OFF TOPIC: Is there a gnu/linux equivalent to "open"?

Does Gnu/Linux have something analogous to the Darwin "open" command?

Bill,
As I understand it most other systems don't really need it. On OSX you would say "open Photoshop" or "open -a Photoshop myimage.tiff" to get the app Photshop to open myimage.tiff. On another *nix platform, or under Xll you would just say "gimp" or "gimp myimage.tiff".
Did I misunderstand your question?
Tangentially, check out this site for cross OS equivalents (like how do you get the info IRIX displays with hinv on OSX):
http://bhami.com/rosetta.html
Reese

Similar Messages

Is there an Arch Linux equivalent of debconf?

I have a debian based configuration that I roll out to clients using a scripted installation. Essentially, the base system is imaged onto the box (currently RaspberryPi) then my script and an archive containing extra files I want to push is copied to the card. The script runs and performs some automated tasks like downloading firmware, updating/upgrading packages and then installing the packages I need. For some packages (e.g. mysql and phpmyadmin), I use debconf in order to set the answers to the installation questions - this allows a completely unattended installation. This script also works on a regular Debian system - I can pass parameters to switch off functionality that isn't required on a desktop (e.g. the RPi firmware update or HostAPD installation) and the same script can commission a dev environment for me to work on.
I'm now looking to support other SBCs like the HummingBoard or perhaps the BananaPi which means I need to consider a platform that would work universally across any platform. So, I am looking at the feasibility of Arch Linux. From what I have read, it would probably suit my needs a lot better as it starts off as a very minimal installation. However I'm struggling to find a definitive alternative to debconf for performing my unattended installation.
My less preferred option would be to build an image by hand and then script the package updates, but this would put me in the realms of having to maintain images for each platform I end up supporting rather than having a script that would build the config on any supported system with latest packages.

There is interaction:
* you may be be prompted to OK removing package A and installing package B - happens when renaming packages via package conflicts e.g.
:: lzo2 and lzo are in conflict. Remove lzo? [y/N]
* you are asked to pick packages from a group or which one of the packages providing the thing you want to install, e.g. when installing libgl or phonon
$ sudo pacman -S phonon
resolving dependencies...
:: There are 2 providers available for phonon-qt4-backend:
:: Repository extra
1) phonon-qt4-gstreamer 2) phonon-qt4-vlc
Enter a number (default=1):

( Off Topic ) Is there anyway that we can live chat people that need our help?

Please Dont get made, This is off the Topic i understand. But i would like to help people as much as i can. I was just wondering if there is a live chat somewhere that we can instanst chat people that need our help?

Dryw1992 wrote:
pretty sure you can't give yourself points so stop trying XD
Correct. You cannot. Nor is it permitted to ask someone else to award them to you.
Best of luck.

Forum Atom feed and the Off-Topic forum

I'm subscribed via https://bbs.archlinux.org/extern.php?ac … der=posted and I've just noticed I don't get any notification if a new thread gets opened in Off-Topic forum. I haven't yet checked if any other forum is also excluded.
I know that I can subscribe to this forum via 'Subscribe to this forum' but according to http://projects.archlinux.org/vhosts/bb … extern.php the default feed shouldn't miss any subforums, as there are no nfids mentioned.
What am I missing?

ngoonee wrote:
Inxsible wrote:I don't mind opening the off-topic section as read only to not logged-in users/non-members
As I recall off-topic, dustbin, and TGN are log-in so that moderation there can be slightly more lenient, since its guaranteed its only our community in the place (no lurkers)? Not part of the 'main' forums in that sense, then.
EDIT: lurkers and/or bots, which is the main point.
This is correct. We don't want someone to type "Arch Linux" in a search engine and to get, as the first link, an off-topic forum thread about some random absurdities or some TGN rant. The same goes with someone visiting the forum to see what kind of community Arch Linux has before installing it. It's a question of giving a good first impression while still being able to have a good time.

Newbie wireless question (slightly off-topic)

I didn't want to post this here as it's not entirely an Airport-specific question. I posted this to the iBook forums, but nobody there has answered so my apologies if this is not welcome here. (Any moderators can remove it if that's the case.)
I've been using computers extensively for over a decade, but I'm a total newbie to wifi. I just set up a wireless network in my house and would appreciate some advice/feedback.
My main concerns are whether or not my network is reasonably secure. I know there is no such thing as perfect security, but I don't know if what I've done is good enough or not.
I don't have an Airport base station, but I do have a D-Link Airplus G and an Airport card in my iBook. I have WEP set up on the router and I have enabled MAC filtering, listing only my desktop and my iBook, excluding all others from the network.
I'm fairly certain that nobody in my neighborhood is going to get into my machines this way or be able to sniff my network data stream, but am I right in assuming that nobody can "piggyback" on my Internet connection too? Presumably, if everyone but my own machines are MAC-filtered and kept out, then the Internet connection is also protected. Is that how it works?

WEP and MAC filtering are better than nothing, but you can do better. These are my suggestions:
1. Use WPA with a pre-shared key (PSK) and TKIP encryption on your Netgear router, along with an alphanumeric passphrase of at least eight characters not found in any dictionary. The equivalent setting on your Mac is "WPA Personal". Unlike WEP security (which an expert can crack in under half an hour), WPA security is currently unhackable by any practical means as long as you use a non-dictionary passphrase. One last point - WPA security requires all your wireless Macs to be running MacOS 10.3 or newer.
2. MAC filtering is (these days) essentially useless as a wireless security method. Using "packet sniffing" of traffic on your wireless network to find out what MAC addresses are used by computers on your network, and a PC that allows its MAC address to be cloned so that it is identical to the MAC address of one your own wireless computers (which is possible with most PC wireless network adapters) even an amateur hacker can defeat MAC address filtering in minutes.
By the way - I don't think your posted message here is off topic. In my opinion, the Airport discussion forums are the best place to post any questions related to usage of wireless networks. Questions of this nature are virtually never specific to any Mac model.

Request to have off-topic posts moved

There are a number of posts accumulated in the Server and Storage Systems group of forums that are just not on-topic for them.
Generally they've been posted by people that care to not read anything nor drill down to an appropriate forum and just dump a question.
I've done the "report abuse" routine on a number of them but that seems to have been ignored.
Thus this new post.
These are from the last 60 days:
(need to be moved to a Glassfish forum)
How to start Galssfish when computer start
Glassfish 3.0.1 updatetool
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2128052
war for modify domain.xml in glassfish 3
Glassfish 2.1 + JPA 2: need some Sun/Oracle expert advice
(topics for Sun Java System "whatever" applications, posted to server forums)
AMPostAuthProcessInterface redirect problem
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2127174
Weblogic Spring/Sample Application Help
Cannot add new LDAP Group Members in Sun Java Server 7.0
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2134347
Help with iPlanet
iText vs Jasper Java Application Source Code
OpenMQ Unack'ed messages causing Java Heap overflow in STOMP
(database product questions posted to System Administration and hardware forums)
how can i release lock record?
Oracle for Mac
Problem using TNS_ADMIN in registry (Ora. 11g R2 Instant client in Win. 7)
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2154755
/opt/SUNWwbsvr7/bin/wadm exited with error: 125
Performance Testing tool
ORA-00202 and Fractured block found during control file header read
Performance Monitoring
Reg : Weblogic Server Installation
how can export from 11g to 9i
What's wrong with oracle database11g? Is it a serious problem?
Client download link needed
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2149037
Oracle 10G on VMware Redhat Linux
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2138098
I Can't Connect to Oracle
what is the function of autoextensible field in dba_data_files?
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2139323
databse copy
Advice needed regarding Database design practice
enterprise manager
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2128320
Problem with granting privileges
Inatalling IDM 11g on WondowsXp machine
Any good resources for info on specifications for a new 11g install?
During installation EMCA trows an error: Error uploading configuration data
I received Validation error in the Backup Setting
RMAN RESTORE
Find the user(s) using more CPU in a database
Oracle 10g 64-bit database on Windows 2008 R2 (64-bit) error ?
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1554073
Temporary tablespace not cleared
TNS -12541 TNS: no listener
Installing Oracle 11g on a server without network access
RMAN Shows the following error... Please any one can help me....
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2137784
java.lang.Exception
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2138186
ORA-12543 When creating a new oracle instance, Oracle 11g
Problem with Uninstalling Oracle 11.2 on Windows Server 2008
problem installing mod_plsql oracle 11g linux
Best practice for install oracle 11g r2 on Windows Server 2008 r2
ORA-12535: TNS:operation timed out
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1982259
move datafile/tablespace in a partitioned table
Orace 11g CRS installation ( windows server 2008 64 bit ) Error
Datapump import from a map drive
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1982528
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2126409
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2126802
Oracle Startup/Shutdown with SQLPLUS and ORADIM in Windows...
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1574872
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2123572
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2041227
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2077085
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2069660

If these last few are pruned out of the SysAdmin forums, that should finish the housekeeping task. They're the most recent entries of off-topic questions.
database postings to the SysAdmin forums
Backup database with RMAN
sql*NAT?
How can convert Oracle 10g trial to License
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2160796
Visual Web Developer 2010 Express and Oracle ODAC - Oracle data provider
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2160572
Huge amount of "db file sequential reads" while INSERT APPEND operation
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2160410
Oracle Universal Installer - Toad - Virtual Machine Windows 7 on Mac
What to check or can say from where to start?
Where and how does oracle store tables?
Oracle net configuration assitant failing while installing Oracle 11g.
Resolving Mview Complete Refresh Performance
Problem with silent install of 11gR1 on Windows 2008
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2157067
ORA-01991: invalid password file
Sequences incorrect after exporting and importing a scheme
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2153592
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2149027
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2128320
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2137784
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1982259
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1574872
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2123572
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2041227
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2077085
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2069660
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2113069
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1981627
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1981082
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1981287
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1979404
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1955376
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1844213
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1773975
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1773059
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1555844
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1555363
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1554035
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1518192
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1272113
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1134136
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1938192
Again, the community moderators don't have permissions to do that.
Thanks

VirtualBox - somewhat off-topic

I know this is somewhat off-topic, but I'm hoping there's some expertise here that will be a bit more helpful than when I asked this on the VirtualBox forums.
For a coupe of years now I've been running my own private test lab on my laptop, using VMworkstation. It's been working to my satisfaction, but with all the recommendations to use VirtualBox (after all, it's free) I thought I'd give it a try. This was a few months back, and I ran into a real problem with the way VB appears to handle networking vs. VMware.
With VMware, I set all my virtual machines to use NAT. This allows me to give the vm a fixed IP address, not reveal itself outside the host OS, and still reach the internet for things like yum updates. Obviousely, bridged network would allow me to access the inernet, but would make me have to play by the rules of whatever network I'm on -- my company or my home ISP. Host only would address that but not allow me to pull updates from the internet.
Now, with VirtualBox, I couldn't get NAT to work with a fixed IP address that I assigned to the vm. The guys at the VB forum couldn't seem to understand why that was an issue. They just kept saying to allow the vm to use a DHCP assigned address and 'everything just works'.
I don't have VB installed at the moment, so can't re-run tests, but thought I'd throw this out to see if it rings a bell with anyone, and if so if there might be a solution. I still tend to believe VB will do a fixed guest IP with NAT and I just wasn't seeing how to make it work, but perhaps not.
Comments?

Dude wrote:
In NAT mode, the guest network interface is assigned to the IPv4 range 10.0.x.0/24 by default where x corresponds to the instance of the NAT interface +2. So x is 2 when there is only one NAT instance active. In that case the guest is assigned to the address 10.0.2.15, the gateway is set to 10.0.2.2 and the name server can be found at 10.0.2.3.
If, for any reason, the NAT network needs to be changed, this can be achieved with the following command:
VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --natnet1 "192.168/16"
This command would reserve the network addresses from 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.254.254 for the first NAT network instance of "VM name". The guest IP would be assigned to 192.168.0.15 and the default gateway could be found at 192.168.0.2.
I suggest to review the documentation for more details
http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch06.html
Sorry for the delayed response. I've just now re-installed VBox and created a 64-bit Oracle Linux 5.7 machine.
After reading yet again the networking chapter in the VBox user manual, I'm afraid I'm just as confused as ever. Perhaps if I detail exactly how I'm used to setting things up with VMware and the resulting behavior, we can see the corollary for VBox.
When I install VMware, it creates two network adapters on the host OS, vmnet1 and vmnet8. vmnet8 is used for NAT. I've installed on several machines and vmnet8 is always assigned an address of 192.168.something.1. The 'something' seems to vary from install to install. I'm not sure what controls the assigned value there, but have never really needed to explore that. My current setup is at 192.168.111.1.
Next, I create a virtual machine. There I configure eth0 to use a fixed IP address of 192.168.xxx.yyy, where 'xxx' matches the value of the vmnet8 adapter on the host os, and 'yyy' is assigned sequentially, starting with 101 for the first machine I create, 102 for the next, etc. When creating these machines, I've found I have to set the gateway and DNS address to 192.168.xxx.2.
With that setup,
- my guest vm can ping the host
- the host can ping the guest vm
- I can create an entry in the host os's 'hosts' file pointing to the guest vm (ie: 192.168.111.101 vmlnxsrv01.vmdomain vmlnsxrv01), then use that name to refer to the vm
- I can use an ssh client like putty (on the host os) to connect to the vm, exactly like I would connect to a remote box on my company's network
- The vm can reach the internet to do web browsing, download rpms, etc.
Now, when i installedVbox, it created one additional network adapter on the host os. It is running at 192.168.56.1
I created the virtual machine, giving it a fixed IP address of 192.168.56.111, gateway and dns address of 192.168.56.2
Ping of the vm ip address from the host returns 'host unreachable' doesn't work either direction
C:\Users\ed>ping 192.168.56.111
Pinging 192.168.56.111 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.56.1: Destination host unreachable.
Ping statistics for 192.168.56.111:
Packets: Sent = 1, Received = 1, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Control-C
^CSame from the other end, pinging 192.168.56.1 and 192.168.56.2 from the vm
Tried the vboxmanage, but not sure if I gave it the correct parameters.
C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>vboxmanage modifyvm "lnxsrv11" --natpf1 "gue
tssh,tcp,,2222,192.168.56.111,22"
C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>ping 192.168.56.111
Pinging 192.168.56.111 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.56.1: Destination host unreachable.Also at this point, an attempt to establish a putty session to 192.168.56.111 times out.

After Valve, will Adobe join into GNU/Linux world?

Hello, I've read this interesting topic:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/487814?start=160&tstart=0
And I've read something about "not enough earnings into GNU/Linux world".
I wonder if now that Valve, one of the major companies about videogames, is stepped into GNU/Linux, will Adobe steps into too.
I think if Valve did a so important thing is because there are earnings. I mean, Valve is not an idiot, they know what they do.
I'm a web developer/web designer and I use Adobe softwares at work, but I must use Windows/Mac for this purpose, and those OS sucks.
I need two PC alongside, one for web developing and one for artistic things (Photoshop and Illustrator) and that's a really painful situation.
I'm sure there are a bunch of other developers like me in the same situation and they would like to have Adobe CS in their GNU/Linux machines.
I know this is an already discussed tread but I'd like to know the situation now that important companies like Valve, NVidia, Ati etc are improving their endeavours for make GNU/Linux a main OS.
Regards,
a silly user (:

There you go, now that is a thought for Adobe.
Incorporate all Adobe CC products into a GNU/Linux OS and sell it only as a subscription. No incompatibilities with the OS going forward. Seems like they could charge twice the monthly fee. Something like $99.00 a month would be more than reasonable. And just think on saving to the Adobe shareholders when the programers would not have to be chasing all the OS bugs that they now claim that causes all their bugs.
Adobe may even want to consider offering Adobe CC/GNU/Linux on there own hardware for $750.00 to $1,000.00 a month to avoid any hardware incompatibilities and with a motherboard dongle if they are really serious about stopping piracy. Just think about that savings in R&D and the hardware could be assembled in China, and a hugh return for the shareholders then. A new Sun Spark workstation here we come.
After all it is all about profits anyhow.

Dualbooting t61p (xp sp3 & GNU/Linux)

Fellow ubergeeks,
I have a t61p (6459 CTO, Penryn dual core 2.5GHz, NVIDIA Quadro FX570M 512MB, 1680x1050 monitor, 82801H (ICH8 family) audio controller, Intel 82566MM Gigabit & 4965AGN network adaptors, 3GB ram with Intel GM965 chipset). I am a physicist and do most of my computational/modeling work on GNU/Linux and would like to make the system dualboot with XP and any one of the standard GNU/Linux distros out there (I prefer a minimalistic system, preferably running Debian or its variants like Ubuntu). I am posting this to know the experiences of people who have walked this way before. I am a long time DELL (inspiron/other models) user and this is the first time I am using a thinkpad. So pardon my ignorance. Here goes:
1. What are the things I should know before proceeding? I would like to keep the XP (I think "thinkvantage" is really nice). I have read about the 'hidden' partition, would this be deleted if I use GRUB as the bootloader?
2. From your experience, which distro would best support the hardware? Do most of the things (e.g., s2ram, s2hdd, FN keys etc.) work out of the box? I am aware of 'thinkwiki' and will read more in detail. Any nagging problems? Please advice.
Thanks for your time and help.
~rk

1. Make the recovery discs for XP before you do anything else. Make the first disc a cd and the rest can be either 2 dvd's or 7 cd's. Grub will allow you to get to the restore partition but you never know when something will go wrong and you will need the discs.
2. A lot of people here are having good results with Linux Mint which is a Ubuntu derivative. There are no Thinkvantage tools for Linux. Most other things can be made to work. Some are easy and some are not so easy. It depends on how much work you want to put into it to get a certain functionality. I have never had a lot of luck with hibernate in Windows or Linux . Suspend is OK in Windows and sometimes it is OK in Linux. I never bother with either one. The function keys work for the most part.
T60 2623-D7U, 3 GB Ram. Dual boot XP and Linux Mint.
T400 2765-T7U Windows 7
Registered Linux User #160145
FYI: I am not employed by Lenovo

Slightly off topic: JDev + 10g + recommended laptop

Hi gang
This is a slightly off-topic post in the forum. Apologies to the forum moderators up front.
I'm in the process of purchasing a new laptop for development. Among other things I need to run Oracle 10g, + JDev + Solitaire.
My assumption for such a laptop is I'll need a fast hd (7200rpm+) for builds, and lots of memory to run Oracle 10g and memory hogging Java JDev. Also extra screen real-estate would be ideal with the multi-pane JDev.
However without the ability to walk into a laptop supplier, load up the software and do some tests, I'm not sure what would be sufficient. I don't want to go overboard on features in order to save $s, but I don't want something that wont run fast enough without bugging the Hell out of me either.
Does anybody have any recommendations on what laptop they are currently running or what they would buy to run Oracle 10g + JDev? Are my assumptions correct or does anybody run this config with less, happily?
Any help appreciated.
Cheers,
CM.

I have been doing all of my jdev + oracle development exclusively on my PowerBook G4 for over a year now. JDev 9.0.5.2 runs great, and so does the new 10.1.3 preview. I have upgraded the memory on it to 1.5 GB, but even with the stock 512 it ran well. Plus, there are all of the productivity benefits from running Mac OS X. I was skeptical about it at first, as you might be, but once I switched over, I haven't even looked back. The 17 inch screen is beautiful, it works just fine on the Windows network at work, has all of the Unix tools underneath, and for the very few times a windows machine is needed, Virtual PC helps out. Do yourself a favor and check it out.
Mike

Gnu/linux on T61p?

Dear forum members,
Greetings from lands far away :-)
I am in the market for a laptop, "specifically" for scientific computing - data processing, running numerical models, coding and visualization (Python, openGL, Tcl/Tk, Vis5d). I have decided to try T61p. I have couple questions/concerns, please.
1. Is gnu/linux available (preloaded) on the T61p? I am a long time Debian/Ubuntu user. I wonder why lenovo doesn't mention about the availability of gnu/linux on the T61p? It is mentioned here tho: http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS8001895768.html
2. I am planning on the following configuration:
T9300 (2.5GHz, 800MHz,6MBL2)
NVIDIA Quadro Fx 570M (256MB OpenGL)
3GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz
I heard that usually the gnu/linux preloaded models (at least the ones mentioned on the lenovo page) are available with Intel GMA X3100 integrated chipset, and "NOT" the NVIDIA FX 570M, which I want to have. So if Lenovo sells T61p with gnu/linux preloaded (RHEL, SLED, whatever), then is it possible to keep the same configuration mentioned above?
3. Finally, I would appreciate it if any of you guys can share any information on the T61p (other than that which is already available from the T61p page) / your experiences/suggestions regarding whether this is a good machine for my requirement(s)..
Thanks in advance for your time and any help!
Cheers,
/rk

Well, thanks for taking time off to reply. But I guess it takes me back to my original post - that with gnu/linux preloaded models, NVIDIA chipset is "not" an option?!..and as for the processor, only the T7800 is available (I wonder why?) Besides, selecting the Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG (again, the only option available) delays shipping too?!! Anyways, I have heard good things about the opensource "madwifi" driver for Atheros, which is available with T61p (windoze preloaded).
Does anyone know of any benchmarks (a URL would be helpful) with reference to the CPU temperature when cpu intensive and graphics intensive computations (T9300 cpu + NVIDIA quadro FX 570M chipset). I am really interested in knowing what would be the temps for extended usage and/or multitasking.
Thanks,
/rk

Solaris 10 - impressions from a GNU/Linux user

Firstly, this isnt flame bait, honest!
Until 10, I hadnt seen Solaris since rev6, then, I was worn (then) down by trying to configure a dial up model hacking chap scripts. Anyhow, I thought I'd look at Solaris 10, seeing as it was 'free' to play with. What follows summarises my feelings after looking at it again.
Download and install went smoothly, even the accompanying freeware DVD was installed in its entiretly to add all that utility/application-candy that makes a platform usable, or more than usable.
OK, so the java desktop is actually pretty good but now what? There is a dearth of anything useful in the distribution, all but the cut down linux distros come with a wide range of applications and supporting tools, they 'just work', and cusomizing program access paths to include all the freeware bin folders etc etc is not necessary, unlike Solaris with its truly painful packaging structure.
Solaris seems to have changed a great deal since I last used it, but as I spend most days running Linux development and deployment systems I had some expectations of what I should (by now) be able to do with Solaris. After observing the lack of configuration files I stumbled accross the web 'tool' to do the configuration (there were no default desktop shortcuts, no menu links, nothing - even under CDE), I was beginning to get that '6' feeling again.
What do people do after an install, they configure the network and set the hostname up.
I personally found the network configuration a royal pain. Using any other linux distro (suse and its yast configurator, gnome or kde configuration tools etc) all make the experience painless.
For the gigabytes of downloads I kind of expected something that would be useful out of the box. Yes, I can go and download xyz from sun freeware one package at a time but COME ON! After using Debian based UBUNTU perhaps Im spoiled by the Synaptic package manager. I was honestly shocked, thinking there must be something I'm missing but once again I could not find a single reason to switch to Solaris for my use (development, or deployment).
Im sure there are those who would tout Solaris as rugged, scalable, secure etc but all of that is irrelavent to me and my usage. From my perspective the targetted user base for Solaris appears to be narrow.
I can appreciate the licencing issues involved and that may indeed be the reason why many additional tools arent provided. In any event, I cant think of any reason to keep Solaris 10 installed, I can do everything I need with Linux with less effort thanks to the range of GNU/open source apps readily available.
If it works for you thats great, Im sure there will be plenty of points and my lack of time spent (a) reading (b) configuring (c) dowloading and compiling, but to be honest, I havent got the time!

compiing packages one at a time is possible but is
prone to non-trivial issues over symbols etc etc.
Never mind it takes time to find the source package
from website x, install the package, compile the
package, fixup your paths ready for running, try and
figure out if the app needs an icon in the menus -
and figure out how to do that too.Or, as you mentioned you could use Sunfreeware or the Companion CD with the caveat that you've already mentioned.
Contrast this method with the APT/Synaptic package
manager a) search by keyword for app (eg firewall)
from multiple repositories with thousands of
applications etc, select and hit go, it resolves its
own dependencies, it downloads, it installs, it just
runs, its integrated immediately with no further
effort. Blinding!Must be nice!
There are some apps that actually do this on Solaris. If they use the Midnight Commander shell on the download page I've had things like version 2 of Nessus configure, compile and install itself automatically.
These are few and far between though.
What I expected to do with Solaris is to be able to
configure it quickly and painlessly (nope), to be
able to install categories of apps I know I want but
dont immediately know where they are stored, maybe
sunfreeware.com maybe not (nope, no package manager
or anything similar), to be able to not care about 'I
need this library or that library' to resolve
dependencies and just install it! (nope). As I said,
I guess Im spoilled by APT/Synaptic, its a killer app
for the platform, making it more than useful.For Solaris I'm not aware of anything close to what you're describing.
compilers, apache, tomcat, evolution for M$Exchange
email intergration, eclipse even, never mind media
players & codecs. All without so much as a website
trawl/comipile/fixup cycle.I've heard that the Companion CD along with the Java Desktop Environment should get you most of what is listed above, but that uses the Companion CD and the caveat.
GNU/Linux experience. I asked myself the question,
how much effort would I have to put in to get running
at least a good portion of what I currently have? The
answer that led to my post was too much.From what you're describing it isn't that it couldn't be done, the issue is that it could be done, but going forward with Solaris would be more work than what you're currently doing, not a bad assumption.
alan

Memory leak under GNU/Linux when using exec()

Hi,
We detected that our application was taking all the free memory of the computer when we were using intensively and periodically the method exec() to execute some commands of the OS. The OS of the computer is a GNU/Linux based OS.
So, in order to do some monitoring we decided to wrote a simple program that called exec() infinite number of times, and using the profiler tool of Netbeans we saw a memory leak in the program because the number of surviving generations increased during all the execution time. The classes that have more surviving generations are java.lang.ref.Finalizer, java.io.FileDescriptor and byte[].
We also decided to test this simple program using Windows, and in that OS we saw that the memory leak disappeared: the number of surviving generations was almost stable.
I attach you the code of the program.
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
public class testExec
    public static void main(String args[]) throws IOException, InterruptedException
        Runtime runtime = Runtime.getRuntime();
        while (true)
            Process process = null;
            InputStream is = null;
            InputStreamReader isr = null;
            BufferedReader br = null;
            try
                process = runtime.exec("ls");
                //process = runtime.exec("cmd /c dir");
                is = process.getInputStream();
                isr = new InputStreamReader(is);
                br = new BufferedReader(isr);
                String line;
                while ((line = br.readLine()) != null)
                    System.out.println(line);
            finally
                process.waitFor();
                if (is != null)
                    is.close();
                if (isr != null)
                    isr.close();
                if (br != null)
                    br.close();
                if (process != null)
                    process.destroy();
}¿Is anything wrong with the test program we wrote? (we know that is not usual to call infinite times the command ls/dir, but it's just a test)
¿Why do we have a memory leak in Linux but not in Windows?
I will appreciate any help or ideas. Thanks in advance.

Hi Joby,
From our last profiling results, we haven't found yet a proper solution. We think that probably the problem is caused by the byte[]'s/FileInputStreams created by the class UNIXProcess that manage the stdin, stdout and stderr streams. It seems that these byte arrays cannot be removed correctly by the garbage collector and they become bigger and bigger, so at the end they took all the memory of the system.
We downloaded the last version of OpenJDK 6 (build b19) and modified UNIXProcess.java.linux so when we call its method destroy(), we assign to null those streams. We did that because we wanted to indicate to the garbage collector that these objects could be removed, as we saw that the close() methods doesn't do anything on their implementation.
public void destroy() {
     // There is a risk that pid will be recycled, causing us to
     // kill the wrong process! So we only terminate processes
     // that appear to still be running. Even with this check,
     // there is an unavoidable race condition here, but the window
     // is very small, and OSes try hard to not recycle pids too
     // soon, so this is quite safe.
     synchronized (this) {
         if (!hasExited)
          destroyProcess(pid);
        try {
            stdin_stream.close();
            stdout_stream.close();
            stderr_stream.close();
            // LINES WE ADDED
            stdin_stream = null;
            stdout_stream = null;
            stderr_stream = null;
        } catch (IOException e) {
            // ignore
            e.printStackTrace();
    }But this didn't work at all. We saw that we were able to execute for a long time our application and that the free memory of the system wasn't decreasing as before, but we did some profiling with this custom JVM and the test application and we still see more or less the same behaviour: lots of surviving generations, at some point increase of the used heap to the maximum allowed, and finally the crash of the test app.
So sadly, we still don't have a solution for that problem. You could try to compile OpenJDK 6, modify it, and try it with your program to see if the last version works for you. Compiling OpenJDK 6 in Linux is quite easy: you just have to download the source and the binaries from here and configure your environment with something like this:
export ANT_HOME=/opt/apache-ant-1.7.1/
export ALT_BOOTDIR=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun
export ALT_OUTPUTDIR=/tmp/openjdk
export ALT_BINARY_PLUGS_PATH=/opt/openjdk-binary-plugs/
export ALT_JDK_IMPORT_PATH=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=
export CLASSPATH=
export JAVA_HOME=
export LANG=C
export CC=/usr/bin/gcc-4.3
export CXX=/usr/bin/g++-4.3Hope it helps Joby :)
Cheers.

Off topic: General comment

All,
I know this is totally off-topic but this is the best way to send a very important message.
One of those days, someone called to us to offer Solaris support services, because that person was reading this forum and saw our entries. I guess, if we are here asking for help, and helping others, the idea is to use the community to achieve better results.
I understand that every business needs to make money, but there are some limits as well. If we had any interest to hire a consulant and pay for him/her services, we would not be here making posts.
Also, what is much more important, is to share information and knowledge about a product, Solaris, which is open source now.
So, if there are any other business digger here, please do not contact us in anyway, unless we ask for that contact. Right now, that person and his company are on my personal "avoid contact at any cost" list.
Cheers
Andreas

Printers are the Demon Seed, the work of Beelzebub. While my Epson R340 will of course print for weeks on end just fine, if I suddenly need to print something urgently, it is 100% guaranteed to print it in purple. Or, the heads will need cleaning, resulting in two hours of listening to "neeeeeeeeh neh-neh-neh-neh-neh neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh neh neh neh'. Or, the DVD's doesn't get drawn into the printer properly, the resulting label is half off the disc, and it's just made a nice coaster.
I broke my last Epson while leaping up and down upon it in an apoplectic rage in such circumstances. Really.
But it seems you are right, we have no option. Finally, Print Shop by Broderbund is probably like a high-tech wunderkind chrome robot when compared to the Official Worst Appplication of All Time, Epson Print CD, which closely resembles a turd.
Rant rant rant.

Off topic question in DOS Batch files ...

Hi,
I am sorry in advance, for posting an off-topic question. But I had no other known way.
I need to invoke 8 sessions of a java program on 8 different windows. I use Windows platform. I want to write a batch file that will cause the java program to be invoked on a separate window, so that I can watch the execution of 8 sessions at a time. How can I do this (specifically, how can I open a new window in batch files in DOS)?
Thanks in advance,
K
My java program invocation is like this:
C:\>java Site i
where i is a command line argument that will go from 0 to 7.

Batch files (to my limited knowledge) are just "macros" that procedurally run DOS commands. It's just like opening a new command window and sitting there typing a list of commands, except the computer does it for you. So, for example, to run the commands java HelloWorld and cls, the java program would first have to execute before the screen can be cleared. For your purposes, you may need a small launcher app.

OFF TOPIC: Is there a gnu/linux equivalent to "open"?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for