My Tribe - An enjoyable resource management game for Linux

My Tribe is the latest game from Grubby Games - the creators of Prof Fizzwizzle and Fizzball. Grubby Games are known for releasing Linux versions of all their games. My Tribe game also has a Linux version. The first time I started playing the My Tribe game, I was taken in by its vivid graphics.

The game play is as follows : You are put in charge of controlling and managing a set of island dwellers. At the start of the game, you have to choose an island from over 3000,000,000 islands dotting the horizon (No kidding). Once you choose an island, your island dwellers (people) move to that island and start living there. It is anybody's guess that living a wholesome life requires atleast the basic necessities namely food, clothing and shelter. Fortunately, there are sufficient trees on all islands which provide wood for construction, fuel for fire etc. And also rocks which you have to make the island dwellers harvest. The sea is full of fish which provide the food.


Once your people have sufficient resources namely wood, rocks and food, you can direct them to start constructing buildings such as a Science lab for doing research, storehouses to store rocks, wood and food, craftworks, and of course huts which they can use to get some shut eye and also to procreate. While on the topic of making babies, thanks to the game developers, when ever you wish to increase the tribe population which is a necessity, all you have to do is drag a man over a woman or vice versa. The game asks you if you want them to indeed have a baby. Once you confirm in the affirmative, the couple move into a hut and close the door. And in a few seconds they come out with, voila!! ... a baby.


Occasionally celestial objects in the form of star dust and moon dust fall on the island. These dusts have unique properties and they can be used to create magical portions, speed up building of structures and provide many other benefits to your people on the island. And do keep a look out for barrels and crates which float near the island. They contain surprises which may aid your tribe or make them disoriented.


Each island also comes with three of the game's eight mysterious objects for you to solve. Once you've figured them out, each one gives a powerful benefit to your tribe, and one of the game's 25 trophies.

The game is superb in its graphics and detail. At first I had the impression that the game play was similar to that of Age of Empires game. But this game is significantly different and does not involve violence and gore. Essentially, you manage your tribe to make use of the resources at hand to lead a healthy and happy life. And like in real life, the island dwellers in your game also age with time and will eventually die of old age. Another reason to increase the tribe numbers by allowing them to procreate I guess.


And what do the tribe people do once all the resources on the island get over ? They do the logical thing which is build a shipyard, then build an arc (ship) and set sail to another island.


My Tribe - A game with very low carbon footprint


One of the unique aspects of this game which I find quite amusing is that the game progresses even when you have turned off your computer. This means you need not turn on the computer and sit in front of it playing the game hours on end wasting power. You need just open the game once or twice a day and spend a few minutes tending to your flock by assigning them tasks; After which, you can close the game. The next time you open the game after a few hours, you will find your game has progressed a lot.

I had hours of fun playing the game. While there are some irritating things like when a star dust or moon dust falls on the island, you are expected to drag one of the people over it to collect it - which soon gets quite tedious. It would have been better if the players were to just click on the moon dust or star dust to retrieve them. But such minor irritations apart, this is a game worth spending money on, and enjoyed by the whole family.

Download the demo of Linux version of the game, or buy it.

A visual walkthrough of the enhancements in KDE 4.2

The main emphasis of KDE 4.2 release has been drastic improvement in desktop effects. KDE has its own composite window manager called KWIN which received a huge graphical upgrade, with composite and GL support.

Lucas Murray has put together a collection of videos showcasing all the improvements in desktop effects that have found its way into KDE 4.2.


The desktop effects being - Present windows, Snow, Desktop grid, Invert, Box switch, Cover switch, Magic lamp, and of course a slew of subtle features which makes KDE 4.2 a major release in itself as far as the end user is concerned.

All the videos are in high definition format and can be viewed here.

A collection of free books to help you learn Linux

If you are a new Linux user and wish for some direction in understanding Linux, then help is at hand. Unlike a few years ago when a Linux newbie had to solely rely on viewing the man pages or reading the manuals from tldp.org to understand the different facets of Linux, things are much different now. Thanks to the ever growing popularity of Linux, there are a plethora of books, manuals and howtos which make life much easier for a Linux enthusiast. It has also helped that Linux has continued to become easier to configure and use during this time.

Daily Artisan has put together a very good collection of links to free Linux books available on the net. The books span the gamut of Linux Installation, beginner guides, Security, System administration, Programming, Migration, Linux Kernel and of course books specific to particular Linux distributions such as Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian and so on.

A valuable resource worth bookmarking. Read the article at Daily Artisan.

Free CD and Address Label Templates Galore

I have often found the need to create labels, such as for pasting my contact address in a legible manner on my belongings, and of course while burning a blank CD or DVD, in which case I use the CD labels. Thanks to open source and more specifically OpenOffice.org, it is possible to create any number of labels of standard sizes and shapes. To create labels in OpenOffice.org, do the following :
  1. Open OpenOffice.org word processor.
  2. Click File > New > Labels
... and choose from the plethora of options in the dialog box. Lastly, Click on the "New Document" button to create the set of labels.

But why go through all the hassle of designing your own when you have ready made templates of labels available as a free download ? That is right, WorldLabel.com a manufacturer of labels has been in the forefront in creating free templates of labels of various sizes and shapes conforming to industry standards.

They recently published an exhibition of CD labels and Address labels in Open Document Template (ODT) format. The labels were designed using the CC licenced color palletes from ColorLovers.com which makes them all the more desirable.


Fig: Address Label templates from WorldLabel.com



Fig: CD Label Templates from WorldLabel.com


The address labels are compatible with Avery 5160 size and the CD labels with Avery 5931 size.

How easy is it to use WorldLabel.com free label templates ?


It is as easy as choosing your favourite design from the wide selection of label templates. Once you have choosen the right design, download the respective ODT document and open it in OpenOffice.org to enter the personalized information you wish to include.

Incidentally, since the templates are released in the ODT format, these can be opened in other office suites such as KOffice, StarOffice, IBM Lotus Symphony, or any other office suite which supports the Open Document format, apart from OpenOffice.org. If by any chance you are using MSOffice (perhaps using Wine in Linux), then you will need to download the Sun ODF plugin for MSOffice to read Open Document files.

The templates released by WorldLabel.com can be extensively modified by changing the font size, font style and color. You can even add another textbox for entering more information. More importantly, they are free to use. If you are a designer and wish to convert your design into a free label template, then you can submit your graphics to worldlabel[AT]gmail[DOT]com.

Update [Jan 17, 2009]: Worldlabel recently launched a blog which covers all open source topics. On the blog, I came across Solveig Haugland's in-depth article which explains Mail Merge in OpenOffice.org from start to finish which is quite informative. Also check out their Ebook which is available as a free download.

Review : Arch Linux - A sleek, fast Linux distribution

I had always wanted to try Arch Linux. Mainly because, most people who used it became its ardent followers and, I wished to know what was the magic that pulled a Linux user to go the Arch Linux way.

Arch Linux follows the philosophy of KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. So you won't find a cool, eye catching GUI installer for installing Arch nor a colorful splash screen which hide the complex boot process while booting up. But what you get for this trade off is a blazing fast Linux distribution which boots much faster than many of its competitors.

Arch Linux is specifically tweaked for, and targeted at the i686/x86-64 architecture which is your ubiquitous Pentium/Celeron processor machines.

Installing Arch Linux itself is an oddity. You first download a minimal Arch Linux core ISO image of around 250-300 MB size and burn it on to a CD. Then you boot your machine from the CD. Arch Linux boots up as a Live CD and puts you in root (super user) prompt. Now you initiate the install process by running the setup script.
# /arch/setup
The full Arch Linux installation guide is accessible at /arch/arch-install-guide.txt. As most of you know, in Linux, you can access multiple virtual consoles at a time. So I opened a second console screen by pressing the key combination [Alt]+[F2] and logging in as root, opened the above mentioned installation guide. Thus I was able to switch between the consoles and simultaneously read the installation guide while continuing with the installation.

The Arch Linux installer is a ncurses based text installer. But someone who has installed any other Linux distribution a couple of times will be comfortable installing Arch on their machine. More over, those who have installed either Slackware or FreeBSD will find the Arch Linux installer very similar and easy to use.

Arch Linux Installation Steps


The following is a synopsis of the steps I had to execute to install Arch on my machine.
  1. Boot the Minimal Arch Linux LiveCD
  2. Login as root user and initiate the Arch Linux installation.
  3. Select an installation source - You can install Arch from a CD/DVD or via FTP. I chose CD-ROM as I already had the base installation on the CD. You can choose FTP/HTTP if you have a very fast internet connection.
  4. Prepare the hard drive - This involves partitioning the hard drive and setting filesystem mountpoints. Arch Linux comes bundled with the cfdisk partitioning utility which is quite easy to use.
  5. Select Packages - This is essentially to give the user a chance to install additional packages not selected by default in the base install. For example, I needed the ntfs-3g package to mount my Windows NTFS partition and I selected it in this step of installation.
  6. Install packages - The packages get installed on the hard disk. Takes some time depending upon the number of packages you have choosen to install.
  7. Configure system - Arch Linux uses the BSD style init framework. So most of the configuration details are inserted in the /etc/rc.conf file. In this step, you are asked a few set of simple questions such as do you need USB support, Firewire support, PCMCIA support and so on for which you give a Yes or No answer. You also get the chance to edit the file directly in a text editor and set your timezone and enter your network settings. The file is superbly commented. Here you are also prompted to set the root password. While configuring the system, the installer asks you to set the package repository which will be used to pull all the packages you install via the Internet.
  8. Install bootloader - Arch Linux provides you a choice of GRUB or LILO. Pick your choice.
  9. Exit install
  10. Reboot
While the steps listed above may seem a lot, it took me just a short time to finish installing the base packages. Arch Linux stores all the installation packages in the pacman cache. Once installation is finished, you can delete these packages as they are no longer needed. I used the following pacman command to delete all the packages stored in the cache.
# pacman -Scc

Are we finished installing Arch Linux yet ?


Of course after finishing the above mentioned steps, I now had a basic, minimal, albeit fully functional Arch Linux on my machine. The hardest part - the installation - was over.But for Arch Linux to be of any use to me, I had to install the Xserver (xorg) and all the necessary software.

Here is the good news - In Arch Linux, it is very easy to install and manage software because it uses a superior package management system called pacman. I headed over to wiki.archlinux.org which is the official documentation of Arch Linux. It contains detailed steps on installing any and all Linux software. I first installed Xorg and then decided to go for a light weight Desktop called LXDE which happened to be a good choice. And in no time, I had a spanking new upto date Linux Desktop with the latest version of software installed. What I found really nice was I had to install just those software which I needed, and that saved valuable space on the hard disk.

pacman - Arch Linux's superior package management tool


One of the strong points of Arch Linux is its powerful package management tool called pacman. Simply put, pacman is to Arch Linux what apt-get is to Debian or Ubuntu. But after using it to upgrade and install software on Arch, I feel pacman is a lot more superior to apt-get if not at par with it. More over, as mentioned earlier, Arch Linux is a rolling release distribution. This makes it possible to run pacman as a cron job and leave the system to update and upgrade itself on a regular basis with minimal user intervention.

Arch Linux has all the important and often used software in its official repositories. Apart from that, Arch Linux also allows the user - that is you and me - to create Arch specific packages of software compiled from source, which are not available in the official repositories. These user generated binary packages are made available in the ArchLinux User-community Repository (AUR). So if you do not find your favourite software in Arch's official repository, you can easily create a binary package by compiling from source and share it with others.

Is Arch Linux the best Linux distribution of them all ?


An interesting question that demands a genuine answer. Honestly, it depends on whom you ask this question. Arch Linux is definitely a fabulous Linux distribution. One of the endearing aspects of Arch Linux for me was when the latest version of GIMP 2.6.3 was officially released. To get the latest version of GIMP, I didn't have to wait that long. Within a few weeks, I was pleasantly surprised to be able to upgrade to GIMP 2.6.3. If it were any other Linux distribution, I will have had to wait till the next official release.

The pros of Arch Linux are ....
  • Speed - It is much faster than any other mainstream Linux distribution.
  • Simple management of software - Arch Linux has a superior form of package management in pacman.
  • A strong community - I posted a query in the Arch Linux forum and received a reply in just a few minutes time. The strong community revolving around Arch Linux is one of its chief strengths.
  • Rolling release distribution - Unlike most other Linux distributions, you need to install Arch Linux only once, and with clever use of Pacman, your system will remain upto date forever.

And the cons of Arch Linux are ...
  • It uses a text based installer similar to that found in Slackware.
  • It has no fancy GUI tools whatsoever for configuring your system. Configuration is done by editing text files.
  • Arch Linux is optimized for i686/x86-64 architecture machines. For instance, there is no Arch release for powerPC or other architectures.
To sum up, if you are an avid Linux user who is comfortable in using the command line, and editing text files to configure your system, then you should give Arch Linux a try. I assure you, it will be a pleasant, fullfilling experience.

Roundup of Vim Articles

Regular readers of this blog may be aware of the numerous Vim related articles that were posted here. Notable among them being a concise tutorial on using Vim, the new features of Vim 7.0, making Vim behave like an ordinary text editor (Cream for Vim), a talk given by Bram Moolenaar on the Seven habits of effective text editing and Increasing your productivity using Vim, just to name a few.

More over, over a year back, 50% of this blog readers polled Vim/Vi as the favourite text editor of their choice.

Now here is another resource for Vim/Vi enthusiasts. Nicola Paolucci has collected 10 classic Vim articles which (he claims) transformed him from a Vim hater to a Vim lover. Check out his collection. Perhaps you as well might experience a mind shift towards Vim - my all time favourite text editor.

Fedora 10 released with engaging new features

Fedora 10 codenamed "Cambridge" has been released. This new version of the community oriented, Red Hat backed Linux distribution comes with new features which enhance the end user experience.

Fedora 10 is built on Linux kernel version 2.6.27. It comes with improved support for a choice of webcams, improved infrared remote support, better Bluetooth support which incorporates a new, easier to use wizard for setting up keyboards, mice, and other supported Bluetooth devices, A new improved graphical boot system called Plymouth, OpenOffice 3, Firefox 3.0.4, GNOME 2.24, KDE 4.1, LXDE, GIMP 2.6, you got it all in Fedora 10.

The underlying audio system in Fedora is PulseAudio. In Fedora 10, the bugs found in PulseAudio have been fixed, thus making it glitch free. The audio system also consumes relatively less power.

In most Linux distributions including prior versions of Fedora, the graphical X loads in virtual terminal 7 (VT7) - which you can navigate using Ctrl + Alt + Function keys (1-7). But in Fedora 10, the developers have shifted the graphical boot to virtual terminal 1 which has helped make the transition from bootup to displaying a full fledged GUI, smooth and flicker free. The graphical boot process has itself speeded up because of the improved graphical boot system (Plymouth) which replaces the old Red Hat graphical boot.

For the developers and system administrators, Fedora 10 features an improved RPM which can stream components which are required to run already installed software - for example, a video or audio codec required to run a file in the video or audio player. And secondly, Fedora 10 comes with improved support for remote, hands off installation and management.

The new version of Network Manager utility in Fedora 10 now features built-in support for Internet connection sharing.

Fedora developers Adam Jackson and Ray Strobe have been interviewed at Fedora Magazine blog, where they reveal the nitty gritty details of Fedora 10's improved startup. Read what they have to say.

You can download Fedora 10 as a GNOME LiveCD or KDE LiveCD from the Official Fedora website. Also read the full Fedora 10 release notes to get a broader picture of what it offers.

Download full version of Codeweavers software for free - One day only

We all know that spiraling gas prices throughout the world has put a strain on the economy. But instead of becoming melancholic about the whole situation, we should look at the brighter side of things. After all some good samaritan out there would do something to bring some cheer into our lives.

Take for instance CodeWeavers CEO Jeremy White, who was so put off with the state of affairs in his country (USA) that he placed a challenge to the outgoing US president George Bush. And what was the challenge ? Well Jeremy placed six goals (He calls them lame duck presidential goals) which included the goal of reducing the price of gasoline to below a particular amount. And if any one of his goals were met before George Bush finished his term at office, then Jermey will, for one day, give away his flag ship products Crossover Linux Pro (For Linux and Mac) and CrossOver Games (Linux and Mac) to anyone for free. Guess what, the price of gasoline has indeed fallen to the level set by Jermey and George Bush is still the American President.

So for one day, more specifically October 28, 2008 which happens to be today, you and I get to download the un-crippled full version of the above mentioned Crossover products and get a valid license for the same, with one year support thrown in for free.

So head over to Codeweavers website and download your legal copy of Crossover products. Once you download the products, visit this page to get your free serial number.

Those who are not aware of Crossover software, it is a fine tuned implementation of WINE software which allows you to install and run Windows software natively in Linux.

Note: Due to high volume of traffic to the main Codeweavers website, you may download the trial versions of the software for Linux and Mac platforms from here. The trial versions can be unlocked to full versions with registered accounts when the main site comes back online.

Free wallpapers for portrait monitors

Beautiful wallpapers for normal monitors are dime a dozen. In fact you will find links to quite a collection of wallpapers right on this blog. So what is unique about this set of wallpapers you might ask.

The USP of this collection is that it is optimized and targeted at portrait monitors - Those monitors whose height is larger than their width. Some of the wallpapers are a montage of numerous photos which have been stitched together to bring them to the required dimensions.


Check them out. They are indeed very beautiful.

Kingston unveils 32GB Linux friendly USB drive

Recent advances in storage technology has made it possible to literally carry all your data in your pocket. Kingston - one of the major global players in the USB storage and memory market with more than 2,000 memory products in its offing, has unveiled a 32GB USB flash drive called "DataTraveller 150".


Kingston DataTraveller 150

It has a dimension of 3.06" x 0.9" x 0.47" and is Linux friendly. Kingston offers the DataTraveller 150 with a 5 year warranty. It is priced at around USD 100.

Full Specifications of DataTraveler 150
  • Capacity – 32GB
  • Dimensions – 3.06" x 0.9" x 0.47" (77.9 mm x 22 mm x 12.05 mm)
  • Operating Temperatures – 32º F to 140º F (0º C to 60º C)
  • Storage Temperatures – -4º F to 185º F (-20º C to 85º C)
  • Convenient – Pocket-sized for easy transportability
  • Simple – Just plug into a USB port
  • Practical – Stores cap securely on end of device to prevent loss of cap
  • Guaranteed – Five-year warranty
  • Operating systems - Windows 2000, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Mac OSX and Linux.

Linux attains adulthood minus one

Yesterday - October 5 2008, Linux turned 17 years old. That is one year short for attaining adulthood if Linux were a human being. Seventeen years is no mean feat in the life of an operating system. Come to think of it, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT, OS/2, all lasted only for a few years before they were superseded by their more mature counterparts.

On the other hand, Linux is going strong even after 17 years; Nay, it is surging up in the popularity chart albeit at a glacial pace. Companies like ASUS, DELL and others have started bundling and supporting different flavors of Linux on their laptops.

On the eve of celebrating the birthday of Linux - all of 17 years, what better way than to take a recap of the history of Linux ? Also read the original mail by Linus Torvalds in the Minix mailing list, introducing the Linux kernel to the outside world.

Ubuntu Articles

Ubuntu is a Linux distribution based on Debian. This page lists the informative articles on Ubuntu that you will find on Linux Help.

Ubuntu News & Reviews

Ubuntu Hardy Heron - 8.04 LTS Desktop and Server Edition Released.
Ubuntu 7.10 Gusty Gibbon ready for download
Kubuntu 6.06 LTS - An excellent Linux distribution

Enable DVD playback in Ubuntu 
Introducing Ubuntu Live Stats
Voice your Opinion and suggestions on Ubuntu Linux
Cool Awn Applets to adorn your Ubuntu Linux Desktop

Install Avant Window Navigator (AWN) in Ubuntu Linux
Steps to install gOS on Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon
A Guide to Ubuntu Customization
Troubleshooting a laptop running Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon
Install multimedia codecs in Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon in 2 easy steps

 
September to be one Ubuntu screencast per day month
Tweak your host file to block ad generating web sites
A list of new features expected in Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon
Installing Vmware on Ubuntu Using the Canonical Repository

XOrg version 7.3 blueprint for Ubuntu
Ubuntu sources.list online generator
Ubuntu plus Dell equals better support for devices in Linux
Performance tweaks for Ubuntu Feisty Fawn
Is brand name Ubuntu Overhyped ?

AptonCD - Create a backup of packages in Ubuntu
How to install anything in Ubuntu
Ubuntu Hacks
10 most popular Ubuntu sites on the net
Essential housekeeping in Ubuntu

10 things that make Ubuntu a neophytes distribution
Installing and configuring Ubuntu on a laptop
Installing Ubuntu alongside Windows
The varied flights of Ubuntu Dapper Drake
6 Steps to installing Ubuntu Dapper Drake

Debian successor to Lenny - a three-eyed space alien

Debian team is infamous for sticking to hard to remember names for each of its releases. Thankfully, they have stuck to one theme while naming the distribution releases - that of the "Toy Story" movie. Each release is named after a character in the Toy Story movie.

So you have Sid, Lenny, Etch, Sarge, Woody, Potato and so on. The following is the explanation given by the Debian team regarding these names. So now with the impending official release of Lenny as a stable version, it is now the turn of the next build of Debian in Sid to be promoted to Testing and it has been named Squeeze (after the three-eyed monster in Toy Story).

Read the official Debian announcement to know more.

Introducing New Commenting System

Your favorite Linux and Open Source blog has gained a new commenting system. It will be in a test phase for some time before it will be made a permanent feature of this blog.

Taking into consideration the less than friendly and rather inflexible commenting system provided by blogger.com, I have always been on the lookout for a third party commenting system which I can integrate with this blog.

And I found the answer in Disqus.com which is a commenting system which is rich in features such as threading, easy moderation and integration with the template. So do tell me your thoughts on the new system of commenting. This new commenting system is enabled for posts starting with this one and the older posts will still retain all the comments and moderation that Blogger provides.

Of course if this doesn't work out, we always have the choice of rolling back to the original blogger way of commenting. Btw, I will be replying to comments as 'ravik' instead of 'ravi' because the user name ravi was already taken.

Browse the Web in Konqueror using only the keyboard

KDE Konqueror is much more than a file manager. It is also a standards compliant web browser. Here is a neat trick to surf the web sans the mouse - that is, using just your keyboard.

Fire up Konqueror in Linux, FreeBSD or what ever OS you are running that has KDE installed. Konqueror usually opens in File browsing mode. Type in the address of the website you wish to view, in the Address bar - for instance http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com and press Enter key.

Here is the interesting part ... Once the website loads itself, tap on the 'Ctrl' key once to activate the "Access Keys" and Konqueror will label each link in the web page with unique alphabetic characters. You can follow the link in the web browser by just tapping the corresponding character associated with the link.

Tapping once more on the 'Ctrl' key will deactivate the "Access Keys".

How is that for mouse free web browsing ? To get an idea of how it looks on screen, view the following screenshot...

Fig: Active Keys enabled in Konqueror

Sun Cluster Page

I've added a new Sun Cluster page to the site. I'll be expanding it over time.

--Scott

ZFS Page Update

I've submitted additional updates to the ZFS page.

In particular, the revised version of the page contains some basic reference information on ZFS structure internals, as well as links to papers that can be used to walk the internal data structures of a ZFS file system:

ZFS
On-Disk Data Walk
in the OpenSolaris Developer Conference Proceedings.


ZFS On-Disk Specification

ZFS page updated

The ZFS page has been updated with references to the Evil Tuning Guide and some of the tuning parameters that are discussed there.

Search engines Yahoo and Google learn to crawl Flash sites

Statistics show that Adobe's Flash is installed in a whooping 98% of computers connected to the internet. Using Flash, a web developer is able to give his imagination a free reign and build gorgeous multimedia intensive albeit equally functional sites.

But till date, building Flash based sites had a singular drawback. That being, the search engines had no way of indexing them unless the web developer also included text in his Flash site explaining what the site or rather the content on the site was all about.

Some time back, Adobe released the Flash file format SWF as an open specification which encouraged third party developers to create applications which could display Flash files. Now Adobe has gone one step further and is working closely with Internet search engine companies namely Yahoo and Google to help them in indexing Flash files. This is a clear green light for all web developers to start creating sites which are heavy in Flash content. This also means web developers can reduce the size of their Flash sites by doing away with ordinary text.

You should know that the latest version of Adobe Flash player is available for Linux platform as well which makes Flash a universal format to share and showcase content across the web.

Read the official news from Adobe and also the announcement from Google.

Guiness World Record Certificate in your name - Firefox 3

On June 17th 2008, Firefox decided to set the Guiness Book of World Record for the most downloaded software in 24 hours. Mozilla foundation urged its users the world over to update their browsers by downloading the latest version namely Firefox 3. And the response was so massive on the D-Day that, there was an outage at the Mozilla data center for several hours. Once the servers were back online, the downloading continued and Firefox set the world record well within the 24 hours.

The record is 15,067,570 downloads (15 Million). Country wise, USA tops the list with a whooping 4 million + downloads. Surprisingly, sans the US, relatively small countries like Iran and France clocked more downloads than its larger counterparts like India and China.

If you are one of the people who downloaded Firefox on June 17th, then congratulations !!; You are a part of the Guiness Book of World Records. And the people at Firefox are ever too grateful to forget your valuable contribution.

So go ahead and download your own personalized Guiness Book of World Records Certificate (Ahem ... Firefox 3 Download Day Certificate that is) for helping set the record. Here is mine shown below.

Firefox Guiness Book of World Records Certificate

OpenSUSE 11.0 released

OpenSUSE has released its latest version aka 11.0 today. This version contain cool innovations and new features. Some of them being inclusion of KDE 4.04, a brand new themed installer, latest Linux kernel (2.6.25.4) and a slew of features specific to OpenSUSE.

For a list of new features, read the release notes. And check out the screenshots of the installer to get an idea on how easy it is to install on your machine.

Wine 1.0 - The first stable release of Wine after 15 years of development

After 15 long years of active development, Wine software which makes it possible to run native Windows applications, has reached it's milestone 1.0 version. What are the features of this new stable release of Wine you ask ? Well, one of the prerequisites of the version 1.0 release, I am told, was that it should be able to run Adobe Photoshop CS2 flawlessly in Linux. And that has been achieved. Check out if and how far your favorite Windows application works in Wine by visiting the Wine Application Database.

You can download the binary packages or the source at the WineHQ website.

How do astronauts go to bathroom in outer space

A NASA engineer answers one of the age-old questions every kid has: What happens when you go to the bathroom in outer space? A little insight into zero-gravity toilet design.

Opera 9.50 web browser released

Opera has released yet another version of its flagship web browser by the same name. It comes with unique features, many of which are not yet available on alternate web browsers out of the box.

I have always found using Opera to be a pleasant experience. Some of the new features found in Opera are as follows :
  1. Opera Link : For the very first time, all your bookmarks, speed dial and notes taken in Opera web browser will follow you around where ever you go. You can even access them from your mobile phone. The catch being you have to be using an Opera web browser. Opera provides space on their server to store your bookmarks and other settings which makes this possible.
  2. Quick Find : Opera keeps track of not only the web addresses you visit but also words from pages you have visited. So if you do not remember the web address but remember a word on the web page, typing it in the address bar will let you zero in on the exact web page.
  3. Better fraud protection.
  4. A sharper skin.
Opera also claims that -
It’s faster, lighter and pushes us further out in front of other browsers, by blending the mobile and desktop worlds together in new and powerful ways.
But let the end users be the people who decide that. Why not visit Opera and download the latest version namely 9.5 and take it for a spin ? For all you know, you might get hooked to yet another fabulous web browser.

MySQL - Cheat Sheet

MySQL is a small, fast and highly configurable DBMS. It supports a number of different table fileformats, depending on the requirements of the user.

These are the main MySQL clients and processes (mysqld):
  • mysqld - MySQL server daemon
  • safe_mysqld - Server process monitor
  • mysqlaccess - Tool for creating MySQL users
  • mysqladmin - Utility for administering MySQL
  • mysqldump - Tool for dumping the contents of a MySQL database. Useful for backing up a database from within the console.
  • mysql - Command line interface to MySQL
  • mysqlshow - List all MySQL database
  • Mysql Administrator - This is a GUI tool which makes administering mysql database a painless task. Read more about it here.
Field Types in SQL
INTEGER - A whole number
VARCHAR(10) - Up to 10 characters.
CHAR(10) - Fixed number of characters
DATE - A date
DATETIME - Date and time
FLOAT - Floating point numbers
Field Types specific to MySQL
TEXT - Allows up to 65535 characters
DECIMAL(10,2) - Up to 10 digits before the point, 2 after.
Create a database
$ mysqladmin --user=ravi --password=xxx create database addressdb
Using the database
$ mysql --user=ravi --password=xxx
mysql> USE addressdb
Create a table
mysql> CREATE TABLE p_addr (i INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,address TEXT,email VARCHAR(30),pincode DECIMAL(10),phone DECIMAL(15),website TEXT);
Add a column called "name" to the table
mysql> ALTER TABLE p_addr ADD name VARCHAR(30);
Inserting values into table
mysql> INSERT INTO p_addr VALUES (1,"My, present, address","ravi@localhost",681024,2122536, "http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com","Ravi");
List the contents of the table
mysql> SELECT * FROM p_addr;
Delete a row from the table
mysql> DELETE FROM p_addr WHERE i=1;
Rename a column in the table from "address" to "home_address"
mysql> ALTER TABLE p_addr CHANGE address home_address INTEGER;
Note: You cannot use this method to rename a column which is a primary key.

Change an existing record in the table
mysql> UPDATE p_addr SET name="Sumitra" WHERE i=2;
Delete the table from the database
mysql> DROP TABLE p_addr;
List the databases
$ mysqlshow --user=ravi --password=xxx
+-----------+
| Databases |
+-----------+
| addressdb |
| myblog |
| mysql |
| test |
+-----------+
List the tables in the database "addressdb"
$ mysqlshow --user=ravi --password=xxx addressdb

Database: addressdb
+---------+
| Tables |
+---------+
| p_addr |
| mytble |
| phonebk |
+---------+
These are only a subset of the commands in mysql. But this will be enough for creating and maintaining a simple database.

Unbreakable Linux - Free Linux DVD set from Oracle

First it was Ubuntu and now it is Oracle's turn. That is right; here is a wonderful chance to get yourself a DVD set of Oracle's Unbreakable Linux. Essentially Unbreakable Linux is Red Hat Enterprise Linux sans the Red Hat trademarks.

Oracle claims Unbreakable Linux delivers enterprise-class support for Linux with premier backports, comprehensive management, cluster software, indemnification, testing and more, all at significantly lower cost.

Fig: Enter your email id and a password.

Fig: Enter your name and address.

To order your Free DVD of Oracle Unbreakable Linux with free shipping and all, visit this page and click the "Register Now" button. If this is your first visit to the Oracle website, you will have to create an Oracle account. Next enter your shipping address which is the address to which you would like to receive the DVD set and press "Submit". That is it. Oracle will ship you a brand new DVD set of Unbreakable Linux.

Power sessions with Screen

Screen is a full-screen window manager for the console, that comes with every flavour of Linux and UNIX. It is best known for multiplexing a physical terminal across several processes. By using it, you can run any number of console-based applications within a single terminal.
For example, suppose I want to run the 'top' program to keep track of the system load, edit my programming code and check my mail at the same time ... Usually, I have to open at least 3 terminals to do all this. But by using the screen utility, I can run all these programs at the same time in the same physical terminal. Another great feature of this wonderful utility is its ability to decouple the terminal emulator from the running program, which ensures your job is running even if you accidentally close your window, or in case you log out. After detaching, you can reconnect once again to the same session and regain control over the running jobs.
Here I will explain how to use this utility.
1) First open a terminal (eg: xterm if you are in X windows) and type :
$ screen
2) Screen starts and creates a new single window with a shell, pretty much like what you had before. The path name of the shell is taken from the $SHELL variable. New windows can be created within the same physical terminal using the screen commands.
3) Now that you have started screen in a terminal, suppose you want to run the 'top' program to check the System load and at the same time you want to compile a program too - Also you would like to switch between the two to see the progress made by both.
For that, first execute the first program to be run (say 'top'). now 'top' will start in the terminal.
Now open a new window in screen by pressing the '[Ctrl + a] c' - which I will state as 'C-a c' . This will create a new window in the same terminal. Here, you can give commands to compile your program.
In screen, each window is given a unique identifier. The first window is numbered 0, the next window is 1 and so on. Now to switch between your 'top' and the compiling program, you can use the key 'C-a 0' and 'C-a 1' respectively.
You can also associate names with each running window - use 'C-a A' to give a name to the current window.
Here are a few other commands that might come in handy while toggling between various running windows :
  • 'C-a p' and 'C-a n' can be used to switch to the next or previous window respectively.
  • 'C-a N' - where N is the number from 0 to 9, that can be used to jump to the corresponding window.
  • 'C-a w' displays a list of all windows. The unique ID of each window with its name and running process is displayed, for each window. The current window is marked with an asterisk(*).
  • 'C-a k' - can be used to kill the current window. You can also type 'exit' to kill the current window. If no more windows are open, then screen exits. 'C-a \' also does the same thing.
  • 'C-a d' - detaches the present screen session. You can also detach by closing the terminal running your screen utility. Though, this appears to close your terminal session, in reality this does not happen. It only unbinds your session from the current terminal. All the programs started under screen will still keep running.
You can also log out from the machine and re-login. Then start any terminal session and type 'screen -r' to once again be connected from where you left.
In case, there were more than one screen sessions running on the machine, Screen prompts for a host.tty.pid.
For example, say I have two screen sessions. So when I type 'screen -r' command, it gives the following message:
$ screen -r
There are several suitable screens on:
2999.pts-6.localhost (Detached)
1920.PTS-6.localhost (Detached)
Type "screen [-d] -r [pid].tty.host" to resume one of them.
Choose the proper tty.host to connect to and you are controlling your program again. You can also share your screen session with others like using VNC . Imagine you are having a problem with your code and want to share it with your boss who is located in another office. You can use screen to share your session with your boss, and he can see what you are referring to. The first user starts his screen in a normal fashion and executes the following commands ...
User1:
[Ctrl-A]:multiuser on [RET]
[Ctrl-A]:acladd
The second user starts a new screen session and connects it to the first session using ...
User2:
screen -x
There are lots and lots of features in Screen other than those that were described here. To know more about Screen, visit the Official Screen Home Page. You can also find a very good introductory tutorial at Kuro5hin.org.

BBC's take on the Open Source alternative

Of course you know what open source and Free software means. Or else you wouldn't be visiting this blog and reading its articles in the first place. But it is always nice to get the point of view of a main stream media. And if the media in question is the BBC, then it gets all the more sweeter.

I have been an avid fan of BBC's technology program called 'Click' formerly known as 'Click Online'. In the last episode, Spencer Kelly - the Click presenter shows how you can build a fully functional working machine for nothing. BBC has published an article by Kelly called "The open source alternative" which gives an insight into how open source software can enrich our computing lives for zilch. The article also has a short interview with Paul Allen who is the editor of Computer Active magazine.

Read the article at bbc.co.uk.

Fedora 9 Sulphur released

It is yet time for another major release of Fedora Linux. The latest avatar of Fedora namely version 9 is code named Sulphur. If you are piqued by the strange names of Fedora, then you should read this article to get a better perspective. So what is in store for all Fedora fans out there ? Quite a few things really.

For starters, Fedora has got what is known as PackageKit. This is a cross distribution package management solution which has a complete Yum backend. Then Fedora ships with the latest and greatest Gnome Desktop namely version 2.22. KDE 4.0.3 is also in the repository and can be installed by the hard core KDE fans. But the greatest news is that Fedora now ships with the Sun's Java as Sun has released Java under an open source license. To know the full set of features, read this article which explains all the features in more detail.

And after reading through the features, if you are excited enough (which you will be), then visit the download page and start downloading your favorite Linux distribution aka Fedora 9 Sulphur.

C++ GUI Programming with Qt4 - Book Review

Qt is a cross platform application development framework which is widely used for the development of GUI and non-GUI programs. Some of the most visible products which have been developed using Qt are KDE, Opera web browser, Google Earth, Skype and Photoshop Elements just to name a few. Some of the pertinent reasons for using Qt are -

One: Qt library is released under a dual licensing business model which means you can develop open source or closed source applications. If you are developing the former, then you do not have to pay any money for using the library.

Two: It is truly cross platform - which filters down to the fact that you can write the code for your application in one platform - say Linux, and then copy the code to Windows and recompile the code without making any changes and your application is guaranteed to run on Windows.

Three: Cellphone behemoth Nokia's recent acquisition of Trolltech has definitely infused fresh breadth and energy into the future of Qt. The latest version of Qt namely version 4.3 has a lot of enhancements which make developing GUI applications using this library a joy for most C++ programmers.

"C++ GUI Programming with Qt4" authored by Jasmin Blanchette and Mark Summerfield; published under the Prentice Hall Open source software development series is well into its second edition. This book is touted as the "Official book on Qt from Trolltech".

The main goal of this book is to teach how to write GUI programs using Qt4 and is targeted at the entry level to intermediate and advanced C++ programmer. So it starts off on a shallow curve, hand holding the reader from the first rudimentary steps in writing a simple C++ GUI program using Qt4. And over the chapters, gradually builds up steam and introduces the reader to complex scenarios such as creating plugins, 3D graphics, application scripting and more. Going through the book, I didn't feel like I was studying a programming framework rather I found the language used in explaining things quite lucid, clear and interesting all the same.

The book is divided into three parts. A new programmer in Qt will find the first part really useful because it covers the fundamental concepts and practices required for programming in Qt. The second and third part of this book comprising of 12 and 7 chapters respectively deal with specialized topics and can be read in any order. For example, if I want to build a GUI program which needs to connect to a database at the back end, then I can straight away read the 13th chapter namely "Databases", of this book provided I am conversant with Part I of this book which covers the foundation of programming in Qt 4.

The second edition of this book builds up on the first edition and contains numerous changes. For one, a couple of additional chapters have been included such as "Look and Feel Customization" and "Application Scripting". The book has been thoroughly revised to include changes incorporated in Qt 4.2 and Qt 4.3. The original "Graphics" chapter has been split into 2D and 3D graphics chapters respectively. The tiny chapter on Embedded Programming has been expanded to include programming in Qtopia, thus making it not tiny anymore.

What I really like about this book is the realistic examples which are used to introduce each Qt control or concept. There are plenty of images scattered within, which impart visual appeal to the book. More over, these images hopefully give the reader an idea about the correct way of designing their software.

Going through this book, I find that the authors have explained different scenarios of developing programs in Qt 4 exhaustively without overwhelming the reader. Each program is split into digestible chunks of code with detailed explanation succeeding them. This makes it quite easy to understand what each line of code accomplishes.

The appendixes contain a new section namely "Introduction to Qt Jambi". Qt Jambi is the Java edition of the Qt application development framework. Apart from that, there are of course the other sections in the appendix namely installing Qt, building Qt applications and also a concise section listing the main nuances of programming in C++ for Java and C# programmers.

One thing I noticed is that the hard bound book I received did not have a companion CD containing the Qt library and the IDE used to design your applications. Then again, one can always visit the Trolltech site and get the Qt 4.3 library and applications which is available as a free download. Even better, if you are developing your Qt applications in Linux then it is very simple to install all the necessary libraries depending upon the Linux distribution you are using.

All in all, this is a great book not just for any neophyte in Qt but also for the accomplished Qt programmer to use as a ready reference.

Book Specifications
Name : C++ GUI Programming with Qt4 - Second edition
ISBN No : 0-13-235416-0
Authors : Jasmin Blanchette & Mark Summerfield
No of pages : 720
Publisher : Prentice Hall
Price : $ 59.99 (US), $ 65.99 (Canada)
Rating : 9/10

A small form factor Linux PC for the Marines

A regular reader of this blog would be aware of mini Linux PC's which fit on the palm of your hand and which is targeted at end users. Now what would you say if I told you that there exists a miniature Linux PC which is targeted at the Military ?

No Kidding! There is indeed such a PC and its name is "Engineering Development Kit" (EDK) which is a 7-10 pound computer that targets small ground, naval, and air vehicles. And believe it or not, it has a whooping 100 Gigaflops of processing power. The PowerBlock 50 measures 4.1 x 5.3 x 5.8 inches, with a seven-pound shipping weight, and a weight of less than 10 pounds fully configured, says Mercury.

Linuxdevices.com has the full scoop on this story.

Slackware 12.1 released

Which Linux user wouldn't know about the venerable Slackware ? The same one which has been elevated to cult status through the efforts of a single person Patrick Volkerding. Over all these years when flashy Linux distributions like Ubuntu rule the roost, Slackware has been successful in retaining its followers. Nay, Slackware user group comprises of a passionate set of Linux users who are keen on configuring their Linux box the old fashioned way namely editing plain text files. And these users have invariably mastered the art of configuring their Linux OS inside out.

A long time back, I had reviewed Slackware 11.0 and I found it every bit classic Linux and really took a liking to it. In fact, after I installed Slackware on my machine, I used to use it most of the time even though I had a couple of other Linux distributions installed on my machine too.

If you negate the latest versions of the packages that are bundled with Slackware 12.1, I believe not much has changed as far as installing it on your machine and configuring it. To know what are the changes in this new release, do read the official announcement.

Guide to adding a new partition or drive to an existing system

Suppose you are required to create a 10 GB partition on your server running Linux, you have got two options namely :
  • Create a partition from the unpartitioned space on your machine or
  • Add a new drive.
If you are opting for the latter then it is a simple thing of plugging in the new drive, letting the system detect it, using a partitioning tool to create the requisite partition, formating the newly created partition and finally mounting it. But if it is the former namely, creating a partition from unpartitioned space, then the task gets a bit trickier.

Joey Prestia explains the exact steps needed to add a new partition to an existing system. The task can be broken down into the following steps :
  1. Determine what partitions need to be created and where.
  2. Create the partitions (I use 'fdisk' here but any Linux disk partitioning tool should work)
  3. Re-read the partition table either with 'partprobe' or by a reboot
  4. Make a filesystem on the partition, label it, and create the necessary mount points
  5. Add the appropriate entries to '/etc/fstab' so the partitions are mounted upon reboot
Check out Joey's notes to know the exact commands used to accomplish the above tasks.

Enable DVD playback in Ubuntu

I am sure any Ubuntu user will swear by the fact that it is a piece of cake getting multimedia to work in Ubuntu. In fact Ubuntu walks a fine line in ensuring that the users who are passionate about freedom and those who are keen on functionality are provided for.

But playing encrypted DVDs is a bit trickier. Tech-recipes.com provides a simple way of enabling DVD playback in Ubuntu.

In fact there are just two simple steps namely,
$ sudo apt-get install totem-xine libxine1-ffmpeg libdvdread3
and
$ sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh

Linux file system hierarchy - the fun easy way

I have been asked by many people to explain the file system hierarchy in Linux because they find the file system in Linux quite different from what they are used to in Windows. To put it simply, it can be visualized as a tree with its roots and all. At the top of the hierarchy is invariably the root path which is represented by '/'. All other directories are created beneath this root path. And each of the sub directories have a specific purpose. For example, '/etc' contain the configuration files, the '/opt' directory is used to install third party software, '/boot' contain the grub files and the Linux kernel and so on.

Today I came across this very beautiful image which explains the Linux file system in lucid detail at linuxconfig.org.

Fig: Linux file system hierarchy

100s of beautiful wallpapers free for the picking

No matter what OS I am running on my machine, one thing I really like to do is, adorn my desktop with is a beautiful, aesthetic, less distracting and pleasing to the eye wallpaper. I like my wallpapers to be vivid with colors but at the same time not be an eye sore. Nature, animals, abstract art, blue swirls ... are all my favorites.

Here are a couple of links which collectively have literally 100s of wallpapers of different hues, colors and designs. All of them are eye catching and quite a few are actually stunning. But I will let you be the judge of that.
  • 218 HD Resolution Desktop Wallpapers for Nerds - This is a collection of wallpapers which are literally stunning. I do like the ones by Hamad Darwish who claims to be one of the few photographers commissioned by Microsoft in 2005 to shoot photos to be used in Windows Vista's Wallpaper Collection.
  • Social wallpapering - This is a community effort to classify, rank, and distribute high resolution images for use as computer wallpaper.
  • Wallpaper images - And if you are a nature lover and like to swoon at flowers, leaves, pebbles, rocks, vegetables, fruits and what not, then this is the right place to be. Mike Swanson is a technical evangelist for err... Microsoft and he has made available his entire collection of wallpapers as a free download.
The best news is that you do not need to have explicit permission of Microsoft to use these wallpapers on your Linux desktop ;-) .

Understanding XML in 10 seconds or less

XML also known as eXtended Markup Language is a language created to structure, transport and store data or information. But that is the most simple explanation. In reality, there is much more to the semantics of XML. When you embark on the path to mastery of XML, you invariably come across terms like XLink, Namespace, DTD, Schema and so on.

To get a fair idea on what XML stands for, check out the following article which explains XML in 10 points. It took me just 10 seconds to read through the article. Put in a nutshell, these are the main points sans the explanation -
  1. XML is for structuring data
  2. It looks a bit like HTML
  3. It is text, but isn't meant to be read
  4. It is verbose by design
  5. XML is a family of technologies
  6. XML is new, but not that new
  7. It leads HTML to XHTML
  8. XML is modular
  9. XML is the basis for RDF and the semantic web
  10. It is license-free, platform-independent and well supported.

Sun Cluster, HAStoragePlus and VxFS fsck

It turns out that when you have a decent number of VxFS file systems, there is a particularly nasty bug that can jump out and bite you in the *.

It turns out that Sun Cluster wants the vfstab entries for these file systems to be listed as being in the first fsck pass. This particular bug is Bug ID 6572900. Note that the bug description says that this fix does not work for all sites. Fortunately, the workaround seems to be working here.

This bug report is a good example of what I hate to see in bug reports from vendors (not just Sun). The status on the bug is reported as "fix delivered" (presumably the above workaround, since I don't see any patches), but the bug report notes that the workaround doesn't work for all sites. If customers are still having the problem, I don't see how we can claim that a fix has been delivered.

--Scott

Enclosure Based Naming and Sun Cluster

As I posted previously, we are working on getting our Sun Cluster installation running. We had originally hoped to use ZFS for this project, which would have made deployment much easier. Unfortunately, the risks associated with the bug discussed in my ZFS Difficulties post are just too high to allow us to deploy it for production use at this time.

Instead, we are moving to Veritas Volume Manager and File System (VxVM and VxFS) for control of the data directories and shared storage.

We hit a hitch associated with Enclosure Based Naming. It turns out that if your storage drivers return devices in a format including the WWN, Enclosure-Based Naming is mandatory. Since the names are assigned based on some obscure, secret algorithm, you are virtually guaranteed that the different systems in your cluster will have different Enclosure Based Names associated with them.

Sun Cluster, on the other hand, insists that all of your devices be named the same way on all systems in the cluster.

Fortunately, Sun Infodoc 215296 describes how to resolve this impasse for VxVM 4.1+.

First, boot the node that you will be fixing in non-cluster mode. You can do this with a
boot -x
command. Make sure that no disk groups are imported from the shared storage before proceeding.

The /etc/vx/disk.info file contains a mapping from the WWN-based device names (that you see in OS-based commands like format) to the Enclosure Based Names. You can edit this file directly, changing only the numerical part of the Enclosure Based Name that does not match between the different servers.

After making this change, and before you reboot, run the following command to re-configure the storage:
vxconfigd -k
(Note that volumes and disk groups will freak out at this point if you have them imported on the system, since they see the disks being migrated to a "different" location. You really want to have deported the disk groups before you start, or else you may find yourself doing plex recovery.)

You can verify that the changes took effect properly by running
vxdisk -e list
and matching up the disk names to your reference configuration.

Good luck!

--Scott

Ubuntu Hardy Heron - 8.04 LTS Desktop and Server Edition Released

The next major release of Ubuntu has taken place. The new name being Hardy Heron. It is released as a Long Term Support (LTS) version. Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop edition is supported till year 2011 (3 year support) and the server version is supported till 2013 (5 year support).

Some of the features that will be big draw for any Linux enthusiast are as follows :
  • Wubi Windows Installer - This allows any Windows user to install Ubuntu on their hard disk without any partitioning what so ever and run it from a folder in the 'C:\' drive. It allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu as any other Windows application, in a simple and safe way.
  • Enhanced security via SELinux
  • Integration with Microsoft Active Directory
  • Support for KVM out of the box. KVM, or kernel-based virtual machine, is a device driver and userspace component for Linux that utilizes hardware virtualization extensions such as Intel's VT to create virtual machines running on a Linux host.
You can read the main features of the Desktop edition of Ubuntu Hardy Heron here.

If you are as excited as I am in this new release, then choose a mirror close to your geographic location and start downloading this excellent Linux distribution. On the other hand, if you already have Ubuntu installed, you can also upgrade following the steps detailed here.

 
 
 
 
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