gregoa's blog

on monday I migrated tux (the debian server at my workplace) to a new machine (hp [0] proliant ml110 g5). & it was completely painless. what I did:

• install a base system on the new machine (with debian-40r5a-etchnhalf-amd64-netinst.iso) [1]. yes, this is etch:
  • the installer worked flawlessly to create a RAID1 over the two disks & to install grub for booting from / on RAID. very nice.
  • just a minimal system, no users, ...
• copy stuff over from the old machine: (most of) /etc (including /etc/passwd & friends), /home, & a bit more.
• get the package list from the old machine, install them on the new machine keeping the old config.
• a few minor tweaks.
• change the ip addresses on both machines & switch their physical positions.

yes, that's it.

after ~3 hours I now have:

• my first dual-core machine
• my first amd64 system
• my first box with an etchnhalf kernel
• a box that is completely bored :)
  from htop:

  1  [|                                        0.3%]     Tasks: 49 total, 1 running
  2  [|                                        1.0%]     Load average: 0.00 0.00 0.00 
  Mem[|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||442/1004MB]     Load: 0.00 
  Swp[                                     0/1976MB]     Uptime: 2 days, 12:01:18

I keep being impressed by how simple linux is, & how good debian & especially the debian installer works.

do I need to mention that the migration of the windows server (from nt 4.0 to windows 2003 on new hardware) is still not finished after 2 days of hard work?
to be honest: the windows box has more jobs than tux: domain controller, roaming profiles, file server, exchange, mssql, some library database, ... tux only runs exim4 + spamassassin + clamav + greylistd, squid, some scripts, & does a bit of iptables blocking & port forwarding.
but still ...
(& the old machine worked more or less fine with 96 MB RAM & a ~300 MHz CPU.)

[0]
because they are linux & debian friendly.

[1]
of course that can be avoided by just copying stuff over from the old machine, either via netcat & friends or by putting the old disks in the new machine. but in this case (1) the old box doesn't boot from CD (have I already mentioned it's an old box?), (2) the old one has SCSI & the new one SATA disks, (3) the old one was i386 & the new one (at least potentially) amd64.

• I have a new toy: notify-send.
• I need to pratice guitar playing more often.

so let's try to combine these points:

• install needed software: notification-daemon, libnotify-bin (contains notify-send).
• find an image.
• set up a cronjob.

cronjob (wrapped over several lines for better legibility):

0 17 * * * DISPLAY=:0.0 notify-send \
        -t 0 \
        -u critical \
        -h "int:x:1680" -h "int:y:0" \
        -i /home/gregoa/data/sound/trio\ infernal/triologo_square_border_transparent.png \
        "Trio Infernal says:" \
        "Heute schon Gitarre gespielt?"

(for details check man 1 notify-send)

result (at the top right corner of my screen):

& yes, this is not my only use case for notify-send :)