Loads of links in lieu of a meeting's minutes --------------------------------------------- FN Bijon Shaha was the first one in, awaiting at the Goa Science Centre [1] venue of our ILUG-Goa [2] meeting on July 22, 2006 (the fourth Saturday of the month, as usual). For once, this diarist was almost on time! After checking that the presentation and notebook was working, we started with the usual warm-up banter. We noted that the BSNL [3] major internet service provider that is expanding its "broadband" services in Goa currently, has a website [4] which won't work with any browser except Internet Explorer [5]. Meaning, one is forced to used proprietary or pirated software. Or both. But for GNU/Linux geeks, there's a work-around across this problem [6]. But then, why should freedom be restricted by a state-run ISP? [1] http://goasciencecentre.org/ [2] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa [3] http://www.bsnl.co.in/ [4] http://10.240.43.216/ [5] http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ [6] http://dobs.sourceforge.net/ While chatting, I mentioned Webaroo [7], a solution that offers to allow you to "search the Web when you are not connected". How does it work? "Webaroo servers scour the web, analyze web pages, and automatically select the subset of pages with the most content value in the least storage size. These pages are then assembled into topic-specific 'web packs'." Created by talent from IIT-Bombay. Only problem: when they talk of Free Software, they probably mean justs 'free-of-cost software'. Was trying to try it out, and realised that it has some .exe (Windows-based) file to be installed. And, I don't use proprietorial software for some time now on any of my systems (except in cybercafes, where one has no choice). We mentioned the recent issue of Chip which had this rather interesting booklet in its July issue on how governments should create fair and 'level playing field' tender specifications while buying hardware. Soon, after Arvind and others turned up, we started the talks. Ubuntu is a predominantly desktop-oriented Linux distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux. On June 1, 2006 it has released Ubuntu 6.06 LTS codenamed 'Dapper Drake'. FN gave a user-oriented talk on his experiences, backed with details from the Wikipedia [9] and the July 2006 issue of LinuxForYou [10]. Quote from Wikipedia: "Ubuntu 6.06 "Dapper Drake" was released on June 1, 2006, and included GNOME 2.14 (or KDE 3.5.2 in Kubuntu), Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.3, OpenOffice 2.0.2, Xorg 7.0, GCC 4.0.3, and version 2.6.15 of the Linux kernel at release time. Several packages have been upgraded since. Release 6.06 is labelled as a Long Term Support (LTS), to indicate that it will be supported with updates for three years on the desktop and five years on the server, with paid technical support available from Canonical Ltd. also for three and five years, respectively." For a copy of the presentation (odt format), go to [11]. [7] http://www.webaroo.com/ [8] http://www.chip-india.com/ [9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_%28Linux_distribution%29 [10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_For_You or http://www.linuxforu.com/ [11] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/files In an information discussion that followed, Arvind mentioned the 'datacard' from Reliance [12], which people were using with their notebooks. It costs about Rs 6500 for the hardward, and there are various plans to choose from. Here [13] is some information about an Airtel datacard. And this [14] is a general discussion on data-cards, particularly suited for people who have notebooks and are travelling. Arvind pointed to Prabind Kumar Singh's article in LFY, July 2006 pp 72-75 titled 'Getting Mobile with Your Linux Laptop'. It says: "V-data cards provide a convenient way to surf the Internet while on the move. But what if you use a [GNU] Linux laptop? A little tricky, but possible. Here's how..." [12] http://www.relianceinfo.com/ [13] http://www.airtelworld.com/datacard/index.htm [14] http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=102214 Masood Ahemed, who is moving out of BSNL, came for this meeting and it was nice to meet an old friend. His question triggered off a kind of flame-war. He asked: "Which is the best magazine for [GNU]Linux for a system admin to read? After all, I'm not a developer." Firstly, in India, the only monthly GNU/Linux-focussed magazine is 'Linux For You'. It was greeted more critically by techies in our group earlier, but the feeling now is that "quality is improving". Some pointed to the availability of online past issues of magazines like Linux Magazine [14], and Linux Journal [15]. "These are available on the net after a little time. Linux Journal becomes available after one month. Plus, apart from the print-version articles, there are also articles written only for the net," said Arvind. Another good site to go to is debian-administration.org, he suggested. There are a lot of suggestions and ideas appended to each article. This is useful specially for Debian users, but even if you use some other distro, argued Arvind. "You learn a lot from that," he added. Someone raised the issue of removable media on Fedora Core 5. There was a query about implementing restrictions on users and the IP-tables possibilities. [17] Bijon Shaha took us to the topic of Knoppix [18] and PhD (persistent home directory). He asked: "Why not have home directory in your 1GB pen drive itself. You can include things you need most -- your files, you personal configuration, and you system wide configuration (for you ADSL, printer config)." Edgar mentioned how he used Knoppix as a good diagnostic tool. Some spoke about other options of tiny GNU/Linux distributions: Damn Small Linux [19]. Puppy Linux [20]. Stanley Thomas spoke about LIMP, the Linux Multimedia Player. He said: "It's o tiny that it loads into RAM." Quote: Linux Multimedia Player is a tiny Linux-based live distribution that converts your computer into a multimedia player. It supports most of the known formats (MPEG 1 and 2, DivX, WMV, qt-mov, Real, MP3, WAV, WMA, Ogg, VCD, and DVD), acts as an MP3 streaming server, auto-detects IDE, SATA, and SCSI partitions and sound, video, and network cards, and supports all cards as of kernel 2.6.16. Network support can be configured in the GUI. Options are menu-driven and require no knowledge of Linux, all in 36 MB. It can be easily integrated into Windows, a Linux boot loader, or a bootable CD-ROM. The entire program runs from memory only. Unquote. It's developer vkkindia@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx could have an Indian link. Not sure. Stanley Thomas continued with brief introductions to DSL [22] and the System Rescue CD [23]. [14] http://www.linuxmagazine.com [15] http://www.linuxjournal.com/ [16] http://www.debian-administration.org/ [17] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ip_tables [18] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knoppix [19] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damn_Small_Linux [20] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppy_Linux [21] http://freshmeat.net/projects/limp_os [22] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damn_Small_Linux [23] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Rescue_CD There was a brief discussion on iAudio [24/25]. What's that? "There are two different types of players in the iAudio series: players with flash memory, and players with hard disk drives. The flash based players are available with a capacity of up to 2GB. The hard disk drive based models, M3, X5, and M5, have 1.8 inch disk drives, and are available in different sizes: The M5 is only available with 20GB. The M3 is available with 20GB or 40GB. The X5 is available with 20GB, 30GB and 60GB. The iAudio 6 is the worlds first player to have the new 0.85" hard disk from Toshiba with a capacity of 4GB." Everyone was drooling over it! [24] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAudio [25] http://eng.iaudio.com/ Edgar mentioned Gparted [26] -- "GParted [27] is the GNOME Partition Editor application. It is used for creating, destroying, resizing, checking and copying partitions, and the file systems on them. This is useful for creating space for new operating systems, reorganizing disk usage, copying data residing on hard disks and mirroring one partition with another (disk imaging)." [26] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gparted [27] http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ Edgar found Tectonic's [28] newsletter, recently posted on ILUG-Goa [29] to have a useful link to Qunu.com. It explains: "You've trawled the Web for hours, rummaging through support forums, official documentation, and expert blogs for the elusive answer to a nagging technical problem. What do you do next? Get free real-time support from an expert listed on Qunu.com, says Capetonian co-founder, Helmar Rudolph. The site has signed up nearly 1 400 experts since its launch on 8 June, and has hosted about 6 500 live help sessions. The website connects users to experts using a web-based Jabber client. Users search for experts on a particular topic -- "linux", "php" or "ubuntu", for instance -- and experts with those tags are listed. Click on an expert, and if he/she is willing to take your call, your chat session begins immediately, with no registration required." And "Qunu [31] is a next-generation expertise matching service. We use instant messaging to connect -- in real time -- people who have software or tech-related questions with experts who are passionate and willing to help." There was talk about accessing IRC via browsers. gabbly.com gives URL for instant chat. [32] Subjects veered around to the ludicrous blocks on blogger.com and some other major blogging sites in India. We also looked at creative.linux-delhi.org (needs approval) and flickr.com as tools for storing and sharing photos. [28] http://www.tectonic.co.za/ [29] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa [30] http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=1058&s=news [31] http://www.qunu.com/ [32] http://gabbly.com/ [33] http://creative.linux-delhi.org [34] http://flickr.com Arvind later spoke on virtualisation [35]. Wikipedia: "In computing, virtualization is the process of presenting a logical grouping or subset of computing resources so that they can be accessed in ways that give benefits over the original configuration. This new virtual view of the resources is not restricted by the implementation, geographic location or the physical configuration of underlying resources. Commonly virtualized resources include computing power and data storage." Check all these links to resources such as emulation [36], paravirtualization [37], native virtualization [38], and operating system-level virtualization [39]. [35] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualisations [36] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulation [37] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paravirtualization [38] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_virtualization [39] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system-level_virtualization We also looked to the Red Hat India's [40] prizes for the best projects, possible venues for Software Freedom Day [41], O'Reilley's books for review under the UG (user group) programme [42], and Warren Noronha's plans to visit Goa in early August 2006 [43]. And while leaving the Goa Science Centre Panjim, I actually ran into Dr Gurunandan Bhat, our veteran member, whom we've not been keeping in touch with for some time. It was nice to catchup and learn of the other Ubuntu geeks at Synapse-Goa. Till August then, stay in touch. The fourth Saturday of that month is August 26, 2006. [40] http://www.in.redhat.com [41] http://www.softwarefreedomday.org [42] http://mailman.linuxchix.org/pipermail/announce/2004-April/000359.html [43] http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com/ or http://shrunklink.com?hux [44] http://www.ubuntu.com/ [45] http://www.plusthought.org -- ---------------------------------------------------------- PHOTOSFORALL: http://www.flickr.com/groups/pfdindia/ ** To subscribe to this list, please visit the URL below... //www.freelists.org/cgi-bin/list?list_id=linuxinindia * *