So, I've been doing a bunch of work on ClearSilver recently. First, I had to make it work with autoconf, to make it easier to compile on various platforms, and make it easier to add/subtract different modules (especially with Dave's insistence on a working version for Windows.)

Then, we needed hash tables for HDF so we don't have to walk long linked lists when people load way too much data into a single level of HDF.

And I figured, since I got autoconf working, I should try the new release on as many platforms as I could get to. I don't have as many platforms to play anymore as I got rid of my Solaris and Linux/alpha boxes a while back, and just about everyone I know is running either Linux of FreeBSD. So, I decided to try and install Solaris 9 for x86 on my VMWare installation.

Now, I've been using VMWare for quite a while now. Until I got my recent laptop, I was running entirely on Linux for a number of years, but I still needed access to Windows for a couple things:

• testing against IE (and AOL for that matter)
• MS Office (since OpenOffice hasn't fixed their fonts yet)
• QuickBooks for Neotonic's books

So, I just purchased VMWare 4 the other day, but I've been running it since v1. Most of the information on installing Solaris on VMWare talked about it being sometimes flaky but otherwise usually no problem. It took a while to download the 4 CDs from Sun, then even longer to figure out a way to get them onto the one box in the office with a CD-R drive (I learned latter I could have just mounted the iso files directly, darn). And installing took forever.

Now, I don't even remember the old Linux installers from SLS and others being as bad as the Solaris installation. I was using the console based one, since it didn't recognize the VMWare VGA card and I just figured that'd be easier. It kept asking the same questions about the network settings and the timezone, etc. In the end, networking just wouldn't work, so I gave up. This was with VMWare 3.2, I guess I could try again with v4, but I just decided it wasn't that important.

I then asked some friends for a login for FreeBSD, and got one and it compiled practically out of the box on there (though I had to add a check for the apache version, since our apache module doesn't support 2.0 yet). And one of those wacky FreeBSD people suggested I make a Port, so I've been working on that as well (and an rpm too, since I already know how to do that and its practically the same thing). Of course, ports and rpms and packages all mean it has to be installed, where clearsilver to date has been designed more as a part of your build tree (since that's the way it works here at Neotonic). Fun Fun Fun, I guess.

Anyways, the first version just with autoconf and the hash table stuff is available, its 0.8.1. And 0.8.2 will be coming soon with a new ClearSilver.h file, an install make target, and hopefully a FreeBSD port and a Linux RPM. And I should really talk to that guy about the Ruby module, and hassle Dave about the C# module.