July 2007 Archives

As of yesterday, Brozow and I (and with the help of others) have completely exorcised the C code from the OpenNMS codebase. That is not to say that it isn't required, we still rely on C code for performing ICMP pings (java has no raw socket support), but at least it is split out into it's own package, which makes packaging much easier.

Now, instead of building umpteen different RPMs for different platforms every time we make an OpenNMS release, we can make a single .noarch RPM for all platforms -- only updating the platform-specific code when necessary, which is rarely. That code has barely changed over the years, so chances are, we won't have to do it again for a while.

Thanks to this, it is now easy to create a yum repository with this stuff, so I have gone ahead and done so:

It only contains stuff for RHEL4/CentOS4 and RHEL5/CentOS5 right now (i386 and x86_64 versions), but the intention is to expand it to all supported RPM-based platforms.

A few weeks ago I finally released KDE 3.5.7 to Fink unstable, as well as KOffice 1.6.3. Both seem to be pretty solid and I've not really had any reports of issues, so it's looking pretty good.

In addition, I finally updated Fink stable to include the KDE 3.5.6 release that has been in unstable for months, as it's had no major reports against it.

I'll give 3.5.7 a few more weeks to make sure there are no major issues with it, and then move it over as well.

There is also another KDE4 release pending, API freeze is coming up Any Day Now, so I will try to refresh my binaries as well with the new code if I get the chance.

OpenNMS 1.3.5 is now in Fink 10.4 unstable.

It's mostly a bugfix release, with a few changes to notifications and thresholding. For a general idea of what's changed, see the New and Noteworthy page at the OpenNMS wiki. For more details, see the full release notes.

I started seeding a new KDE/Mac snapshot last night after fighting my way through some build issues. It looks to be a pretty solid release, lots of bugfixes and fresh code. :)

It's been great to see the interest since going to aKademy, there are a number of folks very interested in seeing the Qt/Mac port get cleaned up and ready for the Real World™ so expect to see more in the future.

It's slow going seeding from my home network, as I need to throttle it during the day (since my wife and I both work from home) but it should pick up as things make it to other seeders, and my seeding machines out on the 'net.

As always, let me know how things go!

My aKademy presentation is now available online!

Ogg Theora Video	PDF Slides

(There is also a torrent of the entire collection of talks.)

It went reasonably well once I got started, but I actually had, um, some technical difficulties.... ;)

I had forgotten to pack my DVI->VGA adaptor so that I can hook up to the projector. Someone was kind enough to lend me one, but it turns out you can't use any old adapter, you need an Apple one. Otherwise, your shiny new perfect Macbook Pro hard-locks and takes 5 minutes to fsck and start up. (GRR.)

Anyways, Stefan Teleman was nice enough to switch with me, and do his talk first. Once he was finished, I tried one more time with the DVI connector, and it crashed again, so we gave up on the VGA plug and set about trying to figure out a way to get my presentation (and demos) viewable.

Then someone in the crowd had the ingenious idea of setting my laptop on the spot for the projector camera used for oldskool transparencies, instead of hooking into the VGA cable. It was a little fuzzy, but it worked! If you watch the video you'll see near the end that the laptop is sitting with the screen laying flat on the table. (tee-hee)

Anyways, thanks to everyone who came to see my talk, I've had a good time at aKademy!