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Firefox 3.6 is just around the corner, due to be delivered later this year.

In testing I found out that the old java plugin version (libjavaplugin_oji.so) on opensolaris was no longer recognised and hence java apps didn't work

So what's the deal?

Since Java 6 update 10, there is a new implementation of the java plugin which means java applets are run in separate Java Virtual Machine instances which are launched by the plug-in's code.  Currently they are executed in a JVM instance embedded in the web browser's process.

So what do OpenSolaris/Solaris users need to do?

Install Java 6 update 10 (at least), currently update 17 is available.

Remove the current java plugin from firefox/plugins directory:

rm /export/home/tadpole/firefox/plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so

Add a symbolic link to the new plugin:

ln -s /usr/java/jre/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so  /export/home/tadpole/firefox/plugins

you should also check the system plugin directory: /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/

More info can be found on the java.com pages here and here.

When asked about Sun Microsystems, one word will always spring to the top of my mind: innovation

There is such a fantastic DNA in this company that looks to push boundaries and make things better - ok, we often do not got the message across well but the effort and dedication shown by employees always makes me proud.

To emphasis this point again there is great news as told by Jeff Bonwick earlier this week: "ZFS now has built-in deduplication"

Deduplication is a process to remove duplicate copies of data, whether it's files, blocks or bytes.

It's probably easier to explain with an example: suppose you have a database with company addresses, the location 'London' will exist for quite a few customers, so instead of having this entry 100 times, there will be one entry and the other 99 references to the original entry. So it saves space and lookup time as it's likely that the reference will already be loaded in cache.

How easy is it to set up?

Assuming you have a storage pool named 'tank' and you want to use dedup, just type this:

zfs set dedup=on tank

There is more to it, so read Jeffs blog for the whole story.

I'm guess this should appear shortly in the OpenSolaris /Dev builds, which will feed into the next OpenSolaris release (2010.02) and in Solaris 10 Update 9. Once it's released, I'll try and run some tests to see the savings I get.

This should also feed into the FreeBSD project. Such a shame OSX has dumped their ZFS project.

For those not in the know, Sun Ray is a thin client technology provided by Sun, with no local disk storage and they are totally stateless.

These very smart, very low power consuming machines (4 watts!) or integrated monitors allow you to keep a session (Solaris, Windows, Linux) running on the server and access at each machine you insert your java card. 

This allows you to do some work, pull out your card, walk over to a colleagues desk or meeting room and insert your card and pull up the same session.

Now that the intro is done . . . Microsoft have embraced this technology at their Enterprise Engineering Center (EEC). More info here.

Now the other piece of cool news:  Sun Ray Soft Client is now available as part of the Sun Ray Software 5 Early Access program:

The Sun Ray Soft Client is a software application that easily installs on common client operating systems and provides the ability to connect to a Sun Ray server and initiate a Sun Ray desktop session from a Windows laptop or desktop computer. The Sun Ray Soft Client also provides the flexibility to 'hotdesk' to and from your Sun Ray thin client and any supported Sun Ray Soft Client enabled PC. Currently available for Windows only.

I have my main computer as Solaris dual boot with Windows 2008, to keep it updated I recently booted into Windows to install SP2.

After some time downloading, asking me to quit everything and rebooting a few times the installation failed at 100% at Stage 3 with the following message:

Installation was not successful 

Unspecified error 

Error: E_FAIL(0x80004005)

Sigh, how hard is it to write in English or to check for certain parameters before installation?   This is one reason why I love Solaris/OpenSolaris, you can have multiple boot environments and update them while using another one.  Then the only downtime is a reboot to enable and switch to the new boot environment.

At work they have implemented it and it has reduced the possible downtime from 6 - 8 hours down to 2 - they still allow this much time in case of any issues.

After much searching, I finally found our that for SP2 to install on Windows 2008, it needs to be on the active partition . . . so after a quick change with Disk Management SP2 successfully installed.

Then it was a quick boot into failsafe Solaris to make the Solaris partition active again. 

All updated!

No, I'm not getting any crazy cravings, I'm talking about the old adage of a company "eating it's own dogfood" - in other terms using what it makes.

Working for Sun definitely has it's privileges, with early access to new software releases although that does have it's downside too. I discovered one recently when playing around with OpenSolaris 2008.11.

OpenSolaris is built around a packaging system, however for StarOffice 9, it's not available as a pkg yet, so I need to install via the .sh script. If it was a pkg, it would tell you about dependencies and automatically prompt to install them.

So in my case after a seemingly successful install, staroffice fails to start and crashes almost straight away:

bash-3.2$ cat /etc/release
                        OpenSolaris 2009.06 snv_106 X86
          Copyright 2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.
                       Use is subject to license terms.
                           Assembled 28 January 2009
bash-3.2$
bash-3.2$ /opt/staroffice9/program/soffice &
[1] 4454
bash-3.2$ ld.so.1: soffice.bin: fatal: libicuuc.so.3: open failed: No
such file or directory
ld.so.1: soffice.bin: fatal: relocation error:
file /opt/openoffice.org/basis3.1/program/libvclsi.so: symbol
__1cHicu_4_0OLEFontInstanceRgetDynamicClassID6kM_pv_: referenced symbol
not found
ld.so.1: soffice.bin: fatal: relocation error:
file /opt/openoffice.org/basis3.1/program/libtksi.so: symbol
__1cDvclJPDFWriterJAnyWidgetG__vtbl_: referenced symbol not found
ld.so.1: soffice.bin: fatal: relocation error:
file /opt/openoffice.org/basis3.1/program/libsvtsi.so: symbol
__1cRVCLXImageConsumerLsetProperty6MrknDrtlIOUString_rknDcomDsunEstarDunoDAny__v_: referenced symbol not found
ld.so.1: soffice.bin: fatal: relocation error:
file /opt/staroffice9/program/../basis-link/program/libsofficeapp.so:
symbol __1cDsvtNRoadmapWizardGResize6M_v_: referenced symbol not found
ld.so.1: soffice.bin: fatal: relocation error:
file /opt/staroffice9/program/soffice.bin: symbol soffice_main:
referenced symbol not found
/opt/staroffice9/program/soffice[134]: wait: 4461: Killed

[1]+  Done                    /opt/staroffice9/program/soffice
bash-3.2$

A quick search on libicuuc.so tells me that it's delivered in pkg SUNWicu, which is International Components for Unicode User Files, so all I need to do is fire up the package manager and install. No more staroffice crashes and I've learned something along the way!