Trying Open suse 12.3

undoubtedly its the Klyde availablity which brought me back to OpenSuse after quite a long time and I am impressed :)

Installer of Open Suse is just amazing . The GUI tools are clear cut professional and they work just right .

 

And No there hasn't been a single crash . Its that stable! The biggest plus point is how Opensuse integrated browser with  Package installer Yast . There is lot of click and install available from Opensuse wiki . I did install ATI propreitary drivers and other stuff all with simple clicks .

Lennovo thinkpad Edge E530 simply rocks on LMDE !

I have never seen such a seamless installation though I faced minor glitches with a package called live-installer-slideshow which I understand is the reason why installation hangs on LMDE march 2013 cinnamon edition. I found the solution thanks to mint forums  So I removed the package and continued with the installation. I came back and posted the updated solution at the forums from where I got the idea. Loved the fact that I gave back directly to the community which helped me solve the issue.

I did start with the partitioning tool in windows 7 from where I shrunk the main windows partition. So it created a non partitioned space. So while installing LMDE I just gave the space as root and swap and installed. Everything went seamlessly.

I was presented with the beautiful cinnamon desktop . I did try changing the theme to see how it is , just amazing is all I could say and love the mint and debian team for their efforts in bringing such a nice distro.
So I need not even make a check list

1. Sound - works
2. Webcam - Works
3. Wireless - Works 

Thats all I care as of now, Thank you again lennovo, debian and mint!  

Debian sid - intel + ati graphic driver issue

Having both intel and ATI hybrid graphics is a pain and you definitely need some tool to switch between the graphic cards . One thing which perfectly works is the ATI propreitary driver catalyst . I dont want to get into that mess hence started looking at setting up only the intel driver .

Well I end up with a keyboard + mouse freeze everytime I start the X server .  I was not sure what was causing the issue . During the freeze there is just a dark blank screen and I am left wondering if the X has started or not . The only proof that it had actually started are clean logs with no errors and the moment I switch the manual power butt I see X windows and mouse .

I tried ATI free drivers which didnot work and I was hell bent on getting the intel ones to work . I used xserver-xorg-video-intel  .

While I was searching for solutions I found something at debian-user list on running udevadm trigger and keeping it on a script didnt do much good for me .

Then I was searching for the card itself which gave me some results for the query "i915 input devices debian"
I found a solution in the forums that I need to reinstall the glx drivers which have some propreitary ATI components. I do remember that when I started with the debian machine I was on "free" , later had to add non-free for the drivers . So definitely some packages do need reconfiguration .

#apt-get install --reinstall xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-video-intel libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri 
#dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Well it worked but how much of dependence is there on ATI driver ? I am not sure of that , sometimes randomly the ATI GPU turns on . Hopefully I can shut this GPU down permanently . And yes there is no BIOS switch for that . 

BMSITGLUG - An impromptu session on OSM

It was pravi who made me stay in bangalore which actually was a stopover en route to Hyderabad from FOSS Meet @ NITC . And since we caught up with Raghavendra who luckily teaches at BMSIT and leads the GLUG - GNU/Linux user group over there on the earlier night I planned a openstreetmap session .

Raghavendra was kind enough to accommodate me in the afternoon time of schedule with a very good number of students who actually came from  diverse backgrounds with respect to technology  .

After my introduction to some core members , we walked over to the seminar hall which was awesome and it was my big mistake not to carry a HDMI -> VGA converter . My classic excuse would be " HDMI is the latest tech , arent you catching up with it ? " or another one would be " Even RaspberryPie would be coming with a HDMI but not a VGA" !

So I had to use another volunteers laptop for projector and the network was an issue , so while the volunteers and their teacher fixed the issues I wanted everyone to introduce themselves , year and branch  their love of technology . I did learn of some cool technologies and that made me happy as a speaker . I felt that speaking to a crowd who are more educated or who know more than you / know something else better than you gives a satisfaction .Some were also interested on "web" !

As the inroducutions were going on , we were joined by a senior from final semester CS who said "yes" and was quite vocal while taking a random survey on what "free software" , made her introduce free software to the crowd .  I had to later explain what
"free beer" is , with the redhat & CentOS example .

Another big blooper of mine was the absence of slides . I forgot to make them assuming that I could use my old slides while showing some URL's then and there . In this case we had a partial internet which was powere by raghavendra first and later by another students 2G/3G connections .

For the question of why not google maps , I had to tell about FUP - Fair Usage Policy and later explain how freedom on data can make you show cool stuff like show emphasis on transport routes ,Cycle routes etc .

I also explained each and every tool of OSM but unfortunately I didnt make a slide for each tool and written a line on it , I just dumped all the tools in 2 slides and was done with it .

Editing : I told about upcoming editor iD , but showed JOSM . I made few students draw lines , boxes and tag them appropriately . Also since we were running out of time I called all of them forward and then showed the mapnik instance running on my laptop and how panning heavily requested the tile numbers .

On a question on tile numbers I showed what X and Y means . Later on a question on database postgres . I panned heavily and showed via iotop the vanishing process of postgres "select" query . I had to pan very heavily which made me smile inside that my laptops fast enough :D

Later on an insistence to see the DB . We made some sample queries and I showed them how to simply query for amenities etc . Later I showed them a visualisation made ot of cuisine . There was alsoa  question on android app for OSM . I was like " Yeah its obvious , there are many" , little did I realise that this is a new project for them . Also I was hesitant enough to show bangalore :D

Overall we had to leave and the left over CS guys were whom I had a small chat on CS in BMSIT and how things could improve and asked them to encourage open access of internet by creating a network and it could be jointly paid by everyone . I also showed them the root shell on my N900 .

It was a pleasant experience to give a session at BMSIT GLUG , would love to visit again !

Ubuntu release event + FOSS team hangout

It was as the title says both ubuntu 12.04 release and a hangout of old and new buddies revolving around various FOSS circles :)

Me and logic went to get the cake which me and praveen illa ordered yesterday at Karachi bakery . The pangolin on the cake attracted two girls who were like curious to know about the animal , we explained them how free software projects like ubuntu , mozilla and others use the names of animals which need conservation or more love . The bakery was also very proud of the cake which was not given to us until it was photographed .

Back in the venue met ritesh for the 3rd time though it was like a meeting for the first time !! I spent some time telling people on phone how the building is infront of a blue glassed white building of Shadan womens college .  I was very happy that Anivar was able to make time to attend the event despite his hectic schedule .  Krish and Atul were very surprised to see the numbers which were not there in our earlier meets .
Ritesh started his pitch on Ubuntu explaining why use linux, ubuntu etc and we couldn't get the projection in place . The venue owner Kashyap tried a lot getting the projection fixed with his laptop, praveen illas laptop , I made them settle for logics laptop which also had some graphic driver issue but was "ok" for presentation .
Atul and krish were in other room as there wasn't enough place to move . Atul took praveen illa's laptop to run the installation script  . Anivar joined us at that time and they had a  hell lot of catching up to do :)
  In the lecture hall we decided to go on with Cake cutting ceremony aka ubuntu release , but before the cake people were asked to introduce themselves as is the tradition of lot of our user group meets .  After that we had a photo session and the smallest ubuntu user in our group  of 14 years  was the chief guest and he cut the cake .

Icy orangy the taste really felt good as I was sick of eating the default chocolate/vanilla flavoured cakes . lol atul mailed me asking for the recipe as it raised some curiosity . Yeah asking something which the propreitary secret of Karachi bakery is pointless !!

Praveen Illa talked about issues with localisation and the status of projects like LXDE, Gnome,XFCE etc . Anivar did ask about the 100 % status of gnome telugu translations and said that it was good . Me and praveen later had a lil chat on why it was projected so as to show 100 % always despite the fact that there are major issues with translation quality and how important a glossary is .

 Vineel  talked about the various mozilla projects and how we could contribute to the project . I seriously wish he had used the projector atleast to use the project pages  or  atleast used the white board to write the names of the projects .

Atul wanted to talk before as there are two people one from bangalore who just came to attend the openstack talk . He talked about OpenStack and how a  private cloud works and he had some pretty neat diagrams on the functioning of the architecture . Some of my questions also drew paralell comparisions with EC2 offering of Amazon .

He says 

 "Openstack uses its own API which is completely open source unlike Amazon and as a result of which Openstack will increase in adoption of Hybrid cloud, using Open source Openstack API. You can have Public and Private cloud easily sharing workload."

Krish talked about puppet with the whiteboard drawing puppet server and clients . I was outside saying bye to Anivar who has to catch a bus .
Finally logic pitched about wikipedia and local wikipedia pages  and I am guessing also about wikimedia foundation .

The event didn't end so soon and the mother of our chiefguest was waiting for him. Well it was the time to say bye to folks . But after event parties are always exciting and I am never going to miss it . Logic was my pillion rider while ritesh came on another bike . Behind us were vipul, praveen Illa and atul on Krish's nano . We had some traffic disturbances thanks to someone jumping into Hussain Sagar , later went to Paradise where while others bought food , Me and logic drank something cool . I had falluda and I still love the fact that my first falluda was from Thrissur in Kerala , quite a contrast from hyderabadi drink its supposed to be .
Back in Army zone which is ritesh sisters home ( who was out of town) we ate ,drank and had fun chatting all night but it was tuxnani's call which was the most amusing . After my post on FB he called us up and everyone spoke to him on speaker .

That ends our party or get together or FOSS event .. lots of names but its the fun which we had matters the most . 

Eventful day

Could tag the day as #event as it started with me going to #OpenDataHyd of which the first word is the only thing open about it , the least I say of it the better , though well organised it lacked every sense of the community and had more of a corporate agenda with corporates pleased with themselves . The govt fellas were here to show off !  And guess the venue ? ISB lol it was meant to be .

The only good thing was I met Kiran Baddi and Siddhartha from swecha during lunch . We also met Srikanth Lakshman whose talk on bus routes kind of went to a deaf audience . I returned with him to another event which is more exciting .


Update : Srikanth has written a story on it . And As he says the question by the OGPL guys  about geospatial data is weird . The govt fellas dont want to open the data but complain some opendata campaigner that the maps she was using was wrong especially with respect to kashmir . If the govt has released the maps in fist place this wouldn't have been a issue . I should also mention a s***y talk by UID fellas . I dont understand how opendata folks allowed such an advertisement ? 

Protesting against internet censorship - Hyderabad

Why Protest ? 

• Blockage of internet sites
• Plan to introduce new ways of curbing internet freedom
• Amendment of copyright law to introduce censorship 

Where ?

The proposed place by Anonymous and Free Software Movement of India  for the protest was peoples plaza , Necklace Road in the centre of the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad . Later our venues did change ;)

How we started :

  I reached that place to find a group standing on the footpath and found out that they are from Anonymous and they had masks with them and some posters .

 People are yet to come , and we kind of asked where the others are . We were shown that there is another group down  at the parking place

Walked slowly to find the swecha group , notably happy to meet Sunil Mohan after many years . I kind of told how we organised some gimp telugu events and plan/efforts to create telugu gnome glossary . He admitted that it was hard . 

Swecha did bring out some cool goodies in form of Tshirts and posters hand drawn by volunteers in contrast to the Anonymous printed posters . Also was glad to meet Srikar  who came from Bangalore .Me and praveen went for a small walk around and found that police have approached anonymous and were trying to stop them from protesting . I was asked by one of them to bring both groups together and approach the police unitedly . Back in swecha group after exchanging pleasantries I was ale to meet Kiran Chandra and discussed the situation between those two groups and police . He pointed me out to the FSMI page on protest  and the reasons why were doing it . As we moved ahead with our posters , I had choosen a poster with swecha written in "telugu" which was later stolen by a girl lol .  Well the argument with police which was to come did turn out to be quite long and it did unite the Anonymous and swecha groups to an extent . I was lucky enough to find neenaoffline in the anonymous group thatnks to that as the arguments went on I was catching up with neenaoffline who is now doing his google summer of code.

Police arguments : 

• No protest is to be done without permission
• You need permission to stay as a group
• Even if you separate you must remove your Tshirts and posters
• We will take your Tshirts and posters !!
• We have allocated a special place for bandhs and dharnas and even for that you have to get a permission 

Those above arguments did irritate the crowd and the some of our teams did bring out some good reasons on freedom or right to protest which definitely fell to the  deaf ears of police who were unrelenting .  The police even shouted at anonymous group very loudly  in a fiercely manner so that everyone removed their masks . Around the end of the argument did meet old swecha buddies like Kiran baddi , sandeep , divya and medhamsh who just reached the venue .

Final judgement by police : 

We are allowed to protest at the Bandh chowk near indira park . We should be following the police jeep . Even there we were to be monitored and allocated a  particular time limit so as that we protest in that stipulated place and time frameworks defined by the police . 

The Movement starts !!

Here we embark on a exciting charged up journey  to indira park with guys and girls on bikes . As if to interest us or to provoke us by their rules and regulations we did make some extra rounds like one near the imax circle and all the way round turn on main tankbund to reach the lower tankbund region of Indira park instead of going below the telugu talli flyover .

                We started out coolly with all the anonymous and swecha posters coming out high from their folded avatars and we went with  a driver on bike with protest posters by the pillion rider , those who haven't any posters( my bike ) collected from others who were travelling in a group .

 We went on very excited as we reached tankbund instead of going through lower tankbund which was a cool thing as we could show our group and as if we were escorted by police security lol

Down at the Bandh Ghat :

We started with our placards and slogans , we also were approached by the press who were curious to know about what was happening over there .

  We all formed a human chain and started with our slogans .

• Say NO Internet Censorship
• Bandwidth is our birthright
• Listen sibal listen we wont keep quite

I liked these 3 slogans especially the 2nd one which has been my slogan all  of my techie life.

Swecha volunteers did a great job by giving voices by sharing and chanting the slogans all over the human chain . There were people who did observe us and were curious . They were given pamphlets about how govt is taking away our internet freedom .

Freedom Song and Conclusion :

After the Human Chain we all gathered at one place and as a group our slogans were more audible and press did take out some photographs .

Here is an article published in sakhi district edition  .


Freedom Song - Protest against Internet... by pavithrans
After that there was this exciting freedom song by a guitarist .  We all sang by him in the occupy style of singing .
We all sang on the lines "I want my freedom set me free "
I also could meet swecha volunteers like medhamsh and others  who were interested in my N900 and how debianised it is and I was surprised that they consider it as a smart phone .
 Kiran Chandra concluded by saying that this fight is not going to stop . He thanked everyone for attending the event including the police for their support ;)

Farewell to friends : 

Then farewell and a promise to neenaoffline after that more farewells and  also promised to meet sasi bhusan later . police were bugging us to leave so had to leave in midway of discussion . After that  had sugarcane juice with praveen with whom I went to his place  and had a lil chat with him .