Friday, November 30, 2007

docs.sun.com

docs.sun.com has a new blog

http://blogs.sun.com/dsc

So stay upto-date with the latest developments made in docs.sun.com

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Solaris packages

Three links that would be immensely useful forsolaris beginners (like me).

http://www.bolthole.com/solaris/pkg-get.html and its host website http://www.bolthole.com/

http://www.blastwave.org/

http://sunfreeware.com/

 

OpenOffice.org new forums

OpenOffice.org got new user forums. http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/

To subscribe to the mailing list or get access to the archives of the announcement mailing list go to this web page.

SAMP

For web developers, this is a good news... the complete SAMP (Solaris Apache Mysql PHP) is available with the latest versions of each of them. Apache: 2.2, Mysql 5 and PHP5.
I have worked with the xAMP thingy on Windows, Linux and Mac... maybe its time for Solaris too...

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Firefox Update

Firefox2 has recently been updated to version 2.0.0.10 which has some security and stability improvements.

You can download the Solaris version from here

For release notes visit http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/2.0.0.10/releasenotes/ 

Sunday, November 25, 2007

ZFS page at MacOSForge.org

Nothing much... It will soon have more contents.

http://zfs.macosforge.org/

Saturday, November 24, 2007

FOSS.IN in about 10 days....

I quote
"FOSS.IN is one of the world's largest FOSS events, held annually in India. The event is highly focussed on FOSS development and contribution. Over the years, it has attracted thousands of participants, and the speaker roster reads like a "Who's Who" of FOSS contributors from across the world."

And hey, look almost 50% of the delegates are interested in OpenSolaris: http://foss.in/2007/register/delegates/stats.php

I think Lightning Talks are going to be interesting... Watch Out for updates.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Why oh why!!

Why oh why isnt there any shut-down/restart option at the login screen of OpenSolaris?? Guys please put it there. It is really a pain to log in and then go to the shut down menu!!

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Project Indiana

I have been trying my hands on Project Indiana for a few days now, but I have not been able to post anything since the University folks have blocked the blogger toolbar which lets you upload pictures and I did not want my post to go without any screenshots. But I feel I must mention a few things right now, maybe I'll post the screenshots later.

Project Indiana is an effort to simplify everything about OpenSolaris. They have turned it tu much like Ubuntu. The OS now fits in a single CD (instead of 6), and the installation is much simpler. The CD contains both live version as well as an installer (once you boot using the live CD). The developer preview is out and is downloadable from here. I have tried to get it working on VMware Fusion (I dont have much of a choice  to run it natively since I am using a Macbook Pro). Everything was an instant success but with few glitches (Which I am yet to figure out). The first problem is that it would simply refuse to let me sign into the root account. Secondly, once I am completely booted and signed in, it wont let me Shut Down the computer.... saying that I need Priviledges or something. Thirdly, the network b/w the VM and my Mac didnot work seamlessly right out after install as it usually works with the other operating systems. Maybe this will solve after I go through the workaround given here.Well I really dont think these are bugs, maybe I'll be able to work out these problems.

Anyways, apart from those small glitches everything was really smooth, right from the bootup till the installation. I have removed the VM temporarily, cause I will switch to a 64-bit VM (earlier I was using 32-bit) and also due to some space constraints. But, I'll soon get back to it and post the screenshots as well.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Some references for Mac users as well as Open Source lovers

Being a Mac OS X user myself, I cant keep away from these articles. But some of these articles highlight the "short comings" of open source communties and they should be a must read for those who are trying to be a part of this movement. Looking at the real needs of the open source movement, we must try to address the issues described in the following references.

1. Chhandomay puts together a list of Solaris Reviews and Blogs

2. I reached this article through subsequent links to the above listed page and its a MUST READ, esp the comments to this post.

3. Maybe this one is also worth a look

Monday, November 12, 2007

Simple examples...

The Service Management Facility (SMF) and DTrace are some of the powerful features of Solaris.

I have found these two links with some examples.

Using Service Management Facility (SMF) in the Solaris 10 OS: A Quick Example

End-to-End Tracing of Ajax/Java Applications Using DTrace

I never knew DTrace can be extended to even Ajax applications. Since I have been using Ajax for quite some time now, I think it could be of great help to developers.

Friday, November 9, 2007

शुभ दिपावली

Wishing all of you a very Happy Diwali!!

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Sun Academic Initiative

I have been using SAI for a few days now... Really good material they have for all kinds of sun-related training. Currently I am doing some simple Solaris modules. They have a very brief and to-the-point notes and along with that animated tutorials that help you understand things easily. And these training materials train you directly for Sun Certification. Thus it is one of the recommended Sun products and just like most of them, even this is free.

And yes... I really really hate the Panjab University adminstration to have this thing blocked due to some restricted keyword in the URL. Hopefully this will soon be lifted. I really hope I would be able to continue to enjoy this training even at my college/hostel.

Monday, November 5, 2007

Red Hat to work on OpenJDK

This one has spread all over the blogging community.. Maybe even I should highlight it for this side of the world....

Red Hat and Sun Collaborate to Advance Open Source Java Technology

Its official, cause Red Hat has signed the Sun Contributor Agreement and also the Sun's OpenJDK Community Technology Compatibility Kit License Agreement... Im sure the things are going to improve at an even greater speed, when the two biggies work together.

A few more references...

Just to continue on my last post... a few more links for the ZFS support in Mac OS X Leopard
Link 1
Link 2

Thaks to this Sun Blog for referring to them

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Derived work...

Ok... this is interesting. Even Apple is now moving to include Sun Technologies in its products (Mac OS 10.5).

I realize that they have included DTrace in the latest release Leopard... Leopard Technology
More on that (with little explaination) here.

Also they are moving to ZFS. Visit these links...
Link 1
Link 2

Even Mr Jonathan Schwartz has said that Mac will switch to the ZFS filesystem from its existing HFS+

एक शुरुवात...

So it did happen... Very successful. Nice start I'd say. I had a presentation on Open Source and Code For Freedom on 30th Oct, and the response was overwhelming.. 100+ people in a seminar room and we ran out of seats(!!) people were more than willing to stand in the corners and view. I starting off with an introduction of the Sun Club. The presentation was a long one as I covered entire open source basics, sun technologies were introduced, then Code For Freedom was explained with detailed description on NetBeans and OpenSolaris. It was quite an interactive session cause the students were more open to me than they would have been if I were a teacher. And finally even after nearly two hours when I asked if the audience wanted a small demo on NetBeans plugin, the response was affirmitive. So I showed then the small example taken from the NetBeans.org tutorial. Although till the end a few people had left, but nearly 80-90 people remained till the end. Also there were two faculty members who were there throughout the event. A few pens were distributed at the end of the session along with CFF dvds. It was a little difficult when you have only 8 pens as giveaways for such a large crowd. I guess I did a fair job by giving them to those who were most involved in the presentations. Anyways a good start, and lets see how well my learning curve rises with more such events.

Images of the event can be viewed here.
Presentation can be downloaded here.

And.. thanks to the members of the Sun Club for their help & support during the event.

Friday, November 2, 2007

Woah!!

Nice to have a new home on the internet....
Stay tuned cause Im going to *excrete* all my sun-thoughts out here.

 
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