beyond the existing debathena diversion)
That's all for now,
-Ken
