Month: August 2018

A few years ago I wrote this rousing email about the Linux Documentation Project and I made waves in a mailing list that lay mostly dormant for years. After the list was rejuvenated, I set out to learn git, then then to find pieces of Linux documentation all around the web and add it. The idea was, find a central place (i.e. TLDP) to store all of the documentation from here and there and then replicate that central store all over the globe for redundancy so it is never lost. I had big goals and then nothing really came of it.

sigh

Why did nothing happen? 99% was me and my own laziness/busyness/etc. The other 1% was that there isn’t a community there. The mailing lists are dead. The wiki is never updated. New documents are rarely added and old ones are never retired (not deleted, just retired). I felt almost alone in this huge wasteland of a site with so much potential.

I need a new open source project

I want to find a project that I can help with, can make a difference in, and that has a community that is actively working in it.

I have a few projects in mind. I’ll post more when I make a decision.

This video is a little kludgy.  It was literally my first time putting together the cluster and if you notice at the end, it doesn’t actually work. None of the worker nodes are actually usable. Hopefully that will be fixed soon.

linux-3q2c:~ # kubectl get nodes
NAME         STATUS     ROLES     AGE       VERSION
linux-3q2c   NotReady   master    3m        v1.11.1
linux-fykp   NotReady   <none>    1m        v1.11.1
linux-gbv8   NotReady   <none>    51s       v1.11.1    

In the meantime, thanks to this post, I’ve reinstalled with cri-o and now have a fully functional cluster.

jsevans@jserver:~> kubectl get nodes
NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION
linux-3q2c Ready master 2h v1.11.1
linux-fykp Ready <none> 1h v1.11.1
linux-gbv8 Ready <none> 1h v1.11.1

What have I been doing with my new cluster?

I installed the Kubernetes dashboard, Helm, and WordPress with Helm. I’ve also had to really dig into what it means to use RBAC.  In CaaS Platform 1-3, a lot of your RBAC stuff was already done for you. Now I’ve had to specifically set RBAC to get the Dashboard credentials working as well as to get Tiller working. It’s a learning experience and it’s good to get these fundamentals down pat.

I picked up a new toy this week to replace my aging and rarely-used Raspberry Pi 3 (original). It came with Windows 10 already on it and I immediate went to the forums for a howto on installing Linux. There is a guide on how to install Ubuntu 16.04 but it seems to require a lot of extra steps (special kernel, etc).  I figured it couldn’t hurt to try it with OpenSUSE. At worst it would fail and I would be left with Ubuntu.

To my surprise, it worked and it was easier than the steps that were provided. The thing with the LattePanda is that it is UEFI-only.  There is no legacy boot mode so if your distro doesn’t have a UEFI-enabled installer, then you are out of luck.

Edit: It’s not just UEFI only, it’s Trusted UEFI only.  That means that if your distro doesn’t have a trusted EFI key, then the bios won’t even recognize it. Canonical/Ubuntu, Redhat/CentOS/Fedora, and SUSE/OpenSUSE have trusted EFI keys and work. Mostly, I think because they have corporate sponsorship and they have a vested interest in working with hardware vendors.

Here’s the basic steps:

1. Flash the “Ubuntu” bios (this will allow you to boot the Linux USB key)
2. Burn the OpenSUSE iso to a USB 3.0 Key
3. When trying to boot with the key, it froze when the installer brought up the GUI.
   Workaround: Reboot and add “textmode=1” to the boot loader for the installer.

1. Install using ncurses installer. It’s a little clunky but all of the options are there.

5. Reboot after the installer finishes. Everything is as it should be. No more freezes, no special kernel, everything works great.

One last thing. The LattePanda has both HDMI and composite. Linux assumes composite out is Display 1 and HDMI is Display 2.  If you are running headless, then this is fine. If not, you will need to with your desktop environment to disable Display 1. I tend to use the i3 desktop for work and this was easy for me to workaround. It can be a hassle for others. I think this will be the case no matter which distro you use.