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Direct2D Acceleration: Firefox Measures up to IE9
Repositioning the KDE Brand
Tail the OpenSSO SSOToken Then Go! Get Turkey
- Log into the OpenSSO Console as administrator. Click the Configuration tab.
- Click the Servers and Sites tab.
- Click the appropriate server link in the Servers table.
- Click the debugging link.
- Select Message from the drop down options.
- Click Save.
Command Line Reference Doc Updated
Hi everyone, short note here.
I have created a new version of the handy Command Line Reference doc for Sun desktop technologies. This is a pdf with quick links to the complete man page reference for SRSS 4.2, SRWC 2.0 and VDI 3.1.
I know that the man pages are now up on the Wiki, but sometimes it's easiest to just have this thing as a shortcut for quick reference.
Enjoy, let me know if this pdf doesn't work on your system.
Brad
Pavol Rusnak: Fedora and openSUSE Community Engagement
The middle of November was very exciting for both Fedora and openSUSE communities. At first, openSUSE project unleashed its 11.2 release, which was followed by Fedora 12 a few days after. I thought it would be interesting to dig into bug reports which were filed during the development of these two releases in respective bugzillas.
I’m not going to compare the absolute number of bugs, nor the ratio of reported/closed ones, because I think these statistics are easy to find. Also, Fedora 12 development took 6 months, while openSUSE 11.2 took 11 months and this is not very comparable. What I was interested in was how much work happens inside the companies and how much outside their walls, in the community. Please, bear in mind that development is not only about reporting, closing bugs and their count. A lot also happens on wikis, openFATE or other tools, so these statistics could be a little bit skewed. Enough talking, here comes the data and charts …
openSUSE 11.2 Fedora 12 Novell community Red Hat community bugs reported by 1739 3915 1483 4305 unique reporters 207 957 279 1663 bugs assigned* to 5537 117 4143 1645 unique assignees* 237 54 226 231* – assignee could be mailing list, it does not have to be an individual
Chart 1: Bugs reported by
Chart 2: Unique reporters
When we look at the reporters charts, we see that they are quite similar. This is good!
Chart 3: Bugs assigned to
Chart 4: Unique assignees
The next two charts are where we can see drastic differences. What are the reasons for this? Well, I was able to come up with these:
- like mentioned above, openSUSE project utilizes other tools, e.g. openFATE, to steer development
- openSUSE is younger project than Fedora, so the community involvement is lower (sometimes it is still very hard for externals to understand WHAT and HOW should be achieved)
- Novell folks do not reassign bugs to community members, even if the problem is fixed via Build Service submit request, the bug stays assigned to ‘insider’ who closes it
- some of the assignees are in fact mailing lists that contain both internal and external people, but they belong to novell.com domain
- Fedora uses bugzilla for package reviews, these often include external people but are not actual bug reports
Can you think of any more reasons? What can we do to improve the situation and to engage openSUSE community more?
Behdad Esfahbod: Funny spam
Subject: This is hard for me to say
This is quite hard for me and I haven't been able to let you know up till now (you'd know why if you knew who I was)...but I have a crush on you.
You'll have to find out who I am though (I'm quite shy and this is without a doubt the bravest thing I've ever done). To help you out I made some videos and pictures with your nickname over my body. The photos and videos are kind of risque so I had to make a name at Black Book and put them there. My username in the members area is " behdad.esfahbodandme2009" (it's a free website).
But anyway, get on Black Book and once you are in, take a look for me. I want you to guess who I am and then approach me yourself. Good luck.
Hugs and kisses, Your secret admirer
PS. You'll get no extra help by e-mailing me back, so don't try :P
Sun VDI 3.1 met Hyper-V, VMWare en Sun VirtualBox
Kort na het uitkomen van Sun Ray Server Software 5, is nu ook Sun VDI 3.1 uitgekomen. Alhoewel de update van 3.0 naar 3.1 wellicht de indruk geeft dat het om een minor release gaat zijn er veel nieuwe mogelijkheden bijgekomen. Bijvoorbeeld het gebruik van Hyper-V en Microsoft RDS naast de bekende Desktop Providers VMWare en Sun VirtualBox. Verder is Sun Ray Software 5 een geintegreerd onderdeel van Sun VDI 3.1 met daarbij de extra mogelijkheden zoal de Sun Desktop Access Client.
Onderstaande presentatie van Dirk Grobler geeft aan wat er nieuw is in Sun VDI 3.1
Richard W.M. Jones: libguestfs architecture ASCII art
There was a little bit of confusion about how exactly libguestfs works, so I drew the architecture diagram in wonderful ASCII art … This is what happens when you type guestfish -a disk.img …
___________________ / \ | main program | | | | | child process / appliance | | __________________________ | | / qemu \ +-------------------+ RPC | +-----------------+ | | libguestfs <--------------------> guestfsd | | | | | +-----------------+ | \___________________/ | | Linux kernel | | | +--^--------------+ | \_________|________________/ | _______v______ / \ | Device or | | disk image | \______________/See here for all the information about the API and architecture.
Bryan Clark: Try other web apps in Thunderbird tabs
Colin Dean converted the code from my post on Google Calendar in Thunderbird tabs and created a GMail tab for Thunderbird.
If you’re interested in trying what a web application would look like running inside a Thunderbird tab without modifying an extension use the following code snippet.
Open the Error Console from the Tools Menu
Copy & Paste this code into the input entry at the top:
Components.classes['@mozilla.org/appshell/window-mediator;1'] .getService(Components.interfaces.nsIWindowMediator) .getMostRecentWindow("mail:3pane") .document.getElementById("tabmail") .openTab("contentTab",{contentPage:"http://tinyvid.tv/show/2h9led44g152z"})Change the provided link ( http://tinyvid.tv/show/2h9led44g152z ) at the end to the web application you’d like to try, like http://twitter.com for example. Click the ( Evaluate ) button.
It’s Party Time! ( if you didn’t change the link, http://tinyvid.tv/show/2h9led44g152z )
You can continue to iterate the tab application by creating a new click handler, however at that point it might be worthwhile to start with the extension code instead of working in the error console.
Jetpack for Thunderbird
In the hopefully not too distant future Thunderbird will gain Jetpack as it’s new extension model and it will be no longer necessary for add-ons like this these be created but instead a simple Jetpack which can do the same things without restarts or complicated installs.
If you’re interested in this take a look at Andrew’s recent Jetpack in Thunderbird post.
Above code snippet courtesy of Magnus in bug 519041
VirtualBox 3.1 Beta 3 now available for download
In addition to the new features introduced with Beta 1 (live migration, branched snapshots, new OpenSolaris USB support, 2D video acceleration, network changes while VM is running), the following are noteworthy changes since Beta 2.
- VMM: fixes slow OpenSolaris booting (3.1.0 Beta 1 regression)
- GUI: prevent hints being send for guest-initiated resizes
- GUI: fix for saved mouse shape data which was incorrectly updated
- Xml compatibility fixes with 3.0.x (CpuIdTree element)
- Storage/VMDK: fix buffers for really huge VMDK files split into 2G pieces
- EFI: added 64-bit firmware
- 2D support: Saved state save/restore fixes
- 2D support: fixed VM reset issues
- Snapshots: suppresses the automatic resetting of immutable disk images on VM power-up if the machine has snapshots AND the current snapshot is an online snapshot, to avoid data corruption (the machine would otherwise be reset to a state which is equivalent of a poweroff of a running machine without a proper shutdown)
- Guest Additions: fixed a rare guest crash with 2 or more guest CPUs
- Windows Additions: improved file version lookup for guest OS information
- Windows Additions: disabled some debug output
- Linux Additions: fixed guests with Linux 2.4 kernels
- Linux Additions: removed debugging symbols to save space (3.1.0 Beta 2 regression)
- X11 Additions: fixed a bug which re-enabled the graphics (and dynamic resizing) capability when disabling seamless
- X11 Additions: added more default resolutions for old guests
- X11 Additions: workaround a bug in X.Org 1.3 which caused dynamic resizing to fail
Please refer to the VirtualBox 3.1 Beta 3 Changelog for a complete list of changes and enhancements.
Important Note: Please do not use this VirtualBox Beta release on production machines. A VirtualBox Beta release should be considered a bleeding-edge release meant for early evaluation and testing purposes.
Report problems or issues at the VirtualBox Beta Forum.
Technocrati Tags: Sun Virtualization VirtualBox
Oracle rdbms 11gR2 available for Solaris x86-64
http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/index.html
So I'll be installing it on my laptop shortly.
John Gardner: Oracle rdbms 11gR2 available for Solaris x86-64
http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/index.html
So I'll be installing it on my laptop shortly.
Yaakov M. Nemoy: Glögg
I can't show this with the same fancy pictures nicu had, but the recipe is more or less the same. If nicu wants to make a cartoon version of me getting wasted off this stuff, that would be awesome, but if you need the ingredients, just follow his recipe and add the couple of things i throw in. If you don't know what an orange looks like, you'll have to use your imagination.
Ingredients:
1 Orange, washed, preferably locally grown or organic so you know it's not covered in pesticides, you need the rind.
Cinnamon sticks
Whole cloves
A couple of table spoons of brown sugar or even molasses to taste.
1 Bottle of whiskey or brandy, Wild Turkey won't cut it, get a bottle that costs more than 5 bucks.
1 Bottle of port, find the nicest port you can afford, go down one notch, and get that one instead.
1 Bottle of an adequate red table wine. Bum wine and Liebefraumilch just won't cut it.
For true glögg, you really need cardamom in the pods. I feel a bit rude calling this drink glögg, but i've never had any cardamom around to try it with. After a few sips, you won't care what it's called. Swedes also like to add sliced almonds and raisins to the drink. I like my drinks with as few things floating in them as possible. If you like bobbing things in your drink, i highly recommend it, because it tastes good.
You start by dumping the contents of the bottle of wine into a big pot, adding the cinnamon sticks, the cloves, and the orange rinds. Put it over a low heat and slowly bring up the temperature. At no point should it ever boil, and if you see bubbles forming, lower the heat a bit. While mulling over the wine, the universe, and the essential meaning of life, enjoy a nice orange. Once the wine is warm, add a bit of the sugar or molasses so it can loosen up in the heat. If you use sugar, the goal is to have it very slowly caramelize.
Then add the port and the brandy or whiskey. Add the rest of the sugar, do a taste test to make sure it's not too sweet. Continue to let it mull for a while over the flames. Make sure the flavor from the spices and orange peel are infused, but don't let the hard alcohol mix in too too much. It's a trick of timing where you know that the spices are infused enough to add the hard stuff. If you let the harder stuff infuse too far, then you won't taste the alcohol.
Finally, when the taste is just right, and half the pot is gone from taste tests, remove it from the flame and serve warm. [Insert cartoon of loupgaroublond completely off his rocker.]
Cheers!
Chitlesh Goorah: [FEL]: Verilog::Language update to 3.222 on Fedora
The perl-Verilog-Perl will now obsolete perl-Verilog as a result of a Fedora packaging naming convention. Thanks to Wilson Snyder, the version 3.222 was just pushed to Fedora Testing repositories with the following bug fixes.
- Fix missing ; in ContAssign::verilog_text, bug177. [Nicolas Wilhelm]
- Fix multi-dimensional arrayed typedefs, bug183. [Vesselin Kavalov]
- Fix “assert () else” action_blocks. [Vesselin Kavalov]
- Fix typedef scoping under anonymous begin blocks.
- Fix `define argument mis-replacing system task of same name, bug191.
- Fix SystemPerl hitting “undefined find_interface…” in 3.220.
- Fix erroring on strings with backslashed newlines, bug168. [Pete Nixon]
- Fix compile error on RHEL3 with gettext, bug169. [Marek Rouchal]
- Fix line number miscounting with `pragma.
- Add parsing of “assign”, including SigParser::contassign callback, Netlist::ContAssign object, and related accessors.
- Several code speedups to vhier, Verilog::Netlist, and the parsers.
- Add Preproc::getall to fetch all text instead of line-by-line.
- Add Parser::new(use_cb_{name}=>0) option to speed parsing.
- Add SigParser/Netlist::new(use_vars=>0) option to speed parsing.
- Fix deep defines causing flex scanner overflows. [Brad Dobbie]
- Fix preprocessing commas in deep parameterized macros. [Brad Dobbie]
- Fix Preproc::defSubstitute not being called on parameterized macros.
- Fix Perl 5.8.8 compile error, bug115. [Marek Rouchal]
Charlie Brej: For the hate of APE tags
APE tags are yet another method of tagging media files with metadata. Ever wondered how your MP3 player knows the title and the artist of a song? Well it is through the use of tags implanted within the file, making sure the player does not try to play the information. The three most popular MP3 tag types are:
- ID3v1 – the original tagging format form 1993 using a fixed field block with a title, artist and album. All in iso-8859-1, so you probably could still correctly spell Röyksopp and Sigur Rós, but you will have problems adding the artist 峰厚介 – 市川秀男 – 日野元彦 – 植松孝夫 – 池田芳夫 – 稲葉国光 playing track ジンジャーブレッド・ボーイ, both due to the characters used and the 30 character limit in each field.
- ID3v2 – came in 1998 with the solution of using flexible and definable fields and allowing the tag to be places at the start of the file. The flexibility allowed apps to keep any kind of information they liked within the file. Everything from the maximum volume of the track to album artwork.
- APE – was implemented in parallel with ID3v2 and solves the same issues and the format is even more versatile.
ID3v2 is the most common tag format in MP3 files “in the wild” and most taggers will add an ID3v1 tag from the ID3v2 tag data just to cover both bases. APE, although not as common due to its flexibility, is the preferred tag format in many applications. Rhythmbox for example looks for an APE tag, then an ID3v2 and at a last resort tries an ID3v1. The problem is that most Linux tagging tools, and players which allow you to edit the tags, only write ID3 tags. This creates a bizarre situation where you change the tag of a song in Rhythmbox, the value in the field changes, the ID3 tag is updated in the file, Rhythmbox notices an updated file, it re-reads the file APE tags, changes the field back to it’s original value.
How to kill APE tags?This is something I have struggled over for several years. There are pieces of Linux software which can edit APE tags, but I found these get confused by the presence of an ID3 tag. For ages, I would remove the ID3 tag from a file, remove the APE tag, then re-insert the ID3 information. This was both clumsy and dangerous as my hacky shell scripts would often do disastrous things with tags that have escaping characters (If you are in a band, release a song named \” rm -Rf *; ).
The pain lasted until the other day, when I looked around and found py-ApeTag. Wow, it just works (that’s my favourite type of working). It removes the APE tags even when obscured by other tags and worked even in cases where I gave up trying to use other software to remove the tag and went by hand with hexedit to damaging the field names so they would not conflict. Applied it to my entire music collection without a single fault. Thank you Jeremy Evans!
How to useTo install, as root, download my altered version of the py-ApeTag module to some bin directory and make it executable.
su wget http://brej.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/ApeTag -O/usr/bin/ApeTag chmod a+x /usr/bin/ApeTagTo run, execute ApeTag with the filenames of the files you wish to view the APE tag of.
ApeTag *.mp3Now that you can see the tags, you can remove them. You can apply this to files with no tag and it will not touch them.
ApeTag --delete *.mp3To apply to all files in your library.
find -name \*.mp3 -exec ApeTag {} \;Viewing thread activity in the Performance Analyzer
The Sun Studio Performance Analyzer is one of the two tools that I use most frequently (the other is spot - which is now in SS12U1!). It's a very powerful tool, but a lot of that power is not immediately visible to users. I'm going to discuss a couple of ways I've used the analyzer to view parallel applications.
The most common first step for looking at the performance of parallel apps is to use the timeline. However, the timeline can look a bit cluttered with all of the call stack data. Often you are really just interested in the leaf node. Fortunately this can be configured from the data presentation dialog box. To get the view I want I'm only showing the top leaf in the call stack:
This results in a display of the samples in each routine, by default this can look very colourful. You can make it easier on the eye by selecting the colours used to display the graphic. In the following graphic I've picked green for one parallel routine that I'm interested in, and blue for another, then used a yellow to colour all the time waiting for more work to be assigned:
The graphic shows that the work is not evenly spread across all threads. The first few threads spend more time in the hot routines than the later threads. We can see this much more clearly using the 'threads' view of the data. To get this view you need to go back to the data presentation dialog and select the threads tab, it's also useful to select the 'cpus' tab at the same time.
The threads tab shows the activity of each thread for the currently displayed metrics. This is useful to see if one thread is doing more work than another. The cpus tab shows time that the app spends on each CPU in the machine - this can indicate whether a particular CPU is over subscribed. The thread activity looks like:
This confirms what we thought earlier that some of the threads are much more active than other threads. The top chart shows the user time, which indicates that all the threads spent the same amount of time running 'stuff', the middle chart shows the time that each thread spent running useful work, the lower chart shows the time spent in overhead. The exercise now is to try and improve the distribution of work across the threads......
Jon Stanley: Google Analytics is very revealing
My old blog is also getting a lot of traffic (more than this one), 66% of it coming from search engines (and most of that obviously Google). A minuscule amount of traffic from search engines comes here, by comparison.
The question that I guess this leaves me with is "how do I tell Google that the same content that's over there is over here as well"? I know that this for example is one of my most popular posts from my old blog (and probably could stand some updating), but Google has no idea it's here (at least a search for site:blog.jds2001.org kickstart didn't find it, but it did find the archive page it was linked from)
I guess there's no harm in leaving up the old site, but I feel that I should make one final entry in there to say that everything is over here now.....
<script defer="defer" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
Job Manager 0.3.0 Released
*sniffles* It’s growing up so quickly!
This new release sees a few new features:
- Framework for supporting additional functionality through plugins
- Support for Sitemaps, through Google XML Sitemaps
- POT file added, for translations
On top of that, a pile of bug fixes. The Changelog has all the details.
As always, the Job Manager home page remains the same. If you want to dive right into the action, download it here!
With the addition of the plugin functionality, I’d certainly be interested to hear from other plugin authors who would like to work together.
If you’re bilingual with an urgent need to translate, I’d definitely love to hear from you, too!
