finally tried out brandz

Thursday, Mar 30. 2006  –  Category: OpenSolaris

simon suggested a BrandZ demo would be uber-cool to present at FISL, so i finally tried it out.

not wanting to blow away and trash my current (nicely and freshly reinstalled) snv_36 install, i was stumped. but then i remembered the liveupgrade slice i had left myself. woohoo!

i lucreate’d my slice, which copied over my snv36 install. i then luactivate’d it, and booted into it. [nils](http://blogs.sun.com/nilsn] very conveniently informed me of their recent nv_35 syncup, so i bfu’d my LU slice down from onnv36 to onnv35 to make sure that worked before attempting the brandz bits. that worked quite nicely, so i re-bfu’d to the brandz35 bits, and voila! i’ve got a live-upgrade slice running brandz_35.

i booted into the new slice (thanks grub!), and installed my brand new Linux zone with CentOS, following ed p.’s very helpful “Branded Zones on a Laptop” blog entry, and i was ready to go.

after that, i loopback mounted my home directory (from a zfs pool) to my zone, and tweaked my profile settings to compensate for the fact that they could be executed from a Linux zone as well as my Solaris host. ssh into the zone, and away we go!

so of course, the first thing i tried to do was run acroread. bork. it required GTK+ 2.4. bummer. so how the hell was everyone else running it? nils confirmed my guess and it looks like Acrobat Reader 7.0.5 requires GTK+ 2.4, whereas 7.0.1 is quite happy to run with GTK+ 2.2 which CentOS 3.5 comes with. so i rummaged around Adobe’s website and found the following download link to Acrobat Reader 7.0.1, downloaded that and yay! it works!

i have to say. i’m very impressed. this is uber-cool.

can’t wait to start playing with DTrace on Linux apps…

a bad day for closed code

Wednesday, Mar 29. 2006  –  Category: OpenSolaris

… but a great day for open code!

in addition to my earlier putback moving a bunch of sparc drivers, and libraries to the open tree; the ata driver was moved, and keith dug the grave for DMI and then promptly danced on it.

well not really. but i’m pretty sure he would have.

or maybe he would have spit on it.

either way. <Dr.McCoy>”it’s dead, Jim.”</Dr.McCoy>

out of dependency hell

Wednesday, Mar 29. 2006  –  Category: OpenSolaris

yay!

Your putback for the following fix(es) is complete:

6392837 move sram to usr/src
6393316 move fcgp2 to usr/src
6393416 move gptwo_pci to usr/src
6393420 move gptwo_wci to usr/src
6393421 move sc_gptwocfg to usr/src
6393424 move axq to usr/src
6393425 move dman to usr/src
6393426 move iosram to usr/src
6393427 move mboxsc to usr/src
6393428 move sbdp to usr/src
6393429 move schpc to usr/src
6393432 move sckmdrv to usr/src
6393435 move scosmb to usr/src
6393437 move driver sgcn to usr/src
6393438 move sgenv to usr/src
6393439 move sgfru to usr/src
6393440 move driver sghsc to usr/src
6393441 move driver sgsbbc to usr/src
6393442 move driver ssm to usr/src
6393452 move pcf8574_nct to usr/src
6393453 move pcf8591_nct to usr/src
6393454 move acebus to usr/src
6393455 move scsb to usr/src
6393462 move lw8 to usr/src
6393463 move driver rmc_comm to usr/src
6393464 move driver rmcadm to usr/src
6393475 move todsg to usr/src
6393889 move libprtdiag to usr/src
6393890 move libprtdiag_psr to usr/src
6393896 move librsc to usr/src
6393898 move scadm to usr/src
6399766 move serengeti platform to usr/src
6399770 move starcat platform to usr/src
6400949 daktari platmod Makefile references incorrect platmod directory

These fixes will be in release:

    snv_38

========================

now we just have to hope i didn’t break anything and danek doesn’t back it out.

…of a revolution

Monday, Mar 27. 2006  –  Category: OpenSolaris

you know what the best thing about pandora is?

it works

case in point. i was listening to my dmbeezer radio station (so called because i seeded it with Dave Matthews Band and Weezer), and i found a great band: O.A.R (stands for …of a revolution). they’re kinda DMB-ish. i’ve been rocking out to the music the past few days. in particular, i love “Hey Girl” and “That was a crazy game of poker”.

the best part? you can listen to their complete albums streamed via their website.

i’ve been streaming while i wait for two of their CDs to arrive…

this is how Internet music is supposed to be. you listen to a great stream, which turns you on to something you never heard before, and you turn out to love their stuff so much you buy their music

random musings…

Friday, Mar 24. 2006  –  Category: Football, Sun

my random thoughts for the day while i consume the spicy chicken sandwich i bought for lunch:

hrm. this sandwich is not bad. surprisingly spicy. i have to say, this may have supplanted Jack’s spicy chicken in my expert Zagat-like ratings of spicy chicken sandwiches.

the US-Germany football match on Wednesday was sad. it’s sad when the only goal your team scores is a freak goal with an assist from the keeper. seriously, Germany destroyed the US - and it wasn’t even Germany’s strongest team. our defense had more holes in it than cheesecloth. and an midfield missing Donovan, Beasley, and Reyna was sadly lacking any creativity whatsoever. the US team, at its strongest, can be a FIFA top 10 team (i dispute FIFA awarding them 5th, but whatever…) - but the US team has no depth. look at England, Spain, or Italy: they have depth in numbers. Owen is out? fine, no problem…toss in Bent, Defoe, or Ashton (just… please… don’t put in Heskey again. i can’t take it.). England has a wealth of players in defense… Carragher, Terry, Ferdinand, Campbell, King, Brown… and that’s only the centrebacks! who does the US have? Oguchi Onyewu…and uh… uh…hrm. yeah. the US defense was lackluster and unconvincing.

today i had my first english breakfast tea latte since i left SoCal. mmmm…. i loved coffee bean and tea leaf when i lived down in San Diego. little did i know there was one a few blocks away from the Sun office in SF. heaven. thank you connie

some of you may be familiar with Sun’s Flexible Workspace setup. i’ve been working in SF most of March and enjoying the iWork and flexibility of being able to work up here. what i’m not enjoying is the f-ing idiot who i can hear anywhere within a 10 cubicle radius. i don’t mind people on the phone… heck, i make a conscious effort to reserve an open cube instead of an office. what i mind is this guy who gets so frustrated at everything that he’s always hitting his desk and swearing or letting out huge sighs that i can hear even when i have my headphones on. and i’m wearing Shure e2c’s… the ones with the foam ear-plug-like inserts that go into the canal… the ones that block out most ambient noise on BART. and yet, i can still hear this guy who swears and curses, and talks into the phone like he’s trying to compete with a 747 engine for sheer volume.

to the guy in the cube next to me: please. just STFU. i used to think you were so stressed out you were going to go postal on us here. now i’m so annoyed, i’m worried i may go postal on you. my fiancee is an oral surgeon… i’ve looked through her textbooks enough to know where the weak points of the skull and jaw are. please don’t make me break your jaw. please?

it’s raining builds..

Wednesday, Mar 22. 2006  –  Category: OpenSolaris

so i delivered 20060320 yesterday which was a snapshot halfway through build 37. i also delivered build 36 today.

i’ve been trying to get stuff ready for FISL. so far i managed to get a flight and hotel booked, and… well… that’s about it. we’ve been working on the swag to bring down, and all the paperwork involved in export control getting this stuff to Brazil. filling all the forms was fun… like the one that asked me ‘what countries will this product ultimately end up in’ (my paraphrase). uh… i dunno… i’m giving out t-shirts at a conference. how the hell will i know where they’ll end up?

anyway. for the swag-enthusiasts, i’m attempting to bring 144 of the opensolaris ringer ‘love at first boot’ t-shirts. we’re also trying to figure out how to press a whole ton of DVDs. i’ve got a DVD image i just made (sorry SPARC guys, i’m only bringing x86 discs, but let me know if you want a SPARC one and i’ll special-burn one for ya) of SXCR b36 + ON source/closed-bins/bfu + Sun Studio 10 compilers. i’m also hopeful Dennis will finish the ISO-formerly-known-as-BOB image with Nexenta, Belenix, & Schilix. if he finishes that image in time for FISL, then i’ll try and press a bunch of those and bring those as well.

so i’m totally psyched for FISL. i got my swag. i got my OpenSolaris evangelist cap and attitude going. i got my camera, my laptop to blog on, and i’ve even got my own OpenSolaris shot glass to do shots from.

backlog of photos

Friday, Mar 17. 2006  –  Category: Photos

i finally got around to uploading my backlog of photos…. so without further ado, here are the photos from our trips to phuket, kuala lumpur, and taiwan

my favourites? probably:

• the welcome to your hotel mohito
• the most refreshing pepsi i’ve ever had
• wendy sitting on the water
• the acknowledgement that i volunteered to sit in an uncomfortable seat
• the “no durian” sign in our hotel in KL

i also uploaded photos from last weekend’s ski trip to colorado, though all the photos are from when wendy and lucy went snowmobiling. it’s a good thing i didn’t bring a camera with me when vu and i went boarding - i would have crushed it in one of the many instances i found myself wrapped around a tree.

fisl fo’ shizzle

Friday, Mar 17. 2006  –  Category: OpenSolaris

w00t. it looks like i’m going to FISL (Fórum Internacional Software Livre), the free/open source software conference down in beautiful Porto Alegre, Brasil. I’ll be there from April 18 to April 22, evangelising OpenSolaris.

Will you be going? Let me know, and let’s meet up! Sun doesn’t have a booth this year :(, so I’m gonna be the wandering Sun guy handing out DVDs and t-shirts.

I’m really psyched to go. I’ve never been to South America before, let alone Brasil, so I’m pretty stoked.

frustration

Wednesday, Mar 15. 2006  –  Category: Sun

normally i treat my laptop with all the love and care in the world.

but using Sun’s @)#($)@(#%)@#(W*%-ing travel planning website makes me want to take it, and hurl it out the window. if i could make an invention that would let me virtually reach out and strangle whoever wrote this piece of crap, i would. i wouldn’t be rich. but at least i wouldn’t be so freaking frustrated.

cool ideas, and a little bit of irony

Wednesday, Mar 15. 2006  –  Category: Musings

i was at Stanford University yesterday watching tammy give her final project presentation for her HCI class (which was very cool, by the way - you should get her to show it to you sometime if you see her). her class had some really interesting projects; the three most impressive (after tammy’s of course) were the Nightcrawl project, the PALette project, and this tele-health project for remote acoustic listening.

Nightcrawl was an interesting project that basically enabled mobile-phone users to keep tabs of where their friends were, and what events were going on that night. it actually reminded me of the ActiveCampus project i worked on at UCSD. neat, and certainly something with a lot of application - and i can see big commercial potential behind it.

PALette was a really cool collaborative painting/drawing program for kids. by far the coolest thing was the sound effects and the ability to digitally mix virtual paint colours.

The tele-health project was really cool, and one that I can see having a lot of commercial and social impact. It basically enables a doctor to remotely listen to a body’s sounds (heartbeat, breathing, etc.). I can see this having a huge impact in third world countries or areas with a high patient/doctor ratio.

At the end of the presentations, I bumped into an old colleague. Actually I think he was the CTO when Jesse and I worked at Ricoh… a guy by the name of Kurt Piersol. It was nice to catch up for a few minutes and see what he was up to. Apparently he’s heading up a research group to figure out how to get people to stop using paper.

Which I find hilariously ironic given that he works for what is essentially a photocopier company.