My last post I gave a quick overview of my hardware (PC, camera and capture card) that I was using on my surveillance system. This post I will explain what OS and software I use.

My operating system of choice for this ‘project’ was SUSE. The initial reason was that learning Linux is (in my opinion) a bit easier because if I got stuck with the command line, I could always fall back (ie cheat) with the GUI which I found quite comfortable to use. Other Linux distros I had difficulty using. I am currently using SUSE 10.2 - a vast improvement over 9.3 which I previously used on another one of my boxes at home.

Next was the software. As I said in my previous post, I had troubles getting windows drivers to work, and when that was sorted out, I could not find any suitable software (for my needs anyway). The PICO2000 software looks like what I was after, but as I wanted to use/learn Linux, I found a great product called Zoneminder.

First looks at Zoneminder indicated that that it was a popular (and free) piece of software, great support and very customizable for your own needs. What the hell - I’ll give it a go.

I first installed Zoneminder a couple of years back all via the CLI - not a problem if you are conversant with the file structure of Linux, TAR etc. But it was a steep learning curve for me. I worked it all out in the end, but an easier way (if you’re using SUSE) is to install the RPM using YaST. Here is the link for the SUSE RPMs. The beauty of doing it via YaST is that it can resolve your dependancies for you, so all the appropriate packages can be installed in one hit.

Anyway, I installed it without too many hassles. Next post I will show you some of the features and my setup.

How many times have you typed in the wrong command on a Cisco router, and then have to wait while the DNS lookup times out because the route is trying to resolve that ‘domain’?

Yeah me too. Easy to fix …

Simply enter global configuration mode and type

router(config)# no ip domain-lookup

And the result is no more waiting for the DNS searches to time out.