War of desktop managers

Linux users have for long been wondering what´s the best desktop manager to use. When I had a Debian, a few years ago, I didn´t worry much since both GNOME and Kde are installed by default. So, it was just easy to switch whenever I wanted a new ´look and feel´.

Then came Ubuntu distro. Since it´s a Live CD system, I had to choose either between Ubuntu (with GNOME) or Kubuntu (with KDE). And then very recently, Kubuntu Remix (with KDE 4).

I downloaded Kubuntu Remix and solved nearly all the ´issues´ that I considered ´annoying´. And I was happy. KDE 4, though still a beta, has great features like window animation and supports gadgets (or widgets!).

Last week, I was impressed by GNOME: so neat, so beautiful, so Mac-like. Therefore I did a small
# sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
on my machine.

Wow! So great. Apart from the great look that´s elegant, I now know what ´stable´ release means: my applications won´t crash for any reason at all. With KDE 4, they did. However, it´s understandable since the latter still in beta.

Therefore, when I boot I see the Kubuntu logo, then it´s GNOME desktop manager and GNOME look and feel.

I wanted to make a complete removal and download Ubuntu, but I would have to go through the daunting task of fixing the ´annoying issues´ once again.

Nevertheless, I love Amarok. I did uninstall all KDE applications, except KNetworkManager for WiFi and Amarok.

In the end, I´d say: let´s use whatever we want. There´s no best. Try all. And experience with them.

My first report goes in style with LyX

I'm finally very happy about being able to give my first report for Software Architecture in style! In fact, I've used LyX (pronounced 'licks').

So what's LyX? It's just a simple word processor which does "What You See Is What You Want", and not "What You See Is What You Get", as with other word processors. To put it simple, it's a simple word processor with pre-defined styles for headers, footers, paper format, font size, and so on. You don't change them. You only bother about your content. And then apply the pre-defined styles to your text! After all, is it not that content is the most important thing?

LyX is a graphical front-end for LaTeX (pronounced 'la-tek'), a markup language for TeX (pronounced 'tek').

Open source in the news

It's good news that Click has finally talked about open-source and more specifically about Ubuntu since the last few weeks.

A few years ago, Stephen Cole (remember that Click Online presenter?) said that he did not consider Linux to be an OS since it was not enough user-friendly and many hardware wouldn't work. But nowadays, all this has changed. Most linux distros have a superb GUI (Gnome and KDE, amongst others) and many devices like printers, scanners, webcams, ADSL modems, and others, have drivers in-built in the Linux distro.

And on top of all, open-source is everywhere today!

I'm using Ubuntu Server at work and Kubuntu Desktop at home. I should say that the server is really easy to install and deploy. Apt-get is really a nice thing (thanks Debian!): installing and upgrading packages are simply a pleasing thing.

Discover Gaim: a multi-protocol Instant Messenger (IM) client

May I chat with friends who use Yahoo! IM or Windows Live IM on a Linux platform? That's the question I've been asking myself for the past few days. Luckily, there's some whole bunch of IM available to do this. I've been marvelled by Gaim: a multi-protocol IM client.

The main advantage as compared to other IM clients is that I may log on using the same client instance for accounts on Yahoo!, Windows Live and ICQ at the same time! Isn't that fantastic?! Gaim also supports other protocols as well.

I'm using version 2.0beta6 for Debian archives, the install package used by Kubuntu, from http://download.ubuntu.pl/_Edgy_Eft/gaim/2.0.0-beta-6/.

If you're using Gaim 1.5 for Windows, you might expect some problems: it would crash for Windows Live accounts. Just download an updated library dll at the project's bug tracker.

I've not yet tested if the problem persists for 2.0beta6 version for the Windows platform - a bit of laziness from me - yuk!

Happy chatting!

USB modem ZTE (ZXDSL) 852 install success on Linux

It's been a week now since I've successfully installed the modem's driver on my Kubuntu.

The tutorial at http://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/materiel/zxdsl852 has a good explanation.

Basically, you need to have the latest kernel - i.e. 2.6.19 or greater as stated. I downloaded kernel 2.6.20 from http://www.kernel.org. Else, you have to mess with codes to add vendor ID's.

The tutorial at http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=85064 helped me in downloading all necessary packages and steps to follow to install the new kernel.

Then as stated also in the tutorial, I downloaded the firmware at http://ftp.linux.it/pub/People/md/warez/cxacru-fw.bin.gz.

I untarred the firmware and placed it in /lib/firmware/$(uname -r) directory, e,g. /lib/firmware/2.6.20/ directory.

Then I disconnected my modem from the USB port and reconnected it. After a few seconds, orange lights flashed, stopped, flashed, stopped , flashed and lit on!

Bingo! Modem firmware loaded successfully.

Then I created a connection as stated in the tutorial from Ubuntu.

Now each time I start my PC on Kubuntu, my modem's firmware is loaded automatically. I only have to pppd call zxdsl to connect to the ISP.

Huh, I didn't find a way to disconnect other than shutting down...

And I'm having fun....

This article also appears at http://www.lugm.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5243#5243.

Live CD saves my files

After having changed my mainboard due to a terrible thunderstorm (see previous post), my Windows and Ubuntu OS wouldn't boot. I had gigabytes of data-files to back up, including saved Need for Speed Carbon games and Half-Life 2 games (see post), personal files and music. That would have been impossible unless to transfer the hard disk to another computer as slave and then perform the operation.

However, thanks to Live CD technology from Linux, I was able to boot my computer and transfer my files via LAN to my old P3 for backup! Mounting the drives using Kubuntu Live CD was a breeze and a fun experience.

Unfornately, I couldn't test to see whether we can burn DVDs using Live CD in Kubuntu since I have only one DVD-drive on my P4 - that's why I had to make a LAN transfer!

Discover Audacity, a free, open source software for recording and editing sounds

A friend of mine was looking for some great application to record his voice and play it for his little adoring girl when he's not at home. We searched the net for the right software, but many were not available freely and were just packed with too many features that we're never gonna use. Moreover, they were not intuitive to use.


So here comes Audacity: a free, open source software for recording and editing sounds, available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems!

It has an intuitive GUI (Graphical User Interface) and is packed with many essential features. With Audacity, you may:

• record from microphone, line input, or other sources
• import and export WAV, AIFF, AU, and Ogg Vorbis files
• apply a wide array of effects like chorus, flanger, echo, phaser...
• record any sound on your sound card (through wave, CD, line in, AUX...) in crystal-clear quality

Who says that on a Windows system you're limited to the 60 seconds recording allowed in the crap Windows Sound Recorder? No more now!

Audacity is shipped with many Linux distros including Ubuntu.

Enter Fedora Core 5

It's only after a long time that I finally decided to install the Linux distro from Redhat, Fedora Core 5. Yes I know, FC 6 was released last week. But I cannot afford to download such a huge OS DVD using my rather slow 'broadband' connection...

As I feared, the installation process reminds me of Window$. I only have to press the famous 'Next' button, unlike Debian, which asks me for different configuration options.

The only problem that I encountered while installing was where to put the GRUB bootloader. I first put it in the second partition but the bootloader didn't load. Instead the Windows XP bootloader loaded. So I re-installed FC 5 and placed the GRUB bootloader in MBR and this time it was OK!

However I do agree that Fedora Core might be good for those who 'fear' Linux and who are not so technical. Debian might be better for experienced computer users who know their hardware well. But installing Debian Linux is nice since we are 'forced' to know our hardware better!

To make things better, I decided to do a Google Fight to see which one wins!


And great, it's Debian Linux who wins!!

Low-cost laptops in Mauritius

Last year, the MIT make a really nice move to leverage technology and bring some hopes to the poor developing world. In fact, the team at MIT planned to give governments laptops for USD 100 each so that the latter gives them away for FREE to the poor children and students. Details about the project.

The laptops run Linux OS, and have great advantages, as per the specs.

A few weeks ago, the Government of Mauritius announced that it has partnered with Microsoft to sell laptops at MUR 15,000 (USD 450). Report from the local newspaper (sorry, in French).

So how are the Microsoft laptops different from those of MIT? And is the Government making a move to oust MIT and Linux and favour Microsoft? And as it can be seen, the Microsoft laptops are far more expensive than that of the MIT team. So why has the Government chosen such a move which is not logical in an economic point of view and going away from the free software movement?

(As an aside, I have heard that the IT Minister has close links with guys at Microsoft.)

Joined LUGM

It's been quite some time now that I've been participating in the LUGM (Linux User Group Mauritius) forum. It's a really nice one where we can share our thoughts and help people using Linux or any *nix.

After many weeks, I finally made my mind to attend the meetings. In fact, yesterday I attended my first LUGM meeting that was held not far from where I live. These meetings are open to the public, so I wanted to discover a little.

I got up at 09.15, did morning things like having a bath and taking a breakfast, and was at the meeting place at 10.15, after some 10 minutes' walk. Phew! I couldn't risk being late the first time! There, I met two guys that were already there, and they told me that I were the first one to arrive!! Hmm... And the others reached there by 11.00 - an hour late!

However, I should say that I was impressed by the friendliness of the guys that were present. I was able to meet other guys really passionate about the free software movement. They are really warm and have a lot to share. A guy did a presentation about the tweaks on the X Window System. Then, it was discussion time though nothing was discussed. I discovered that there were other newbies like me too at the meeting.

The LUGM gives away CDs and DVDs for free. They have a library and members are able to take books that are sponsored by O'Reilly.

I took a Fedora Core 5 DVD. I will be happy to give you a copy if you want to. This is legal since according to GPL, I may make copies of DVDs and give them away for free. I am also able to sell the copies that I make and thus make profit! Therefore, I will more pleased to sell the copies to you at some Rs 15000, the price of the licence for the new upcoming Windows Vista! (That last few words are for kidding, right.)

Windows filesystems better than Linux!

Yes, according to me, Windows filesystems are better than Linux!! I made a bad experience a while ago when my Linux box crashed.

As I stated earlier, I cannot boot on Linux. However, I would greatly want to recover some data found on that partition. So I downloaded a small application called Ext2 IFS. This application is just great since it mounts the filesystems that are used in Linux under Windows. Like this, I get new drives when I click on My Computer in Windows. Then, I am able to read or write to EXT2/EXT3 filesystems!

So far, so good. However, here's my bad experience. Since my Linux OS crashed, EXT2 IFS could not access the EXT3 partition! In fact, EXT2 IFS gave me the error message "The disk in drive X is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?". When I looked up what caused this on its website, I found out that I could diagnosis this issue by downloading and running another program called moundiag.exe. When I ran it, I got another error saying that my EXT3 filesystem has some flag set that EXT2 IFS does not yet implement, and that there are some transactions left in the journal. However, if the Linux OS had shutdown properly, I wouldn't have such problems.

So, my only hope is to re-install a Linux OS without deleting my data.

As such, the EXT2/EXT3 filesystems are not as "recoverable" as that of FAT, FAT32 and NTFS that are used in Windows. Whenever the Windows OS crashes, files on the partition may still be recovered by mounting the drive in Linux or mounting the hard disk on another computer.

So Linux users, beware! Don't let your Linux OS crash!

Downloading latest Debian packages with Jigdo

It's been a long while now since I've been using Debian flavour of Linux on my box at home. Recently, while playing with settings to install the drivers for my ZXDSL852 USB modem provided by the local ISP Telecom Plus, I did something wrong and my computer doesn't boot up.

Since I love Linux, I'll have to re-install the whole thing again. So I've decided that it were high time for me to update to the latest packages. In fact, I have an old Debian Sarge v 3.0 Testing version. Downloading the new DVD from the Internet would take me an awful amount of time. Here's some facts:

ADSL download speed: 128 kbps
DVD ISO image size: 4.6 GB
Time to download = approx. 20 days in all (approx. 6 hours per day)

Buying a DVD: I don't have a credit card yet.
So the only option is to download, or to get the DVD from a magazine or from the local Linux User Group (LUG).

I opted to download. But that would take ages! Fortunately, folks at Debian developed Jigdo. This piece of software has many advantages to download large files over the Internet. From its Web site, I quote one of them:

It is possible to "upgrade" a CD image: If a new version of an image is released, jigdo-lite can download only the data that has changed, the remaining data is read from the outdated version.

So, happily, for the next few nights, I'll turn my computer ON and see what happens. In fact, the latest Debian DVD has some 7500 packages. Jigdo will download only 5000 since 2500 repeat themselves in the distributions.

If you are wondering how I'm doing this with my Linux corrupted, then it's not that hard at all! You may guess: No, I'm not using two computers, I have a dual-boot computer which also runs Windows XP. Simple as that!