On Plesk System it is sometimes a little bit tricky to install extensions which are not supported by Plesk itself.

Here is a way how to install phusion passenger ( aka mod_rails) on a host that is managed using Plesk 10 or greater.

First Step
Install passenger as descriped on Passenger Installation :

1. gem install passenger
2. passenger-install-apache2-module

For the second point the gcc c++, curl dev libs, apache dev libs must be installed. Use apt-get (debian based systems) or yast (Suse) etc for installation.

Second Step
You have to add a vhosts file to the configuration of the domain / subdomain:

• Place it at for the main domain:
  

  conf/vhost.conf

  or at for subdomains:

  subdomains//conf/vhost.conf

• Add the following lines given by passenger-install-apache2-module
  

  LoadModule passenger_module /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-3.0.7/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so
  PassengerRoot /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-3.0.7
  PassengerRuby /usr/bin/ruby

• Add appropriate user and group for the execution of the webapplication like :
  

  PassengerDefaultGroup psaserv
  PassengerDefaultUser

  The default setting is nobody/nobody which does not work in general.

• Change the Rails Environment:
  The default is production. If yout test or development add the following line:

  RailsEnv development (resp. test)

Third Step
Change the document root to the public directory of the rails application.
In Plesk 10 you can do this here:
Go to Control Panel der Domain/Subdomain => Websites&Domain

Attention
passenger-install-apache2-module and the original docs give you another setting for the vhost:

AllowOverride all # <-- relax Apache security settings
Options -MultiViews # <-- MultiViews must be turned off



This does not work with plesk! It results in the following error messages:
Syntax error on line xx of /srv/www/vhosts/xxx/subdomains/yyy/conf/vhost.conf: Illegal override option #
Syntax error on line xx of /srv/www/vhosts/xxx/subdomains/yyy/conf/vhost.conf: Illegal option #

This setting was succesfully installed on a Strato based Linux system.

vmware gives wrong feedback “unable to open xxx.vmdk …” in case it it not able to access the phyical harddrive.

environment:

• ubuntu 8.04
• vmware workstation 6.xx
• using physical installation of a windows partition on /dev/sda (in this case)

Here the problem could solved easily:
just add the group “disk” to the user who is starting vmware:

• open control panel / user management
• switch to administrator mode
• select tab groups and add “disk” to the user

Here is a short description on the Installation of ubuntu 8.04 on my Dell Inspiron 9400.
Alle experiences will be updated during the next couple of weeks.

ubuntu 8.04 on Dell Inspiron 9400

The update itself works fine so far.

Attention there are some rpm-update failures: simply click ignore otherwise the
update process may fail (according to some other experiences)

The main aspect of the update is: Sound is working now.
(The article on the Inspiron 9400 is updated

Problems:
- Java installation breaks: the following links in /etc/alternatives are wrong:

jce_1.4.2_sun_local_policy -> /usr/lib/jvm-private/java-1.4.2-sun/jce/vanilla/local_policy.jar
jce_1.4.2_sun_us_export_policy -> /usr/lib/jvm-private/java-1.4.2-sun/jce/vanilla/US_export_policy.jar

replace them by (in my case):

jce_1.4.2_sun_us_export_policy -> /usr/lib/jvm-private/java-1_4_2-sun/jce/vanilla/US_export_policy.jar
jce_1.4.2_sun_local_policy -> /usr/lib/jvm-private/java-1_4_2-sun/jce/vanilla/local_policy.jar

This is the first post. This page is going to handle news and opinions about the world, linux and some more important stuff.

Right now I do not have an appropriate theme at hand. to come soon.