[Update Feb. 1, 2011]

A much easier way to install PECL packages:

CFLAGS="-arch i386" ./pecl install

To get pecl working properly, make sure you have Xcode installed on you machine. Next, you will need to get a copy of MAMP’s source and prepare it using 32-bit compile flags. You can download the MAMP source from the MAMP download page. Running the .dmg should extract the source. After extracting the source run the following:


mkdir /Applications/MAMP/Library/Include/
mv /path/to/extracted/mamp/source/ /Applications/MAMP/Library/Include/


Next you will want to extract the PHP package and do the following to prepare the package:


mv /Applications/MAMP/Library/Include/extracted_php_source/ /Applications/MAMP/bin/php5/include/php/
cd /Applications/MAMP/bin/php5/include/php/
MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.6 CFLAGS='-O3 -fno-common -arch i386 -arch x86_64' LDFLAGS='-O3 -arch i386 -arch x86_64' CXXFLAGS='-O3 -fno-common -arch i386 -arch x86_64' ./configure --with-php-config=/Applications/MAMP/bin/php5/bin/php-config


Finally, you now can install pecl extensions with the following command:

MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.6 CFLAGS='-O3 -fno-common -arch i386 -arch x86_64' LDFLAGS='-O3 -arch i386 -arch x86_64' CXXFLAGS='-O3 -fno-common -arch i386 -arch x86_64' /Applications/MAMP/bin/php5/bin/pecl install


And that’s it! Enjoy!

So why can’t I use normal undelete tools like the ones available for ext2?

According to the many posts I found on this topic, undelete is not possible because ext3 incorporates journaling which in turn zeros out the disk’s block pointers during the rm process. The only solution proposed was the use of the ‘grep’ command to search for the missing data. This isn’t exactly ideal because I need to know at least something about all the code I was recovering to find it all. Luckily, I found a blog post by Curtis Summers who came to the same conclusion and was able to suggest a better solution.

A rethink of the problem led me to the ‘strings’ program, which extracts text from files, stdin, or even a disk device. I dumped all text from the disk partition to a text file like so:

#strings /dev/sda7 > /path/to/big_text_file

This worked much better and was much easier than using ‘grep’. Unfortunately, the strings program outputs a raw dump of all the text it finds and doesn’t seem to follow filesystem pointers I guess, because the text came back was in chunks spread throughout the output file it created. Since I didn’t have the time to go through and piece all the bits of code together, I decided to continue searching for more viable option. After running the shareware tool ‘Quick Recovery’ which claimed could undelete data from the ext3 filesystem, I stumbled upon Brian Carrier’s Why Recovering a Deleted Ext3 File Is Difficult . . . article. This article explains two approaches to data recovery: “File Carving Recovery” which uses application type of the deleted file and “Journal-Based Recovery” which uses the filesystem journal.

I decided to go the File Carving approach and while I could not get the configuration for foremost working properly, since I had limited time to correct my mistake, I was still able to fully recover my entire project. The techniques outlined in the article for locating and extracting raw blocks of data on the disk gave me similar output to Curtis Summers ‘strings’ approach, but the text I found was much more contiguous and required very minimal puzzle solving on my part. I must tip my hat to Brian for creating this very helpful and I am sure needed how-to guide.

Moral of the story: always make sure you have backups… preferably in different directories and/or on different partitions.

A little personal history

I am a fairly new Mac convert; I made my switch about a year and a half ago after being exposed to OS X at work. I have always been a *nix fan, but I think my decision to switch was largely influenced by the clean and elegant User Interface offered by OS X combined with the power of having a console at my disposal. Up until recently, the Linux User Interface has been behind the curve, and is my main reason for staying away. Sure, you could install different window managers and use different themes, but I found that for the most part they were all a bit quirky. Maybe I didn’t install them right or take the time to really figure them out. That in itself is a another problem of Linux and why it has not hit the mainstream yet: the command line better be your friend if you want to take full advantage of the system.

Ubuntu 7.04 – First glance

This new release of Ubuntu seems to take Linux one step closer to being in the mainstream and I have faith that it will soon be there. Installing Ubuntu was a cinch as usual, but setting it up was even easier. Before this, my previous experience with Ubuntu 5.04 was somewhat painstaking, especially when trying to set up my wireless card. Of course it wasn’t impossible and it took some reading and time to get the job done, but I have worked with computers for many years now. I hardly doubt nor do I expect the average use to be able to do this. Heck, most of the documentation and tutorials are online, so the process assumes you have a second machine available to figure things out.

XGL and Beryl

Other than the easier setup, I am amazed with what XGL and Beryl have to offer as a window manager. It really makes Linux, for me at least, a much more enjoyable experience. I have always been a fan of tweaking the environment I work in because heck, if I am going to stare at a computer all day, I might as well enjoy what I look at. Beryl certainly does that for me, and although some of it may be purely eye candy such as the rotating cube, I still enjoy it. So for now, Linux, namely Ubuntu, feels almost complete to me. The next thing I hope to see are more polished applications as there are for the Mac.

Still Lacking

As a PHP Developer, Scream, and PHPedit just don’t cut it, so I resort to Zend Studio which is a complete IDE rather than being a powerful text editor as my previous examples, and while I prefer the IDE, it would be nice to have a selection to choose from. This is only one example of Linux and what I feel is its lack of good user applications, but there are more. To clarify, I mean to say that Linux needs to focus more on the general user rather than on the computer savvy. I believe, the next few iterations of Ubuntu will fix this; I understand fully well that Ubuntu is only one distribution of Linux, but I believe that it is the furthest along to providing the ease of use consumers need. Hopefully, Linux application developers will pick up on to the needs of consumers and provide the necessary experience to make Linux a real desktop competitor.