Category: Linux

  • Red Hat to Drop Sparc, Alpha Support

    Newesforge aggregates that Red Hat is dropping support for Alpha and Sparc in the near future.  That’s okay, because NetBSD will still run ’em!

  • Creative Commons and Open Source Implications

    What kind of effect are the new Creative Commons licenses going to have on open source software?  I just released some code (which was just a little hack on Jon Udell’s code) under the attribution-share alike license.  I’m bound to do so, since Jon released his code under that license.

    How do the Creative Commons licenses interact with open source licenses such as the GPL, BSD, MIT, etc?  I know that the creative commons licenses are more for content and creative stuff, but it’s just been applied to code.  What are the consequences?

    IANAL, (I am not a Lawyer for those people that end up here via google six months from now), so I don’t know, but I’d love to hear about it.  I know that the Creative Commons licenses have all kinds of other implications, I just can’t think of them right now.

  • Virtual PC

    Greg Reinacker likes what he sees in the Virtual PC specs:

    Among other things, what an awesome tool to test application installations.  I can create an image with, say, Windows .NET Server, and save it.  I can then start this OS, run my installation package, see how it went, and undo the whole thing automatically to restore the previous image.  Instantly.

  • RFC 3439: Some Internet Architectural Guidelines and Philosophy

    This is a cool RFC that I haven’t had a chance to read thoroughly yet.  I have a feeling that several gems are in here.  Of course, it’s not as amusing as RFC 1149 (A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers), but not many RFCs are.  Here’s an example from page 2 about large systems and the simplicity principle:

    The Simplicity Principle, which was perhaps first articulated by Mike O’Dell, former Chief Architect at UUNET, states that complexity is the primary mechanism which impedes efficient scaling, and as a result is the primary driver of increases in both capital expenditures (CAPEX) and operational expenditures (OPEX). The implication for carrier IP networks then, is that to be successful we must drive our architectures and designs toward the simplest possible solutions.

    I’ll read more later, but so far it looks like Randy Bush and David Meyer have done a great job updating an older RFC (1958 written in 1996) with some modern info.

  • Java Memory Profiler, Written in C

    JMP, a Java Memory Profiler, is written in C:

    JMP is a profiler for java that can be used to trace objects usage and method timings. JMP uses the JVMPI interface to gather statistics and interact with the JVM. JMP uses a GTK+ interface to show the status.

    Does that hurt your head too, or just mine?

  • Network Administrator’s Toolbox

    Rich Corbridge at NewsForge goes over what’s in his toolbox.  What’s in yours?  I remember when Minicom was my only option for dialing up to my ISP (CAIS before it sucked and the CapAccess freenet before that, in addition to BBSes) in Linux.  I used ProComm on the dos/(and later win) side of course.

    Ethereal is the hammer in my toolbox. If nothing else works I go for the hammer. It is a full-featured open source sniffer available for *nix and Win32.

  • Mono 0.17, GTK# 0.6

    From the Mono page:

    • Mike Kestner announced Gtk# 0.6. This new release includes many new features and bug fixes, and is the perfect companion to the Mono 0.17 release.
    • Johannes has contributed a Windows-ready package of Mono 0.17, and its available from our download page.
    • Alp Toker has Debian packages.
  • Java related RPMs and Comments about the *BSDs

    Greg Klebus:

    Cool stuff for Linuxers: JPackage Project, RPM packages of loads of java applications and libraries. I’ve always missed such a site.

    That’s a pretty sweet idea, and it looks like there are tons of java projects prebuilt or in source RPM form.  Most of my recent Jakarta-related installations have been from the binary tgz, which is simple enough, but having good fairly current stuff in RPM form should lower the threshold for others.  Of course, this doesn’t solve your classpath huntdown problems for you, nor does it allow you to experiment with bleeding-edge stuff (that depends on other bleeding-edge stuff), but it’s a great start.

    I have also been dissapointed with how stale the freebsd/netbsd/openbsd ‘ports’ of many of the Jakarta projects are.  I wanted to use a *bsd for Tomcat 4.x testbed a few months ago, but unfortunately Tomcat 3.x was the latest ‘port.’  I know that this means that I should get off my butt and modernize a few programs for a particular *bsd, but that pesky time thing keeps smacking me down.

  • BrainSplatPHP

    BrainSplatPHP 0.7.1:

    BrainSplat was originally conceived to scratch my itch for a journal program that I could use to replace LiveJournal.It is a simple blogging program that has support for comments. The recent additions is a client interface and a forum like code for formatting BSPHPCode. The reason I made my own was simply because all the scripts I found were generally made for multiple users. And thus, I made my own. I started originally in Perl, but I found that PHP makes a much better interface for these type of programs.

    Changes:

    Some more themes were added to the distribution, and the BSThemes Web site was created.

  • Webmin 1.040

    Webmin version 1.040 has been released.  Mostly a bugfix/visual interface tweak release.

  • Traffic

    Whoa.  This weblog has generated over a gigabyte of traffic so far this week, and it’s not over yet.  I’ll try to post some stats tomorrow, and if this keeps up I’ll probably have to start paying more a month for web hosting.  Dave’s link and my javablog channel have both contributed to the rise in traffic.

    Welcome to my weblog if you’ve just started reading.

  • SDL .NET

    SDL .NET (1.1):

    SDL.NET is a set of language bindings for SDL and SDL_mixer written in C#, which allows easy development of games using Microsoft’s .NET framework. It should work on any .NET-capable machine.

    Changes include Mono support as well as music and sound callbacks support.

  • DBVisualizer

    Masukomi:

    Can I just say how much ass DBVisualizer is kicking for me? If you’re a java programmer who works with Databases a lot you have got to check that out. Hell, you should check it out if you’re any kind fo programmer who works with databases a lot. Hopefully I’ll be able to upgrade to the unrestricted version in a few months ($79). I don’t think I’ll be able to afford it any time before then.

    From the DBVisualizer site:

    DbVisualizer is a cross-platform database visualization and management tool which entirely relies on the JDBC, Java Database Connectivity APIs. DbVisualizer enables simultaneous connections to many different databases through JDBC drivers. Just point and click to browse the structure of the database, characteristics of tables, etc. Arbitrary SQL statements can be executed and saved between sessions. DbVisualizer supports a variety of databases including Oracle, Sybase, DB2, MySQL, Informix, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Cloudscape, McKoi, SAP DB, Mimer and InstantDB.

    Very cool.

  • Tiny Encryption Algorithm

    Via Keith Devens:

    Via Erik, via Jim Hughes, code for the Tiny Encryption Algorithm. I want to learn more about this when I have the time.

    The Tiny Encryption Algorithm is one of the fastest and most efficient cryptographic algorithms in existence. It was developed by David Wheeler and Roger Needham at the Computer Laboratory of Cambridge University. It is a Feistel cipher which uses operations from mixed (orthogonal) algebraic groups – XORs and additions in this case. It encrypts 64 data bits at a time using a 128-bit key. It seems highly resistant to differential cryptanalysis, and achieves complete diffusion (where a one bit difference in the plaintext will cause approximately 32 bit differences in the ciphertext) after only six rounds. Performance on a modern desktop computer or workstation is very impressive.

    I’ll second that “when I have the time.”

  • Categories!

    I’ve finally taken the plunge and enabled catagories in Radio.  I’ll be notifying javablogs soon!