[257] in athena10
Re: Athena 10 on ashdown04 cluster machine: installation report and
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Kenneth Arnold)
Sat Jun 21 17:46:31 2008
Message-ID: <485D7689.7020603@mit.edu>
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 17:45:45 -0400
From: Kenneth Arnold <kcarnold@MIT.EDU>
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To: Kenneth Arnold <kcarnold@mit.edu>
CC: ashdown-webmaster@mit.edu, athena10@mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <485D73A1.6050602@mit.edu>
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Sorry for the noise, but a few extra things came up:
* need to disable local root login
* the graphical logout window was really slow to come up
* should we disable network manager?
* sshd? bluetooth? hardware detection? other unnecessary stuff? I'll go
through the installed packages list more carefully later.
-Ken
Kenneth Arnold wrote:
> 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
>
