Sun has always said that any application written for Solaris 6 will be forwards compatible with any other version. It’s a big claim, but as long as the application adheres to the API it’s possible.
Occasionally you bump into things that don’t adhere to the API, (quite a lot of applications really). This is usually caused by developers thinking that they should do things “this way”, because Sun does it oh so wrong all the time. Consequently, you end up with legacy applications that can’t run on Solaris 10.
Enter Solaris 8 brandz zones. Being able to run legacy applications in a Solaris 8 brandz generally gets you around most of the issues in the remaining apps that do stupid things. However, there’s a couple of quirks with a zone that can introduce odd behaviour in an application.
Sun’s Java Web Console is a nice little toy. Great for those people who prefer the less extreme learning curve of a CLI, and great for manager types who like pictures.
I’ve used it several times before, but thought I’d try it in on x86 Solaris10u6 box I have here. Bloody Sun. You think a released version implies that it’s stable, and working. Read more…
I’ve been a user of Opera Mini for a long time. On my mobile it’s great. However, there’s times when I need to view the web in a bigger than 240×320 format. I spend a fair amount of time on the train, and I have a laptop with bluetooth, and a phone with GPRS and bluetooth…. but GPRS is slow and running firefox over it is a pain… even with images turned off.
So, this howto shows you how to run Opera Mini on Linux in glorious 1440×900…. and take advantage of the speed increase. Read more…
I’ve been playing around with Solaris jumpstart recently. I haven’t used it since the early days. It seems that a lot of the old problems still exist. So, I’ve listed most of the common problems and their solution here. This also covers Sun’s JET, (Jumpstart Enterprise Toolkit).
This is a Work In Progress – so I’ll be updating this from time time as I come across issues. Read more…
This howto covers one way of running familiar Linux from your CF, SD, or MMC card.
OK, it doesn’t actually boot from SD, but uses a snazzy Linux trick called pivot_root. Which switches over one root with another. This, IMHO, is probably the best way of doing it apart from actually directly booting from SD. Although, I’ve only tried this on a 38xx based iPAQ it should work for all handhelds based on familiar. Heck, it should work for anything really.
If you have an iPAQ installed with familiar Linux and want it to connect to the net using your Nokia mobile via GPRS; then this is how you do it. Read more…
I had an issue with my home network. The server that supplies DNS, web proxy, IMAP proxy, VLAN tunneling, LDAP authentication is an HP B2000. This is a good server, however, my electricity bill is now $AU500/quarter. Ouch. So I decided to use it sparingly and to chuck all these services onto a green-friendly PC that can power up/down HDD and CPU on demand. But, then I thought. Heck let’s do it properly – I’ll virtualize it, then I can shift the virtual server around without having to go through the arduous re-setting up and copying of files for my specific configuration.
So, here’s a mini-HOWTO, (to complement the many on the web), on how to setup a vserver on Linux. Read more…
I had the situation at work where I wanted to run Clearcase under a Solaris 10 zone. With a bit of coercing it’s possible to do, and doesn’t impact much of the global zone at all. If you don’t know what Clearcase is, then this still may be handy information to know. Undoubtedly, there are other applications that rely on loadable modules. Read more…
My aging 1GHz PC was creaking under ths strain of running too many virtual PCs. So I decided to upgrade to a much better, faster PC. I eventually settled on an AMD64 based PC, (200G HD, 3G DDR2 RAM). Basically a nice cool, (literally as well), box. The only trouble is that I couldn't get my vmware to run. Aaaaaaaaaaargh. This is a short howto on what I had to do to get it to run. Read more…