The Queen's Gambit Declined... 1. d4 d5 2. c4 ...

When you have an iso file, it's really convenient to be able to just mount it.

Before the integration of PSARC/2008/366 VSW_CANLOFI in Solaris Nevada (build 93)
it was a two-step process:

    # lofiadm -a /my/iso		# creates /dev/lofi/1
    # mount -F hsfs /dev/lofi/1 /mnt	# access /my/iso via /mnt

With this wadlet, you can now omit the lofiadm step and just say:

    # mount -F hsfs /my/iso /mnt

Similarly with unmount -- you don't have to remember to lofiadm -d.

With ZFS, you can do

    # zpool import -d /net/zday/some/path/to/zpool/images/

Network transfers between a Windows guest and a Solaris host through NAT are very slow (a few KB per secs).

I am sure this problem will go away once VB will be more mature but it is currently very painful to transfer files

from the host to the guest. One solution to overcome this issue that I've found fast and easy to set up, is to mount

the Virtual Disk Image file (.vdi), used by the guest, directly on Solaris.

I've created my VDI files in a ZFS filesystem

First, I clone the ZFS filesystem so the data are safe during the operation (and the VM can keep running).

As you can see in the zfs list output the cloned data only use 60MB (Thanks to ZFS!!)

From this post, we learn that a NTFS filesystem starts off by

Then, let's find this string in our VDI file

The first column gives us the offset within the file that we need to mount the image.

Solaris doesn't support NTFS by default and doesn't know how to mount those filesystems.

However, you can use mount_ntfs, a freeware available on sourceforge.net, to do the job

Et Voila!

devfsadm: driver failed to attach: audiohd
Warning: Driver (audiohd) successfully added to system but failed to attach

White to move... 

The goal for white is to promote the e7 pawn into a Queen.

 
The white King has to move since it is in check. It has 3 possible choices:

1. Kd7 (protecting itself behind the pawn)

Black can now play for a Draw:

1. ... Rf7 (pinning the pawn)

2. Kd8 Rxe7

3. Kxe7 Draw

1. Ke5 (attacking the Rook)

Black can now counter attack the pawn!

1. ... Rf1

2. e8(Q) Re1+

3. Kd6 Rxe8 (Black wins)

1. Kd5 (White is escaping - this is the less obvious move)

Black is chasing the King.

1. ... Rf5+

2. Kd4 Rf4+

3. Ke3 Rf1

Antonello Cruz has just integrated its work about "Process Contract Decoration" into Solaris Nevada build 85

PSARC 2008/046 Process Contract Decorations
5079353 RFE: contract 'decoration' with service FMRI

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contracts in Solaris are mainly used by SMF(4) to restart services (eg. when they die). Contract information
can be accessed through several commands:

ctstat(1), ptree(1) , ps(1) , svcs(1)

# svcs -o CTID,FMRI,STATE ssh
CTID   FMRI                                               STATE
73     svc:/network/ssh:default                           online

# svcs -p ssh
STATE          STIME    FMRI
online         10:21:51 svc:/network/ssh:default
               10:21:51      590 sshd

Now, we can do the opposite and go from the process to its FMRI associated and ctid

# ps -ae -o pid,ctid,comm | grep sshd
  590    73 /usr/lib/ssh/sshd

# ctstat -v -i 73
CTID    ZONEID  TYPE    STATE   HOLDER  EVENTS  QTIME   NTIME   
73      0       process owned   7       0       -       -       
        cookie:                0x20
        informative event set: none
        critical event set:    hwerr empty
        fatal event set:       none
        parameter set:         inherit regent
        member processes:      590
        inherited contracts:   none
        service fmri:          svc:/network/ssh:default
        svc_fmri ctid:         73
        creator:               svc.startd
        aux:                   start

Here is a Dtrace example for aggregating system calls by FMRI

#!/usr/sbin/dtrace -qs

syscall:::entry
{
@[stringof(curthread->t_procp->p_ct_process>conp_svc_fmri->rs_string)] = count();
}

^C

svc:/system/fmd:default 7
svc:/system/utmp:default 11
svc:/system/system-log:default 18
svc:/network/rpc/keyserv:default 20
svc:/system/hal:default 20
svc:/system/intrd:default 36
svc:/system/zones:default 72
svc:/network/smtp:sendmail 122
svc:/network/inetd:default 292
svc:/network/rpc/bind:default 372
svc:/system/cryptosvc:default 394
svc:/network/nfs/mapid:default 439
svc:/network/rpc/gss:default 623
svc:/network/nfs/cbd:default 668
svc:/system/filesystem/autofs:default 1402
svc:/network/nfs/status:default 1556
svc:/system/webconsole:console 1842
svc:/network/nfs/nlockmgr:default 1977
svc:/application/graphical-login/cde-login:default 2449
svc:/system/svc/restarter:default 2851
svc:/system/name-service-cache:default 3819
svc:/system/console-login:default 5124
svc:/system/svc/repository:default 9686
svc:/network/ssh:default 10819

Microsoft's Windows has probably the best commercial chess softwares (eg. Fritz, Chessmaster). However, we can find some very interesting chess programs for Unix/Solaris in the free world! Today, I'd like to present two of them that I'm using on my laptop running SXDE 01/08.

Jin

The first one is Jin. Jin is a Java client for various chess servers. It currently supports the Internet Chess Club (chessclub.com) and the Free Internet Chess Server (freechess.org) but is designed to be able to support any chess server. You can download Jin from Soundforge.

 First, you need to login to your favorite chess server (mine is FICS). If you don't already have an account, you can create it from the Jin's login interface.

Then you can either seek an opponent by specifying what kind of game you want to play... 

Or just select your opponent from the Sought window 

 
 Here is an example of the chessboard window (totally configurable)

Scid

The second one is Scid ("Shane's Chess Information Database"), a chess database application for Windows and Linux operating systems.

Scid is not a chess client per say, I mean you won't be able to play chess with it. With Scid you can maintain a database of chess games, search games by many criteria, view graphical trends, and produce printable reports on players and openings. There are many more features as well; the screenshots show just some of what Scid can do. So, Scid is the perfect tool on Solaris to improve your chess game.

Scid is available here
 

I'm already the owner of a Nabaztag/tag called Mr Fermat (in memory of the mathematician Pierre de Fermat and its famous theorem) and it always fascinates my friends when they come over to my apartment and meet him for the first time.

The Nabaztag is a Wi-Fi Rabbit who can communicate with other Rabbits all around the world through the Internet. It can also tell the weather, play songs, read the news, etc... It integrates a RFID sensor located in his noze so it can detect RFID objects...

But I've just received an email from a friend telling me about

What Chumby has to say about Chumby :

 With an LCD touchscreen and embedded squeeze and motion sensors, the chumby delivers a robust audio and video entertainment experience to owners, including:

• Personalized wake-up experience — programmed wake-up to any of the thousands of audio sources available on the chumby
• Fun — games, humor, e-greetings, gossip, cool entertainment content
• Photo sharing through top photo-sharing sites such as MySpace, flickr, Facebook and Photobucket
• Music — over twenty thousand free radio stations
• Constant updates from top Internet sites
• Monitoring — auction updates, on-going searches, such as Craigslist, and friend status updates from MySpace

The chumby can be plugged into any electrical outlet, so users have the flexibility of placing it on a nightstand, bathroom counter, office cubicle, coffee table, kitchen counter or out on a patio. It automatically finds an available Wi-Fi connection and streams personalized channels from the Chumby Network, which continuously delivers refreshed content via widgets such as music, games, movie previews, customized alarm clocks, special offers and more.

Some of the most popular content and widgets include top streaming Internet radio stations, podcasts, daily video clips, news from The New York Times and Google, various fun and animated clocks, the addictive chumball™ game that uses the chumby's embedded motion sensor, moon phases, sports news and game updates, tech news from Engadget and TechCrunch, entertainment gossip blogs, and web-cams pointed at traffic, zoo animals and everything you can imagine.

The chumby, which measures about 5" wide, 4" tall, and 3" deep, comes in a soft Italian leather casing in a variety of colors including black, latte and pearl. In addition, chumby owners may express their personality by decorating their devices with chumby charms for sale on the site or their own "bling."

Its functionalities look very promising for its price (~ $150). 

Unfortunately, it seems to be sold in the US only at the moment :-(

I can't wait for it to come in Europe...

 

Here is the first entry for my Queen's Gambit Declined's weblog!

I am a Software Sustaining Engineer at Sun Microsystems and I'm located near Paris, France.

View Larger Map

I work on the userland technologies around Solaris (SMF, Zones, libraries, etc...) fixing bugs.