LINUX!

Fun Projects

• Linux on a Dell Latitude D800

My widescreen laptop of choice.

• Linux on an AlphaServer AS1200

Database server, web engine, and space heater all wrapped up in one!

• Linux on a Sega Dreamcast

  Yes, I really did boot Linux on a DC. What a rush!

• Linux on a Ricoh G-1200s

  Tablet computers are cool. Once upon a time they were hot stuff, then they were totally passe', and now (thanks to advances in battery and processor technology, among other things) they're gaining interest again. The G-1200s is an old-school color pentop that never really hit the market, but a few of us scored some via alternative after-market channels and have been playing around trying to get them up to better-than-doorstop levels of functionality.

• Linux on an IBM ThinkPad 730T

  A less-cool black-n-white pentop made by IBM. An old friend had one lying around that he didn't want, so maybe some day I'll get around to bootstrapping it.

• AstraPenguin - Anyone out there ever had the, ehrm, pleasure (cough, sputter) of working with an NEC Astra minicomputer running AstraOS? Well, in a past life (back in middle school/high school for $5/hr) I worked on these things, including writing and debugging thousands of lines of COBOL. Anyway, seeing the Linux port to the IBM S/390 gave me this useless, hacker-like urge to port the penguin to one of these beasts.

  Of course, I can't find one to save my life anymore, nor can I find any documentation about 'em on-line. About the only references you'll find on google are old-school resumes, and altavista doesn't turn up anything useful.

  I think the Astra line was based on a 16-bit core (which is problematic given Linux is a 32/64-bit flat-mode-addressing OS), and I have traumatic memories of the SIF system (essentially a serial-ring network) used to hook up AstraTerminals to the things.

  If you have/know anything, anything at all, that could help me in this futile and resource-wasting quest, please feel free to pipe up!

System Hacking Stuff!

• GNU C Library (glibc)
  • libresolv upgrade for glibc 2.1.2
    The DNS resolver code (libresolv) in glibc is based on BIND 4.9, which has a number of problems (not the least of which are that is is unthreaded and not thread-safe). I and Andreas Jaeger (aj@arthur.rhein-neckar.de) ported the current BIND 8.2 resolver library to glibc, and our work has been integrated for release in glibc 2.2. However, that seems to still be some time away, and the current hack solution in glibc 2.1.2 and later simply kills performance for threaded applications which do a large number of DNS lookups. That being the case, I offer my backport of the changes currently merged into the 2.2 tree. Offered without warranty, use at your own risk, not for the faint of heart, etc etc etc.
• The Canonical Kernel Distribution Site is http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/
• My Patches (some good, some not-so-good, all pending the 2.3 series):
  • All withdrawn. None worth submitting at the moment.

Advocacy Stuff!

• Boston Linux & Unix Users Group
• I'm registered with the Linux Counter Project, as are all of my personal machines and office workstation.
• The latest and greatest geek news can always be found at slashdot.org.
• Yep, I'm a Debian user, because apt-get rocks my world.
• The graphs on this page are too good not to point to: statistics about the OSs that run defaced web sites. Look especially at this one... notice how NT (the yellow line) is swamping everyone else. This is one benchmark where NT can keep its numbers!