Friday, May 9th, 2008
Anthony Liguori has an excellent blog post up taking a very honest/hard look at Xen and what likely lies ahead (KVM).
I think we can finally admit that we, the Linux community, made a very big mistake with Xen. Xen should have never been included in a Linux distribution. There, I’ve said it. We’ve all been thinking it, have whispered it in closed rooms, and have done our bests to avoid it.
He makes a very valid point that the Xen kernel will never be upstream and therefore it will always be an extra layer. The difference between Xen or other packages around the kernel is that Xen is at the core its own kernel. This is what makes KVM so attractive - you don’t need that extra layer (which creates complexity no matter what).
Quite simply, Xen is not, and will never be, a part of Linux. Therefore, including it in a Linux distribution has only led to massive user confusion about the relationship between Linux and Xen.
Now one thing Anthony didn’t mention is that the ability to swap Xen as the virtualization technology with another, future, and better technology was something the kernel developers perceived long ago. Because of that foresight, most people are starting to use libvirt which abstracts the interface layer into managing virtualization hypervisors like Xen and KVM. What does this mean for enterprise and ordinary users alike? The migration from one technology like Xen to another like KVM can be done near seamlessly because the libvirt-based management tools can plug into either hypervisor, checkpoint start/stop, and bring the images up on another hypervisor.
Friday, May 9th, 2008
This is really cool - Toshiba is putting Cell processors into its 2009 laptops. It looks like they’re targeting video decoding similar to what they’re doing with the Cell processor in TVs, but I’m sure some crafty Linux developers will have a lot of fun using it to power 3D graphics. The Toshiba cell chip will only use 4 SPEs vs the 8 used in the PS3 but it should be quite powerful nonetheless. This could be a huge step forward for video editing and it looks like they’re already partnering with Corel (could we see VideoStudio accelerators?).
I’d like to see Toshiba sell a desktop card now…
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/05/09/toshiba_cell_strategy/
Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
I’ll be in attendance - first game of the year and I’ll get to see Cliff Lee pitch for the first time live.
Thursday, May 1st, 2008
A noticed a very interesting developerWorks article today on the ext4 filesystem.
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-ext4/index.html?ca=drs-
There’s a great summary table of the new features. Remember though, ext4 is still labeled experimental.
Ext4 is the latest in a long line of Linux® file systems, and it’s likely to be as important and popular as its predecessors. As a Linux system administrator, you should be aware of the advantages, disadvantages, and basic steps for migrating to ext4. This article explains when to adopt ext4, how to adapt traditional file system maintenance tool usage to ext4, and how to get the most out of the file system.
Thursday, May 1st, 2008
There’s some interesting backlash over OOXML’s approval in the UK.
The British Standards Institution has been taken to court by a group of Unix users in an attempt to get the standards body to recant its approval of Microsoft’s Office Open XML document format.
I find it ironic that there is not a single instance where anyone has really shown a love for OOXML or some sort of even small inclination that it was a good thing to approve as an international standard. Instead it seems the vote was PawnsPaidByMSFT vs PeopleWhoThinkForThemselves. Well now it’s in the UK courts.
Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
Very interesting article over at eWeek. There’s all kinds of “quirks” in the details for any of these comparisons, but it’s an interesting overview nonetheless.
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Government/Clinton-Obama-and-McCain-Vote-ForAgainst-Tech/?kc=EWKNLGOV043008FEA1
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
If you’re in the NYC area, IBM is hosting a great “Next Generation Linux” event at the Hilton on Church St. It should be a great day of speakers discussing where Linux is heading, what makes Linux unique and “special”, and what workloads are great for running Linux. It’s a packed session from 9-12 (breakfast at 8 if you’re an early riser).
You can register here:
https://www-950.ibm.com/events/wwe/grp/grp017.nsf/agenda?openform&seminar=692H5MES&locale=en_US/
Agenda
| Time |
Description |
| 8:00 am |
Registration & Continental Breakfast |
| 9:00 am |
Welcome & Introduction |
|
Linux and Innovation
- What makes Linux special?
- Recent & Future Developments
- Linux and the leading-edge of computing
|
|
Break |
|
Linux for Business-Critical Workloads
- Which workloads are best suited to Linux?
- Implementing business-critical workloads on Linux
- Best practices and customer case studies
|
|
Break |
|
Breakout Sessions
- Linux on System z
- Emerging Linux Technologies
- Linux and the Desktop of the Future
|
|
A Customer’s Perspective: Linux for Business Critical Workloads |
| 12:00 pm |
Wrap Up & Q&A |
|
RSVP for Lunch! Take this opportunity to chat with the speakers and to network |
Monday, April 28th, 2008
There are some important security updates in WordPress 2.5.1 so update when you can. I also noticed an added security measure they’ve included with a secret key for hashing cookies via the config file. (Check out the last paragraph)
http://wordpress.org/development/2008/04/wordpress-251/
Secret lives of blogs
Since 2.5 your wp-config.php file allows a new constant called SECRET_KEY which basically is meant to introduce a little permanent randomness into the cryptographic functions used for cookies in WordPress. You can visit this link we set up to get a unique secret key for your config file. (It’s unique and random on every page load.) Having this line in your config file helps secure your blog.
Many thanks to Steven Murdoch for responsibly reporting the security issue (CVE-2008-1930) and Alex Concha for reporting an XSS issue.
Thursday, April 24th, 2008
The good news: Hardy Heron is fantastic.
The complicated news: there appears to be a bug in the Wubi installer that can set the drive path incorrectly. It doesn’t ruin anything, but it could be tricky for novices that run into it. More on this tomorrow.
Download your Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron ISOs today!
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
Ted put together a great set of insights into what Sun may have been up to with OpenSolaris. Ted has a great way of cutting through the marketing BS and gets right to the heart of what’s going on. Obviously I completely agree with him on a few issues. Do any of these sound familiar? I think I’ve covered some of this before here, and here, and here.
From Ted:
So that explains why it’s take three long years to try to get basic open source development tools (such as putting Open Solaris source code in a distributed SCM located outside of the Sun firewall) for Open Solaris. It was never was Sun’s intention to try to promote a kernel engineering community, or at least, it was certainly not a high priority for them to do so.
So if you run into a Sun salescritter or a Sun CEO claiming that OpenSolaris is just like Linux, it’s not. Fundamentally, Open Solaris has been released under a Open Source license, but it is not an Open Source development community.
I find it unbelievable Sun’s executives still forge ahead as though there are no issues - this was a half baked plan when it launched and unfortunately Sun has to cut costs and can’t invest what’s required to do this right (not to mention Sun also made some big mistakes - anyone using the CDDL?). In the meantime, Sun and its investors have missed out on the huge Linux boom that quite honestly… Sun was best positioned to take advantage of. Oops…
Jonathan, what community are you looking at - where is it? Please show me. (I’m sure your shareholders would be interested too.
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
IBM launched its iDataPlex server systems today - think of it as a “Google” for your datacenter. It’s targeted at web workloads and is insanely dense and power efficient compared to traditional server buildouts. And it uses Linux on commodity hardware so it’s also ridiculously cheap. If you’re a web hosting shop or you have your own web farm that could use a serious overhaul, iDataPlex is a very cool solution.
Did I mention it only runs Linux?
Ashlee Vance cracks me up - it’s clear from this article he’s been talking to vendors for two long (see the last sentence in this quote):
The system itself is quite remarkable. IBM has reworked its approach to rack servers allowing it to place twice as many systems in a single cabinet. This attack centers on delivering the most horsepower possible in a given area while also reducing power consumption. IBM hopes the iDataPlex unit will attract today’s service providers buying thousands and tens of thousands of servers and also big businesses such as oil and gas firms and media companies that will also possibly pursue a grid-ish data center computing model pioneered to some degree by Google.
But the really awe inspiring bit of iDataPlex comes from the fact that IBM is willing to go after this market at all and that it did so without screwing up the hardware design.
Ars covered the details as well over here:
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
Interesting to see that KVM is adding in memory overcommit features - this adds significant flexibility for virtualization management. You can read more on Avi’s blog:
http://avikivity.blogspot.com/2008/04/memory-overcommit-with-kvm.html
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
Just saw that apple has acquired PA-Semi who ironically builds processors based on the IBM Power architecture (the same architecture it dumped for Intel for its desktop/laptops). It’s interesting to see them come full circle although this is clearly a mobile device opportunity and I’m guess not for desktop/laptops…
http://gizmodo.com/382929/apple-buys-itself-a-little-chip-company-known-for-super-efficient-processors
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
Unless you’ve been without internet access for days, you should know by now that Ubuntu’s next release is due tomorrow and that is always an exciting time. So fire up your fastest mirror tomorrow and see how much bandwidth you can grab before a billion others do the same ;)
I really like the direction Mark is taking with Ubuntu on the server. One, it offers a competing model for the industry compared to the RHEL/SLES model, two Ubuntu is pushing the technology further (e.g. KVM) and making it very easy for users to adopt (ala Microsoft Windows), and finally, it’s one platform that does well in many circles from desktop to server (ala Windows). So while Red Hat, Novell and Oracle fight over what’s left of Sun’s Solaris install base and grab some of the Windows opportunity, Ubuntu is driving straight into the Windows Vista SP1 Party with a fresh alternative. Now let’s just get those “Apple-like” Ubuntu systems we need with all the Adobe apps on them ;-)
Ubuntu article: http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2008/042108-ubuntu-linux-takes-on-enterprise.html?page=1
P.S. I claim absolutely no insight into what amount of sheer stupidity or drunkenness led to that Microsoft video link. I think sogrady said it best with just, “words fail me”.
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008
Mainsoft has really cool technology for migrating Windows apps to Java which then lets you run the apps anywhere - Linux, UNIX, Mainframe, cellphone … ok, I’m not sure about a cellphone ;-). Now they’ve added ASP.Net AJAX to their portfolio. I *think* the only thing they do not port today with their product is Windows Forms… I could be wrong, but my golden rule has been if it runs on a Windows server, it will run on Linux or any platform that runs Java.
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/Mainsoft-Ports-ASPNet-AJAX-to-Linux/
Mainsoft’s new product lets developers use Microsoft’s ASP.Net to build applications for Linux.
Mainsoft has announced tooling that enables developers to use Microsoft’s ASP.Net AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) on Linux.
Saturday, April 12th, 2008
I remember using Winamp back in college. It was 1997 and downloading music from websites (yes, actual HTML links to download XYZ by Whoever) started to become popular. I don’t recall when Napster really hit my radar (not that I would admit to ever using it), but Winamp and MP3 were 1:1 in my world. When Winamp 2.0 came out, I remember playing around with all the skins… I even created a JCU skin at one point… memories.
It’s been a while since I’ve used Winamp though. Having moved most of my systems to Linux, I have rarely seen much of Windows and admittedly lost touch with Winamp. Today am happy to say that we’ve reconnected.
Our reconnection starts with an absolute hatred of iTunes and a horrible relationship that involves completely erasing, syncing, and re-creating libraries, playlists, etc b/c Apple decided to build in all kinds of DRM into iTunes. It’s nonsense and the challenge has always been in my mind, a lack of alternatives. The latest issue I’ve had is that my MP3 library is on a RAID array and for some reason, iTunes keeps on blowing up the RAID array… not good. I can’t even imagine how that’s possible, but it’s highly repeatable. I start Windows, RAID array is fine. I do anything, leave Windows on for 2 days, it’s fine. On the second day, if I open iTunes and do anything that involves accessing a file… my RAID drive splits into 2 separate drives in Windows Explorer and if I reboot - I get a degraded RAID array.
I have a system at home that has Windows Vista 64-bit. I needed Windows b/c I needed a couple things: 1) Photoshop, 2) Video editors for my home movies recorded on the awesome Sony HDR-SR7 HD video camera, and 3) web conferencing (although I don’t need Windows anymore now that I have the latest Ubuntu).
So back to my plight. I bought an iPod Nano 3rd Generation a while back simply because it’s thinner and lighter than my last MP3 player. It’s perfect for skiing is really what it comes down to.
I tried Songbird, but it’s way too early (couldn’t add any songs to my iPod). I tried a demo version of some terrible app that supposedly integrates into Windows Media Player. I searched for any way to get gtkPod on Windows, and even considered a Busybox/gtkPod route. And then… a Google search finally led to a blog, a blog to another blog’s list of alternatives and there it was: “Winamp.com”. The solution quickly unfolded before my eyes. Winamp - it’s been years, but boy am I glad to see you again.
So I fired up Winamp and right there, it found my iPod without me doing anything. I can click drag files onto the iPod and it’s seamless. And here’s the best part - you can play songs OFF the iPod and you can go in and delete files from the iPod (no check a box in the library / sync nonsense).
Winamp is the best iTunes there ever was. It’s like seeing a good friend from college that you had so many great times with but lost touch through the years. Now, let’s go have a beer.
Escape iTunes: Download Winamp
Thursday, April 10th, 2008
With 100x your current memory, you may actually be able to run Vista faster… :-)
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9915449-7.html?tag=bl
Tuesday, April 8th, 2008
Wow, KVM has been ported to run on IBM mainframes - just think… over 1,000 Linux images… each image can host many KVM images… KVM uses QEMU which could theoretically emulate other processor architectures.
Well, let’s just start with KVM is available for any IBM System z users out there.
http://blog.codemonkey.ws/2008/04/kvm-for-mainframe.html
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