I make use of the sourceforge modules project which allows on the fly changes to your enviroment, specifically to run different versions of software etc.
It’s the mainstay of HPC centers.
http://modules.sourceforge.net/
I discovered a problem compiling Modules under TCL 8.4.13 with the packages in CentOS 5.3. The modules documentation speaks about version 8.3 or later. I downloaded the latest 8.3 release which was 8.3.5.
Installation of TCL was simple:
Extracted the tar file to /opt/shared/tcl/8.3.5
./configure –prefix=/opt/shared/tcl/8.3.5
make
make install
Installation of Modules
Downloaded the latest tarball for modules. Extracted into /opt/share/Modules
./configure –prefix=/opt/shared/Modules/ –with-tcl=/opt/shared/tcl/8.3.5/lib/ –with-tcl-inc=/opt/shared/tcl/8.3.5/include/ –without-tclx –without-x
make
make install
Next the TCL you compiled needs to be added to the ld library path.
vi /etc/ld.so.conf/tcl.conf
Inside tcl.conf:
/opt/shared/tcl/8.3.5/lib/
Finally run ldconfig as root.
Now you will be able to run the modulecmd command.
I bought a Linksys WAG325N a while ago to replace the crappy, piece of shit Netgear router I had. The new linksys one came off Catchoftheday.com.au for $50 which is damn cheap.
So it’s been working great for quite a while. My iPhone, laptops, desktops all work perfectly on it.
About 2 months ago I purchased a Xbox360. My mate in the UK has one as well, so I decided to give the voice chat stuff a try.
Turns out that I could hear him, but he couldn’t hear me. After trawling the internet for a reason and reading quite a number of FAQs on the Xbox site, I came to the conclusion the problem was on my router.
Specifically Xbox live is very sensitive to NAT. When acronyms like NAT, DNAT, UPNP get thrown around, you are in trouble.
The Xbox has a network testing tool which I ran, and this detected I had a problem with my NAT.
Following the guides on the Internet and the Xbox site, I enabled UPNP on my router. Turns out the Xbox is quite sensitive to the way UPNP is implemented, so as luck would have it, the Xbox doesn’t like the UPNP on my router. Next I tried to setup the port forwarding as detailed on the Xbox site, but this didn’t work either. The network test still failed.
Out of desparation I disconnected the ADSL line from the Linksys route and connected up my old Netcomm ADSL router. I then just connected the Linksys route to the Netcomm.
After enabling UPNP on the Netcomm, the network test passed. However I still couldn’t speak to other people or join Xbox Live games.
Finally after pretty much deciding to go buy another router, I stumbled across some old forum posts for the WRT54G. I was looking to see if my really old router sitting in my cupboard might work.
Eureka! I’ve found a solution.
Set your Xbox to use a static IP. You can do this by going to System Settings -> Network.
Next on the Linksys WAG325N go to Applications and Gaming ->DMZ and enable DMZ hosting and set the IP address in “DMZ Host IP Address” to the static IP of the Xbox.
Thats it, problem solved. Tests complete and I’m able to join games.
Bear in mind that you are effectively putting the Xbox on the open internet, although you are still protected by NAT.
I’ve eventually figure out how to get a working OpenSUSE 11 box running.
I couldn’t get it to work with KVM regardless of what settings I tweaked. The KVM website shows that OpenSUSE is supported above 10.3. It’s odd I couldn’t get it to work. I may be looking with Ubuntu’s implementation of KVM. I’m not sure.
Eventually I tried using QEMU instead. The virt-manager tool that comes with Fedora, Ubuntu, CentOS etc has the ability to let you pick what hypervisor you want to use.
However you obviously have to install the Hypervisors to get access to them.
“sudo apt-get install kvm qemu virt-manager” or in the Redhat world “yum install kvm qemu virt-manager” gives you all the kit you need to virtualize systems using the virt-manager gui and QEMU or KVM. You can mix your Virtual Machines, so have some running under KVM and QEMU.
Seems as though OpenSUSE x86_64 runs ok under QEMU.
I’ve been working to compile a package called OpenFOAM, which is a fluid dynamics package, onto an SGI Altix XE1300.
This particular system is running SLES 10, which is what SGI ship with their clustering kit.
So in order for me to do some test compiling, I’d like to create a Suse based virtual machine to do it on. It won’t mimic the SGI Altix completely, as it won’t have MPI and it’s not running on Itanium 2, but it’s better than fiddling with a live sysytem.
I tried OpenSUSE 10 and the evaluation version of SLES 10. Neither work in KVM. I am not entirely sure why but forum posts point to the Suse GUI installer being the cause if the issue. I’ve also tried OpenSuse on Virtualbox, but I encountered a snag which isn’t related to OpenSUSE. However, in the Virtualbox documentation there does appear to be some work required to get OpenSuse working.
The snag is, if you are running KVM virtual machines, Virtualbox is unable to access the Intel-VT extensions, so obviously, you then can’t run a 64-Bit Operating System in Virtualbox. According the Ubuntu bug reports, the work around is to disable KVM. Except I use the KVM damnit!
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/virtualbox-ose/+bug/292588
