DB2 Express - C, DB2 for the masses!

I stumbled across this today and could not resist bookmarking the info here, DB2 Express - C is a free version of the powerful IBM DB2 enterprise database and you can run it on Linux!

I started my IT career at IBM here in the Netherlands, doing DBA work for the Logistics Center (IMPL) which was a complete dive into the deep end of the DB2 pool for me. I never forgot how amazed I was at what all those experienced IBM DB2ers could do with a DB2 setup and have often missed that power when working on Free Software solutions for my current work.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love my MySQL and Postgresql databases as much as the next guy. Take a look a the Zen and the Art of Ruby Programming blog and specifically the posting Python, Django and DB2: we need your input!

To quote the article, ” DB2 Express – C is entirely free and the code base is no different from the commercial version. This is a rather different approach from other vendors, whose “express versions are often crippled by design. There is no database size limit, no limit on the number of instances or databases and no restrictions on the number of users or connections. DB2 Express – C license requires only that it is used on a Linux or Windows server, with a maximum of 4 cores (32 or 64 bit) and 4 GB of memory. That’s it. This is pretty much a generous license given that most developers, startups and even medium sized businesses won’t need anything more than 4 cores with 4 GB of RAM for their dataservers.” This is something special and the reason I have always been a supporter of the IBM mentality with regards to supporting Free Software / Open Source Software in the form that they do. Some of the people in IBM really do get it! ;-)

I look very much forward to trying out the DB2 Express - C soon on an upcoming research prototype at my current work. It should be fun to get back into the DB2 world again and here is some information to get started along with support forums.

Happy DB2ing to all! ;-)

Ride to Uden today

I took a ride over to Uden today, was really great with temperature at around 16 degrees in the sunny south of the Netherlands. I had also just picked up shoe booties to keep my toes warm in the sometimes brisk cool weather we have in the early spring.

It was a 35km ride and I was hauling butt, averaged almost 32km/hour up to Oss and ended in Uden at 29.6 km/hr with total ride time 1 hr and 11 minutes. Felt pretty fit!

Installing Beryl on Ubuntu is easy!

I thought it might be nicer to include the beryl installation instructions here as they are nested pretty deep in the article I posted, 30 Days with Linux, a complete story.

Here is a quick start of what I did to get beryl on my system:

# ADD TO SOURCES LIST:
#
$ sudo vim /etc/apt/sources.list</pre>

# Add lines:
#    deb http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/ edgy main
#    deb-src http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org edgy main

# For the GPG key (remove the spaces between 
# 'root @ lupine.me.uk.gpg', this is needed 
# to post to blog):
#
$ wget http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/[email protected] -O - | sudo apt-key add -

# Update your sources listing.
#
$ sudo aptitude update

# Enable AIGLX:
#
$ sudo vim /etc/X11/xorg.conf

# Under Section "Module", make sure that the following lines
# are included:
#
Load "dri"
Load "dbe"
Load "glx"

# Under Section "Device"  add the following:
#
Option  "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps"

# Add following to bottom of file if not present:
#
Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

# Restart the xserver by either logging out and into your desktop,
# or restarting the managing package, in this case it is kdm for my
# KDE desktop.
#
$ sudo /etc/init.d/kdm restart

# Install Beryl and its themes
#
$ sudo aptitude install beryl emerald-themes

# Starting Beryl
#
$ beryl-manager

# Enjoy the show by opening a few windows, move them around
# and for some real fun try rotating your desktop cube as fast
# as you can hit:
#
CTRL+ALT+RIGHT-ARROW

I was just tickled pink and happier than a pig in shit with this stuff! ;-)

30 Days with Linux, a complete story

This is a very good article written by someone stepping off of windows completely for 30 days to give Ubuntu a try. He goes into great detail and provides both beginners information, but also a comprehensive guide to more experienced users to setup all kinds of software components on Linux (for example the more advanced beryl desktop setup).

Take a look, it is worth a browse at the [H] Consumer site.

The Feegle Free-Fall game online!

This was just too funny not to immortalize here with a posting and a link.

I was put in touch with the Terry Pratchett Books site and found this in there. It is a game based on my favorite characters out of the Dicsworld series, the Nac Mac Feegles a.k.a. The Wee Free Men! They are rough-neck boys that love to fight but prefer to attack with headbutts, also speaking a language that you have to place in the Scottish accents field to even read (try it in his books, you will see what I mean)!

The game is called Feegle Free-Fall, try it, lots of fun online! ;-)

AbTLinux progress, install a package is working!

I have made another push on the coding of abt, the AbTLinux package manager. We have now got a basic install for the standard software package build cycle of configure, make and make install. This includes configure, build and install logs.

There is still much to do, but the basic framework is starting to appear. As things are getting more stable in my world I am trying to commit at least a few hours in the evenings each week to coding. Watch the progress in the AbTLinux Trac.

Some general silliness in the Dilbert Blog!

This is just a general interest funny note posting.

I got a comment included on Scott Adams blog site. You can find it here in his funny ideas on “Speaking of Archeology”, just search the page for my name! ;-)

Site showing blank screen (WordPress) for a few hours

I was faced with a blank screen this morning when trying to respond to a comment someone posted to my site. I did some digging and found this on the WordPress Support pages

It seems my site is consuming a bit too much memory as it has grown over the years, so I expanded my php memory allowances to 16M. This has solved the problem. For the technical persons out there, you just need to up the settings in your php.ini:

# edit your php.ini file, mine is in /etc/php.ini
#
$ vim /etc/php.ini

# change the 'memory_limit' variable to 16M
#
memory_limit=16M

Hope you all did not miss my site too much while it was down! ;-)

Running Ruby unit tests in Eclipse (AbTLinux project)

I have been playing with running the diverse unit tests and constantly having the problem with needing to be root (su is requested if you run these tests as a non-root user).

The solution was rather simple, just start your eclipse with sudo and the results here are that you see the unit tests executing in the eclipse console. Some are failing as we are in the middle of implementation:

MacPorts MySql server install howto

I have a nice new macbook and wanted to setup my development tools; eclipse, php, macports, and mysql. Here is the steps to get mysql server working (mysql5 in my case):

# install server and the launch script
# needed to start it. (I like the -v option
# to see what is happening.)
#
$ sudo port -v install mysql5 +server

# initialize the setup as mysql user.
#
$ sudo -u mysql mysql_install_db5

# start mysql and set your root password.
#
$ sudo -u mysql /opt/local/lib/mysql5/bin/mysqld_safe &
$ sudo /opt/local/lib/mysql5/bin/mysqladmin -u root password '[new_passwd]'

Ubuntu MySql allowing TCP connections

A default setting for the Ubuntu mysql database is to not allow external TCP connections, to get this to work one needs to adjust the /etc/mysql/my.cnf file as follows:

$ sudo vim /etc/mysql/my.cnf

# change this line from 127.0.0.1 to your ip.
#
bind-address            = [your-server-ip]

# then just restart mysql server.
#
sudo /etc/init.d/mysql restart

Ubuntu Firefox 2.0.x and Flash player not working

Well, another bit of upgrading has borked out the flash player in my Firefox 2.x browser. I took a bit of a look around and saw that the package flashplugin-nonfree was installing its libraries in /var/cache/flash-plugin-nonfree and that only the mozilla installation was symlinking to it.
To solve this issue try this:

# change to the firefox install directory for your plugins
# and symlink to the flashplayer library.
#
$ cd /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins
$ sudo ln -s /var/cache/flashplugin-nonfree/libflashplayer.so

# now restart firefox and it should be fine again!

Should you be missing sound in your flashplayer, see my previous post on Ubuntu upgrade and Firefox Flash player sound problems fix!.

First ride in 2007!

Yesterday the weather was so nice, 12 degrees and sunny, like spring in the air! The weather promised to be the same today but the sun did not pop out at all and the temperature remained at 6 degrees.

I decided to take a ride anyway and see how it felt. Took a tour to Oss en back through Rosmalen, 30km and my toes were frozen! I really need to buy some winter over-shoes…