smr’s blog

Yes! I did it.
Full FC4 (without kde and gnome) on diskless thin client.
Using PXE, NFS and this help.

Rough Procedure -
- set the thin client to use pxe bootup.
- configure dhcp server to give ip and tftp server link
- configure tftp server to serve kernel and initrd image
- configure the initrd image to start network and mount root filesystem over nfs. optionally set home on nfs.
- install a filesystem you want to provide to the thinclient and publish it over nfs.

The available ram in the thin clients is just 90Mb (128 actually, but shared with onboard graphics). This is less and cause logs ot pagein/out. Upgrading the thinclients to 256Mb ram will make them just perfect. I will try to push it.

PS : Earlier they use to run using PXES. Its good but root over nfs using current method provides full OS thus works out better.

PS2: The image above is shown during the bootup. If you can send me another cartoon i can put it up. if i like it. anythign creative and original. shiben u there ?

in this post on Sysadmin’s blog Nir announces his resignation from sysadminship. (I assume) its because of his recent changeover to a researcher while writing a research paper last week and has less to do with new sysadmins appointment. nir shares a few thoughts over this issue in his 8 months old post.

I resigned sysadminship long back (one fine day). i didnt think about what will happen after be coz Nir was there. But now i do.

A paid sysadmin can never replace a voluntary (and talented) sysadmin.

For once i seriously considered joining a job of a sysadmin than that of a programmer. But factors like less pay hold me back. But that didnt matter much. Most important was still working under a jackass. I would love to take a job of sysadmin anytime, but only if i am the decision making authority. Anyway.. this thought process is over long back and i am out of it.

Its good that IIIT has appointed new sysadmins for more efficiency at server room work, but having a student sysadmin will always be of much more value. Things were so smooth in past 2 years, and i just cant expect them to be like this in future. i dont expect the appointed sysadmins will do anything more than what they are asked for. it sounds like end of creativity from serverroom. I fear the passiveness of serverroom. Before we(me+nir) joined as sysadmins, IIIT didnt even have control over DNS which was so trivial.

A few things which nir personally managed will halt without a student sysadmin taking them over -
* New Sysadmin’s site
* Sysadmin’s blog

i care. i dont want to care.

Hello Nir, It was great working with you.

OR was it 1st April trick on Sysadmin’s blog. Lets hope.

Raheja(goku), Upadhyay(au) and Bhargava(tanny) are here this weekend. local players Tarun(paranoid), Sanyam(Wicked_Sunny) , Vidit(fym) and me(dingad) joined. We got a good reason to play CS. Thanks to tanny for pushing it, otherwise we were too lazy. Thanks to ug2k3 guys for giving us systems in their labs.

It was nice playing CS after so long, almost a year. I was back into form with assault rifle.

[ My blogging frequency (in blogs per month) from May 04 to March 05 ]

The average of last 5 months is only 5 posts per month. Thats poor.

I want to blog more. Its my diary. my only diary. I started it to record my life and my thoughts. I don’t want to stop recording it. Then why am i sucking at blogging.

Have i ran out of thoughts / ideas ?
I fear so. I didnt use to be with blank mind like this ever before. I am no more able to make opinions. I have become a silent observer. No matter how things are moving around, they matter so less to me. Nothing hurts anymore, and nothings overwhelms me anymore. I wanted to be like this. But i fear it.

A growing readers list of this blog made me conscious. I can now no longer write any crap like i use to in old days when i started blogging. i use to blog about the age game i played, the work i did, the phone conversation i had and every damn thing. i had no readers. for more than half a year only a few close friends occasional read my blog. as my readers started increasing i started getting more conscious. and slowly my diary transformed into magazine. i started writing articles. i cared about expectations of my readers while writing. i forgot that this was a diary and missed to record last few months of my life.

But no more.
This is My blog-cum-diary. I don’t care who reads it, and what they like. Not any more. I am not going to address anyone in my posts anymore. they are for me. I can/will still write articles i think are of any importance or carries an idea.