TileStache revealed itself as a powerful and flexible product and was very good to cache tiles generated with my Django-backed mapscript-powered WMS server. Caching and serving tiles with TileStache was by far faster then running the whole mapscript WMS machinery.

But I wanted to do more: if I could just convince nginx to serve the tiles directly from disk, this would have been even faster. Of course for this to work, TileStache must be configured to cache tiles on disk, which is what you normally want.

nginx is really good at serving static files and it is luckily wery flexible and easy to configure (once you know what to do).

The following configuration uses named regular expression captures and a try_files instruction to check for the tile existance, if found, the tile is served directly, if not found the internal redirect to the @django named location takes place.
The 404 trick in the base location (/) was necessary to avoid duplication of the @django location content, but there might be a better way.

nginx configuration file

server {
    listen   88 default;
    server_name  localhost;
    access_log  /var/log/nginx/access.log;
    rewrite  "^/[a-z]{2}/(static|media)/(.*)$"  /$1/$2;
    root /www/django_app/;
 
    location  /media/ {
        alias /www/django/contrib/admin/media/;
    }
 
    location  /static/ {
        alias /www/django_app/site_media/;
    }
 
    location ~ ^/(?<lang_code>..)/resource/tiles/1\.0\.0/(?<tile_path>.*)$ {
        alias /tmp/stache/;
        add_header X-Static super;
        try_files $http_host/$lang_code/$tile_path @django;
    }
 
    location / {
        add_header X-Static hit;
        error_page 404 = @django;
        return 404;
    }
 
    location @django {
        add_header X-Static miss;
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000;
        proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    }
}

Results

niginx is listening on port 88 and the dev server (I’m using werkzeug in this case) is listening on port 8080.

ab -c 100 -n 1000 http://localhost:88/it/resource/tiles/1.0.0/track_4/0/0/0.png
 
Concurrency Level:      100
Time taken for tests:   0.084 seconds
Complete requests:      1000
Failed requests:        0
Write errors:           0
Total transferred:      7553744 bytes
HTML transferred:       7302912 bytes
Requests per second:    11902.92 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       8.401 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       0.084 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          87804.31 [Kbytes/sec] received

With TileStache only:

ab -c 100 -n 1000 http://localhost:8000/track_4/0/0/0.png
 
Concurrency Level:      100
Time taken for tests:   2.944 seconds
Complete requests:      1000
Failed requests:        0
Write errors:           0
Non-2xx responses:      1000
Total transferred:      145000 bytes
HTML transferred:       0 bytes
Requests per second:    339.63 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       294.438 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       2.944 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          48.09 [Kbytes/sec] received

Conclusions

Unsurprisingly, the solution with files served directly is several times faster: 35 in this test case.

In a production environment, using mod_wsgi or uwsgi, the fugures may vary, but I’m confident that the overall speed boost is guaranteed.

Logo Linux Day 2010

ItOpen partecipa all’organizzazione del Linux Day 2011 a Pinerolo.

Il Linux Day è un’iniziativa a livello nazionale, volta a favorire la diffusione e la conoscenza del software libero e del sistema operativo Linux.

Il Linux Day di Pinerolo si terrà il 22 ottobre dalle ore 10 alle 18 s Pinerolo, in via Brignone 9, presso i locali del Museo di arti preistoriche..

Per ulteriori informazioni consultate il sito dell’Asssociazione SLIP.

QGIS logo

Today I found some time to test some new amazing QGIS features. One of the most interesting additions is the WMS integrated server.

I usually test all new projects in my user directory, I created a folder ‘~/public_html/qgis-client/’ to host this test.

Next step was to enable CGI handling, since I run apache under Linux and all I had to do was to create a file named ‘.htaccess’ in the ‘~/public_html’ folder:

AddHandler cgi-script .fcgi .cgi
Options +ExecCGI
SetEnv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /home/myuser/app/lib

This few lines, enable CGI and add a search path to the library loader, this was necessary for the handler to load my QGIS trunk build, located in ‘~/app/’.

Now I needed to symlink the qgis-mapserv.fcgi executable into the project folder:

cd ~/public_html/qgis-client/
ln -s ~/app/bin/qgis_mapserv.fcgi .
~/app/bin/wms_metadata.xml .
vim ~/app/bin/wms_metadata.xml

The last command allows the customization of the GetCapabilities response.

I was now able to serve a qgis project with the WMS protocol, the project location can be specified with the map parameter, like this:

http://localhost/~myuser/qgis-client/qgis_mapserv.fcgi?map=/home/ale/public_html/qgis-client/qgis-client.qgs

Neubot is a python program which runs as a daemon and (with minimal overload) meters and logs the speed of various type of protocols from your PC to a central server.

Neubot produces nice graphs and I found it very useful to monitor my ADSL line speed, I’ve found surprising how much it can vary over time!

Remote machine is 192.168.1.2 with SSH running on non-standard port 12345

ssh -p12345 -L 3333:localhost:5432 root@192.168.1.2

After this, you can connect to port 3333 on localhost to access remote postgresql DB server.

Thanks to PenguinBait and his packages, KDE installation on Nokia N810 installation is now possibile, this article targets the italian users since there are a couple of important differences in the installation procedure.

The original procedure is described here: http://geekpenguin.blogspot.com/2008/01/kde-debs.html

The exact model I have tested is Satellite U300-11S.

- Intel Core 2 Duo T7100
- Ram 1024 Mb
- HDD 160 Gb
- GPU Intel GMA X3100 (up to 251 Mb)
- Webcam 1.3Mpx – Bluetooth – Wireless a/b/g
- Display 13,3″ TruBrite
- DVD Super Multi Double Layer
- Windows Vista Home Premium (the bad, I’ve already asked toshiba to give me the money back)

lspci output


ale@toshiba-u300:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Contoller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 01)
04:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)
0a:01.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 05)
0a:01.1 Generic system peripheral [0805]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 22)
0a:01.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev 12)
0a:01.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 12)
0a:01.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 12)


lsusb


ale@toshiba-u300:~$ lsusb
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 007 Device 004: ID 04f2:b008 Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd
...


Linux distribution

The distribution I have installed is Kubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) 64 BIT version.

Audio

Don’t work out of the box, to fix it:


apt-get install linux-backports-modules-2.6.22-14-generic


A small issue remains, the volume control is bound to the headphones instead of the speakers, to control the speaker volume you must use the software controls.

The integrated microphone works just fine.

Graphic adapter

Don’t work out of the box, to fix it:


wget http://ppa.launchpad.net/kyle/ubuntu/pool/main/x/xserver-xorg-video-intel/xserver-xorg-video-intel_2.1.1-0ubuntu10_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i xserver-xorg-video-intel_2.1.1-0ubuntu10_amd64.deb


then:

dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

External monitors works great: just use something like this:

xrandr --output VGA --auto


3D acceleration is quite good and glxgears gives about 1150 FPS.

Bluetooth

Thanks to Mihail (see comment) we now know how to make it work.

See also this page for source compilation and other details: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=316358

If you don’t want to compile yourself, here is my working module for kernel 2.6.22-14-generic:

omnibook.ko

Copy the .ko file to /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/kernel/drivers/misc/ as root, then run


depmod -a
modprobe omnibook
cat /proc/omnibook/bluetooth

Yuo should see the message: Bluetooth adapter is present and enabled.


dmesg

Check dmesg output, you should see something like:


[ 1660.325466] omnibook: Driver version 2.20070211-trunk.
[ 1660.325534] omnibook: Toshiba Satellite U300 detected.


That’s all, your bluetooth is enabled.

To enable permanently you need to load the module at startup like explained in the above mentioned forum page.

Networking

Works fine, both ethernet and wifi.

Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 01)

Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)

The wireless adapter works with a non free driver, ubuntu installed it automatically.

WPA/PSK encryption works, other configrations not tested.

Card reader

Works fine, tested only with an SD card.

ACPI

Not tested much:

• suspend to RAM works
• hibernate works.

Sometimes (at random) closing/opening the lid does not trigger suspend, software and harware (on/off button) controls work allways ok.

Webcam

Webcam doesn’t work out of the box, to fix it (partially) you must install the right driver, follow the instructions from

http://linux-uvc.berlios.de

I was able to record a short video with ffmpeg, other programs just segfault.

Modem

The modem is not supported at the moment:

see this link


The softmodem chip 0x11c11040 is not yet supported under Linux.
Code must be developed by manufacture LSI Inc.
See details in http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/bigarch/archive-seventh/msg00915.html
Read InfoGeneral.txt about alternatives modem hardware.
Identifying PCI bus slots with candidate modems.
=== Finished modem firmware and bootup diagnostics section. ===
=== Next deducing cogent software ===

Analysing card in PCI bus 00:1b.0, writing to scanout.00:1b.0
The High Defintion Audio card with PCI ID 8086:284b may host a soft modem chip.
IDENT=Agere_11c11040_chip_is_not_supported

Conclusion

I like it, it’s a small but not too small laptop, quite affordable and Linux runs well.

Everything works (almost perfectly) except the internal modem.

I just hope they will give the money back for the unused Windows licence.

Potete scaricare la mia presentazione (in formato Open Document) sotto licenza Creative Commons:

Presentazione Maemo Mapper al TMF 2007

Sorry, this article is not available in english.

The new internet tablet was announced two days ago.

This is clearly an evolution of the last model N800, but a few substantial differences between the two open new possiblities for alternative use cases of this device.

One of the most wanted features for the internet tablet was a sliding keyboard, the new model comes with a sliding keyboard retro-illuminated and automatically adjusted by a light intensity sensor in the front.

Important news come from the display front: the older models missed a transflective screen which limitated outdoor use, the new model brings a new transflective screen that could overcome this limit opening new use cases for the device.

Performance: the same CPU with different clock speed (330 vs. 400 MHz) means better performances while the battery autonomy has to be confirmed not being dropped by the increased clock speed. We all hope that the new operating system version will bring substantial improvements on this side.

Memory: internal memory has been increased by 2GB internal storage flas, but this will not compensate the lack of the second card slot that was present in the N800. Another key point is that the new model accepts only mini sd or micro sd but not full size as the N800 does.

Good/bad new on the size and weight side: while the size is smaller, the weight is slightly bigger and the stereo loudspeackers disapperared from the front and were moved to the top side.

The new operating system OS2008 will be installed on the N810 and will be also available as an update for the older N800 models.

A comparison table will help us to understand the differences.