February 27th, 2008 Rusty
Much like having the opportunity to unwrap a Blackberry and an iPhone at the same time, I’ve been building a clean Windows Server and setting up windows software development environments inside VMWare on both Windows and Mac.
Windows Native Install
I started a new job this week and have been building a new development / integration server for the new gig. The server was resistant to my intentions and required many hours of trial and error to find drivers that work. The solution ended up being simple but HP provided zero support or documentation, nVidia did not list support for Server 2003 (32bit) and there are now dozens of driver search sites that are even more ambiguous and misleading than the manufacturers. Its really not Microsoft’s fault that Vistal sucks right now but it seams as though hardware vendors aren’t really held accountable for supporting advanced use of the platform. Eventually, I got the server up and running and am quite happy with the performance so far.
Windows Virtual Install on MacBook Pro
Apple, however, made me get excited to use their machine. It was packaged nicely and, when I plugged it in, it worked. I had Vista installed and running in an hour. Of course, it is definitely worth noting that I only had to ckick a few times and was able to perform other functions during the install because it was all within a virtual environment on VMWare Fusion. So far, I’ve only clicked around in Vista under VMWare on Mac but it seems to be snappy and responsive. I have not enabled graphics accelleration so I do not have transparent windows. I think I can live with that but i may give accelleration a try later.
Windows Virtual Install on Windows
Windows just completed a VMWare installation of Vista now. It also completed quickly and required little interaction. It came up without networking and the responsiveness inside the virtual environment is very slow. I don’t think I could use it fulltime as it is. I’m sure more ram and moving it to an external hard drive would help. However, no network is a bit of a pisser. …following up, I installed VMWare tools and the networking problem resolved itself. Additionally, mouse responsiveness was corrected and the machine is now much more comparable to the Mac instance.
Results
The Mac experience was infinitely better from start to finish. The fact that Windows did not bridge networking is ironic and typical. Again, I can’t blame Microsoft for VMWare’s support of Windows 2003 Server on an HP Pavilion as a host but I sure can give credit to Apple for building a platform where I can accomplish my tasks without obstacles. I’m sure with extended use, the gap would narrow and experience would compensate for intuitiveness and ease of use. However, I am looking forward to more first experience enjoyment and less time learning non-essential, transient skills such as driver incompatability diagnostics and configuration tricks.
Tags: apple, virtualization, Vista
Posted in Mac, Vista | No Comments »
February 26th, 2008 Rusty
The HP Pavilion a6357c Intended Purpose
I purchased a desktop at Costco for the explicit purpose of using it as a development/integration server at my new job. It is important to me that it run Windows Server 2003 r2 since this is the OS we use for our production server. While I am a big fan of Virtualization, I believe you should have a hardware-comparable dev server to do extensive testing against and it should run the same host OS as what you plan to deploy to.
The Lobotomy
The HP machine had stats that would make a playboy centerfold blush but it came with Vista Home as its brain (rrrrrrrrrrrright).
I fired it up long enough to see that the computer was not DOA and then rebooted, bringing up the Windows Server 2003 installation discs start screen. I immediately “formatted C:”. I can’t tell you how fulfilling it is to wipe a Vista install off a factory computer. Its much like shooting a 9mm at a gun range for geeks.
I chose the full format on a 500 gig drive. Not exactly recommended unless you do this right before you go to bed. A looooong time later, I installed Windows Server on the new partition. I left the HP restore partition there in the event this thing needs to be returned to the store. Its 9 of 500 gig, I thought it worth the lost space.
The Sound of Balloon Deflation
Now the fun begins… I’ll be more to the point for the rest of this post.
When I launched my new Windows Server 2003 r2 HP Pavilion a6357a, I had no ethernet, grainy screen and all the usual device driver notices you’d expect from a fresh install.
I tried 9 different driver sets. Nowhere was 32 bit Server 2003 listed as a supported driver. Fortunately, the USB ports worked so I could easily move the drivers from a connected machine to my disabled HP.
The Drivers that Drove
During my extensive research (reading forums), I learned that the recommended approach for 32bit Server 2003 was to install the XP drivers. Why they don’t just list that on the site is beyond me. 64 bit is listed, so the “not a server product” argument doesn’t fly. …but I digress.
Go to http://www.nVidia.com and click on “download drivers”. Then select your hardware.
Costco was nice enough to provide a spec sheet on their site.
This is the correct mother board driver.
After that, install the video drivers for force 6150SE nForce 430
When you install, nVidia will alert you that the control panel could not be launched because hardware acceleration is not enabled. Just follow the instructions for enabling hardware acceleration and all is well.
Not so hard after all! …and not a single resource online indicating that this might work - until now.
Posted in Vista | 18 Comments »
February 22nd, 2008 Rusty
I was looking for a reference for Mike Cohn’s recommendation to estimate stories in points and tasks in hours and ran across a really good point.
When a non-tech supervisor looks at an iteration or release plan and questions why, if points are worth ½ day and there are 4 developers, why a 2 week iteration does not have 80 points of work accounted for. How can you explain using 4.5 per day team velocity (or whatever it happens to be) when your stories were estimated using a 2 per developer per day?
“Consider traffic: What does 100-percent-utilization of roads gives us? zero throughput (gridlock)! Why do we think it is different for a development team with competing demands, interruptions, meetings, etc?”
Good point! I have always felt uncomfortable explaining that point to a supervisor. They consistently give you a cock-eyed stare as you explain that your velocity is based on the performance of the previous iteration and that it is not possible to actually complete 2 points per developer per day unless life itself is placed in suspension. Usually a, “ooooh kay,” is the best we expect from that conversation. This is a nice descriptive analogy for what the goal of scrum really is. It’s providing an orchestration system where individuals are not left waiting for a traffic light to change yet they are able to navigate their own path to the well defined goal
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