Archive for January, 2006
Monday, January 30th, 2006
DB2 is FREE! (Beer)
I almost glanced over the Slashdot post - looks like IBM is following the likes of others like MySQL, Oracle, and MS SQL with a free version of DB2 called DB2 Express-C. It’s not open source, but free is always good. If you’ve never used DB2, it’s a rock solid database server that scales very well. You could start a business on this free version and scale it to a mainframe if necessary.
You can download it here and there’s a support forum setup here. Warning: the 300MB Linux install is not for the bandwidth challenged. There is a Windows install… but who the heck would need that??
I’m already looking to see if it will run on Gentoo… hopefully a positive report back soon.
Sunday, January 29th, 2006
Review: Open Sources 2.0
I’ve posted about this Open Sources 2.0 before, just noticed a decent review over at unixreview.com. The book has some great content although a few drag on quite longer than necessary. Overall, it was definitely worth the time.
Sunday, January 29th, 2006
Couple great tools - apachetop and iftop
If you admin a server and like to use top, check out apachetop and iftop. If you’re using Gentoo, just “emerge apachetop iftop”. Make sure you have fam running “/etc/init.d/famd start” before trying to use apachetop or you will get an error saying fam connection refused. Apachetop let’s you view realtime output of the Apache log - easier than using tail to view or writing your own scripts.
Iftop is great for seeing what the traffic is on your network interface(s). It’s much more useable than tcpdump. Use the -i to specify the interface you want to monitor.
Thursday, January 26th, 2006
Anything on eBay - even IBM/Lotus Boxing Gloves
From those IBM “You vs” ads.. Lotus boxing gloves from Lotusphere 2006. How funny - someone put them up for auction on eBay.
I also noticed today there’s a trial version of IBM’s Lotus Workplace Managed Client - this is the cool Collaboration platform that leverages the Eclipse Rich Client Platform. Really cool stuff. RCP is an interesting architecture although I haven’t seen many others pick it up.
What’s really odd though is that the Eclipse RCP link above goes to the eclipse.org website…. written in PHP? They’re using MediaWiki built on PHP to power a JAVA developer site??? Not sure how that happened but hey I’ll take PHP/Python/RoR over Java anyday.
Thursday, January 26th, 2006
A critical issue for GPL V3 and Linux kernel…
Linus has expressed his concern of the GPL V3 DRM provision:
http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/1/25/273
Wednesday, January 25th, 2006
Linux Desktop Distribution Chooser
http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/index.php?firsttime=true
Interesting - you answer a number of questions and it identifies the right distro for you to use. For me it suggested Gentoo and Slackware - pretty good!
Monday, January 23rd, 2006
Irving Wladawsky-Berger on IBM’s Embrace of Linux
Ever wonder how and why IBM chose to back Linux way back in ‘99? Irving Wladawsky-Berger just posted a very insightful blog entry that everyone should check out.
 http://irvingwb.typepad.com/blog/2006/01/ibms_linux_init.html
Thursday, January 19th, 2006
Installing SystemTap on Gentoo
Ok, I’ve posted about looking at SystemTap before. It let’s you perform deep probing of a running kernel and provides insights for tuning or troubleshooting. I’ve been watching the development lists and it looks like they will be adding in the user space probes soon. Once those are ready we can use SystemTap to watch what’s happening in a running application from the user space into the kernel and back. Great Stuff.. Ok, enough advertising for the team.
Prereqs: Turn on in your kernel: kprobes, relayfs, debugging info
To setup SystemTap on Gentoo:
1) Copy the source down from CVS
2) ./configure then make and then make install
3) You will find stap in /usr/local/bin -> may want to add to your PATH.
4) I had to add a symlink at /lib/modules/2.6.14-gentoo-r5mdolan/vmlinux pointing to /usr/src/linux-2.6.14-gentoo-r5/vmlinux
You should be up and running now. We’ll have to get an ebuild up soon. Join the developer mailing list - they can provide quick help if you have a question. Looking for an introduction? This article might help.
Thursday, January 19th, 2006
Congrats Cleveland - Top 7 Intelligent Communities!
http://www.intelligentcommunity.org/
Cleveland was named by the ICF as one of the top intelligent communities based on broadband innovation in the community. Congrats!
Wednesday, January 18th, 2006
HP Blazes a new Trail - Preloaded Linux PCs!
HP is blazing a new trail preloading Mandriva Linux on PCs in Latin American markets. This is a first for a major vendor - HP’s European operations had gone down this path previously with a customized Ubuntu distro but used the “we’re shipping with Freedos, install yourself” approach.
Congrats on a bold move. Hopefully it pays off and ISVs like Adobe finally release a Photoshop for Linux, a Macromedia Flash Studio for Linux, and Canon releases printer drivers for its photo printers (a personal pet peeve of mine; and please don’t send me a Turboprint link - it’s not the same)
+1 for HP
Tuesday, January 17th, 2006
GPL version 3 - first draft open for comments
The GPL version 3 (GPL3) first draft is available for comment and review. Click here to review the drafting process. Here’s eWeeks’ first take on the draft.
http://gplv3.fsf.org/draft
Friday, January 13th, 2006
While I love the Xbox, this could be really cool
Interesting article on Forbes.com regarding the PS3’s Cell processor.
Execution will be critical for Sony - hopefully they’ve improved their development tools to make it easier on game developers to take advantage of the Cell processor. They will also have to match/beat the power of MSFT’s Xbox Live platform. The PS2 simply wasn’t cut for networked gaming. I haven’t seen anything yet, but does anyone know if Sony will be using Linux as the OS for PS3? I might have to get a PS3 instead of a 360.
Friday, January 13th, 2006
Google Video
There are some crazy videos showing up on Google Video. In general I like Google’s new video site but am not so sure anyone will buy a $4 1998 Cavaliers vs. 76ers basketball game. I will however spend 5 mins watching this crazy video…
Thursday, January 12th, 2006
“Linux is the broadest application system ever”
http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=543
Without debating Mono, the implications of this are quite intriguing. “Linux is the broadest application system ever”… has a nice ring to it!
Monday, January 9th, 2006
Why we don’t see open source drivers… dumb reason, but true
I truly hope we will see open source drivers someday soon… however, if you have never figured out just why that Broadcom wireless card doesn’t work on Linux, check out a great article over at LinuxExlectrons.com. By the way, if you have a Broadcom, try out ndiswrapper - it works very well.
Monday, January 9th, 2006
It must be tense in the Northwest…
This Windows WMF flaw just won’t die… except if you use Linux. If you are still stuck on Windows, take the time to apply the patches - these WMF exploits are fairly tricky.
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006
Is your PC safe? Well wait a week if you want a fix….
“Microsoft Corp. says it will be at least a week before it issues a fix to a recently discovered vulnerability that could let an attacker take control of an Internet-connected computer.”
Wow… a week away… try telling a Linux user that. And yet I’m sure next week there will be another paid analyst report on getthefacts.com touting how much better Windows’ security is… [sigh]
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10696263/
Sunday, January 1st, 2006
Wordpress 2.0 is Out!
If you haven’t noticed, Wordpress has released version 2.0 and the new features are top class. There’s a WSIWYG editor for the html shy. I ran into an odd issue upgrading, but other than that I’m highly impressed. Excellent work by the development team! Grab the latest version here.
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