In March of this year I switched to OSX, running on a shiny new 17” MacBook Pro. I wrote about it here. I prepared myself for the change, and I was committed to giving it a fair shot for my computing time.

The initial feeling of running OSX was one just like driving a brand new car. Everything was shiny, worked well, and it had the new OS smell. Oh, there were some unsettling moments early on, like when I realized that the OS was not case-sensitive. ( Leopard ). But, overall it seemed like it was going to be UNIX enough for me. Don't get me wrong. There are plenty of people who know UNIX far better than I. I am just saying that it is my preferred environment, and as such, I expect UNIX to behave in a certain fashion. Now that I have given OSX a fair shot, I feel that I can properly give the OS a proper evaluation.

The good part was the hardware. By far the MacBook Pro is the most solid laptop I have ever used. It is fast, the screen is bright and clear. I love the keyboard, and I also purchased an external keyboard, so I could have the feel of the laptop keyboard all the time on all my computers. I can not say enough good things about the keyboard. The touchpad is awesome, it is what touchpads should have always been. Click anywhere is great, response is great. Hardware grade : A-

What did I like about the software? Oh, oh… I got one.. I liked the office suite. I have not used MS Office for many years, I have used many open source alternatives, and have settled in on OpenOffice handling my day to day word processing and spreadsheet duties. When I got the MacBook, I also got a copy of iWork. I liked that it was very clean and uncomplicated in presentation and use. For simple word processing and spreadsheets it worked fine. Software grade : C+

Working in OSX always felt like something was missing. The context switching of the menu bar with the application drove me crazy. I want one thing that is for my Windowing environment and the context of my apps to stay with my application. Of all the idiosyncrasies that come along for the ride with a MacBook + OSX that is the one that I could not overlook. Have you ever heard a Mac guy say “It just works!”? Well, they are lying. A lot of stuff works out of the box, and the stuff that doesn't is a pain in the butt. The Apple faithful make a lot of excuses about what doesn't work, or they have a band of wood nymphs that crank out apple script to patch and band aid the OS. My biggest gripe about the OS is that it is not case sensitive. It is supposed to be UNIX!!! Unix is case sensitive. See how I typed the word Unix in the last two sentences? Unix can tell the difference, OSX can not. I know there is an option under Snow Leopard that if you wish to reformat your drive, it can be case sensitive now, but out of the shoot, nope…

Did my printer at home work with OSX? Nope. This is not Apple's fault, just an example of how things just don't always work.

I really like music, and I have a large digital collection of music. That should sum up why I dislike iTunes and refuse to use it.

Did I say that my biggest gripe was the case sensitive thing? I was wrong, the biggest issue is spinning beach balls. OMG!!! I am just trying to switch between one terminal session to another, and I get get a spinning ball. Click on firefox, spinning ball. Click on netbeans – beachball. Fair enough, netbeans is a big java app, switch to vim… beachball. You gotta be kidding me! I wait out the service pack 1, errr, I mean software update. Surely it will fix this beach ball mania. NOPE!! This is seriously impacting my work. I can no longer use the Macbook Pro as my primary work system. I switch back to my desktop system ( runing Linux ) for my day to day chores. I use the MacBook as my secondary system, reading mail, and web surfing. Guess what? I still get beach balls. I have an old 486 laptop with puppy linux on it that can handle email and web surfing. While we are in a big push at work to get a release done, I vow to hold out until there is time to remedy the situation. There is only a couple of weeks or so to go until the next version of Ubuntu is coming out, and I am ready to try it out, I can make it until then, I tell myself.

WRONG!! The wireless networking on the MacBook Pro has stopped working. Now it is not even good for email and web surfing. I have an expensive aluminum hand warmer now. Stupid Mac.

I think that it must be the hardware, but how can I tell? I hook up and external drive and do a time machine backup to it. ( Oh, just so you don't think I am a complete hater, time machine is awesome. )

Then I prep the system to dual boot. I start here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro

But, decided that I needed to wait for Karmic Koala. I got a secondary partition created, and installed Windows 7. In the spirit of competition and fair play, I installed Windows 7 on another Dell laptop and in a VM on my Linux desktop.

In a head to head evaluation of OSX and Windows 7, Windows 7 wins. Once I installed my tool chain on Windows 7, it worked well, without any issues. I did have to install a few more things, but the installs were clean, fast and simple. I installed the same tools that I had on OSX, and they all worked.

Did you catch that? I installed… how you might ask? The wireless refused to work under OSX, it claimed that my wireless at home was more foreign than that alien network that Jeff Goldblum hacked in Independence day. Windows 7 seems to think it is fine. The hardware is quite obviously fine. I do a quick test. Reboot to OSX. No network. Stupid Mac. Reboot to Windows. Works.

If I were on the TV commercial where the lady is going to OSX from XP, I would tell her to run to the store and get Windows 7. She will be much happier in the end. If those were her only choices, I would leave it there, but there is another choice. I am a supporter of Open Source. While Windows 7 has a pleasing look and feel, and is better than OSX, it is still… windows. It has a lot of the issues of it's predecessors and a few new problems of it own. The only real choice at this point is which Linux distribution should you use. Ubuntu.. ( I really don't want to hear from you BSD guys… really. )

Karmic Koala is out. The day it became available, my torrent client was humming. ( ktorrent )

I bypassed all the dual boot, how to's, and stuck the install disk into my MacBook Pro, and told it to take over the whole disk. Guess what? IT JUST WORKED!!! Hahahahahahaha…

Ok, one confession. The hardware version of the MacBook Pro that I have (5,2) has an issue with the sound driver that Karmic installed. I have it fixed now, by installing the latest alsa driver. Yes, it took some time and research ( 2 hours ) and I know, you Grandma would never do that. I would never suggest to your Gran that she go pay the Apple tax for the hardware, and then put Linux on it. I leave that to geeks like me. I would tell your Granny to buy a Dell, or HP and install linux on that. She will be happy, and it will all work.

I now have Ubuntu 9.10 running on my MacBook Pro. Gnome-desktop, kubuntu-destop, xubuntu-desktop are all installed. I like desktop options, but prefer KDE 4. I can switch between apps, terminals, connect to the network and print. I have not seen one spinning beach ball. I am much more productive. I am so happy to have Amorok back to manage my music, and KDE to manage my desktop, and konsole as a terminal application, and, and, and… I am just so much happier.

The summary. 9 months on OSX were not wasted, but they were not as productive. If I was starting the “switch” experiment today, I would try Windows 7 for 9 months rather than OSX.

Would I buy another Mac for myself, just for the hardware? No. While the trackpad is cool, other companies have caught up on the piece of hardware. The keyboard may be enough to make me come back to the hardware, but I doubt it.

I did buy a Mac ( iMac ) for my wife, and she loves it. But, I think I do as much systems administration task with her on Mac as I did when she was on Linux. My kids still use Linux at home, and Mac at school .

Will I try OSX again? Maybe. Never say never. But, they will have to make some big changes, or, release a cool Mac Tablet. :-)

Final Thoughts.

Linux is a better operating system.

KDE 4 is the best looking window management system.

Linux makes me happy.

I am switching to a MAC  The computer has not arrived yet, but I am prepping for it. 

I have spent so many years now working with Unix systems, it seems like second nature to me. The biggest change prior, for me came about 5 years ago when I jumped from tcsh to bash. I still have my Minix 5 1/4 disk from 1988-89.. I have a slackware release of Linux with a 0.9 kernel.. Geez, I have been doing this for a long time….  I have been employed where some version of windows was required, and I always found a way to run linux. The worst case was running KDE from Cygwin, because of Corporate policy. Of the Unix variants, I have tried or worked on almost all of them. HP/UX, dgUnix, Solaris, AIX, BSD, Linux, Digital Unix, Xenix, Dynex, just to list a few.  It has been a long and winding road from the Fortune 32:16 systems and AT&T 3b1 & 3b2's that I used early on in my career. I have managed single systems and large networks. I have been a member of USENIX and SAGE and attended the LISA and USENIX conferences many times. 

Over the last several years many of my friends and colleagues have switched over to MACs. I have teased them about their shiny little boxes, the price points, and that they ( the computers ) were just overgrown iPods. However, I have to admit, during that same time, I saw excellent code written on the computers, and some really nifty applications being utilized on the MACs. I used to tease my friends that if I ever got a MAC, the first thing I would do is install UBUNTU. That is what I did whenever I got a new computer with windows installed on it, and I assumed that I would do the same with the big iPod.

Well, the company I work for, ( OpenLogic ) is buying all the developers shiny new 17" Macbook Pro's. My first thought was, "I wonder how hard it will be to get Ubuntu on that?".  I started reading up on how to install Ubuntu, and how I could get other "favorite" applications on the new box. I read about Boot Camp, so I could dual boot, OSX or Ubuntu.. ( Side note… I call it OSX, as I get further along, I may switch to calling it Leopard or Snow Leopard, or 10.5.5… etc.. )  I made a trip ( pilgrimage? ) to the Apple Store. It was just like I remembered. Ipod to the left me, Ipod to the right of me, oooh, something shiny.  I played with the 15" Macbook pro's as the 17"s were not in the store yet. I had some of my Mac aware buddies with me, so I could ask pertinent questions. First? How do I get a terminal up?  Finder? you gotta be kidding me. I could see the Ubuntu disk sliding into the slot on the right side so clearly. Then "IT" happened.  Nope, it wasnt the Apple store employees asking me for the 5th time if I needed help. IT wasnt the the lightness of the laptop, the shine of the case, the gleam of the beautiful screen, not the speed of the processor or the "it just works" wireless networking. Not even the promise of integration of microsoft office. ( Actually, that is not a plus for me anyway. ) "IT" is the trackpad. Using the new trackpad totally hooked me. Click anywhere and it works. It is big and useful and handy and cool. Using gestures (multi finger swipes) is awesome. After 5 minutes, I was hooked on the trackpad, and on the keyboard. I love the little chicklet keys. I began to re-think my "put Ubuntu on it" approach to the impending arrival. If I am going to be able to take full advantage of that big cool trackpad, I am going to need to keep OSX on the box. Openlogic, had purchased VMware fusion for me to put upon my new MAC, so that I can work with open source packages for a variety of operation systems, and my next thought moved me from installing Ubuntu on the MAC, and just have a vmware image of Ubuntu, if I needed to get any "real" work done.

I left the store ( mothership? ) with that thought in mind, however something was really nagging at me. Oh, it could be the voices of all the Mac fanboys that I have teased over the course of time, haunting me as I reflected on how much fun it was to play on the Macbook. Possibly, but more than likely it was my inner voice telling me that I should get the most out of this experience. I should bite the bullet. I should not try and turn the Mac into a Linux system, but rather see what the Mac had to offer. Learn the system as well as I know the Linux system. I needed to shift my thinking so that "real work" would be done on the Mac. Sure, there are certainly going to be things that I do not like. I am positive that over time I may have some clear and objective criticisms of OSX or the Macbook itself. At this point, I have vowed to keep the system native. I have gone so far as to vow to use only the native applications that come with the system. If over the course of time, an app, does not meet my needs, then I can say that I gave that app a fair evaluation and move on to an alternative.

I plan on blogging my findings as I go about the switch. As I wait for the Macbook to arrive, I have been reading up on the OS, and asking questions of my friends that know about them. If you have any good advise, feel free to send it along. Check in here every once in a while, and see how I am doing going "Cold Turkey" from my linux systems.   ( I will have to use them from time to time to do my job. But, my main day in day out environment will be OSX. )  Oh… and If I teased you about your shiny little Mac…  I am sorry. 

** Authors note **  Yes, I know that I never capitalize the word windows.

As promised by my previous post, here is the basic exchange guide for proprietary software credits.

Each OS manufacturer is assigned a base value, to that we add the proprietary footprint of the OS they provide.
Notes on some OS's are provided. If the OS was particularly difficult on the user, then the overall cost is higher.

If the manufacturer has spread FUD about Open Source, they are taxed additionaly. Apple you will notice has a higher
than average credit price because they fall in the "wolf in sheeps clothing" arena. They create a product "based" on
open source but are not open source. They are a factory churning out smugness with every shiny powerMac and sleek iMac
like corn through a goose. Microsoft, also deserves additional taxation due to the FUD, and for churning out the
"blue screen of death" at an unprecedented rate.

This is just the OS credit exchange, there are some software packages that need to be added as time permits.
Microsoft Office springs to mind. There should be some special level of credit hell for anyone who has ever used
excel as a programming environment rather than a spreadsheet application.. I will have to work on how that will be handled.

These cost are per system. So if you have multiple computers, you need to add up all the values. If you are a corporation
looking to offset your proprietary footprint then bulk rates may apply. Just drop me a line and I will work it out with you.

If you find any holes, or additional software that should be placed on the list, or have a discrepancy with any of the cost
let me know. Any additional comments to the list are welcome.

————–Exchange Guide—————-

Acorn $2.00
Arthur $5.00
ARX $5.00
MOS $5.00
RISC OS $5.00
RISC iX $5.00

Amiga $2.00
AmigaOS $5.00         *smugness up charge. There are still people using this thing!! And still harping about it.
Amiga Unix $5.00      *See above.

Apollo $2.00
AEGIS/Domain/OS $5.00

Apple $5.00                         * Black turtleneck up charge.
Apple DOS $6.00
ProDOS $6.00
GS/OS $6.00
SOS $6.00
Lisa OS $6.00                     * 10 grand for this chunk of crap! cmon' Ray.
Mac OS System Software 1 $6.00
Mac OS System Software 2 $6.00
Mac OS System Software 3 $6.00
Mac OS System Software 4 $6.00
Mac OS System Software 5 $6.00
Mac OS System Software 6 $6.00
Mac OS System 7 $6.00
Mac OS 8 $6.00
Mac OS 9 $6.00
A/UX $6.00                                  * was this really Unix? I think not! cha-ching!
Mac OS X v10.0 $6.00
Mac OS X v10.1 $6.00
Mac OS X v10.2 $6.00
Mac OS X v10.3 $6.00
Mac OS X v10.4 $7.00
Mac OS X v10.5 $8.00                 * leoptard charge. Extra cost of driving your Prius down to the Apple store to stand in line with other MacTards, so you too could be cooler than the rest of us.

Mac OS X Server $5.00

Atari $2.00
Atari DOS $2.00
Atari TOS $2.00
Atari MultiTOS $2.00

Burroughs $2.00
BTOS $2.00
MCP $2.00

Convergent Technologies $2.00
CTOS $2.00

Be Incorporated $5.00            * took up were Amiga left off. geez enough already about Be
BeOS $5.00
BeIA $5.00
ZETA $5.00

Digital/Tandem Computers $2.00
OS/8 $2.00
ITS $2.00
TOPS-10 $2.00
WAITS $2.00
TENEX $2.00
TOPS-20 $2.00
RSTS/E $2.00
RSX-11 $2.00
RT-11 $2.00
VMS $2.00
Domain/OS $2.00
RTE $2.00
TSB $2.00
Digital UNIX $2.00
Ultrix $4.00                                * Have you ever had to run Ultrix? What a POS.
NonStop Kernel $2.00
Guardian $2.00
OSS $2.00

Green Hills Software $2.00
INTEGRITY $2.00
INTEGRITY-178B $2.00
µ-velOSity $2.00

Hewlett-Packard/Compaq $3.00                  * Carly Fiorina up charge. Compaq merger indeed.
MPE $2.00
HP-UX $3.00                                                   * Could you make this any un-friendlier to use? sure you can.

Intel $2.00
iRMX $2.00

IBM $2.00
IBM 7090/94 $2.00
SYSTEM 1400/1800 IJMON $2.00
BOS/360 $2.00
TOS/360 $2.00
DOS/360 $2.00
DOS/360/RJE $2.00
DOS/VSE $2.00
DOS/VSE/ESA $2.00
z/VSE $2.00
OS/360 $2.00
PCP $2.00
MFT $2.00
MVT $2.00
RTOS $2.00
OS/370 $2.00
OS/VS1 $2.00
OS/VS2 $2.00
SVS $2.00
MVS $2.00
OS/390 $2.00
z/OS $5.00
TPF $2.00
CP/CMS $2.00
VM/CMS $2.00
VM/XA $2.00
VM/ESA $2.00
z/VM $2.00
SSP$2.00
CPF$2.00
i5/OS $2.00
AIX $4.00                      * Take Unix and screw it up… you get AIX.
AOS $2.00
PC-DOS $2.00
OS/2 Warp $7.00                * Ahhh.. IBM dancing with the devil.
eComStation $2.00
8100 DPCX $2.00
8100 DPPX $2.00
K42 $2.00
EDX $2.00
RPS $2.00

ICL $2.00
GEORGE 2 $2.00
GEORGE 3 $2.00
GEORGE 4 $2.00
VME $2.00

Micrium $2.00
MicroC/OS-II $2.00

Microsoft $9.00                      * Bill Gates + Steve "Dance Monkeyboy" Balmer = The seventh ring of hell.

   Xenix $10.00                      * how dare you call that unix..   
   MSX-DOS $3.00
   MS-DOS $3.00
   Windows CE 3.0 $3.00
   Windows Mobile  $3.00
   Windows CE 5.0 $3.00
   Windows 1.0 $3.00
   Windows 2.0 $3.00
   Windows 3.0  $3.00
   Windows 3.1x $5.00                     * introduced us to the "Blue Screen of Death". Thanks a lot.
   Windows 3.2  $3.00
   Windows 95  $5.00                       * Virtual device drivers… you buttheads.
   Windows 98  $5.00        
   Windows ME  $5.00
   OS/2  $7.00                                    * Some people loved it, still do. It was buggy and unforgiving.  
   Windows NT 3.1 $3.00  
   Windows NT 3.5 $3.00  
   Windows NT 3.51 $3.00
   Windows NT 4.0 $3.00
   Windows 2000 $3.00
   Windows XP  $3.00
   Windows Server 2003  $3.00
   Windows Fundamentals $3.00
   Windows Vista  $12.00                * Bloated. Crashing. Marketed incorrectly. If you are running this you deserve to pay more.
   Windows Server 2008  $3.00
   Windows 7  $3.00
   WinPE $3.00
   Singularity $3.00

Novell $2.00                                       * Should be charged extra for even thinking of NetWare, but purchase of SuSe offset it.
   NetWare  $4.00

Unicoi Systems $2.00
   Fusion RTOS $2.00
   DSPOS  $2.00

Other $2.00
  EOS  $2.00
  EMBOS $2.00  
  GCOS $2.00  
  PC-MOS/386  $2.00  
  SINTRAN III $2.00  
  TinyOS $2.00
  TRS-DOS  $2.00
  TX990/TXDS $2.00
  MAI Basic Four $2.00
  MUSIC/SP $2.00
  TSX-32 $2.00
  OS ES  $2.00
  Prolog-Dispatcher $2.00
  Aegis $2.00
  Amiga Unix $4.00
  Clix $2.00
  Coherent $2.00
  DNIX $2.00
  DSPnano RTOS $2.00
  Idris $2.00
  INTERACTIVE UNIX $2.00
  IRIX $4.00                                     * The original "pretentious" unix system. Tried to be the Apple of the Unix world.
  MeikOS $2.00
  NeXTSTEP $4.00
  OS-9 $2.00
  OSF/1 $2.00
  QNX $2.00
  Rhapsody  $2.00
  RISC/os  $2.00
  RMX $2.00
  SCO UNIX $CALL                       * Darl McBride up charge. Sue happy bastards. If you are using this contact me and I will get the lawyers working on your fee.
  SINIX  $2.00
  Solaris  $5.00                                * Sun is starting to come around. This cost may go down later.
  SunOS  $6.00
  SUPER-UX  $2.00
  System V  $2.00
  System V/AT $2.00
  Trusted Solaris $2.00
  UniFlex $2.00
  Unicos $2.00
  Unison RTOS  $2.00
  DG/UX  $4.00                                 * Pain up charge. Hated this OS.

SDS (Scientific Data Systems) $2.00

  CP Control Program $2.00

TRON Project  $2.00

  TRON $2.00

UNIVAC (later Unisys) $2.00

   EXEC I $2.00
   EXEC II $2.00
   EXEC 8 $2.00

WAVECOM $2.00

   Open AT $2.00

 
</pre>

Now that I have received some feedback, I need to clarify a few points about the credit program.

First, I am not making a judgment about the usability of the proprietary software. It may be better for you, it may run faster, jump farther, be the package you know, etc. The judgment is that it is not open source software. If you are perfectly happy forwarding the idea of proprietary software, and its cost, then you should not consider buying offset credits.

If the open source Community is important to you, and you would like to see it grow, then you should consider buying credits. Much the same way that buying Carbon offsets benefits the environment of Earth, buy PSC's will benefit the environment of computing.

I have seen, far to many open source advocates, that use .. daily .. proprietary source packages. They are caught between two worlds. Lets take a typical open source development project, say…. Ruby on Rails.

Rails is a great project. Open Source through and through. It has a thriving and growing community. More and more projects are turning to using it for their web-framework. Now, go pop into any rails forum and ask a question. The Mac pretentiousness oozes back at you. One would think that you can not actually write Rails code without a Mac, OSX, and textmate. In fact, can anyone find a screencast on Rails that is not done on a Mac using textmate? I for one, have been very successful writing Rails ( and Ruby ) using my Ubuntu system and Vim.

We have to give this whole type of user an outlet for providing back to the open source community which they use. To bring symbiosis to the relationship rather than having the open source picked over by carrion, only to be left aside when shiny proprietary software whispers sweet nothings…

The next post will contain the basic structure for calculating ones proprietary footprint, and how many credits will be needed to offset.

Oh, and you Mac guys that are dual booting Windows on top of a Mac …. shame on you.

I was driving to work the other day, listening to talk radio. They were discussing the Democratic National Convention and how it was “going green”. This intrigued me, and I went to take a look.

At the site, there was a Carbon Calculator, where a traveler to the convention could get an estimate of the Carbon footprint that their trip would have. The next step would be to purchase Carbon credits to offset one's trip. Other tips for “going green” are given on the site.

The thought struck me that we need something similar in the open source world.

I propose Proprietary Source Credits. ( Go Blue! )

Say you are fully supportive of open source, even use some from time to time, but you just dont have the time or ability to actually join a project.

Even developers who love open source, but carry around proprietary OS systems like Windows or Macs that feel that they are more productive in a closed source system, but want to give back to open source somehow.

Think of all the tortured souls carrying Mac Book Pros around conferences, presenters at open source gatherings that feel guilty for using power point to give their presentation. No longer will they need to feel on the outside of the open source Community. They can purchase credits that will go directly to open source projects to further the cause of innovation and sharing in the computing community, and still be able to use their proprietary OS's and software.

I will shortly be announcing my Proprietary Source Calculator for those that are unsure of their proprietary footprint. For those that are using Windows, Mac, (Closed Solaris), HPUX, AIX, etc..

You know who you are and what you are doing, I will be setting up a PayPal account where you can purchase your credits. There will be a bulk rate for OS's, and a guide to add up all those other proprietary software applications that are in your system.

This will be a great thing for the Open Source Community, and even more so, a great thing for all of computing, to lay aside our differences and move forward going Blue with Open Source Software.

Having read my colleagues post on the Trent Reznors open source music project, and being a fan of Nine Inch Nails earlier work,

I zipped right out and fired up ktorrent to download the albums. I say albums as Ghost I – IV is not a single disc, but rather more

like 4 discs with 9 tracks each.  The discs are labeled 1 – 4, and the tracks 1 – 36.  Even though the tracks are listed contiguosly, I

recommend listening to one disc at a time, as a body of work unto itself. Each disc (album?) has a feel that seperates it from the others.

Ghost 1, has a much more raw feel, than Ghost IV.  In this age of voice enhanced, throw away lyric, pop, or highly derivative techno, the Ghost disc

come across more like funk, rock, jazz fusion. The Jazz elements come through in traditional call and response, with underlying bass

lines coming through during breaks, to give a consistent feel to the tracks.  The main downside to the set, is the extensive use of drum

tracks, I much prefer the organic sound of live percussion to electronic drums. The entire set could easily be confused with a soundtrack

as Rezner builds and fades each peice as if to build on a visual moment in time. I would not be surprised to see tracks used for effect in

movies or theatre. There are several tracks ( Ghost IV – 28 in particular ) that have a eastern Asian feel to them.  And several other tracks

that I can easily see having lyrics added at a later time. ( Ghost II – 17 being one. ) 

Overall, if you are in a instrumental mood, I recommend the whole set, but Ghost IV is my favorite by far.  

On a scale of 1 – 10 Lines of Code, I give it a 7 LOC. 

I rarely ( read never ) blog about other blogs.. that seems so … plagiaristic … to me. But,

I caught this from the O'Reilly feed, and jumped to the link. It is a youtube video on Startup Metrics.  I have no original thoughts about it, other than to say it is good listening / watching and I recomend giving it a view. While everything said does not apply to every startup, there are some good lessons learned in there..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irjgfW0BIrw

I am amazed by spam. Initially, I was irritated by it. But, the more I get, the more amazed I am.  If people, somewhere did not respond to it, then it would not work… so, the amazing thing is that someone out there really believes that stuff…

I get a variety of spam.. By far the most prolific is Mortgage brokers. I get many mails a day from them, and about 90% of the adware on the top of websites seems to be from them.  If I wanted to refinance with some asinine ARM mortgage that would wreck me financially, I would just go to the mafia.  The second most active spam ( in my mailbox ) is pharmaceuticals.. well, more often specific drugs. (Viagra being the most often touted.) Who would in their right mind by medications from someone who can't even spell the name of the drug they are selling? Amazing..

Not to be outdone, the tobacco companies or at least  some shill for them, are trying to send me "free smokes". These, I dont find so amazing, as it is pretty common knowledge that the tobacco industry is trying to sell their crap to anyone, anytime, and spam might just be the best marketing they have.

My favorite? Free money. I decided to keep track of how much money I would make in 1 week from the classic Nigerian/English Barrister/Call and collect your share emails…

Free Money :

$1,000,000 from MR CHRIS ALOZIE ( chrisalozie@ig.com.br )
$450,000 from BMW and a new car!  (BRAIN JONES <brainjones100@yahoo.es>. ) odd that BMW uses a yahoo mail address, but what the hay, I get a new car!

$3,328,257.20 from  Mr.Raymond Eze (Esq.) ( rayeze400@ig.com.br )                                             $3,400,000.00 from  Dr. Paul Brown <paulbrown@drbalica.com>                                                 $7,250,000.00 from Mr. Martin Mukoya <mrmartin_mukoya@martin-mukoya.com>                       

$850,000.00 from Mr  Abebe  (abebe01@virgilio.it) 

$852,810.00 from Coolly White President World Bank Auditors worldbankauditors3@ig.com.br

$35,000,000.00 from  NIGERIAN INVESTIGATION DEPARTMENT (info@investigationdepartment.org)

$715,810.00 from INTERNATIONAL LOTTO COMMISSION (euro_africlottoclaim@ibest.com.br )

$850,000.00 from Mr. Evans (evansonumba6@virgilio.it)

——————

My 1 week total = $52,981,067.20   WOW!! I may need to quit my job. 

I include their email address's if anybody else wants to get in on some of this free money. I am sure there is more than enough to go around. Tell them I sent you and they may throw in a couple extra million.

I think I will collect spam for a month and see how much I would make.. I could be bigger than Bill Gates!! 

Perl is a must have tool on every system. I use it almost every day to manipulate data from command lines and to write small utility scripts. I made the jump to Ruby a number of years ago and concede to the readability and cleanliness of it's object oriented language over Perl. Anything that I can do in Perl I can also do in Ruby. That said, I still use Perl because of the huge repository I have of legacy Perl scripts and the sheer number of scripts available on the net. Ruby will ( in my opinion ) surpass Perl in this regard, but until that day comes, I will still be writing some Perl.

Even more recently I have been writing a lot of Groovy code. Groovy is a great Java scripting language that has access to the entire Java API. It is incredibly useful language and I highly recommend giving it a try. 

All that said, lets get on to the subject at hand.. Transportable Perl.  Ok, what the heck does that mean? Perl scripts are generally transportable from system to system and can even, within some limits, move from OS to OS. What I am referring to, is the ability to move the Perl executable from one place to another on your system without recompiling Perl. Why would you want to do this? Well, several reasons spring to mind. Out of space on a primary disk. Disk restructuring. You work for a company that delivers OSS content to the desktop, and you want to be able to install Perl anywhere the end-user wants to specify, without making them recompile. 

And that, is the exact reason why I have been looking at the issue.

When you compile 'C' projects you can ( and frequently do ) specify the install directory where the build artifacts will reside. [ - - prefix during configure on Unix systems ]  That is very handy. However, lets say you precompile perl to the install directory of c:\toolbox\perl.  Then you bundle that compiled binary and place it on a different computer say in c:\tacklebox\perl.  The Perl interpreter will work. It will run perl scripts and everything will be fine.

Unless….  you want to extend that install of Perl. You just found a cool new module on CPAN, and you want to install it and play with it. Now, you have an issue with that new path. The original path                  ( c:\toolbox\perl ) is compiled into, and configured into that Perl distribution. Even if you have the right tools to compile that module on your windows ( yuck! ) box, it will install it into that old path, rather than the new path you would rather have. 

We need some tool that can fix that inbred old path turning it into the new  path that we really want.  What tool should we use to do that? Perl, of course,  it is a great language to data parsing and replacement.

The first  thing we need to do is find all of the places were that old path is lurking. 

Most module builds will use the Perl module ExtUtils::MakeMaker and Config to generate the Makefile that will be used to install the module. That module creates / uses several files by which it generates the makefile. Those files are the key to moving the Perl install. With just a few one liners you can fix the install path. The first file to work on is in the Perl source, it is config.sh.

We want to reset the "head" of the Perl distribution so an example one liner to do that would be.

perl -p -i.bak -e 's/c:\\toolbox\\perl\\lib/c:\\tacklebox\\perl\\lib/g' config.sh 

Then we would do the same command on the file Config-heavy.pl. ( Found in the lib dir of Perl )

We need to do the same on the Config.pm file, but as we look in it, we see that it uses double slashes rather than singles for referencing directories. ( man, that is a pain in the neck!!) So, we would modify our  one liner to look like this :

 perl -p -i.bak -e 's/c:\\\\toolbox\\\\perl\\\\lib/c:\\\\tacklebox\\\\perl\\lib/g' config.sh

And viola!! you should have a working set of files. There are some gotchas along the way here. If you are using a UNIX style perl distribution, you will have the lib dir under the Perl src directory, you will need to make a copy of that and move it to lib. Also, Windows nmake will look for a config.h file in the src directory that does not exist. It does not have to have anything in it, but does need to be created.

Once you pull down a module, then you can run : perl Makefile.pl.   This should create a correct makefile for the new perl path and allow you to then run nmake, and build the module. nmake install && nmake test should both work ( if present in that particular module ) 

Additionally, the PERLLIB and PERL5LIB environment variables need to be set correctly for the new Perl location. 

The next steps would be to roll the changes into one "Fix" script. ( Creation of the environment variables, conifg.h file, in place edits of the config scripts ) Actually, in my case I have built these changes into the OpenLogic Enterprise software package, such that when a user of our software request an install of Perl, we can install a pre-compiled version of Perl, and then restructure the compiled elements to live anywhere on that users system that they request.