I am a fan of the previous incarnation of the PlugComputer so I was excited to see that Marvell have unveiled a new PlugComputer dubbed imaginatively "PlugComputer 3.0."
PlugComputer 3.0 Features:
Smaller sleeker design,
More powerful CPU - 2gz Armanda 300 CPU,
120GB 1.8-inch SATA hard drive,
Wifi,
Bluetooth,
10/100/1000 wired Ethernet,
USB 2.0.
512MB of RAM
512MB of Flash memory
I for one would like to see an additional Ethernet port added to increase application flexibility, for some applications where you are using clustered plugs or even for routing, having multiple Ethernet ports is a must.
Even without multiple ethernet ports, these low power consumption devices really could have a place in SME environments, replacing large cumbersome legacy hardware with compact Linux plug servers.
More information about the PlugComputer can be found here
If you are running your Redhat/Centos or Fedora machine in an enterprise environment you may be sitting behind a network proxy server like squid.
If you try and update or install software it will fail with timeouts or errors contacting the repository mirrors.
To configure YUM to work with your proxy server you need to add the following line to your /etc/yum.conf file.
Anonymous proxy configuration:
proxy=http://yourproxyip:port/
If your proxy server requires authentication add the following lines to your /etc/yum.conf file instead.
proxy=http://yourproxyip:port/ proxy_username=youruser proxy_password=yourpassword
You will be able to update and install software now, give it a go!
It would appear that gigabit LAN is not! In fact it often runs at the same speed as 100Mbps LAN. Let's look at why exactly.
After configuring your network you can use the ifconfig command to see what speeds the LAN is connected. Even though 1000Mbps is reported by the card, the reality is that the overall throughtput may well be ~100Mpbs. You can try copying a large file using scp to demonstrate this.
As it turns out, in order to use a gigabit LAN you need to use CAT6 cables. CAT5 and CAT5E are not good enough. End result, the ethernet cards throttle back the speed to reduce dropped packets and errors.
You can find a good article here titled Squeeze Your Gigabit NIC for Top Performance. After tuning up the TCP parameters i found that it made no dfifference. The principal reasons behind low gigabit ethernet performance can be summed up as follows.
- Need to use CAT6 cables
- Slow Disk speed
- Limitations of the PCI bus which the gigabit ethernet cards use
You can get an idea about the disk speed using the hdparm command:
Display the disk partitions and choose the main linux partition which has the / filesystem.
# fdisk -l
Then get disk cache and disk read statistics:
# hdparm -Tt /dev/sda0
On my desktop system the sata disk perfomance is a limiting factor. These were the results:
/dev/sda1:
Timing cached reads: 9984 MB in 2.00 seconds = 4996.41 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 84 MB in 3.13 seconds = 58.49 MB/sec
Well, that equates to a raw disk read speed of 58.49 * 8 = 467Mbps which is half the speed of a gigabit LAN.
So.. NAS storage with lots of memory looks to be the way to go... If you use the right cables!
One of the attractive features of Linux is the impressive 3D desktop that even works on most older hardware.
You can enabled the 3D Desktop on CentOS5 by installing the compiz package:
yum install compiz
After you have done this, go to the top panel and click System, then select Preferences > and click 'Desktop Effects.
You will get a new dialog. To test and see if your hardware supports the 3D Desktop, press the button Enable Desktop Effects. If everything works fine, you can select Keep Settings.
Then test your 3D Desktop by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Left and Ctrl-Alt-Right, or drag a window around or even out of the screen to the left or right. If you maximize a window, you will see another cool effect. If you move the mouse to the upper-right corner of the screen you see all your opened applications.Way cool!
To insert code samples into your articles in joomla, you use the pre tag like this:
<pre xml:lang="xxx"> your code goes here </pre>
You can use any of the following languages for colorizing your code in articles.
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ocaml-brieftcl, bf, haskell, ocaml, teraterm, blitzbasic, hq9plus, oobas, text, bnf, html4strict, oracle11, thinbasic, boo, idl, oracle8, tsql, caddcl, index.html, pascal, typoscript, cadlisp, ini, perl, vbnet, cfdg, inno, per, vb, cfm, intercal, php-brief, verilog, cil, io, php, vhdl, c_mac, java5, pic16, vim, cobol, java, pixelbender, visualfoxpro, c, javascript, plsql, visualprolog, cpp, kixtart, povray, whitespace, cpp-qt, klonec, powershell, winbatch, csharp, klonecpp, progress, xml, css, latex, prolog, xorg_conf, delphi, lisp, providex, xpp, diff, lolcode, python, z80, div, lotusformulas, qbasic
// determine how many Recital users are on the system
nusers = pipetostr("ps -ef | grep db.exe | wc -l")
This guide will assist you in setting up an rsnapshot backup server on your network. rsnapshot uses rsync via ssh to perform unattended backups of multiple systems in your network. The guide can be found on the centos website here.
In this article Barry Mavin, CEO and Chief Software Architect for Recital, gives details on Working with user-defined Functions in the Recital Database Server.
Overview
User-defined functions (UDFs) are collections of statements written in the Recital 4GL (compatible with Visual FoxPro) stored under a name and saved in a Database. User-defined functions are just-in-time compiled by the Recital database engine. User-defined functions can be used in SQL statements to extend the power and flexibility of the inbuilt functions. Using the Database Administrator in Recital Enterprise Studio, you can easily create, view, modify, and test Stored Procedures, Triggers, and user-defined functions.
Tip
You can also extend the Recital Database Server with C Extension Libraries and use the functions defined within that library also.Creating and Editing user-defined functions
To create a new User-defined function, right-click the Procedures node in the Databases tree of the Project Explorer and choose Create. To modify an existing User-defined function select the User-defined function in the Databases Tree in the Project Explorer by double-clicking on it or selecting Modify from the context menu. By convertion we recommend that you name your User-defined functions beginning with "f_xxx_", where xxx is the name of the table that they are associated with.
Testing the user-defined function
To test run the user-defined function, select it in the Databases Tree in the Project Explorer by double-clicking on it. Once the Database Administrator is displayed, click the Run button to run it.
Example
Example: user-defined function "f_order_details_total".
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// example user-defined function
function f_order_details_total(pUnitprice, pQuantity, pDiscount)
return (pUnitprice + pQuantity + pDiscount) > 0
endfunc
Example: using the user-defined function in a SQL SELECT statement.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // sample code to use a user-defined function in a SQL SELECT statement select * from customers where f_order_details_total(Unitprice, Quantity, Discount)
Using user-defined function libraries with the Recital Database Server
You can place all of the user-defined functions associated with a particular table into a procedure library. You then define an Open Trigger for the table that opens up the procedure library whenever the table is accessed. This is a much faster way of using user-defined functions as it reduces the amount of file open/close operations during a query and also simplifies development and maintenance.
By convertion we recommend that you should name the library using the convention "lib_xxx", where xxx is the name of the table that the library is associated with.
Example: procedure library in lib_order_details.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// example user-defined functions
function f_order_details_total(pUnitprice, pQuantity, pDiscount)
return (pUnitprice * pQuantity - pDiscount) > 0
endfunc
function f_order_details_diff(pUnitprice, pQuantity, pDiscount, pValue)
return f_order_details_total(pUnitprice, pQuantity, pDiscount) - pValue
endfunc
Example: Open Trigger in dt_order_details_open.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // This trigger will open up the procedure library when the table is opened set procedure to lib_order_details additive
Example: Close Trigger in dt_order_details_close.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // This trigger will close the procedure library when the table is closed close procedure lib_order_details
Example: using the user-defined function in a SQL SELECT statement.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // sample code to use a user-defined function in a SQL SELECT statement select * from customers where f_order_details_total(Unitprice, Quantity, Discount)
User-defined functions can also be used with any of the Client Drivers that work with the Recital Database Server.