Building, installing OpenSolaris in 100 pictures, from OSNews.

“This site has created a rather large collection of OpenSolaris (Nevada build 16) screenshots.”

Popularity: 13% [?]

The dark side of the source - hostids, from Frank Hofmann’s Weblog.

這篇文章主要是說 Windows XP activation 會抓硬體資訊 (hardware ID), 這就是所謂的反盜版技術 — 產品啟動 MPA (Microsoft Product Activation).

其實很多人對這種 privacy 很重視, 也會對我們造成不便. 比如說將硬碟格式化後, 重新安裝 Windows XP, 我們必須再次執行產品啟動的動作. 而如果因為變更電腦硬體, 導致透過 Internet 啟動無法成功, 我們必須改用透過電話啟動來產品. 市售的 Microsoft 產品提供2次啟動(安裝)機會, 如果要作第3次安裝, 需要打電話至微軟確認. 當然, 我肯定反盜版, 但是對我們生活造成不便是有點誇張.

不過這不是這篇的重點, 軟體如果取得我們硬體的資訊, 然後送給 Microsoft, 那是不是和 Spyware 有點像呢? 只是偷的東西不一樣而己. 好, 這也不是重點, 所以 Frank 帶我們 trace 一下 OpenSolaris 的 sources, 看一下 OpenSolaris 是怎樣取得唯一的 host ID.

大意是說 OpenSolaris 不會取得 hardware-specific information, 他們是利用 modified during installation — Solaris install process simply patches the binary 來取得不同的 host ID, 讓它看起來很像 hardware-specific.

不過好玩的是, 他說 “I cannot show you the source for the install program since the Solaris installation utilities are not yet part of OpenSolaris, but for all practical purposes it’s safe to assume that the install process simply assigns a random number to be the hostid.”

真是無言的結局啊 :p

Popularity: 10% [?]

Linus Torvalds 用 Git 來代替 BitMover 這家公司的 BitKeeper 後的第一個 Linux Kernel — 2.6.12 release 了.

你可以在 http://kernel.org/git/ 看看 web interface 的 Git. 比方說, 你可以看看 Linus 的 git tree.

Popularity: 9% [?]

The Linux /proc Filesystem as a Programmers’ Tool, from Linux Journal.

“What Is /proc? Before we begin to talk about the proc filesystem as a programming facility, we need need to establish what it actually is. The proc filesystem is a pseudo-filesystem rooted at /proc that contains user-accessible objects that pertain to the runtime state of the kernel and, by extension, the executing processes that run on top of it. “Pseudo” is used because the proc filesystem exists only as a reflection of the in-memory kernel data structures it displays. This is why most files and directories within /proc are 0 bytes in size.”

Popularity: 10% [?]

libuutil and designing for debuggability, from Stephen Hahn’s blog, advices from zmx.

大意是說 Stephen 他們在 Solaris 10 上, 預期會有 multithreaded, present large, complicated images for postmortem debugging 的 daemons, 所以寫下三個 requirements:

1. include Compact C Type Format (CTF) information with each daemon
2. use libumem(3LIB) for memory allocation
3. use standard, debuggable, MT-safe implementations of data structures

但是目前 Solaris 沒有這樣的 data structure, 所以他們開始設計 libuutil (userland utility functions). 讓 modular debugger — mdb (The typical debugger for kernel work in Solaris), 能夠用到這些 debug information.

例如, 任何 link 到 libuutil 的程式, 可以用 mdb 來 attach:

# mdb -p `pgrep -z global startd`
Loading modules: [ svc.startd ld.so.1 libumem.so.1 libnvpair.so.1 libsysevent.so.1 libuutil.so.1 libc.so.1 ]
> ::uu_list_pool
ADDR NAME COMPARE FLAGS
080dcf08 wait_info 00000000 D
080dce08 SUNW,libscf_datael 00000000 D
080dcd08 SUNW,libscf_iter 00000000 D
080dcc08 SUNW,libscf_transaction_entity c2b0476c D
080dc808 dict 0805749c D
080dc908 timeouts 0806ffab D
080dca08 restarter_protocol_events 00000000 D
080dcb08 restarter_instances 0806ccd7 D
080dc708 restarter_instance_queue 00000000 D
080dc608 contract_list 00000000 D
080dc508 graph_protocol_events 00000000 D
080dc408 graph_edges 00000000 D
080dc308 graph_vertices 08059844 D
>

我是不是要試試看在 Solaris 下開發程式了呢? :p

Popularity: 14% [?]

Gentoo Founder Joins Microsoft, from OSNews.

Daniel Robbins, the creator of Gentoo, has taken up a job at Microsoft.

如果我沒記錯, Daniel 應該是 Portage (ebuild) 的作者之一, 也 Gentoo Linux 的發起人之一. 連 Gentoo Linux 的老大都去了 Microsoft, 那那些自詡為自由軟體的基本教義派的人, 不知道會作何感想 :)

Popularity: 11% [?]

Fedora Core 4 has been released, from OSNews.

Fedora Core 4 Release Notes includes a number of new features:

• Xen
• GFS
• GCC 4.0
• Enhancements in SELinux
• support for the PPC architecture
• Free Java stack (using GCJ) including Eclipse and Apache Jakarta among others

Popularity: 10% [?]