Wednesday July 04, 2007

Sunfreeware.com is my new best friend

Pesky libraries. When I installed Pine off the Solaris 10 Companion DVD, Pine complained about a missing library when I tried to open it. Some Internet research revealed that the library, libssl.so.0.9.7, is one of the OpenSSL libraries, and it wasn't the only one missing. It turns out that OpenSolaris Build 57, the one I am using, contains a later version of OpenSSL, one that uses libssl.so.0.9.8. Other needed OpenSSL libraries had the same versioning problem. Rats! You'd think that Pine would pay a little more attention to forward compatibility, but the price is right (free), so I guess I can't complain too much.

Hmm. What to do? I tried a hack, renaming the library, which worked but also revealed that there was a whole series of other libraries that would have to be renamed as well, so I decided to do things the right way instead. More Internet research led me to Sunfreeware.com, a veritable Aladdin's cave of free and open source applications for Solaris, including a newer version of Pine. Awesome! The site is run by Steve Christensen, quantum physicist and national treasure. How fortunate Sun is that geniuses like Steve take an interest in Solaris.

The version of Pine on the Solaris Companion DVD is 4.61, but the version on Sunfreeware.com is 4.64. I decided to gamble that this version wouild be compatible with the version of OpenSSL on OpenSolaris Build 57. Given my horror at compiling applications from source, I was pleased to see that Sunfreeware.com provides easy-to-install binaries that use pkgadd for installation, and contains very simple instructions on how to do it. Downloading and installation were a snap. So far, so good.

Now, the acid test. Would Pine actually work? I added its directory to my PATH, typed in "pine," and hit return.

It worked! Hee-hee! I was in business.

Now, the next problem: how to configure Pine to talk to the Sun email system. So far, I am stymied. I know Pine is making contact with the Sun email server, but something in my Pine configuration is causing the login to be rejected. The Pine documentation is maddeningly vague, and Internet research turns up hundreds of instruction pages on how to install Pine at specific university systems from here to Hong Kong (really), but they are too specific for me.

This is all rather frustrating, but it is also a valuable lesson on why open source is a viable corporate strategy for software vendors. Pine is free for the asking, so would I pay for a Pine support contract that would allow me to call someone right now and ask how to set it up? You bet your ass I would.