Someone recently made a comment about the difficulty in mainting duplicate perl and CPAN setups using the CPAN module. (The comment was made in a post to the CGI::Application mailing list.) I don't think this is the case, and so I set off to verify the top of my head answer, which was:
perl -MCPAN -e autobundle
I was composing my reply when Michael Peters more comprehensively answered the question by provinding a link to The CPAN Frequently Asked Questions
AdvisorBits' favorite browser, Firefox was updated on Friday.
Microsoft will be releasing IE 7 this summer. In truth and fairness, we should state that for many years IE was our favorite.
One hopes that in the fight for browser market share that everyone will continue to strive towards a common interpretation of the standards. In the end it is the consumers who will benefit from decreased costs of delivering web site projects to businesses because less time, energy and money will be spent on issues of cross browser compatibility.
Google Maps (beta) was launched pretty quietly today.
The service is quite fast to load in the browser and moving around on the map is fast. The mapping screen refreshes from the center out which is a nice little touch. I don't have to wait half way through the map loading to find out if I am centered correctly.
I was able to find quite a few things in Albany and in my local town. My own home which is quite rural was found, but another friend's home was not. Directions between known points were accurate, but interestingly they were slightly different for no apparent reason if you switch the to-from end points.
I am not really familiar with the other mapping services ability to pin point businesses by name, but Google Maps found a small local college by name only. I thought that was pretty good. Another search for restaurants in my town produced a fairly comprehensive list. More than I knew around here.
The business listings here do not seem related to Googles main search engine listings. I used keywords I am sure the main Google knows my site by and knows. I know Google has the address, among other reasons I know this, it appears on every page. Google Maps didn't find it.
Beta means not quite ready for production yet, so I don't mind a few odd results at this point. The results are snappy and accurate, even if I do wonder about some of the things it doesn't find. (Yet.)
What are your first impressions?
I have recently installed both TSL 2.2 (Sunchild) and TSEL (release 2) so I am no expert, but there don't seem to be a lot of big differences, except for the no fee license distribution has a far spiffier release code name.
Sunchild. I just have to like something at least a little if it is called Sunchild. Not sure why, just but it just seems a happy name.
Both distributions use RPM packages to manage software, and the patch level revisions are a little higher (more recent) in the TSL (Sunchild) distribution. Those Debian users who are used to and like apt and friends will like the way swup, the Trustix SoftWare UPdater, handles RPM dependancies automatically.
RedHat users like myself will like some of the built in search and testing features of swup. It automatically gets and installs all the required RPMs to satisfy any package you ask to install. (I get so tired of RPM error messages.) Once you've used swup to put together your Trustix server, systems admins can easily keep either Trustix disro fully up-to-date with a simple swup --upgrade
I haven't found all of the support resources yet. It appears, from this early vantage, that this distribution like some others I have used has that "Unix is user friendly, its just choosy about it friends" attitude. There is a mailing list for TSL, and some largely unused forums for the TSEL distro. (Why does everyone seem to want to use those ucky forums to support their products? What is wrong with mailing lists?) Otherwise you call England for phone support on a pay per minute basis I think.
As a RedHat guy for many years, I am pretty familiar with the layout so support in that sense isn't a big issue for me. I know where chkconfig is and what service does. Converts from other Linuxes converts may need more support. I bought the entry level commercial license to TSEL and I was a bit dissapointed in the support that comes with that. If I had shelled out more bucks, there were other support options.
The main thing I need is committment to provide updates on a timely basis to patch against emergent issues.
Also from my RedHat administrator perspective, Trustix installs a lot (REALLY!) less cruft. This is important to businesses. We spend time every day updating out networks and computers. Time is money, and I don't want to pay for updating software I don't use, or worse yet for software I don't use, but can't uninstall because of some obscure interdepedancies that I can't resolve.
There are no regular network services setup to listen on the network by default. The base install doesn't start sshd, or put it into any init scripts. I had several extra trips up and down the stairs to the basement before I remembered to set sshd to start on boot.
One thing I wish they had also borrowed from RedHat is to include iptables in the base install. It's not, and this may be the reason it doesn't restart with the network. Both of these firewall features seem to me like perhaps they should be included in a secure distribution.
Finally for those of you who care about these things, a few version numbers:
Only the kernel, postifx and OpenSSH are installed as a part of the base install.
Other related AdvisorBits entries:
Our memories of Picasso
Trustix gives a good first impression
There is a nice article by Martin C. Brown on how to optimize perl scripts over at the IBM Developer Works site. There's a short instructive section on how to use short circuit logic in place of more computationally intensive conditional statements. If you write perl, its worth a read in case you don't already know about these tips.
I have been looking for a new Linux distrubution ever since I figured out that "Enterprise" is corporate speak for "Give me all your money". (See Understanding RedHat's Strategy.) My primary business applcation only supports a few different Linux distros, so my choices are limited. The other day I was abruptly made aware of another contender I had better take seriously, Trustix.
I have to take this distribution seriously because the company that owns Trustix just bought the company that makes my business application. http://www.comodogroup.com/news/press_releases/24_01_05.html
The ncurses based install was pretty easy. It allowed me to set everything up on raid partions. There was an option for minimal install which was pretty darn minimal. (This is a good thing by me.)
The installation did not leave any services listening on network interfaces. This is great because it saves me the time of shutting down all the ones I don't need. This install was so locked down, I had to turn on sshd to get to the box from my desk. I am very impressed by this.
And thank goodness, there wasn't one silly question about X Windows. As they say in the literature, Trustix is built for servers.
I did have a hard time finding out what the difference between the free version (www.trustix.org) and the commercial version (www.trustix.com) is. I will write a future article on the specific technical differences. I have installed the free version at my office, but have also purchased and downloaded the commercial version for deploying on a new server.
For now it appears the free version will continue to be supported for 2.5 years from its realease earlier this month. They are both made by the same people. Given my first impressions and the fact that I can get an entry level commercial license for about $150 per year, it seems like a good value. Trustix.com does more expensive licensing options available with addtional support and services for those who want that.
I hope it holds up to its first impression.