openSUSE 11.0

I like to try different operating systems and distros all the time and this time it was openSUSE 11.0. This is my second go round with 11.0 the first time I installed it but that was about it. This time I am going to spend a little more time with it and I'll share my experience as I go.

I just downloaded and used the Mini CD so I could do a network install. The install was straight forward and anyone that has installed an OS before should be able to easily get it up and running.

The two snags I did run into were as follows.

There is a download phase of the install where it couldn't download files, I had to ctrl-alt-f2, issue an ifdown eth0, ifup eth0, and then ctrl-alt-f7 to get back to the gui. From there I just told it to retry and off it went.

The other snag was on the initial online update configure screen, when I selected configure now, it timed out connecting to the server, but did allow me to skip this step and proceed.

All in all, I give my install experience a thumbs up.

openSUSE

FreeBSD and Ports

If you're just getting around to using FreeBSD and you are ready to start using ports, here is a link you can use to get yourself up and running quickly.

Using the Ports Collection

PXE boot across subnet

If you use Cisco gear and find yourself needing to PXE boot across subnets you can use the following command.

On the router interface or vlan:
ip helper-address 10.10.10.10 <-- enter ip address of server here

Unicycling robot

This is yet another take on the robot.

Murata's Unicycling Robot

Wireshark quick tip #2

I've given an example of doing a quick and dirty trace from a remote box or cli using the tshark command, but that can often present you with a trace that is far to big with far to much information in it.

If you know the IP address of the host you are looking for ahead of time you can use the following example to capture only traffic destined to or from that host.

"tshark -i eth0 -f "host ip_addr" -w filename.cap"

Enjoy.