Swag!
You can buy JRRZZ.net “godless” swag now. It’s my own brand for the real atheist. I make a 5 euro profit out of it, all the money will go to hosting and to keeping my future projects alive.
Thanks in advance!
JRRZZ blog
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Linux vs the BSDs
A lot of people have asked me my choice of OS. I will - and have always done - answer Linux. I don’t have to explain why I don’t run OS X or Windows as my primary OS, I think it’s clear why I wouldn’t.
Who could endanger Linux’s trone?
The only actual other operating system that’s capable of supporting my needs would be one of the BSDs. I haven’t looked at Sun’s Solaris close enough to judge it properly. At Interlink most of the people around ‘love’ BSD and there’s just one main machine left running (Gentoo) Linux. If they are so fond of the BSDs why would I still be in favour of Linux? I have worked with both of the operating systems. There are a few points on which I judge an operating system as a whole. I’ll explain them one by one.
Openness
GNU/Linux is a 100% GPL licensed OS. I like the GPL. It gives us freedom while protecting it from it being stolen by people who don’t care about the Open Source initiative. It also protects itself by forcing the GPL on future products based on it. BSD however uses another license saying you can do what ever you wish with the code while you keep the copyright notice in tact. It’s free allright, but it doesn’t make any effort to preserve the freedom. Imagine writing some art, really beatiful code. A big company downloads it, likes it and uses it in it’s own products. No problem, that’s what Open Source is all about. But with the BSD license they are able to distribute their product as closed-source software and put a little line in the info bar somewhere deeply hidden in some menu saying “this and this bit: Copyright (c) 2000-2006 James Hacker”. Oh, and if your’e James “Famous” Hacker they can’t say in public ads you have written parts of the code. In short both licenses are fine with me, but my software will be GPL because I like the freedom. This point goes to Linux.
Speed
The Unixes are know for their speed. It’s common knowledge. But who’s faster, Linux or BSD? I’ve worked with FreeBSD for a while. I must admit it’s really responsive under high loads. For normal workstation use Linux and BSD both are useable beyond any doubt. But some of my machines work under extreme high loads for long periods of time. Now proper memory, I/O and thread management (and some more techie stuff) matter. I haven’t been able to test it thouroughly because I simply haven’t got the BSD knowledge and hardware to do so. Some people have and I have checked the benchmarks. Linux 2.6 is more stable and speedy under extreme loads than FreeBSD. Both NetBSD and OpenBSD have got serious problems on certain points. They or do not get the performance needed or get hilariously unstable. OpenBSD is the worst. It’s so much geared towards security resulting in a huge drawback in performance. NetBSD can run on a lot of platforms, ok, but do I care? I don’t think so. I don’t own exotic hardware and the big endian (POWER, Itanium, etc) platforms are getting replaced by the SMP Xeon EMT64 and Opteron AMD64 platforms. The latest benchmarks I’ve found were just over a year old though. It might be a good idea to put Linux and FreeBSD against each other again with my own test hardware. (yes, a PII MMX 300Mhz, 128M and 2×4.3Gb SCSI). FreeBSD 6 is released and Linux has done some serious work on their kernel, so the test I’ve read isn’t that valid anymore. Anyway, what I have understood from both Linux and BSD non-fanboys is that both are equally fast when configured the right way. It’s a draw on this one until I have recent benchies.
Stability
We’ve heard the story. The BSD kernels are way more stable than the Linux kernel. Yes, that’s what the fanboys say. The only proof I’ve found is from Netcraft (old data again, 3 years). The most stable sites without data loss for long periods of time run FreeBSD. Linux has become even more stable since the release of the 2.6 kernel. I think it will be a close call which OS is more stable. I personally think stability is not that much a task of the OS itself, but a task of the person managing the OS. A well configured Linux box can run for years non-stop on decent hardware. So does a well configured FreeBSD box. But it’s not just a server OS I’m looking for. It has to perform well as a workstation, too. If I’m encoding HD video to Theora on an SMP machine I want to be able to keep being productive without interruption. From what I have seen on FreeBSD 5.4 SMP (i686) machines is that the process handler isn’t that well built as I would expect from a box that would beat a Linux SMP workstation. Threads just halted for a while when two or more heavy normal priority threads were running on the background. Hello, my process is a high priority process, it isn’t allowed to hickup. Yes, FreeBSD is nice and stable when used as a simple server. From what I’ve done with Linux I know Linux is up to that task with ease. I’ve seen LAMP boxes run with a 9.x load with seven months uptime on normal consumer hardware. So don’t tell me Linux can’t handle it. The last pro-FreeBSD argument I’ve seen is that the FreeBSD device drivers are way more stable than the Linux drivers. I have to admit, It’s true. Some hardware that’s supported on both OSses (like some SCSI Raid controllers) have got better FreeBSD drivers. But it’s the other way around, too. I have been chatting with a distant friend on IRC and he kept reconnecting because his WiFi driver was failing on him. So this argument is really depending on your hardware. If you just use common hardware (ex. Intel platform) both the OSses offer rock solid drivers. This point goes out to Linux just because the thread handler in FreeBSD still needs some work (maybe it’s fixed in 6 already?).
Hardware support
I like cutting edge hardware. I just like to have a shiny new box under my desk. I’ve got some old exotic hardware like some early USB cams and some video capture/editing cards. I’d like them to work. I also like to have accelerated video on my desktop. Some hardware rendered eye candy would be nice. I tried to install FreeBSD on a high end AMD64 system a while ago. A lot of the hardware didn’t work. The RAID controller wasn’t supported and some more problems made it impossible to make that machine a FreeBSD box. I think you might feel this one coming. Linux did run, didn’t support it all either, but it managed to boot and get X running. I had to build a custom (ck-)kernel for it, but that’s ok, it booted. I think we all agree on this one, even the BSD folks have to give this point to Linux.
Support
I have to say, both the BSDs and Linux have perfect documentation and a proper fanbase that’s always willing to help. You can almost give them your root account to fix your problem. The dedicated fans will assist new people in any way they can. There is no winner in community support here. But if you look on a higher level it’s a bit different. Linux is supported by the big boys like IBM, HP and even Sun (partially). Open- and NetBSD don’t have that much support. The support for FreeBSD is growing in the networking business. But desktop FreeBSD, or any BSD for that matter, isn’t supported by a single big desktop vendor. From my point of view, and if I’m asked for advice I would go with Linux. If you are a big company support from big vendors is the only support you are going to get. Community support forums and irc channels can’t sign support contracts.
My opinion and conclusion
I think I’ve made my point clear. BSD is a nice OS to play around with and to build very dedicated one-task only servers (ex. NetBSD Gateways). Hell, my printer at work is running FreeBSD. But I can’t use BSD as a replacement for Linux. Linux just beats the crap out of BSD on the high end desktop market. Only on a few narrow fields some BSDs are the best choice. The global allround OS that can do it all is Linux. I think FreeBSD will gain populairity quite a bit but it will never catch up with my favourite OS. Linux.
httpWM
It’s done. It works. A fully functional fluxbox-like window manager and desktop environment inside a browser window. A lot of people have contributed to this project and I’m proud to release it to the public for the first time.
You might ask yourself what’s all the fuss about. Well, this is something a lot of people have tried to do and a lot of companies are working on. This is the future of web interfacing. httpWM is just a simple framework and actually just a POC (proof of concept).
This new website is built using AJAX, DHTML and a lot of CSS. It’s code is GPL so if you want you can use it. Before people start to complain it’s not W3C valid, I’ll explain. I had to use innerHTML to keep it a bit useable. The W3C DOM approach would give me huge JavaScripts and high bandwidth usage. The use of innerHTML speeds things up, too. A lot.
So grab your Firefox by it’s ears and point it’s nose to JRRZZ.net where httpWM is running.
Update:
It’s running on the Interlink web server now after ‘high’ loads on my personal server.
JRRZZ.net spamhost
I’m sorry. smtp.jrrzz.net, my poor little smtp server, has become a victim of evil spam syndicates. Spambots have used my contact form to send spam around the internet for a day or two. Luckaly there weren’t many victims. Maybe a few hundred mails were sent. The bots have used mail header injection. Something I didn’t know about. It’s really simple to understand and I’m afraid a lot of other sites are being used to send spam around. The basic idea behind it all is that you send along a newline byte with one of the values in the mail header like the “From:” part. A simple fix is to filter out all the newline bytes from the data you put in your mail headers.
function cleanMail ($data) { return str_replace(array(”\r”, “\n”), ”, $data); }
Just a simple fix in PHP.
Again, my apologies to all the people who have received spam from my postfix box.
Brainfuck
I’ve started to write brainfuck. It’s just fun. I’ll get a little text to brainfuck converter running soon, I think I’ve got a simple algorithm to do just that. I have to work out the details though.
It will be in C, JavaScript and PHP. Three versions. Just bacause I can. The JavaScript version will be implemented as an app within httpWM.
Update:
I decided not to write a C version (yet) because I just started to write C a month or two ago at school and I keep getting stuck. The JavaScript version will be written when I feel like I have too much spare time. The PHP version is finished and it even beat the crap out of my own hand-calculated brainfucks. The algorithm used is a very simple one. First, determine the smallest ASCII value out of the characters. This value will be used as decrementer for the initial loop that will set usefull values into the memory. These values are calculated by dividing the ASCII value with the decrementer. After that it searches the memory for a value that produces the least output in brainfuck when calculated and printed. It calculates the position and offset, moves the pointer, adjusts the value and prints the character. This will be repeated with a lowered decrementer intil it reaches 1. The shortest brainfuck result is printed. It can be optimized a lot more I think. This is just a simple approach. I’ve put in a binary-safe switch if you want to keep your brainfuck output binary identical to your text input. This will result in quite some more brainfuck code bacause it has to use the char(0), too.
You can download the PHPCLI script here, licensed using the GNU GPL. The interpreter I used can be downloaded here.
Blogs Moved and News
Blogs moved:
As you can see the JRRZZ.net blog section has been moved to iblogzz.
iblogzz is a service far more suitable than my little blog parser window thingy. All the titles with “(moved)” behind their titles are original JRRZZ.net blog entries.
I’ll blog some more these days about tech in general. Since I’m involved in iblogzz itself you might find some iblogzz news here too. I’m not the admin but just “a” admin, don’t get me wrong :).
The monthly blogdump will continue as usual.
News:
Soon my athlon will be replaced with an X2 4400 (939 or AM2). This awsome debian box will boost my dnet score significantly.
My new website is coming along nicely. The window manager works pretty good and I’ll try to do everything in C and static content so you all can enjoy your own personal httpWM.
Danish Islamic AJAX quitters. (moved)
Another month, another post.
I’ve got some stuff to write about this time. First, a lot happened at work. Second, this site will be updated to a state-of-the-art window manager the world has never seen before. Third, I’d like to tell you how I think about the current situation of the “Islam vs. Denmark” thingy.
Well, at work, some of my colleagues quit. Three of them. At the same time. One of them said she would leave and we all knew she would, no big deal. The other two though, one of them a really good friend of mine, left without me even knowing they wanted to go. I didn’t like seeing them go, but it’s for the best and we learned to live and above all work with it. My friend left with a fight, too. It’s pretty hard to see your friend in a fight with your boss. Oh well, it’s done and we don’t like talking about that anymore. I have some good news too. My webshop is up and running. Now let’s hope it gets the sales we hope it will. My webshop can handle it, it’s the best stuff out there. Duh, I’ve made it so that’s logical. When I’ve got some spare time I’ll strip it and publish it as the OSCommerce killer people were waiting for. I won’t promise anything because I’ve got millions of other things I’m working at.
One of these things is the replacement of my current site. As you can see this site works like a window manager, you’ve got a menu, a taskbar and windows. But the windows aren’t moveable at all and it’s not a real desktop simulation. I’ve learned a lot about JavaScript, DHTML and the Mozilla DOM so I think I’m ready to realize the thing I’ve always wanted. “httpWM”. A fully featured desktop operating system, fast, reliable and just like a real desktop. I’ve learned the art of AJAX and I have found a really neat script on BrainJar.com that can draw windows just like real ones. Now I’m combining techniques to recreate a windowmaker-style desktop in your browser. I’m going to build just one theme at start, but I think I should be able to make it themeable as well. Right now I’m writing applications for it. The chat program is done and the browser is coming along quite nicely. I’m going to make a simple text editor like a WiKi and port all my site content over to the new layout. It’s going to be near and almost entirely rendered and parsed client-sided using DHTML, JavaScript and the DOM. The only interaction with the server will be done in XML through AJAX. It’s gonna be neat. It’s still under heavy development but I think I can pull this one off. If you are interested you can check port 8080 and if my laptop is running you should be able to check the ajax.jrrzz.net directory for my latest progress. Since Microsoft didn’t provide me with a version of their operating system I can’t check if it will work in IE. I’ve tested IE7 on my fully legal XP installation and apart from the bad positioning code it seemed quite an improvement. But my laptop is the only machine booting XP and at the same time the machine I’m creating httpWM on, so that’s bad luck for Redmond. One thing will be hard to get used to though, content in terminal windows scrolls down in stead of up. That’s one thing I just can’t fix for you. I hate using iframes for things like that. Application development is really easy. You can create a plain text file. The first line is the title and the rest of it the window content. Only the initial div has to be parsed in the index before the ‘boot’. All the CSS and JavaScript has to be in-tag or else it won’t be parsed/ran. Just a minor drawback. When it’s finished I’ll release it all under the GPL as requested by BrainJar and others. You still have to mail me if you want to have it. I’m not allowed to keep it back so feel free to sue me if you don’t get the source code.
Finally I just have to tell you guys how much I hate those radical muslim jihad people. I hate any theistic belief but now these people have made me very angry. I like my right to express myself freely. I use my right to express myself freely every day. Some people in this world do not have the respect to tolerate other ideas or views. I hate their beliefs, but I respect theists as human beings with their own opinion. I won’t go out on the streets and kill people just because some Danish guy made some really funny pictures where he made their prophet into a terrorist. Well, Mohammed is a terrorist corrupting the minds of millions of people. So is Jesus, so that’s all settled. The thing that upsets me right now is the fact that all these muslim people all over the world start burning the Danish flag and threatening all western people. Now who’s worse? An artist making a few pictures about how he thought about the islam or millions of people actually yelling that they want to kill me and millions more? Come on! Bunch of blind senile old men! Don’t you understand you are the worst problem in this world? Next to the capitalistic west you are suppressing people and killing people at random, too! Does killing your enemy bring victory to your people? Does that satisfy them? Do you know what’s that called? Bloodlust! Your Islam has become a group of people only hungry for western blood forgetting all the good things from your religion! You are the worst kind. If there was a hell you would burn. And if there was a hell there’s no hell for you to burn in. No hell’s hot enough! I’ve always said theism is the biggest problem mankind has to overcome. It seems just a little incident is enough to trigger a worldwide uprising of yelling muslims on a path of death and destruction. What kind of nonsense is this? No respect for other people’s opinions and totally no idea why those people say what they say. The muslim world has been overshadowed by ignorance and violence. Signs of stupidity. By following your imam you sentence your own death penalty. You sell your soul to the devil as the christians would say. Do you know who I hate even more? The radical jews! Those ultra right jewish scumbags just build their houses on Palestinian soil like they own the place. It’s quite funny how they prey to their non-existent god while the bulldozer is crashing down on them. No, I’m not a racist or a right bastard. I just want everybody to be able to be themselves, the person who they truly are. No muslim wants to blow himself up in between a bunch of pathetic jews. No jew wants to have trouble with the Palestinians. But some people in their mids say they should act stupid because it is written in the holy book. Those people are little hitlers moving their people to extinction in stead of the salvation they teach. I can’t understand how half of all the people, maybe more, can be so damn stupid. They just don’t see. Oh well, I’ll just keep being myself and I’ll probably get slaughtered by some muslim extremist for writing this. Way to go allah, way to go!