Linuxers December 2008

linuxers@mm.ilug-bom.org.in

72 participants
65 discussions

Slashdot: Indian GPS Cartographers Charged As Terrorists
by Praveen A 28 Dec '08

28 Dec '08

We have raised our doubts about this earlier here. But it is real now. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/18/2047203 Praveen -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ <GPLv2> I know my rights; I want my phone call! <DRM> What use is a phone call, if you are unable to speak? (as seen on /.) Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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on politeness
by Suhit Kelkar 28 Dec '08

28 Dec '08

Dear fellow gnu/linners I'm a faithful reader of this list, and an avid user of gnu/linux. In the past this forum has helped me solve my doubts, given me the feeling of community, and even landed me an assignment or two, as I am a freelance journalist. That is partly why I usually go over each and every post regardless of what it says. I say this as someone who cares. Do we want to be remembered for vituperation, inconsiderate ranting, at times even name-calling? An honourable forum member had mentioned, rightly, a while ago, that everything we write is archived away (doubtlessly cleared too, eventually). What example are we setting, then? Aren't we representatives of a misunderstood community with few active ambassadors? Should we be quarrelling among ourselves? Don't we (or, some of us) have a mission, defined adversaries, allies? Should there be quibbling between allies then? Aren't we evangelists? Doesn't that put the obligation of decent behaviour on us? What ambassador acts out of petulance? What sage calls his congregation dolts, or idiots? What example should we be setting? Should we call others stupid, lazy, unthinking, when we were such ourselves when we started out, and perhaps still are? A champion of free speech, Salman Rushdie, once wrote to the effect that what we despise in ourselves we hate in others. Should we funnel our fury into a name-calling binge directed at our fellow users? I hope you will appreciate this communication for what it is-- an appeal to the better sensibilities within all of us, to end the hateful heated repartee we've been seeing over the past few months. Thank you. Regards Suhit Kelkar.

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Re: [ILUG-BOM] Linux addiction!! | Office , Excise & CAD
by Sachin Gopalakrishnan 28 Dec '08

28 Dec '08

> There can never be a replacement for the crap that is M$office. Even a > brainless moron cant write such crap. > There are at least two SUPERIOR alternatives Openoffice and Koffice. I use ubuntu 8.04 as my desktop at home but i need excel at my workplace on my laptop. I have tried using OO (not tried K Office) but the spreadsheet tool just does not seem to work well enough especially after i have used excel, OO seems so dated and clunky in contrast. I must admit i have not tried the latest version though. There is no real Autocad replacement, even if there are like BRL-CAD, Varicad etc we do not get candidates for them. We tried Virtualbox. did not work very well, especially cumbersome when it came to sharing files on a network using Samba. I know there are other linux options for virtualization available like parallels and vmware but we are not in a position to experiment as of now especially after virtualbox. We use an MS Access based system (third party )for excise, i haven't come across any package in linux as a replacement though am sure one could be built. > For how many users? > about 5 in one unit .. SG

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Sync Nokia E50 with Korganizer and Kontact
by Sanjay Singhvi 28 Dec '08

28 Dec '08

Can anyone help me to sync a Nokia E50 phone with my laptop (Acer Aspire One - Kubuntu 8.10)? I need to do this by usb cable (since Aspire One does not have bluetooth inbuilt). Have checked out help on the net for bluetooth but there does not seem to be any for usb cable. When I tried to follow the tutorial on smoking linux for using pcsuite with Obextools, KMix crashed. (I have reported the bug to launchpad and it is now registered as 178063). Would appreciate any help. Thanking you in advance. Sanjay

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Kernel 2.6.27.8 = Goodbye IDE?
by Rony 26 Dec '08

26 Dec '08

Hello, I have twice compiled kernel 2.6.27.8 from source. During make it detects 5 problems but they don't look significant and 'make CONFIG_DEBUG_SECTION_MISMATCH=y' resolves this problem. However after booting from this kernel and its relative initrd.img, the process stops at devfs and kernel panic. The system is unable to read /lib/modules/[kernel]/modules.dep. IMHO this is basically an indicator of the ide drivers not working. During make menuconfig, I observed that the IDE modules can only be included as modules <M>, not 'in-built' in the kernel like <*>. In one section, the Help contents even mention that this option should not be used if your root system is on the IDE drive. This could mean that while the booting drive is not IDE ( means SATA ), the other drive detected after booting can be IDE. My system is an Intel 845 with IDE drives. Has anyone on this list successfully booted from 2.6.27.8 using an IDE HDD on an 845 chipset mobo? Do the new kernels mean goodbye to old hardware? Could this be one reason why K/Ubuntu 8.10 does not boot live into an old 845 chipset + IDE system? -- Regards, Rony. GNU/Linux ! No Viruses No Spyware Only Freedom.

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Any one interested in participating in workshops for teachers for 5th to 8th grade : ICT for schools
by jitendra 26 Dec '08

26 Dec '08

Any one familiar with school system, teachers therein or OLPC, Sugar desktop etc , or interested in evangelising FOSS in schools , please contact undersigned. -- jitendra

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GNU/Linux in AP colleges
by Dinesh Shah 23 Dec '08

23 Dec '08

http://m.livemint.com/srsstore/showPage.do?siteId=30482&pageId=20672893&htm… -- --Dinesh Shah :-) +91-98213-11906 Shah Micro System http://dineshah.wordpress.com Sent from iPhone!

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cannot set resolution to 1440x900 on Debian Etch
by rohit bhute 23 Dec '08

23 Dec '08

I have installed Debian Etch on a gigabyte motherboard GA-MA74GM-S2, having AMD 740G + SB700 Chipset. The website says it has ATI Radeon 2100 integrated graphics. Output of lspci is as follows: 01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device 796e This driver selected for this is "vesa". If I try "ati", X server refuses to start. But the main problem is resolution - it is set at 1280x1024. I tried using "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" and setting resolution to 1440X900, but at that, the resolution was set to 1400x1050 when X server was restarted. Even adding the resolution manually to the Modes lines in xorg.conf and restarting X server did not solve the issue. How can I fix this? Thanks. -- Rohit V. Bhute

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Wireless mobile with bluetooth for skills education v/s micro-campus based education
by Erach 20 Dec '08

20 Dec '08

> > My machine has something like 768 Kbytes of RAM. > No it is 768 MegaBytes of RAM. > Who is the certifying authority? why would anyone accept your > certification. > The answer to the "who is the certifying authority ? why would anyone accept your certification" is very long and given below. Hi, Wireless mobiles with bluetooth --- and huge screens --- somebody told me they are for Rs 3,500 ----- they will get there shortly perhaps and can at least be used to deliver audio education ----- that way no charity is involved. This is to deliver skills based education to very poor people who can afford a mobile but not even a television or a computer ---- in slums basically. On this mobile, you will have to have a network which gives them jobs based on the skills based education ----- all this may get possible with the data-based G3 mobiles coming out They don't need a certifying authority but good word of mouth clients and references which should be posted on the net. For a good worker, the boss will give references, for a bad worker or contractor nobody will give references. Now, can one distribute education which is: 1. Micro-campus based education or joint family like Education which keeps children together in groups of 10 for a long time ----- longer than the current 10th standard ---- is that feasible or desirable, by forming them into focus groups and business groups and friend groups. Nowadays, when families have only one or two children, do we need 10 students together in a joint family like atmosphere or "gurukul" for a long time. Best Regards, Erach ps. below portion is very long and may be discarded. Well, to answer the question ---- who will certify, what about distributed campuses for schools and colleges with online backup. So it is not purely online (is that ever feasible or one needs people present) but say daily or once a week meetings. WEll, If you go to a DEEMED University which has been opened by coaching-classes, they might see the justification for this :: "the University gives online degrees, but the face-to-face contact takes place in rooms of individuals everywhere---- so 10 students can learn at a time together", and they appear to "coaching classes say once a week". This can be opened all over the world ----- not just in Mumbai. What do u get from this ---- I don't know. For me, it is just the typing of an idea. Even schools, can go from 60 to 100 students per class that way ---- not every body should appear daily in the school, but can be taught at a teacher // associate's residence. Where is the cost to build new school buildings ---- new Universities buildings and so on ? Can we not do an hybrid of online learning ---- meet in rooms. People do satsangs in their own homes everywhere of the guru of their choice. You can call this an online University satsang. Erach NOW HOW DO YOU RECRUIT STUDENTS FOR A DISTRIBUTED CAMPUS // MICRO-GRAINED CAMPUS. With online training. It is very easy. Suppose there are TEN students in 12th standard or 11th standard or even in primary school (don't forget real-estate is now going vacant and prices are dropping). Well, there subjects are not ALL different. They decide to UNITE after 10th, or 11th, or 12th standard ----- they approach a DEEMED UNIVERSITY or a COLLEGE and say ----- give us your online training ---- we will do it from our HOME and perhaps then go abroad for higher studies. Neither, are we going to make our parents pay in lakhs which we don't want them to spend (especially in times of recession) nor in thousands of dollars, but we will study the online material together and contact a tutor such as tutorvista.com (if you are abroad) or live via phone in a call-center, old teacher live, or some one in not so premier cities ------------------- so the superb online college is made. This should be better than seperating students all the time in 10th, 11th, 12th, in the 3 years of bachelors, and so on -------- and let them build a stronger cohesive network which would last them all their life. For instance, I've never met you members on the mailing list ---- would I trust you ----- no, but I have to meet you in person and so on ---- and then the trust is built. Is this idea becoming better. Now, you can take it to a DEEMED UNIVERSITY (formerly merely a coaching class) in New Mumbai, and they might do it for South Mumbai students and save them the daily/weekly journey. Erach > 8. Re: Apologies. Content creation/kiosk. Opening of an online > university with automated testing followed by in-person testing. (jtd) > 2008 12:34, Erach wrote: > I had asked about "open University". Well Online Education in India : Punjab Technical University offers ...First virtual campus in India - Punjab Technical University offers internationally accredited degree & diploma programmes in mangement, engineering , ... www.ptuonline.com/ - 14k - Cached - Similar pages Comes up ---- I called the phone numbers they listed ----- it is there. Now, there are DEEMED UNIVERSITIES in Maharashtra which could give ONLINE also in additional to there normal courses. Yes, Windows is expensive ---- both Windows and LINUX are tools ---- if somebody goes to the management of a deemed University and points to www.ptuonline.com and its counterpart abroad (www.tutorvista.com) could one open a University which teaches foreign students. The person who goes there hopefully gets a project ------ and some funds ---- and perhaps more. Erach

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better package-management
by shirish 20 Dec '08

20 Dec '08

Hi all, I blogged about the need to have better package management (actually it should have been better distribution-management now that I look into it) but what do people think/feel for the same. Are my conclusions correct or not? http://flossexperiences.wordpress.com/2008/12/19/better-package-management/ Looking forward for comments here or there. -- Regards, Shirish Agarwal This email is licensed under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ http://flossexperiences.wordpress.com 065C 6D79 A68C E7EA 52B3 8D70 950D 53FB 729A 8B17

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Linuxers December 2008