Stuart Herbert | Gentoo

I’ve pulled across Jon Scruggs et al’s NX/FreeNX updates from the overlay into Portage. Everything’s masked at the moment - we need a bit of time to make sure everything made it across.

If you’ve never tried the commercial NX server before, or the GPL’d FreeNX alternative, they’re the equivalent of Windows Terminal Server / Remote Desktop, but for Linux.

Today has served as a timely reminder to me that not everyone understands that it’s perfectly possible to have both PHP4 and PHP5 installed in Apache at the same time. A lot of folks just stop when they learn that you can’t load mod_php4 and mod_php5 at the same time into Apache. There’s no solution in the excellent PHP Manual that I could spot this afternoon (maybe I’ve just missed it?), and a lot of folks just don’t get any further along than that.

(I think it’d be very interesting if it was possible to work out just how much this one issue is holding up wider adoption of PHP5)

Andreas Korthaus has kindly written some instructions explaining several different ways to configure Apache to work with PHP4 and PHP5 on Gentoo. He’s covered running one as an Apache module + one as CGI, as well as running one as an Apache module + one as CGI via mod_suphp. There’s also a list of other approaches with links for further information. Although the document was written for Gentoo, it should be easy enough to translate the instructions into your favourite distro.

Thanks, Andreas!

Jon from clickdensity sent me a link to a keyboard where the keys are tiny LED displays. I’ve no idea if this will ever get to market, but it sure looks like a cool concept!

According to their answers page, the API for it will be open - so it should be possible for us to have our very own Larry the Cow key shown no the keyboard, instead of a Windows key.

I’m currently designing an additional layer of caching for Amaxus (which I now have running on Gentoo ) and for clickdensity. Delivering a performance boost is great, but I’d also like the cache to gather some useful information on how well it is working. The stats are partly to impress management/customers … but I’m much more interested in stats for developers.

So far, my list of stats includes the obvious stuff - hit/miss ratio, CPU & RAM saved (when compared to the uncached version of the page), and a set of counters to keep track of each reason why the cache missed. But what other stats would you find useful, if it was your code?

So, Microsoft has now released Virtual Server 2005 R2 as a free download, just like VMWare Server. I’m expecting that most Windows-only shops will never look at VMWare, and will just install the free Microsoft product instead.

Microsoft has also announced support for Linux guest operating systems for Virtual Server 2005 R2. On the surface, it looks like a good move for shops that are predominantly Windows, but who need a little bit of Linux around the place as part of their business.

But what their release didn’t say is that you can’t just go to a website and download the components required for Linux guest os’s. To get hold of the components, you have to register with Microsoft Connect, and then apply to participate in the “Virtual Machine Additions for Linux” program.

That’s right - you have to apply.

I’m confident that this is just a formality - after all, how bad would it look if Microsoft were to announce Linux support for Virtual Server, but make it virtually impossible to actually get your hands on it?

At the moment, I’m waiting to see if my application is approved. If it is, hopefully it won’t prove too difficult to get Gentoo up and running under Virtual Server, by reusing the RedHat components Microsoft have posted.