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.

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.

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.

Fedora Core 5: Not worth an upgrade.

Finally after about 10 hours of struggle, I configured my Fedora Core 5 to work properly. I didn't have many demands though, just

• A decent photo viewing program … Well, it does provide me with F-Spot, but I am used to Digikam. So, first thing I did was to reinstall 'digikam' on the system along with a couple of dependencies.
• An audio (mp3) player… Does this look too much? Well, with Fedora systems, playing MP3 is a real problem, not because its bad but because it has chosen to not provide any support for MP3 due to patent issues. My obvious choice is Amarok player. First I needed to enable MP3 support in KDE for which I recompiled 'kdemultimedia' enabling 'mp3lib'. Due to some dependency or the other and due to power cuts, it took me 9 recompiles to finish the job.
• To install Amarok player was a real problem. Again the reason being patents. Amarok didn't support aRts and xine by default. Finally after installing xine and dependencies, I installed a total of 38 packages to install my Amarok player after recompiling it to enable xine (aRts still doesn't work!).
• I tried compiling Kaffeine player, but to no avail. It gave some wierd errors. Finally I installed the old 'kaffeine 0.7' for Fedora Core 4. It failed to load giving an error 'kaffeine_part.desktop' not found. I hope I can fix it too. Meanwhile am using the Xine player which apparently is the 'actual back-end' of Kaffeine player.

The rest of the system looks okay. My settings are AS IS, including the keyboard shortcuts I had set. Thanks to the great architecture of Linux and the power to separate user data and the operating system. It even remembered my 'firefox bookmarks'. There is nothing so great in Fedora Core 5. Its just as if I am using Core 4. I haven't seen Mono and Beagle working on my PC, maybe they will change my view.

Rest of me is fine. I couldn't meet Jawahar sir today also. Hopefully will meet him tomorrow. The reception of TV.IIIT.AC.IN TV tuner card has resumed. I will make it functional by tomorrow morning. Ashish, Ravi and me were **studying** in the Library reading room from 12:00 AM to 2 AM, a world record. We did some BC too, when Bhanu arrived, but rest of it was serious and productive. Though the Linear programming exam is on 12th, though its a PCO for us, we still burned our precious time and energy in working for it. I wonder if there can be a 'TA' post for the course.  We people have decided to jog every morning at 7 AM, lets see if I get up tomorrow. Have a good night!

Ciao. 

Core 5, TV Server, New Sysadmin, Love and more!

If you have a look at IIIT::Blogroll, most posts to me look like some kind of news stories at Slashdot. Well, maybe thats the whole idea, but that ways I should be thrown out of the blogger community, because I generally post for myself. Whatever comes to my mind, the moods, the ideas, the new things I see, the thoughts, I just jot them down. This blog is like my treasure, a log of my experiences in life (since April 2005 to be precise). Maybe I don't deserve any readers, but then, being subscribed to 'IIIT::Blogroll', I get some 'acceidental clicks'. I hope not many *actually* read the posts.

Fedora Core 5

Anyways, coming back to senses, I installed Fedora Core 5 yesterday. Finally, with a lot of waiting, I took this decision just because there was nothing better to do and some people said *it is faster and better*. Not much changed because I was already using KDE 3.5.1. It downgraded my gaim to 1.5.0 from 2.0beta3. There are no audio/video players and a lot of other goodies missing. F-Spot sucks, at least for me! I use digikam and thats good enough. I didn't find any beagle or something, except a little 'beagle indexer' in my Firefox. I don't know where all that stuff is. It seems it installed Mono on my system, don't know whats that for. And my net speed 'sucks'. No other word for that. I have been struggling with a meagre 1.2 KB/sec download speeds to get those huge RPM files. Maybe its actually down, or maybe its Fedora Core 5. All in all, my opinion is, if you have fully functional FC2, FC3 or FC4, there is no such *BIG* reason to get FC5.

TV.IIIT.AC.IN

Jawahar sir had asked me to meet him just after 4th. Maybe for me that means 6th, because I haven't met him yet. Not that its a very big issue, but still. The TV Server is not working for several reasons. One of them is failure of hardware, another is lack of motivation to repair it and third is lack of interest by people (mostly due to exams). The TV Tuner card's video reception has crashed, and hopefully is not a problem with the card. We'll be getting back in business soon. I guess people will need the server after exams get over. Hopefully I'll make it up and running before I leave the college for vacations.

Going home

Scheduled departure. 13 April 2006, Thursday, 9:25 PM. This is what my railways ticket says. Well, its not a 'departure', its basically a meeting. I'll be meeting my family, my parents, my friends and Tanu. Its Priyanka di's wedding too, this 20th. Hope it will be great fun, seeing her in a new roop of a married woman. My holidays are not very long though, I'll be returning on 1, 2 or 3 May. I've to work on my BTP henceforth.

Internships

I haven't got any internships for this summer. I applied in Kritikal, at least asked Manish to forward my CV. I guess soon there will be some communication. I hesitate to talk to Jawahar sir regarding internships. It is the only thing I hesitate to talk about. I mean, most people are afraid to say anything to him, but I generally am calm and composed in his presence. And so, most people (especially Freaky and Nikhil) push me forward for any negotiations with him. But now I feel he is a part of our life, no external thing to negotiate with. Some of the seniors might differ in opinion though. He has also assured us to forward our CV to some of the companies. Lets hope I get an internship too, though its not the end of the world for me if I don't get any.

Sysadmin

My first *odd* experience at the server room was last sunday. I desperately wanted to submit my MoMM assignment and had just 10 mins to print it. I went to Ranta sir and he told me to take a print in the server room, which was apparently open. As I was standing in the server room, waiting for my turn for the PC, the *new sysadmin* came and told us that *they* (the sysadmins) don't **generally** (as if its been years he has been here) allow printouts on sundays and asked us to leave. He even asked the person just about to click *Print* to stop and leave. We pleaded for some mins but to no avail. I wish there is at least one sysadmin from the students. Its not about me getting sysadminship, anyone could be made one, but at least one savior (I heard torrents also have been disabled, any downloaders having problems?)

Love

Well, actually I wanted to write this post about Love, but then so many other things just took over. I don't really understand what love is. At least didn't used to. Not that I know what it is now, but I am tending to understand. Earlier, I used to link it with *physical appearance*. Even now I do so. But then, this definition of loving someone's looks is a little complicated. You don't choose how your mom looks, but still you love her. You choose how your girlfriend looks and then you love her. Why is there a difference?

I got a forward about some boy loving some girl and the reason being LOVE. Later that girl gets really damaged by some accident and the boy still loves her. Though that really needs a very deep and strong kind of love, I agree to some extent to that, not that I can actually apply it. And why should I do so, nothing will happen to my loved ones yaar!

Now, I have started understanding that love is not just something physical. Its not a bondage, a burden. It not something like choosing the least worse. Its not about getting the same feeling from the other person too. Its unconditional. It doesn't make you worry more. Rather it frees you from all worries and makes you fly. It doesn't demand, rather it understands when you cannot do certain things because of your condition/constraints. Its not about just physical pleasure, its about a sense of belonging to someone, in any way possible. It doesn't let you go in depression, love is a ray of hope, its optimistic and brings a smile on your face whenever you think about it. In short, love is … something that pumps energy in me to survive.

Though my knowledge and understanding of love is very rudimentary and conflicting, this is what I've understood till now. Maybe I am wrong, inaccurate. But thats just my thoughts, anyone is welcome to correct me.

Conclusion

I saw the number of hits to my blog decreasing. I thought maybe dividing the post into smaller headings is a good idea. If anyone reads carefully, most of my posts are framed that way, just that there are no headings. Anyways, have to meet Jawahar sir today, and will look into the hardware for TV server. Have a nice day!

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 !!

VMWARE .. the middle path.

Nowadays, Operating System has become a religion. And people tend to stick to one. Any good feature in the other cannot be used then, or people keep a dual boot. VMWARE is the solution to all problems.

I downloaded VMware-workstation-5.0.0-13124.i386.rpm from some unknown site. And did…
rpm -hiv VM*.rpm

then, in konsole as root..
vmware-config.pl
installed VMWARE in a suitable partition/(folder in /) and then, run VMWARE.

Here, one thing which is required is, you should enable networking for your guest OSs and also enable NAT support. All this is done in the config thing, and this can be run multiple times, based on any requirement to change anything.

If it tells you that your gcc version is different from what its now, take it VERY seriously. It is strictly required to have the same version of GCC as the kernel is compiled with while configuring VMWARE.

When you run VMWARE, it tells you to add a new Virtual Machine. I added a Microsoft Window XP Professional Machine and asked it to save it on a separate folder on a partition which had enough space. Here, you need to specify how big the harddisk will “appear” to the guest OS. I specified 6 GB. You can also have a lazy allocation, which means you need not have 6GB free, and is allocated as required. This degrades the perfomance a little. So, I asked it to allocate the entire 6GB thing.

And now, I specified it to put the ISO image of Windows XP SP2 Setup CDROM in the CDROM device of the guest OS. It installed just like it does. And worked just like it does. I installed NAV2005 in the system, so that no viruses come. Network is configured to be “automatically detect the IP” and I specified the DNS manually (as we generally do in our college network).

To share data between the OSs, you can use the conventional WinSCP, or there is an option of shared folders in VMWARE. You share the folders of the host (and also specify “write” permissions), and then you can access them in Windows XP as
\\.host\Shared Folders

These can also get mounted as a “mapped network drive”. Its really fun. Now, I have the power of Linux, and for some thing which IS good in Win, I can switch VMWARE on.

The VMWARE Guest OSs can SUSPEND themselves just like “hibernate” thing. And thus take 3 seconds rather than 1 minute to boot an entire XP machine. Really great.

If you are running a sound server in Linux, there is problem running it. One option is to switch off the sound server till you are running VMWARE. (which apparently gives the best performance possible). Second option is to tell VMWARE to access your sound server, which is slow, cranky, has no mixer control, but alas, it works!

Install this for doing that..
http://platan.vc.cvut.cz/ftp/pub/vmware/vmwaredsp-1.3.tar.gz

And download this ‘crack’ and enter the serial number (without any username,email) given in zwt.nfo. This will allow NON-ROOT users to use VMWARE easily. If you already have an operating system installed as ROOT, just do chown user: -R {OS folder} to let the user use it.
http://flz.anycracks.com/zxcvbnm/V/vmwareworkstationv5.0.0.13124linuxkeygenz.w.t.zip

Note: It is illegal to use cracks. These links are for your own convinience. Use them at your own risk. The author is not responsible for any of your actions.

Also, you can get VMWARE for Windows (as host) here…
http://download3.vmware.com/software/wkst/VMware-workstation-5.0.0-13124.exe

When you install an OS completely, click on “VM->Install VMWARE tools” when your OS is completely logged on. This will trigger an install shield just like the install shield of “intel motherboard CDROM” and install the necessary “VMWARE drivers”. This will then allow you to increase the resolution to a better value, etc.

I beg you all to choose the MIDDLE PATH, and have the HOST OS as the one which you ‘generally’ prefer. Something like, love your own religion, but respect others too.

SWAP!

The swap space is actually some space on the hard disk which Linux uses to cope with “RAM shortage” problems. The processes not required in the RAM are swapped out of the RAM into the DISK. Definitely, if there is space in the RAM, no process should ever go to swap. But, this happened, and about 190 MB of swap was being used, even when I have 350 MB of RAM empty.

Here is the cure..
swapoff -a
swapon -a

It switches off the use of swap and back again, and so, the entire swap is emptied into the RAM, making it normal again. Poor me rebooted instead of doing this. Again, it got reestablised, Linux doesn’t need reboots, ever!

There is variable /proc/sys/vm/swappiness is a file which contains a value between 1 and 100, which defines how will kernel behave in swapping, how much and when will it swap. Read some site to know more. I heard “reducing” the value makes it use the swap space less. Its not recommended though to make it ZERO.

New project .. customizing Fedore Core..

We are working on a new project to enhance Fedora Core Systems. This is just in the “requirement analysis” stage. You can visit the blog related to the same.

Also, I fixed the time of postingn shown here. Now, it corresponds to IST.

yumEX …. unbelievable!!

Okay, here is a problem which I didn’t solve which makes our life much easier. It is mentioned that yumex is a GUI interface for YUM. But, somehow it didn’t just work. I use a internet connection behind a proxy, so a lot of applications fail to work. So I thought, so did yumEX(yum extender).

now, I did…
yum install yumex
to install it…
then…..

yumex -n
(to load it without refreshing the package list)
and then type ….
http://192.168.36.204:8080/”
in preferences->proxy. Please note that the “http://” is very important and it doesn’t make it intuitively run if you just type the URL or the ip address. Now, YUM is graphical…. its YUMEX!!

And still going strong…..

Well, Fedora Core 4 is working as fine as ever. A few more patches to yum are as follows…
add…
timeout=300
proxy=http://ip:port
in /etc/yum.conf in the main section.

Also, you need to install the GPG keys of the repositories in order to be able to use them. To do this, write…
rpm –import {filename}
where {filename} is a text file containing the key.

Download the keys of the various servers from these URLs..
http://dag.wieers.com/packages/RPM-GPG-KEY.dag.txt
http://freshrpms.net/packages/RPM-GPG-KEY.txt
http://dries.studentenweb.org/ayo/RPM-GPG-KEY.dries.txt
http://newrpms.sunsite.dk/gpg-pubkey-newrpms.txt
/usr/share/doc/fedora-release-*/*GPG-KEY*
http://www.atrpms.net/RPM-GPG-KEY.atrpms

and added /etc/yum.repos.d/atrpms.repo
[at-stable]
name=ATrpms for Fedora Core $releasever stable
baseurl=http://apt.atrpms.net/fedora/$releasever/en/$basearch/at-stable

This all makes yum all the more powerful…

tried today….
yum install w32codec
yum install gaim-guifications.

Its easier than you expect it to be!!

Boot into Fedora Core 4 and your worst nightmares look to come true. No AUDIO SUPPORT, NO VIDEO PLAYER, media support is all messed up. Fedora Core 4 come WITHOUT the traditional XMMS. Totem and others are incapable of playing any copyrighted format, that is, no mpeg, no avi, no mp3!

Most of us would then just try to google for stuff and get it working. ‘I’ wasted 5 hours trying to fix the problems. Then I found an interesting site. Its URL is..
http://stanton-finley.net/fedora_core_4_installation_notes.html

It gives an overview of what to do when you get FC4. Then, I just undid everything I had done till then, and added these yum repositories by making these files….

/etc/yum.repos.d/dag.repo
————————-
[dag]
name=Dag RPM Repository for Fedora Core
baseurl=http://apt.sw.be/fedora/$releasever/en/$basearch/dag/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1

/etc/yum.repos.d/dries.repo
—————————
[dries]
name=Extra Fedora rpms dries - $releasever - $basearch
baseurl=http://ftp.belnet.be/packages/dries.ulyssis.org/fedora/linux/$releasever/$basearch/dries/RPMS/
mirrors=http://apt.sw.be/dries/fedora/fc4/$basearch/dries/RPMS/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1

/etc/yum.repos.d/freshrpms.repo
——————————–
[core]
name=FreshRPMS-Core
baseurl=http://ayo.freshrpms.net/fedora/linux/$releasever/$basearch/core
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
#[extras]
#name=Fedora Linux $releasever - $basearch - extras
#baseurl=http://ayo.freshrpms.net/fedora/linux/$releasever/$basearch/extras
#enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
[updates]
name=FreshRPMS-Updates
baseurl=http://ayo.freshrpms.net/fedora/linux/$releasever/$basearch/updates
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
[freshrpms]
name=FreshRPMS-Fresh
baseurl=http://ayo.freshrpms.net/fedora/linux/$releasever/$basearch/freshrpms
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1

/etc/yum.repos.d/newrpms.repo
——————————
[newrpms.sunsite.dk]
name=Fedora Core 4 i386 NewRPMS.sunsite.dk
baseurl=http://newrpms.sunsite.dk/apt/redhat/en/i386/fc4
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1

and then specified my proxy by typing
export http_proxy=”http://192.168.36.204:8080/”
(this line can be added in ~/.bashrc for convinience)

Then it was so so easy,…
yum install yumex
yum install kaffeine
yum install amarok
yum install mplayer
yum install gaim-guifications

A lot of times it crashes if the servers do not respond. You can manually install the package yum is trying to download from a {repository} and place it in /var/cache/yum/{repository}/packages and it will use them directly. This is particularly useful for large packages where a download accelerator is better than using yum.

Then, I wanted to make mp3 in KDE work and its players to be able to play it. I needed to upgrade KDE 3.4.0-2 with KDE 3.4.1, that is the kdemultimedia package. I uninstalled kdemultimedia-devel because it depended on the kdemultimedia-3.4.0-2 package. I tried to install kdemultimedia-3.4.1 which was pached for playing mp3 files. I had to download kdelibs kdebase kdelibs-devel and kdebase-devel with version 3.4.1 from the Fedora Core 4 updates site to satisfy the dependencies. That worked fine after upgrading the following packages…
kdebase-3.4.1-0.fc4.1.i386.rpm
kdelibs-devel-3.4.1-0.fc4.1.i386.rpm ( downloaded from Fedora Core 4 updates )
kdebase-devel-3.4.1-0.fc4.1.i386.rpm
kdelibs-3.4.1-0.fc4.1.i386.rpm
kdemultimedia-mp3-3.4.1-0.i386.rpm

It purrs. It hums. It mesmerizes. It is … FEDORA CORE FOUR.

How to get Fedora Core Foured!!
——————————-
I was stuck with my great working Fedora Core 2 when I suddenly realized that my OS is old. I need an upgrade. So I took a CD and burnt Fedora Core 4 disk 1. And I dumped the all of the isos in a folder C:\fc4 or rather /dev/hda2/fc4. Now, I booted the CD. IT CRASHED!

I looked up the internet. We need to perform a simple tweak to install FC4 on Intel based systems. So, I booted, and typed…
garbage
and pressed enter… it gave an error. Then I typed…
linux askmethod
it asked about how to install, I ordered it to install by the hard drive and specified the folders and all. The partitioning was just reformating my / of Fedora Core 2. I selected installing everything on a 15 GB / partition with 1 GB of swap space.

Wireless setup
————–
After I installed FC4, my first task was to somehow get my wireless network working. I have a level one 802.11g card with a Atheros AR5212 chipset. I downloaded and installed
madwifi-0.9.4.12-16.rhfc4.at.i386.rpm
madwifi-kmdl-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4-0.9.4.12-16.rhfc4.at.i686.rpm
from www.atrpms.net. Then I wrote
alias ath0 ath_pci
in the /etc/modprobe.conf
and created a file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ath0 containing..
STARTMODE=hotplug
DEVICE=ath0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
WIRELESS=yes
MODE=Managed
ESSID=’IIIT WLAN’
IPV6INIT=no
onBOOT=yes
USERCTL=no
PEERDNS=no
TYPE=Wireless

and then run
neat
to just select the essid and network key to make it work. Key was of the format 0xX where X was a 26 digit hexadecimal code without any other symbols. This made the network work.

Most things just work
———————
The browser, the KDE, the gaim messenger, the office, the games just work. So there was no need for any configuration. I just selected a good theme for KDE and also made KDE as my default desktop from Start->Preferences->Desktop Switching Tool.

Windows applications
——————–
I had wine and cedega-4.0.1 setups. So I installed the rpms, Condition Zero worked fine with sound after I switched off the sound server arts, but the font were all messed up, am looking for a fix.

Firefox extensions
——————
I installed some useful extensions to the perfect browser “firefox” which ships with Fedora Core 4.

Hindi Support
————-
Just add the Hindi Keyboard layout from Control Center to be able to type in Hindi too!

DNS Resolution
————–
/etc/resolve.conf
nameserver 192.168.36.204
this one line made linux applications take the DNS servers to resolve the URLs to be the IP address specified.

More to come..
————–
I am still playing with it. Will write more as and when I do things…

Fedora Core Solutions…

Hi people,

This blog is not about a person or any happenings or any stories. It just covers some of the issues I faced with my tryst with Fedora Core. Please read and comment. If you are also a motivated Linux user, you can ask me to allow you to join this blog and write about your own experiments.

Regards,
Anurag.