Sunday 28 December 2008

My Tribe - An enjoyable resource management game for Linux

My Tribe is the latest game from Grubby Games - the creators of Prof Fizzwizzle and Fizzball. Grubby Games are known for releasing Linux versions of all their games. My Tribe game also has a Linux version. The first time I started playing the My Tribe game, I was taken in by its vivid graphics.

The game play is as follows : You are put in charge of controlling and managing a set of island dwellers. At the start of the game, you have to choose an island from over 3000,000,000 islands dotting the horizon (No kidding). Once you choose an island, your island dwellers (people) move to that island and start living there. It is anybody's guess that living a wholesome life requires atleast the basic necessities namely food, clothing and shelter. Fortunately, there are sufficient trees on all islands which provide wood for construction, fuel for fire etc. And also rocks which you have to make the island dwellers harvest. The sea is full of fish which provide the food.


Once your people have sufficient resources namely wood, rocks and food, you can direct them to start constructing buildings such as a Science lab for doing research, storehouses to store rocks, wood and food, craftworks, and of course huts which they can use to get some shut eye and also to procreate. While on the topic of making babies, thanks to the game developers, when ever you wish to increase the tribe population which is a necessity, all you have to do is drag a man over a woman or vice versa. The game asks you if you want them to indeed have a baby. Once you confirm in the affirmative, the couple move into a hut and close the door. And in a few seconds they come out with, voila!! ... a baby.


Occasionally celestial objects in the form of star dust and moon dust fall on the island. These dusts have unique properties and they can be used to create magical portions, speed up building of structures and provide many other benefits to your people on the island. And do keep a look out for barrels and crates which float near the island. They contain surprises which may aid your tribe or make them disoriented.


Each island also comes with three of the game's eight mysterious objects for you to solve. Once you've figured them out, each one gives a powerful benefit to your tribe, and one of the game's 25 trophies.

The game is superb in its graphics and detail. At first I had the impression that the game play was similar to that of Age of Empires game. But this game is significantly different and does not involve violence and gore. Essentially, you manage your tribe to make use of the resources at hand to lead a healthy and happy life. And like in real life, the island dwellers in your game also age with time and will eventually die of old age. Another reason to increase the tribe numbers by allowing them to procreate I guess.


And what do the tribe people do once all the resources on the island get over ? They do the logical thing which is build a shipyard, then build an arc (ship) and set sail to another island.


My Tribe - A game with very low carbon footprint


One of the unique aspects of this game which I find quite amusing is that the game progresses even when you have turned off your computer. This means you need not turn on the computer and sit in front of it playing the game hours on end wasting power. You need just open the game once or twice a day and spend a few minutes tending to your flock by assigning them tasks; After which, you can close the game. The next time you open the game after a few hours, you will find your game has progressed a lot.

I had hours of fun playing the game. While there are some irritating things like when a star dust or moon dust falls on the island, you are expected to drag one of the people over it to collect it - which soon gets quite tedious. It would have been better if the players were to just click on the moon dust or star dust to retrieve them. But such minor irritations apart, this is a game worth spending money on, and enjoyed by the whole family.

Download the demo of Linux version of the game, or buy it.

Monday 22 December 2008

A visual walkthrough of the enhancements in KDE 4.2

The main emphasis of KDE 4.2 release has been drastic improvement in desktop effects. KDE has its own composite window manager called KWIN which received a huge graphical upgrade, with composite and GL support.

Lucas Murray has put together a collection of videos showcasing all the improvements in desktop effects that have found its way into KDE 4.2.


The desktop effects being - Present windows, Snow, Desktop grid, Invert, Box switch, Cover switch, Magic lamp, and of course a slew of subtle features which makes KDE 4.2 a major release in itself as far as the end user is concerned.

All the videos are in high definition format and can be viewed here.

A collection of free books to help you learn Linux

If you are a new Linux user and wish for some direction in understanding Linux, then help is at hand. Unlike a few years ago when a Linux newbie had to solely rely on viewing the man pages or reading the manuals from tldp.org to understand the different facets of Linux, things are much different now. Thanks to the ever growing popularity of Linux, there are a plethora of books, manuals and howtos which make life much easier for a Linux enthusiast. It has also helped that Linux has continued to become easier to configure and use during this time.

Daily Artisan has put together a very good collection of links to free Linux books available on the net. The books span the gamut of Linux Installation, beginner guides, Security, System administration, Programming, Migration, Linux Kernel and of course books specific to particular Linux distributions such as Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian and so on.

A valuable resource worth bookmarking. Read the article at Daily Artisan.

Saturday 20 December 2008

Free CD and Address Label Templates Galore

I have often found the need to create labels, such as for pasting my contact address in a legible manner on my belongings, and of course while burning a blank CD or DVD, in which case I use the CD labels. Thanks to open source and more specifically OpenOffice.org, it is possible to create any number of labels of standard sizes and shapes. To create labels in OpenOffice.org, do the following :
  1. Open OpenOffice.org word processor.
  2. Click File > New > Labels
... and choose from the plethora of options in the dialog box. Lastly, Click on the "New Document" button to create the set of labels.

But why go through all the hassle of designing your own when you have ready made templates of labels available as a free download ? That is right, WorldLabel.com a manufacturer of labels has been in the forefront in creating free templates of labels of various sizes and shapes conforming to industry standards.

They recently published an exhibition of CD labels and Address labels in Open Document Template (ODT) format. The labels were designed using the CC licenced color palletes from ColorLovers.com which makes them all the more desirable.


Fig: Address Label templates from WorldLabel.com



Fig: CD Label Templates from WorldLabel.com


The address labels are compatible with Avery 5160 size and the CD labels with Avery 5931 size.

How easy is it to use WorldLabel.com free label templates ?


It is as easy as choosing your favourite design from the wide selection of label templates. Once you have choosen the right design, download the respective ODT document and open it in OpenOffice.org to enter the personalized information you wish to include.

Incidentally, since the templates are released in the ODT format, these can be opened in other office suites such as KOffice, StarOffice, IBM Lotus Symphony, or any other office suite which supports the Open Document format, apart from OpenOffice.org. If by any chance you are using MSOffice (perhaps using Wine in Linux), then you will need to download the Sun ODF plugin for MSOffice to read Open Document files.

The templates released by WorldLabel.com can be extensively modified by changing the font size, font style and color. You can even add another textbox for entering more information. More importantly, they are free to use. If you are a designer and wish to convert your design into a free label template, then you can submit your graphics to worldlabel[AT]gmail[DOT]com.

Update [Jan 17, 2009]: Worldlabel recently launched a blog which covers all open source topics. On the blog, I came across Solveig Haugland's in-depth article which explains Mail Merge in OpenOffice.org from start to finish which is quite informative. Also check out their Ebook which is available as a free download.

Friday 12 December 2008

Review : Arch Linux - A sleek, fast Linux distribution

I had always wanted to try Arch Linux. Mainly because, most people who used it became its ardent followers and, I wished to know what was the magic that pulled a Linux user to go the Arch Linux way.

Arch Linux follows the philosophy of KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. So you won't find a cool, eye catching GUI installer for installing Arch nor a colorful splash screen which hide the complex boot process while booting up. But what you get for this trade off is a blazing fast Linux distribution which boots much faster than many of its competitors.

Arch Linux is specifically tweaked for, and targeted at the i686/x86-64 architecture which is your ubiquitous Pentium/Celeron processor machines.

Installing Arch Linux itself is an oddity. You first download a minimal Arch Linux core ISO image of around 250-300 MB size and burn it on to a CD. Then you boot your machine from the CD. Arch Linux boots up as a Live CD and puts you in root (super user) prompt. Now you initiate the install process by running the setup script.
# /arch/setup
The full Arch Linux installation guide is accessible at /arch/arch-install-guide.txt. As most of you know, in Linux, you can access multiple virtual consoles at a time. So I opened a second console screen by pressing the key combination [Alt]+[F2] and logging in as root, opened the above mentioned installation guide. Thus I was able to switch between the consoles and simultaneously read the installation guide while continuing with the installation.

The Arch Linux installer is a ncurses based text installer. But someone who has installed any other Linux distribution a couple of times will be comfortable installing Arch on their machine. More over, those who have installed either Slackware or FreeBSD will find the Arch Linux installer very similar and easy to use.

Arch Linux Installation Steps


The following is a synopsis of the steps I had to execute to install Arch on my machine.
  1. Boot the Minimal Arch Linux LiveCD
  2. Login as root user and initiate the Arch Linux installation.
  3. Select an installation source - You can install Arch from a CD/DVD or via FTP. I chose CD-ROM as I already had the base installation on the CD. You can choose FTP/HTTP if you have a very fast internet connection.
  4. Prepare the hard drive - This involves partitioning the hard drive and setting filesystem mountpoints. Arch Linux comes bundled with the cfdisk partitioning utility which is quite easy to use.
  5. Select Packages - This is essentially to give the user a chance to install additional packages not selected by default in the base install. For example, I needed the ntfs-3g package to mount my Windows NTFS partition and I selected it in this step of installation.
  6. Install packages - The packages get installed on the hard disk. Takes some time depending upon the number of packages you have choosen to install.
  7. Configure system - Arch Linux uses the BSD style init framework. So most of the configuration details are inserted in the /etc/rc.conf file. In this step, you are asked a few set of simple questions such as do you need USB support, Firewire support, PCMCIA support and so on for which you give a Yes or No answer. You also get the chance to edit the file directly in a text editor and set your timezone and enter your network settings. The file is superbly commented. Here you are also prompted to set the root password. While configuring the system, the installer asks you to set the package repository which will be used to pull all the packages you install via the Internet.
  8. Install bootloader - Arch Linux provides you a choice of GRUB or LILO. Pick your choice.
  9. Exit install
  10. Reboot
While the steps listed above may seem a lot, it took me just a short time to finish installing the base packages. Arch Linux stores all the installation packages in the pacman cache. Once installation is finished, you can delete these packages as they are no longer needed. I used the following pacman command to delete all the packages stored in the cache.
# pacman -Scc

Are we finished installing Arch Linux yet ?


Of course after finishing the above mentioned steps, I now had a basic, minimal, albeit fully functional Arch Linux on my machine. The hardest part - the installation - was over.But for Arch Linux to be of any use to me, I had to install the Xserver (xorg) and all the necessary software.

Here is the good news - In Arch Linux, it is very easy to install and manage software because it uses a superior package management system called pacman. I headed over to wiki.archlinux.org which is the official documentation of Arch Linux. It contains detailed steps on installing any and all Linux software. I first installed Xorg and then decided to go for a light weight Desktop called LXDE which happened to be a good choice. And in no time, I had a spanking new upto date Linux Desktop with the latest version of software installed. What I found really nice was I had to install just those software which I needed, and that saved valuable space on the hard disk.

pacman - Arch Linux's superior package management tool


One of the strong points of Arch Linux is its powerful package management tool called pacman. Simply put, pacman is to Arch Linux what apt-get is to Debian or Ubuntu. But after using it to upgrade and install software on Arch, I feel pacman is a lot more superior to apt-get if not at par with it. More over, as mentioned earlier, Arch Linux is a rolling release distribution. This makes it possible to run pacman as a cron job and leave the system to update and upgrade itself on a regular basis with minimal user intervention.

Arch Linux has all the important and often used software in its official repositories. Apart from that, Arch Linux also allows the user - that is you and me - to create Arch specific packages of software compiled from source, which are not available in the official repositories. These user generated binary packages are made available in the ArchLinux User-community Repository (AUR). So if you do not find your favourite software in Arch's official repository, you can easily create a binary package by compiling from source and share it with others.

Is Arch Linux the best Linux distribution of them all ?


An interesting question that demands a genuine answer. Honestly, it depends on whom you ask this question. Arch Linux is definitely a fabulous Linux distribution. One of the endearing aspects of Arch Linux for me was when the latest version of GIMP 2.6.3 was officially released. To get the latest version of GIMP, I didn't have to wait that long. Within a few weeks, I was pleasantly surprised to be able to upgrade to GIMP 2.6.3. If it were any other Linux distribution, I will have had to wait till the next official release.

The pros of Arch Linux are ....
  • Speed - It is much faster than any other mainstream Linux distribution.
  • Simple management of software - Arch Linux has a superior form of package management in pacman.
  • A strong community - I posted a query in the Arch Linux forum and received a reply in just a few minutes time. The strong community revolving around Arch Linux is one of its chief strengths.
  • Rolling release distribution - Unlike most other Linux distributions, you need to install Arch Linux only once, and with clever use of Pacman, your system will remain upto date forever.

And the cons of Arch Linux are ...
  • It uses a text based installer similar to that found in Slackware.
  • It has no fancy GUI tools whatsoever for configuring your system. Configuration is done by editing text files.
  • Arch Linux is optimized for i686/x86-64 architecture machines. For instance, there is no Arch release for powerPC or other architectures.
To sum up, if you are an avid Linux user who is comfortable in using the command line, and editing text files to configure your system, then you should give Arch Linux a try. I assure you, it will be a pleasant, fullfilling experience.

Sunday 30 November 2008

Roundup of Vim Articles

Regular readers of this blog may be aware of the numerous Vim related articles that were posted here. Notable among them being a concise tutorial on using Vim, the new features of Vim 7.0, making Vim behave like an ordinary text editor (Cream for Vim), a talk given by Bram Moolenaar on the Seven habits of effective text editing and Increasing your productivity using Vim, just to name a few.

More over, over a year back, 50% of this blog readers polled Vim/Vi as the favourite text editor of their choice.

Now here is another resource for Vim/Vi enthusiasts. Nicola Paolucci has collected 10 classic Vim articles which (he claims) transformed him from a Vim hater to a Vim lover. Check out his collection. Perhaps you as well might experience a mind shift towards Vim - my all time favourite text editor.

Thursday 27 November 2008

Fedora 10 released with engaging new features

Fedora 10 codenamed "Cambridge" has been released. This new version of the community oriented, Red Hat backed Linux distribution comes with new features which enhance the end user experience.

Fedora 10 is built on Linux kernel version 2.6.27. It comes with improved support for a choice of webcams, improved infrared remote support, better Bluetooth support which incorporates a new, easier to use wizard for setting up keyboards, mice, and other supported Bluetooth devices, A new improved graphical boot system called Plymouth, OpenOffice 3, Firefox 3.0.4, GNOME 2.24, KDE 4.1, LXDE, GIMP 2.6, you got it all in Fedora 10.

The underlying audio system in Fedora is PulseAudio. In Fedora 10, the bugs found in PulseAudio have been fixed, thus making it glitch free. The audio system also consumes relatively less power.

In most Linux distributions including prior versions of Fedora, the graphical X loads in virtual terminal 7 (VT7) - which you can navigate using Ctrl + Alt + Function keys (1-7). But in Fedora 10, the developers have shifted the graphical boot to virtual terminal 1 which has helped make the transition from bootup to displaying a full fledged GUI, smooth and flicker free. The graphical boot process has itself speeded up because of the improved graphical boot system (Plymouth) which replaces the old Red Hat graphical boot.

For the developers and system administrators, Fedora 10 features an improved RPM which can stream components which are required to run already installed software - for example, a video or audio codec required to run a file in the video or audio player. And secondly, Fedora 10 comes with improved support for remote, hands off installation and management.

The new version of Network Manager utility in Fedora 10 now features built-in support for Internet connection sharing.

Fedora developers Adam Jackson and Ray Strobe have been interviewed at Fedora Magazine blog, where they reveal the nitty gritty details of Fedora 10's improved startup. Read what they have to say.

You can download Fedora 10 as a GNOME LiveCD or KDE LiveCD from the Official Fedora website. Also read the full Fedora 10 release notes to get a broader picture of what it offers.

Tuesday 25 November 2008

Watching YouTube videos at higher resolutions

Yes, it's (finally) true, and you'll probably have noticed it if you watched this.

This week I was digging into this because of an article I read on Corriere della sera. There were rumors about Google desiring to launch a higher-definition version of his video-sharing technology, probably because Google is interested in launching a platform to distribute content such as HD movies for which the YouTube platform was clearly insufficient.

Until Google won't officially launch the enhanced version of YouTube (or whatever the name will be), you can see video stored in higher resolutions using a trick: just add the fmt parameter to the URL of the video you want to see and use one of these:
  • fmt=18: with this parameter, the video resolution will be set to 480x270 pixel2 and stereo audio
  • fmt=22: with this parameter, the video resolution will be set to 1280x720, which is a pretty interesting resolution if you like watching full-screen videos
Please note that this parameter will have any effect only if Google is storing a higher definition version of the video you want to see, which will probably be true if the video is recent.

Look at the difference:
Enjoy!

I switched from Squid to Sun Java System Web Proxy Server

I've been running Squid Web Proxy Cache for quite a while and also documented some basic setup in another article. But the last time we set up a server I decided to try Sun Java System Web Proxy Server. Since then, I switched the remaining Squid servers to Sun's proxy and lived happily ever after.

Why? Well, Squid was giving me no problem but sometimes setting it up and managing it was boring and error prone. Sun's Web Proxy Server has got the (familiar) administrator's web interface and I practically never touch a configuration file by hand. Creating a basic setup it's really a question of clicking a couple of button and the proxy's up and running.

Installation.
Installation is pretty straightforward. I downloaded the Sun Java Enterprise System and launched the installer. Once launched, I just checked the Sun Java System Web Proxy Server and the installer did it all. The installer also gives you the possibility of automatically creating a proxy server with the default configuration values and if you need a good starting point that's a good hint.

Creating a server.
This was easy too. I had to create two different web proxies because we're serving two subnets with different requirements. Once the installer finishes its work, you can connect to the administration console using the configuration values you provided during the installation:
  • administration port
  • admin password
Open your favorite browser and launch the console. Once you're in, you'll find yourserlf in the Server/Manage Server section:


Adding a server is pretty easy, it just asks you for (very) basic information:



Inspecting default configuration.
Once you're done with creating your server(s), you can inspect the default configuration with the Manage Servers/Preferences/View server settings option:



Configuring system preferences.
Using the Manage Servers/Preferences/Configure system preferences tab you can modify basic preferences for your proxy:


In this page you can set:
  • server user: by default, it's nobody, and it's a value I usually don't need to change.
  • processes: the number of the background processes used to serve incoming requests.
  • listen queue size: the maximum number of pending connections on a socket.
  • request throttle: the number of concurrent transactions that the proxy can handle.
  • enable DNS: this is useful mostly for logging and for managing access control. If you enable DNS, the proxy will resolve IP into host names.
There are other configurable options, many of which are useful if you plan to implement distributed caching, whic I'll not cover in this post.

Adding listen sockets.
The next thing you'll probably want to do is setting up listen sockets, which are the endpoints of the proxy to which your clients will connect. If during the installation a default server was created for you, you'll probably want to edit the default port value for the listen socket:


Setting up cache properties.
The last thing you'll probably do to set this basic web proxy server is configuring the cache. You can start in the Manage servers/Cache section of the admin application. The first panel is Set cache specifics where you can set the most common properties for you cache.



The first thing I usually do is changing the cache working directory. Remember that when you change the cache directory you must pay attention that the proxy user (in my case nobody) can write into that directory, otherwise the cache won't work.

One chosen your favorite directory, you can set up the cache capacity either with the provided drop down list or via the Cache capacity configurator.

In this page you can also configure basic caching behavior for HTTP, FTP and Gopher protocols. As far as it concerns the HTTP protocol:
  • Always check if the document is up to date: this option does exactly what it says: every time a document is requested to the proxy, the proxy will check that the version it is caching is up to date. This may be useful in some circumstances but will rise the number of outgoing connection from the proxy server.
  • Check only if last check more than: if you choose this option, the proxy server will open a connection to check if the document is up to date only if the last time it did was more than what you specify. The default is two hours and depending on the situation I use to rise it up to one entire day.
  • Using: this option controls how the proxy server checks if the document is up to date. You can choose either using the last-modification factor, which is the set of headers that the web server sends along with the document, or the explicit expiration information, which are the internal headers used by the proxy server.
  • Never report accesses to remote server: this option tells the proxy server not to report a cache hit to remote servers.
  • Report cache hits to remote server: this option tells the proxy server to report to the remote server the number of times a document has been hit in the cache and accessed from there. This option rises the number of outgoing connection from the proxy server and may hit latencies and performance.
Cache partitions.
The cache partitions are the parts of disk reserved for caching purposes by the proxy server. You'll need to edit the cache partitions properties in the case, for example, you rise the cache capacity and you need to reserve more space on disk by adding a new cache partition.


In the previous screenshot the cache partition is 1.6 GB, which is the cache capacity I set up for this server. Adding a cache partition is trivial, you're only asked about the directory which will host the partition.

Set garbage collection.
As long as you use the proxy server, it will cache documents you request and the cache will keep growing up maintaining the allocated space in the range specified by the caching configuration. The garbage collection is the process that cleans up documents from the proxy cache and must be performed periodically. By default, this property is set as Automatic. I observed in my proxy server instances that if the cache hits are high and you are caching big documents, even if the garbage collection is automatic, it seems to never take place and the cache keeps growing up. For this reason I suggest you plan and schedule regular gargabe collection cycles. You may schedule them via the system cron or via the internal proxy scheduler. I usually use the system cron. Once chosen the manual configuration option, explicit garbage collection cycles can be scheduled in the Schedule garbage collection panel.

Caching configuration.
Other useful options you may want to set up can be found on the Set caching configuration panel. By default, the caching default is the derived configuration. If you want to explicitely set up every option, you can then set cache as the caching default value. Once done that and pushed the OK button, a new form will appear:



The options you'll find usually are:
  • The cache default
  • How to cache pages that require authentication
  • How to cache queries
  • The minimum and maximum cache file sizes
  • When to refresh a cached document
  • The cache expiration policy
  • The caching behavior for client interruptions
  • The caching behavior for failed connections to origin servers
An option which is often overlooked and might be pretty important for your proxy performance are the last two which rule what happens when a proxy connection is broken. This may happen if, for example, your user exits the browser or cancel a connection: the proxy may continue downloading the entire file even if the client is not retrieving it any more and this effect may sum up when many client are connected leading to proxy saturation and lost of performance. I saw this happen many times, even if with multimedia content such as flash-based solutions which deliver content, like YouTube. For this reason, I usually set 100% for the caching behavior for client interruptions which in effect has the proxy close the remote connection whenever a client disconnects.

Conclusion.
With just few and simple steps you've set up an enterprise grade web proxy server. I suggest you to check the official documentation at Sun documentation center to fine tune your setup and read about more advanced configurations such as connecting to an LDAP to authenticate users, setting up SOCKS and setting up proxy arrays for distributed caching.

Now, enjoy your new proxy server!

Loreena McKennitt - The lady of Shalott

One of my favorite songs. From an Arthurian legend put into words by Lord Tennyson and a beautiful arrangement from Loreena McKennitt.

Click here to view it on YouTube.

A letter of Professor Saint Illicit - by Beppe Severgnini

This imaginary letter from an University Professor to a newspaper, written by Italian columnist Beppe Severgnini, has caught my attention because you prove a delicious intelligence and a fine irony, one more time, Mr. Severgnini. This post would surely enrich another post I recently wrote, Italy's a geriatrics hospital whose hall is full of spoiled children, but I prefer this stand-alone post because, at least this time, we can laugh.

Read the original letter.

Sun releases xVM VirtualBox 2.0.6

Sun announced the release of Sun xVM VirtualBox 2.0.6, a maintenance release.
The original changelog can be read here.

Friday 21 November 2008

Setting up Blastwave's MySQL 5 (5.1.23) on Solaris 10

It's just a post update to inform you that Blastwave has just released version MySQL 5.1.23 for Solaris 10.

The instructions I posted on the other blog entry are still valid and if you want to start the installation of this new version, you can just start it by typing:
# /opt/csw/bin/pkg-get -i mysql51
Enjoy!

Thursday 20 November 2008

What a luck! I didn't buy an Apple MacBook (and I won't)

As I told you some posts ago, I was absolutely convinced to buy the recently released Apple MacBook Pro. This morning, reading the press, I discovered something I didn't even imagine which is being discussed even in Apple users' forums.

The news was first brought to attention by Ars Technica, in the an article titled Apple brings HDCP to a new aluminium MacBook near you. To make it short: you won't be able to play some protected material on non-HDCP compliant devices (such as screen, projectors, etc.)

Internet is full of articles about this problem, like this by CNet.

The problem I had while ordering the laptop turned out to be my biggest luck! It spared me an headache and a stupid loss of money! MacBook Pro data sheets don't even mention this "little" detail and I wouldn't have known, hadn't I read these articles by chance. I don't want to imagine the reaction I would have had, when I had discovered I couldn't connect the laptop to any device I own, because no one is HDCP compliant.

Leonids above the woods of the Sierra of Guadarrama

Yesterday I took my girlfriend home after a relaxing dinner with some of our friends. She lives in a town between Madrid and Segovia and we usually drive through the Guadarrama mountain pass, from which you can admire both the lights of Madrid and the woods and the darkness which open the way to Segovia.

When I was back on the road, returning to Madrid, as soon as I passed by the Alto del León, I was captured by the beauty of the night: the lights of Madrid were far away, the snake of lampposts of the A6 was creeping into the woods below a dark sky filled with stars and an already small but brilliant decrescing moon. I don't know why, but it all were so clear that I thought about the famous 2001: A space Odessy scene of Paul Bowman entering the gate in his pod and exclaiming: "Oh my God, it's full of stars."

I stopped the car and smoked a cigarette, while Leonids started dancing in the sky.

Wednesday 19 November 2008

Don't use Solaris Express Community Edition build 102

I already wrote about this on my precedent post but I think this deserves a better exposure. Long story short: don't use Solaris Express Community Edition build 102, if you already downloaded it. As you can check on the official announcement thread for build 102, it's affected by a bug which may seriously compromise your root ZFS filesystem:
Due to the following bug, I have removed build 102 from the Download page.

6771840 zpool online on ZFS root can panic system

It apparently may cause data corruption and may have been implicated in damage to one or more systems that have upgraded to build 102 or beyond.

We will remove it from the SDLC on Monday. I will notify about the schedule for a repsin.

Derek

Wondering where's your CDROM gone in your HVM domain?

That's what I've been wondering since a couple of weeks ago...

I have a couple of Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise HVM domains running on Sun xVM shipped with Solaris Express Community Edition (build 101). Yes, I know... but it's not my fault! ;) When I installed the machine I had that "bad feeling" you perceive, because I had to manually trick the virtual machine definition, dumped by a
# virsh dumpxml [hvm-domain]
command as suggested by many documents I found googling. One of them was an official Sun Microsystems technical brief titled Install Sun xVM hypervisor & use it to configure domains found on the excellent BigAdmin portal. Page 8 of this brief states:
There is a bug 6648448 with respect to the Windows 2003 guest and the CD. The install will halt with a Windows error message with regard to access to the CDROM.
By using the suggested workaround I happily resolved the problem. That problem.

Indeed, when I had to configure an Active Directory instance in one of these machines, at the end of the DNS configuration I was asked for Windows Server 2003 CD 2. No problem, thought I, just do a
# virsh block-attach [hvm-domain] file:/your/iso/file hdb:cdrom r
but it was impossible for me to succeed in mounting the cdrom. The following error was raised:
Error: Device [put your number here] (vbd) could not be connected. Backend device not found.

Nevertheless the device seemed to be created because the cdrom was appearing in the block-list output. The system couldn't see anything, nor the empty CDROM, indeed. The worst thing, I didn't want to stop the machine just in the middle of the Active Directory installation.

At the end I desperately gave up and stopped the machine, checked the dumpxml output and restarted the machine. The block-attach call now succeeded. What was happening to my HVM domain? I didn't know and probably still do not, but the changelog for Solaris Express Community Edition build 102 makes me think that I hit the following bug:
Empty CD-ROM disappears from HVM domains
So, where was my cdrom? It had simply disappeared.

If you are experiencing a similar error and you're running Solaris Express Community Edition up to build 101, I suggest you to give up and restart the domain. At least, you'll spare some time banging your head against the wall.

Another bad thing after the initial happiness (I was indeed eager to update my system) was the following post on the Solaris Express announcement forum:
Due to the following bug, I have removed build 102 from the Download page.

6771840 zpool online on ZFS root can panic system

It apparently may cause data corruption and may have been implicated in damage to one or more systems that have upgraded to build 102 or beyond.

We will remove it from the SDLC on Monday. I will notify about the schedule for a repsin.

Derek
I'll have to wait some more time to be able to insert a CDROM on an already running HVM domain but I want to put in a word for xVM: except for these... minor glitches ;) I'm very pleased with it and I'm looking forward to trying Sun xVM Server as soon as Sun will ship it.

Sunday 16 November 2008

Back to CLIs: it's really funny running btdownload* on Solaris 10 (with a screen multiplexer)

After having used I don't even know how many bittorrent GUI clients (such as Azureus, KTorrent, etc.), I recently fell back to bittorrent CLIs. Why? Because I've got a server with a pretty good DSL connection (more than 10 time faster than what I've got at my home...) and I usually ssh-to it. Problems where two: remotely opening a GUI (my home connection is not so slow, but clearly insufficient for remote graphical sessions) and not having killed the process when disconnecting. Both problems are easily solved, many bittorrent clients I've seen so far support some kind of daemon mode. But using a screen multiplexer was simpler.

I already told you about GNU Screen multiplexer
, and this is the typical use case GNU Screen fits perfectly in.

Installing bittorrent (the original)
As usual, from Blastwave. Here's the package and here's the command line to install it:
# /opt/csw/bin/pkg-get -U
# /opt/csw/bin/pkg-get -i bittorrent
and follow on as usual.

Running bittorrent in a multiplexed terminal
Now that we have your copy of the bittorrent client installed it, it's time to use it. The reason why I want to use a terminal multiplexer is because I'll be running bittorrent on another machine. I could nohup the process, but once done that and disconnected, I couldn't reattach to it and see output in the console, the only thing I could do would be reading the files where standard output was redirected (by nohup). It's not a good way to go, with such program as bittorrent.

First, launch bittorrent in a screen session: I prefer this way, as stated in another blog post:
$ /opt/csw/bin/screen -m -d /opt/csw/bin/btdownloadcurses [your-torrent-file]
If you feel like checking what's going on before leaving it there to download, you could check bittorrent status reattaching to it
$ screen -r PID
and then using CTRL+A,D to detach another time.

You can now safely log out from the machine and leave bittorrent working. From time to time, you can log in and reattach the screen to check for progress and just hit q to exit bittorrent when it's done.

Enjoy!

Back to CLIs: using a physical terminal multiplexer on Solaris 10

How many times did a remote terminal session unexpectedly close and you lost some work? How many times did you fell that a nohup was insufficient but it was the only option left to you? In many situations GNU Screen was very useful to me.

What GNU Screen is not.
It's not a full fledged solution to open, detach and reattach graphical session. It's not VNC or similar software.

What GNU Screen is.
Technically it's a screen multiplexer. This means that with screen you can literally multiplex physical terminals, launch processes inside them, detach from sessions and reattach from whichever machine. Screen is pretty powerful and I suggest you to read the official documentation. Nevertheless, a quick crash course may be useful.

Installing GNU's screen (a screen multiplexer).
This applies only to Solaris 10. Screen is also included in some Solaris Express and OpenSolaris versions. As usual, I'll install it from Blastwave, which will take care of all dependencies (which in this case it's just CSWcommon which will be installed if you'd already configured Blastwave on your machine). Here's the package and here are commands. First, let's refresh the software catalog from out preferred mirror:
# /opt/csw/bin/pkg-get -U
Then, let's install screen:
# /opt/csw/bin/pkg-get -i screen
How to start a screen session
It's easy, just typing screen:
$ screen
Screen will present you a welcome screen and hitting space or enter will bring you to your new screen session. Since now on, every process will be running inside screen's multiplexed physical terminal.

Exiting a session

This is easy too. Just exit screen as you'll exit your favorite shell:
$ exit
[screen is terminating]
Detaching from a session
If you want to detach from the current session and leave programs running, you can just hit CTRL+A,D and you'll detach the screen you're using:
$ [hit CTRL+A,D]
[detaching]
Listing the open sessions
Sessions are maintained on a per-user base. Just log in with your user and type:
$ screen -ls
There are screens on:
3492.console.PCS30575 (Dead ???)
4544.console.PCS30575 (Detached)
6028.console.PCS30575 (Dead ???)
Remove dead screens with 'screen -wipe'.
3 Sockets in /tmp/uscreens/S-A144286.
Screen's telling you that you have 3 open sessions: one is a detached screen (4544.console.PCS30575) and another two which are probably dead session you couldn't wake up any more. If you want to wipe them, just use the wipe option (note that the using the PID is sufficient because we're connecting from and to the same machines we detached screens from):
$ screen -wipe 3492
There is a screen on:
3492.console.PCS30575 (Removed)
1 socket wiped out.
No Sockets found in /tmp/uscreens/S-A144286.
You can know wipe the other one. To reattach to the 4544 session:
$ screen -r 4544
If you check screen documentation you'll see plenty of options which allow you to detach and reattach with a single command (if you're connecting from another client and you left a session open on another machine), etc.

Launching a command on a new screen session and detach it immediately
This is one of those I use most. If you need to launch a program and you want to launch it inside a new screen session without even attaching to it, you can use the following syntax:
$ screen -m -d [your-command]
This will create a new session, launch your-command inside it and leave it detached.

Wednesday 12 November 2008

Italy's a geriatrics hospital whose hall is full of spoiled children

I don't know where to start writing this. It's such a long time I want to shout out all the shame I feel towards the news I read on Italian newspapers, towards the things I see every time I fly to my hometown, towards the attitude of the people I meet with, that I don't really know how to do it properly.

Let's try and put order into the chaotic mix of anger, sadness and deception I feel almost daily. I'll do that just making examples. This post could also be titled What you'll find every day digging into an Italian newspaper or A small guide to survive Italian paradoxes.

Let's open the home page of the two most read Italian newspapers: Il corriere della sera and La repubblica.

Alitalia
Both newspapers open with the struggle of Alitalia. I don't known what a stranger would feel if he tried to follow what's going on with our national airline. History of Alitalia may be both an interesting anthropological and historical study over political corruption and medieval phenomenons such as feudalism. But the result is what's important: years of debts, a great percentage of workers doing absolutely nothing except throwing their shadows on the floor, above the average fees, impossibility of restructuring the enterprise because of the unity and the power of the workers' organizations which want to defend every single privilege they've gained over the years. I'm absolutely favorable to workers' organizations as a mean of organizing and protecting the individuals' rights but I think that every thing's a limit. Your firm is slowly and inexorably sinking with few spikes of vitality artificially produced by injections of liquidity by the State or by some banks and you don't want to face reality. You're going to lose your work and the only thing you can gain protesting is delaying the few possibilities left to Alitalia. For example, what's the point of a (yet another) strike at this stage of the events? Moreover, in Italy strikes are something normal and recurrent just as full moon nights, and they scare nobody.

Global state of economy and people perception
The annual report of the National Institute of Statistics confirms the trend of the last few years. It can be resumed in the following points:
  • a poorer country with even less hope for the future
  • one fifth of the population is over 65
  • population growth produced only for the effect of immigration: of about 488.000 new Italians registered, 494.871 are immigrants which neutralized the -6.868 loss for death
  • the percentage of the population satisfied or quite satisfied for their situation has dropped one year more: 43.7% against the 51.2% registered in 2007.
  • the percentage of the population who perceived a worsening in their situation has raised to 54.5% from the 41% registered in 2007. A 16% of this percentage thinks that their situation has worsened greatly over the last year.
  • the report confirms the great gap and the perception of the differences between the North and the South of the country.
  • 40% of the populations is suffering for chronic pathologies.
  • difficult access to basic services such as Hospitals is perceived by the 55.7% of the population

People asks: what's the government doing?
It's a spontaneous question. Given the fact that Italians aren't great readers, what would they find in the newspapers? News like these, which are daily overlooked by television and by themselves. It's something normal, politicians often steal. Costs of the Politics continue to rise. How? Well:
  • beautiful desktop calendars exclusively designed by Nazareno Gabrielli: 260.000 Eur. More than 200% of the budget for every research about children leukemia coordinated by the City of the hope, in Padova, which, amongst other things, it's hosting the database of children affected by cancer. Another example which is cited by the article is a research of the University of Pennsylvania: according to their data, desktop calendars cost 28.000 Eur more than the salary of the Governors of Colorado, Tennessee, Arkansan and Maine. To-ge-ther.
  • This is funny: Mr. Schwarzenegger salary as Governor of California, which he is not receiving, amount to 162.598 Eur. Less than a Counsellor's one for the County of Abruzzo.
  • Going on with salaries. USA Governors salary is 88.523 Eur on the average. Less than half than what a Counselor receives in Lombardy. Luis Durnwalder, president of the Autonomous County of Bolzano, receives a salary of 320.496 Eur. More than the president of the United States.
The government is unable to resolve the situation. Saying that the barber service is no longer free for Senators sounds like a grotesque joke. The Senate expenses in 2008 amount to 570.000.000 Eur. I repeat: 570.000.000 Eur. Five hundred seventy thousand millions of Euros. 13.000.000 more than during 2007 balance. Some examples? Here they are:
  • 19.080 Eur for the renting of plants and flowers (6 months)
  • 8.200 Eur for stockings (3 months). Yes, it's not a joke. Stockings. Sarah Palin is like Mother Teresa, compared to Italian Senators.
  • 56.000 Eur for shirts (6 months)
  • 16.200 Eur for motor bikers' equipment
  • The best for last: life annuities for non reelected members of the Senate and the Chambers. The official name in Italian is: Assegno per il reinserimento nella vita sociale. As I already said, grotesque.
Summing up: in Italy, during 2008, expenses rose up to 1.998.000.000 Eur, more than in 2007, despite promises of cutting up these kind of expenses. But the goal has finally been achieved: Italian politicians sacrificed and cut the 0.3% of the expenses. Her Majesty Queen Elisabeth achieved a 61% cut in one year but that's another story.

But are these cuts realistic?
No. At the end, on the balance weighs heavy a monstrous number: 2.055.000.000 Eur. And the cuts? They're not there. What's there, is a 5.6% increase with respect to the 2007 balance closings.

Is there any cut?
Yes, as usual: Mr. Berlusconi's government is fond of cutting funds to instruction and research and innovation institutions.

What does people do?
Well, as far as I read and as far as I can see what is thinking the people I met during my trips to Italy: closing their eyes, closing their nose and keep on dreaming the situation is not so bad. Cellular phones, cars, are the good old first class priorities for the average Italian. Look at data and you'll see with your eyes.

My thought.
I just reported data from newspapers but today is no special day, it's the same news I keep on reading year after year. The very sad part of the story is that the population living in Italy seems not to realize the gap which is opening between Italy and other European countries. When I think about this, most of the times I cannot but think that mine, will be the first generation since World War II whose life condition will be worse than its fathers'.

Tuesday 11 November 2008

Google launches voice chat for gmail users and google talk users (and why I'm not going to use it)

Once more, winds of innovation come from Mountain View. Google has launched another offensive against Microsoft and... Skype. Yes, because it just added new voice and video call support into google chat and gmail.

Since the first time I saw the spartan google search engine main page, I felt sympathy for Google and the quality of its software (well, google software I use) never deceived me. I'm not the average user: as soon as I login I open a terminal window and start typing, rather than moving a mouse. Even in gmail I use the keyboard interface. The real Google revolution, in my opinion, it's in the fact that even in a world in which the great majority of the host operating systems is Windows (sadly), when an user logs in he usually opens up a browser and "googles" for something, looks for addresses or routes in Google maps, manages its photos with Picasa, writes its blog with Google docs and shares it with blogger, etc. Summarizing: the real desktop, for many people, is made up of a browser and Google software.

When people realize that they can speak and see their friends at the eyes without even leaving the gmail tab in their browsers, they'll probably uninstall (or leave there to rot) their copies of Skype or similar software. This is partially true, in reality, because Skype users often call landlines phones but at the end, there'll be a reason less to rely on Skype or Microsoft Messenger.

I'll be clear: I like what Google does, and I like the way Google does it, most of the times. I use Google software every day and, as far as it concerns my out-of-business activities, Google is probably the provider of most of the software I use. Google search engine, Gmail, Google docs, Google calendar, Google reader and so on: they're all part of the toolbox I use every day. I don't even feel like making the list, because probably I could just cut and past the list of Google software and remove a few entries.

Now, why am I not going to use it, then? Well, I would really like to explore this new functionality and satisfy my (technical and non) curiosity without having to look for information on the net. But I can not, because I'm a 95% Solaris user and the remaining 5% I'm a GNU/Linux user. And the beta version of this service, which relies on a browser plugin, is only available for Windows users and I'm not hoping to see it, ever, on Solaris. Just as it happens with Skype and many other proprietary software. If I were a 100% GNU/Linux user, moreover, I would probably be disappointed: my experience with GNU/Linux versions of some software bundles (such as Skype) is negative. Skype for Linux sucks (even more when compared with Windows or Mac OS X editions), and Picasa for Linux is even worse: I never thought I would see a customized Wine distribution to run a Windows binary on GNU/Linux, and less if who's doing this is Google. And I won't talk about Apple, who left us without Quicktime even if it ported ZFS on Mac OS X ;)

I won't trade off the proverbial stability of my Solaris for another OS. Neither I'll run (yet another) branded zone just to play with that plugin. I'll stick with VoIP and you, who can, enjoy.

Joining an NTP server pool

Now that you've configured your Solaris NTP service, you might be able to give back some of your bandwidth and make a service to the community. As you've probably done, you're receiving data from random server from a pool you've chosen. NTP Pool Project pools' servers are servers like yours and if you've got some spare bandwidth to give for free (an estimate peak of 120 kbit/s it's a realistic traffic estimation) you could join the project and add your server.

Requirements
As explained in the project's webpage, the only requirement it's (not too variable) static IP address and an adequate bandwidth. NTP Pool Project historical data suggests an average traffiic about [10,15] kbit/s with peaks of about [50,120] kbit/s. Joining it's easy and you can monitor performance data of your server on the administration webpage which can be accessed after registration.

A quick warning before you rush and public your server(s):
Finally, I must emphasize that joining the pool is a long term commitment. We are happy to take you out of the pool again if your circumstances change, but because of how the ntp clients operate it will take weeks, months or even YEARS before the traffic completely goes away.

Configuring NTP server and client on Solaris 10

One of the task which is often performed during the setup of a machine it's the setup of the NTP daemon.

NTP is one of the oldest internet protocol still in use and it allows the synchronization of computer clocks distributing UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) over the network. NTP design is focused on compensating the variable latency of the network.

A machine may be an NTP client or an NTP server. Roughly, an NTP client it's a machine that uses the NTP protocol to synchronize its clock and an NTP server it's a machine that provides NTP client the information needed to set their clocks and itself uses other NTP server to keep in sync.

NTP on Solaris 10
Solaris 10 ships with an NTP daemon, ntpd, configured via SMF (svc:/network/ntp:default) and a bunch of sample ntp.conf files to quickly configure a machine as a client or as a server.

# svcs ntp
# svcs ntp
STATE STIME FMRI online 0:43:33 svc:/network/ntp:default

Configuring a client
If your machine is just a client, you can just pick the /etc/inet/ntp.client and copy it to /etc/inet/ntp.conf. The default client configuration it's just a one-liner:

multicastclient 224.0.0.1


This configuration, as explained in the same file, it's a passive configuration for a host that just listens for NTP server putting packets on the NTP multicast network, 224.0.0.1. Obviously, if your machine it's in a LAN without an NTP server, you're probably never going to receive such a packet, and you should use some public NTP server instead.

Using a server from a pool
I personally recommend using random servers from an NTP pool such as pool.ntp.org. In the official website of the NTP Pool Project you can find instruction about using the pool or picking up some server from the list they maintain. Pools maintained by the NTP Pool Project are organized in geographical hierarchy so that, for example, you can use server from a continent-level pool or, where available, from a country-level pool. The recipe is always the same: the nearer, the quicker, the better. In my case, I'm using the European pool europe.pool.ntp.org and my configuration file contains:

server 0.europe.pool.ntp.org
server 1.europe.pool.ntp.org
server 2.europe.pool.ntp.org
server 3.europe.pool.ntp.org

Setting up the drift file
The only thing left to set up it's just the drift file location, which in my case it's:

driftfile /var/ntp/ntp.drift

Starting the service
Once your ntp.conf is set up, you can start (or restart) the ntp service:

# svcadm restart ntp
# svcs ntp
STATE STIME FMRI online 0:43:33 svc:/network/ntp:default

Querying the service
Once the service is running, you can check which server you're using with ntpq:

# ntpq -p
remote refid st t when poll reach delay offset disp

==============================================================================
NTP.MCAST.NET 0.0.0.0 16 u - 64 0 0.00 0.000 16000.0
+fnutt.net
Time2.Stupi.SE 2 u 45 64 377 76.74 10.285 0.73
-sip1.viatel.ee
ntp.eenet.ee 3 u 430 1024 377 79.47 -0.988 1.05
*ntp1.net.edu.ie
ntp0.esat.net 2 u 28 64 377 63.45 4.104 0.78
+ns.airbites.bg
ntp2.gbg.netnod 2 u 27 64 377 85.13 1.723 1.05


You'll get a similar output. After a while, your query will output similar results. The server prefixed with an asterisk is the server you're synchronizing with. If you don't get an asterisk after a while, probably no NTP server is reachable, which is probably due to a firewall which is blocking UDP port 123. The difference between your clock and the data provided by NTP servers can be examined by catting the drift file:

# cat /var/ntp/ntp.drift -50.645

Setting up an NTP server
Now that you have an NTP client running, you'll probably want to setup all of your machines. If you're in a LAN, you can setup an internal NTP server which will provide data to other clients on your LAN. As before, you can take inspiration from the server configuration file shipped with Solaris 10, /etc/inet/ntp.server. After setting up the drift file and the clients you're going to use, you can examine the other options and fine-tune them at your taste. Let's give a quick look at it.

server 127.127.XType.0

This line sets up the server type and the XType value must be substituted with the correct value from the provided table:

# XType Device RefID Description

# -------------------------------------------------------
# 1 local LCL Undisciplined Local Clock
# 2 trak GPS TRAK 8820 GPS Receiver
# 3 pst WWV PSTI/Traconex WWV/WWVH Receiver
# 4 wwvb WWVB Spectracom WWVB Receiver
# 5 true TRUE TrueTime GPS/GOES Receivers
# 6 irig IRIG IRIG Audio Decoder
# 7 chu CHU Scratchbuilt CHU Receiver
# 8 parse ---- Generic Reference Clock Driver
# 9 mx4200 GPS Magnavox MX4200 GPS Receiver
# 10 as2201 GPS Austron 2201A GPS Receiver
# 11 arbiter GPS Arbiter 1088A/B GPS Receiver
# 12 tpro IRIG KSI/Odetics TPRO/S IRIG Interface
# 13 leitch ATOM Leitch CSD 5300 Master Clock Controller
# 15 * * TrueTime GPS/TM-TMD Receiver
# 17 datum DATM Datum Precision Time System
# 18 acts ACTS NIST Automated Computer Time Service
# 19 heath WWV Heath WWV/WWVH Receiver
# 20 nmea GPS Generic NMEA GPS Receiver
# 22 atom PPS PPS Clock Discipline
# 23 ptb TPTB PTB Automated Computer Time Service
# 24 usno USNO USNO Modem Time Service
# 25 * * TrueTime generic receivers
# 26 hpgps GPS Hewlett Packard 58503A GPS Receiver
# 27 arc MSFa Arcron MSF Receiver

In my case, it's just a (very) plain 1: an undiscilplined local clock.

broadcast 224.0.1.1 ttl 4

This line is the server equivalent of the multicast line seen in the default client configuration: it tells the NTP server to broadcast on the NTP multicast network.

Further readings
Complete documentation about ntp.conf syntax can be found on the xntpd man page:

# man xntpd

Thursday 6 November 2008

Stupidity never ends, as time, it continues to flow...

Just few hours ago I spent some time writing an entry about Mr. Berlusconi and his will to give advice to young and inexpert Mr. Obama.

No time has passed since then and I find myself writing again about the Italian Prime Minister and his first, and I bet not last, gaffe. If you can read italian, read it yourself. Here's the translated excerpt:
"Barack Obama? Young, beatiful and sun-tanned."
Mr Berlusconi goes just where nobody has, and wouldn't, gone before. I cannot even imagine Mr. McCain referring to Mr. Obama as "sun-tanned". What's worst, when he returned at his hotel and was asked about that unhappy statement, he quickly answered:
"If they don't have any sense of humor then it means that those fools have come into action, that they go be [offensive verb has been omitted]."
It's very sad, but sometimes I'm really ashamed that in my country, such a guy has been elected Prime Minister.

What a wonderful gift: a dish of boletus edulis

I spent the last two weeks wondering what I'd cook as a "surprise dish" for my girlfriend who was coming to spend some days at my house. The last week, moreover, winter seemed to have made its way to Spain, and I was thinking about some heat dish: a soup or a good risotto.

I then decided I wanted to feel at home: my dish would have Boletus Edulis as main flavour. Now, let's go and solve the first problem: finding good boletus. Here in Madrid (Spain), it shouldn't be such a difficult task. During the last week, the weather was favoring mush growth.

Well... difficult, it was. I started looking for gourmet shops and spent at least 20 EUR of gasoline jumping from one shop to the other. The best options I found were nothing but cheap: one mushroom, 20 EUR. The problem was the mushroom itself: I think whoever saw a boletus edulis in its natural environment before, would refuse eating that "thing". There was no option left, and I bought a couple of those micro-"boletus"...

I cleaned them carefully and put them in the pot. Where was that fantastic perfume evaporating from the mushrooms? I don't know. And I went out, going to pick my girlfriend up.

When I arrived, the big surprise! My brother-in-law's father is fond of walking into the woods looking for mushrooms. And two big, very big, boletus edulis, in all of their splendour, were waiting for me! I felt like a children with a new toy. And here's the recipe to serve boletus edulis as a side dish or, if you're really fond of them, to fully taste them melting in your mouth.

To preserve the taste of the mushrooms, don't wash them with water. Try to clean them first with the blade of a knife, retiring all the earth and only if it's necessary, quickly wash them without rubbing them too much below cold water.

Just heat some garlic in a pot with a couple of spoons of extra virgin olive oil, retire the garlic when it starts to brown, cut the boletus in thick pieces (about 2 centimeters), put them in the pot with some parsley and let them cook slowly 15 minutes, until all the water released by the mushroom evaporates. Salt them almost at the end and add oil at pleasure.

You can now enjoy a fantastic side dish with some good meat or eat them all as a second dish!

Yes, with Silvio, we can

Weren't he Mr. Berlusconi, when I read the news, I wouldn't believe somebody would say it. And when this somebody is such Prime Minister, it's even more unbelievable.

Here's the article (sorry once more, it's Italian) and here's the translated excerpt:
"The Prime Minister Mr. Silvio Berlusconi sent a message to Mr. Obama «for the important job waiting for him»: «I'm absolutely certain that friendship and collaboration between our two countries will continue growing and strengthening.». During his visit to the Eicma Fair in Milan, Mr. Berlusconi more informally added: «I can advise him [Mr. Obama] because I'm elder than him. I'll do it as soon as I'll be personally hugging him.»"
I'm recalling into my mind the victory speech of Mr. Obama. I was imagining him standing in front of his supporters and adding: "Yes, with Silvio, we can." It's no coincidence that Mr. Severgnini had a very similar reaction, has he commented in his blog, Italians, in the Corriere della Sera homepage. Thanks Beppe for this image.

Mr. Berlusconi, I would like to ask you some sincere questions: do you really believe what you're saying or it's just demagogy? And if it were demagogy, do you really think the average Italian is so stupid?

Personally I believe, Mr. Berlusconi, you should be asking Mr. Obama for advices, rather than offering yours. Italy would have its chance to change, too.

Wednesday 5 November 2008

Why I set up my home network with Solaris

I often worked with Solaris, and I felt in love with it years ago, but until 2004 I never thought about installing it at home, mainly because what I really wanted was the system and a Sun machine. And in those times I couldn't afford buying a decent machine, neither was I interested in looking for an old-one and substituting my Slackware-based network, which was running on decent hardware.

I started to use Solaris for core network services, like exporting NFS shares, DHCP and so on. When Solaris 10 made was released and the Solaris Express program started, things have changed a lot and know I find myself running a pure 100% Solaris network and was left with not even a single GNU/Linux machine. Technologies like ZFS, DTrace and containers are revolutionary, I found them astonishing since the beginning: you canLink virtualize operating system and storage, or instrument your system with a new ad-hoc language and clean set of administrative commands; this, and much more, supported by good documentation. I think they are a major feature I would really miss using another operating system. I couldn't think living without ZFS or zones, nowadays.

I have a X2100 M2 server running the following services on top of Solaris 10 update 4:
  • DHCP server (global zone)
  • DHCP relay (zoned)
  • DNS server (global)
  • Subversion server (global zone, zoned)
  • NFS server (global)
  • LDAP server (global)
  • Web Proxy Server (global)
  • packet forwarding
All of these services, except LDAP and Subversion, are built-in in Solaris. Configuring them and starting them up was trivial, just a read-the-manual exercise. A good Subversion package, with even an SMF manifest, was installed from Blastwave repository, my favorite choice when I look for a Solaris package. The LDAP service is run with Sun Java System Directory Server, while the web proxy is a Sun Web Proxy Server instace, both of which are part of the Sun Java Enterprise System. Integration of Sun software packages and Solaris is obviously very good, and that's why everytime I can, I go for a Sun package rather than using an altenative. Installers are well done, your system is automatically patched, the installer usually let the administrator perform the initial configuration of the product and in a short time the service is up and running.

Another thing I love in Solaris 10 is the philosophy of some administrative commands: if you want to read the classical plain text UNIX configuration files, they're there. But the administrator is help by a great set of administrative command which act as a front-end to such files, greatly reducing the possibility of typos and misconfigurations which sometimes can be an headache.Link
All of the clients I have are either Solaris 10 or Solaris Express Community Edition whose setup is trivial: just install the system and load the LDAP profile. Voilà, 5 minutes after the first reboot, the machine is up and running and you can login with your LDAP-maintained account. And this is the same procedure I configure non-global zones, too. Moreover, since the earliest releases of the now defunct Solaris Express Developer Edition, I don't feel any longer the need of installing GNU/Linux in my clients because I have a good desktop and everything I need.

Another great feature of Solaris 10 are zones. Configuring a basic sparse zone is easy and it's a well documented procedure. The first zone I setup was aimed to solve a problem I had with deploying Blastwave's software. The second zone I deployed is used as development zone with an instance of Glassfish application server and Subversion server. The server is relatively small and always ran without any glitch. I don't have numbers, and I would like to have them, but zones seems a very lightweight solution with a good potential for scalability.

I can now connect to my home network, receive a DHCP number for the subnet I am connected to and start to browse files shared via NFS (or via the SMB protocol in the case a Windows succeeds entering my home), listening to music, watching a movie stored in my ZFS base RAID-Z disk array, or using remotely whichever program I need.

The only thing of which I'm left with the curiosity to try is buying a Sun Ray Client and give it a try.

100% Solaris, rock-solid, and free.