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Welcome to the new LWN server
LWN.net has been running on the same server for several years, generously
donated to us by the folks at Rackspace.com. This server ran on a mighty
1.3 GHz CPU, and, while it was up to the task most of the time, it was
clearly beginning to show its age. Perhaps more amusingly, the server has
retained the same RHEL 2 operating system it came with. So, for all
these years, LWN readers have been getting their bleeding-edge kernel news
from a machine running a kernel which claims to be version 2.4.9.
Those days are now done; LWN has moved on to a shiny, new, dual-core processor at a new hosting provider. For the time being, the extra computing power will be dedicated to making the current site faster; over the longer term, we hope to add some of the more database-intensive features that have been on our "to do" list for years. As part of the upgrade, there has been a small change to LWN's format; we have added a third column on the right of the main content. The main goal was to move advertisements over there and to get them out of the content itself; that, we hope, will improve the LWN reading experience. There are a couple of new account configuration options which tie into the format change; it is now possible to set the maximum and minimum width of the central column. The maximum width preference replaces the hard-coded maximum which LWN has used for a while; people who like to read really long lines of text will now be able to do so. Others (like your editor) who don't like to see the real content of the site squeezed too tightly in a narrow window can set the minimum value and prevent that from happening. Of course, if you set the minimum too high, you risk pushing the right column out of the window entirely and missing important communications from our advertisers; we know you wouldn't want to do that. Various other changes have been made as well, but most of them are not that significant. Hopefully it all adds up to a better LWN. There's probably a glitch or two left; please drop us a note at lwn@lwn.net should you find one. (Log in to post comments)
Welcome to the new LWN server Posted Aug 22, 2008 22:32 UTC (Fri) by einstein (subscriber, #2052) [Link]
It seems faster - must have upgraded to ubuntu server ;)
Ha, you newbie ... Posted Aug 22, 2008 23:01 UTC (Fri) by Felix_the_Mac (guest, #32242) [Link]
... it is entirely clear from the end user experience that the server can only be running Fedora 9.
Ha, you newbie ... Posted Aug 23, 2008 0:16 UTC (Sat) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link]
It is running CentOS. (Now fire your server admin. I can see he tried to strip the name in a few places, but it still leaked. ;-)
Ha, you newbie ... Posted Aug 23, 2008 3:23 UTC (Sat) by jfranks (subscriber, #1213) [Link]
If you telnet to lwn.net port 80 and enter
GET / HTTP/1.0
You get a document titled
"Apache HTTP Server Test Page powered by CentOS"
Ha, you newbie ... Posted Aug 23, 2008 5:19 UTC (Sat) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link] You get a document titled Even though LWN now appears to use CentOS, I think we can be reasonably assured that our editors won't attempt to Tuttle the CentOS developers (Sorry, I couldn't resist that one!).
Ha, you newbies... Posted Aug 23, 2008 10:02 UTC (Sat) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link]
Seems like a N2N networking, eh? ;-)
You could as well call FreeBSD a server OS and gently invite us all to mess with ports. >:)
Welcome to the new LWN server Posted Aug 23, 2008 2:42 UTC (Sat) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link] while it was up to the task most of the time, it was clearly beginning to show its age. I seem to remember LWN surviving the Slashdot effect on several occasions. Don't be so modest! the extra computing power will be dedicated to making the current site faster; As if it weren't fast enough already? LWN has always been fast because the site subscribes to the KISS method with respect to web page design and layout (my perceptions and opinion here). Accordingly, the page hauls a$$ on any old connection in any browser. I'm glad to see that LWN is among the few sites out there nowadays that focuses on providing good, quality content in a simple, straightforward manner. Which is a big part of why I subscribe. Congratulations on the new hardware, and thank you for the nice site. :)
Welcome to the new LWN server Posted Aug 23, 2008 2:59 UTC (Sat) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]
"""
As if it weren't fast enough already? LWN has always been fast because... """
You don't use the search feature much, do you.
The general site is, as you observe, quite fast. And exceedingly straightforward and pleasant compared to the flashy (both literally and figuratively) trash that we must endure most everywhere else on the Internet.
Welcome to the new LWN server Posted Aug 28, 2008 9:26 UTC (Thu) by jgsack@san.rr.com (guest, #33287) [Link]
I second the sentiment about content and simplicity!
..jim
Thank you, still minor gripes Posted Aug 23, 2008 9:28 UTC (Sat) by kragil (subscriber, #34373) [Link]
Great site and speed.
I have two things that might improve lwn.net.
1. Could you make the comment numbers a link? So that you can go right to the comments? That would really help on small internet devices, where scrolling can be cumbersome.
2. Sometimes it is hard to find a article. For example: I saw on linuxtoday.com that "In defense of Ubuntu" is freely available.(Awesome article by the way) But when I came back again to read more comments there was no way on this site to get to that article ;( .. OK, I do not pay ( I only look at the ads ) .. but a link on the right with "older news" or something would have helped me, because a search for "Ubuntu" didn't.
One more Posted Aug 23, 2008 13:12 UTC (Sat) by kragil (subscriber, #34373) [Link]
The ability to reformat the comments based on time would be really nice.
It would make it easier to read all new comments.
One more Posted Aug 23, 2008 20:50 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
lwn.net/Comments will show you the most recent comments (20 at a time)
it's not per article, but there is a greasemonkey module that will do that.
One more Posted Aug 24, 2008 2:14 UTC (Sun) by kragil (subscriber, #34373) [Link]
Ok, I could filter that for the article I am interested in. But that is quite hard to do on say a cell phone.
Just having different views on the comments of each article would help more IMHO.
Thanks :-) Posted Aug 23, 2008 10:12 UTC (Sat) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link]
Hope you had a smooth evening Jon, and lots of delight in getting thigs finally up again :-) Was upgrading one of our public free software mirroring/hosting servers yesterday too.
--
Third option about middle column size Posted Aug 23, 2008 12:03 UTC (Sat) by melo@simplicidade.org (guest, #4380) [Link]
Hi,
Although not generally available on all the browsers (only Safari and FF3 AFAIK), there are some
That's something that you could try as an option.
Best regards,
Welcome to the new LWN server Posted Aug 23, 2008 16:14 UTC (Sat) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link]
The new 3-column layout is more Adblock friendly, no more display glitches with the second title.
Thanks Jon!
Welcome to the new LWN server Posted Aug 25, 2008 15:00 UTC (Mon) by knobunc (subscriber, #4678) [Link]
Why not subscribe, then turn off the ads?
-ben
Welcome to the new LWN server Posted Aug 25, 2008 9:24 UTC (Mon) by fyodor (guest, #3481) [Link] Any chance we could get more details on the hardware (processor, memory, motherboard, case, disks, etc.) and software the new system is running. I'd love a "Grumpy Editor Buys a New Server" article describing the requirements you had, the choices you considered, and the decisions you made. Hardware specs are like geek porn, and plus the information is practical since many or most LWN readers buy new servers from time to time.
Grumpy Editor Buys a New Server Posted Aug 25, 2008 10:41 UTC (Mon) by i3839 (guest, #31386) [Link]
Thing is, if you're running an independent site like LWN the last thing you'd want to do is "choosing sides", so to speak. At least if I were them I wouldn't feel comfortable sharing such decision processes, not least of all because there are many personal factors that influence them, like past experiences, personal preferences, etc. Besides, any hardware decisions get outdated quickly anyway and are quite specific for the LWN site, so not something that's very useful for others.
Though of course such an article would be quite interesting to read, I'm just not sure how wise it is to write.
Grumpy Editor Buys a New Server Posted Aug 25, 2008 13:34 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] We do try to be careful about seeming to endorse stuff. But, beyond that, a site like ours doesn't just go out and put together a server box and set it up in the office somewhere. There's a ton of hosting services out there that will build the box for you, take responsibility for the hardware, and plug it into a far better network connection than we could ever get locally. For the production server, working with such a service makes much more sense. So I have no clue what kind of motherboard it has; I assume it's a plain black 1U case, etc.
Grumpy Editor Buys a New Server Posted Aug 26, 2008 7:06 UTC (Tue) by muwlgr (guest, #35359) [Link]
'lshw' would show quite a comprehensive summary of system information, including as much information about the motherboard as it could obtain from various sources.
Comment width fixed on mobile browsers - Yay! Posted Aug 29, 2008 21:15 UTC (Fri) by sethml (subscriber, #8471) [Link] It appears you've also fixed an issue that's long bugged me, but I never got around to diagnosing and complaining about - on Opera Mini and a few other mobile browsers, most comments would end up wider than the screen. Now they're exactly screen-width, which is great.I note that the comment entry text input box ends up wider than the screen, though. You can try a Java-based Opera Mini demo to verify that the site looks good.
Welcome to the new LWN server Posted Sep 4, 2008 9:55 UTC (Thu) by amh (guest, #1902) [Link]
Now I feel guilty (almost) -- I use AdBlock Plus so widely that I've been missing those adverts for years, and I'm not a subscriber any more ...
The reason I don't feel completely guilty is that I appear to have been missing some nasty moving Flash adverts, and I hate those.
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