Some of my Kubuntu-Hoary tweaks

[Derek Broughton]

On Friday 15 April 2005 11:57, Abdullah Ramazanoglu wrote:
>
> >> 6. A new "root" command (instead of "sudo -i") to switch to a permanent
> >> root session:
> >> echo "alias root='sudo -i'" >> ~/.bashrc
> >
> > ???  You mean 'su'?  I don't _have_ a pure kubuntu install (yet - just
> > downloading it) but a hoary kubuntu-desktop on top of Debian sid, so
> > perhaps 'su' is missing from pure kubuntu, but I'd be very surprised.
>
> I meant sudo. There's no password defined for root (disabled for login) in
> Kubuntu. So either it's necessary to define a "passwd" for root 

Ah!  right.  Of course, since I started from Debian, this installation _does_ 
have a root password.

> > I really think only the ubuntu supported packages should be
> > enabled by default, but make it easy to get the rest, by having commented
> > lines for both universe and multiverse.
>
> This is a highly controversial subject, at least to me, regarding
> definition of "right thing to do". I guess it deserves a separate thread
> of its own. But suffice it to say that I think Kubuntu should go even
> further and include non-supoorted and *non-free* packages (as long as it's
> legal to do so) in the CD. It takes just a simple installer question: "Do
> you want to install packages not supported officially by Kubuntu?" The

Yeah, I'd have no problem doing it that way - I just felt you need to explain 
to the user beforehand that he's going to access software not supported by 
Ubuntu.  Asking in the installer is fine.

> > They're good suggestions - I'm just not sure that many of them should be
> > defaults :-)
>
> I'd like to add another one.
>
> 10. Harden filesystem robustness:
> Don't laugh, but I swear I've observed huge increase in filesystem
> integrity with this, particularly in rather adverse conditions.
...
> sudo echo "* * * * *  root  /bin/sync"
>
> I'd much like someone more knowledgeable on kernel internals shed a light
> on this one. Until then, I'll continue to do it the first thing after any
> Linux installation.

You must be missing something there - ">>/etc/crontab"?  

What file system are you using?   iirc when I did a fresh ubuntu warty (not 
kubuntu) install it didn't understand Reiser (at least I must have had _some_ 
good reason for making the partition ext3).  I imagine the usefulness of this 
would be dependent on the FS.  You're definitely defeating the purpose of 
lazy syncing.
-- 
derek