Mark's blog

I found this a while back but was particularly pleased with the result, so I thought I'd post it here. Here's what I look like at work most days :

I have finished work on a bunch of new PHP packages - there are a lot of changes with these, so be warned that there will probably be a few tweaks needed here and there before they're ready for the prime time. However, if you're feeling brave and would like to test, I'd appreciate any comments or feedback. They are all available at the usual place, http://www.blastwave.org/testing/ . A full list of packages is included in the full body of this entry. The 2 major changes for this release are : Modular extensions The mod_php package now just includes a very minimal "core". Many extensions are now built as shared libraries and have been split off into their own packages. The reasoning behind this is that a user can just grab what they need, instead of a huge monolithic build of PHP that eats up memory with things that they very probably don't need - not to mention saving space and time by not downloading all the various dependencies that go with it. Under this new system, if you just want PHP with, say MySQL and OpenSSL support, you would install mod_php, then php4_mysql and php4_openssl. Multiple SAPIs, Apache 2 support I have removed the dependency on CSWapache from the core mod_php package. The reasoning behind this is that a user may just want the CLI or CGI executables. These are shipped as /opt/csw/bin/php and /opt/csw/bin/php-cgi respectively. There is also now an Apache 2 module shipped alongside the standard Apache 1. These have both been relocated to /opt/csw/lib/php/sapi. The postinstall script will check for the presence of CSWapache or CSWapache2, and if found, will activate itself. As long as both servers are listening on different ports, you can even run both on the same machine. The big caveat here is that if you are using Apache 2 and PHP, you should only ever use the prefork MPM. The PHP folks still seem to consider Apache 2 support as "experimental", but many Linux distros ship with it enabled and I've yet to hear bad things about it as long as prefork is used. Continue reading "First set of new PHP packages ready for testing"

Well, by now, pretty much every news site and blog across the world has picked up on the fact that Apple are making the move to x86. It doesn't really come as much surprise; IBM made promises it hasn't met, and the G4/G5 line has stagnated while x86 romped past it. As a recent Mac convert, I can't help but feel in some small way annoyed - but it's mostly down to the fact that the resale value of my Powerbook just took a nosedive. But then, I wasn't planning on upgrading for a good few years yet, so that's largely irrelevant. Come to think of it, the actual processor that my computer runs is also largely irrelevant. I don't use Solaris on servers, or Mac OS X on my laptop because they run on SPARC or PPC; I use them because of the relative merits of the OS. I brought my Powerbook because I liked the wide screen and the built-in WiFi, but mainly for Mac OS X : A powerful, full-featured UNIX system that I could also stand to use as a desktop for more than 5 minutes. It could be running on x86, PPC, SPARC, Heck, even ARM - but it's the OS that sold me. As long as the supply of Mac OS PPC applications doesn't suddenly dry up (which I can't really see happening, just because of the large install base out there), I'm cool with it. It just means in 3 or 4 years, my next PowerBook will be Intel Inside, and will hopefully also dual-boot Solaris !