OpenSolaris was lacking virtual console for a while. This support was made available since build snv_124. However, due to various bugs, it is turned off by default. To enable virtual consoles, do the following.

$ pfexec svcadm enable vtdaemon
$ pfexec svcadm enable console-login:vt2
$ pfexec svcadm enable console-login:vt3
$ pfexec svcadm ...

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One of the key things that I try to do when I take portraits is to focus on the eye of the subject. This is a well documented technique and works very well. Also, each lens has a sweet spot aperture for which the picture is really crisp. I find ...

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This winter, I decided to give Alpine Skiing a try. As I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, Lake Tahoe is the natural choice for me to go for skiing. Me and three of my friends went to Tahoe the Christmas weekend. We stayed in The Ridge Sierra at ...

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• We were troubleshooting an interesting problem with GCC/gdb that caused gdb to report an argument passed by reference as if it was passed by value. In the process, I was digging up some DWARF information. Ever wondered what exactly gcc is adding to support the debuggers when you use ...

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• Editing big chunks of text in Firefox text area is a pain. I am using "It's all Text" Firefox add-on to edit text from a text area in external editors like Emacs, Vim, etc. I have configured my add-on to use emacsclient. I use this heavily when I have ...

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• I have an Apple TV and I run XBMC and Boxee on my Apple TV using Patchstick. Apple introduced Apple TV 3.0 Software last week. Somehow, the software just got upgraded automatically causing me to lose XBMC and Boxee. Patchstick isn't available for Apple TV 3.0 yet ...

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• Since I updated to OpenSolaris update snv_124, I am facing issues with Indic fonts rendering. I have created a bug describing the problem. The root cause of the problem isn't diagonized yet. If someone knows what could be wrong, please let me know.
• I keep hearing a lot about ...

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-> Update 2009-11-07: This issue is fixed in OpenSolaris build snv_126. <-

OpenSolaris dev repository update snv_116 introduced an XOrg bug that caused the mouse cursor to jump to the top left corner of the screen very frequently. Apparently, there is some floating point math issue is involved using MMX/SSE2 instructions ...

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• My (ex-)manager David Carlton has decided to leave us to join Playdom. I learned a lot in the past two years working with him. We are going to miss him a lot! Playdom is fortunate to have such a talented individual on board. I am sure he will be ...

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Recently, I had to install Mercurial on one of our Solaris 10 development machines without root access. The installation procedure was a little bit tricky. So, I thought it would be helpful to share the experience.

First, I downloaded Mercurial source and extracted it. This is a standard procedure for ...

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