Randomland - Server Status and Information.

[Nick]

Sure Sorry about the forum app breakage. Did the mobile theme work on your phony?

[zourtney]

It switched to the mobile theme properly. But the theme lacks a lot of functionality, like highlighting unread topics, jump to last post, etc. It doesn't fit the screen as one would expect a mobile theme to do. I can play with that though. I learned a few tricks while making my gas-log pages. Maybe I'll have time tonight.

As for the desktop-version, I like it.

[Nick]

I agree with the functionality-lacking. There are two other mobile themes. One that looks like iPhone interfaces and one that costs $20. I figured we could mess with this one or use it as a took to figure out how to make a better one. We should still get your tapitalk thing working though.

[zourtney]

I just did get the Tapatalk package working again (yay!). It didn't even hurt this time.

Even so, we should make a decent mobile version. It shouldn't be hard; we have the other themes to base the PHP parts off of. Just a little free time, which I understand is available in great quantities during the dark times of day.

[Nick]

Randomland expires in less then 90 days. We can renew for 9 years for $64.40 (7.2 a year) using a coupon for 30% off. Or 4 years for $29 (7.25 a year) or 2 for $15 (or something like that.)  What would you alls like to do?

If I knew that the prices would stay the same I would have just did it for two or three years and called it good. Prices probably won't go up much in that time span. Butwhoknowsright?

[zourtney]

Doitdude! I'll fork over a few bucks. It's worth it to have our own little slice of internet pie.

I imagine that big companies will continue to offer cooler services which continue to make our HTMLs look stale as day old dog meat. But I don't care. It's our and we can do what we want with it. That's totally worth $60. 9 years is a frighteningly far, yet frighteningly close place in the future. But I don't see myself abandoning the randomnets any time soon. Soletsdoitdude.

[Nick]

Ok. 9 years is a nice way of not losing the name by forgetting to register.

I will throw $30 bucks at it.  Thats what... 3.33 a year?

[zourtney]

Yep, and I'm pretty sure I can spare ~$3.50/year. Heck, I can even spare the $35! Randomland is not my most expensive habit

[Nick]

It is done. We will have the name for at least 9 more years. Perhaps drupal 7 will even be somewhat complete by then

[Nick]

After the power outage, and then the overheat of the server randomland has seen some down time recently. Sorry 'bout that. BUT! It's running on my recently discarded core2 CPU now and should be slightly spunkier. I was going to sell it, but as we are running a terraria server on it I will keep it on it. More ram and better CPU is a win.

NowI just need a super basic low power video card for it. (And heat! Having my old video card running 24/7 is like having a space heater on!) $16 on amazon looks good for a surplus dell unit.

Also, going to upgrade the linux version to something newer. I am tired of having to spend forty five minutes compiling things from source to get updated software :-P

Any votes on linux flavor? Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian or CentOS/Scientific/RHEL-6

[zourtney]

I am a fan of Debian derivatives (Ubuntu server, etc). But that's just because I am accustomed to its setup. I've never had any problems with what we have now, beyond my standard Linux woes. Do you plan on installing X?

[Nick]

Can you vnc in without x ? Command line is fine most of the time, but when managing the locations of lots of files I like a gui. I would probably install the desktop edition and then add what I need.

[zourtney]

Get, my spot thing didn't tell me you responded to this thread....anyway. I SSH in 95% of the time. I used VNC a few days ago do download a file from a URL wget (or the command line) wasn't parsing properly. For everything else, command line is more feasible, from off site.

Sent from my SGH-i937 using Board Express

[Nick]

Very true. Most of the time I just open a terminal after VNCing in. Most install instructions I user are for the command line and most things I do are command line based. But having the option to open up a file manager and use the GUI network tools is nice.

ssh is a necessity for managing the server. Easy access from a phone for quick fixes. Using screen lets you have a bunch of terminals to work with (for running non-daemon server like terraria and vertrillo)  Combine that with webmin and you are good to go.

VNC is a nice luxury that having lots of extra RAM and CPU make feasible. Now if it just weren't so insecure. The only thing even keeping it halfway secure is desktop locking, which I wish it did as soon as all clients were disconnected. 
I like to use the lazy tools once in a while

If it used up any meaningful amount of resources I wouldn't include it. 

I think Ubuntu is they way I will go. I need to broaden my linux experience. Setting up an install on my laptop + external drive now. Hopefully I can just copy the partitions over to another drive.

[zourtney]

Works for me. I know there are a few new flavors out there (now in Mint!), but I haven't played with any lately.Edit: grr, stupid apps. Never tack on a signature unless I explicitly tell you to. Grumblesaurdhsjd