Hi Montosh, Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.Permit me to forward your mail to the LIH (LinuxIndiaHelp) and FSF-India mailing lists since I'm don't have the answers to your tech queries. Stay in touch, FN
On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, null script wrote:
Can u provide a list of common soft/internal modems which will work in the following distros ==> Red Hat 8/9 stock,Mandrake 8.2/9.1 (single CD version i.e no kernel source),Free BSD 2.5,Knoppix/Lify and Fedora core.Me and many of my friends have these distros installed on our systems but we are forced to surf the net from windows due to the non avalibity of drivers on GNU/Linux.The following is the list of soft/int modems we have.
Motorola SM56 Voice fax Motorola SM56 Speakerphone Conextant (Rockwell chipset) Dax int modems Intex int modems Ham int modem found on a Compac system
I know the ideal answer would be get a hard/ext modem,but pls understand that this is not possible.I am sure many ppl would like to find the same but cannot.
Also can u suggest some tips & tweaks to make the system work faster.Most of us have old systems 2 to 4 yrs old like K6-2,K6-3,PIIs with a avg of 128Mb ram per system.All the newer distros really crawl on most of the systems.I know the answer would be to upgrade the systems,but not possible.One hack is to use a light and fast manager like Flubox and Icewm but we miss the eye candy that Gnome and Kde provide. Kindly help!!
I was also very moved by your article "Sharing Dreams ... Seeking Help" LFY Dec 2003.I want to know if anybody is ready to go ahead and share their broad band/fat pipes in India and make new software like GCC,JAVA,latest Kernel sources etc locally present.It is indeed very sad that in India we do not have a single local mirror of any distro or GNU/free software.China and Pak have them but why not India???.Pak even has the local mirror of packetstrom http://packetstormsecurity.org.pk/ why not us. Every day we hear that India is poised to become the next super power in software but how?? when we even do not have proper flow of information and ideas amongst the common user.
Why don't the big company's donate their old computers to NGOS and educational bodies. Wipe the data from its Hdd and install any of GNU/LINUX on it.Rather that just 'junk' them. Thousands of under prevliged children can benefit from it.I cant understand what's stoping them?
Ppl who have a latest and greatest systems P4's and AMD -XP's can also help the community by just giving some CPU time for a good cause.They can compile the various popular software for different 'arch' like i586,K6-3 with all the optimization.And load it on the net for the ppl who have old and slow systems to download and use.I for one would very greatful and really appericate the speed boost which such a gesture would do for me.I am sure many users will appericate such a site or users group.I know from bitter experience that compiling some huge package is a nightmare on a slow system.I tried to compile the 2.6 kernel on Mandrake 9.1 it took some 6 hrs on my system and still did not work.On a P4 2.4 it took 10 mins. and worked!!! I was foolish enough to try to install gnome 2.4 from the source on my red hat 9.0,after 3 days and 3 almost sleepless nights still no luck.I would have been ever grateful if I could just DL the RPM and install it.
Just some of my thoughts, hope to find some good news.Thanks for all the good work u are doing. All the best.
Montosh Bisht
"Hack into The Light"
Linux.Net -->Open Source to everyone Powered by Linare Corporation http://www.linare.com/
Frederick Noronha said on Wed, Feb 11, 2004 at 12:44:40PM +0530,:
systems but we are forced to surf the net from windows due to the non avalibity of drivers on GNU/Linux.The following is the list of soft/int modems we have.
Sure. we can understand the situation your friends are in. Ask them to google.
Motorola SM56 Voice fax Motorola SM56 Speakerphone
As somebody said, grind these fine powder, and make tea or coffee of these. If tea/coffee of finely ground Motorola SM56 modems gives you the cramps, put them in a glass case, and keep them in the showcase of your front room. If somebody asks, claim that the exhibit was in fact gifted to you by your friend Mars. You will not be lying. I promise. For all practical purposes, when it comes to support for SM 56 Modems, people at Motorola live in the Mars.
Motorola has discontinued support for Motorola SM 56 modems, but still refuses to tell the world how these work. Intrestingly, Motorola `proudly' advertises the ``world's first `linux' phone''.
Conextant (Rockwell chipset)
Semi free (the non-free part is payment and non copyleft license + crippled features) drivers are at mbsi.ca
I doubt if these would work with kernel version 2.5, coz I understand that from here, way in which loadable modules work has been overhauled.
Dax int modems Intex int modems Ham int modem found on a Compac system
No idea. Check the chipset.
I know the ideal answer would be get a hard/ext modem,but pls understand that this is not possible.I am sure many ppl would like to find the same but cannot.
No choice here. Internal modems transfer the job of MODulation and DEModulation to the processor; and the Kernel has to handle the job; which simply cannot be done unless the chipset manufacturers are prepared to work with the kernel developers.
Also can u suggest some tips & tweaks to make the system work faster.Most of us have old systems 2 to 4 yrs old like K6-2,K6-3,PIIs with a avg of 128Mb ram per system.
You really cannot make formula I cars out or bullock carts, can you??
You can use hdparm to tweak the hard disk parameters; reduce the daemons running, etc. No generalised `one size fits all' answer is really not possible. People hereabouts use PIIs @ 233 MHz, and seem to be quite happy with that.
One hack is to use a light and fast manager
Hey!!! Using a better window manager is not a `hack'!!! A better `hack' is to work from the console ...
GCC,JAVA,latest Kernel sources etc locally present.
Java is not free.
It is indeed very sad that in India we do not have a single local mirror of any distro or GNU/free software.China and Pak have them but why not India???.
It is indeed very sad that India, we do not have people who do a google before asking questions. ... the mirrors are there ... just look around; people do not just go around tom-toming existence of mirrors ... the bankdwidth is simply tooo expensive ...
Debian, for example is mirrored at http://ftp.iitm.ac.in.
Sure, it is good for `linux' of other distros were mirrored by somebody; but if it is `freedom' ang `GNU/Linux' that you want, then http://ftp.iitm.ac.in/ is enough.
Why don't the big company's donate their old computers to NGOS and educational bodies. Wipe the data from its Hdd and install any of GNU/LINUX on it.Rather that just 'junk' them.
Few weeks back, a few corporates (yes, *corporates*) signed up on a list for spreading a popular desktop environment. One of the minions even wrote in, wanting how the corporate can help. One or two later, the topic of participating in a popular event came up, and people needed a few bucks (about 1/2 of what is paid to entry level engg. graduates proficient in *GNU/Linux*) came up. The list suddenly went silent ... and remains silent .... in spite of people volunteering time and energy to man the exhibits.
One of the corporates is a *partner* in a kernel testing consortium. Did any body know that?? Not me. Google told me so. The corporates' web site is certainly silent on that. The consortium's site, OTOH, gives this company a real prominent place ...
No idea what to expect from such corporate citizens of the GNU world.
(do I spy clouds for a flame war gathering???)
to try to install gnome 2.4 from the source on my red hat 9.0,after 3 days and 3 almost sleepless nights still no luck.I would have been ever grateful if I could just DL the RPM and install it.
May be, you were trapped in RDH. (RPM dependency hell). Try debian Sarge/testing.
My 2 ps.
Mahesh T. Pai wrote:
Java is not free.
as in Sun JDK and not as in java the language, for that matter even C# (correct me if I am wrong). I guess their are some free java compilers around. (kaffe?) though can't get the name right now.
No idea what to expect from such corporate citizens of the GNU world
does "corporate citizens" belong to brave GNU world?? any names??
raj
Rajkumar S said on Thu, Feb 12, 2004 at 12:34:25AM +0530,:
as in Sun JDK and not as in java the language, for that matter even C# (correct me if I am wrong).
Ah! Yes. You are right.
around. (kaffe?) though can't get the name right now.
Exactly. More than one, in fact. GCJ is another.
does "corporate citizens" belong to brave GNU world?? any names??
Bangalore based. One of the top 10 IT names in India.
Start your own investigations.
-
Frederick Noronha (FN) -
Mahesh T. Pai -
Rajkumar S