Filling my Technological Void|Learning to Adapt to new Technology…… The Hard Way.

I just changed the wallpaper and changed the Icon Set for my Arch Desktop. Screenshot included below.

Wallpaper from InterfaceLift.com

Icon Set from Gnome-look.org

With the growth of Linux rising at a slow and steady rate one of the most common questions I see is from users asking which distro is best for them. On a Forum with Linux users you will notice that the above question generally gets bombarded with hundred of opinions. However, its quite common that most of these opinions given out by posters don;t meet the actual need of the user. One of the most frequent causes for this is the lack of information. Recently I posted a thread on a Tech Forum I frequent with some basic information you need to give to facilitate others to explain to you why a certain distro might be a good choice.

What is your purpose ?
Are you looking to just casually play around with it here and there? If so why install? Why not just use a Linux Live CD. No changes are made to your Win system and you get to goof around in Linux as well. Or better yet why not install it on a VM?

What is your system configuration?

We don’t know if you have a C2Q or if you have a P533 for that matter. If I were to suggest you OpenSuse / Ubuntu / Mint you would be very angry at the results if you we’re running a box with a 533 Mhz Processor. If I were to ask you to install NimbleX on a C2Q with 4 Gb memory again it would be rather silly because you could easily install some of the more heavier feature rich distros.
What is your intent?
Are you doing this for Office work, Entertainment or to learn Linux. Mandriva and Ubuntu sort of have a way of giving GUIS for every single task there is. Hell I didn’t even know how to create a user using CLI till I used Arch. That being said if you don’t want to use CLI why would I ask you to install Arch. You would scream bloody murder and chase me with a pitchfork. You tend to learn more about Linux commands based on the amount of tweaking you do. So keep that in mind also.

How far are you willing to go and whats your experience level?
Trust me when I say Gentoo is not for beginners. Also trust me when I say that Linux Hardcore folks would set me on fire if I told them to install Ubuntu. The main question is how far are you willing to go. It took me a well one day to configure Arch. Are you willing to go that far.How about compile a distro for a few days? Or do you want a ready made distro which works great out of the box?

Other factors you might want to put in is what kind of internet connection you have or are you downloads somehow limited. Want to use this box for Education also? etc. I’m pretty sure that with more data it makes the job of pointing you in the right direction much easier.

“You underestimate the power of the Dark Side. If you will not fight, then you will meet your destiny.”
-Darth Vader

As some of you might of heard I recently decided to install Arch Linux due to the constant nagging of Kalpik and some others in the IRC channel. The summary of our discussions go like this:

[22:33:42] <@kalpik> krazzy, ArchWiki :: Arch Linux - ArchWiki [22:33:57] <@kalpik> krazzy, ArchWiki :: Arch Compared To Other Distros - ArchWiki [22:34:11] <amitava> BUT IF u want peace of mind: Get a mac, get a life [22:34:26] <Filled-Void> lol [22:34:33] <amitava> >.< [22:35:01] <Filled-Void> kalpik, is Arch also a compile and use distro? [22:35:11] <@kalpik> Filled-Void, it can be if you want [22:35:20] <@kalpik> Filled-Void, arch is superb! you MUST try! [22:35:41] <Filled-Void> kalpik, Oh ok. then never mind I was looking for a change. Ubuntu is gtting old for me, Arch , gentoo and crux bleh need compiling [22:36:37] <@kalpik> Filled-Void, binaries for everything are available! [22:36:38] <amitava> wtf Filled-Void try leopard.. [22:36:39] <@kalpik> Filled-Void, try na! [22:37:00] <Filled-Void> kalpik, how big is the download [22:37:14] <@kalpik> Filled-Void, 135 MB for ISO and about 300 MB for gnome [22:37:17] <munna-boi> Filled-Void,PIRATE!!! Blilly uncle loves you [22:37:42] <@kalpik> Filled-Void, ArchWiki :: Arch Compared To Other Distros - ArchWiki [22:37:44] <Filled-Void> kalpik, Wht if I choose fluxbox instead? [22:37:52] <@kalpik> Manan, lol.. [22:38:08] <@kalpik> Filled-Void, lesser downloads i think.. i’ve only tried gnome [22:38:20] <Filled-Void> kalpik, Is it possible to install kde on it if I need it? [22:38:26] <@kalpik> Filled-Void, the ISO only installs base system.. [22:38:30] <@kalpik> Filled-Void, yes! [22:39:25] <aditya> kalpik: you guys telling Filled-Void to use arch? [22:39:26] <munna-boi> Filled-Void is one crazy ******* [22:39:31] <@kalpik> aditya, yes

So lets see I understand this much at this point.

* I need to download about 300 MB
* You start out with Nothing other than a CLI.
* Loads of configuration.
* Looking forward towards lots of pain and aggravation

Interesting. Good enough for me to become cannon fodder for this reckless experiment. Although I must say that kalpik and some others did say they would help me out when I install it. Well hell with that, I thought how hard could be to install it myself. (The previous line in correct words mean backup your data cause you are so screwed .)

Here is a certain link which may explain why Arch might have some benefits over other distros. Please don’t start a distro war here. If you plan on come in riding on your horse guns blazing be free to do so on IRC in #ArchLinux or their forums. As for other Windows users and Mac users I am in no way asking you to change and I pray you don’t the configuration changes don’t justify your change to the platform unless you are so sick with the platform you are using. Of course you could try it in a VM though if you would like.

Answers to the most frequently asked questions.

Here are two Install Guides you will find very very handy. Follow these word by word and you should be fine.
Beginner’s Guide
Install Guide

Anyway I’m going to be quite short and say I downloaded the File needed for the base system from here..

Went on installing and I’ll be very frank it wasn’t hard at all. As long as you follow the Beginners Guide Step by Step. You want to be adventurous knock yourself out, but don’t throw your CPU out once you find out that you just overwrote your Windows/Linux partition.

Step 1 : Read the Beginner Guide.
Step 2 : If you didn’t do Step 1 then go back to Step 1 and read it.
Step 3 : Pick an Environment (Gnome, KDE, Fluxbox etc) you will be happy with and continue from there. You can install others later but lets first get this baby up and running.
Step 4 : Once you have decided which environment you want read the guide from the portion corresponding to the respective environment you have selected.
Step 5 : Install “yaourt” you can find the wiki for it here.Yaourt - ArchWiki
Step 6 : Install any or all the other programs you need. Remember this is Arch the only thing you have is probably your terminal and very basic utilities. Mainly you would want Multimedia Players, Chat programs, Codecs, Java, Flash. This should give you a fully functional system. Also you might want to install HAL and FAM. Each one of these are documented in the various wikis which I have linked below.

At this point you could call it or you could keep on customizing your system to your liking. Currently I have all the above installed and the rest is still coming. So you will see a couple of updates in this here and there.

Pros :

* You only get what you want. Theres no extra bloat.
* It is damn fast. Wouldn’t you love 12-15 second boot ups as well as shutdown . No I dont mean from CLI I mean from Gnome 2.22.2.
* You don’t have to sit all day waiting for your computer to compile all day long.
* Its a rolling release . No more waiting for your friends courier or favorite magazine to come out with the next release.

Cons :

* Arch is a bit of a pain getting it configured from scratch.
* You need a broadband connection . Considering that this is a base system you will need tons of downloads tog et your computer up to date.
* Arch is intended for Intermediate to advanced users. No, I’m not either I’m a beginner with this and if it weren’t for help I’d probably be still with a CLI.

Image of resources Being used:

Wikis for Everything you need :
Although you can google or find this on Arch Linux’s Website I’m goign to link this for the benefit of the user.
Beginner’s Guide
Installation
of a Desktop Environment
Java and Flash
Yaourt
Audio Codecs
All you need to know about Pacman
Compiz Fusion
openOffice.org (Don’t forget to install libsndfile)

Well now with my exams just amonth away I guess its time to prepare a bit. For some odd reason I hate all the subjects this semester .  Anyway SMU has a weird way of grouping subjects together for its exams. The subjects I have for this Semester is shown below.

• Advanced Internet Programming - ASP
• Server-Side Programming
• Data Warehousing and Data Mining
• E-Business Fundamentals
• Secured E-Commerce Transaction
• Digital Imaging techniques - I
• Digital Imaging techniques - II
• IT Law and Practice
• WML WAP - Revised
• XML
• C# Programming
• Software Engineering
• Software Quality Assurance

Yes I also have no idea what they we’re thinking when they grouped all of them together. Anyway studying for all of this is going to be a pain in the rear. There’s like 16 books for all of them. Luckily since I’m not exactly a last minute person I have managed to go through quite a bit.

Other than that I’ve been thinking of trying out Arch Linux. Not that I don’t like Ubuntu. Its just that I would like to try something new. Maybe I’ll try it out on VirtualBox as it is exam time and the last thing I need is my PC not to be functioning right.

Although Linux has its fair share of alternatives for Picasa, this is one application I would prefer to not be without. Not to mention that its quite a hassle trying to download Pcitures from Web Albums if you dont have Picasa installed. As a matter of fact you actually have to download each picture one by one, or at least I couldn’t find any other way. I’ve listed the steps out one by one and the soruces I used so that if anyone wanted to use Picasa on their system this might help them out.

First lets start by getting the packages we need.This will vary based on whether you are using 64 bit Ubuntu or the 32 bit one. I’ve included the page which includes the packages for both.

Picasa for 32 bit Debian / Ubuntu

Picasa for 64 bit Debian / Ubuntu

In either case the download should start, but just in case if it doesn’t there is a link which lets you download it. The instructions on how to install it is also given on the page but of course just double clicking the deb file should install Picasa as well.You can find the application by going to Applications > Graphics > Picasa.

Although this does install Picasa it doesn’t actually let you download Web Albums using it. When I tried to download a Web Album using Firefox I found that nothing happened. It just sat there doing absolutely nothing. So I searched around a bit till I found out that you need to add a protocol handler which handled picasa:// . To fix this you first need to open up Firefox and enter the below code in the address bar.

about:config

Next right click in the screen below and you should get the popup as displayed below.

Now from the menu select New > String. next a screen will popup asking you for the preference name. In this box enter “network.protocol-handler.app.picasa” (without the quotes) and click ok. next for the above strings value you need to enter the path to wherre the executable for Picasa is found. On my system I found a link for it in the /usr/bin directory, your location may vary. The actuallocation of the file according to the link was in /opt/picasa/bin/picasa. Entering either of these paths into the value should be fine. I chose /opt/picasa/bin/picasa .

Next you want to repeat the above process except instead of creating a string you want to select New > Boolean  and enter the preference name as”network.protocol-handler.external.picasa” (again without the quotes) . For the value select true and you should be done.

To check it out go to anyone’s Web album and you should get a Download Web Album option. To illustrate the above I’ve shown the option from one of my friends Web Albums he had. Thanks to Ashwin for that (Although I’m seriously not a Hilary Duff Fan :D).

Next if you click on the link you should get a screen in Picasa which shows all the pictures on the Web Album. For the above example I get the screen as shown below.

That should help you to get working with Picasa in Ubuntu ot in any distro of Linux for that matter. Be sure to check out the below links as well as there are some bugs which are still being worked on.

Sources and References:

Picasa for Linux
Linux Brain Dump
And My Friend Ashwin for his Web Album

Yeah, its that dreaded time again. Our exam time tables have been posted and look, I have less than one month to prepare. Considering that I did do a good revision of the subjects I should be okay. But considering that this is SMU you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to pass anyway. Its about getting every single mark you can. I’ve uploaded the timetable here to my Blog just in case someone needs to access it. For some odd reason I can’t download it off the University website and I had to have one of our professors get it for me from the Learning Center Login.

Time Table for July 2008 Exams

Well as you might have heard already Firefox 3 counted about 8 Million Downloads in 24 hours time on Download Day. I took the time to download it on my Home System and made sure my friends also got a copy as well as some of the kids at College. India didn’t do as bad as I thought it would with 204,455 downloads. Although the the ratios do seem to be very low.

Anyway if you want to get a cool certificate to flaunt around then head over here and enter your name and click on submit and you should get a certificate as shown below.

If you read my earlier post you have noticed that I mentioned about pledging your support to make Firefox the most Downloaded Software.

Well finally the day has finally been decided.

The official date for the launch of Firefox 3 is June 17, 2008. Join our community and this effort by pledging today.!

If you are like me then lets see if we can get our favourite browser into the Book of Records. Spread the Love

I always loved the IRC plug-in that lets you display your song information in a channel. Although it is a sure way to get a ban from a channel if you use it frequently . Anyway one of these days I noticed one of my friends on IRC have the same functionality in Pidgin. So after checking further with him I found out that there is a plug-in for it called Musictracker.

After checking the repositories for hardy I found that it was also available in there. To install it just enter the following code.

sudo apt-get install pidgin-musictracker

Now if you open Pidgin go to Tools > Plugins and select MusicTracker . You can clik on the Configure Button. This should give you the screen displayed below.

You can select the player or just set it on Auto. Further you can configure the output of the Musictracker in this screen. After you are done click Close and reconfirm that you do have it selected. Now open your media player if you don’t have one open already and play a song. Pidgin should have updated your status with the song you are playing.

Recently Ubuntu (Hardy Heron) pushed some updates which contained a kernel update . I believe the kernel number was 2.26.24-18. Anyway it was at the same time that I thought of installing KDE 4.1 Beta 1 out on my system. Somehow while installing the updates I managed to screw up my system in more than one way.

The updates went through but on reboot once I entered the new kernel option in the grub Menu I was missing Sound, Desktop Effects and my systems seemed to way slower. now comes the funny part. I opened up synaptic and found that the KDE 4.1 packages didn’t seem  like it got installed since it was still in the menu along with the Linux kernel files. For some odd reason I couldn’t select them either. There was a Partial Upgrade option but clicking it actually did not change anything. it just gave another error message that said “The packages could not be authenticated.”

Its at this point I tried downloading again, again ….and again. The funny thing is when I closed Gnome out and opened KDE 4.1 it did actually open albeit the sound and desktop effects of course. Anyway at the end of this adventure I decided to just reinstall the whole thing and see if I get the same problem.

I don’t know what I did to screw up my install very badly but the install and 400 MBs of updates including the kernel went on without event. Maybe tomorrow Ill give KDE 4.1 a try again .

PS: Always remember to make backups of those deb files you downloaded in case something does go wrong. It would saev you the trouble of having to redownload everything of course.