Jyothi's Weblog

About the Sun Device Detection Tool

I have SXDE installed on a Toshiba Tecra M5 and was trying to get information about the supported devices on it such as audio,wireless etc. The command

$ prtconf -pv

prints the system configuration where -p displays information provided by the booting system on x86 platforms and the firmware on SPARC platforms and -v specifies the verbose mode. Here's a snapshot of the command :

Node 0x000007
            assigned-addresses:  8300d810.00000000.ffdfc000.00000000.00004000
            reg:  0000d800.00000000.00000000.00000000.00000000.0300d810.00000000.00000000.00000000.00004000
            compatible: 'pciex8086,27d8.1179.1.2' + 'pciex8086,27d8.1179.1' + 'pciex8086,27d8.2' + 'pciex8086,27d8' + 'pciexclass,040300' + 'pciexclass,0403' + 'pci8086,27d8.1179.1.2' + 'pci8086,27d8.1179.1' + 'pci1179,1' + 'pci8086,27d8.2' + 'pci8086,27d8' + 'pciclass,040300' + 'pciclass,0403'
            model:  'Mixed Mode device'
            power-consumption:  00000001.00000001
            devsel-speed:  00000000
            interrupts:  00000001
            subsystem-vendor-id:  00001179
            subsystem-id:  00000001
            unit-address:  '1b'
            class-code:  00040300
            revision-id:  00000002
            vendor-id:  00008086
            device-id:  000027d8
            pcie-capid-pointer:  00000070
            pcie-capid-reg:  00000091
            pci-msi-capid-pointer:  00000060
            name:  'pci1179,1'

 

Node 0x000017
                assigned-addresses:  82050010.00000000.ffaff000.00000000.00001000
                reg:  00050000.00000000.00000000.00000000.00000000.02050010.00000000.00000000.00000000.00001000
compatible: 'pciex8086,4222.8086.1040.2' + 'pciex8086,4222.8086.1040' + 'pciex8086,4222.2' + 'pciex8086,4222' + 'pciexclass,028000' + 'pciexclass,0280' + 'pci8086,4222.8086.1040.2' + 'pci8086,4222.8086.1040' + 'pci8086,1040' + 'pci8086,4222.2' + 'pci8086,4222' + 'pciclass,028000' + 'pciclass,0280'
                model:  'Network controller'
                power-consumption:  00000001.00000001
                devsel-speed:  00000000
                interrupts:  00000001
                subsystem-vendor-id:  00008086
                subsystem-id:  00001040
                unit-address:  '0'
                class-code:  00028000
                revision-id:  00000002
                vendor-id:  00008086
                device-id:  00004222
                pcie-capid-pointer:  000000e0
                pcie-capid-reg:  00000011
                pci-msi-capid-pointer:  000000d0
                name:  'pci8086,1040'


However, to interpret the results you would need to note down the  vendor ID/device ID and search on the PCI repository. And sometimes it does not help that the "model" is listed as "mixed mode device".  For example, my Tecra M5 has a Intel 3945 A/B/G wireless card. The vendor id for Intel is 8086 and the device id for the 3945 card is 4222. The audio device on my laptop is a 82801G(ICH7 Family) high definition audio controller with a device ID of 27d8 which is listed as a "mixed-mode device". The command

$ prtconf -D

displays the name of the device driver (if present) that is used to manage the device. 

The Sun Device Detection Tool makes the task of finding out the above information a lot easier. I downloaded the tool and started it with the following command.

$ javaws sddt_sx.jnlp

The tool lists the device type ,vendor and device name. The tool's primary function, however is to help you find out out quickly if the Solaris Express Developer Edition running on your x86 platform supports the devices on your machine i.e does it have the required device drivers for the devices to work properly?

The tool only takes a couple of minutes to output the results which gives you a clearer picture of the supported devices on your laptop.
Some of the common questions related to the tool such as " I installed a third-party driver for my device, and it works well. Why is this device labeled "No Solaris Driver" in the driver report?" and "If a device is marked "No Solaris Driver" in the driver report, can this device still work with the Solaris Express, Developer Edition OS or Solaris 10 OS?" are answered on the  BigAdmin site. The hardware compatibility list for Solaris 10 and SXDE is available here and you can find out more about the Sun Device Detection Toolkit here.

Posted at 02:40PM May 14, 2007 by Jyothi Srinath in Sun  |  Comments[1]

SAMP at JavaOne

SAMP is Sun's open source alternative to LAMP, a software stack used for typical web deployments and Web 2.0 implementations. SAMP stands for

S - Solaris
A - Apache HTTP Server (http://www.apache.org)
M - MySQL (Open Source database)
P - PHP/Perl/Python

SAMP is built on Solaris 10 and developers who would like to continue
with their open source AMP technology now have an option to run it with Solaris instead of Linux. CoolStack, which contains AMP, along with other open source applications has been optimized for the Solaris OS. A quick Guide to SAMP is available here. And read more about CoolStack here.

SAMP will have a presence at the  big event, JavaOne,  that is starting tomorrow. And I am looking forward to interacting with the open source community at the SAMP pod.

Also check out Sun's Try and Buy offer or if you are currently running LAMP, a chance to win a free server with Sun's AMPlify your Web Tier Challenge.

Posted at 03:42PM May 07, 2007 by Jyothi Srinath in Sun  | 

Flash 9 for Solaris

I just downloaded and installed the beta version of Flash Player 9  for Solaris from Adobe. They have a sparc and an x86 version, so that meant  I could play the Temple of the Sun game from my Toshiba laptop which has SXDE installed on it.

The tarred file for Flash 9 is downloaded to your desktop. Create a plugins directory (if you don't already have one) under the .mozilla directory and extract/copy the libflashplayer.so file to this directory. You can extract the file using the standard unzip commands from the command line.(See my blog entry "Zip and Unzip files on Solaris") Or  double click on the icon on your desktop and extract the file using File Roller, an open source archive manager for the GNOME desktop environment.

Restart your browser. Type about:plugins in the url location of your browser to confirm that Flash 9 is installed correctly.

Posted at 10:07AM May 01, 2007 by Jyothi Srinath in Sun  |  Comments[4]

What's new at JavaOne this year?

The 2007 JavaOne conference is being held from May 8-11 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco,CA.

There are some new additions this time. Come and check them out at the conference.

NEW for 2007 - Java Technology Business Day - for Business People

CALL TO ACTION: Tell your Customers TODAY!

• 30 million consumers will download Java technology
  each month, do you want to reach them?
• 5 million developers are creating applications and
  content, do you work with any of them?
• 4.5 billion devices contain Java technology, does your
  company deliver any of them?

If your customers answer yes to any of the questions above, we
have a special day planned for them. Java Technology Business Day at
the JavaOne Conference is designed to showcase to your customers how to
do more with their Java technology enabled business.



Tuesday, May 8, 2007

The Argent Hotel

50 3rd Avenue

San Francisco, CA



Register today for just $350. Learn more on
java.sun.com/javaone/sf/businessday.jsp



Java Technology in TV: Blu-ray Disc and Cable Day

If you are a Java developer who would like to learn more about the
exciting content development opportunities in the digital television
market, or if you're a television developer looking to gain knowledge
and skills applicable to OCAP, BD-J, and related Java technologies,
Blu-ray Disc and Cable Day is a must-attend event! Learn more at 
http://java.sun.com/javaone/sf/javatvday.jsp





NEW for 2007 - JavaOne Camp

JavaOne Camp is yet another opportunity for the community to take an
active role in helping shape and define the future of Java technology,
in an "unconference" format. Consider JavaOne Camp as a TownHall, where
the individual Java technology developers can SHARE their voices, ideas
and opinions with peers about how the platform or language needs to
adapt as a result of changes in the industry, in the community, on the
web, in technology or in the social fabric of the Internet. Tuesday and
Wednesday night attendees can have the chance to give their own talk or
vote on a talk they would like to hear more about. To learn more see
http://java.sun.com/javaone/sf/javaonecamp.jsp

 

Posted at 02:31PM Apr 25, 2007 by Jyothi Srinath in Sun  | 

Using the find and grep commands

I put together a list of some of the basic find and grep commands that I use often. The find command recursively searches a directory tree for the files that match the given options.

To find a file in any directory, starting in your current directory
$ find . -name filename

If you do not know the complete filename,use the wildcard * at the start and end of the filename.
$ find . -name *partialfilename* -print

Find only files (not directories) from your current directory. For example,
$ find . -type -f -print
And to find only directory files,type
$ find . -type -d -print

To find all files containing a particular string
$ find . -name "*" -exec grep "string" {} \; -print

To find all files that are greater than "n" bytes and have not been accessed for more than "x" days,
$ find . -type f -size +nc -atime +x
For example, to find a file greater than 800 bytes and not accessed for more than 10 days, type
$ find . -type f -size +800c -atime +10
The c indicates that the file size is in bytes.

Grep can be used in many different ways. It is fast and powerful and an invaluable tool.grep
searches for a pattern within a file and prints it out to
standard output. You can also redirect the output to a file.
grep supports the following options (from the man pages):

OPTIONS

     The following options are supported for  both  /usr/bin/grep

     and /usr/xpg4/bin/grep:



     -b       Precedes each line by the block number on which  it

              was  found.  This  can  be useful in locating block

              numbers by context (first block is 0).

     -c       Prints only a count of the lines that  contain  the

              pattern.

     -h       Prevents the name of the file containing the match-

              ing  line  from  being appended to that line.  Used

              when searching multiple files.

     -i       Ignores upper/lower case  distinction  during  com-

              parisons.

     -l       Prints only the names of files with matching lines,

              separated  by  NEWLINE characters.  Does not repeat

              the names of files when the pattern is  found  more

              than once.

     -n       Precedes each line by its line number in  the  file

              (first line is 1).

     -s       Suppresses  error  messages  about  nonexistent  or
              unreadable files.
     -v       Prints all lines except those that contain the pattern.

     -w       Searches for the expression as a word as if  surrounded by \< and \>.

The simplest form of grep is to search for a pattern in a file.
$ grep pattern filename

$ grep -i -n  pattern filename
will match all lines within a file along with the line number that contains pattern(case ignored).

grep has an exit status of 0 for success and 1 for failure.Type

$ echo $?

immediately after grep to retrieve the exit status (bash) or

$ echo $status
in csh

The output of other commands can be piped to grep.
$ ps -ef |grep root > grep_output
will redirect the output to the file grep_output(list of all processes on the system that contain root)
$ ls -l |grep '^d' >> grep_output
will append the output to the file grep_output(list of all directories(all lines beginning with letter d))
$ grep '^pattern$' filename
will print all lines matching only pattern
$ grep '^pattern'
will print all lines that contain pattern.

You will find more examples for find and grep on Sun's Big Admin site here.

Posted at 12:57PM Apr 18, 2007 by Jyothi Srinath in Sun  |  Comments[5]