Thoughts about Apple computers

What I like most about Apple is Mac OS X.
The design of their computers is also important for me but not so much.

We own a Mac Mini G4 and we like it but time has come and some parts became defective. The Superdrive and the ethernet port.

So I started to look around for this parts and their prices. During this I looked also to prices of other computers. What a surprise. Most of the PCs are half the price. That's very disappointing. I've also discovered gOS which looks fabulous.

All this makes me think. Are Apple Computers overpriced? Do I really want to pay extra for Apple logo and OSX?

May be if my renter would pay me as he should I would simply buy those faulty parts as external devices + USB Hub and all would be OK.

Money, Money, Money, must be funny in a rich man's world.

61% Apple adicted

61%How Addicted to Apple Are You?

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Leopard

I was provided with a copy of Leopard (thanks Sjon) so that I can try what it can do.

Installation - really smooth. no more that 3 next clicks. I did not watch for installation time. But I guess it took around an hour on my Mac Mini G4 1.42MHz

Desktop - really nice. Eyez candy all around. But it seems more dark to me than Tiger.

Spaces - really appreciate this feature. I've missed it since I switched from Linux to OS X

Stacks - looks nice. Did not have much time to use it so far

Quick look - that's something. Really love it.

Finder - looks better, improved. did not test it much yet.

Time Machine - don't have spare external HDD to be able to try it.

Performance - it's more memory hungry. I suppose because of all these eye candy stuff. But it's quite speedy. So far I did not experienced any big performance issue.

It's really nice unfortunatelly I don't have money for it in our budget. I'll have to stick with Tiger because I don't want to steal software. May be someday next year.

AIX: Add UDF FS on DVD-RAM

How to create it

udfcreate -d /dev/cd0 #create a UDF file system
udflabel -d /dev/cd0 -l testdvd #Change the label on UDF fs
udfcheck -d /dev/cd0 #Check a UDF fs


And how to use it

mkdir /dvddisk
mount -V udfs -o rw /dev/cd0 /dvddisk


Disable OSX Startup sound

mac osx hint 1.
mac osx hint 2.

AIX: HW SW invenory


prtconf #prints some basic info about your machine
lsdev -CH #lists all customized devices
lsvg #lists all volume groups
lsvg rootvg #lists info about rootvg
lsps -a #lists all paging spaces
lspv #lists all physical volumes
bootlist -om normal #lists bootlist for normal mode of booting
lslpp -a all #lists all installed sw


Can be useful to store before some big change on your AIX server (TL ML upgrade, etc.)

AIX: odmget examples


odmget -q"name=hdisk0" CuDv # get ODM object in the CuDv that describes hdisk0 disk device

odmget -q"name=hdisk0 and attribute=pvid" CuAt # get ODM object that stores the PVID

odmget -q"value3=hdisk0" CuDvDr # get major,minor number of special file for hdisk0

odmget -q"name=rootvg" CuDep # query ODM class to identify all LVs that belong to rootvg

odmget -q"parent=rootvg" CuDv # the same as previous command

Can be usefull when troubleshooting LVM related problems

For in KSH

I needed to create some files. I wanted to use seq command but not found on AIX. I had to simulate it with while. Here it is:


#!/bin/ksh
integer i=1
while ((i<5000))
do
# print "$i"
touch $i
i=i+1
done


Usefull aliases


alias L='ls -FLb'
alias LL='ls -FLlb'
alias a='alias'
alias h='history'
alias j='jobs -l'
alias l='ls'
alias la='ls -la'
alias ll='ls -l'
alias m='less'
alias psx='ps -auxw ¦ grep $1'
alias dux='du -sk * | sort -rn'


I want this

Not log time I go I bought a external hard drive - My Book Premium 320GB - and this last addition speed up my Mac Mini so I finally reached the performance which does not slow me down. In fact I'm the snail now.

So, I'm thinking about buying some additions which would enhance tidiness on my desk. Sonet Tech recently released this mount for Mac Mini with which I instantly fall in love. With it you can place your Mini either under the desk or on your LCD if it supports VESA standard. Unfortunately it'll take some time till some distributor or reseller will start selling it in Czech Republic. Till then I'll have to wait or create one by my own (which is highly unprovable).

Parse line to variables in KSH

I needed to read information from line and store it in separate variables in ksh. After some googling and tests I finally found out the right solution. It's so obvious and simple. I have to learn to think in more simple way. So here it is.

File with infos:

Columns:"volume group" "mount point" "size" "mount group"

datavg /data/test1 10 data
datavg /data/test2 10 data
datavg /data/test3 70 data
datavg /data/test3 10 data


The script:
#!/bin/ksh

#
# Name: genfs.sh
# Auth: Miroslav Pilat
# Date: 5.6.2007
# Desc: Script will create LVs and FSs in described VG.
# Infos are read from genfs.txt
#

F_SRC="genfs.txt"
CNT=0
LPSIZE=16

while read VG MNTP RSIZE MNTG; do

if (( $CNT < 10 )); then
CNTS=00$CNT
else
CNTS=0$CNT
fi


LVNAME="L$VG""_""$CNTS"


if (( $RSIZE < $LPSIZE )); then
LP=1;
else
LP=$(( $RSIZE / $LPSIZE ));
fi

echo "mklv -t jfs2 -y $LVNAME $VG $LP"
echo "crfs -v jfs2 -d /dev/$LVNAME -m $MNTP -u $MNTG -a size=$RSIZE""M"
echo "-----------------------------------------------------------------"

((CNT++))
done < $F_SRC


The bold text in the code section is the magic. It took me almost 2 hours to find out how to do it. It's plain simple. KSH/Bash variable IFS is by default set to space tab new line (\n) so when you read from file or stdin the information is automaticly split in to variables you specify after read command. Very simple.

Some description to the script:
It's not a bulletproof script so it just echos the commands needed for LV and FS creation. Use it on your own risk.

Purpose:
Speed up creation of testing LVM enviroment on AIX machine.

Abbreviations:

• VG - volume group
• LV - logical volume
• FS - filesystem
• IFS - internal field separator