Schwarz zu Blau ..

I like this one.

Robert Novak eats dirt.

I always thought of him as a cancer... maybe it was that cancer in his head?

Good riddance. About time. I wish he had died before he committed the act of treason.

Off-Topic: Thanks for making me smile.

Every once a while something comes up that brings you some kind of inner joy, that you can't explain in words.

Matt Harding, Thank you for making me smile. I don't know if I got the message you intended to give, or you just wanted to sell me some stride gum.

The world is such a beautiful place. I wish we could all dance like that, without hating our fellow men.

Where the Hell is Matt <-- click

Setup for this Aerospace Engineer.

I like my system. I've had it for more than 2 years now. Yeah it's not the fastest machine out there but I've not felt the need for a faster system yet. Here's a little run down of what I run.

Hardware:
Dell Latitude D620 laptop.

Intel Core2 Duo T7200. 2Ghz x 2 | 64 bit.
2 GB ram.
100 GB 7200RPM HDD.
1440x900 14.1" wide screen.
NVidia graphic card with some built-in ram etc.
Other stuff includes BT, Cellular, Wifi, dvdrw, and other irrelevant stuff.
-
OS: Linux - Ubuntu 9.04 x64.

Software:

OpenOffice: This is the alternative to MS Office. I like the format, and the fact that certain things are closer to LaTEX in formatting. You can open any MS Office document in OpenOffice. Converting equations from OpenOffice to MS Office messes them up. More information on: http://www.openoffice.org/

OpenOffice is available in the linux repositories, and is installed in the default installation of Ubuntu 9.04.

SciLab: It's a scientific / mathematical software, an alternative to Matlab.
Yes, I used to work on Matlab when I had access to it. I think it's overpriced and I had to switch to Scilab for windows. Now I'm using Scilab for Linux. Here's more information about Scilab. http://www.scilab.org/

Scilab is in the repositories. In order to enjoy full functionality of scilab it's imperative that the original NVidia graphics drivers are installed. I'll jot down how to do that later.

It can be installed by the command : sudo apt-get install scilab


Octave & QtOctave: Another high level language for numerical computations. It's easy to use, and is compatible with Matlab. Here's more information on Octave: http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/about.html

QtOctave is octave with a nice front-end designed in Trolltech's QT language.

It's available in the repositories. Installation is by : sudo apt-get install qtoctave

In order to enjoy full functionality one must install gnuplot (sudo apt-get install gnuplot)


OpenFOAM and ParaView.

I will cover these two softwares in my next blog. Till that time I shall chat with some friends on pidgin, and call some folks up using qutecom VOIP phone.

A Couple of screenshots.

eh. No I don't do too much eye candy. That 'Macslow clock' is not a regular feature. I keep 3 desktops, in a prism configuration.

I do use Compiz for some effects. I do not use macslow, or awn, or that monitor thing etc. Hey it's a laptop and I don't need all that stuff.

Theme : Slickness-Black.
Icons etc: Black-white 2.

I keep most of the stuff dark on the laptop, with the contrast between black - n - gray.. helps keep the eye-strain to a minimum.

QuteCom softphone - the perfect Linux VOIP / SIP phone.

About a year back I started using voip phones. Now I can't live without it. I travel a lot, and I carry my laptop with me. All I need is a connection to the web and viola.. I'm in touch with all my family n friends.

Back in the day Ekiga softphone came with most of the linux distros. Ekiga communication suite is an offshoot of gnomeeting, which originated as the answer to microsoft netmeeting. The beauty of opensource is that while microsoft was busy with the bullshit Digital Rights Management (or.. in other words.. putting clampdown on your computer) linux programmers were busy improving the practicality and functionality. Ekiga 2.0.12 was a fully functional and easy to operate phone, and it came with many distros.. like the one I used to use .. Ubuntu 8.04 (long time support version).

Something came over me. Ok.. frankly it was the problems with Hybernate / Suspend .. that made me switch to Ubuntu 9.10. New kernel, no problems with hybernation or suspend.. however it came with Ekiga 3.2. The problem with Ekiga 3.2 is that it just does not work. After spending 3 odd days trying to figure out how to make Ekiga 3.2 connect to my voip provider, or find and install the older version of Ekiga that actually worked, I finally gave up.

After some research and stumbling upon various softphones that had one issue or the other, I finally found QuteCom. It was in the ubuntu respositories / launchpad. I installed it and it works perfect.

Not only is QuteCom a fully functional softphone, it's a complete communications suite with msn / aol / yahoo etc everything built-in. I have not seen a more powerful, more useful single utility for communication.

So .. mucho respect goes towards Mbdsys for making this gem of a software. Thank you.

For more information on QuteCom : http://www.qutecom.org/

If you are using Ubuntu 9.10:

1. go to https://launchpad.net/~cavedon/+archive/qutecom

2. Copy the links for the sources lists and add them to your software sources (menu|system|administration|software sources|third party)

3. add the key (use 'follow the instructions' thing on that page)

4. go to terminal .. type " sudo apt-get install qutecom ".

What's it about.

It was 1999. Armed with an old 486 desktop PC and a strange looking cd from RedHat I had my first adventure with Linux. It was a very brief encounter, lasting merely days of pulling hair trying to get anything done on the Gnome desktop. That did not last very long. In 2000 I went back to school for my Masters. From 2000 till 2005 I stayed busy with school, working with Windows computers that needed complete reformatting every six to eight months.

Today I have to have a very good reason to start a Windows desktop, and watch windows dictate my usage instead of the other way around.

Yes it is a pain to learn, Having controlled by M$, we forget how to control ourselves. That is perhaps the first stumbling block when you move from windows to linux. Breaking it is easy. Configuring it is hard. Temptation is overwhelming... you want cairo-clock, AWN, Compiz, Gnomenu. You want to play with KDE, Gnome, Xfce, everything that you can get your greasy mitts on. However if you are not very very careful you will break the system in less than one week. With freedom comes responsibility.

Back to the point.. boy I have a severe case of ADD.

It is going to be a general blog of my raves and rants, of kudos and disses, of little things that I have learnt from people in the know, of stumbling and rising up, of installations and removals, of making it work.

Over time I have played with different distros, versins of Fedora Core, Mandrake (Mandrivia?), Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Debian etc. I want to thank the developers, the hard working programmers, the providers, the enablers, the leaders for leading the way in this software revolution.