Big Trev

Here’s one of the things I had to setup on my Ubuntu install to allow me to use Terminal Client (RDP) to connect to my server(s):

This is unashamed stolen from one of the most plain-English posts I’ve seen on a Linux forum  

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=88206 

Can’t resolve hostnames for Terminal Services etc:

Let me start with a little background info. I manage a computer lab with 85 workstations. I ocassionally use either RDP or VNC to do some maintenance. I have no problem doing this from windows, but I wanted my lonely Ubuntu workstation to be able to do the same thing. After about a week of research I am finally able to ping my windows workstations via their Netbios names. Woohoo!!

All you have to do is:

edit /etc/nsswitch.conf

change the line that says

hosts: files dns

to this:

hosts: files dns wins 

finally, you need to install winbind

Code:

sudo apt-get install winbind

that’s all that it took for me.

now ping <hostname> works great. And I can finally use the built-in terminal server client with hostnames instead of IP addresses.

I’m a lazy kinda guy.  If something’s just working, I’m happy to leave it there.  Like my previous Wordpress blog, which is sitting on my home server still, and still running, but hasn’t been updated for about 18 months.  I’ll have to transfer what’s worth transferring over to here - this utopia of it being Someone Else’s Problem to ensure that software is updated, webservers are running et al.

Given that I’m lazy, why am I trying Ubuntu?  I’m a (recovering) Windows admin, who still works in IT but in the business space more than the techical.  But, I still tinker.  And tend to get distracted easily…

Which, somehow, brings me to answering why I’m trying Ubuntu?  I’m not in any way an early adopter - an ex-collegue/current-friend of my has a masochistic streak a mile wide, and was an early beta tester of Vista, on a laptop no less!  I’ve used Vista for a total of about 30 mins - got it on a recently-purchased Dell lappy recently, and spent half an hour trying to figure out why the network wouldn’t work and why I couldn’t find any of the settings, and then threw XP onto it.  Upon giving up on the GUI and resorting to the command line, I couldn’t even do an ipconfig /release without having it pop up asking me for permission!  (just like on the Mac adds, which incidentally, give me the shits as well).

This all got me to thinkin’.  I figure I can’t run XP forever, and if I’m going to be forced to learn how to use a new OS, why learn Vista?  I’ve seen the amount of penetration into the back end of enterprise networks (a crapload of the stuff at work is on RedHat, and more is going that way), so it’s probably only a matter of time before it starts hitting the desktops as well.  

Even if it doesn’t, maybe it will be a bit of fun along the way.

Basically, this blog is going to cover some of my (mis-)adventures with setting up Ubuntu at home.  I’ve still got my old XP install sitting on a separate drive, and I can fall back onto the lappy for some stuff, but I want to give this thing a bit of a go.

My setup is still Windows-based, which is why I had the first problem of my adventure.  I initially tried 8.04 Hardy Heron, but had all sorts of drama with opening my Windows file shares (some would work, others would crap out with "Insert useless error message here").  Turns out there’s issues with accessing SMB shares in Heron, so I’ve instead gone backwards into Gutsy Gibbon (7.10), which seems to be running OK - I’m working on it right now. 

I hope to impart a little bit of knowledge as a Windows-head and *nix-n00b, and also provide something of a record for me to go back and re-do the stuff I’ve done if it all goes pear-shaped!