Resolving the APM issue, reducing HD Load_Cycle.

Hi,

There is a noticeable issue for whom using Linux (say Ubuntu) on laptops, which is the HD load cycle.

When you leave your laptop on battery power, HD generates a strange sound, maybe 3 time per minute or once every 10 seconds, this is the sound of parking/unparking.

This happens even during activity, and this severely shortens the life of hard drives, this bug is reported on the launchpad under the name: " Bug #59695 : High frequency of load/unload cycles on some hard disks may shorten lifetime".

Now, I think they managed to resolve the problem in the latest Ubuntu release 8.10. Yet, I am using Ubuntu 8.04.1 Hardy and the problem still exist.

Therefore, I have fixed this problem temporally until there is an official fix for this issue in the next update.

My solution will effectively keep this parameter at reasonable amount: 193 Load_Cycle_Count. You can know your number by executing this command in a shell: 'sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda', you have to install "smartmontools" program before you can use this command.

Steps:
1. install smartmontools by issuing this command in a shell: 'sudo aptitude install smartmontools'
2. create a new file named: "hdparm" in the /etc/init.d
3. edit /etc/hdparm.conf to add the following lines in it:

/dev/sda { #Your HD's name maybe different
apm = 255
spindown_time = 0
}

4. edit /etc/init.d/hdparm to add the following line in it:
#!/bin/sh
hdparm -B 255 /dev/sda #Or whatever your HD name is.
hdparm -S0 /dev/sda #Or whatever your HD name is.

5. give hdparm execute permission: 'sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/hdparm'
6. edit /etc/acpi/power.sh: 'nano /etc/acpi/power.sh', to replace the 1 from the command '$HDPARM -B 1 /dev/$drive 2>/dev/null' with 255, the new command will be: '$HDPARM -B 255 /dev/$drive 2>/dev/null'
7. update the rc by issuing this command: 'sudo update-rc.d hdparm defaults', this will make hdparm script start at boot time.
8. DONE

This will reduce the number of spinning down per min/hour/day significantly.

Thanks

VMware Workstation 6.5 ROCKS !!

Hi,

I have downloaded VMware Workstation 6.5 yesterday, it rocks, in fact it has more features than I thought.

One of the noticeable features is speed. Speed has been improved tremendously, huge gap comparing to the previous version.

I have been using VMware server 2 for a quite a while now, and wanted to do a quick comparison.

VMWorkstation:

- Unity mode: rather than only summary, console, quick switch and full screen, there is a new one called unity, so much like the seamless mode in VirtualBox, but far more speedy and stable.
- Wide range of guest OS support.
- New GUI installer for Linux.
- New virtual network editor (works great, and more than enough).
- When you chose a CD ISO image while creating a new VM, it auto-detects the guest OS (you can change the guest later).
- Aimed at Workstation virtualization (Desktop and Laptop).

VMServer:

- Wider range of guest OS support.
- Great performance, in focus on networking.
- Extra flexibility on networking.
- Client-Server design, for remote administration.
- WebGUI interface runs on top of a lightweight http server.
- VMware Infrastructure like management console.
- Aimed at server virtualization.

Enjoy,

Hyper-V Integration Services Requires a Newer Version of Windows Vista

Hi,

Virtualization is a revolutionary technology, it offers so many features. In this article David is reviewing an error rises in the MS hyper-V, please read the full article:
Hyper-V Integration Services Requires a Newer Version of Windows Vista

Thanks