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Posts from David Stewart (Intel) 

David Stewart is a software engineering manager at Intel Corporation. David currently manages a development group in the Open Source Technology Center. Prior to this role, David held a variety of management positions in Intel's Desktop Boards and Systems division and Server Products group. Prior to joining Intel in 1997, David held management and engineering positions in consumer software products and server products. David holds a BS in Computer Science and MS in Computer Science from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, which he received in 1983. You can catch Dave's non-work thoughts in his personal blog, http://davestewart.wordpress.com

A Quick Yocto-Grid

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on April 24, 2012 at 7:46 am
Comments (0)

Cross-posted from my blog on the Yocto Project site. Please go there for lots of great embedded Linux information. Here in Hillsboro, Oregon, we have an open office area, and I really wanted a monitor set up which would display the status of our Yocto Project autobuilder for all to see. Since I have a [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: Autobuilder, Digital Signage, Embedded Computing, embedded linux, linux, Open Source, The Yocto Project, Yocto, Yocto Project

The "Yocto-Yumminess" of our BSPs

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on April 6, 2012 at 3:27 pm
Comments (0)

This is cross-posted from my blog on the Yocto Project website. Please look over there for more Embedded Linux content. If you're a geek like me, you might find yourself watching some science fiction movie or show and wondering "why is it that we have no problem talking to extraterrestrials?" Sure, a wookie on Star [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: BSP, BSP Summit, BSPs, Embedded Computing, embedded linux, linux, Mentor Graphics, Texas Instruments, The Yocto Project, Yocto, Yocto Project

The things which make my head explode

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on March 30, 2012 at 10:29 am
Comments (0)

This is cross-posted from my blog on the Yocto Project web site. Please comment here or over there. And you can find a lot of great embedded Linux content over there as well. I was going for an easy run in Hillsboro, Oregon a couple of days ago and trying to think about a talk I [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: "Intel OpenCL SDK", application, Brazil, embedded, Embedded Computing, linux, Open Source, Oregon, rain, The Yocto Project, Yocto, Yocto Project

M2, Moneyball, and a new way to create software

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on January 29, 2012 at 10:28 pm
Comments (0)

Cross-posted from my blog on the Yocto Project website. Check us out there and the other things we're doing on Embedded Linux. I sat down this morning to jot down a few words about the latest Yocto Project development milestone, which has the very homely name of "M2". We pause at this time to branch [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: linux, QA, software metrics, The Yocto Project, Weighted Defect Density, Yocto, Yocto Project

Why Maintenance Releases Matter

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on December 22, 2011 at 5:44 pm
Comments (0)

I'm cross-posting this from my blog on the Yocto Project web site. Please go there to learn more about embedded Linux and the work we're doing in the Yocto Project to make it easier for you to develop embedded devices. As the calendar year winds down, I find myself tapping away at the keyboard at [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: embedded linux, linux, maintenance releases, Mentor Graphics, Montavista, Open Source, open source software, Software Engineering, The Yocto Project, Timesys, Wind River Systems, Yocto, Yocto Project

Our on-screen eye candy and the Yocto Project

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on December 6, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Comments (0)

Cross-posted from my blog on the Yocto Project website. Comment on it over there or here. The Linux Foundation did a nice little two-minute video clip of Jefro, our Yocto Project Community Manager, talking about last October's 1.1 release, and the upcoming 1.2 release planning. Check it out! Jefro discusses the Yocto Project 1.1 release [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: Embedded Computing, embedded linux, linux, The Yocto Project, Yocto, Yocto Project

Corks? Or Screw tops? Why the experience matters

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 22, 2011 at 6:29 pm
Comments (0)

Cross-posted from my blog on the Yocto Project web site. Respond here or over there. I've noticed a disturbing trend amongst a few of the high quality wineries in my state. They have abandoned the cork to close their high-end wine bottles and turned to screw caps. This is good news to people who struggle [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: embedded linux, linux, The Yocto Project, Yocto, Yocto Project

THE YOCTO PROJECT AT THE 2011 EMBEDDED LINUX CONFERENCE - EUROPE

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 9, 2011 at 9:34 am
Comments (0)

Cross-posting this from my blog on the Yocto Project site. Follow up with your comment here or on that other site. Much has been written about how the Internet has revolutionized collaboration and made it possible for your brilliant ideas to make a difference no matter where you live on the planet. Bill Gates is [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: embedded, Embedded Computing, Embedded Linux Conference - Europe, linux, Open Source, The Yocto Project, Yocto, Yocto Project

Meet Edison: the Yocto Project 1.1 release

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on October 21, 2011 at 12:40 pm
Comments (0)

Cross-posted from my blog on the Yocto Project website. Check out the complete site for more information. Back in my college days, I sang in the University Chorus, one of those big choirs who sang a variety of pieces, mostly classical and rarely a more contemporary song. One time we had a young music director [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: eclipse, embedded, Embedded Computing, embedded linux, Hob, linux, multi-lib, Open Source, The Yocto Project, x32, Yocto, Yocto Project

Opportunities to learn about the Yocto Project at IDF

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on September 12, 2011 at 3:56 pm
Comments (1)

If you are attending the Intel Developer Forum, you have a couple of great opportunities to learn about the Yocto Project and how it helps embedded Linux. Hands-on Lab: Create a Custom Embedded Linux* OS for Any Embedded Device using the Yocto Project - Wednesday (9/14) at 1:05PM, repeated at 3:20PM, Room 2012 - This [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Events, Open Source
Tags: AMTLINUXCLIENT, embedded, Embedded Computing, embedded linux, idf, Intel Developer Forum, linux, operating system, Operating system development, The Yocto Project, Yocto, Yocto Project

YOCTO 1.1 - THE BETA TEST

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on August 31, 2011 at 7:11 pm
Comments (0)

I'm cross-posting this from my blog over at the Yocto Project. Would you be willing to check out the beta of our next release? We finished up all of our expected feature development on the Yocto Project version 1.1, due out in October. After some stabilization and bug fixing, we're encouraging everyone to try out [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: beta, beta testing, embedded, Embedded Computing, embedded linux, linux, The Yocto Project, Yocto, Yocto Project

Aggressive Parking Negotiations and embedded computing

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on August 25, 2011 at 11:42 am
Comments (0)

Cross-posted from my blog on the Yocto Project web site. Follow up there for more useful embedded Linux information. I was just in Los Angeles this week for a few days of holiday with my family. With apologies to the Angelinos who might read this post, we got an excellent exposure to the local culture: [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: embedded, Embedded Computing, embedded linux, Yocto, Yocto Project

What it's like to work as a software person at Intel (video)

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on August 19, 2011 at 7:06 am
Comments (1)

I'm taking a break from my usual posts about embedded Linux and the Yocto Project to let you in on a little secret. Working at as a software person at Intel can be pretty awesome. A few weeks ago, we had a video crew stalking our offices, rolling tape on some of our work day. [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: embedded linux, linux, Yocto, Yocto Project

Go Big or Go Home

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on August 11, 2011 at 3:59 pm
Comments (0)

I cross-posted this in my blog on the Yocto Project website, you can follow up there with comments or here. A couple of months ago, the Yocto Project reached a kind of strange milestone. Some of my friends like Bill Mills suggested I should be blogging about it, but for some reason it was hard [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: embedded, embedded linux, The Yocto Project, Yocto, Yocto Project

Fresh Yocto Code - the M2 Milestone release for embedded Linux goodness

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on July 26, 2011 at 10:38 am
Comments (0)

Cross-posted from my blog on the Yocto Project site. Head over to http://www.yoctoproject.org for more information about the project, resources and all around good stuff Today we dropped another development milestone build for the Yocto Project. Introducing the M2 build. Our intent for these regular milestone drops is to synch up everything in the project [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: embedded linux, Hob, linux, Open Source, The Yocto Project, Yocto, Yocto Project

High Velocity Embedded Everything

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on July 11, 2011 at 2:42 pm
Comments (3)

I cross-posted this from my blog on the Yocto Project web site. You can comment on it here, on over there. The David Stewart home was in serious want of a stereo upgrade. The old setup was from the analog days, and with the dominance of Internet, High Definition and Blue Ray, I needed a digital-enabled [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: embedded, Embedded Computing, Embedded devices, embedded linux, linux, Open Source, The Yocto Project, Yocto, Yocto Project

Progress on the next Yocto Project release

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on June 17, 2011 at 5:08 pm
Comments (0)

I'm cross-posting this from my blog on the Yocto Project site. Head over there to check out videos, documentation and more stories about embedded Linux and the Yocto Project. We had a lot of excitement last April when we launched the 1.0 version of the Yocto Project. We celebrated a little while, and then got ourselves [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: embedded, Embedded Computing, embedded linux, The Yocto Project, Yocto, Yocto Project, Yocto Project Advisory Board

The Board and its Many Faces

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on May 3, 2011 at 8:22 am
Comments (1)

This is a cross-post from the Yocto Project web site. Follow up over there if you are interested in more information about embedded Linux projects. We had a great face-to-face meeting at the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit (LFCS) of what we were calling the Yocto Project Steering Group. In case you are worried that such [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: embedded, Embedded Computing, embedded linux, linux, Open Source, The Yocto Project, Yocto, Yocto Project, Yocto Project Advisory Board

"Comrades, we declare the Revolution... in a coffeehouse"

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on April 20, 2011 at 4:08 am
Comments (0)

This is a cross-post from my blog on the Yocto Project web site. Please visit us there for more information about the project and our work on embedded Linux. In a classic 1966 science fiction novel [1], some of the moon’s colonists are hiding out in a hotel room in Luna City in the year 2075, [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: embedded, Embedded Computing, Embedded devices, embedded linux, linux, Open Source, The Yocto Project, Yocto, Yocto Project

The Yocto Project Turns 1.0

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on April 6, 2011 at 1:40 pm
Comments (0)

This is cross-posted from my blog on the yoctoproject.org project web site at this link. Today, Wednesday April 6, 2011, the Yocto Project officially releases version 1.0. This is really significant for several reasons: There were a number of improvements to the software from the 0.9 release last October under the theme of improving the [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: bitbake, Embedded Computing, Embedded devices, embedded linux, Intel Open Source Software, linux, Open Source, The Yocto Project, Yocto, Yocto Project

Your Vote for the Future of Yocto

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on March 25, 2011 at 10:53 am
Comments (0)

I cross-posted this from my blog on the Yocto Project website. Hope you can help us for the future of embedded Linux. Just a gentle reminder that we are still soliciting your ideas for the next major release of the Yocto Project. Given that we are close to releasing the 1.0 version of the Yocto [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: Embedded Computing, embedded linux, linux, linux foundation, Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit, the linux foundation, The Yocto Project, Yocto, Yocto Project

The Storms of March

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on March 20, 2011 at 12:08 pm
Comments (0)

Cross-posting from my blog on the Yocto Project web site. Check out our site there for more embedded Linux goodness. Here on the first day of spring, the northen hemisphere is beginning to shake off the doldrums of winter and think about the summer to come. Here in western Oregon where I live, the trees [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: embedded, embedded linux, Embedded Linux Conference, Intel Open Source Software, Open Source, The Yocto Project, Yocto, Yocto Project

Yocto memes rule

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on March 12, 2011 at 7:20 am
Comments (0)

This is a cross-post from my blog on the Yocto Project website. One of the fun things about having a metric system term as a project name is that you can use it in so many useful ways. Just for review class, according to Wikipedia, a yocto-anything is 10-24 of that thing. So a yoctosecond [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: embedded, Embedded devices, embedded linux, linux, Metric, Metric system, Open Source, The Yocto Project, Yocto, Yocto Project

Embedded Linux has a new champion

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on February 12, 2011 at 9:58 am
Comments (0)

This is a repost of a blog entry I wrote over at the Yocto Project web site. You can follow our developments there, and join the community. I am really delighted that we now have a full-time Community Manager on the Yocto Project: he is Jeff Osier-Mixon, better known on IRC and email as "jefro". [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: Community management, embedded linux, linux, oscon, The Yocto Project, Yocto, Yocto Project

"Oh come on, it's just a build system"

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on January 4, 2011 at 3:18 pm
Comments (0)

Cross-posted from my blog on the Yocto Project website. I have a certain friend who will remain nameless. We know each other's wives and kids, and we have had a number of adventures together. At work, he manages a team doing mostly kernel development and optimization work. He has known about the Yocto Project from [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: Build systems, Intel Open Source Software, linux, Open Source, operating systems, Perl, The Yocto Project, Yocto, Yocto Project

"I don't know art, but I know what I like"

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on December 21, 2010 at 11:42 am
Comments (0)

Cross-posted from the Yocto Blog, www.yoctoproject.org. Would love to get your feedback here. We're currently looking over this website (www.yoctoproject.org) and discussing what we could improve. If you have any ideas, we would love to hear them - just pop a mail over to yocto@yoctoproject.org and send us your thoughts. We continue to add important [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: art, creative design, creativity, eclipse, embedded, embedded linux, embedded systems, Linux Kernel development, Web site development, Web sites, Yocto, Yocto Project

Announcing new Yocto Project kernel documentation

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 30, 2010 at 11:07 am
Comments (0)

The Yocto Project is pleased to announce some new kernel documentation on the yoctoproject.org web site and a revision for the Poky Reference Manual. Kernel Architecture and Use Manual We have just released a new manual on the project web site which explains the major concepts and usage of the Yocto Project kernel. The kernel [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: documentation, embedded, embedded linux, kernel, linux, Poky, Yocto, Yocto Project

Why my heart attack explains everything

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 19, 2010 at 5:38 pm
Comments (1)

Cross-posted from my blog on www.yoctoproject.org, the Yocto Project web site. I have spoken in recent weeks about the Yocto Project with several people who have a clue (and maybe even a few who don't). What seems universal is that the people who are deeply involved with Linux development for traditional embedded devices really understand [...]

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Category: Android, Embedded Computing, Mobility, Open Source
Tags: Digital Health, embedded, Embedded devices, embedded linux, embedded systems, linux, meego, Open Source, open source software, Yocto, Yocto Project

The natural evolution of building embedded Linux

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 16, 2010 at 11:21 am
Comments (3)

Cross-posted from my blog on the Yocto Project home site. Comments are welcome. The thing I love about engineers and working with engineers is that they rarely leave well enough alone. Particularly software engineers. They work with computers every day. Any kind of activity which is repetitive and boring is perfect to farm out to [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: Build systems, embedded, embedded linux, embedded systems, linux, Make, Makefiles, meta-data, Open Source, Shell, Shell scripts, Yocto, Yocto Project

Why embedded Linux needs a project like the Yocto Project

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 9, 2010 at 7:44 pm
Comments (0)

Cross-posting this from the blog on the Yocto Project website. See http://www.yoctoproject.org for a whole series of posts about embedded Linux. Last week I was presenting as a guest at the 8th International System-on-Chip Conference, discussing "Creating Coherence in SoC Linux". It was a lot of fun talking to a very knowledgable group of embedded [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: Build systems, embedded linux, embedded systems, linux, Sequent Computer Systems, SoC Conference, Yocto, Yocto Project

Making embedded demos is not pretty

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 4, 2010 at 5:48 pm
Comments (0)

Cross-posted from my blog on the Yocto Project website: There is an old saying that is quite reliable: "Those who love sausage and the law should see neither being made." I have a friend who once was involved in making what he called "hot pack" sausage. The description nearly turned me into a vegetarian. But [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: Cambridge, demos, embedded, embedded linux, Embedded Linux Conference - Europe, embedded systems, Yocto, Yocto Project

See you at the International SOC Conference

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 1, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Comments (1)

I'll be speaking this week at the 8th International System-on-Chip conference in Irvine, California. My topic is "Creating Coherence in SoC Linux" and I'll be talking about the Yocto Project. My intent is to show how Yocto can help embedded developers produce Linux-based solutions quicker and more reliably. I will also be on a panel discussion called "Software [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: embedded, embedded linux, embedded systems, SoC, SoC Conference, Yocto, Yocto Project

Four embedded architectures, grooving together under the Yocto Project

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on October 31, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Comments (0)

I posted this blog on the Yocto Project blog and reposted it here. You can access the Yocto Project at http://www.yoctoproject.org As an operating system, Linux really is highly portable. But for all of the places that Linux runs, embedded systems are the one place where you see a huge variety of instruction set architectures. [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: demo, demos, embedded, embedded linux, Embedded Linux Conference, Embedded Linux Conference - Europe, embedded systems, linux, Open Source

Announcing the Yocto Project - Embedded Linux project

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on October 27, 2010 at 2:52 am
Comments (0)

Recently I wrote on my blog here about how difficult it is to work with Embedded Linux. This was not intended to criticize Linux as an option for embedded. Rather, I wanted to create a discussion about the subject of build systems and why they are important for embedded projects. Again, here is what I [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: Build systems, embedded systems, linux, Open Source, Yocto Project

Why is Embedded Linux so hard?

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on October 19, 2010 at 4:53 pm
Comments (6)

Linux seems like an ideal OS to use to run a lot of devices - There is no cost for the software itself, so it's easy to get a project going quickly and for low cost. All of the source code is available, so finding and fixing problems is considerably easier. The software is highly [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: embedded, embedded linux, embedded systems

The hackable everything

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on October 15, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Comments (2)

My enthusiasm about embedded systems these days is tempered by some realities that can become dangerous. Some of them are downright spooky. Last July 4th, I ran in a little race (the "Flat Half" here in Portland). After the competition, as I was gulping water and munching on a snack, I ran into a friend [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: embedded, Embedded devices, embedded linux, embedded systems, Facebook, firefox, Hackers, Intel Management and Security Status, privacy

Wa hoo! The party comes to the realm of Very Small Things with Brains

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on October 12, 2010 at 2:59 pm
Comments (2)

I honestly get very excited about embedded systems. Why? The realm of Very Small Things with Brains is being charged with all of the power of threading, 32 bit and 64 bit computing and the Internet. This is opening up a lot of new capabilities in simple devices. Open Source has broken down many of the barriers [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing, Open Source
Tags: Embedded devices, embedded linux, embedded systems, Open Source, twitter

Shopping athletes get new embedded help

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on August 28, 2010 at 7:02 pm
Comments (0)

I'm not really big on "shopping" as a sport. Some people love to wander the up and down the aisles of Costco on a "treasure hunt" to see new and unexpected items for sale or wander from store to store in a shopping mall.  I'm more one of those "hunters" who targets what I need, [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing
Tags: Comdex, embedded, embedded linux, embedded systems, linux, Paul Otellini, Retail

Why Embedded has become cool (again)

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on August 23, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Comments (1)

When journalists or pundits consider the impact of the computer, they wax poetic about how today's smart phone has as much processing power as the mainframe computer of the 1970s. It makes me giggle to think of running the 1970 US census through my Google Nexus One. But the real impact of computing on our [...]

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Category: Embedded Computing
Tags: embedded, Embedded devices, M2M, machine to machine, parking meters

A Merlot, a Malbec and a Moblin

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on August 17, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Comments (1)

Last week, a few of us were talking about future Moblin OS releases, and we were just having fun and starting talking about our wish list for code name "themes".  You know, this is when a series of products are given code names before their real names go on, and the code names follow a [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: code names, Max OS, Open Source, operating systems, OS, Ubuntu, Windows

Surviving Hell Week

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on August 11, 2009 at 10:44 am
Comments (1)

Last week, most of my friends didn't hear much from me, both online and in reality. That's because I had one of those fun times when the big bosses come in and ask the team to deliver something special very quickly, above and beyond our usual commitments. These are pretty normal in our line of [...]

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Category: Open Source, Software Tools
Tags: health, management, Open Source, Software Engineering

Cloudy with a chance of Moblin

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on July 29, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Comments (1)

I noticed today in this blog post a reference to Moblin being a cloud-based OS. Primarily this is because Moblin 2.0 has services such as twitter, last.fm integrated into the OS, and these web services are considered "cloud computing" services. I guess if I were taking a more formalistic viewpoint, I might observe that social [...]

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Category: Mobility, Open Source
Tags: Cloud Computing, Google Maps, Intel® Atom™, moblin, Web 2.0

Moblin - the Web2.0 OS - and on getting heckled

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on July 24, 2009 at 11:01 am
Comments (1)

I gave a chalk talk yesterday on Moblin at OSCON 2009, the Open Source Convention in San Jose. This was a no slides white-board chat about what's cool in Moblin, where is the future going, and what are the ways people can collaborate and participate. I touched on some of the high points of what [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: Facebook, Fact Shutdown, Fast Boot, Flickr, Intel® Atom™, moblin, netbooks, Open Source, twitter, Web 2.0

You show me mine, I'll expo you yours, OSCON

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on July 23, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Comments (2)

Why do I love the show floor at conferences? It's almost impossible to have a reasonable conversation with the poor folks doing booth duty. Often this is because they might not be working in the area that you are interested in, or the noise level is just too high to have a good talk. Sadly, [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: moblin, Open Source, opensource, oscon, OSCON2009

Join me at OSCON 2009

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on July 23, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Comments (0)

I'm speaking in the OSCON 2009 show floor area at 3:00PM. I'll be in the Intel booth (about as obvious as can be). Come by and hear me talk about Moblin.

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Category: Open Source
Tags: moblin, Open Source, oscon, OSCON2009

How to develop apps for Moblin

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on July 22, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Comments (2)

More OSCON 2009 observaations Rob Bradford gave an excellent talk right after the keynotes on develoment of applications for Moblin. I really like Rob's talks, because he is quite energetic and makes good use of photos in his slides, which don't look at all like most Intel presentation slides. The content seemed similar to a [...]

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Category: Mobility, Open Source
Tags: moblin, Mojito, Open Source, oscon, OSCON2009, user interface

Dirk Hohndel gives Intel keynote at OSCON 2009

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on July 22, 2009 at 9:08 am
Comments (1)

I just heard Dirk Hohndel give the OSCON 2009 Intel keynote for Imad Sousou. Dirk is the chief open source technologist at Intel and this is the third year he has stepped in for Imad at the last minute at OSCON. Here are some notes I took from the Dirk's talk: Intel has gone from [...]

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Category: Mobility, Open Source
Tags: Intel, linux, moblin, netbooks, Open Source

"Jane! Stop this crazy thing!" (... called Moblin)

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on July 21, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Comments (5)

Over the past month or so, I viewed all of the episodes of "The Jetsons on DVD." I grew up in the 1960s in the US, and this show formed the unconscious fabric of our thinking about how the future would look, feel and behave. The end credits of that series showed the same little [...]

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Category: Mobility, Open Source
Tags: moblin, Open Source

What's cool about Moblin?

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on June 14, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Comments (5)

My good friends at the Intel Software Network have launched a terrific new way to deliver technology videos to the community: ISN TV. For their launch this week, they invited me to give a brief interview on Moblin v2.0, which had its beta release last month. This was a fun way to show you the [...]

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Category: Open Source, Site News & Announcements
Tags: Facebook, Fast Boot, Flickr, Intel Software Network, ISN TV, Last.fm, linux, Moble Internet Devices, moblin, netbooks, Social Networking, twitter

Two Years Later: Why Linux people still lust after DTrace

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on June 4, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Comments (2)

Bill Pearson from the Intel Software Network posted a declaration of a party on the occasion of the 2000th blog post on ISN. One of the highlights he listed was the conversation which was engendered by a post I did about two years ago called "Why Linux people lust after DTrace." My intent was simply [...]

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Category: Academic, Open Source, Site News & Announcements
Tags: DTrace, Intel Software Network, linux, OpenSolaris, powertop

Congrats to the OpenSolaris team for 2009.06

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on June 1, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Comments (3)

Although I'm not working actively on OpenSolaris any more, I was happy to see the launch today of OpenSolaris 2009.06. See Glenn's announcement email here. The download of the LiveCD distro went down without a hitch, and was surprisingly fast for the day of launch. Kudos to whomever set up the web infrastructure for day-of-launch. [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: compiz, OpenSolaris, OpenSolaris 2009.06, Poweer Aware Dispatcher, powertop, solaris

Moblin Beta and VirtualBox

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on May 20, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Comments (18)

Yesterday I installed Moblin version 2 Beta on my Asus eeePC 901, a netbook with a little Atom processor in it. It's been fun to walk it around with me yesterday and today showing people the future of our work here. I thought it would be kind of cool to try it out in a [...]

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Category: Manageability & Security, Mobility, Open Source
Tags: 3D graphics, moblin, netbook, VirtualBox, Virtualization

The Dawn of the Age of Moblin!

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on May 19, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Comments (3)

The public beta of Moblin v2 is here! If you don't know about Moblin, read Imad's blog for a complete introduction to the operating system, including a lot of good links. In fact, I'm typing this from my Asus eeePC 901 running Moblin. Some of my favorite features: Social media integration - I think Moblin [...]

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Category: Academic, Mobility, Open Source
Tags: Intel Atom, Intel® Atom™, moblin, Social Media

PowerTOP: Dave enters a video game

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on February 22, 2009 at 1:35 am
Comments (8)

Always wanted to see Dave Stewart fragged, as in "killed in a video game" ? Yes, I knew you did. Ah, yet another analogy goes haywire. This is another in a series of digital shorts about work Intel is doing in OpenSolaris. (Have I really done 15 of these things). This one is about PowerTOP, [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: Centrino, DTrace, Intel® Atom™, OpenSolaris, power management, powertop, solaris, Xeon

So... what's next for Intel in OpenSolaris?

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on January 25, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Comments (4)

Last week, I had a chance to present at Sun Tech Days in Singapore. It was originally going to be covered by Max Alt, my partner in crime from the field organization. But Max was asked to attend our annual sales and marketing conference that week, and asked if I could fill in for him. [...]

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Category: Manageability & Security, Open Source
Tags: Corei7, Nehalem, OpenSolaris, Singapore, solaris, Sun Tech Days, Westmere

Sun + Intel + OpenSolaris + 2 Years = The Year of Core

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on January 22, 2009 at 11:02 pm
Comments (12)

Today is the second anniversary of the Sun and Intel joint agreement to optimize the Solaris operating system for Intel Xeon processors. Like last year, when I wrote this summary of our work, I decided to recap where we are to date. Like last year’s edition, this is pretty much off the top of my [...]

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Category: Manageability & Security, Open Source, Software Tools
Tags: ACPI, DTrace, Dunnington, Fault Management Architecture, FMA, Intel Centrino2 processor, Intel Core Microarchitecture, Intel Xeon processor, IOAT, IOMMU, Nehalem, new instructions, NUMA, OpenSolaris, power management, powertop, solaris, SSE, Threading Building Blocks, Virtualization, wireless, x2APIC, Xen, xVM

OpenSolaris and Nehalem - a digital short

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on January 14, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Comments (9)

Another in the series of 5-minute videos on OpenSolaris and Xeon Processors. This one is about the details in our work on the Intel Core i7 processor, previously known as the codename "Nehalem". The community has been busting hump all year with a laser focus on optimizing OpenSolaris and Solaris for Nehalem. And why not? [...]

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Category: Manageability & Security, Open Source
Tags: Core i7, Nehalem, new instructions, NUMA, OpenSolaris, power management, solaris, SSE 4.2, Virtualization, Virtualization Technology, VT, Xen, xVM

How to get started reading blogs

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on January 3, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Comments (2)

On New Year's Day 2009, I was running with a group of friends in the driving rain of Portland, Oregon. On the drive back home after some hot coffee and cinnamon roles, I heard a discussion on the radio about blogging, and how some blogs have become the center for important discussion in global politics [...]

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Category: Academic
Tags: alltop, blog, blogging, blogs, Google Reader, Guy Kawasaki, Josh Bancroft, popurls, Social Media, Social Media & Virtual Worlds, Social Network, twitter

Singapore Tech Days - OpenSolaris and Intel

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on December 25, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Comments (1)

Just a quick note if you are celebrating anything between now and the end of January (Christmas, New Years, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Winter Solstice, Chinese New Year - did I catch everybody?) I will be speaking about Intel's work with OpenSolaris at the Sun Tech Days event, January 20-22 in Singapore. So if you are in [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: OpenSolaris, Singapore, Tech Days

ATOM support now in OpenSolaris

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on December 22, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Comments (14)

I just got a heads up that two very interesting changes were just put back to the OpenSolaris code base, related to the Intel Atom Processor: Performance counters for Atom. Support for the MOVBE instruction. A technical note I read on Intel's website states: "The Intel Atom Processor supports the MOVBE instruction which allows swapping [...]

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Category: Mobility, Open Source
Tags: Embedded devices, MID, Milax, Mobility, netbook, netbooks, OpenSolaris, solaris

Dave gets punked, eats crow

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on December 20, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Comments (4)

Just another day as the IT Manager of the Stewart Family. Youngest daughter, aged 17, runs up the stairs in anger and frustration - her computer won't work! Now to be fair, when my kids were younger, I used to get this kind of complaint fairly regularly. After about the second or third time of [...]

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Category: Academic, Manageability & Security, Open Source
Tags: Adware, Computer viruses, Malware, TinyURL, twitter

Does "popular" mean "better" in open source?

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on December 18, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Comments (1)

Here in the West, having a hit is considered the mark of success. If you do something that is really insanely great, it should become incredibly popular, no matter what the critics or the bloggers say. There are plenty of movies and books that are considered a "critical success" because the experts love the art. [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: DTrace, Jim Grisanzio, linux, OpenSolaris, solaris, Ubuntu, ZFS

Tech experts - worldwide innovation

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on December 12, 2008 at 2:24 am
Comments (2)

I have just finished the week in China, and I am again astonished at the caliber of technology talent here. A work acquaintance from a US-based technology company told me that he is mentoring up-and-coming technologists in Beijing. The way he put it was like this: "The smartest 1% of Chinese people is a really [...]

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Category: Open Source, Software Tools
Tags: china, globalization, innovation, OpenSolaris, PRC

Fantastic demo of OpenSolaris2008.11

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on December 11, 2008 at 1:55 am
Comments (1)

Roman Strobl, an OpenSolaris evangelist and an all around nice guy, has done a really terrific screencast of the new features in the newly launched OpenSolaris 2008.11. The video link is here All I gotta say is ... dang! Many more features than I had stumbled across in my random walk. And Roman gives props [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: Corei7, demo, Nehalem, OpenSolaris, OpenSolaris 2008.11, solaris

My favorite OpenSolaris 2008.11 features

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on December 7, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Comments (1)

The next OpenSolaris binary release is due to launch any time now. It's turning into a pretty slick and sexy desktop release. Here are some of my favorite features: As I previously wrote here, I am trying out one of the latest builds on my Intel Centrino 2 processor based laptop, a Sony VAIO VGN-Z540. [...]

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Category: Mobility, Open Source
Tags: centrino2, OpenSolaris, OpenSolaris 2008.11, solaris

Tech Days Tokyo

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on December 3, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Comments (2)

Tokyo Tech Days 2008, originally uploaded by jimgris. I am currently in sunny Tokyo, Japan, to give a talk about Intel's products and our work in Java and the OpenSolaris operating system. I talked about our processor roadmap, performance tuning, power management, virtualization, fault management, device drivers... well the whole tange of things we are [...]

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Category: Manageability & Security, Open Source
Tags: Japan, java, OpenSolaris, solaris, Tech Days, Tokyo

OpenSolaris and Open Source Graphics

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on December 3, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Comments (6)

This is the latest installment of my series of 5-minute videos on OpenSolaris topics. Intel actually contributes a lot in the graphics area for both OpenSolaris as well as other operating systems. We have some of the amazing luminaries of the X community working with us, and some really smart people. In 5 minutes, I [...]

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Category: Uncategorized

OpenSolaris and Centrino 2

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 27, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Comments (5)

Last summer, Intel launched our latest mobile computing platform, branded Intel Centrino 2 processor technology. For a long time as we were doing OpenSolaris development, I used to know this platform by its codename "Montevina", but that's all history now. Long live Centrino 2! This new mobile platform has some great features, like a multi-core [...]

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Category: Mobility, Open Source, Parallel Programming
Tags: ACPI, Centrino 2, DVD playback, graphics drivers, mobile, OpenSolaris, Power Efficiency, power management, solaris, wireless device drivers

OpenSolaris at the Intel Developer Forum - Taipei

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 18, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Comments (0)

Intel Developer Forum or IDF is our annual "geek fest" dedicated to helping the ecosystem involved with Intel to learn about our new technologies and how to succeed with them. We hold the biggest one in the late summer / early fall in San Francisco, then smaller events in the fall in Taiwan and in [...]

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Category: Events, Open Source
Tags: Glassfish, idf, IDF Taiwan 2008, java, MySQL, open solaris, OpenOffice, solaris, Taipei, Taiwan

OpenSolaris and Xeon Processors #10 - Turbo Mode

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 14, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Comments (4)

Here's the latest video in the series I am doing on OpenSolaris and Intel Xeon processors. This is about an exciting feature called "Turbo Mode" we have available in our new Intel Core Microarchitecture (aka "Nehalem"). I also give props to the community work on the "Power Aware Dispatcher" which should make use of the [...]

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Category: Open Source, Parallel Programming
Tags: Intel Core Microarchitecture, Nehalem, open solaris, solaris, Turbo mode

IDF 2008 Taiwan's mega venue - in HDR

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 5, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Comments (0)

I was totally blown away by the venue at the 2008 Intel Developer Forum (Taiwan). The keynote sessions were held in an auditorium that would seat 3000 easily. Surprises: Just to get into this massive room, you had to go up a floor or two. I just don't expect big spaces like this to be [...]

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Category: Events, Graphics & Media
Tags: HDR, idf, IDF Taiwan 2008, photos

Intel, Korea and OpenSolaris

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 4, 2008 at 11:31 am
Comments (0)

Last month, I had the privilege of spending a few days in Seoul, the capital of the Republic of Korea. I visited Seoul once before in 1990. That was two companies ago for me, my first management job, focusing on OS Internationalization. We were working with a division of the Ssangyong Group, which was OEM-ing [...]

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Category: Events, Open Source
Tags: Korea, OpenSolaris, Seoul, solaris, Sun Tech Days

OpenSolaris Student Edition

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 3, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Comments (2)

If you are a student (or know a student), I have some good news for you. One of the nifty little things I got my hands on last month was the OpenSolaris Student Pack. It’s a very nice packaging of the OS to get your feet as wet as you like. Disc 1 – This [...]

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Category: Academic, Open Source

OpenSolaris and Intel Video - Keeping Drivers under Control

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on October 31, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Comments (3)

One of the cool things we have added to OpenSolaris recently is a capability which strengthens the whole foundation of stability on which the OS and processor rests. It does this by addressing one of chronic weak links of any operating system. I'm very excited by this work, and hope you enjoy it! On the [...]

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Category: Manageability & Security, Open Source
Tags: IOMMU, OpenSolaris, solaris, Virtualization Technology, VT-d

Google love and OpenSource videos

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on October 30, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Comments (1)

Someone pointed out to me that I should google "xeon processors" and check out what pops up on the first page. Here is a screen shot of what happened when I did it this morning: Note towards the bottom the "video results for xeon processors" are the videos we have been doing for OpenSolaris work. [...]

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Category: Open Source, Site News & Announcements
Tags: Intel Software Network, OpenSolaris, solaris, video, Xeon

Lightning chat from Darrin and Dave

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on September 21, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Comments (4)

arrin Johnson, senior manager at Sun in the Solaris Core Kernel group, in a super brief video on our collaboration on OpenSolaris and the new Intel Xeon 7400 Series processor.  This vid was done as part of the launch of the 7400. This video is perfect for those with <b>extremely</b> limited attention spans.  It's less [...]

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Category: Manageability & Security, Open Source
Tags: OpenSolaris, solaris

Good demos - all open source and OpenSolaris

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on September 16, 2008 at 2:05 am
Comments (0)

I'm a sucker for a good demo. Not the flashy, pretty things, but the things which reveal that fundamental core technology is working, and we're on a path to delivering code. I'm in China all this week, catching up with my team here and our OpenSolaris community partners. Today in Beijing I saw a couple [...]

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Category: Game Development, Graphics & Media, Open Source
Tags: Beijing, china, demos, drivers, OpenSolaris, PRC, solaris, Visual Computing, wireless, wireless device drivers

Post number 100

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on September 12, 2008 at 9:50 am
Comments (4)

This is a day of blogging milestones for me! September 12 is the two year anniversary of my first blog post on the Intel Software Network. Back then, I was asked by an ISN guy named Krishna Subramanian to start an ISN blog and write about the upcoming 2006 Software Enabling Summit meeting. I felt [...]

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Category: Academic, Graphics & Media, Open Source, Site News & Announcements
Tags: blogs, digital photography, DTrace, HDR, linux, OpenSolaris

Setting your watch to the Tick-Tock clock

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on September 11, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Comments (1)

I make reference to Intel's Tick-Tock model a lot, particularly in talks I give at OpenSolaris events or Open Source conferences like OSCON. I never am quite satisfied with my explanation of it. I'm afraid that the software development oriented people I talk to will get lost in the line sizes and microarchitecture talk and [...]

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Category: Uncategorized

Why Wireless and OpenSolaris?

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on September 11, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Comments (15)

We have actually been putting considerable effort with the community to provide a suite of robust device drivers for Intel's wireless LAN products and the OpenSolaris operating system. Why do it? Why put this kind of effort into something which is clearly a feature for mobile devices into Solaris and OpenSolaris, which seem more server [...]

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Category: Uncategorized

HDR - Wooden Bridge in Essex, Montana

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on September 11, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Comments (1)

Taken over labor day weekend in the back country around Essex, Montana. Processed with Photoshop CS3 on my dual core Intel Centrino Duo laptop. I like the ability to see the clouds and the wood grain while holding the shadow detail.

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Category: Parallel Programming
Tags: Core2Duo, digital photography, HDR, Photography, photoshop, Visual Computing

Tech Rock Star to speak at Brazil Tech Days

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on September 10, 2008 at 11:35 am
Comments (2)

I just heard that Sean Maloney will be speaking at the next Sun Tech Days in Sao Paulo, Brazil on September 30! If you have not heard of Sean, here are some tidbits: Sean is one of the four executive VP’s that report to Intel’s CEO, Paul Ottelini, according to his Wikipedia page Sean was [...]

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Category: Events, Open Source
Tags: "Sean Maloney", java, OpenSolaris, solaris, Sun

The Mighty Guys of Power

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on September 4, 2008 at 10:08 am
Comments (3)

More from Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Fall 2008 This photo makes me smile in a couple of ways: This is a booth at the Demo Showcase at the most recent IDF, from one of our fantastic corporate partners in the OpenSolaris project The purpose of the booth was to show the deep commitment [...]

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Category: Manageability & Security, Open Source
Tags: OpenSolaris, Power Efficiency, power management, power savings, powertop, solaris

The latest Xeon and OpenSolaris - in 5 minutes

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on August 23, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Comments (4)

In my most recent 5-minute OpenSolaris video, the cats are out of the bag, the gloves are off, and the latest Xeon is on its way. Codenamed "Dunnington", it will actually appear as the "Xeon 7400 Series" processor. (Sorry, we shot this before the name would be known for sure). Enjoy! As always, if you [...]

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Category: Manageability & Security, Open Source, Parallel Programming
Tags: Dunnington, Enterprise, hpc, OpenSolaris, Virtualization, Xeon

What are you, uh, Makering there?

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on August 22, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Comments (2)

Off topic warning... I just posted some photos over at my personal blog, Running in the Rain, about the Maker Faire Celebration held at the end of this year's Intel Developer Forum. Very fun stuff... check it out! (Not totally off topic I guess, since this stuff is also Open Source, right?)

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Category: Open Source
Tags: idf, IDF2008, Maker Faire

Intel Software Network - a story of corporate transformation

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on August 22, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Comments (1)

So you understand the context here, I am not being paid by the Intel Software Network to write this. I am occasionally inspired by stories of how corporations or business units reinvent themselves. It's something I can learn from as I try to be a better leader and manager. The challenge - how do you [...]

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Category: Academic, Site News & Announcements
Tags: business transformation, Intel Software Network, Web 2.0

PowerTOP video from a member of the OpenSolaris community

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on August 20, 2008 at 10:50 am
Comments (1)

Rafael Vanoni, a software engineer in Ireland, and a contributor to Solaris PowerTOP, presents a nice 2 minute video on the advantages of PowerTOP. Good work, Rafael! Link to video source.

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Category: Open Source
Tags: OpenSolaris, power management, powertop, solaris, video

Sun Studio Chalk Talk

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on August 20, 2008 at 3:46 am
Comments (1)

I'm attending the Intel Developer Forum this week in San Francisco this week. I'll try to note comments on some of the talks I attend. Sun gave a chalk talk on their C/C++ tool chain called Studio. The talk was given by Vijay Tatkar, who has been with Sun for over 20 years doing compiler [...]

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Category: Open Source, Software Tools
Tags: OpenSolaris, optimization, Sun Studio

Craig Barrett keynote at IDF

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on August 19, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Comments (0)

I'm attending the Intel Developer Forum this week in San Francisco this week. I'll try to note comments on some of the talks I attend. Craig Barrett's keynote wasn't so much about cool product eye candy, but it was about some of the key places he sees technology being used. Education: Johnny Chung Lee showed [...]

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Category: Uncategorized
Tags: idf

Come, let's meet together in San Francisco at IDF

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on August 19, 2008 at 9:33 am
Comments (2)

A quick note: I'm attending the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco at Moskone West. If you are in the Bay Area, and attending IDF, I'd like to meet you. Of course, I love to talk about open source, OpenSolaris, operating systems, virtualization, optimization, databases, software development or whatever else you would like to [...]

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Category: Manageability & Security, Open Source, Software Tools
Tags: OpenSolaris, solaris, Sun, Virtualization

What Dave did on his summer vacation - talked about OpenSource

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on August 6, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Comments (1)

I was taking a few days last week to travel to Colorado. It was time for my high school reunion, so I flew out from Portland to visit with friends and family. While I was there, I connected up with a few of my friends in the OpenSolaris community who live in the Denver-Boulder area. [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: Community, OpenSolaris

Faster!!! I/O Acceleration Technology and OpenSolaris

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on July 29, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Comments (7)

People often wonder what might be the value of having an all-Intel system (ie, Intel CPU, chipset, network controller and software, the Intel "Platform"). After all, I am free to pick components from many suppliers, why not? Here's an example of why it's great to pick the Intel platform approach - I/O Acceleration Technology or [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: I/O Acceleration Technology, IOAT, networking, OpenSolaris, performance, solaris

Nice post on PowerTOP

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on July 25, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Comments (0)

There's a nice post about PowerTOP for Solaris by Brian Leonard, describing in a very user friendly way what all of the displays mean. I loved it - really shows the power of the app, and the various cool things it shows you on your OpenSolaris system. The only thing missing from the post is [...]

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Category: Manageability & Security, Mobility, Open Source
Tags: ACPI, Mobility, OpenSolaris, power management, powertop, solaris

I'm speaking tomorrow at OSCON

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on July 23, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Comments (1)

( I know it's a little late, but I took a little mental vacation here for a while, so sue me! ) If you happen to be at OSCON in Portland, OR this week, I would invite you to come by and introduce yourself at my talk. It's at 10:45 - 11:30 in room E141, [...]

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Category: Manageability & Security, Open Source, Parallel Programming
Tags: OpenSolaris, solaris, UNIX

Virtualization and OpenSolaris

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on July 14, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Comments (3)

Here is the latest OpenSolaris video we did on the subject of virtualization. Here's also a chance to meet Ashok Raj, one of the Intel senior kernel guys working on OpenSolaris. Original video source

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Category: Manageability & Security, Open Source
Tags: OpenSolaris, solaris, Virtualization

It ain't easy being agile

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on July 4, 2008 at 7:25 am
Comments (1)

(With apologies to Kermit the Frog, whose song "It Ain't Easy Being Green" is a much older meme). I love reading case studies of teams that shake up "business as usual" and reinvent their world.  It inspires me to be open to the possibilities of such change. If you are involved at all in software [...]

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Category: Open Source, Software Tools
Tags: Agile development, music, waterfall model

Systemtap vs DTrace – Safety?

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on June 27, 2008 at 2:15 am
Comments (5)

(I'm attending the OpenSolaris Developer Conference, OSdevCon in Prague this week. Periodically I will try to live blog where I can about some of the talks I hear.) I gave my keynote this morning to kick off the last day of the conference. Now that I can relax a little, I'm listening to a couple [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: DTrace, OpenSolaris

MilaX: Can you get OpenSolaris as small as DSL?

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on June 26, 2008 at 7:34 am
Comments (2)

(I’m attending the OpenSolaris Developer Conference, OSdevCon in Prague this week. Periodically I will try to live blog where I can about some of the talks I hear.) I'm listening to Alexander Eremin, who is the originator of MilaX, a distro of OpenSolaris designed to be as small as possible. MilaX 0.1 was announced in [...]

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Category: Uncategorized
Tags: DSL, OpenSolaris, osdevcon2008

OS DevCon Keynote - Get Involved

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on June 26, 2008 at 1:09 am
Comments (2)

(I’m attending the OpenSolaris Developer Conference, OSdevCon in Prague this week. Periodically I will try to live blog where I can about some of the talks I hear.) The opening keynote at the conference is by Jim Grisanzio, who is a sr. program manager at Sun working on building the community.  Jim's slides were 100% [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: OpenSolaris, osdevcon2008, solaris

The best place to develop code?

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on June 25, 2008 at 7:57 am
Comments (2)

(I'm attending the OpenSolaris Developer Conference, OSdevCon in Prague this week. Periodically I will try to live blog where I can about some of the talks I hear. What is the most ideal platform to use for development? I attended a "tutorial" on this subject, which really turned into a mini-conference really on C++ development. [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: OpenSolaris, osdevcon2008, Studio

OpenSolaris: old and new packages

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on June 20, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Comments (3)

I finally got a little time to get the wired ethernet controller working on my Sony VAIO Centrino Pro laptop. It's a Marvell Yukon NIC, and I have gotten it to work before by downloading the old-style package driver. That's because this particular driver has never been integrated into a release of OpenSolaris, I think [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: OpenSolaris, packaging

OpenSolaris 2008.05 - packaging update

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on June 12, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Comments (10)

One of the goals of the OpenSolaris 2008.05 release was to make it easier to keep your system up to date, by downloading updated packages over the web. That way, you could get updates only to what you have installed, rather than getting an update to the whole world. (On a side note, I just [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: OpenSolaris, packages

The three advantages of open source

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on June 10, 2008 at 11:35 am
Comments (4)

I'm working on a paper right now for a conference later in the month.  Part of it is talking to the way the OpenSolaris community works and ways it can improve. I find myself writing prose that makes me sound smarter than I really am, and I get worried!  Here is my simple analysis of [...]

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Category: Open Source, Software Tools
Tags: OpenSolaris, programming, UNIX

Magically using Intel new instructions with no effort on your part

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on June 6, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Comments (7)

This is episode #3 of the series of 5 minute videos I am doing on OpenSolaris and our open source optimizations for Xeon. This one is on how we are actually helping you get better performance by taking advantage of new Intel processor instructions without any effort on your part as a developer or user! [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: new instructions, OpenSolaris, optimization, performance

The OpenSolaris 2008.05 demo

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on May 21, 2008 at 8:14 am
Comments (2)

I was invited to do a demo of OpenSolaris 2008.05 for the Intel sales team focused on Sun. This was scheduled as a part of their face-to-face day yesterday, and it was a lot of fun seeing the whole team. I started out with some true risk taking - I asked for a volunteer willing [...]

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Category: Manageability & Security, Open Source
Tags: OpenSolaris, VirtualBox, Virtualization

Powertop 1.0 on Solaris!!

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on May 19, 2008 at 10:18 am
Comments (0)

I was delighted to learn that the powertop tool for Solaris and OpenSolaris has now been released in its 1.0 version. This represents some terrific community collaboration. First the kudos: Arjan Van De Ven, at Intel in the Open Source Technology Center , first came up with the idea as a way to figure out [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: OpenSolaris, opensource, Power Efficiency, powertop

OpenSolaris Host - Virtual Box - Windows Guest

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on May 16, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Comments (1)

Having seen a great demo and presentation this week about the new VirtualBox 1.6 release, I have been enjoying trying out the various combinations to see which ones I like more. Today I tried out the Solaris version of VirtualBox on my OpenSolaris 2008.05 laptop. My laptop is a Sony VAIO, a Centrino Pro processor [...]

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Category: Graphics & Media, Manageability & Security, Open Source
Tags: compiz, open solaris, opensource, VirtualBox, Virtualization, Visual Computing

Fun with USB sticks - how to make one bootable with OpenSolaris 2008.05

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on May 15, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Comments (1)

One of the nice things about OpenSolaris 2008.05 is that it is delivered as a bootable LiveCD. This means that you can try out the OS easily on your computer and see if it will work without risking the OS you are running on it now. Once you decide that all of the features and [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: install, LiveCD, open solaris, opensource, USB Stick

VirtualBox v1.6 - Open Source desktop virtualization

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on May 14, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Comments (4)

VirtualBox is a great desktop virtualization solution. It's free for personal use / evaluation, runs on Mac, Windows, Linux, Solaris or OpenSolaris, and supports a huge number of guest OS's. The user interface is really well tuned for a simple desktop user, and as UI's go, I think it has some really good context-aware help. [...]

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Category: Manageability & Security, Open Source

Observations of OpenSolaris launch at CommunityOne

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on May 11, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Comments (0)

Cinco de Mayo (May 5, 2008) Sun launched their OpenSolaris 2008.05 distro of the OpenSolaris code. The venue for the launch was CommunityOne, a free one-day conference held on the Monday before JavaOne. Above is a snap of Rich Green who runs software at Sun, doing the launch. This is the second year that Sun [...]

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Category: Open Source, Uncategorized
Tags: CommunityOne, JavaOne, OpenSolaris

Dave finally gets it on the OpenSolaris logo

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on May 10, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Comments (3)

The infamous new bubbles logo, AKA the .com logo The original classic .org logo OK, I am a little slow in the uptake here. And I am not in any way shape or form an expert on trademarks and brand management. That said, I thought the orange and blue opensolaris.org logo would go away completely [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: logos, marketing, OpenSolaris

OpenSolaris on Xeon video, Episode 2 - Saving Power

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on May 9, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Comments (0)

Here is the second installment of my series of 5 minute videos on Intel's OpenSolaris project work. In this segment, I talk about what we're doing to try saving the planet for our grandchildren. It's a noble cause and I hope you will join us!

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Category: Open Source
Tags: ACPI, Community, OpenSolaris, operating systems, power management, power savings, powertop, project Tesla, solaris, Xeon

Intel Keynote at JavaOne

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on May 8, 2008 at 8:18 am
Comments (0)

This is the second JavaOne I have attended, and Intel has been a big sponsor. This year, the VP of my division is giving the Intel keynote. Doug got sick on Monday of this week, and being in San Francisco, he got a lot of home remedies and Chinese herbs to fix him up. He [...]

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Category: Uncategorized

OpenSolaris Developer Summit 2008, Day 2

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on May 7, 2008 at 10:53 am
Comments (1)

Day 2 of the Summit started with a panel discussion on Advocacy, which I was invited to help kick off. Advocacy is an interesting Community, because it includes the worldwide user group effort as well as evangelism for OpenSolaris. I praised the Advocacy efforts of Sun and others, relating how difficult it is to create [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: open solaris, operating systems

Radio Free Software: Intel on OpenSolaris

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on May 6, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Comments (3)

Barton George and I talk on this 10 minute podcast about what Intel is doing on OpenSolaris. Download it and listen to some of the work we're doing. Pass it on to your friends. Here is the tagline from his podcast show, Radio Free Software: Intel on OpenSolaris - 08D01586.0 Title: Dave Stewart of Intel [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: OpenSolaris, solaris, wireless, Xeon

OpenSolaris OS 2008.05 First Impressions

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on May 5, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Comments (10)

I installed the final release of OpenSolaris OS 2008.05 on my Sony Vaio Centrino Pro laptop. OpenSolaris 2008.05 is the new product based on the OpenSolaris project. You can obtain yours by going to opensolaris.com. In fact I'm typing this blog post between sessions at CommunityOne on my new OpenSolaris 2008.05 installation! Some initial impressions: [...]

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Category: Graphics & Media, Open Source

OpenSolaris Developer Summit 2008, Day 1

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on May 4, 2008 at 11:23 am
Comments (0)

I'm sitting today at the OpenSolaris Developer Summit in Santa Cruz. Some thoughts about Day 1: > There was a changing in the guard from the Sun engineering side: Bill Franklin is delegating the role of executive sponsorship to Tim Cramer. Tim gave a very candid talk saying that they had not yet achieved the [...]

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Category: Open Source

Avoiding the annoying sendmail grumbles on OpenSolaris boot

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on May 1, 2008 at 8:11 am
Comments (7)

Disclaimer: I'm not sure this problem will happen on the true "opensolaris" or not, I don't have those final bits running yet. But I'm an avid fan of Solaris Express Developer Edition builds or SXDE.  (I know, I'm weird.  I actually like the infamous WOS[1]). Ever since I started running SXDE, I have been annoyed [...]

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Category: Open Source

Dave, talking about OpenSolaris on Xeon

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on April 30, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Comments (0)

Thanks to my good friends in our SSG Marketing group, I did a 5 minute video on the work we're doing at Intel to enhance OpenSolaris for our processors. Here is the URL - http://softwarecommunity.intel.com/videos/home.aspx?fn=1490: Of course, none of this would be possible without the awesome work from very talented engineers. My thanks to them!!

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Category: Graphics & Media, Manageability & Security, Open Source, Parallel Programming, Software Tools

OpenSolaris Developers Summit #2

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on April 30, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Comments (0)

The 2nd OpenSolaris Developers Summit is this weekend in Santa Cruz, CA. This is the bi-annual event to get the community together face-to-face and hash out issues and make decisions and educate ourselves. I went to the last Summit in October 2007. It was great to meet folks in person that I had been interacting [...]

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Category: Open Source

Solaris on Xeon - the Sun and Intel view

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on April 27, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Comments (0)

Recently I had the chance to sit with my colleagues from Sun and talk about the work we're doing on Solaris optimization on Intel's Xeon processors. The discussion is available online here: Sun and Intel webcast on Innovation This talk is MC'd by Julian Lukacs, from Sun's Market Development group which works with software developers [...]

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Category: Manageability & Security, Open Source

Reasonably reliable Suspend on OpenSolaris - today

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on April 25, 2008 at 11:02 am
Comments (0)

Last night, I decided to upgrade to the latest build of "Nevada", which is the project that OpenSolaris is based on. Build 87 (or SNV87 to the cognoscenti) has some cool features present, like improvements to memset(), memmove() and memcpy() to use the latest Intel processor instructions and some other good stuff. And since next [...]

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Category: Manageability & Security, Mobility, Open Source

Challenges for the future of OpenSolaris

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on April 15, 2008 at 10:50 am
Comments (2)

I’m putting together a talk this week that I will be delivering at CommunityOne in San Francisco on May 5 on some of the work we’re doing to support Intel-based kit with OpenSolaris. It’s great to talk about the accomplishments of many people, and how developers can take advantage of them. For example, I’m sharing [...]

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Category: Events, Open Source

Why do we need another OS?

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on April 10, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Comments (4)

If you have Windows and Linux, why do you need anything else? Oh sure, there are always special-purpose OS's, which address a particular niche or usage. But in terms of general-purpose OS's, you have two basic models, one of them open source the other closed. Both have a broad and lively development community and broad [...]

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Category: Open Source, Software Tools
Tags: history, linux, OpenSolaris, operating systems, UNIX, Windows, Windows NT

OpenSolaris / VirtualBox

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on April 10, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Comments (4)

I'm running OpenSolaris in a VirtualBox guest on WindowsXP. It works pretty well running most apps, particularly Firefox. Here is what I have working: Hardware is a Sony VAIO Centrino Duo laptop running with a 3945 wireless networking setup. Windows XP is the host OS, it’s the default that came with the laptop. Downloaded VirtualBox [...]

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Category: Manageability & Security, Open Source
Tags: networking, OpenSolaris, solaris, VirtualBox, Virtualization

Why do I do this?

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on April 10, 2008 at 8:19 am
Comments (1)

Why do I work in the job I have? How did I get started? How does a new person get started? I got an email out of the blue from one of my readers, asking if I would consent to being interviewed about my career choices for a class she is taking in university. I [...]

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Category: Open Source, Software Tools
Tags: careers, linux, programming, Software Engineering, UNIX

Making access to memory faster in OpenSolaris (and Core2)

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on April 4, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Comments (3)

We have been working so hard over the last year plus on implementing new Intel technologies into OpenSolaris and supporting new processors and platforms, it's good to stop for a moment and consider how we are speeding up the product you have in your hands today. (Or, you really *ought* to have your hands on). [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: Solaris OpenSolaris memory programming optimization

OpenSolaris - I'm a sucker for a good demo

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on March 18, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Comments (6)

I have to admit it - I'm a real pushover for a sweet demo. Now by demo, I mean something "real" and not faked up, polished and hokey. We used to joke about demos from a certain company that they would show off in their keynotes, but underneath was just a Visual Basic prototype. No [...]

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Category: Game Development, Open Source
Tags: demos, OpenSolaris, Visual Computing, wireless device drivers

OpenSolaris in China

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on March 16, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Comments (2)

Dave is in China this week for quarterly operations reviews with the Intel China OpenSolaris team. Last year we chose to grow a lot of our development team in Shanghai and Beijing for a couple of key reasons: First, Intel has been doing a lot of system software work in Shanghai for many years. We [...]

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Category: Open Source

Open Source Music

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on March 10, 2008 at 11:03 am
Comments (8)

Pity the poor executives of the recording industry! It's a medium which owes its very existence to technology. But it's also a medium which has had its business model tortured beyond recognition by technology. Consider the recent release of the album "Ghosts I – IV" by Nine Inch Nails (NIN). It's available in a variety [...]

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Category: Game Development, Open Source
Tags: "recording industry", linux, music, solaris

Laughing at OpenSolaris and clients

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on February 26, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Comments (7)

There is someone I know who will remain nameless on this blog, but suffice it to say that he is a very senior techie guy, very plugged into open source. During a casual chat, we were talking about some technology that was being developed in the Linux world that has to do with the client [...]

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Category: Uncategorized

More HDR shots from Israel

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on February 23, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Comments (3)

Some additional HDR experimentation. (Again, thanks to Adobe Photoshop CS3 and my Core 2 Duo laptop, building these was a snap): HDR allowed me to capture the full range of picture detail from the deep shadows in the front of the nave to the colorful details in the stained glass windows at the front. This [...]

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Category: Uncategorized

More photoshop HDR photos

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on February 18, 2008 at 9:01 am
Comments (0)

Here are some more experiments I did with HDR images.  Above is a scene at the beach in Tel Aviv, Israel. There is a storm coming in, thus the dramatic clouds. This is the southern edge of the Sea of Galilee. Note the Sea Level marker in the foreground The northern edge of the Sea [...]

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Category: Graphics & Media, Parallel Programming

Recruiting in the web 2.0 era

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on February 8, 2008 at 11:55 am
Comments (5)

It's rather shocking but I'm actually coming up on about 20 years being a manager.  You'd think I would have figured it out by now. Although I have been a "hiring manager" during most of that time, I have gone through waves of staffing up or replacing people. I'm going through that mode right now [...]

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Category: Open Source, Parallel Programming

Intel + Sun + 1 Year = OpenSolaris++

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on January 22, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Comments (12)

Today marks the one year anniversary of Intel and Sun joining together in collaboration to improve the Solaris operating system, among other things. Here's the way I tell it to people: "We're working to make Xeon the best platform to run Solaris." One year into our collaboration marks a great time to review what we [...]

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Category: Manageability & Security, Mobility, Open Source, Parallel Programming

Maybe good things *do* come from Indiana

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 27, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Comments (5)

I'm not talking about the state of Indiana per se. The few times I have been through the state of Indiana it was in the back seat of my parents' car in a cross-country drive. (Although I do have a friend who lives there, and don't they make popcorn?) No here I'm talking about a [...]

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Category: Open Source

Attempts at HDR night shots

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 14, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Comments (0)

I'm still experimenting with HDR, which is a technique for rendering in a digital photo more of what the human eye sees. I gave a brief description previously in a post here. This week I am staying in high rise hotel rooms as I do a week in China (visiting Shanghai, Beijing and Shenyang). It's [...]

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Category: Graphics & Media
Tags: HDR photoshop graphics Core2Duo

Software support for Transactional Memory

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 7, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Comments (1)

Last week I attended Intel's annual Software Enabling Summit in Anaheim. This is a worldwide gathering of Intel's software engineers charged with ensuring that the world's software takes best advantage of Intel processor and platform features. (Sidebar: My wife thought it was really funny that we had a whole conference about "enabling", and suggested that [...]

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Category: Parallel Programming, Software Tools
Tags: transactional memory, What If

First experience with HDR

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 4, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Comments (10)

I'm a bit of a photo wonk. It probably started when I was about 12 or 13 with my first roll-film twin-lens reflex camera. You know, the kind that you look DOWN into the viewfinder. I remember a visit to Maryland with my little camera and hanging out with Marty Torre in his darkroom. The [...]

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Category: Graphics & Media

How Passion is good, how heat burns, how Free can S*ck

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 3, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Comments (4)

This week, an important thing happened in the open source world. A great step was taken to broaden the appeal of a major project. And yet, it's community treated it largely with utter contempt. Some in the OpenSolaris community took a big step by refactoring the OS into a single CD-sized image, bootable from that CD image, with [...]

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Category: Open Source
Tags: OpenSolaris

Cityware and the 30-processor i386

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on October 27, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Comments (1)

If you could strip away the buildings, streets, monuments and dirt, a city would resemble a twisted ganglia of pipes, wires, tubes and vents. This is the viscera on which all city life depends, without which people soon would decamp for another city. Businesses owners and homeowners depend on these services to run smoothly day [...]

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Category: Parallel Programming, Software Tools

Share ... the ... *code*?

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on October 18, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Comments (7)

Sun is doing a great job providing the OpenSolaris community members with cool swag to promote OpenSolaris.  A couple of the shirts show actual printouts of Solaris code, and superimposed are the words "<share> ... <the> ... <code>".  (It's a little like the Heroes tag line: "Save the cheerleader... save the world".) This is of [...]

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Category: Open Source, Software Tools

OpenSolaris: The Next Generation

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on October 16, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Comments (2)

I'm back from this past weekend's first ever OpenSolaris Developer Summit in Santa Cruz. A great opportunity to meet people who are the voices behind the work and talk about what's next. A big focus is the evolution of OpenSolaris into where it should be going in the future, under the banner of "Project Indiana", [...]

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Category: Open Source

Developing for OpenSolaris

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on October 13, 2007 at 6:52 am
Comments (2)

This weekend, I'm at the OpenSolaris Developers Summit in Santa Cruz, CA. This is a small gathering of developers (limited to 100) focused on getting the next major evolution of OpenSolaris ready and to spread news about work that has already happened. If anyone wants to meet up at the Summit, let me know!

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Category: Open Source

Scheduling Success

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on October 11, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Comments (1)

Back when I was in school studying operating systems, one of my favorite topics was the scheduler.  For some reason, this seemed like the very core of what you want an OS to do – do a good job of scheduling quickly, then get out of the way.  At the graduate level, we studied how [...]

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Category: Manageability & Security, Open Source, Parallel Programming, Software Tools

Patience – or lack thereof

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on October 1, 2007 at 8:14 am
Comments (0)

On my personal blog, I recently wrote on patience, or more properly, my lack of it!  In my personal sphere, I am frustrated with the lack of progress I am making in getting over an injury that is sidelining my running.  The progress in improvement is incredibly slow, and I want to be back to [...]

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Category: Open Source, Site News & Announcements, Software Tools

OpenSolaris at Fall IDF 2007

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on September 19, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Comments (1)

I'm headed back to Portland after attending the first two days of IDF in San Francisco. There were four talks which were specific to OpenSolaris at IDF. Here were some impressions. > Virtualization - presented by a tag team of Sun presenters. The first presenter is a visiting professor who has been working on the [...]

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Category: Events, Manageability & Security, Open Source

Systems that lower our carbon footprint

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on September 15, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Comments (0)

I'm having a meeting on Monday with some Solaris experts on various power management topics. As advanced as Solaris is as an operating system, there is more work to be done on power management. The case for systems doing a good job managing power is strong -- after all, when systems consume more power than [...]

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Category: Open Source, Software Tools

Open Source saves Dave's toucus

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on September 6, 2007 at 8:01 pm
Comments (1)

It's a good day when something I do casually in one area saves my bacon in another. My trusty two year old work laptop decided to start folding itself over and dying pretty miserably. Computer death - or "graceful degradation" as we called it in my first OS class - takes many forms, depending on [...]

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Category: Open Source

OpenSolaris at IDF

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on September 4, 2007 at 10:15 am
Comments (3)

Last week I spent some time going over some of the content at this month's Intel Developer's Forum in San Francisco that is related to Solaris.  Here's a snapshot of the technical content:  > Writing Device Drivers For Solaris -- this should be a good information session to get over the knowledge hurdle.  I have [...]

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Category: Events, Manageability & Security, Open Source

Making Xeon the best platform for Solaris

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on August 30, 2007 at 11:47 am
Comments (0)

Well, we're getting there.  Ever since the January 22, 2007 announcement of Intel's work to improve Solaris for Intel silicon, we have been busy building our development expertise in-house and basically trying to make sure Intel processors are the best choice for running Solaris.  This includes a strong commitment to open source and the OpenSolaris [...]

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Category: Open Source

Who decides fairness?

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on June 21, 2007 at 8:55 am
Comments (3)

I had an experience just now that models one of the new problems with having so many cores to play with.  I was walking down a hallway to a cafe to get a mod-morning drink.  In front of me was a group of about five co-workers chatting away amiably, walking at a reasonable pace, but walking slower than [...]

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Category: Open Source, Parallel Programming, Software Tools

Why Linux people lust after DTrace

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on May 15, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Comments (27)

Back in 2002, I was managing the team that worked with Oracle on the engineering side.  This was when they were transitioning from developing the database on Solaris to Linux, and we were helping them with this transition.  Of the various requests their devs made, one of the first was "when can we get DTrace [...]

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Category: Open Source

Making Solaris a better Linux than Linux

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on May 10, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Comments (3)

Interesting to hear Ian Murdock this week at CommunityOne - he spoke about closing the "Familiarity Gap" between Linux and Solaris.  Some key ideas:  "Solaris is a better Linux than Linux" - Mark Andreeson.  Certainly Solaris is arguably more reliable and scalable than Linux and has a lot of phenomenal capabilities, but it doesn't have [...]

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Category: Open Source

Web 2.Overload

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on April 26, 2007 at 10:14 am
Comments (4)

Normally I'm pretty enthusiastic about new technology ideas.  This is because even a mediocre or boring idea might hold the seed for something insanely great.  And since Web 2.0 holds the promise of cons-ing together new things from pieces of other things very easily, it's the natural place to look for the viral DNA of [...]

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Category: Open Source

How Open is Open Solaris?

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on April 22, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Comments (10)

The first time I tell people that Solaris is open source, I usually get a double-take.  Next, they kind of snigger, and assume that "Open" Solaris is really a ploy for a proprietary vendor (Sun in this case) to act open, but in reality be closed.  Then they think, "OK it's free, but it's not [...]

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Category: Open Source

What Solaris Means to Developers

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on January 22, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Comments (3)

I've been thinking a lot about how today's Sun-Intel announcement affects app developers. In particular, how does Solaris affect an ISV's chances for selling software in the enterprise? To figure this out, I cracked open a book on Solaris Internals to get caught up. Given that I earned my salary as a Unix internals guy [...]

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Category: Site News & Announcements

"What if my programming language did... THIS!!"

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on January 15, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Comments (0)

Sun recently kicked off the "Kitchen Sink Language" project, which is an opportunity provided by the open sourcing of Java. Now instead of waiting for your favorite language to add a new feature, or resorting to new technologies like Ruby, you can just grab yourself a copy of the Java Compiler (javac) source and add [...]

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Category: Site News & Announcements

Five alternatives to threading

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on January 4, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Comments (4)

http://www.vmware.com/As I have posted before threading is not the only option you have in dealing with the onslaught of multi-core products. In fact, it may not be the best one. Here are five alternatives to threading to get the benefit of multi-core: 1. Fork separate processes, and connect them with pipes. Great advantage in sharing [...]

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Category: Site News & Announcements

Getting off the Hype Train

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 28, 2006 at 10:24 pm
Comments (0)

The other day, I was reading this blog entry by Joel on Software, which did a very good job describing the woes of being an app developer in a shifting technology world. Basically it sucks. If my app is based on DCOM for example, why in the world should I drop everything and port it [...]

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Category: Site News & Announcements

Don't Thread! The End of the Free Ride

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 15, 2006 at 5:57 pm
Comments (5)

So multi-core is here, and here to stay. Dual core, quad core, it's a done deal and not just from Intel. What amazes me is that SW developers are not reacting a lot more than they are. Folks, the problem here is that we devs are accustomed to getting a free ride on the Moore's [...]

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Category: Site News & Announcements

The Power Struggle

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 8, 2006 at 10:48 pm
Comments (0)

Not long ago, I got a chance to have some extremely valuable discussions with the IT staffs of a number of large American companies. The rationale for these visits was to explain our server technology roadmaps and to ask for their feedback. We wanted first-hand validation of some of the trends we were seeing in [...]

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Category: Site News & Announcements

Another good idea for Outsourcers

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on November 1, 2006 at 10:52 pm
Comments (0)

Outsourcers are always looking for an "edge", a way to compete against other options. There is a competition against other outsourcers of course. There is also a competition against "in sourcing," where their corporate customers decide to turn inward for their coding needs. The most important asset that an outsourcer brings, besides lower costs and [...]

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Category: Site News & Announcements

What is an Outsourcer to do?

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on October 27, 2006 at 10:46 pm
Comments (1)

It's undeniable " the Flat World has resulted in the rise of Outsourcing. I don't have the quote in front of me, but I believe it was Gates who was attributed with the comment that he used to think it would be better to be an average person in an average town in the US [...]

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Category: Site News & Announcements

The hidden $5 bill in your pocket

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on October 24, 2006 at 6:48 pm
Comments (0)

There are a lot of opportunities to make money in software that are simply left on the table. Sometimes it's because even in a target-rich environment, the cost is too high to go after all of the opportunities. Other times, the risk is just too great. But some opportunities are too good to pass up, [...]

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Category: Site News & Announcements

Profiting from a Core Software strategy

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on October 20, 2006 at 5:37 pm
Comments (0)

If you know about the Core Software Strategy, it's quite powerful, because you can take advantage of the considerable investment that Intel and others make with "engines", the core code which drives a large number of solutions in both Enterprise and Consumer space. (Read my other post to hear my thoughts on this strategy). One [...]

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Can traditional app designers take advantage of Web 2.0?

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on October 17, 2006 at 4:39 pm
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With all of the excitement around Web 2.0, one thing to keep in mind is that once the pure intensity and hype around the trend begins to mellow, we should begin to see the ideas become mainstream. For example, "Peer-to-Peer" (P2P) was a trend that popped up around the turn of the century. The hype [...]

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Where Moore meets Metcalfe - Part 2

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on October 13, 2006 at 7:14 pm
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This is a continuation of the post I did a few days ago showing the impact of Web 2.0. Here is the rest of my personal Web 2.0 Top 10 list, and how Moore's law could impact them: 6. Konfabulator - this one is now known as Yahoo! Widgets, after Yahoo! bought Konfabulator. This is [...]

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Where Moore meets Metcalfe

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on October 11, 2006 at 4:12 am
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These days, everyone seems to have their own personal Web 2.0 "top 10" list. But how could Web 2.0 concepts help general work-a-day app developers do a better job? And, why in the world does Intel seem so interested in this topic? By the way, if you want a Web 2.0 description, go read O'Reilly's [...]

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Parallel paths

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on October 4, 2006 at 10:58 pm
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A deep controversy in the emerging programming world isn't about Java vs C#. It's not about whether to adopt web 2.0 or to embrace open source. There is something more basic than any of this. The first key decision that a developer needs to make when adapting their architecture to parallelism is, how should I [...]

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Announcement: Other Voices

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on September 28, 2006 at 10:10 pm
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First of all, I want to thank all of you who have been reading the blog and leaving comments. I'm getting comments both from email and even in person. I appreciate the encouragement and the criticism - thanks! Secondly, you will soon start seeing more posts from other engineers on this blog. We're trying to [...]

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The Engineer-in-a-Box: Lucky You!

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on September 26, 2006 at 11:32 pm
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When I posted recently about the Core Software Strategy, I was advocating that when you are looking at implementing a project, you should spend at least some effort in identifying what is the "engine" which consumes most of the runtime of the application or system, and at least pick an engine that has been optimized [...]

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Predicting the future (not!)

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on September 22, 2006 at 11:57 pm
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My first post to this blog was a commentary on Intel's Software Enabling Summit, and what I thought would be a great way for developers to contribute to their future employability by learning how to thread software. I seem to have struck a cord someplace " there were several comments from people who have been [...]

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The Core Software strategy

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on September 20, 2006 at 10:16 pm
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I can safely predict that if you are a developer, you are looking for ways to get your job done faster. Get working code quicker, find bugs faster, take advantage of new technologies and get working performance as smoothly as possible. This is why the saying "steal with pride" comes up " it's well-worn technique [...]

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Revolutions in small packages

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on September 18, 2006 at 7:33 pm
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Probably the toughest lesson to learn is not the one we get when we are seeking to learn. Rather it is the one which creeps under the door, rears its ugly head and smacks us soundly on the nose. As one saying goes, "In the school of hard knocks, the lesson comes after the test!" [...]

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Becoming a Bullet-proof Developer

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on September 14, 2006 at 4:15 pm
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As I wrote in my previous post, developers need to think about their abilty to surf the technology waves if they plan to remain devs going forward in time. In my 20-something years of working in development, I don't claim to have picked the right waves always - some things which are high on today's [...]

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What's next for SW Developers?

By David Stewart (Intel) (177 posts) on September 12, 2006 at 4:28 pm
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The question hangs at the back of every developer's mind. It takes various forms. It usually isn't a big issue to most of us, but sometimes it intrudes into our daily thinking. How do I ensure that I maintain my relevance and significance in the development world? Things change so rapidly in technology. Yet to [...]

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