Backups

For those who might be looking for a backup solution, CrashPlan now have a beta Solaris client. You can have online backups for Solaris which is free for individual use. Take a look at:

http://www.crashplan.com

Posted at 06:03PM May 26, 2009 by oz in Solaris X86  |  Comments[1]

Firefox 3.1b2 and Thunderbird 3.0b1

Firefox 3.1b2 and Thunderbird 3.0b1 contributed builds on are now available on www.mozilla.com[Read More]

Posted at 01:35PM Dec 24, 2008 by oz in Solaris X86  | 

Sybase 15.0.3

Sybase Version 15.0.3 is now available for Solaris (Sparc and x64) Just download the "ASE Enterprise Edition 15.0.3 for Sun Solaris x64 - 64bit" package from:

https://sybase.subscribenet.com

and then do a normal install and you can choose "Developer Edition" from the license options.

Posted at 08:50AM Dec 23, 2008 by oz in Solaris X86  | 

Firefox 3.0.5 & 2.0.0.19

Latest Firefox releases can be found at:

http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/2.0.0.19/contrib

http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/3.0.5/contrib

Yes, I know this isn't new, I just catching up again now that everything is slowing down for Christmas.

Posted at 11:55AM Dec 22, 2008 by oz in Solaris X86  |  Comments[2]

Flash PLayer 10 Beta

The beta version of the Flash Player 10 for Solaris (both Sparc and x86) is available at:

http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html

Posted at 09:47PM Oct 27, 2008 by oz in Solaris X86  |  Comments[3]

Right time with Solaris on a mac book pro

For anyone installing Solaris on a mac book pro, you'll find the time is incorrect once you boot up. The real time clock on the mac is set to gmt while Solaris is expecting it to be the local time (like a pc normally has.) All you have to do is run:

rtc -z GMT

to tell Solaris that the real time clock is gmt and all will be fixed (you only have to do this once, Solaris then stores the new time zone in a file.)

Posted at 10:59AM Aug 21, 2008 by oz in Solaris X86  | 

Bluetooth2

Thanks to Darren Moffat's help, the answer became clear as to why my Bluetooth mouse is working when it apparently shouldn't. The Macbook Pro's hardware is emulating a USB mouse, ie looking in prtconf showed that the mouse was bound to the "hid" driver which is from the USB side of the house. Shame it doesn't emulate the mouse scroll wheel.

Posted at 11:21AM Aug 13, 2008 by oz in Solaris X86  | 

Bluetooth

I can't explain how or why, but I noticed last night that something was wrong. I realized that a) my mouse wheel wasn't working and b) I was using my Bluetooth mouse on my Macbook pro under Solaris and it was working without any setup. All I can say is your mileage may vary and I have no idea how it worked (Targus Bluetooth mouse model=am806au) but it did. You would want the latest Solaris express community edition to have a hope of this working.

Posted at 03:20PM Jul 31, 2008 by oz in Solaris X86  |  Comments[2]

Sybase 15.0.2 Developer Edition for Solaris x86

or those who might be looking for the developer version of Sybase 15.0.2 for Solaris x86, it's no longer a separate package. You now just download the "ASE Enterprise Edition 15.0.2 for Sun Solaris x64 - 64bit" package from:

https://sybase.subscribenet.com

and then do a normal install and you can choose "Developer Edition" from the license options. It's not a separate install these days.

Posted at 11:43AM Jul 29, 2008 by oz in Solaris X86  | 

Firefox 3.0.1

Arrgh, so far behind it seems. Anyway, the latest Firefox builds can be found at:

What's new:

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.0.1/releasenotes/#whatsnew

Download

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.0.1/releasenotes/#contributedbuilds

http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/3.0.1/contrib/

Posted at 04:31PM Jul 22, 2008 by oz in Solaris X86  |  Comments[1]

Firefox 2.0.0.16

Everyone probably knows this (I'm late in processing my emails) but the Firefox builds for 2.0.0.16 are at

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/2.0.0.16/releasenotes/#contributedbuilds

http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/2.0.0.16/contrib/

Posted at 12:52PM Jul 21, 2008 by oz in Solaris X86  |  Comments[1]

Acrobat reader for Solaris x86 on it's way

One of the last outstanding pieces for Solaris x86 is finally on it's way it seems.

http://blogs.adobe.com/acroread/2008/05/adobe_reader_on_solaris_x86_co.html

Still a bit of a wait but at least we know it's in the works now. A big thank you goes to Adobe.

Posted at 09:10PM May 19, 2008 by oz in Solaris X86  |  Comments[1]

Firefox 2.0.0.14 available

Seems the latest version of Firefox is available, ie:

What's New
==========

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/2.0.0.14/releasenotes/#whatsnew

Downloading
===========

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/2.0.0.14/releasenotes/#contributedbuilds

http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/2.0.0.14/contrib

Posted at 03:16PM Apr 22, 2008 by oz in Solaris X86  | 

Dhcp info

I have a number of times that (while using DHCP) when I first boot up that DNS isn't working. The resolv.conf file is missing or has the wrong values and I hate having to fix things by hand, so i decided to scipt the DNS setup using the information from DHCP (via the dhcpinfo command.)

#!/bin/ksh

IFDEV=`ifconfig -a|grep ":"|grep -v lo0|cut -f1 -d:|grep -v "ip.tun"|grep -v "inet6"|cut -f1`

GATEWAY=`/sbin/dhcpinfo -i $IFDEV router`
DNSSERVER=`/sbin/dhcpinfo -i $IFDEV DNSserv`
DOMAIN=`/sbin/dhcpinfo -i $IFDEV DNSdmain`
MASK=`/sbin/dhcpinfo -i $IFDEV 1`

echo dev=$IFDEV gateway=$GATEWAY domain=$DOMAIN mask=$MASK

cp /etc/nsswitch.dns /etc/nsswitch.conf

echo "nameserver $DNSSERVER" >/etc/resolv.conf
if [ "$DOMAIN" != "localdomain" ]
then
        echo "domain $DOMAIN" >>/etc/resolv.conf
        echo "search $DOMAIN" >>/etc/resolv.conf
fi

The logic for figuring which interface to use isn't very robust, but it works in all the setups I use.

Posted at 10:53AM Jul 27, 2007 by oz in Solaris X86  | 

find command

Seeing as some people seem to be posting their handy find commands, I thought I'd add mine:

find . -mount -ls | awk '{ print $7 " " $11 }' | sort -n

which will list all files in & under the current directory and sort them by size, very handy for finding where all the space went.

Posted at 11:08AM Jul 11, 2007 by oz in Solaris X86  |  Comments[4]

Comments

Some wag pointed out that trading wireless support and decent screen resolution for a shiny apple logo wasn't such a clever trade :-> 5 years ago he would have been completely right and I would have walked away with my tail between my legs. But Sun is treating Solaris x86 as a serious product these days and I only bought the Mac because I could see that these probs are being looked at (and in the meanwhile MacOs is simply a more familiar Unix based environment than Windows can ever hope to be, with or without Cygwin.)

Why not Linux then? (an trust me, I'd use Linux ahead of Windows any day.) Well, that's a good question and would be fine for many people but I need to test things that I'm proposing to do on Solaris Sparc based servers so Solaris x86 on my laptop is a perfect starting point.

Posted at 10:34PM May 16, 2007 by oz in Solaris X86  |  Comments[2]