Linuxers April 2006

linuxers@mm.ilug-bom.org.in

91 participants
114 discussions

[Fwd: Would you like to mentor a student paid to contribute to your package?]
by Nagarjuna 26 Apr '06

26 Apr '06

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Would you like to mentor a student paid to contribute to your package? Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 14:56:31 -0400 From: Richard Stallman <rms(a)gnu.org> To: gnu-prog(a)gnu.org The GNU Project is participating in Google's Summer of Code program. (See http://code.google.com/soc/mentorfaq.html for details.) In summary: * Summer of Code 2006 is a program that offers student developers stipends to work on development of free software. * The FSF will be paid $500 per project, too. * We need people to volunteer to mentor these students, and also people to evaluate other ideas that students may suggest. * Payment to the student is contingent upon feedback by the mentor. * There is no requirement that the finished code be included in the package itself, but goal is to get code we want to use. * For FSF-copyrighted GNU packages, we will ask the student to sign the usual copyright assignment before getting paid, to make sure there will be no legal obstacle to using his code. If you are willing to mentor one or more projects, this could be of great use to the GNU Project -- it would introduce new volunteers to your package's code base, get a little funds for the FSF, and enhance the GNU operating system. Before you volunteer to be a mentor, please make sure you can actually spare the time to do the work; having mentors become unresponsive or drop out would be very bad. It is important for projects to be feasible for a good student-level hacker to do in 2 or 3 months; nothing super large. It is ok if you talk with student candidates that you already know are capable, to plan projects with them. That is a good way to produce projects that are really likely to get done, and done well. To volunteer as a mentor, please send email to <summer-of-code(a)gnu.org>. Please describe the student projects you offer to mentor, and for each one, say which GNU package it will enhance. We need to find a "backup mentor" for each project; the backup mentor is someone who will take over in case you become busy, sick, or otherwise unavailable. If you can think of any obvious suggestions for backup mentors for your projects, please mention the suggestions in your mail. (We consider these suggestions are tentative, so you can mention them first, then ask them if they are available.) But if you can't think of anyone, please suggest your project anyway. We will look for a suitable backup mentor. James Youngman <jay(a)gnu.org> will be taking care of accumulating the offers and putting them in our web site, but he could use one or two people to help. If you are willing to help, please write to <summer-of-code(a)gnu.org>. _______________________________________________ GNU Maintainers Announcement List gnu-prog(a)gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-prog . -- -- Dr. Nagarjuna G. Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. Mumbai India. V.N. Purav Marg, Mankhurd, Mumbai, INDIA 400088 http://www.hbcse.tifr.res.in/Data/Objects/n/nagarjun/viewObject

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Re: Linuxers Digest, Vol 36, Issue 58
by Debarshi 'Rishi' Ray 25 Apr '06

25 Apr '06

Hi, The best solution is to use Synaptic. Synaptic was originally meant to be a front end for apt-get on Debian based systems. I saw it first in Ubuntu. However it has been ported for RPM based distributions too. Atleast I had used it myself, with great satisfaction in Fodera Core 2, although I have not tried it out on Fedora Core 5 yet. However I read that support for apt-get would be removed in later releases of Fedora Core. You can get the Fedora Core 5 RPM at http://atrpms.net/dist/fc5/synaptic/. If anybody wants I have the tarball too, and can mail it to you individually. Hope it helped, Debarshi

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apt-get trouble
by Puneet Lakhina 25 Apr '06

25 Apr '06

hi all, I am trying to install totem using apt-get on a RH Linux 9 machine $uname -a Linux localhost.localdomain 2.4.18-14 #1 Wed Sep 4 13:35:50 EDT 2002 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux I have done $apt-get update $apt-get upgrade $apt-get dist-upgrade beofere doing $apt-get install Reading Package Lists... Done Building Dependency Tree... Done Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming. Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that the package is simply not installable and a bug report against that package should be filed. The following information may help to resolve the situation: The following packages have unmet dependencies: totem: Depends: gnome-desktop (>= 2.1.0) but 2.0.6-4 is to be installed Depends: libXrandr.so.2 but it is not installable Depends: libXv.so.1 but it is not installable Depends: libgnome-desktop-2.so.2 but it is not installable Depends: libxine.so.1 Depends: xine-lib (>= 1.0.0) but it is not going to be installed E: Broken packages What could be the problem. I did the samething on a diff machine and it worked fine. -- Puneet

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Adding Software in FC5
by Dinesh 24 Apr '06

24 Apr '06

Hi, I have installed FC5 on my PC in standard form. Now If I want to to add more software from Installation CDs whenever I use Add/ Remove Software it always check for Internet Connection And If its there then only it allow me to add new software. There is any way using which without internet connection also I can use this feature. Dinesh RHCE, CCNA, MCP+I 9869032205 --------------------------------------------- Free POP3 Email from www.Gawab.com Sign up NOW and get your account @gawab.com!!

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Please help me with my decision to purchase a Notebook.
by PenguinPuPPy 24 Apr '06

24 Apr '06

Hello list. Can anybody please help me with my decision to purchase a Notebook. After reading the previous messages i am a bit puzzled .I was planning to go for Dell Inspiron duo core Laptop which comes for a fair price i.e 799$ regarding these Duo Cores How are the CPU's any reviews or personal experience? i have seen various websites giving good reviews but it would be great if some one who has used it can guide me though. Also that gees without saying that these laptops should be LINUX compatable.Any help will be appreciated. Thanks -- To Love The Penguin(aka TUX) You Need To Be As Faithful As A Puppy

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[OT] OSS Idea.
by ronbillypop＠yahoo.co.uk 24 Apr '06

24 Apr '06

Hello All, This is with reference to the earlier discussions on OSS philosophy and I have started a new thread for an idea to promote OSS production in India. For the discussion, free OSS here will be refered to as free (as in freedom) software. Free software is generally looked upon as a conmmunity effort with little monetory gains for the programmer himself. Those who install and setup systems make money on the installation but the programmer may generally get little. Most of the training institutes too train students on the commercial closed source platforms as thats where they make most money. Free software creation is still not very popular in India due to lesser econimic gains for the programmer. IMHO, free software can commercially sustain itself only if its creation is sponsored in a way thats equivalent to what commercial software creation gets. This sponsorship can come directly from corporates and every other imaginable commercial establishments that make use of computers. Now the question that comes up is why will they sponsor free software creation? What do they get or benefit in return for their huge donations? As an incentive, the donors can be provided free tech support right from installation to maintainence in a limitted way and relative to the amount of donation. The incentives can also include free writing of drivers for special needs. The programmers are paid market rates for writing the softwares and the industry and commerce benefits by getting free ( as in beer and freedom ) software thats stable, secure and robust. This software can be posted on websites for anyone and everyone to freely download and use. No one will ever have to use commercial or pirated software and once the platform gains popularity, even institutes will offer courses on oss platform. The commercial software makers too will be forced to create software for open free data formats. Device makers too will have to provide drivers for the oss platform. As a heavily populated country, our industry is huge and very diverse and even a few thousand rupees from the majority can be enough to sustain foss growth. In return, they cut down their heavy software expenditure. The FSF India or such organisations can set guidelines for creating and running this model so that there are minimum trouble areas and the system runs smoothly. Regards, Rony. ___________________________________________________________ Switch an email account to Yahoo! Mail, you could win FIFA World Cup tickets. http://uk.mail.yahoo.com

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[OT] XP on Mac (interesting comment)
by ronbillypop＠yahoo.co.uk 24 Apr '06

24 Apr '06

Hello All, Here is an interesting link on the new development of XP being installed on Apple macs that use Intel chipsets. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12442563/site/newsweek/ "Ultimately, Apple isn't about supporting Windows—it's about trying to steal customers from Windows. The company known for iPod now knows what it's like to imbibe the sweet wine of high market share, and would love a taste of that for its flagship operating system (Macs currently comprise about 4 percent of the PC market). "The thing we market is our innovation and their lack of innovation," says Schiller of that other realm. "At the end of the day there's a place for PC makers who are innovative. And there's a place for people who make boring boxes for the corporate world." Regards, Rony. Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

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Michael Tiemann's comments on "OSS Philosophy Explained"
by Venkatesh Hariharan 24 Apr '06

24 Apr '06

I took the liberty of forwarding Nagarjuna's post, "OSS Philosophy Explained" to Michael Tiemann, President of Open Source Initiative (www.opensource.org) and here is his reply. For those who may have missed the original post, the same is included at the end of Tiemann's mail for reference purposes. Regards, Venky ===== Michael Tiemann wrote: Thanks for this. My response would be as follows. Feel free to publish in India if you wish. When I began writing free software in 1987, there were really only two major projects that offered enough freedom for me to even become a contributor: the GNU Project and the project at UC Berkeley to create a fully unencumbered version of Unix using a BSD-style license. To me, the GNU project was preferable because the GPL promised me that I would never be separated from my work, whereas the BSD license made it possible for some other entity to adopt my changes, improve them, and then keep them from me. I saw that as a huge problem, and so I began writing GNU software. At an industry event earlier this year I sat at a table with Greg Stein (Apache contributor) and Marten Mickos (MySQL CEO). I listened with amusement, and then frustration, as Greg tirelessly argued that it's OK for people to take his work, improve it, and then never give it back, while Marten argued the position that I came to nearly 20 years ago. But the fact that this argument can rage for so long speaks to a deeper truth: different people have different motivations and different value systems. What is better: to declare the Apache project null and void because it permits people to make it into a proprietary product (should they choose to do so), or to recognize that the world is a better place because so many people have the freedom to read, modify, and share Apache source code? I realize that as distributed, Apache software is both free software and open source software, so this is not the precise distinction as between non-free software like pine and free software like emacs. But it also shows that even within software that delivers the functional freedom of free software, different value systems among developers lead to different licensing preferences. The OSI chose to create a tent larger than the free software tent. We accepted non-free licenses because we wanted to give voice to people writing software and sharing source code who did so for reasons other than moral freedom. Is it wrong to accept works that strive for technical excellence independent of social agendas? As a scientist and an engineer (BS CSE, University of Pennsylvania 1986) I have to say no: the scientific method is, and must be independent from all moral frameworks. Does this make science immoral or amoral? Certainly there are those who apply or ignore science in immoral ways. But science itself is concerned with evidence and falsification, not morals. Open Source allows for software to be independent from freedom, while at the same time offering the kind of freedom that comes from independence. My personal preference, which has not changed in nearly 20 years, is the GNU General Public License. I like it for personal reasons. I like it for social reasons. I think it's a great license for protecting legitimate business interests. But I don't like it enough to use it as a battering ram against all other possible licensing models. And I think that the Open Source Initiative has helped to foster a far richer software environment by creating a larger tent in which more developers can experiment with and find their own best licensing models and software projects. On Tue, 2006-04-18 at 10:24 +0530, Venkatesh Hariharan wrote: > Dear Michael, > > Here is a thread from the "GNU/Linux Users Group, Mumbai, India" that > you may find interesting. > > FYI, the terms, "swatantra/mukta/ajadi" mean freedom in Indian > languages. > > Venky > > > > From: "Nagarjuna G." <nagarjun(a)gnowledge.org> > To: "GNU/Linux Users Group, Mumbai, India" <linuxers(a)mm.glug-bom.org> > Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 18:30:12 +0530 > Subject: Re: [ILUG-BOM] FW: [OT] - OSS Philosophy Explained > > This is a reply to the entire thread so far, so not quoting any of > them. > > I wish to clarify the difference by example, between OSS and <free> > (swatantra/mukta/ajadi) software. > > Take 'Pine', an email client, releases source code, you can modify the > sources, but can't distribute the changes you make according to pine > license. Such a software is open source according to OSI. So, > opening is not enough, we need the freedom to distribute the changes > we make. Similarly 'scilab', a scientific application, is open source > but not a <free> software. > > Therefore, all <free> software is open source, but not vice versa. So, > free software is a proper subset of open source software. > > However, the number of open source applications that are not free > software is very very tiny. So, it is also correct to say MOST open > source applications are free software. Count the number of > applications, not the number of licenses, to get the correct inclusion > relation between them. If, OSI excludes those few applications that do > not give the freedom to distribute the changes, then all <free> > software is open source and vice versa. FSF should not change its > stand is very clear, if you see how carefully the <free> software is > defined. OSI's definition is left vague. May be business thrives by > being vague. Let us ask OSI to modify their license listing policy. > > The use of the term 'open source' by the OSI may have created a nice > term for the tongue, but at the cost of freedom. But, as I told you > MOST open source applications do give you the freedom anyway. Still, > it is surprising that OSI advocates seldom talk of the values like > freedom. They continue to fetch contracts from govt and companies by > arguing that oss is economical. Remember, they said they wanted to > eliminate precisely this problem when they chose 'open' in place of > 'free'. Did they succeed in clarifying? Certainly not. > > Open source adherents talk of total cost of ownership, while <free> > software people say freedom is always expensive for we need to protect > it constantly. That is why I always end my speach with: "Run for > freedom even if it is expensive!" In order to sustain freedom we need > to constantly work against the tendencies that try to take away our > freedom. Metaphorically, a system must do work to maintain its > stability, other wise the system will tend to a state of higher > entropy. <Free> software community is an open system, like a living > organism, takes feed from the environment and sustains itself by > working against non-free software and those who promote them. > > I agree with the interpretation that <free> software is a social, > cultural movement with wider implications to the future of human > society. open source movement, if at all it is, emphasizes technology > and a development model. I have no disagreements with their > development model. > > If only OSI mends their licensing list policy, the differences between > <free> and open source community will become thinner, if not disappear. > > Nagarjuna >

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qmail send
by Hozefa Motiwala 24 Apr '06

24 Apr '06

Hi ! i have installed qmail in linux box ,having about 20 pop accounts. qmail picks up email from one catchall account at another location and distributes emails in the respective Maildir(s) .what i need is to save all the out going email messages from all the pop users, in the email server , for backup of the messages. thanks Hozefa.

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Problem X-server in LTSP
by neel s Gurjar 22 Apr '06

22 Apr '06

Hi I have FC-4 Server. I have done thinclient network for three PCs. I have problem with monitor resolution. Clients boot from network and it comes to login screen. But X display gets flickr on some b/w monitors. Display gets ok on color monitor but we cannot use color monitor as we dont have it. I think coz of monitor refres rate it is happening. Some b/w monitors give display ok. Resolution is 800x600. 1. How can i define resolution and monitor refresh rate for thin clients in LTSP ? please reply neelesh

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Linuxers April 2006