facti.net

There is an odd quirk when using NFS partitions for mysql data storange under Ubuntu.  While there have been several problems with NFS partitions when mounting at boot time through fstab (see here and here for example), this one exists on the current LTS version of Ubuntu and the symptoms are slightly different:

• The NFS partition appears when using df
• The partition shows up in mtab
• MySQL cannot use the data location after boot
• After doing an ls on the data location, MySQL can then use it.

The simple workaround is to add a couple of commands to the /etc/rc.local: first issue an ls and then restart mysql.  Unfortunately it looks like the NFS clients are still somewhat buggy in Ubuntu when remounting NFS partitions during boot.

Upgrading drupal between major releases can be a bit of a problem as I found out when upgrading from v5.5 to v6.  However, upgrading point releases can be relatively easy.  Note that to keep the URL constant and place drupal in its own file directory I use a symbolic link.  Depending on your web server you might need to set your configuration to handle that.

The strategy I use is to:

Installing Ubuntu 8.04.1 under 'normal' circumstances is a breeze and results in a very nice desktop system.  When deviating from the simple path there are a few extra steps that are worth jotting down:

I've installed and have been trying to use F9 on one of my machines for a while now, and if you are thinking of trying it I would suggest that you do not.   It is the worst release in a very long time, maybe of all time for Fedora.  I have used Fedora since it started, and there is something fundamentally worse about this release than all the others. 

Just some of the issues: removal of some important configuration options during install, quite unstable wi-fi drivers, terrible GDM, and the removal of KDE 3 for what can only be described as the currently dreadful KDE 4 implementation.  Stick to F8 until some of the really significant fixes have been implemented, or maybe skip F9 altogether and wait for F10.  F8 was quite a good release.

KDE4 in particular is disappointing. KDE used to be (pre 4) quite a fast and pragmatic desktop that conformed well to the way one worked.  Very configurable and stable and one could configure it just right so one was free to 'just get the job done'. 

the xml service provided by weather.com has changed slightly. They now choke if some fields such as the id and key are empty in the request URL, so I've nerfed them for now. I will put in a proper fix later, but this will work for now... you can get the module here.

Please note this module is for Drupal 5.x, I have not tested it with Drupal 6. jonfrancisskydiver has created a version for Drupal 6 with some nice additional features available here: http://drupal.org/project/weatherfacti so please use that if you are using Drupal 6.