I still prefer a flat ascii file either loading the rules one at a time, or the built in iptables save/restore which basically does the same thing. But if you like/want/need a GUI application, then skip the lokkit firewall configuration tool in favor of system-config-firewall. It makes configuration of your firewall as easy as the simple Windows firewall, but with the option detail you expect from Linux.

Run system commands or call a sub-process and assign the return value to a variable. This makes it easy to pass the error up to your processes parent.

If you have two antennae, replace one with a direction antenna. Leaving the other as a omni-directional pole should give you a good area of coverage while the directional antenna serves to extend your wifi range to needed areas such as your backyard or that room down the hall and around the corner. If you only have one antenna, crack open the plastic casing on your router and look for a little socket for a second antenna. It’s cheaper for manufacturers to produce one hardware design and just downgrade the hardware to make more than one model than it is to have multiple, completely different designs.

Install mercurial source control management system (sorry git lovers), and prerequisites. Set up by making some directories and exporting a variable or four. Clone the source repository. Let the building begin.

Find the package(s) missing using YUM. It’s as easy as asking it what provides the missing files. In this case I can see from the last line which file it’s looking for but can’t find. Cut and paste the full path to the file and use it as the argument to “sudo yum whatprovides”, and it will tell you which packages include that file.

I always hate having to reboot a server. I can almost always avoid it. And that sounds like there’s some effort put into avoiding the reboot, and you might think that — if you’re used to a world of Windows servers. But it’s just not that hard to keep a server up.

Switch to the console by pressing CTRL-ALT- (The neighborhood button is the one on the left with the most dots where you see other XO’s and wifi hot spots around you) and install xcompmgr.

Make sure a firewall rule isn’t blocking NFS. If NFS is running on the server and clients _can_ mount, but it’s just really slow, then things get a little hairly. You can’t just look for a problem on a client or a fix a misconfigured server. You’ll have to look at the whole ball of wax… If MTU mismatch doesn’t seem to be a problem, try going the other way and increasing the MTU size. Use the traceroute command to look for unexpected routing hops or delays.

This is pretty simple, just like in Windows. You could probably set it up quicker in Linux too. Too much clicking in windows.

Dstat is a versatile replacement for vmstat, iostat, netstat and ifstat. Dstat overcomes some of their limitations and adds some extra features, more counters and flexibility. Dstat is handy for monitoring systems during performance tuning tests, benchmarks or troubleshooting.