Martello

CoolStack is a collection of some of the most commonly used open source applications optimized for the Sun Solaris platform. The latest version of this software suite, Cool Stack 1.3, has just been released. Here is a brief overview:

Notable Additions

• Python 2.5.2
• Nginx 0.6.31
• New Apache modules including mod_python, mod_ruby, mod_dtrace etc.

Updated Versions

• Apache 2.28
• Tomcat 5.5.26
• MySQL 5.1.24
• PHP 5.2.6
• Memcached 1.2.5
• Ruby 1.8.6p114 with Ruby Gems 1.1.1 and Rails 2.0.2

Other Enhancements

• Ruby performance improvements in the order of 20-30% (with a further 8-15% coming down the line when Ruby 1.8.7 is released)
• Better support for installing Ruby Gems that require native compilation on SPARC systems

The addition of Nginx an Python support along with the performance improvements in Ruby as well as the additional Apache modules are all very useful additions and have yet again come at just the right time for our organisation. Well done to Shanti and his team for providing almost exactly everything we were hoping for in this release, again!

Over the course of recent months, I have deployed a number of Ruby applications onto Solaris, many of which use a handful of Gem packages. Most of the Gem packages are written in Ruby but a handful are not (e.g. Mongrel, FastThreads and Hpricot) and require native compilation on the host system (part of the installation process).

In order to complete the installation of these Gem packages, you need some form of C compiler. Ordinarily, I would choose GCC, but because the Ruby binaries (and most of the other supporting software packages) I use (i.e. Solaris Coolstack) were compiled using Sun Studio, using GCC is not really an option. So, instead I have to install Sun Studio.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve nothing against the Sun Studio product per say (actually, it’s a superb product). My problem is rather that, in order to install a basic C compiler on my system, I have to download, unzip, untar and then install from a now enormous 1GB (zipped) file (as of Sun Studio 12). This is a real pain and takes a very, very long time (unzip along takes over 15 minutes due to use of Bunzip2 compression). This is all the more painful (and wasteful) when you consider that the disk space consumed by the installation of just the C compiler is a mere 200MB from this 1GB monster.

What I would like (and have requested) is a reduce-size package that contains a basic C compiler only - one that would be used purely for native compilation of the likes of Ruby Gem packages.

Here’s hoping…

In an interesting article on the merits (or not) of scripting languages, James Turner outlines where some of their strengths and weaknesses lie. He uses Perl as the example in this instance but on reading the article I found that many of the pros and cons readily apply to most other scripting languages I’ve used (Tcl, Python, Bash, Sh).

In particular, his comments about them being strong on cross-platform support and weak on performance-related applications definitely ring true from my past experiences with Tcl/Tk. However, one point that he did not make, which I feel is definitely one of scripting languages’ stronger points, is in the area of custom testing and debugging, in the context of prototype product design and integration.

The likes of Perl, Python and/or Tcl really can enable you to glue together some pretty compelling, custom-made testing utilities, often without the need for complicated frameworks or other plugins. In particular, the ability to create your own extensions (using C or even SWIG) can make for some pretty powerful, tailor-made manufacturing test tools (trust me, I’ve been there!).

Of course this may not suit everyone’s needs, and there will be those that will opt for off-the-shelf products that do similar. However, if you are dealing with a newly designed product or hardware appliance featuring custom firmware not seen before, that needs to run on several different platforms, then a decent scripting language will most definitely be your friend.

Source: CIO.com

I recently had reason to upgrade to a newer version of Sun Studio on a Solaris 10 system. I had Studio 11 installed but needed to go to version 12 for better support of natively compiled Ruby Gem packages (e.g. mongrel). However, uninstalling Sun Studio is not the most readily documented thing in the world so, for my own future reference, here is the easiest way to do it:

# cd /var/sadm/prod/com.sun.studio_11
# ./batch_uninstall_all

After this, just follow the on-screen instructions …

A substantial number of Ruby Gem packages are written in Ruby itself and install quite neatly using a simple gem install command. However, a number of Gem packages are partly written in C and require some compilation during installation (e.g. hpricot, fastthread and mongrel). This requires you to have a C compiler on the system where you are installing the packages, which is a real pain, but that’s a gripe for another day.

We recently upgraded to CoolStack 1.2 but when we tried to install the Gem packages above, we ran into trouble when the installer attempted to compile the native code for the package. The compiler (Sun Studio 11) complained about the definition of the NORETURN macro in /opt/coolstack/lib/ruby/1.8/i386-solaris2.10/config.h as follows:

syntax error before or at: __attribute__
warning: old-style declaration or incorrect type for:
__attribute__
warning: syntax error: empty declaration
...
cc: acomp failed for hpricot_scan.c


It turns out that the new version of Ruby (1.8.6) that is included with CoolStack 1.2 contains some GCC-oriented macro definitions that Sun Studio 11 does not support. The solution was to upgrade to Studio 12.

Huge thanks go to Basantk for helping to resolve this.