Grrratch luuug Raaaach aaarg

Ik hou van epische, zeg maar lange verhalen. The Sword of Truth is zo een episch verhaal, uitgespreid over elf boeken. De laatste bladzijde is gelezen. 8069 bladzijden liggen achter mij.

Het ging over magie, over draakjes en eieren, over de Mud People en de Baka Ban Mana (later de Baka Tau Mana), over witches en wizards, Sisters of the Light en Sisters of the Dark, over Nicci, Cara, Denna en Kahlan, ook over Jennsen, Richard, Chandalan en over Rachel, Chase, Zedd, Adie en ook Oba, Fitch, Rikka en uiteraard Nathan, Ann, Jagang en Jillian.

Er waren de Boxes of Orden, the Sword of Truth (uiteraard) en de Stone of Tears, maar ook de Boundary, de Temple of The Winds en de Dominie Dirtch.

De leukste was zonder twijfel de gar Gratch "Grrratch luuug Raaaach aaarg!"

Bedankt Terry Goodkind voor dit verhaal!

Java jre performance (gcj vs Sun)

Generating a pdf from docbook xml using Apache fop like this:

fop -xml $xmlfile -xsl $XSLFILE -pdf $pdffile

takes about 40 seconds on Debian on an old Pentium 4.

But it takes 12-13 minutes on Debian inside Virtualbox on a Core 2 Duo ??

This difference too big to attribute to virtualization alone!!

fop uses java...

paul@deb503:/usr/lib/jvm$ ls -l

total 4.0K
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    8 2010-01-15 22:51 default-java -> java-gcj
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4.0K 2009-10-28 14:16 java-1.5.0-gcj-4.3-1.5.0.0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   26 2009-10-28 14:16 java-gcj -> java-1.5.0-gcj-4.3-1.5.0.0

Let's try Java from Sun instead of java-gcj...

paul@deb503:~/lt$ ls -l /usr/lib/jvm/
total 8.0K
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   14 2010-02-16 12:17 default-java -> java-1.5.0-sun
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4.0K 2009-10-28 14:16 java-1.5.0-gcj-4.3-1.5.0.0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   23 2010-02-16 12:15 java-1.5.0-sun -> java-1.5.0-sun-1.5.0.17
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4.0K 2010-02-16 12:15 java-1.5.0-sun-1.5.0.17
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   26 2009-10-28 14:16 java-gcj -> java-1.5.0-gcj-4.3-1.5.0.0

32 seconds!! What !? Yep, speed increase from 12-13 minutes to 32 seconds.

I double tested by putting the symlink back to java-gcj, it took 12'35" again!

I'm amazed ;-)

Debian in a branded zone

Being in bed all day, I've been playing (just for fun, nothing serious) with Linux brandz zones on Solaris 10.

root@sol10u8 export# zoneadm -z debianzone boot
root@sol10u8 export# zoneadm list -cv
ID NAME             STATUS     PATH                           BRAND    IP
0 global           running    /                              native   shared
7 debianzone       running    /export/debianzone             lx       shared
- zoneldap         installed  /export/zoneldap               native   shared
- zonedns          installed  /export/zonedns                native   excl
- lx-zone          installed  /export/lx-zone                lx       shared
- zonejs           configured /export/zonejs                 native   shared
root@sol10u8 export#

Solaris 10 only supports 2.4 kernels.

debianzone:~# uname -a
Linux debianzone 2.4.21 BrandZ fake linux i686 GNU/Linux

The debianzone cannot connect to the internet. Ping to router/dns server works, with some strange (but not unexpected) messages:

debianzone:~# ping 192.168.1.1
WARNING: setsockopt(ICMP_FILTER): Protocol not available
Do you have CONFIG_SOCKET in your kernel?WARNING: your kernel is veeery old. No problems.
PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
Warning: no SO_TIMESTAMP support, falling back to SIOCGSTAMP
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=3.56 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=1.77 ms

Setting a route is not possible.

debianzone:~# route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
debianzone:~# route add -net 127.0.0.0
SIOCADDRT: Invalid argument
debianzone:~# route add -net 192.168.1.0 dev eth0
SIOCADDRT: Invalid argument
debianzone:~# route add default gateway 192.168.1.1
SIOCADDRT: Invalid argument
debianzone:~#

On Opensolaris it seems to work, but not (yet?) on Solaris 10.

not going to FOSDEM

I will not be going to FOSDEM. Actually, I am not going at all.

The past 22 days I've been in bed, giving my ankles and knees time to heal from periarthritis. 22 days ago my ankles were swollen heavily, making it impossible to stand or walk for more than a couple of seconds.

The cause is sarcoidosis. Everything should heal, providing I take my daily dose of ibuprofen and providing I let all the joints rest (wrists and elbows are also affected).

One more week in bed, and then I hope to be walking again.