Installing Puppet on Centos 5 directly from Puppet Labs

photo: wikimedia commons : User:Liftarn

If you want the latest stable release of puppet on a Centos 5 machine, you can get it from Puppet Labs' own yum repo.  Other "usual" add-on repos (epel, fedora, e.g.) can lag by as much as one minor version.  Puppet Labs tries to keep the version in their repo as stable as possible, according to the Puppet professional services guy sitting across from me, today.  (Hi, Carl!)

First, download an rpm to add the puppet labs yum repos.  Then download an rpm to add the EPEL repo.  Puppet requires a couple sneaky ruby pieces, and EPEL has 'em.  (ruby-shadow and ruby-augeas, fyi)

  cd /tmp
  wget http://yum.puppetlabs.com/el/5/products/x86_64/puppetlabs-release-5-1.noarch.rpm
  sudo rpm -Uvh puppetlabs-release-5-1.noarch.rpm
  wget http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/x86_64/epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm
  sudo rpm -Uvh epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm
  yum repolist  # just to see that they actually installed

Both repo definitions enable their main binary repos, for a normal `yum install` command, so there's no need to add flags to enable them.  Source repos and testing versions are disabled, but can be enabled if you have some nutty reason to do it.

You should now be able to `yum install` the puppet client and/or server -- with all the dependencies being available.

  yum install puppet # for a client
  yum install puppet puppet-server # to include the server pieces, as well.
  # actually, pupper-server just adds an init script
  # and some scripts that pretend to be things like puppetmasterd

Ta da!

Bees, Hives, and Hobbies

I was watching Vanishing of the Bees, the other day.  (Netflix streams it.)  It was really interesting .. as much for the issues facing modern pollination in the face of Colony Collapse Disorder as for the view into the strange community of bee keepers.  This is my kind of strangeness, so it got me to wondering what it takes for a hobbyist to get started.

There are bunches of apiary sites out there -- most, poorly maintained -- so it's hard to find a starter kit.  I ended up with tabs open on the Pollinator Partnership, Knox Cellars, and Mann Lake LTD.  Not exactly an exhaustive list, but hopefully it's a nice starting point if you've seen the movie and wanna try your hand at it.  With a reasonable dose of research, would it be possible to create an open hardware project that uses rapid prototyping equipment to build hives on demand?

Nook Color as Android Sandbox

(Update: I have a page of notes from my weekend of hacking around.)

My friend Andrew has lately been showing up to pub night with his full size Android tablet, and showing off the apps he's been writing.  Naturally, this means I have to get my own, so I can suss out the development process a little more thoroughly.  I just can't stand not knowing things.

All I want is a small (seven or eight inches diagonal) device, that's got a color display and is capable of multi-touch.  From my research, the Samsung Galaxy Tab was a really top-shelf choice.  But I also know that a Nook Color can be convinced to run a full Android install.

I popped down to my local retailer and played.  Man those Samsung devices are pretty .. but at half the price, the Nook Color was just too compelling a device for my "hack around for fun" purposes.  I decided to be fiscally responsible.  Don't ask me why.

Up next: I'll load a "real" install of Android on it, replacing the stock "just an Android-based e-reader" version that it ships with.

New Toy

This little guy arrived the other day, just in time for a quick Arduino and Beer trip I'm taking up to the Bay Area.  It's a little thermal printer, similar to the ones in cash registers.  It's light, and it seems to only need one or two amps at five volts.  I have a battery pack that puts out two amps at that voltage.  My brother has some plans.

The manual is kinda fun .. it's chinese and bad english .. but the last page shows some extended characters, one of which is a solid black square, so I might be able to do QR codes on self-adhesive paper.  Extra checksums plz!

Some of the docs mention RS232, so I'm gonna pack a usb-to-db9 connector with me.  They also mention useful configuration bits for running on battery power, so we're in the right neighborhood for a battery-powered application.  Hey and the example code is for Processing!  Plus, there's a link to some good-looking Arduino hackery.  I think we'll hit the ground running!