Somewhere out there!

Couple useful articles on running windows with an existing install.

Debian 4.0 is released:

The Debian Project is pleased to announce the official release of Debian GNU/Linux version 4.0, codenamed “etch”, after 21 months of constant development. Debian GNU/Linux is a free operating system which supports a total of eleven processor architectures and includes the KDE, GNOME and Xfce desktop environments. It also features cryptographic software and compatibility with the FHS v2.3 and software developed for version 3.1 of the LSB.

…

This release includes a number of updated software packages, such as the K Desktop Environment 3.5 (KDE), an updated version of the GNOME desktop environment 2.14, the Xfce 4.4 desktop environment, the GNUstep desktop 5.2, X.Org 7.1, OpenOffice.org 2.0.4a, GIMP 2.2.13, Iceweasel (an unbranded version of Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.3), Icedove (an unbranded version of Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5), Iceape (an unbranded version of Mozilla Seamonkey 1.0.8), PostgreSQL 8.1.8, MySQL 5.0.32, GNU Compiler Collection 4.1.1, Linux kernel version 2.6.18, Apache 2.2.3, Samba 3.0.24, Python 2.4.4 and 2.5, Perl 5.8.8, PHP 4.4.4 and 5.2.0, Asterisk1.2.13, and more than 18,000 other ready to use software packages.

Good job!

From the Register, Sun to fry NetApp with FISH:

Sun Microsystems has a near-term NetApp assault in store code-named ‘FISHworks.’The FISH stands for “Fully Integrated Software and Hardware” and comes from work done by some of Sun’s top software engineers over the past year.

The first run of the technology will see Sun bundle Solaris, the ZFS file system, DTrace and a number of other software packages together on a NAS (network attached storage)-like hardware system. Sun hopes to kick NetApp where it hurts, banking on the theory that no one wants a complex, proprietary storage OS in this day and age.

This sounds pretty interesting. I’d probably pay some money for a blackbox software appliance from Sun with zfs, iscsi, cifs (samba) and nfs that just worked and I could install on a given piece of x86 hardware. Unfortunately it’ll probablybe for Sun hardware only, which will likely price it out of a usable range.

Technorati Tags: zfs, storage

b62 is probably a couple months away, so I’m no doubt going to have to learn how to BFU solaris before I can try out zfs booting. However when I do it should be easier to go further: Friday fun with BFU and ZFS root. Also a script to automate the grub and zfs booting process.

Technorati Tags: solaris, zfs

Big Debian Linux Payday For HP

HP is making $25 million by supporting the free Debian GNU/Linux distribution in what may ultimately turn out to be a challenge to commercial distributions from Novell and Red Hat.

ZFS Boot is going to make things a lot to try out with Opensolaris. Snapshot based system upgrades is a very interesting feature.

Technorati Tags: zfs

I really respect Jonathan Schwartz, he has made Sun and Solaris worth considering again. He seems to combined the best qualities of a visionary big company leader who understands technology. A geek who can explain things to big business. Not an straight-forward combination.

For along time Sun was the heart of Unix, but with the advent of GNU+Linux and building of the open-source community in the late 90s Sun has fallen well behind the innovation cycle. Currently people do not (in general) create and use products like Xen, Zimbra, Alfresco, or Asterisk on Solaris. Companies like Google and Paypal use Linux at the edge to drive deployment and increase their innovation productivity, maybe leaving Solaris to the backend traditional well-structured heavy loads.

Zfs is moving pretty quickly. milek’s blog: ZFS online replication

Technorati Tags: zfs, replication

Novell parody on the Apple ads. The second one is very clever.

From: Wired, via Crave and digg.

Third one via the youtube site:

Conary: An innovative second-generation package manager

I agree with the review that all the conary jargon is very confusing.  Seems to be worth the effort though as conary might provide in the long run a good system for not just building software appliances, but a useful system for managing a large number of Linux systems.

Technorati Tags: conary, rpath