Feb 3, 2006 Linux

Time to upgrade: Linux on Dell 9150

Just recently I bit the bullet - the PCs I had at home no longer had the horsepower (memory mainly) to run the stuff I wanted (Oracle mainly). So I gave myself an early birthday present - a Dell 9150 with the Pentium D processor and 4Gb RAM. Very nice box - running the pre-installed XP was a scream.

The 250Gb HDD came fully allocated for Windows, but my intention was to get it dual booting Linux. There were a few issues, but nothing a few days of messing around and downloading/cutting CDs couldn't fix.

First, to repartition the HDD I used qtparted from a Knoppix boot CD. This worked with no problems at all - Knoppix even booted into a high resolution display and I was able to knock the XP partition down to 50Gb without reinstalling.

Things weren't so straightforward when I started the Linux install, where I was planning Red Hat. I first tried RHEL WS 4 and got nowhere because the installer booted into a graphics mode that the machine couldn't display. I couldn't be bothered persisting because I was really more motivated to go RHEL AS 3 (for compatibility with other systems I'm involved with). I had some update 1 CDs on hand (old I know), but nothing to lose so I proceeded to install. Bad idea - I had driver problems with everything from the Dell USB keyboard (only recognised after plugging/unplugging after boot, and always kicked kudzu into action); USB support in general; the Intel Pro100/1000 NIC (not supported by the e1000 driver); and the display driver (ATI Rage x600).

So nothing to do but spend (quite) a few hours downloading update 6. Luckily this proved to be worthwhile effort - after installing most of the issues are resolved. I still needed to update the e1000 driver, and my display is still running VESA compatible mode but that's OK for me since when booted into Linux I'm mainly just using it as a server. If I want the graphics, sound etc then that usually means I've booted back into XP to dive into Age of Empires III or somesuch;-)

So overall - I'm really happy with the 9150, although I must say where there were a few moments while dealing with Dell's terrible support for Linux on the desktop machines that I was wondering if I made the right buying decision. Dell really should get their act together in terms of supporting Linux on the "consumer" range.
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Dec 14, 2005 Cocoon OC4J

Running Cocoon with Oracle OC4J

After testing AXIS , I quickly moved on to check the latest Cocoon 2.1.8 release. I'd tried getting earlier versions running with OC4J but given up due to the xerces, xalan and jdk certification mix - it was hell. Fortunately Cocoon 2.1.8 worked (almost) perfectly first time with Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE 10g (10.1.2.0).

After building Cocoon, I simply used a manual installation with the standalone version, which simply required $ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/home/config/application.xml and $ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/home/config/http-web-site.xml to include the Cocoon webapp.

The only "fixup" required - and this is for a non-fatal SAX processing error - is to force Cocoon to use the XML parsers etc that are included in the Cocoon distribution instead of the default (Oracle) parsers included in the OC4J distribution. The fix is to force "search-local-classes-first. To do this edit $ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/home/application-deployments/<your Cocoon deployment path>/orion-web.xml. Uncomment the line:
<web-app-class-loader search-local-classes-first="true" include-war-manifest-class-path="true" />
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Dec 13, 2005 Axis OC4J

Running AXIS with Oracle OC4J

AXIS 1.3 was released back in October, so I thought it was about time to test it out with Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE 10g (10.1.2.0). Good news .. all went absolutely smoothly, no frigging about with jar files at all.
Since Axis is a simple web module, manually deploying to Standalone OC4J is straightforward. After putting the web application files in place, register the module in application.xml and the web app root in http-web-site.xml:

1. copy the axis webapp directory into $ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/home/applications/axis
2. edit $ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/config/application.xml to add <<code>web-module id="axis" path="../applications/axis"/>
3. edit $ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/config/http-web-site.xml
   to add <<code>web-app application="default" name="axis" root="/axis"/>

At this point, I had the AXIS welcome page coming up nicely at http://localhost/axis/. For the next 5 minutes, I played around with some drop-in web services. Very cool and easy!
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Dec 4, 2005 Ajax

Time to test out AJAX?

I see AJAX popping up in discussions ever more frequently these days, an apparent groundswell around the next great thing for solving the perennial issue of delivering a rich client experience over the web. So far I've just been reading and listening. As with all new acronyms, it takes a while to figure out just exacly what the hell its all about. My "Ahah!" moment came after reading an article at AdaptivePath.
I must admit it seems AJAX is more a pattern than a specification, and its by no means clear that AJAX is anything more that a fad. It's not hard to find some interesting and contrary points of view on the web - QuirksBlog for example.
Anyway, after all that reading, I'm itching to at least go for a test drive. Have to have some playtime soon ... and after listening to this webdevradio podcast, I think I may start out with a look at phAtJAX.
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