Preparing a Squeak Image and VM for Production

Hi,
We develop a Web application with Squeak that will soon go in production.

It's our first experience with Squeak, so we need advice before
installing the image on the production server.

Context
-------
We plan to use a headless 3.8 image on a debian Sarge server with a
3.9.7 VM.

Questions
---------
- Any reason to use a 3.8 image -- like more stability?
- Any reason to use a 3.9 image -- like essential bug fixes? (we do not
use Traits)

- Do we need to strip or shrink the image (and if yes, how)?
- Or is it best to start from a small squeak image (and in that case
which one)?

- Are there subtle performance tweaks, (made up example: closing all
windows in the image)?

- Is the squeak-vm_3.9.7-9_i386.deb VM package suitable for production?

Thanks !
Seb.

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Hi,

Sébastien Rocca-Serra wrote:
If you want to use Debian packages, here

        http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/3616

should be complete information. There is information concerning Seaside too.

If there were any problems, let me know.

Regards
- --
Matej Kosik
icq: 300133844
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> We plan to use a headless 3.8 image on a debian Sarge server with a
> 3.9.7 VM.

We run all our images (except those on seasidehosting.st) with a VNC
server. That makes it much easier to debug and update the code on the
fly.

> - Any reason to use a 3.8 image -- like more stability?

A lot of people are using 3.7 because of its stability. I wouldn't use
3.8 unless you need support for special encodings.

> - Any reason to use a 3.9 image -- like essential bug fixes? (we do not
> use Traits)

3.9 fixes the multilingual issues of 3.8, so I would prefer 3.9 over 3.8.

> - Do we need to strip or shrink the image (and if yes, how)?

No, unless you want to run 1000 images on the same machine.

> - Or is it best to start from a small squeak image (and in that case
> which one)?

Usually I start from the basic image.

> - Are there subtle performance tweaks, (made up example: closing all
> windows in the image)?

Yes, it is important to close all windows, remove the flaps, etc. else
you sooner or later run into troubles.

Cheers,
Lukas

--
Lukas Renggli
http://www.lukas-renggli.ch

On Nov 16, 2006, at 21:39 , Lukas Renggli wrote:

>> - Any reason to use a 3.8 image -- like more stability?
>
> A lot of people are using 3.7 because of its stability. I wouldn't use
> 3.8 unless you need support for special encodings.

Is this verified? I'm using 3.7 on servers, too, but just because it  
works and I have no reason to change the setup. I use 3.8 for daily  
work without problems.

>> - Any reason to use a 3.9 image -- like essential bug fixes? (we  
>> do not
>> use Traits)
>
> 3.9 fixes the multilingual issues of 3.8, so I would prefer 3.9  
> over 3.8.

Are these fixes in 3.8.1, too? If not, which are missing?

- Bert -

> >> - Any reason to use a 3.8 image -- like more stability?
> >
> > A lot of people are using 3.7 because of its stability. I wouldn't use
> > 3.8 unless you need support for special encodings.
>
> Is this verified? I'm using 3.7 on servers, too, but just because it
> works and I have no reason to change the setup. I use 3.8 for daily
> work without problems.

Philippe posted a list of patches that we apply to 3.8 images.

> > 3.9 fixes the multilingual issues of 3.8, so I would prefer 3.9
> > over 3.8.
>
> Are these fixes in 3.8.1, too? If not, which are missing?

I don't know if these patches are in 3.8.1, they are certainly in 3.9.

Cheers,
Lukas

--
Lukas Renggli
http://www.lukas-renggli.ch

On Nov 17, 2006, at 11:34 , Bert Freudenberg wrote:

 From my experience the VM version is more relevant than the one of  
the image. We have run into problems with Unix VM versions > 3.6 (and  
apparently many other people have as well) -- problems we have never  
seen with 3.6 VMs. Hence I tend to not upgrade and even consider  
moving back to 3.6 VMs.

Michael, concerning the image lockup problem with SqueakSource  
servers at Impara, have you ever tried to run with a 3.6 VM?

Adrian

See: http://weeklysqueak.wordpress.com/2006/11/17/deploying-seaside/ 

On Nov 17, 2006, at 2:34 AM, Bert Freudenberg wrote:

>> A lot of people are using 3.7 because of its stability. I wouldn't  
>> use
>> 3.8 unless you need support for special encodings.
>
> Is this verified? I'm using 3.7 on servers, too, but just because  
> it works and I have no reason to change the setup. I use 3.8 for  
> daily work without problems.

I'd fall into this group. I've run into enough strange problems  
involving streams to be wary of using 3.8 for servers.

Colin