session 15

Well, everything is better in 8.04, yet, unfortunately not everything is pure bliss. There are a few stumbling blocks I’ve encountered, some of which I’ve resolved, some of which I am still fighting or waiting for more time to tackle.

So far, I’ve installed Ubuntu 8.04 on three systems:

Generic Intel Desktop Box, using native upgrade feature from Ubuntu 7.10. Uniformly working, smooth upgrade, no real problems. Very slow upgrade, but no real complaints. Bundled Firefox3 beta 5 locked up or crashed unexpectedly so many times that I had to go back to Firefox 2.0.0.14. I actually had to move firefox user files out of the way to get everything to work. New extensions / add-ons would not install until I moved .mozilla to .x_mozilla and allowed firefox to recreate what it needed.

Fortunately, with the CLEO and FEBE extensions, I was able to restore my preferred add-ons very quickly.

Compaq Presario V6420 AMD64. Clean Ubuntu install (32 bit), mostly works. Wireless wasn’t up out of the box, but display was. After some customization and many package installations, I can’t get mp3 or ogg files to work with Rhythmbox. Audacious does work on most of these files. There is still an issue with X locking up as the laptop tries to go into power-saving mode (should be ’standby’ according to the settings). I had the same firefox issues as with the Desktop box. Solution has been the same.

Lenova Thinkpad T60p. Wubi install failed from existing Windows XP OS, but clean install worked. By default, the screensaver came up after a few mintues and frequently locked the system up, apparently from bad display/graphics voodoo. Otherwise pretty smooth and looked good. Not much testing as this was a borrowed system.

Actually, this one is pretty hard to screw up, but if you tried hard enough you’d break something expensive.   Owing to the design of the newer 6500-series chassis, you can’t put the Supervisor blades anywhere, at least not the 720.   If you look at the back of the module, you’ll see why.  The obvious part is that the structure with pins covers nearly the whole back side of the module — if you look in the 6500 chassis, there will only be two slots that match.   The others will have a gap on the left, and the black plastic mating medium start at about 25% of the length and goes close to the end.   The other thing you’ll find, if you look closely, is that there is a crescent-shaped slot on the 720 module, and a matching rod maybe an inch long with a corresponding crescent-shape (half circle, more precisely) in the back of the correct 6500 slot.  The orientation of that little peg is the same for the supervisor (or switch fabric) slots, but reversed from all the others.   Despite the small size, this pin prevents you (in normal circumstances) from pushing the module in the wrong slot far enough to damage it.

I was used to putting the Sup at the top of the slots, or in some cases the bottom.   But in a 6509, for instance, those puppies are going to go in the middle.  If you’ve got redundant supervisors  for the 6509, that would be slots 5 and 6.   Note that this isn’t the same as you would find in the 6513 or 6506, and obviously not the same as the 6503 either.

Here’s the run down:
Occupies the switch fabric slots in the chassis:
3-slot chassis—slots 1 and 2
6-slot chassis—slots 5 and 6
9-slot chassis—slots 5 and 6
13-slot chassis—slots 7 and 8
That info is from a pdf document, CISCO CATALYST 6500 SERIES SWITCH SUPERVISOR ENGINE 720   .

And there you go.

I’m using Firefox 3 Beta 3 on both my Ubuntu and Windows systems now.  I had a few problems with Beta 2, but I am sailing well so far with the Beta 3.   I like the new features — the ‘back’ and ‘forward’ arrows were redesigned, and I don’t know why, but I do like the new look.  The arrow graphic reminds me of a switch on some kind of home electronics device now.   The ’smart bookmarks’ is also a nice addition.  Speed and stability have also shown improvements so far.

I got mine from this mozilla page:  www.mozilla.com/firefox/all-beta.html

Update:

I forgot to complain that there is no current functionality to match the “tab mix plus” plug-in, which I almost can’t function without, and there’s no current compatibility with the plug-in (or vice versa, more correctly).   So, I don’t have undo closed tabs (for those oops moments), don’t have the (optional) close tab “x” at the far right, that closes the active tab (so you can close, say, 37 tabs in quick succession without having to hunt for the active tab), don’t have session save and recover control, and I can’t see all my tabs at once (they use the default but turbo-ized for beta3 method of scrolling off to the right).  I really like the multi-row option tab mix plus gives.   If there’s something I can’t see with three rows of tabs at the top, then I’ll surf elsewhere.

Colorful Tabs works nicely, though.   If you haven’t played with the fading of inactive tabs, I’d recommend it (at least if you open near as many tabs at once as I do).

Still, I like Beta 3 — it feels faster, I like the robot, and the trend so far is a good one.

For Cisco IOS vlan interfaces currently, the default interface state is shutdown.

Sure, it may be confusing that all those Gig and FastE ports are up by default on your 3750, while your sixteen vlan interfaces are not, but that’s the breaks.

So, remember, when you do this:

int vlan 76
ip addr 10.555.555.555 255.255.224.0

don’t forget to do this:
no shut

Otherwise, you will probably be featured in some lame IT-themed PSA on late night TV, or stoned to death. YMMV due to geographic particularities and local customs.