Tuesday Sep 23, 2008
I previously blogged about getting
NMH from the Solaris Companion web site. I went to the web site
again and read further down the page and noticed there was a IPS
repository. This is easier for OpenSolaris than downloading a
package and then adding it. Here are the steps I followed to
install gnuplot:
pfexec pkg set-authority -O http://pkg.sunfreeware.com:9000/ sunfreeware.com
pfexec pkg refresh
pfexec pkg install IPSFWgplot
Works great.
Monday Sep 22, 2008
One of the things missing when you install OpenSolaris in a
VMware virtual machine is audio. Apparently the driver for the
audio device that VMware emulates isn't redistributable, so it
isn't included as part of OpenSolaris.
To solve this, I grabbed a copy of the Open Sound System
drivers package
and followed the installation
instructions. After a reboot, I had sound.
Monday Sep 22, 2008
Last week I blogged about OpenSolaris
BE and build names. Another way to accomplish this is on
your next image update. Create an OpenSolaris boot
environment, mount it, update it, unmount it, and activate it.
This is steps 4 through 9 of Updating
Your System to OpenSolaris Development Builds.
Friday Sep 19, 2008
Yesterday I mentioned that I needed to install MH or NMH on my
home OpenSolaris virtual machine. I took at look at the Sunfreeware site and
discovered NMH is part of the Sun
Companion CD Project. I grabbed the Solaris package from
there and installed it with pkgadd. Nice and
quick, works great.
Friday Sep 19, 2008
I updated my laptop running OpenSolaris from build 97 to build
98 yesterday. No issues at all. Gotta go update at home too.
Thursday Sep 18, 2008
Last night I finally threw the switch and migrated my main
virtual machine at home from Solaris Express snv_79 to
OpenSolaris. Well, actually, I finally had the new OpenSolaris
virtual machine ready and the data migrated so I could power off
the Solaris Express virtual machine.
I still have a few missing pieces left to deal with. First, I
need to get tkbiff
installed. I also need MH or NMH. I've
used MH and later NMH on and off for many years. It provides
command line tools to scan folders, send mail, sort mail, burst
digests, and more. Now I use Gnus within XEmacs, but I'm on one
mailing list that only comes in digest form, and I used the
MH burst command to break the digests apart into
single e-mail messages. I also occasionally use the MH
scan command to quickly scan a folder for an item of
interest, particularly if I don't have XEmacs running. It's
much quicker to run scan than to start XEmacs and then
Gnus within XEmacs.
The other item of interest is that I'm finally migrating away
from fvwm2 with fvwm-themes to GNOME. I started using GNOME a
few months ago when Sun gave me a laptop and told me to run
OpenSolaris. I've grown to like it well enough, though I miss a
few of fvwm's capabilities. But now my work and home
environments will be more similar, and that's more efficient for
me. I've gotten more used to the GNOME mouse clicks and have
found they just don't work with my FVWM setup! :)
Thursday Sep 18, 2008
I recently read a thread on one of the OpenSolaris mailing lists
about how BE (boot environment) names don't reflect anything
about the OpenSolaris build it contains. It occurred to me that
since pkg image-update finds a BE named
opensolaris-N and then creates a new
BE named opensolaris-N+1, you could
rename your current BE
opensolaris-buildnumber and pkg
image-update would "just do it". This only works if
you upgrade at every build. If you don't, the number gets off,
but you can fix that by renaming BEs or by creating BEs for the
missing builds with the appropriate names.
Having done all this, my system shows this for BEs:
BE Active Mountpoint Space Policy Created
-- ------ ---------- ----- ------ -------
opensolaris-96 - - 37.92M static 2008-09-05 10:14
opensolaris-97 - - 18.31M static 2008-09-11 15:59
opensolaris-98 NR / 13.78G static 2008-09-18 11:36
Wednesday Aug 27, 2008
Some weeks back, my manager gave me a HP Compaq 8510p laptop to
use, on condition that I install OpenSolaris, use it, and report
problems. Sounded good to me, so I grabbed it.
Over the past several weeks, I've gotten OpenSolaris and various
tools I use installed and working nicely, and was pretty
productive on the laptop. I figured out how to hook up and use
the 24.1 inch monitor here at work[1],
figured out how to customize the system using NWAM (NetWork
Auto-Magic). Everything was going good.
I turned on my laptop on Sunday, and it gave me a grub>
prompt. Oh oh. GRUB couldn't see anything. I thought
maybe the laptop had taken a hard knock on a trip to downtown
Austin on Saturday morning. Even scarier, I tried to recover
using an OpenSolaris 2008.05 LiveCD I had around, but it gave me
errors. At first I thought the errors were something seriously
wrong with the system, but on closer inspection, noticed it was
complaining about a bad sector on the CD. So I burned another
CD, and it started fine. The OpenSolaris from the new copy of
the LiveCD could see the partitions, but it couldn't access the
ZFS pool on hard disk. At this point, I gave up and
re-installed OpenSolaris 2008.05 from the CD. That went fine.
But during the install, I recalled that I had seen this when
looking at the ZFS pool using zpool status on Friday:
pool: rpool
state: ONLINE
status: The pool is formatted using an older on-disk format. The pool can
still be used, but some features are unavailable.
action: Upgrade the pool using 'zpool upgrade'. Once this is done, the
pool will no longer be accessible on older software versions.
scrub: none requested
config:
NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM
rpool ONLINE 0 0 0
c5t0d0s0 ONLINE 0 0 0
errors: No known data errors
I had gone ahead and upgraded rpool. Hmm, could this be it? I
then recalled reading something on some OpenSolaris e-mail list
about this, where GRUB couldn't read the latest ZFS format, or
if it could, you needed to update GRUB on the disk. There's an
e-mail
thread that discusses this. It turns out I *might* have
been able to recover, had I had a nv94 or higher CD
So the moral of that story is to make sure you know what you're
doing before upgrading a root ZFS pool. Also, make backups of
system configuration information and scripts!
After I installed, I knew I'd need a few things to be
productive:
- Sun Studio Express
- OpenOffice
- Punchin
- XEmacs
- tkbiff
- NWAM scripts
Sun Studio Express and OpenOffice were easy to get, I just
grabbed them using from the IPS repository by using pkg
install .... Punchin was a chicken and egg problem, in
that I had to get punched in to get the packages. Fortunately,
I have a Solaris Express VMware virtual machine on my home PC,
and used that to punchin and grab the packages, then used scp to
copy the packages and credentials to the laptop.
tkbiff was trivial. XEmacs was a bit more involved, though I
was surprised how little it took to get it built and working.
Turns out I remembered a few things from the first time around.
I wanted to use the old X Athena widgets, but the header files
disappeared from OpenSolaris several builds ago. But IPS lets
you install old versions of packages, so I figured out which
package and the version I needed and installed it.
NWAM has been more interesting, and is one area where I really
wish I'd saved a backup copy of the scripts. Grr. You can
write a script that NWAM invokes when there's a change in the
system's network interfaces, and from that you can return a
name. NWAM invokes bringup and teardown scripts associated with
that name. So my typical way of working is wireless at home and
wired at work. When I'm at work, I use NIS, at home, I don't.
Sadly, I'm still working on getting these right, and when I do,
I'll write up another blog entry about them.
Footnotes:
[1] If the monitor is connected and plugged in when Xorg starts,
it just works, but it drivers the laptop display at 1920x1200,
which the laptop doesn't support. So I use xrandr --output LVDS
--off to make it work.
Friday Aug 08, 2008
Last night we hit the brand new Freebirds on Burnet Road that
opened yesterday, then headed down to Zilker Park for the Zilker
Hillside Theater production of Disney's Beauty and the
Beast. After a slow drive into the park, which I think
was caused by the slow process of every car stopping to pay, we
finally parked, grabbed our blankets and cooler, and headed to
the hill in front of the stage. Once we got there, we
discovered that the hill was pretty packed already, but we found
a decent spot near the top of the hill to the right of the stage
and set up.
We had about an hour or so to wait, so the boys ran off to run
up and down the hill, climb a tree, and use the port-a-potties.
Karen and I sat on the blankets and waited for the show to
start. While we waited, things got more and more crowded around
us. Some folks parked in front of us and filled up an air
mattress, which put them a bit higher than us, but Karen and I
could see over them and through the gaps, and the boys could
still see well on the right side.
The people who moved in behind us, on the other hand, were a bit
of a problem, at least at first. They bumped into us, and I
felt very crowded. Eventually they backed off a bit, we moved
forward a bit, and that all worked out.
While we were waiting for the show to start at dusk, I got a
program, and was looking at the actor bios and pictures, and
noticed a familiar name. Our neighbor Ben, the son of Nick's
second grade teacher, was in the show as Chip! We had no idea
Ben was in the show, it was a nice surprise. And he played his
part well.
As for the actual show, it seemed to be pretty well done. The
female lead, Belle, was well cast, and she had an excellent
voice that was easily understandable. I'm sure part of that was
her, and part the songs and lyrics.
My only criticism is that I thought the first half was a bit
long and dragged a bit. The second half was a bit shorter and
faster paced. The only glitch I recall in the show was Gaston's
wireless face microphone broke at one point, so he grabbed a
hand wireless microphone and used that, which I thought was
pretty quick thinking of him or the directors (or both).
After the show, we went down to the stage to say hello to Ben,
then headed back to our car. It took us 10-15 minutes to get
out of the park. I noticed most people were heading west
towards Mopac, so I headed east and hit Barton Springs Road and
then headed west, and that got us to Mopac much more
quickly than if we had stayed on the park road. We got home at
midnight, so it was kind of a late night, but I think we enjoyed
it and thought it was worth it, even if Sam almost fell asleep
on the blanket. :)
Thursday May 08, 2008
May is Bike Month, and here in the Austin area Bike to Work Day
is Friday, May 16. I've only ridden my bike to work once so far
this spring, and intend to ride on May 16, possibly another time
before then too.
One of the activities this year is
Tree to Tree: The Parmer Commutes. This ride starts in
Cedar Park and heads down Parmer Lane and beyond to the
Arboretum area in northwest Austin. It just so happens that I
commute on part of this route, so I intend to join this group at
Lakeline and Parmer at 7:10 and ride down to Music City Cycles
and then beyond to Sun. The ride map shows the group going
along Riata Park Circle, right next to Apple and a short
distance from Sun.
If you live up north in Cedar Park or Round Rock somewhere near
Parmer and work somewhere towards northwest Austin, consider
joining the ride.
Monday Apr 14, 2008
On Friday the kid's elementary school PTA held its annual
carnival. One of the attractions was a petting zoo. They had
goats, piglets, rabbits and chickens.
Karen has been trying to figure out what to do with one our
young roosters, Harry, who was hatched out in early January.
He's acting more and more like a rooster, and is getting a bit
unpleasant to be around. Also, living in a suburban
neighborhood, we think sure the neighbors might get annoyed with
hearing a rooster in the early morning, so we've always intended
to get rid of our roosters. Karen had posted a "free rooster"
note on a pet chickens web site, but got no interest. The next
alternative was to take him up to the feed store and give him
away.
Anyway, back to the petting zoo. Karen asked the petting zoo
owner if she'd take a Rhode Island Red rooster, and she said she
would. So Karen got our rooster and took him over there.
Our son Nick was upset and said he was going to miss Harry, but
hasn't talked that much about him since then, so maybe he won't
miss him that much. He still has 9 other chicks, 4 hens, 3
cats, a brother and mom and dad on which to shower his
affection, so maybe that's enough :).
Monday Apr 14, 2008
On Thursday April 10 I decided to join a local cycling group,
the Georgetown
Cyclopaths, for one of their evening rides. I really love
that name!
There were eight of us that met at Berry Springs Park
and Preserve and headed out. One of the riders had an
idea for a route, so we took the lead from him. We ended up
getting in about 24 miles before finishing back at the start.
This was a nice rural ride, going in a loop to the east, then
north, west to Walburg, and back to Georgetown. I recorded the
ride with my Garmin
Forerunner 305 and uploaded it a couple of places:
Another interesting feature, at least to me, was the amount of
poultry I heard while we were riding, since we have 13 chickens
ourselves. I'm pretty sure I heard chickens, and I saw a sign
about a guinea fowl crossing or something like that. I need to
take Karen out there, since she's the person in our family who's
really into poultry.
I enjoyed the ride, and will join the Cyclopaths again when I
can.
Wednesday Mar 05, 2008
Yesterday I voted in the Texas primary at my polling place,
Round Rock High School, in the morning. The Democratic side
seemed busier than the Republican side (that's a switch!), but
didn't have lines at that time, around 9:30 a.m.
In the evening, I attended the caucus, or precinct convention,
at the same location. The caucus was supposed to start at 7:15
p.m. or shortly after the last voter voted, but we weren't let
in the building until 7:55. We all had to sign in and give our
presidential preference, and apparently had to have our
credentials verified, but I don't know if everyone got the
message on that. We had about 130 people show up, which is
impressive in what's been a heavily Republican district. I
recognized at least 4 of my neighbors there, and that was nice
to see. Sometime we Democrats feel a bit lost amongst our
conservative neighbors.
The Clinton campaign complained that at some precinct the Obama
supporters controlled the caucus packets, which are apparently
just the instructions and paperwork. In our case, the temporary
chair was a Clinton supporter. The first order of business
after calling the meeting to order and signing in was to elect a
permanent precinct convention chair and secretary. Two
candidates ran for chair, one an 18-year-old high school senior
supporting Obama, and another a 30-something Clinton supporter.
It was close, but the 18-year-old won 17-15. Someone then
nominated the Clinton supporter for vice chair, and we approved
that by acclamation.
After this, the chair announced the vote count. Obama won
around 59% to 41% or something close to that. We had 16
delegates to send to the county convention in Georgetown on
March 29, so Obama got 10 and Clinton got 6. I was in the Obama
camp and we had 10 volunteers to be delegates, and 4 of us,
including me, volunteered to be alternates.
I think the rules for all this are a bit weird. You can vote in
just the primary and the caucus, but not just in the caucus. I
suppose the idea is that the people who care about the party get
a second shot at voting. But I think Clinton has a point about
the caucuses excluding those who have to work that night or have
other duties. We have 12 hours to vote but we have to be at the
caucus at a specified time.
I enjoyed the experience, and kind of regret that I didn't raise
my hand to be a delegate to the county convention. Maybe
they'll call me as an alternate.
Wednesday Feb 13, 2008
When I last wrote about chickens, we had nine chicks indoors and
four hens outdoors. Last week I came home from work and was
looking at the indoor chicks in their 2' W × 4' L × 2' H box and
noticed a little black chick. To this I said "Where the heck
did that come from?" I was told it was a silver
laced Wyandotte pullet (female chick). Karen knows she's
going to have to get rid of the new roosters at some point, so
she wanted one more hen. Okaaay.
At first, the little chick seems quite wary of the much larger
and older chicks, and got chased around by a Rhode
Island Red rooster. But by the next morning, she seemed to
have settled in and started hanging out with the larger chicks
and keeping warm. She particularly liked our largest chick,
which we think is a Buff
Orpington rooster. She even roosts with the larger chicks.
Also, she really stands out as the other chicks are buff and red
and she's black with a bit of silver. Pretty cute.
The older chicks have a few weeks before it's warm enough for
them to go live outside. We're not sure how this will work with
the little Wyandotte, who may not be old enough to go outside
yet. When we've taken the older chicks outside for a few hours,
the poor little Wyandotte makes lots of noise and really misses
her friends.
Wednesday Feb 13, 2008
On Sunday my sone Nicholas turned 10 years old! Congratulations
Nick! We had a sleepover party on Saturday night with four
other fourth grade boys, and they were up and kept me awake
until 1 a.m. Sunday morning. I think our family is still trying
to recover. Nick in particular was not feeling well on Monday
morning, so we've sent him to bed early the past couple of
nights.
My wife Karen and I were chatting last night, and I mentioned
how some of my memories have gotten muddled and I "remember"
Nick being at certain places with us, when I know darn well he
wasn't born yet. Weird. But we agreed it is difficult
for us to remember life before Nick entered our lives during the
1998 Winter Olympics, which we remember watching on the
television while Karen was in labor.
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I do the same thing! :)
If only the updates were m...
I've found the updates I've installed to be reliab...