Building BerkeleyDB on Solaris 10

This may be a running blog entry. So far the first problem I ran into was getting the 'configure' script to run correctly. The error I kept getting was that my C compiler did not create executables. The problem was that Solaris has a native 'cc' compiler in the /usr/ucb/bin directory. Apparently Berkeley DB configuration always looks for the native compiler before looking for 'gcc'. So the answer was to set the CC environment variable to 'gcc' and then everything worked. Of course this presuemes that gcc is installed. I have been amazed at the amount of 'stuff' I had to install on Solaris after the initial install. The Solaris package management system leaves much to be desired (as far as I can tell -- maybe I'm just missing something). I was reduced to the old method of trying to install a package, check the dependency errors, then tracking back to install the dependicies first, etc. It took a while to setup all the tools that I was used to getting when would work on a clean RedHat install.

Crysis Demo...Oops

I preordered the Crysis video game from the EA store so I could get the demo a little earlier and not get bogged down with swamped file servers, So I downlaoded the demo last night. I was able to decrypt it this morning. I then ran the installation...so far so good...and then I tried to run it and.....wham! You need to be logged into the EA Download Manager to authenitcate your copy of this game. The only problem is....I was logged in. I logged out and logged in, I shutdown the download manager and restarted and logged in, i rebiooted my whole computer and relogged in. But all in vain...ah well. I develop software for a living and so I'm spympatheitc to all the difficulties of developing software. But I can say from a developer stand point that there's not many things more frustating than to spend months and months developoing some very difficult code only to have the final product experience "screwed up" by a third party distribution mechanism. So, I feel sorry fopr Crytek but not for EA.

So until I get my demo working...here's a video to help alleivate the frustration.

An interesting perspective on life

I'm always intrigued by how people handle dying...especially since we all have to do at some point.