Dream Operating System

Anyone who is remotely related to programming, internet and such has a dream to create something of his own. Often this dream is of creating a new Operating System of their own. An operating system that will be faster than any other, will support everything and will have so many features that it’ll outnumber Windows XP in its user-base!

Yes, its close to impossible to outnumber Windows XP user-base or even Free BSD for that matter ;). Yes, its close to impossible to make something faster than them and still support as much as they do! Yeah, you can make a ‘hello world OS’ which is zillion times faster than any other, but whats the use?

Ok, all this was to build up a platform to talk to you. Well, just like ‘everyone’, even I have dreams. And they never become concrete, only day-dreams of all that I said before :D. But then, I realized that I wasted some 8 years in just dreaming! I didn’t take the next step which generally ‘human beings’ take. Thats how the human race has progressed from apes to what we are now, ‘mobile apes’ :D.

Anyways, so basically, till now I was a dumb day-dreamer like a couple of million more, when this angel came and told the golden words in my ear, … “IDIOT! START TOH KAR” (means, Idiot! Stop dreaming and start something). And then, me, following her words began to look in the world around me.

Coming to the point directly after all this drama, the straightforward deal is Tanu asked me to do something in this regard, and I began reading about OS development, and trying out ’something’ ;).

Ok so the next FAQ looks to be, ‘So have you begun your own OS?’. Dude, chill, Microsoft Inc. took five whole years before they could change these lines

printf (”Welcome to Windows XP\n”); to printf (”Welcome to Windows Vista\n”);

So, its not that simple as it sounds in the dream world. At least the 80X86 processor is not as simple as it should have been. And then there are other mental blockages for me. Here is a list,

1. Why make another *nix clone? Why not something new?

2. Everything is a file, umm.. *nix concept, I want something original, WHAT?

3. Copy windows? Uh, not even in my dreams

4. Why C? Why not my own D or E or F or G? Do I need to write another compiler :O

5. Why OS? What happened to web-dev and python scripting? And eh, computer vision?

6. My own filesystem or new? Why old? Why not be ‘readable’ by others? Linux also did ext2, why not me do my own AFS or something?

7. Ok, so if I use C, how do I write my kernel? I don’t even know much about it!

8. Uh, all this GDT, IVT, IDT, Page table, Multitasking, PCI, A20 line, and every damn thing has a hundred configuration settings. Am I enough or I need help?

So, basically I didn’t reach all this just by beginning. First I encountered Viral Patel (http://www.viralpatel.net), who is a anti-ME. He actually made a fully functional ‘CLOSED SOURCE’ OS, called Taj OS (named after Taj Mahal).

Then I reached www.osdev.org, which is a whole portal dedicated to help people like me try their hands on some OS development. It lists more than hundred hobby operating systems developed by people, many of which are open source and closely resemble *nix or DOS. The site has extensive tutorials for all aspects of OS development, with some holes left, which I might fill up one day.

I started using ‘nasm’ compiler to write initial bootable code in assembly. Using ‘vmware’ to keep it ’safe’, I booted the first few experiments, and with the help of Fedora Core 7 rescue DVD, I installed the bootloader onto the ‘virtual vmware hard disk’. So, now my small bootable assembly program can boot from a disk, read the keyboard and display messages! Cool for a start, at least I can feel that :D. Ofcourse, that hard disk will be able to boot my OS (rather boot code) and nothing else, even if we try GRUB.

Now, my next tasks are to read this book, THE INTEL MICROPROCESSORS (750 pages :() by BARRY B. BREY and C. R. SARMA (Rs. 299 only :D). And then I’ll have a better clue of the things that are happening. Then I might decide to begin some design of an OS, if I still have interest left. I also read the source-code of Ace OS (1.0 and 2.0), DEX OS 1.1, which are small operating systems, written in C and are somewhat understandable. Viral’s OS doesn’t run on my vmware and I don’t have a floppy drive, :D.

Ok, maybe I am thinking too high, but if I make one, I won’t make a ‘floppy OS’ for some DOS work, I’ll make a real installable OS with a CD setup and a hard-disk GRUB compatible install. I might not remain compatible with *nix, so maybe it’d be difficult to port Linux applications to it, but I’ll maybe write some of my own!

Right now, all this is a distant dream, but gladly the first bricks have been laid. And soon, when I am on the same level as other OSdevers (term for OS developers), I’ll come up with some concrete thing to write here.

Created a new page to log my knowledge and status on this issue.

Any comments are welcome. Any people interested in development can discuss with me, learn and share. But right now, as there is no ‘development plan’, there is no ‘development team’. Though, I will need more people by my side when I really go into doing it. And as you know, that there is no plan, YOU can affect the plan, and YOU can make it your plan. So, like me, you wont have hesitation in joining me when we actually begin work, because it’ll be YOUR OS too!

More information soon. Cheers!

PS: I fell from the bike, injured my knee, so maybe some cells in my ‘brain’ have been killed or altered, so I am thinking wierdly these days. Operating system and me, really huh?

PS2: Am perfectly fine guys, just an injury on the knee, so thanks for being concerned, but don’t worry, I’ll be ok.

PS3: HA HA HA, ok fine so you are not concerned, neither am I concerned about your concern ;).

PS4: Someone ask me to shut-up yaar!

Ok bye then. Take care.

JDK on Fedora Core 6

I was installing Java Development Toolkit 1.5.0 on Fedora Core 6. And I got an error saying.
The installer is unable to run in graphical mode. Try running the installer with the -console or -silent flag.

I thought it was a usual error because ‘root’ couldn’t connect to X. I did

ssh -X root@localhost

or ssh -Y root@localhost

I also tried,

xhost +

su - root

export DISPLAY=:0.0

setenforce 0

service iptables stop

Nothing worked! I tried and tried and tried. Finally I got an answer. Fedora Core 4 onwards a package called ‘openmotif’ has been removed from Fedora Core. Hence, the installer doesn’t start. Another replacement of the same package that now comes with Fedora Core is lesstif.

Hence I installed lesstif and libXp. After that, the installer just worked fine. So anyone facing the same problem, check if you have openmotif or lesstif installed. If not, do so, and then try out the installer.

Cheers!!

Operating systems, iYum and Flash 9

Introduction - Operating systems and me

Its been long since I wrote an entry here, but this one has a purpose rather than being a pass time. I’ve always been interested in operating systems. Ever since I knew about computers, I wanted to make my own operating system. MSDOS used to be my dream at a time, then Windows 3.1, then Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows Xp, Redhat 7.2, Redhat 7.3, Redhat 9, Fedora Core 2, Fedora Core 4, Ubuntu, Kubuntu and now Fedora Core 5. I’ve been updating my knowledge at each step, changing the dream everytime.

BASIC and the OS dream

In the beginning when we began with ‘BASIC’ (Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), we learnt to write ‘graphical’ programs in it. We wondered that all world has been programmed in BASIC and that learning to create a ‘WINDOW’ using the graphics of BASIC will enable us to write an operating system. As if thats the only missing link in our knowledge. Back then, our computer instructors used to say that operating systems are very complex things and can’t be made by someone as such. I accepted his point of view, but didn’t let the dream die.

When I came to IIIT

When I entered IIIT, the exposure to a new environment, different from the old and familiar Windows, which I had been used to since 1994, gave a new outlook to the whole thing. And the fact that Linus was able to make an OS of his own made my will even stronger. Though now we know that Linus only made the ‘kernel’ of the whole operating system, which is only about 3% of it (I read it somewhere).

Anyways, this was just to tell you about my strong desire to work in the field of operating systems, though I haven’t been able to do so. This was also to tell you about my familiarity with both platforms, as some people stereotype me as a ‘Linux person’. I use what I like more and its not completely impossible that I’ll switch to Windows Vista if I find it better.

iYum Repository

When Sugandh mailed about having a IIIT Yum repository, I was very excited about it. I had some idea about it. Initially, Sagar and I began working on making the Yum Repository for Fedora Core 5 - 32 bit. Sugandh talked to the faculty and got us resources. We installed a new system there, and I wrote some shell scripts initially. Later Sagar helped me out with some python too. Finally we made a mechanism to create Fedora Core 5 -32 bit repository. It downloaded about 7700 packages from the internet, about 12 GB of data.

And a set back

But you see, bad scripting and organisation resulted in a catastrophy. The script automatically deleted all packages naming them as ‘old versions’. This was a huge set-back. We decide to revive. I am very good at this I’d admit - reviving. People generally lose interest, hope, faith - after a crash. I, on the other hand, rebegin from wherever it is. Even if it means building from ground up.

Reviving

Sagar almost lost faith, while I was getting fascinated by the whole thing. It opened a new path of imagination for me. Besides, I was getting in touch with the power of Python, which I never acknowledged or experienced before. I designed a new mechanism for the Yum Repository.

New plan

Why should Yum Repository download all packages from everywhere? Why should it download any RPM for Fedora Core 2 if there isn’t any PC running it? Why should 100 others with Fedora Core 5 wait because Fedora Core 2 is being updated? Everything was so straightforward, ask the users to generate the requirement, and download only that.

The design
I designed the two tier architecture of the iYum network. The client runs a service in the background, constantly reading what packages the server ‘can’ download, comparing with what packages are old or not-installed. It sends back a list of those packages to the server. The server process combines the lists from various users and downloads the requirements. Thus, an automated system takes birth, which can expand itself as an when needed, as well as shrink itself when a particular operating system is getting obsoleted.

The actual work

I kept on telling Sagar to work, but he had his other commitments like his DIP project, BTP, etc. So, slowly and gradually, I coded the entire thing. The iYum client service, made in Python as well as the whole server and its webpages. The iYum client is currently a non-GUI thing, but my vision is to make it into something like synaptic or yumex. I might use yumex code to do so too. Anyways this is just a dream.

Flash player 9

Adobe took over Macromedia. The new version of Flash, Flash 8 came into picture. But, as Linux is not a popular platform, they didn’t work towards developing a version for it too. As a result, all Linux users were forced to use the old version, Flash 7. Many internet sites insisted on Flash 8, like the popular news site, www.ibnlive.com. Finally, Adobe has kept its promise to release a version 9 for Linux. It prerelease versions include a browser plugin and a standalone utility to run Flash 9 on Windows, Mac and Linux. Enjoy! Here is the link.

BTP

On 9 of October was a great day for me. Jawahar sir scolded me like anything for not working on the project. Initially I was very depressed and angry, but now I am happy that he did so. It brought me on the right track again, the track of working! He explained me very nicely about the BTP viva and report today, and about the future plans. I’ll be giving it my best during these couple of days. Wish me luck!

Fedora Core 6 and Vista

I heard FC6 was coming today, haven’t seen any news about it. The Fedora website is down for maintainance. Regarding Windows Vista, I am very keen. Recently I’ve read many blogs supporting and against Vista. I want to see what has Microsoft offered this time. Hopefully it’ll be something good.

Anyways, bye for now. Ciao.

Another combo post :D

Its not fair. I write so less these days and most of the posts are just a sum total of the past days. Anyways, what can I do, lets continue the trend.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is a busy day. I have to prepare a BTP presentation, a Advanced Graphics course presentation along with normal classes (read it as one class at 11). The upcoming matches from 7th of this month is to be recorded match-by-match on the tv.iiit.ac.in server. Yes!! The same old server which people enjoyed. We are working on the audio-video sync of the recording system these days. Hopefully after the series, the server will be open for the public.

This week

Well, I’ve to finish a lot of things this week. There is a pile of backlog for the Cognitive science course and a pending GPU assignment. We’ve set up a YUM REPOSITORY SERVER for IIIT. But mirroring 12 repositories for 6 platforms is a wastage of disk space and bandwidth. As a result, we are working on a better mechanism to create the repository. Sagar and I are jointly working on the project to come up with something good. Lets see what do we make.

This month

Diwali is ’scheduled’ this month. And its been 3 long months since I went home. I came to college on 7th of July 2006 and today is 4th of October 2006. I’m thinking to go home from 16th to 22nd of this month. As a result I’ve to skip a few classes and also finish the BTP final report beforehand, which is to be submitted on 24th of this month. Hopefully Jawahar sir will allow me to go home. I have to restart the work on the 4th semester 4 credit Mobile Blogging software project. The placements have come very near, and I need to have a clean marksheet.

Qt 4

Wow! This new thing is such a marvel. Initially I used to hate it, because I didn’t understand how to use it. But now I am familiar with the Ui namespace, resource files and other fundas, it feels good. For starters, let me tell you a good news. In Qt 3, if we created a Ui from Qt designer, and edited the header and sources generated using the uic command, the ui files used to overwrite them next time we needed to change something in Ui. Now, they’ve separated Ui component from the functionality code. As a result, the programmer can completely rely for Ui on Qt4 designer and on his code for the rest of it. Another good thing is resources. Now we can define the resources like images, text files used by the application we develop. All of them will get embedded inside the executable itself. As a result, we need to ship only single files instead of zip archives.

My experiments - Embedder

I was thinking about making something like ’setup.exe’ of windows. Generally linux setups come as tar archives or like rpm files. Almost nothing (except jdk setups, etc) come like a single setup file which handles everything. I wrote a command line utility as the first steps to generate something similar for linux. The command is called ‘createArchive’. This command takes two arguments, name of a new executable and a resource file. The resource file contains a list of files, both executable and ordinary. The command reads all files given in the resource file and finally creates an executable by the name as specified. This new executable contains all the files embedded in itself. Upon execution, this executable creates a temporary directory in /tmp and extracts all the files. It then executes the executables in a specified order. It has options of ‘quiet’ and ‘destroy extracted files on exit’ too. You can try this too. Download the files from here. It works on Linux, but is pretty much platform independent, most of if is just CORE C++. Maybe you can try it on windows as well. Does “FILE * fp;” work on windows? Sorry, the code isn’t documented (at all).

Movies

Ok, not many in the list. Lage Raho Munnabhai has been the favorite since a few days. I don’t know if the director had any intention to spread the gandhigiri, but I can see it already spreading (at least in orkut profiles). What I think one should notice is that the ‘noble thought’ is being internalized and understood by someone who has been violent and aggressive all the time, a gunda. If such a person can understand the words of truth and non-violence, we, the ordinary people ought to.

Pyaar ke side effects… they are already there. Actually Tanu wanted me to see this one. And after people appreciated it, I got desperate to see it. Eh, well I can already notice some of the side effects in my life too, hehe. In all a fun movie, a must see for your PC and can be worthy for the cinema hall as well.

Blogging - bring me back

Oh its been so long since I last visited my blog or someone elses. I am like out of the blogging world. Not that I am busy or something, but I do other things more often. They include movies, orkutting, chatting, working on the YUM REPO, etc. And rest of the time I am outside my room doing some other activities. Lets see if I revert back with this opening post. Actually I was considering of creating a private blog as well, or making this one private or something similar. I think a lot of my thoughts don’t find place in this open blog. Maybe its too early to let my ideas open for the public to read and judge.

Conclusion

Ok fine, now that I wrote a post, I have to have a conclusion. There is nothing to conclude though. Welcome me back to the blogging world. Hopefully going home this diwali. And well keep your fingers crossed for the upcoming YUM REPOSITORY and TV.IIIT.AC.IN.

Ciao.

Backlog

So, its been over a month without a single blog. Great! Actually I didn’t feel like blogging these days. Some of it was due to some personal reasons, and most of the time in the later part of July, it was due to lack of motivation. Anyways, what I remembered is that it just takes a fresh start to make things roll again. Here is the fresh start.

Let me tell you things in the reverse order. Right now I’ve just returned from my class, Middleware Systems. It was a very hectic day today, hypothetically. I haven’t done much work today practically. NOW I have to do some wordlists for GRE. Phew, god help me.

This week

I have behaved quite complacently this week. Most of it is due to the fact that most people around me are attempting their GRE in August, while I am attempting it in September. Hence, the complacency. The Barrons GRE book, as they call it, contains 50 wordlists, each having about 75 words. That makes it 3700+, wow! I haven’t even done 200 of them. Hope I get a little more sincere on that front.

Last month

The month of July has been easy going. Not many classes, unneccessarily delaying the project work, not doing any GRE preparation has been the norm. All my classes are scheduled after lunch this semester, except one on Wednesdays. Hence, sleeping late and getting up late has become the ruitine. Well, and I explain it as taking rest after the tight schedule in the internship.

Post Noida

I already mentioned how nice was my trip to Noida. Thanks to Rakhi ma’am and Deepak sir for the kind remarks. After my return my Noida, most of the days back home were spent in roaming around with my friends. And then, an unplanned return to IIIT, which I realized was unneeded. I could have easily spent another week at home. Those few days living in the campus were painful, after knowing the biting reality.

Room shift
I shifted to a new room, OBH 110. Great room it is, the room of my pal, Arun. Apart from a screeching door and an almirah without any hanging rod, its quite cozy in here. Its in the front wing in OBH. Ravi Shankar often claims that girls come for breakfast at the exact time he is leaving for a shower, so that they can have a glance at him, half naked in a towel. I don’t know how true is that, hehe. Other things are great about this room. With Ashish in the adjacent room, and Devansh around the corner, its always fun time and guidance to this poor soul. And well, teasing and irritating Ravi is like a everyday timepass.

Courses

Not very many, just 4 courses this semester. And most of them are not much into the technical side.

A perspective to Industry and Society - As the name suggests, this one is a pure philosophy subject, just write what you want in the answer sheet kind of subject. Most classes are just fun.

Introduction to Cognitive Science - Ok, no need to think it like a real course with some matter to mug up and all. Its like a discussion forum. The only constraint is the topic is chosen by the course outline. Rest of it is just the way you make it. We are divided into groups of 15 each and have group discussions on topics like human vision in 3D, illusions and stuff. Most of it is fun.

Middleware systems - This one is a great one. Real tech thingi involved, all Java, Corba, .NET, J2EE and stuff. We learn some really useful tools and concepts and well we have a project to do too. Will also learn Java in the process. Nice one it is.

Advanced topics in Graphics - This one is like a learning and experimentation based one. Most of it is related to OpenGL and GPU programming. Today was the first class, so can’t write much about it. Its going to be a great experience I think.

Projects

Eh, this is the area I am lagging. Too many projects have aggromerated (hope the usage is correct). The BTP, Mobile Blogger (4th sem project), Visual Tracking (5th sem honors project), Computer Vision course project, isn’t four enough? Hope I get to some serious work.

Fedora Core 5

Since long I have been getting irritated with Random Hangups and Freezes with FC5. I just upgraded the kernel from 2.6.16 to 2.6.17 and the hangups disappeared. It seems there was some problem in the kernel and its ATI drivers or something. The issue has been resolved in the newer version.

KDE 3.5.3

Upgraded to this new KDE after I reached college. Its simply awesome. You would say it has copied stuff from XP, but the konqueror with its metabar and the capability to play video previews (actually play the video as a preview, pause, ffwd, rew, stop) is great. It supports ALL formats supported by MPLAYER, i.e. MPEG, AVI, ASF, RM, RA, RAM, anything, you just name it and it plays. And the KBFX menu (with the normal K-menu is great), actually the button looks cool, hehe. Rest of it pretty much similar to 3.5.

Conclusion

GRE is my priority. Others are my projects. The courses are easy going so need not bother much. And well, my readers, sorry to keep you waiting…. please come back.

Ciao.

My Nerd Score

Wow! I am just 90% nerdy, not very high na? And to tell you more, 10% people are more nerdy than me, and 90% are less nerdy than me. I wonder whether they counted me or not? How can the sum come up to 100? Where is my fraction?

PS: Took the test from http://marutiborker.wordpress.com/

PS2: Read the article on Ankit Fadia on his blog. Its really nice.

My mood swings and some techno crap

Human brain is an amazingly complicated thing. It can create virtual scenarios out of thin air, it can come up with thoughts which have no meaning at all and still depress you, it can come up with imaginations and ideas which no one ever thought about (using their brains, lol), it can make you feel romantic or excited or what ever in the world’s most gloomy and dirty places, it can make you imagine that something is great or beautiful or wonderful or amazing, though it might not be so, the brain can …. eh.. it can do what ever your brain can think of.

Last few days, I have been kind of irritated and/or depressed about being in Noida. Well, if you judge materialistically, everything was fine. An office with AC/PC/net, freedom to do anything in the evening, two new cities, Noida and Delhi. But then, it got a little monotonic,

• come out of office
• go to the Centre Stage Mall
• eat or see a movie and return
• sleep early and wake up early.

Maybe that wasn’t that exciting, but then, it wasn’t like I should decide to return to IIIT. Actually, the problem is, I was feeling bad that I couldn’t work on the BTP, which Jawahar sir was eager about. Mixed with some other feelings, last Sunday I had decided to quit the job at Kritikal. But then, I stayed on. Its feeling a little better today, lets see.

Kingsun DKU-5 USB to serial cable

Well, as Nikhil has this cable, I wanted to make it work on FC2 which I am using. I googled again with some success. I found out that ‘cypress’ driver which is a loadable module in the kernel supports this cable. But for that we need to patch cypress_m8.c and cypress.m8.h in KERNEL_SOURCE/drivers/usb/serial directory. The patch wasn’t compatible with the kernel source I had got. So, I read the patch file and manually patched the two files. Finally the kernel compilation failed when it reached the patched files due to some errors. Frustrated and tired, I finally gave up. Here is the link to the patch (nokia ca-42) (http://gnome.dnsalias.net/patches/). Though it mentions that it works for the CA-42 cable, it might work for DKU-5 (http://www.qbik.ch/usb/devices/showdev.php?id=3565).

Bon Echo alpha 2

A new alpha version of Firefox 2 has been released called Bon Echo Alpha 2. I downloaded and installed it. It has prebuilt session saving crash recovery, a suggestion system for ‘google search’ (like intellisense), and is much like the good-old firefox. Most extensions say that they are incompatible with it, but that’ll change soon I think. Due to lack of extensions and themes compatibility, I am back to Firefox 1.5.0 for the time being.

Conclusion

Rest of life is fine. Its Alvy’s birthday on 20th. I’ve to get a gift for her, lets see. My code isn’t working well, so rest of the day is just hard work!

Ciao.

Why Core 5?

I was determined to get Fedora Core 5 in my system. So much so that I decided to download the iso images from the internet. 10 hours, 600 MB of the first CD I did download, when someone mailed about all iso images being there in the campus. I was delighted. Promptly, I downloaded all images, and resumed other work.

Today, I was too free and was looking for some work to do. I opened the fedora webpage and was looking at the features. I almost had given myself a green signal when I stopped and began looking at its screenshots. What would it provide that my Fedora Core 4 cannot?

• Beagle
• F-Spot
• New version of Gnome
• New version of KDE
• Mono (.NET support for Linux)
• crippled mp3, DVD support
• Totem player

Seems Fedora Core 5 is nothing more than a new name to the same old OS. And I have reconfigure my system, enable all media support, flash support, etc. Install my favorite media players, set up the databases, and what not. All this for the sake of getting nothing extra? So I decided to drop the plan.

Its better with my Fedora Core 4, it purrs, it hums, it mesmerizes !!

tv.iiit.ac.in

How did it happen? Another idea by our good old Jawahar sir. Tarun was already recording news using some windows software whos license expires every 16 days! He knew it could be done in Linux too, he had done it before. Finally, first we came up with a portal so that we can test how people like the interface. Still runs on http://172.17.9.33/videoserver

The next step was the harder one. Making a recording possible in Linux. It wasn’t difficult as we thought. But then, first we had to tune the channels. Those hardware frequencies given ‘human recognizable’ names. We tuned about 40-45 channels, of which the one available are of good reception. Then, as we all know, Linux and audio are the two things that never meet. We did anything, left, right, center, /dev/dsp, /dev/dsp0, alsamixer, kmix, aumix, rpm, ffmpeg, nothing made audio come out! Finally, somehow we figured out the solution and it was recording.

The first video recorded was of ‘GREAT QUALITY’ but unfortunately 40 MB per 20 seconds. We kept trying different tweaks, codecs, but the compression ratio didn’t come down for the ‘best possible’ quality. Not the disk space but the ‘feasibility of download’ was the criterion in mind. Finally, we decided to drop the quality till we find a solution. And the odd channel switches might be caused by the operator himself as there is no other way one can change the hardware frequency that the card is using.

We’re planning a discussion forum kind of thing to be added there. And as and when the requirements start looking obvious, we’ll make changes. Expect a DF coming up soon. And thanks for all your compliments.

Ciao.

How much relevant is this?

We’ve been having talks about the relevance of this project. There is this “Redhat Scholarships”, and we had thought of doing this one for this scholarship.

Analysing the requirement of this project, we see, what all it will “actually” add.

* I wont be required to install a few media players manually.
* I will have one more icon to start XMMS for me, heh.
* It will possibly install all other softwares I need!

Lets look into it this way.
* How many softwares are actually provided in palatable form such as RPM or SRC RPM or even an easily compilable source?
* How many times does it happen that we can install a software flawlessly, and flawlessly on more than one system with the same procedure?
* How many people will actually consider installing it for installing media players for them, which are in some way, easily installable?
* How will it do any better than YUM?
* How many softwares does Fedora lack? (its almost a complete solution for everything)

With the current state, its not possible to frame a really convincing “Requirements list”. We will wait for more ideas to pour in, and begin only when the relevance of the project is proved.

How about MODIFYING FEDORA CORE ?

Well, its been long since we last had a discussion on this project, but, another IDEA which has struck me is, instead of trying really hard to get “Fedora Core 2″, “Fedora Core 3″ and “Fedora Core 4″ into a more usable form by providing software in addition to the basic setup, why don’t we try to MODIFY Fedora Core 4, and create a custom Operating System that has all the features MISSING in Fedora Core 4.

Legally, this can be done as FC4 is released under GPL. I read more about the licensing policy and end user license agreement of Redhat Inc. It clearly states that we are free to modify and redistribute a modified version of Fedora Core, but we are NOT ALLOWED to use “Fedora Core” “Redhat” brand names or logos in the new software. That’d just mean changing some screens and image files.

Technically, I was looking at how the REDHAT 8/9/Fedora Core CDROM is formatted. It follows something called the “comps.xml” format. We need the comps-extras rpm package installed in order to “edit” the default installation of Fedora Core, add, substract packages, etc. This will enable us to safely add packages to the “basic setup”, and also allow us to replace “mp3 crippled” kdemultimedia packages with the original ones compiled from kde.org. Similarly, we can include the good media players and some initial scripts plus a good theme, etc. to make the “new operating system” as BETTER THAN FEDORA CORE 4. I still haven’t thought of any name, but for the time being, lets call it “JOSH” (Josh Operating System Hai! .. kind of recursive name, hehe)

I’ll be trying to understand this more and more, and will simultaneously look for all the required things not “already” present in FC4, and also those “not installed by default”.

Another point is, legally, we CAN use Fedora Core 4 (modified) as the brand name, if “there is a provision” to separate out “Fedora Core 4″ and the “(modified)”, and the user has an option to “use the Fedora Core 4 original setup” as well as “install the customized setup”, so we might consider that too.

In addition to these plus points with the new idea, there are a few drawbacks too.
1. Generally Linux users are reluctant to REINSTALL their distro.
2. This would mean, if you want to have a user friendly Fedora, get my distro, there is no other option, while, providing a customizer disk would provide all people to modify their distro, even if the basic setup was the same old.
3. Its more mechanical to follow this idea, and more challenging to try to make a generic customizer software.
4. Creating a new distro will somewhat cripple it, because no server has updates for it.
5. I kind of like the name Fedora Core

References.
Redhat Trademark Guidelines
formatting comps.xml
Creating a custom OS

Logitech QuickCam Notebook Pro

Logitech QuickCam Notebook Pro. This piece of hardware worked flawlessly when I used some kernel 2.6.10 in Fedora Core 2. But, ever since I installed Fedora Core 4, it didn’t work.

I explored for the reason, and found this answer,
“The linux kernel has stopped supporting philips webcam driver, as it was not released under GPL”
Just because the driver wasn’t open source, it was removed from the kernel, and poor users like me were helpless.

Exploring a little more, I came to know that the driver consisted of two parts, PWC and PWCX. While PWC was open source, PWCX was not. So, there was sourcecode of PWC, which could be compiled and installed to support my hardware.

After some searching, I reached http://www.saillard.org/linux/pwc/RPMs/. Here, I found some RPMS for the kernel module for PWC driver. As my kernel was not listed, I downloaded pwc-10.0.6a-1.src.rpm.

Now, the task was simple, just compile and install.
rpm -hiv pwc*.rpm
cd /usr/src/redhat/SPECS/
rpmbuild -bb pwc.spec
cd /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/
rpm -hiv kernel-modules-pwc*.rpm

It got installed correctly. Then, I plugged in the CAM, and run xawtv. But, unfortunately, the output was a blank window. I could not understand why it happened.

I tried to investigate the contents of the rpm.
$ rpm2cpio kernel-modules-pwc_2.6.12-1.1398_FC4smp-10.0.6a-1_fc4.i386.rpm | cpio -t
./lib/modules/2.6.12-1.1398_FC4smp
./lib/modules/2.6.12-1.1398_FC4smp/misc
./lib/modules/2.6.12-1.1398_FC4smp/misc/pwc.ko
$ cd /lib/modules/2.6.12-1.1398_FC4smp/
$ find . -name *pwc*
./misc/pwc.ko
./kernel/drivers/usb/media/pwc
./kernel/drivers/usb/media/pwc/pwc.ko

Then, I realized that the RPM is actually putting the driver in the misc directory of kernel modules, while its using the one in kernel/drivers/usb/media/pwc/. I just did,
$ cd /lib/modules/2.6.12-1.1398_FC4smp/
$ cp misc/pwc.ko kernel/drivers/usb/media/pwc/
Overwrite file ‘pwc.ko’ ? y

And now, it worked!! So anyone of you, with this hardware and a 2.6.x kernel, do what I did and be happy. Cheers.

Trying out with understanding .HDR format…

The first thing to simulate YUM is to understand the format in which it downloads the headers of any RPM package. As YUM clearly specifies that HDR are the headers of any RPM and it uses RPM API to access the information, we need to first learn to parse a .HDR file.

The most intuitive feeling which arises is, do the first bytes of RPM files match with HDR files? No, they don’t. But it is not the case that there is no relation. If we ignore some of the bytes in both files, we find that the bytes are exactly same.

Doing a statistical analysis of a RPM and a HDR, (kernel-2.6.12-1.1398_FC4), I found that ignoring the first 440 bytes of the RPM, the HDR is exactly same with the corresponding bytes in the RPM. Thus, there is certainly a relation. It must certainly have been mentioned in the RPM API. I am still reading and trying.

Also, the YUM sourcecode is of help. Still trying to find a file which actually downloads the header from the server and parses it.

References:

http://www.rpm.org/
www.mialug.org/downloads/static/documentation/max-rpm.pdf
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?s=&threadid=350432

Reliance FWP Internet in FC4

Setting up Internet using Reliance FWP is jus a cake walk …

These are the steps that need to be followed

1. Check out whether you have wvdial software installed in your system. For FC4 it is automatically installed, so no issues..
2. Check in which serial port you have attached the modem (ie WFP) Normally it is ttyS0 or ttyS1

1. Login as Root user and check the following command “wvdialconf /etc/wvdial.conf” works..
2. Finally you should get something like this

1. “Found a modem on /dev/ttyS0.
   Modem configuration written to /etc/wvdial.conf.
   ttyS0<Info>: Speed 115200; init “ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0″

Next thing is we need to edit the wvdial.conf file, Add the following contents there..

• [Modem0]
  Modem=/dev/ttyS1
  Baud=115200
  Dial Command = ATDT
  init1=ATZ
  init2=AT+CRM=1
  Flow Control= Hardware (CRTSCTS)
  [Dialer reliance]
  Username = YourUserName
  Password = YourPassword
  Phone = #777
  Stupid Mode = 1
  Inherits= Modem0

Close the file after saving the contents

Now type in “wvdial reliance” in the prompt … you should get the following

• [root@localhost ~]# wvdial reliance
  –> WvDial: Internet dialer version 1.54.0
  –> Initializing modem.
  –> Sending: ATZ
  –> Sending: ATQ0
  OK
  –> Re-Sending: ATZ
  OK
  –> Initializing modem.
  –> Sending: ATZ
  –> Sending: ATQ0
  ATQ0
  OK
  –> Re-Sending: ATZ
  ATZ
  OK
  –> Initializing modem.
  –> Sending: ATZ
  –> Sending: ATQ0
  ATQ0
  OK
  –> Re-Sending: ATZ
  ATZ
  OK
  [root@localhost ~]# wvdial reliance
  –> WvDial: Internet dialer version 1.54.0
  –> Initializing modem.
  –> Sending: ATZ
  –> Sending: ATQ0
  ATQ0
  OK
  –> Re-Sending: ATZ
  ATZ
  OK
  –> Initializing modem.
  –> Sending: ATZ
  ATZ
  OK
  –> Sending: AT+CRM=1
  AT+CRM=1
  OK
  –> Sending: ATM0
  ATM0
  OK
  –> Modem initialized.
  –> Sending: ATDT#777
  –> Waiting for carrier.
  ATDT#777
  CONNECT
  –> Carrier detected. Starting PPP immediately.
  –> Starting pppd at Mon Jul 29 00:28:24 2002
  –> pid of pppd: 2919
  –> Using interface ppp0
  –> local IP address 220.226.33.135
  –> remote IP address 97.238.2.7
  –> primary DNS address 202.138.103.100
  –> secondary DNS address 202.138.96.2

Now open up your fav browser.. in my case it is firefox.. jus type in any url and chk if net is working. If it works, you wil be lucky, if not, jus start the service named “service named start”

• [root@localhost etc]# service named start
  Starting named: [ OK ]

Now if you go back to the previous step.. and chk the pages it would probably load.. if not leave a comment, lets chk out wat can be done

Query response for poorna shashank…

So does that mean when a joe wants to play mp3s on his pc, your (5th cd)/FCC will take care of all that?

does that mean that once joe doesnt want to play the media, the software installed will be deleted from user?

Can i assume that your software will be similar to ‘Software-On-CD’ something akin to ‘Linux-On-CD’. Which simply means, once the cd is taken out the system is as is? Or you are going to make permanent changes to the system?

No, its not a “Linux-On-CD” kind of a thing. If you see Discussion No. 1, we clearly state that it is “installed on the system just like a control panel”.
So,
* AJ can open FCC (FC Customizer).
* Search for a particular capability and install.
* Browse through the already installed capabilities and use.
* Remove a capability.
* Set the preferences about the Internet Repos, etc.
* Update the software database/version using the next released CDROM.
* Some other features which we might think of later.

So, what is your response after you know this additional information about the whole design? Is there any way of improving? Is there any other feature which is a MUST-INCLUDE? Waiting for a prompt response. You can get membership of this blog and post directly, want it?

Discussion No. 1

This is a brief summary of a discussion Sag and I had about the rough outline of the project.

What could be the possible features of the software?
* User should get a fully configured system to suit all needs without any searching/compiling/installing/etc.
* User should be able to easily locate and install more features on demand almost automatically.
* IN A BROAD SENSE, WILL ACT LIKE YasT.

How can we go about doing it?
* Finding out the basic config of FC2/3/4.
* Finding what all packages will be required.
* Writing/editing required scripts automatically.

One more thing or feature required is..”finding the current config and installing a new capability”

When a person installs FCX, he install some of the packages in the complete setup of FCX. Then he updates, installs, removes packages from the system. This config which is thus generated is the input to our software.

* We need to get this input.
* We need to ask the user what new thing he wants.
* We need to figure out what packages will be required.
* Is it even possible to get the new thing or is it practically unlikely?
* Where will we get the packages from?
* How to guarantee that we get the latest versions?
* We need to configure some of the scripts to set up a working environment for the software.
* We need to provide a link in the software to access that new “capability”

RPM, YUM, APT are a few software which have some of the capabilities listed above. We can use these softwares/APIs to
* calculate dependencies
* fetch the required packages
* install them

For Average Joe, the domain of thinking is like…
[MP3 player] [Video player] [Browser] [Messenger]

and for us it is…
[xmms] [configure aRts to run on startup] [xmms-mp3] [xmms-arts]
[if aRts is not running, tell xmms to use alsa] [install a good xmms skin]

So, the Average Joe domain will be called “capabilities” and to “enable” a capability, we need to perform tasks of..
* installing packages
* configuring the general scripts
* run time checking (like aRts running or not?)

Run time checking is a feature we are capable of providing because we said, our software is also an “application launcher”, so all the softwares average joe requires, he can run by clicking on an icon in our software, and so we can run some scripts prior to loading the specified application.

For Average Joe, the software will be..
* Installed on the system.
* Like a control panel.
* Everything that Joe ever wanted.

He doesn’t understand many alternatives available and when we ask…
“You wanna use Firefox or Konqueror or Mozilla?”, he says, Linux sucks, lets switch to Windows.
So, another feature would be
* Enforcing some standard. (Now if Average Joe says “Browser”, then “firefox” is what we understand, none other)

How will the software be framed for providing necessary functionality for the above mentioned task?
It will definitely be in a CDROM. Now, we need to know that the world is changing fast. So, to provide Average Joe the capability to move with the world, the software must not be hardcoded and should change according to need.

For this, the software will have three parts(as of now, as in what we discussed yesterday night).

* Software.
* Capabilities Database.
* Sources Database.

Software is nothing but code, hehe.

Capabilities Database will be a database mapping capabilities like [Playing MP3] to [all tasks of installing the correct software and running/editing/creating suitable scripts]. The CDROM will provide a database for some of the basic capabilities required in general. The database could be extended or changed by downloading more information from a internet server or another CDROM or disk. Thus, this will be very dynamic and configurable.

You will argue, why do we need it?
I think, AJ wants Browser, MP3, Video and Messenger. He got a new cam! He wants to capture videos! I didn’t expect that. So, he can connect to a server “dedicated to providing capability info” (just like YUM repos) and try to look for a tuple related to information about “Video Capturing”. Thus, enhancing the usage of the software altogether.

This would require on the part of the “enligtened people” to contribute in making such repositories of “capabilities”, and also make sure that “only the best” software for that job is listed to be installed, because as we said, AJ doesn’t like options.

The third part, which is somewhat similar to YUM is “Sources Database”. This will essentially contain information about what all packages can be fetched from which places, etc. The CDROM could contain information about which package in the FCX setup lies in which CDROM of FCX. Also, it could contain a small database about the packages which are in the CDROM we provide to enable some minimal requirements.

Most of the time, the sources database will not strictly require downloading a package from the FCX setup CDROM. Our software could as well download it from the internet mirrors of Redhat. Similarly, softwares not in the basic setup could be downloaded from YUM repositories and other places.

Thus, a major part will also include “updating the Databases” through the internet or will additional CDROMs which we release.

Also, when the software is installed initially, it should automatically install and configure some of the things to bring it to some prescribed configuration. A lot of times our software needs to go for alternatives, like, I don’t have KDE, so even if our software knows “best MP3 player is Amarok”, because its not possible to install it, we select the “second best” as XMMS. Thus, the capabilities database should somehow contain a priority order of all the possible alternatives to a “capability”.

For eg. I look for MP3 Player, the software shows, Amarok (a maybe a screenshot), XMMS, Rhythmbox, etc. along with the “goodness” and the cost “amount of data in MBs to be downloaded, etc”. Then Average Joe can choose, or our software can autochoose based on some AI. We can keep this option in the preferences as to “auto Choose” or “allow the user to choose”.

There can be modifications and a lot more people need to pour in.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?s=&threadid=349723 is a link to the forum where you can post your comments and views and ideas. We can also work as a team in the development process.

Understanding YUM

* How does YUM do it?
* Why is it so fast?
* What is the header?
* How to use it in my software?
* etc etc.

These are some of the questions that are coming to our minds in the process of making this new piece of software. The beauty of open source is that I can download the sourcecode of YUM, and read it to get what is it doing. Also, I can read their site to find out things. And then, I can use it in my code to make it run better.

YUM mentions that the header is actually a small part of the RPM itself, so that the information about the particular RPM is given by itself, which removes a lot of complexity. Now, there is no specification about what this header actually is or how does YUM use this header to actually find out information about the RPM. It also mentions that YUM directly uses “RPM’s dependency resolution” to resolve dependencies, and doesn’t implement its own.

References:
http://linux.duke.edu/projects/yum/
http://wiki.linux.duke.edu/YumIdeas

Rough Draft No. 1

Hi,
I am a Fedora Core user since long now. I am beginning a project out of my own interest in order to enhance or customize Fedora Core(2/3/4) to make it usable for an average user.

The idea is to provide an addition 5th CDROM with the FC Setup, which will install a software into the system (similar to YasT), which will enable to user to configure and enhance the user experience for Fedora Core 2/3/4 systems.

One of the many uses of this software would be “Getting software”. Now, “getting software” should not be confused with just “installing” RPMS or sources. Here, we are dealing with a different level.

Average Joe says “I want to play MP3″.
I would say,
* install XMMS, XMMS-arts, XMMS-mp3, XMMS-skins.
* Configure KDE to start ARTS
* Configure XMMS to use ARTS
* Configure XMMS to use a good theme
* Provide a link to “MP3 Player” in my software. (YES, the software will behave as a app launcher too)

So, the “CAPABILITY” of “playing MP3″ is provided by the set of operations given above. So, the software will basically function using a database that is built based on “CAPABILITY” rather than “PACKAGE NAMES”.

Most of the time, “enabling a particular capability” will include
* installing packages/sources
* configuring some scripts of KDE/GNOME/etc.
* giving a link to the capability in the software.

We are just beginning the project, and are just analysing the problem. We would like to know if the idea is good enough or needs any amendment?

To install packages, we need to
* resolve dependencies
* identify sources of packages and dependencies (CDROM/ISO/INTERNET)
A lot of this capability seems to be built in the RPMLIB and YUM. We are trying to figure out how to use YUM or YUM API or YUM REPOSITORIES or ALL to benifit our cause. Please help us for the same.

Thanks,
Anurag.
anurag_rana [AT] students [DOT] iiit [DOT] ac [DOT] in

Playing with enlightenment….

So, as I mentioned that I am returning to my KDE, I did. But then, this new thing, Enlightenment kept me wanting to explore more, customize it and make it easy. So, I explored more…

yum install entangle e_utils

Then, I typed,
enlightenment_remote -module-load engage

And then, there was a new panel for me, which could have icons and supported the system tray. We can edit it using ‘entangle’. To delete an icon, just middle click it. To add a new icon, drag-n-drop from the list given on the left, simple isn’t it? No. To find out an icon for “konsole” from the list on the left, it took me 5 mins, and I am still looking for ‘kaffeine’, hehe.

There is a run command which apparently appeared after installing e_utils.
We can use e_util_eapp_edit to create our custom application links, but I don’t know how it works.

When I run gaim, engage, the panel, shows it in the system tray, so thats now something familiar, hehe. I am trying to get some new themes into it and trying to learn to create a shortcut for my applications. And for gods sake, where are my DESKTOP ICONS!!

References:
http://www.mepislovers.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&topic_id=8731&forum=9
http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t343955.html
http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t282467.html
http://www.enlightenment.org/

Enlightenment!!!!

Ok, today I got to know that there is some new desktop environment called enlightenment. So, I looked up the yum repository for it and added it. Then, just run yumex to install enlightenment and the dependencies.

Started off well, it was a new environment, not very fine in the functionality but it beats Windows Vista lookwise. So much configurable look, but hardly could I put my favorite icons on its panel(so called IBar). Its difficult to terminate programs and to run konsole, you need to run konqueror and then run konsole. There is no run command and kill is very buggy. Killed windows keep popping up and its overall difficult to handle it.

I am back into my KDE, but I’ll keep experimenting as an when I get more time.

Another useful package on www.pbone.net is gnome-yum-fedora-repositories-0.1-1.ta.28.fc4.i386.rpm. This installs all the required repositories which needed to be installed manually into the various .repo files. Quite handy for those lazy ones!

Java on Fedora Core….

Did you try installing JDK on FC4? It doesn’t work. First of all, FC4 comes with its own javac and java, so you should keep in mind that you don’t install the java RPM from the sun’s site. You should download the self extracting .bin file.

When you run it as root, after
chmod 755 *.bin
ofcourse, it gives and error that the graphical user interface could not be started. It is NOT a problem of xhost or anything, so no need to try out that way. Its all because of SELinux… SECURITY ENHANCED LINUX. You need to do just this much.
reboot
press E at grub..
press E at the kernel line..
append selinux=off at the end of the kernel line..
press enter..
goto the root line..
press b..

You can also add it into your /etc/grub.conf for permanently doing it. Then the jdk setup along with netbeans works just fine.

There is another editor called eclipse which is prebuilt into FC4. After you install JDK, WTK2.2, you can install eclipseME from http://www.eclipseme.org/ and then follow their instructions to add J2ME support to eclipse. I couldn’t understand how to create a J2ME project in it, so I used the familiar Netbeans with its add-on Mobility pack.

Happy Java!

MySQL …. permissions crap…

My PC is actually a server which serves 3-4 websites and has a database for the various queries. As you all know, I shifted from FC2 to FC4, the permissions of the database as well as the database got erased, err…was so silly of me to not back it up.

Anyways, I wanted to create and set up the permission back to normal. So I started the service mysql and made it run by default from
system-config-services

Then, I opened a konsole as root and typed mysql to get into its shell prompt.
{create commands to create all the required databases and tables}
use mysql
delete from user where user=”;
insert into user(host,user,password) values(”hostname”,”username”,password(”password”)); //create a password protected account
insert into user(host,user) values(”hostname”,”username”); // open account
quit
service mysqld restart
mysql
grant all on {dbname}.* to ‘username’@'hostname’;
.
.
.
quit
service mysqld restart

This way I granted the permissions ‘all’ of some databases to my apache so that the websites can process queries of my websites, and also granted some of the users permissions to access some of the databases.

The main thing to note down is that most of the times you make a change, mysql doesn’t start using it, so if you experience problems, each time you make one change, you should exit mysql shell and then restart the mysqld service.

To log in to a mysql shell as the current user, you need to type
mysql -p // if you created a password protected account.
mysql -u {username} -p // to log on as a different password protected user.
mysql // to logon into your own open account
mysql -u {username} // someone elses open account

Linux

Linux is a great operating system, and one of the major platforms I work on. This is a category about it.