" If you don't ask, you don't get "- Mahatma Gandhi

Ubuntu 9.10 – First Impressions

Just a week or 2 after it’s release, I got hands on the latest offspring of the Ubuntu family, this time it’s a koala! I just keep wondering how do they get such weird names!

Well, downloading was easy enough. I got to ubuntu site (courtesy Google!), and downloaded the 32-bit ubuntu 9.10 iso. 680MB to be approx

Connect to the Internet using Sony Ericsson K750i bluetooth modem in Ubuntu

In my earlier post related to this ( Connect to the Internet using mobile GPRS modem ), I’d shown you how to connect to the Internet using a K750i bluetooth modem in windows. In this post I’ll show you how to do the same in Ubuntu.

Now for the specs. First up, I’m using Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope), and though it is buggy as I mentioned in my earlier posts, I’m able to manage with it by doing periodic fscks disk checks.

Swine flu, the truth and absurdities….

Swine flu, or the H1N1 variant of the virus, has brought chaos all across the world. Educational Institutions shut, offices closed, people running around with masks on their face. Many in the comfy homes are glued to the idiot box watching the media, who are culpable for creating a mania on this virus, telling the people on how dangerous the epidemic has become, and the possible cure and prevention against this.

Jaunty Jackalope, a review

A month after I published my previous post on this related issue (Ubuntu 9.04 – A very buggy affair!!!), I did some research to fix these problems. Now, my ubuntu is running perfectly ok, and no more problems cropped up.

The few problems that might be reason why the ubuntu was behaving abnormally are -

• It requires frequent disk checks. The disk allocation seems to go haywire after several reboots, and thus needs periodic fscks to fix this.
• It does not do automatic disk check during booting, when on battery power. I’ve noticed quite a few do not connect to the power source when they switch on their notebook. This then disables the automatic fsck checks that the ubuntu usually does when on battery power. Also the period of these checks is actually of longer duration, maybe one check after 20 boots, and this is not good for during that time, the ubuntu can spoil the disk! So you can change that by this command ” sudo tune2fs -c 10 /dev/sda1 “. This sets the number of boots after which the fsck must be done. u can change that number however you like, i suggest 6-10 is good. It works with 10 for me though.
• I noticed that if you forcefully shutdown, then the ubuntu goes haywire! No remedies for that except prevention.

Though the ubuntu is working fine, there are still some nagging problems, like the case when booting under battery power, it needs some user input, otherwise it does nothing, it stays just like that. Any solutions?

GRE and dreams…..

Well, this is totally different from what I post in my blog. But then I thought why not share with everyone on the net, whoever is able to find this post, and that without any restrictions like in social networking sites. So I post it here for what my aspirations are, and what I have in view of my future.

The Modern and not so modern youth

I came across this article (suggested by Vipin sir), about the how the youth have been for the past century. You can read the article from this link….

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=In+the+footsteps+of+comfy+cousins&artid=7xQgLyLBNgw=&SectionID=d16Fdk4iJhE=&MainSectionID=HuSUEmcGnyc=&SectionName=aVlZZy44Xq0bJKAA84nwcg==&SEO=

At first, when I began reading it, I thought how could young people in India be happy according to Bertrand Russell? I’ve seen many of my friends, including myself, to be victims of something or the other, and not be happy all the time.

But as I continued reading the article, I realized how true Mr. Russell has said.

Buggy Jaunty Jackalope – A solution in sight…

Ok, so I got many replies to my earlier post on the ubuntu 9.04 being a buggy affair. Thanks guys for all that.

Actually I happened to meet my cousin online in google chat, and he told me that he faced similar problems with the jaunty jackalope in his desktop. He, after searching, tried out the file system check.

Porting Packages into Opensolaris IPS repository

Date : June 6th, 2009

It had taken me a week to motivate myself to come to college to do something. I’ve been a couch potato, surfing the net and watching the idiot box while I keep munching on food every minute or so. I finally took heed of my mentor’s advice to come to college and do something useful. He was also the one who prompted me to keep blogging.

Ubuntu 9.04 – A very buggy affair!!!

Just a few months ago, I decided that I would install a linux operating system in my notebook, though being a Windows fan. So I decided that I can directly jump to the latest version of Ubuntu, Jaunty Jackalope, version 9.04. It was just released, and many reviews said it was a good one. I actually installed Ubuntu 8.10, but it was very problematic in my system, for it does not boot unless I hold on to some keys on my keyboard. I don’t know why it happens, but maybe the version of Ubuntu is not fully compatible with the AMD Turion processor that my notebook has.

Windows 7 from usb!!!!

My laptop’s DVD-Drive is non-functional, and my laptop hard-drive busted. One of the worst nightmares I can think of here!!! But then I bought a new hard-disk, but to replace my DVD-drive, I need to shell out more than Rs 8K! Obviously I was not mad to buy that. However, with no DVD-drive, I can install only linux versions, not windows. For days, I was using only ubuntu, and I missed windows. So I’d to find a way out of this, and so began my search for ways to install windows.

The best solution I’ve found is installing Windows 7 using usb. It’s nearly the same as for ubuntu, except it’s a live OS image. But it worked pretty well though. All you need is a PC, a Windows7 ISO (Windows 7 RC1 is available for free download till August 2009, so hurry!), Windows 7 or Vista installed computer, and a 4GB or more pendrive.

And the tutorial here works is the best, cuz I have installed windows 7 following this tutorial. Check this link out…

http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-install-windows-7vista-from-usb-drive-detailed-100-working-guide/

The requirements mentioned are necessary, you can’t do it with an XP installed system, because you need to convert the file system of the pen-drive to NTFS. Do follow exactly as what the tutorial says. And it worked beautifully for me. Also I think it does work for Vista too. So try it out. Wish Microsoft take a leaf out of many linux versions on the implementation of live-cd.

Happy installing!