Siva's webtop: All under Sun.

As promised, here is the update.

For Mads and whomever is interested in building the Second Life client on Solaris (x64), this is what I did.
Please do remember, these are just to get the client build on Solaris. I havent completely run the client yet (nothing beyond the login screen). So, buyer beware.
Basically, I followed the Linux instructions in Second Life Twiki page.
Downloaded and built all the libraries mentioned and copied the libraries and headers in the directory under, 'i686-sunos5', instead of 'i686-linux'
Modified SConstruct  (for scons building).

• Look for 'linux' and introduce the code for 'sunos5' (replace -DLL_LINUX with -DLL_SOLARIS)
• Remove the 'db-4.2' entry under libs line.
• Replace 'yacc' with 'bison -y'; 'lex' with 'flex'; 'g++-3.4' with 'g++' (under /usr/sfw/bin); 'strip' with 'gstrip'
  

Whichever subdirectory contains 'files.linux.lst', make a copy of it called 'files.sunos5.lst'.
Then comes the code changes. Basically, search for files containing 'LL_LINUX' and add "|| LL_SOLARIS" or "&& ! LL_SOLARIS" as appropriate.
In llcommon/llpreprocessor.h:38, I added  "|| (defined(LL_SOLARIS) && !defined(__sparc))" to the line to set the ENDIAN correctly.
In llcommon/llsys.cpp, I added code to use the output of 'psrinfo -v', instead of reading from '/proc/cpuinfo' for SOLARIS.  Similarly, used 'getpagesize() * sysconf(_SC_PHYS_PAGES)' to get the "Physical kb". I know there are better ways, but just wanted to get the build completed.
In llmath/llmath.h, I was running into some problems regarding 'isfinite'. I replaced with this.
#define llfinite(val) (val <= std::numeric_limits<double>::max())
The other significant work is in 'llvfs/llvfs.cpp' and 'newview/viewer.cpp'. Replaced the code for 'flock' with the appropriate 'fcntl' code.
In files 'newview/lldrawpoolsky.h' and 'newview/llvosky.cpp', replace the variable 'sun' with 'Sun'. 'sun' in a SunOS is defined already, of course.
In 'newview/viewer.cpp', rewrote the 'do_basic_glibc_backtrace()' to use 'printstacktrace()' instead.
Well, you can follow the above instructions, or send me a mail, I will send the diff output.

For runtime, you will have to set your LD_LIBRARY_PATH as mentioned in the Twiki page.
Thats all I have for now. Will update later, if any.

Regards
Siva

PS: It is indeed a pity that I cant login to a server named after me (userserver.siva.lindenlab.com)

Yes. I was able to build the recently open sourced Second Life client. It took me couple of days to get to this stage. To get it running took half a day. The reason being that ENDIAN was set to BIG for non-Linux boxes and that had me stumped for a long time. Of course, being behind SWAN firewall doesnt let the client connect to the server Any one knows a way to achieve this?

Any way, here is the obligatory screenshot. Will keep posted on the updates.

Siva

After a couple of days work, I was able to run GNUstep on my Solaris (Nevada) box. Check out the screenshot. Boy, need I say, I like it a lot. Very snappy compared to the GNOME desktop (no flames please).

I also built some nice applications like GNUmail.app. I had set up to use the Menu interface to NSMacintoshInterfaceStyle. In the attached screenshot, you can see the Macintosh like menu.

I am also running Windowmaker as my window manager. In my startup script, I set the environment variable GTK2_RC_FILES=$HOME/.themes/GTK2-Step/gtk-2.0/gtkrc, which gives my other GTK apps like Firefox, Gaim to look very much like an GNUstep applicaiton.

I sure miss those days loong (may be one more 'o'?) time back, when we at Sun had an option to run OpenStep as an alternative desktop to CDE. Very slow it was though.

Some wishes though. More GNUstep apps, of course. Like a Web browser (Safari??), IM & Calendar clients. There is an IRC client though, which I dont use much anyway.

GNUMail.app/Addressbook lacks LDAP auto completion which I am so much used to.

I dont know how long can I continue using GNUstep, as for some reason or other I end up using the default JDS desktop only.

 

This announcement came from SuperComputing 2006

http://gridengine.sunsource.net/news/SuperComputing2006.html

It will be interesting to see how the Windows as execution node is received.

-Siva

Use Thunderbird as Sun Java Calendar client

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Wow. It is happening. I am one of the very eager user waiting for a PPC port of OpenSolaris. I just hope I can run the upcoming port in my G3 Powerbook (Pismo) and dump the current Ubuntu Linux PPC and dual boot with OpenSolaris instead.

Siva

It has been a long time. Lot of water has passed under the bridge. I have moved to a new team. Part of the Sun Grid team now.
On the localisation front, if you didnt know yet, Tamil is one of the first new locale that made it to OpenSolaris. This effort jumpstarted some colleagues, Raju Alluri and Kesari Mandyam to add locales for Telugu and Kannada. Very soon, we can see OpenSolaris in Indian languages.
I am running into some translation hurdles though. My home system still does not support Solaris (old network card, Compex). So, I thought I will do the translation in Linux (Ubuntu) using gtranslator. None of the Solaris .po file (untranslated) were opening. A 'msgfmt x.po' gave many syntax errors. So, it looks like I have to get my home system with Solaris, soon. (Siva- move your lazy a$$ and get a modern NIC card). Will post you on my progress later (Not so much later, I assure you).

More updates. I have, with the help of OpenSolaris/Sun folks, have successfully created a Tamil locale for Solaris (10). Now, I can set the locale (in my .dtprofile) to ta_IN.UTF-8 and can see the GNOME (JDS) desktop in Tamil (well most of it).
Though I see a similar rendering issue in GNOME terminal. (swapping of characters), while all other apps (panel on menu items, metacity on window titles) seem to render them okay.
Next step is to get the X11/Openwin part of the localisation, I guess.

Screenshot

Contains: Gedit with a Tamil text, Firefox (built with --enable-pango), Run dialog, GNOME-terminal (compare the date output with the one on the panel on top).

Siva

Ever since I saw the multi language capabilities of KDE (back in 1997/1998), I wanted to have my desktop at work to be in Tamil, my mother tongue. I then become the Tamil language coordinator and worked to get an Indic language officially release part of KDE 2.0.1. Even though it was easy(ier) in Linux, seeing Tamil on Solaris/sparc had been a challenge always and my passion.
Now with Sun behind GNOME, in my spare time, I try to make Tamil work on Solaris (sparc, in particular). Like, compiling the GTK2-IM modules for Tamil in my workstation or compiling my own version of Firefox with --enable-pango. Without this option, Tamil Unicode websites (like http://ta.wikipedia.org) does not render correctly. My request to enable this by default in Solaris contrib builds has been shot down though.
I can now read and write (With setting GTK_IM_MODULE=tamilvp_uni) in Tamil, in the GNOME desktop as well as in Firefox (like this blog, even though there are some bugs)

தமிழ் படிக்க தெரிந்த அனைவருக்கும் எனது வணக்கங்கள்!!
அனைவருக்கும எனது இனிய பொங்கல் வாழ்த்துக்கள்!!

Siva

Hello world! (What else)

This is my first post. For filling up this text, I am listing some of the sites that I visit almost daily (after checking Sun mails, of course).

http://gmail.com
http://mail.yahoo.com
http://osnews.com
http://slashdot.org
http://www.gnome-look.org (latest fav theme is VistaBut)
http://news.com
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod (astronomy pic of the day)

Thats all for now, folks.

Siva