Monday, January 31, 2011

Android phones outsell Nokia symbian phones

Well, that is good news. Even Linus torvalds is happy with the android phones. He himself did not envision the growth of his hobby Linux operating system to run on phones and with this much of success. So, with every android phone sold, we have a GNU/Linux installation in a users hands. The GNU software might be minimal right now, But i envision that we will have a GNU land apps required for everybody's needs in the near future. GNU userland and the Linux kernel are excellent partners. The best example is Debian GNU/Linux and in turn Ubuntu GNU/Linux.

My dream is always a phone which will run GNU userland apps natively on the Linux kernel and it should also be phone. That would be the killer device. I recently wrote to the adam tablet makers. I am yet to recieve reply from them. The nokia N900 was somewhere there. I dropped my idea of buying it after knowing it that Nokia is not interested in giving an "open" phone to the customer. This will happen when they release meego on phones similar to the nokia n900. I doubt that the meego OS would allow users to run GNU apps natively on the Linux kernel. If they do so, I will be the first person to buy that phone. With the ability to install GNU userland apps, the phone would never be outdated. You can continuously upgrade the apps and all will run natively and happily on the Linux kernel. WOW, Thats awesome.

Thanks Debian GNU/Linux.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Broadcom has joined the Linux foundation

That is great news. Because this completes the complete eco-system of wi-fi available on GNU/Linux. During the initial days of wi-fi and its proliferation, it was a pain to make a GNU/Linux box connect to the wi-fi networks owing to the lack of drivers. The situation improved with atheros and intel providing code and info regarding their wi-fi devices. For broadcom we were left with reverse engineering the drivers. I myself have a broadcom chip on an nvidia chipset(tx1301au). wi-fi worked with forcedeth drivers written by the GNU/Linux community.

I am very happy with the recent development of broadcom open sourcing their drivers. This will result in GNU/Linux developers not re-inventing the wheel and allow them to concentrate their energies on other freedom software which is not existing. Welcome Broadcom to the GNU/Linux, GNU/BSD, GNU/Hurd freedom software eco-system.

App store is a mis-spelt Apt

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/70405

The link above is an excellent article which explains the subject perfectly. I am putting my views on this article, thats it. I cannot add much to whatever has been told there. The appstore of apple is an example how excessive marketing spending billions of dollars will give a new dimension to an existing technology which stood its test of time an continue to do so in the community circles.

I am using debian for the past 9 years. I always had aptitude and the synaptic and then now, software center since that time. I have never re-installed my debian installatiion since debian 3.1 to this day. I install whatever I want at any time, whenever I want it and then un-install it once its use is over( I will install it once again when needed ). I upgrade my kernel, system software(debian specific conf files), and all other apps from open office to the smaller but important mpg123.

The apps go through three phases of bug squashing before they become part of the stable basket. I laughed at the installation methods being doled out by apps installing in windows. We GNU/Linux users know exactly where the files are to be installed. With this concept in mind, apt(Advanced packaging tool) was developed by the debian developers. The concept was so excellent that Redhat re-wrote it in a new way called rpm(Red hat package manager). But, that was a step backward. They then had to come out with something called yum.

The beauty of apt was it would find out the dependencies and pull all the necessary packages automatically over the public network. It is getting better day by day. I do not have a single broken package to this day. I have changed my state of packages to testing for the past 2 yrs and am awed at the quality of work the debian developers are putting into this fantastic distribution.

Now we are having an app store for everything. Good. All the credit go to the freedom software developers and particularly to the debian developers. Thank u.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

The liquorix Linux kernel configuration project

The website of the liquorix kernel configuration project is one of the most simplest I have come across. liquorix project provides customized kernel for debian based distributions. The customizations are taken down from the zen linux kernel projects. Both zen and liquorix projects take the vanilla kernel and optimize them with additional drivers and kernel code which is not yet part of the vanilla kernel.

Installing the liquorix kernel is as simple as adding the repository source to /etc/apt/sources file, open synaptic, refresh the list, search for liquorix and install it. People having trouble with the latest devices can try this kernel. Liquorix is optimized for the desktop use. If further configuration is required, then the config file can be downloaded with the respective kernel patch.

Patch the vanilla kernel(Be careful in downloading the patches and the configs. The version numbers should match on all the three files). The versioning system for the Linux kernel is just a google or bing away. Build it and install it as u would install a regular vanilla kernel.

I really liked the patches and appreciate the effort put behind by the team in providing a kernel which is geared towards the desktop users. The desktop is zippy and zappy. The response is excellent for the mouse and the key strokes, it is almost immediate. My laptop is on steroids. I had a shutdown/restart problem on my tx1301 au laptop, but installing the latest liqourix kernel solved it. The desktop is more responsive and the hibernating option is much better. There is the tuxonice patch ("It saves the contents of memory to disk and powers down. When the computer is started up again, it reloads the contents and the user can continue from where they left off. No documents need to be reloaded or applications reopened and the process is much faster than a normal shutdown and start up" from the tuxonice website)

So, all in all an excellent community effort in putting all the good kernel code which is not yet upto linus's standards. Thanks to Linus and the entire freedom software community.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

"It is very clear that in order to challenge Apple we're going to have to make a lot of changes"

The subject was told spoken by Mark shuttleworth. Now we all know what he is really up to. He cannot take the freedom community for a ride with his prejudiced view of where the GNU/Linux desktop has to land up. We are not here to challenge Apple. We are here to have an alternate OS when the whole world is engulfed and locked in proprietary solutions. He should learn from google on making money from GNU/Linux. Improve the core and make it attractive to OEMs. The OEMs in turn will develop the UI and distribute as though it is their own, But the core is still the same.

This will make the OEMs to contribute towards the core also as is the case with android OEMs. The competition among the OEMs will make GNU/Linux reach the mass in the best possible ways. So, Mark improve the core and leave the UI to the OEMs and the user/developers/artists. Make the core one of the best OS in the world.

Monday, January 3, 2011

What is Mark up to?

Mark shuttleworth now wants return from his investment in GNU/Linux. He is now fed up with all the free ideologies taught by Sri RMS. He thought that by talking about freedom software and in turn spend dollars for publicity he would create a parallel environment which would give him his ROI. How exactly is he expecting his ROI?.

1. He wants to "differentiate" GNU Ubuntu Linux. How is he going about it? Well, to start with he has unity. The bull shit front end which will use the blood and the nervous system of the GNOME project and add bells and whistles and also integrate his "mp3" service tightly into the bloody front end he is building.
2. He "wants" to build a generic OS very similar to the fruity company. His os should run and look the same on all the devices on which he wants or expects it to be used. He wants it to be as in-compatible as possible with other GNU/Linux. Now, why does he want to do this? The answer is obvioius. He has been a parasite all these years and will continue to be so. He will take from the Freedom software world but will not give anything in return owing to incompatibility(very much the fruit company)
3. He wants his os to be as game savvy as the windows of the world. He wants his os to run games as good as the other os is running them. He is going to do this by shifting his "development?" effort to wayland. I myself would love to play all the games in this world on this freedom os, but dropping the X server is something I cannot digest. This is from the same company which is supposed to use LTSP project for schools in south africa. The X group of utilities is central to the freedom philosophy which allows us to use all the old hardware efficiently. Is he interested in schools now? NO. Is he interested in shipping cds in large numbers? NO.

This man is now serious. He wants ROI for his investment in freedom speech which he has been giving all these years. He wants to copy all his strategies from a company which is more secretive than the projects at NASA. I wish him all the very best and want to tell him that he can go his way. He can no more influence GNU/Linux. It size is beyond his realms. Thanks RMS. Thanks Debian GNU/Linux.