BOSS is Nobody's Boss!

A few days back I was watching the much hyped "Life" series on Discovery Channel. The episode on that day was on Amphibians and Reptiles. It was interesting, but what caught my attention was an advertisement on Bharat Operating System Solutions, a.k.a. BOSS.

I was happy to know that Indian Government is waking up to such novel OSS initiatives. But that happiness faded away after a little combing of distrowatch and the project's own website. After all it is a Governmental project, and like other such projects - it's dated, ill-maintained, and never meant to be widely deployed.

Developed by C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing), it's yet another Debian fork with packages more dated than the current Debian stable, Lenny (Remember, Squeeze is close to freezing and is unofficially ready for mass consumption). BOSS' software stack has all the usual suspects such as - Web server, proxy server, Database server, Mail server, Network server, File and Print server, SMS server, LDAP server, plus all major Indian language packs. However, all these and the underlying kernel, desktop environments and userland is very old. Now, the latest, at version 3.0, it still sticks to linux 2.6.22, xorg 1.3, gnome 2.20, OOo 2.2 and FF 3.

I ran it on my test machine (Dell Optiplex 360 - Intel Dual Core, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, Integrated Intel Graphics & Audio and Gigabit Ethernet). Looked sobre but worked poor. In comparison, Lenny was more responsive in almost every aspect - booting, program startup and overall stability.

To all users looking for an Indian Free Linux, I would strongly recommend a vanilla Lenny (or Squeeze) + the required Indian language pack from Debian repo.

I just wonder why India fosters such a distribution and drains big money into advertisements. Why anybody will ever choose BOSS over Debian, CentOS or Suse!

CentOS 5.5 Left Me Clueless

CentOS is a venerable server OS, no doubt about it! But when it comes to desktop, the same OS is a pig - you can't tame it to your liking. I had mentioned a few of the centOS desktop annoyances here in my previous post. As the time goes on I keep on getting more and more problems. Who told it's a no-nonsense desktop!

The USB issue still persists. And I now encountered a new problem related to file-roller. CentOS 5.5 comes with file-roller-2.16.0-2.fc6. Yes, it's the versions that originally came with Gnome 2.16. It's been very long... the package has been hardened by Red Hat in each of its point releases. CentOS also packaged the same, may be after doing some QA. However, I found a weird (and critical) problem – file-roller is unable to roll at all in some cases, i.e., though it easily archives directories with a few homogeneous files (such as docs, spreadsheets and text files), it fails to archive directories with complex structures and varied file types (such as completely saved web pages including css, js, html and other files).

First, I thought it's a regression, and went on to downgrade the package with the stock CentOS 5.2 disk. Nothing to my avail. Then I came to know the problem is deep-rooted in something that went wrong while upgrading.

What Did I Learn? CentOS is not Debian, that means, you can't upgrade from one point release to another and be assured of a stable system.

CentOS desktop behaves well if you don't fiddle. As I told earlier, you can't tame it to your liking the way you can do with a Debian system. At CentOS, I am clueless about this problem. Steadily CentOS is losing all its glory before me - I can't strip its kernel to suit my fancy, I can't tinker the runlevels and boot processes the way I did with Debian, I can't play with all the system internals the way I did with Lenny. Compared to Debian it seems more of a closed system.

In short, if you want to deploy CentOS on desktops, don't fiddle. Better still, choose Lenny or Squeeze. They won't let you down. You can always use CentOS on servers. Here, server side is very much standardized.

Good Heavens! There are some nice CLI goodies like tar, bzip, gzip.... they do the job.

Edit: I got file-roller working the way it should after removing brasero (by mistake). But I still wonder why and how brasero messed up with the archiver.

CentOS 5.5 USB Device Mounting Annoyance

What do you expect the next version of your favourite distribution to be? Better or worse. For me upgrading CentOS 5.2 to 5.5 became a worse experience. I was running CentOS 5.2 on my office workstation (Dell Optiplex 360) for long. Never really needed/worried to upgrade cos it was only a work station, I mean no play, only work. However, of late I wanted to pull in some multimedia stuff from rpmforge (that's not available in official CentOS repo). At the same time I thought of upgrading the system also. And I went ahead... Read below for the annoyances.

The fully upgraded system now has two kernels - kernel-2.6.18-92.el5 (original CentOS 5.2 kernel) and kernel-2.6.18-194.el5 (came with CentOS 5.5 upgradation), menu.lst points to the latest kernel as default boot options.

1. Annoyances with the new kernel: Running the new CentOS 5.5 kernel was fast, responsive... audio/video worked like a charm. But oddly enough I am unable to mount any USB drives (specially the ones with sdhc cards such as phones and cameras); lsusb does show make of the device and its id, but refuses to automount it. Even doesn't accept manual mounts.

2. Newly surfaced problem with the old kernel: After being unable to mount usb devices I rebooted the system to run the old kernel. To my surprise, the old kernel automounted all the usb drives that I threw at it. But, sadly, alsa sound server did not work the way it should. It was working fine before upgradation.

Solution: I wandered across dozens of forums for a solution and could not get any. Now I've to boot to the old kernel when I need to use USB drives, otherwise, the default 2.6.18-194.el5 kernel handles everything quite well.

Please comment to this post if you have a solution for this weird problem.

Debian + Backports is Better than the Latest Ubuntu

Debian Stable has a bad reputation of being little obsolete. It's never able to catch up with time. For example, at the time of writing this post, Debian 5.0.4, Lenny is still sticking to the old Iceweasel 3, OpenOffice 2.4, 2.6.26 kernel line and some other vital packages, whereas the package versions are greatly updated in the so called popular Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSuse. Some critics even say that this late-to-party nature of Debian is the reason for Ubuntu to show up in the Linux crowd.

But I don't buy to the view that Debian Stable is outdated. If you are running a server this much older packages and slow updates are a blessing. Moreover, you can catchup to the latest and greatest packages even on desktop. All you need is to add debian-backports to your /etc/apt/sources.list. A mix of Debian stable and Debian Backports will bring you all the popular packages. Here is the content of my sources.list

manmath@debian:~$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list
deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib
deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org/ lenny main non-free
deb http://www.backports.org/debian lenny-backports main contrib non-free

With the above repo list I am able to run Debian stable and work on OpenOffice 3.2, Iceweasel 3.5, Pidgin 2.6.6, Kernel 2.6.32 and many other packages. Besides, Debian stable is supported by Google Chrome, Skype and a majority of other linux software vendors such as Softmaker and Codeweavers. The only caution you should take is to pick out single backports which fits your needs, and not to use all the packages from backports repo.

For example, if you need to install the latest iceweasel from backports just enter:

apt-get -t lenny-backports install iceweasel

I've always found Debian Stable+Backports to be more stable than the latest Ubuntu. What's more, with backports configured you can get the latest versions of popular packages.

Airtel GPRS Internet on Your Linux PC through USB Cable

Internet through GPRS is not a joyride, but you might need it during some bad times when your ISP is down, broadband cabling in your area is messed up, or you are on the move. In such circumstances you may pair your mobile phone with your pc and easily get connected to the Internet. Here are some details on how to get internet working on your pc using GPRS in your Airtel Mobile Phone.

First, you need to active GPRS on your Airtel mobile phone. Dial  *567*11# to activate gprs and dial *567*13# to get mobile internet. Usually Airtel (or any other mobile service provider) will send settings which you will have save/install on your mobile phone. After that you should recharge your prepaid Airtel mobile phone with Rs. 98/- (as of 27th April, 2010) to get unlimated GPRS internet access for one month.

Next, you need to install ppp and wvdial on your Linux PC. Then change your /etc/wvdial.conf file to read:

[Dialer Defaults]
Init1 = AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","airtelgprs.com","",0,0
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
stupid mode = 1
Modem Type = USB Modem
Baud = 460800
New PPPD = yes
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
ISDN = 0
Phone = *99#
Password = manmath
Username = manmath

(You might change the Username and Password the way you like, the above is just an example)

Additionally you should also consider adding the following few lines to your /etc/sysctl.conf as a root user. It will reduce packet transfer overhead considerably.

net.ipv4.tcp_timestamps = 0
net.ipv4.tcp_sack = 1
net.ipv4.tcp_no_metrics_save = 1

That's it! Now connect your Airtel Mobile phone to your PC through USB cable, and as a root user (su or sudo, whatever appropriate in your case) enter wvdial in a terminal. And lo! You are connected to the web. If you want to connect to web as a non-root user, follow this link for further instructions.

You can also use Airtel SIM in your USB modem and connect to the Internet. For this you will have to use "Modem=/dev/ttyUSB0" in place of "Modem = /dev/ttyACM0" in your /etc/wvdial.conf

At Last RHEL 6 Beta Shows Up

Finally, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Beta is here. The Beta is a big transition from RHEL 5 in terms of core packages, desktop environments and applications. “Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 blurs the lines between virtual, physical, and cloud computing to address shifts taking place in the modern IT environment. Featuring updated core technology, from the kernel to the application infrastructure to the development toolchain, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 is designed to meet the needs of the coming generations of hardware and software technologies......” However, if you consider the package version status of the RHEL 6 final (when it comes) with contemporary distributions, it will still be little orthodox, as always.

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Beta is available on the following architectures: i386, AMD64/Intel64, System z, IBM Power (64-bit)." Read the release announcement and the press release for an overview of the most notable features.

Welcome PCLinuxOS 2010

Good news for all who are looking for a Mature "Just-Works" Desktop. PCLinuxOS 2010 bandwagon is released. This time Tex and the Gang has offered 7 releases:   Main KDE Desktop, KDE MiniMe Desktop, Gnome Desktop, Gnome ZenMini Desktop, LXDE Desktop, XFCE Desktop and Openbox Desktop.

PCLinuxOS 2010 Main KDE edition features Kernel 2.6.32.11-bfs kernel (for maximum desktop performance) and full KDE 4.4.2 Desktop. PCLinuxOS includes all of the latest popular applications such as Firefox 3.6.3, Thunderbird 3.0.4, Dropbox for online backup storage, Pidgin 2.6.6,  Kymoney, Ktorrent, Gimp, Digikam, Amarok, Smplayer and much much more. In addition there are over 12,000+ additional packages available from our software repository.

As always there is support for Nvidia and ATI fglrx drivers. Many new wireless cards and printers are supported as well. Plus 2010 release is able to play the popular multimedia. Other versions (Gnome, Zen, LXDE...) have got the respective latest desktop environments and applications.

Download PCLinuxOS 2010

How to Make GTK Apps Look like KDE on a KDE-only Desktop

KDE4 is eye-candy. But most of the distributions that bundle it are not that stable or usable. Here I don't talk about PCLinuxOS 2010 or Mepis 8.5. They have done a great job in their implementation of KDE 4. But there are a lot others.

Well, coming to the point.... Of late I planned to install a KDE-only Debian desktop on a custom-made system. It was meant for somebody very new to Linux. That's why I thought of good old KDE 3 and the most stable distro of our times - Debian Lenny. Lenny installed a fully-functional KDE desktop on that machine (PIV on Intel 945 mobo) quite well. Afterwards I made some tweaks on the system so that my friend could easy plug his ntfs external drive, web cam, use his stock DVDs, windows media files and so many other non-free stuff. Again after configuring debian-multimedia it was easy as always.

KDE 3.5.9 on Lenny worked like a charm - quite responsive while carrying a truck load of kde apps. But those gtk apps looked butt-ugly on a kde-only environment. Here is a screenshot of how a gtk app looks on a debian pure kde desktop.

As you see, the look of apps is not consistent. Thank God, there is gtk-qt-engine package in Lenny repo. I installed this package and configured in kcontrol (kde control center) as shown below. And Lo! Upon reboot I got consistent KDE look across kde and gtk.

If you are also a KDE-lover but can't do without some gtk apps gtk-qt-engine is the way to go.

Here is the screenshot of Avidemux after installing gtk-qt-engine.

Linux Desktop: Running WvDial without Root Permission

WvDial in combination with PPP is the best dialup internet solution for any Linux Desktop. There are a couple of ppp-frontends such as gnome-ppp and kppp for dialup internet access, but none are as versatile, configurable and intelligent as WvDial. However, the biggest turndown in WvDial is - it asks for root permission (except Mepis, Warren has done wonders to Mepis wherein you just have to enter wvdial, no need to be root at all). Everytime you need to do su or sudo wvdial and enter root password, it's a pain for no perceivable gain. Fortunately, you can get rid of it following a few simple tweaks.

1. Install ppp and wvdial using your distribution's repository. Let the package manager pull-in all the dependencies.
2. Generate/configure valid wvdial.conf file in /etc
For my idea net setter edge-enabled Huawei wireless modem I had to customize my wvdial.conf as mentioned below.

[Dialer Defaults]
Modem=/dev/ttyUSB0
Baud = 115200
Init 1 = AT+CGMM
Init 2 = AT+CMEE=1
Init 3 = ATE0
Init 4 = AT^HS=0,0
Init 5 = AT+CFUN?
Init 6 = AT+CLCK="SC",2
Init 7 = AT+CPIN?
Init 8 = AT+CLCK="SC",2
Modem Type = USB MODEM
Phone=*99#
Username = 9990146746
Password = 6746
New PPPD = yes
Dial Command=ATDT
Stupid Mode=1
ISDN=0

3. Open terminal, be a root user (su or sudo) and do:

adduser USERNAME dip
adduser USERNAME dialout

where USERNAME is your userlogin name.

4. Locate pppd (generally it's /usr/sbin/pppd) with root permission run the following commands in a terminal

chmod o+x pppd
chmod g+s pppd

5. Finally, change permissions of pap-secrets and chap-secrets

chown USERNAME /etc/ppp/pap-secrets
chown USERNAME /etc/ppp/chap-secrets

You're done!

Now open a terminal and run wvdial as a non-previleged (non-root) user.

PCLinuxOS 2010 Rocks Even in the Beta Stage

The wait is over! Tex and the Rippers announced PCLinuxOS 2010 on 6th March, 2010. Final iso is very close.

PCLinuxOS-2010.beta1 has gathered all the goodies: latest 2.6.32.8 kernel with BFS scheduler, full ext4 support, KDE 4.4.1 SC and the latest applications. Besides, users having more than 4Gig of RAM can pull in a PAE kernel from the repo.

In many ways pclos 2010 is a big leap/rewrite for faster startup, better hardware detection/configuration and consistent/unified look across KDE/GTK2 themes. 2010 edition carries plymouth bootsplash and speedboot technology. Needless to say, it still bears the tex-stability and -usability, the halmarks of this distro.

I am using the beta for last 3 days and not experienced a bit of problem till now. You can use it too though the official suggestion is to use its final.

Please visit www.pclinuxos.com for more.
Some Download links:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/texstar/pclinuxos/live-cd/english/preview/pclinuxos-2010-beta1.iso
http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/pclinuxos/live-cd/english/preview/pclinuxos-2010-beta1.iso
http://ftp.sh.cvut.cz/MIRRORS/pclinuxos/live-cd/english/preview/pclinuxos-2010-beta1.iso
http://distrib-coffee.ipsl.jussieu.fr/pub/linux/pclinuxos/live-cd/english/preview/pclinuxos-2010-beta1.iso

Size: 693.91 mb
md5sum – c027f63d211304059b522433e2a48a16