Technolog

If your job/boss sucks...

2009-08-29T04:26:00.000-07:00

Before jumping to any conclusion, please do rigorous check of followings;

you've went into a "Comfort zone"
you're habitual of enjoying all "monitory benefits" that come on your way through your secure job but not necessarily "a complete job satisfaction" attached to it
more frequently you need to do just a mere "buttering" to get our work done
quite often you've to play a safe game of "I scratch your back you scratch my back"
normally you get bullied by your boss & other colleagues
you've no freedom to take decision for your work/company/firm for it's betterment
your boss & other colleagues are "credit snatchers", they are more reluctant about acknowledging your hard work & contributions company's goals, openly
you've to JUST DO whatever is being SAID without applying your mind
quite often you've to suffer for cold wars & dirty politics within higher & middle level organizational hierarchy
no motivation
no encouragement to show your creativity
you've been indirectly given a slavery treatment sometimes
any other demotivating things & irritating characters around you that you can't avoid
you've no guts to explore your overall capabilities so wants to be in a secured but slavery job giving unreasonable justifications for it

if you have "YES" & "Sometimes", even for half of the above check points, WAKE UP GUYS ! Have some "Self-Esteem" better you should do "Self Analysis", "Self Exploration" & "Be your own BOSS"

Of course, this is not so easy to work out, you have to have deep faith in yourself & god, some patience & hard work, with this you would be enjoying all freedom, independence & most importantly "A Satisfaction" for contributing towards "Personal, Societal & Economical growth" in a long run.

Be a Risk-Taker & be an Achiever !

PS:- All this "Gyan" has come through a personal experience btw ;-)

Cheers

Debian etch stable (debian-40r4a-i386-netinst) on my IBM T43 laptop using USB flash drive

2008-10-23T04:00:00.000-07:00

Here we go...

Case 1: If your are creating boot device (flash drive) using gnu/linux (I used debian 3 etch as a base system on my PIV HT HCL desktop machine)

1st of all check where your USB drive is getting detected using `dmesg` command in terminal window;

$> dmesg

Oct 23 17:05:48 localhost kernel: usb 5-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5
Oct 23 17:05:49 localhost kernel: usb 5-5: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choiceOct 23 17:05:49 localhost kernel: scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Oct 23 17:05:54 localhost kernel: Vendor: Kingston Model: DataTraveler 2.0 Rev: PMAP
Oct 23 17:05:54 localhost kernel: Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 00
Oct 23 17:05:54 localhost kernel: SCSI device sdb: 3903488 512-byte hdwr sectors (1999 MB)
Oct 23 17:05:54 localhost kernel: sdb: Write Protect is off
Oct 23 17:05:54 localhost kernel: SCSI device sdb: 3903488 512-byte hdwr sectors (1999 MB)
Oct 23 17:05:54 localhost kernel: sdb: Write Protect is off
Oct 23 17:05:54 localhost kernel: sdb: sdb1
Oct 23 17:05:54 localhost kernel: sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sdb
Oct 23 17:05:54 localhost kernel: sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0

i.e it's detected on 'SCSI device sdb' so in my case USB device is indicated by "/dev/sdb"

Now clean/format your flash drive (FAT16 fs), [I used 256M Kingston Data DataTraveler 2.0]

Then unmount /dev/sdb;

$> sudo umount /dev/sdb

Now get the boot.img.gz, which is necessary to make your USB device bootable, I took the following one;

$> wget -c http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/installer-i386/current/images/hd-media/boot.img.gz

Extract this image and write it to your USB device:

$> sudo zcat ~/boot.img.gz > /dev/sdb

Now mount the volume (flash drive) to any mount point, I used /mnt/sdb1 mount point;

$> sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1

In this case a Debian Stable net-install image is used. You may also use a business card iso. Nevertheless, you should be sure to use the same version of the ISO-image as the image.tar.gz that was used before.

Download the ISO to the USB device, I took the following one;

$> cd /mnt/sdb1

$> wget -c http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/4.0_r4a/i386/iso-cd/debian-40r4a-i386-netinst.iso

Now unmount the volume;

$> sudo umount /dev/sdb

Now you can remove the USB device, and plug it in your new system (in my case my IBM lappy). Of course you should tell your BIOS to boot. My laptop booted in minimal base system from USB flash drive and the I started net installation following the debian-installer wizard further ! In my case I could not setup network using DHCP but then there is an option of "Manual n/w configuration" !

Note: I used Flash Drive as a booting device but same procedure should work for other USB devices (viz. USB HDD, etc) as well, I guess, although I haven't tried it yet. One can try for ATA/SATA HDD (internal) boot as well, I would certainly try it myself sometimes in future :-)

Happy Hacking !!

Ref: http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/446

Mode not supported, apt-get, wget through proxy

2008-03-18T01:29:00.000-07:00

OS: Debian etch(stable)/lenny(testing), Kernel 2.6.21-1-486 on HCL PIV machine with LCD monitor (15'')

Some times we see a floating window of "Mode not Supported" error on the screen giving some values in Hz, that means your xorg (xfree86 in earlier debian version till 2.4.x kernel) is not configured properly for the kind of hardware on which OS is residing. Here is some workaround for the same (it worked for me, might work for others as well);

"Mode not Supported", "No GUI" Fix:

Step 1:

Install `xdebconfigurator` tool which would diagnose the hardware specification with default values. In my case I had o/p like this;

Detected Xorg server
/usr/sbin/kudzu NOT found!
/usr/sbin/detect NOT found!
VIDEO CARD: Xdebconfigurator Card
VIDEO CARD DEVICE:
VIDEO CARD VENDOR:
VIDEO DRIVER: ati
VIDEO DRIVER SRC: discover
VIDEO MEMORY:
POSSIBLE XSERVER: xorg
XSERVER 3:
XSERVER 4: xfree86
DEBIAN PACKAGE: xserver-xorg
MOUSE DEVICE SRC: hwinfo
MOUSE DEVICE: /dev/input/mice
MOUSE PROTOCOL: ImPS/2
MOUSE WHEEL: 1
KEYBOARD RULES: xorg
MONITOR: Xdebconfigurator Monitor
MONITOR ID:
SUGGESTED METHOD: Simple
MONITOR SIZE: 15 inches (380 mm)
MONITOR HOR SYNC: 28-50
MONITOR VER REFR: 43-75
MONITOR MODES: 1400x1050, 1024x768, 800x600, 640x350, 640x480, 640x400, 512x384, 400x300, 320x240, 320x200
MONITOR MODE: 1024x768 @ 70Hz
MONITOR MODE SRC: default
MONITOR DEFAULT DEPTH: 16

Step 2:

wherein default monitor mode was 1024x768 @ 70Hz with 16 as a default depth value. Unfortunately while installation (even with Live CD) these default values couldn't get reflected into /etc/X11/xorg.conf file so the quite obvious error was "Mode not Supported". The required modifications are done in the xorg.conf using `dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg` command.

Step 3:

After restart we could see the GUI desktop (gnome2) !

Hushhh... what a relief, finally it worked after slogging for it! :-)

But still, there was yet other issue, apt-get & wget through proxy & here's it's work around as well!

"apt-get & wget through proxy" Fix:

proxy setup for "apt-get":

Add following entry in /etc/apt/apt.conf (it it's not there, create it)

(only for restricted users)

Acquire::http::Proxy "http://Workdomain\loginname:password@the.proxy.ip.addr:proxy-port-number";

OR

(for all)

Acquire::http::Proxy "http://the.proxy.ip.addr:proxy-port-number/";

OR

other option (for all)

ACQUIRE {
http::proxy "http://the.proxy.ip.addr:port-number/";
}

Now as a root do `apt-get update` to test it.

proxy setup for "wget" :

In /etc/wgetrc we'll find following code snippet (commented)

# You can set the default proxies for Wget to use for http and ftp.
# They will override the value in the environment.
#http_proxy = http://proxy.yoyodyne.com:18023/
#ftp_proxy = http://proxy.yoyodyne.com:18023/

# If you do not want to use proxy at all, set this to off.
#use_proxy = on

[if you can't find it there by default you can add it there]

Now uncomment and modify related statements as per the need, like;

http_proxy = http://the.proxy.ip.addr:proxy-port-number/
ftp_proxy = http://the.proxy.ip.addr:proxy-port-number/
use_proxy = on

Now add following lines in ~/.bashrc

export http_proxy = http://the.proxy.ip.addr:proxy-port-number/
export ftp_proxy = http://the.proxy.ip.addr:proxy-port-number/

save file, execute `.bashrc` or restart a computer and check whether wget works or not.

Happy Hacking !!

Flooded with mixed-up thoughts !!

2008-02-06T01:12:00.000-08:00

Since yesterday I am going through mixed-up emotions and reviving my thoughts because of one incident happened here. Prof. R.K.Joshi (72 yrs old) from our group passed away at San-Francisco, USA . He was 1st time going for Unicode Conference as a Representative of Vedic Sanskrit Scholars from India & at the airport only he got a severe heart-attack then before getting hospitalized, he passed away.

He was quite an enthusiastic, passionate & inspirational personality, least bothered about getting much acknowledgment about his work officially but internationally he was very well renowned and now after his death his work is getting recognition internally as well.

His death gave me an overall new perspective about my work that when we are in our natural state believing in what & why we are doing the things, we are normally least bothered about the materialistic things (or goodies) attached to (or followed by) it. We enjoy doing it since we are passionate about it. But once we get habitual to enjoy materialistic things attached to it, our passion starts getting reduced !!

Moral of the story is (as per my logic);

Predicates;

m: Units of enjoying materialistic things (or goodies) followed Passion

p: Units of Passion

Relation R: "is inversely proportional to"

Propositional Logic (PL) : mRp

Anyways, this is a part of life !!

God please help me in not getting running short of "Short Term Goals" while pursuing "Long Term Goals" and also in being equally passionate about all of those goals!

Reliance ZTE CDMA 1X MG880 working with Ubuntu Linux 7.10 (Gutsy) on HP Pavilion dv6000 lappy

2007-12-11T00:45:00.000-08:00

Plug in the smart looking black little thingie in a USB slot. dmesg should give weird message like this:

[37246.516000] usb 2-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 15
[37246.640000] usb 2-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[37246.864000] usb 2-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[37247.080000] usb 2-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 16
[37247.200000] usb 2-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[37247.424000] usb 2-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[37247.640000] usb 2-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 17
[37248.048000] usb 2-1: device not accepting address 17, error -71
[37248.536000] usb 2-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 19
[37248.760000] usb 2-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

Don't worry. Just execute the following command and look for ZTE in the output:

$ cat/proc/bus/usb/devices
[...]
T:  Bus=02 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=00 Cnt=01 Dev#= 19 Spd=12  MxCh= 0
D:  Ver= 1.01 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=16 #Cfgs=  1
P:  Vendor=19d2 ProdID=fffd Rev= 0.00
S:  Manufacturer=ZTE, Incorporated
S:  Product=ZTE CDMA Tech
[...]

Look for the Vendor ID and Product ID (in bold above). Issue the following command:

$ sudo modprobe usbserial vendor=0x19d2 product=0xfffd

A dmesg should give you similar looking output at the end:

[38360.764000] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial
[38360.764000] drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial support registered for generic
[38360.940000] usbserial_generic 2-1:1.0: generic converter detected
[38360.940000] usb 2-1: generic converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[38360.940000] usbserial_generic 2-1:1.1: generic converter detected
[38360.940000] usb 2-1: generic converter now attached to ttyUSB1
[38360.940000] usbserial_generic 2-1:1.2: generic converter detected
[38360.940000] usb 2-1: generic converter now attached to ttyUSB2
[38360.940000] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic
[38360.940000] drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial Driver core

Now run a wvdialconf:

$ sudo wvdialconf
Editing `/etc/wvdial.conf'.

Scanning your serial ports for a modem.

Modem Port Scan<*1>: S0   S1   S2   S3
WvModem<*1>: Cannot get information for serial port.
ttyUSB0<*1>: ATQ0 V1 E1 -- OK
ttyUSB0<*1>: ATQ0 V1 E1 Z -- OK
ttyUSB0<*1>: ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 -- OK
ttyUSB0<*1>: ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 -- OK
ttyUSB0<*1>: ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 -- OK
ttyUSB0<*1>: ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0 -- OK
ttyUSB0<*1>: Modem Identifier: ATI -- ZTEiT, Incorporated
ttyUSB0<*1>: Speed 4800: AT -- OK
ttyUSB0<*1>: Speed 9600: AT -- OK
ttyUSB0<*1>: Speed 19200: AT -- OK
ttyUSB0<*1>: Speed 38400: AT -- OK
ttyUSB0<*1>: Speed 57600: AT -- OK
ttyUSB0<*1>: Speed 115200: AT -- OK
ttyUSB0<*1>: Speed 230400: AT -- OK
ttyUSB0<*1>: Speed 460800: AT -- OK
ttyUSB0<*1>: Max speed is 460800; that should be safe.
ttyUSB0<*1>: ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0 -- OK
WvModem<*1>: Cannot get information for serial port.
ttyUSB1<*1>: ATQ0 V1 E1 -- failed with 2400 baud, next try: 9600 baud
ttyUSB1<*1>: ATQ0 V1 E1 -- failed with 9600 baud, next try: 115200 baud
ttyUSB1<*1>: ATQ0 V1 E1 -- and failed too at 115200, giving up.
WvModem<*1>: Cannot get information for serial port.
ttyUSB2<*1>: ATQ0 V1 E1 -- failed with 2400 baud, next try: 9600 baud
ttyUSB2<*1>: ATQ0 V1 E1 -- failed with 9600 baud, next try: 115200 baud
ttyUSB2<*1>: ATQ0 V1 E1 -- and failed too at 115200, giving up.

Found a modem on /dev/ttyUSB0.
Modem configuration written to /etc/wvdial.conf.
ttyUSB0: Speed 460800; init "ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0"

Finally edit /etc/wvdial.conf to make sure it looks like the following. "Stupid Mode = 1" line was required for the older Reliance data cards, may not be needed for all cards:


[Dialer Defaults]
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Modem Type = Analog Modem
Phone = #777
Username = 9381517093
Password = 9381517093
ISDN = 0
SetVolume = 0
FlowControl = Hardware (CRTSCTS)
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Dial Command = ATDT
Baud = 460800
Stupid Mode = 1

Short "/etc/wvdial.conf" that worked for me on HP Pavilion dv6000 laptop is here;

[Dialer Defaults]
Init1 = ATZ
Phone = #777
Username = 9381517093
Password = 9381517093
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Baud = 460800
Stupid Mode = 1

Note: Troubleshoot with Reliance ZTE MC315+ ?

Ref: http://nandz.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-to-get-reliance-zte-mg880-working.html

Lost Root Password (Linux: Debian Derivatives)

2007-11-23T06:10:00.000-08:00

If you've lost your root password, you might be able to do it this way. However, some systems are protected with boot loader passwords that won't let you do that without THAT password. If the boot loader is password protected, you need to boot from other media - for newer systems, the install CD probably has the recovery tools for that.

But let's try it the easy way first. The first thing to try is to boot to single user mode. This MIGHT not work for you, because your system might be configured to still ask for a root password to get to single user mode. If that's the case, we'll use another trick that replaces init with /bin/bash.

First, try single user. If you don't see either a LILO or GRUB boot screen, try hitting CTRL-X to get one. If it's LILO, just type "linux single" and that should do it (assuming that "linux" is the lilo label). If GRUB, hit 'e", then select the "kernel" line, hit "e" again, and add " single" (or just " 1") to the end of the line. Press ENTER, and then "b" to boot.

You should get a fairly normal looking boot sequence except that it terminates a little early at a bash prompt. If you get a "Give root password for system maintenance", this isn't going to work, so see the "init" version below.

If you do get the prompt, the / filesystem may not be mounted rw (although "mount" may say it is). Do

mount -o remount,rw /

If that doesn't work (it might not), just type "mount" to find out where "/" is mounted. Let's say it is on /dev/sda2. You'd then type:

mount -o remount,rw /dev/sda2

If you can do this, just type "passwd" once you are in and change it to whatever you like. Or just edit /etc/shadow to remove the password field: move to just beyond the first ":" and remove everything up to the next ":". With vi, that would be "/:" to move to the first ":", space bar once, then "d/:" and ENTER. You'll get a warning about changing a read-only file; that's normal. Before you do this, /etc/shadow might look like:

root:$1$8NFmV6tr$rT.INHxDBWn1VvU5gjGzi/:12209:0:99999:7:-1:-1:1074970543
bin:*:12187:0:99999:7:::
daemon:*:12187:0:99999:7:::
adm:*:12187:0:99999:7:::

and after, the first few lines should be:

root::12209:0:99999:7:-1:-1:1074970543
bin:*:12187:0:99999:7:::
daemon:*:12187:0:99999:7:::
adm:*:12187:0:99999:7:::

You'll need to force the write: with vi, ":wq!". (If that still doesn't work, you needed to do the -o remount,rw, see above).

Another trick is to add "init=/bin/bash" (LILO "linux init=/bin/bash" or add it to the Grub "kernel" line). This will dump you to a bash prompt much earlier than single user mode, and a lot less has been initialized, mounted, etc. You'll definitely need the "-o remount,rw" here. Also note that other filesystems aren't mounted at all, so you may need to mount them manually if you need them. Look in /etc/fstab for the device names.

Reference: http://www.securitypronews.com/it/operatingsystems/spn-22-20040209LostRootPasswordLinux.html

Debian: Writing to NTFS

2007-11-20T01:40:00.000-08:00

Installation

On Debian Etch

First, download NTFS-3g. 2 packages are needed here: ntfs-3g and libntfs-3g. You can use wget to download them:

wget http://snapshot.debian.net/archive/2007/03/01/debian/pool/main/n/ntfs-3g/libntfs-3g0_0.0.0+20061031-6_i386.deb
wget http://snapshot.debian.net/archive/2007/03/01/debian/pool/main/n/ntfs-3g/ntfs-3g_0.0.0+20061031-6_i386.deb

Then install the dependencies:

sudo apt-get install fuse-utils libfuse2

Finally you can install ntfs-3g (using the 2 Debian packages you just downloaded):

sudo dpkg -i libntfs-3g0_0.0.0+20061031-6_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i ntfs-3g_0.0.0+20061031-6_i386.deb

On Debian Sid, Ubuntu Edgy or Ubuntu Feisty

No need to download anything, nor to install any dependencies. Simply typing:

sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g

will do the trick.

Mounting partitions

Mounting partition is done quite simply. For example, this command (one line):

sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 /media/sdb1 -o umask=0,nls=utf8

(Note: might need to add 'force' option in /etc/fstab "/dev/sdb1 /media/sdb1 ntfs-3g umask=0,nls=utf8,force 0 0", if it doesn't get mounted in some cases. After that whenever we say `mount /media/sdb1` it gives following funny message "WARNING: Dirty volume mount was forced by the 'force' mount option." As if NTFS is seemed to be Dirty volume for Debian ;-) )

will mount a partition (/dev/sdb1 in that case, replace with your actual windows partition) on the /media/sdb1 directory (which must exist and be empty), using the utf8 character set (for maximum compatibility with foreign languages) and giving read/write/execute permissions to everyone.

Once you have established that this command work fine on your system, you can add an entry for it in /etc/fstab:

/dev/sdb1 /media/sdb1 ntfs-3g umask=0,nls=utf8 0 0

If you wish, you can unmount that partition in the standard way:

sudo umount /dev/sdb1

Tips

The output of

sudo fdisk -l | grep -i ntfs

will tell you the location of your windows partition.

Reference : http://technowizah.com/2006/11/debian-how-to-writing-to-ntfs.html

Troubleshooting:

If in a case sdb1 device is suddenly removed from your /dev dir, that means the system has lost support for USB devices i.e kernel is not able to recognize it (USB storage devices), check out this;

$> lsmod | grep usb_storage

if nothing gets displayed do

$> modprobe usb_storage

$> lsmod | grep usb_storage

usb_storage 72736 2
ide_core 112392 2 usb_storage,generic
usbcore 114372 5 usbhid,usb_storage,ehci_hcd,uhci_hcd
scsi_mod 125160 5 sg,sr_mod,usb_storage,sd_mod,libata

if the later command gives you o/p like this, u've got the USB support back :-)

Another Breakthrough !! Sound and Wireless Networking (Now Working !!)

2007-11-06T03:08:00.000-08:00

on IBM Lenovo 3000 N100 with BOSS 2.0 i.e debian lenny/sid (debian testing/unstable, kernel 2.6.21-1-486, gnome 2.18)

Although I've tried my hands-on with various Debian derivatives this one actually made me WORK !!

For Sound, apparently problem was with Alsa Drivers (1.0.14) that wasn't able to make Sound Card (Intel Corporation) work. At first instance whenever system was up some process was holding /dev/dsp i.e audio device used to get blocked by some process (since it was throwing error "can't access /dev/dsp" whenever I tried to use festival TTS for sound test). Then I tried with the most popular "patched alsa" from here .

But didn't work :-(

Eventhough the module ("high definition audio" module: snd-hda-intel) is loaded, the laptop produces no sound (known for kernel 2.6.21 and 2.6.22)

Seems to be known kernel/alsa-source bugs (#431314 & #431775). But there's a workaround :-)

Building Alsa-Module

Below is a small script to patch & compile Alsa. It downloads latest alsa-source (ALSA driver sources) from lenny/sid (my OS had debian's testing/unstable repositories), apply small patches to it then shell script (t61-build-alsa-module.sh) builds the alsa module with these three patches. This script does it so easily :-)

Shell Script : t61-build-alsa-module.sh

------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

#/bin/sh
# Small script to download,patch,build the alsa module for Thinkpad T61/R61/X61.
# t61-build-alsa-module.sh v0.4 (C) Franklin Piat 2007. released under GPL.
# thanks to
# Alsa teams
# http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/AD1984
#  http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions//showthread.php?s=0b8d3760255e43abaecdfc8e0e4cba12&t=564079&page=3
#
m-a prepare || exit
m-a clean alsa || exit
m-a get alsa-source || exit
m-a unpack alsa || exit
cd /usr/src/modules/alsa-driver/alsa-kernel/ || exit
## kernel alsa 1.0.14 don't need the first three patch
case "$(cat ../version)" in
1.0.13*)
wget -O - http://hg.alsa-project.org/alsa-kernel/raw-diff/ed48e4edc677/pci/hda/patch_analog.c | patch -p1 || exit
wget -O - http://hg.alsa-project.org/alsa-kernel/raw-diff/45179b325c8e/pci/hda/patch_analog.c | patch -p1 || exit
wget -O - http://www.klabs.be/~fpiat/linux/debian/Etch_on_Thinkpad_T61/t61-alsa-1.0.13-backport-patch.diff | patch -p1 || exit
;;
esac
wget -O - http://hg.alsa-project.org/alsa-kernel/raw-diff/958b39f3e8dd/pci/hda/patch_analog.c | patch -p1 || exit
wget -O - http://hg.alsa-project.org/alsa-kernel/raw-diff/47ca87407c84/pci/hda/patch_analog.c | patch -p1 || exit
wget -O - http://hg.alsa-project.org/alsa-kernel/raw-diff/ca37aeeeb0ea/pci/hda/patch_analog.c | patch -p1 || exit
m-a --not-unpack build alsa || exit
#Install with : dpkg -i /usr/src/alsa-modules-$(uname -r)_1.0.14-1+$(uname -r).deb
#You might have to enable "speaker" (in the gnome mixer's "switch" tab ; Or in "alsamixer").
#You might need to add "options snd-hda-intel model=thinkpad/lenovo" at the end of /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Of course there are three things at the last of the script that needs to be done manually (might need) !

Now DONE with Sound, it's working out-of-the-box :-)

Wireless Networking (Not Working) !!

Intel's wireless driver not seems to be included in the debian yet :-(

Following packages solved the issue (apt-get install)

firmware-ipw3945
ipw3945d
ipw3945-source
madwifi-tools
wireless-tools
kernel-package (for make-kpkg)
ipw3945-modules-2.6.21-1-486 (depends on kernel version)
fakeroot
ipw3945-modules

/etc/apt/sources.list had following repositories;

deb http://packages.bosslinux.in/boss anant main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian testing main contrib
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian testing main contrib

After rebooting the machine again check if /dev/dsp gets blocked by some process (run `/bin/fuser -v /dev/dsp` through console), if so kill the particular process to make audio device free. Then go for any multimedia player.

At last after spending almost half day I could make Sound and Wireless Networking (Now Working ;-) ) on Lenovo 3000 N100 with BOSS 2.0 (debian testing, kernel 2.6.21-1-486, gnome 2.18) :-)

Things that "I have to do" and that "I actually want to do"

2007-10-08T00:22:00.000-07:00

Things that "I actually want to do"

Regular Exercise for fitness and improve my spirituality
Travel a lot around the globe along with loved ones
Go for Adventure Trips
Experimentation with Interior Decoration/Rearrangements and Food as well
Socializing, watching movies
Reading, writing (as per my POV) philosophical articles
Hacking Technology and keeping pace with fastest growing technology
Be A Solution Provider
Be A Researcher in "System Analysis and Design", "Informatics", "Human Computer Interactions", "Information Systems"
Only teaching (no laborious work)

Things that "I have to do"

Teaching with laborious work of paper correction, mark listing, and what not :D
Computer Programming and Documentation
Dealing with difficult people, situation, politics and yet keeping myself cool
Prepare my work report quite often
Answer stupid queries without getting irritated

will be back soon with few more... ;-)

My Spirituality (???)

2007-10-07T23:02:00.000-07:00

Going through personal and professional crisis since last few months, inspite of having that I am feeling so peaceful, stable and deterministic towards the issues by visualizing positive side of it !

I Still Wonder, Am I Getting Spiritual Now A Days ???

Thanks to all who made this possible for me :-)

IT'S A PARTY TIME !!!!

2007-08-07T21:53:00.000-07:00

Priyu's 4th Birthday (2nd August)

A Birthday Boy !!

Birthday Cake !!

Cake Cutting !!

Amusement Party !!

Get sound working on Lenovo 3000 N100 with Ubuntu Feisty Fawn

2007-08-07T04:59:00.000-07:00

Lenovo 3000 N100 Model 0768 - GZQ with Ubuntu Feisty Fawn

To make sound work on it install "patched alsa" from http://rapidshare.com/files/31068197/alsa-patched.tar.bz2.html

So far as Sound Card is similar, same should work on most of the laptops

Reliance ZTE MC315+ on Ubuntu Feisty 7.04 also on BOSS 2.0 (debian sid/testing, kernel 2.6.21-1-486, gnome 2.18)

2007-07-24T00:02:00.000-07:00

Finally, It Works !! :-)

I struggled a lot to make it work on my Ubuntu on IBM LEVONO 3000 N100 Model 0768.

No Sucess :(

it used to stop at ;

--> WvDial: Internet dialer version 1.56
--> Initializing modem.
--> Sending: ATZ
--> Sending: ATQ0
--> Re-Sending: ATZ
--> Modem not responding.

But finally it WORKED !! Thanks to Manoj.

Here's HOW:

1. Now my dmesg says (after inserting a card in pcmcia slot);

[ 2713.564000] pccard: PCMCIA card inserted into slot 0
[ 2713.564000] pcmcia: registering new device pcmcia0.0
[ 2713.612000] ttyS3: detected caps 00000700 should be 00000100
[ 2713.612000] 0.0: ttyS3 at I/O 0x2e8 (irq = 3) is a 16C950/954

2. /etc/wvdial.conf is ;

[Dialer Defaults]
Modem = /dev/ttyS3
Baud = 57600
SetVolume = 0
Dial-AT-OK ATDT Command =
Init1 = ATZ
FlowControl = Hardware (CRTSCTS)
Phone = #777
Username = xxxxxxxxxx
Password = xxxxxxxxxx
New PPPD = yes
Carrier Check = no
Stupid Mode = 1

3. As a root:

setserial /dev/ttyS3 baud_base 460800
wvdial

--> WvDial: Internet dialer version 1.56
--> Initializing modem.
--> Sending: ATZ
--> Sending: ATQ0
--> Re-Sending: ATZ
Caught signal 2: Attempting to exit gracefully...
--> Modem not responding.
root@alka-laptop:/home/alka# setserial /dev/ttyS3 baud_base 460800
root@alka-laptop:/home/alka# wvdial
--> WvDial: Internet dialer version 1.56
--> Initializing modem.
--> Sending: ATZ
+ZIND:8
--> Sending: ATQ0
ATQ0
OK
--> Re-Sending: ATZ
ATZ
OK
--> Initializing modem.
--> Sending: ATZ
ATZ
OK
--> Modem initialized.
--> Sending: ATDT#777
--> Waiting for carrier.
ATDT#777
CONNECT
--> Carrier detected. Starting PPP immediately.
--> Starting pppd at Tue Jul 24 16:17:04 2007
--> Pid of pppd: 7947
--> Using interface ppp0
--> pppd: X[04][06][08]H [06][08]
--> pppd: X[04][06][08]H [06][08]
--> pppd: X[04][06][08]H [06][08]
--> pppd: X[04][06][08]H [06][08]
--> pppd: X[04][06][08]H [06][08]
--> local IP address 220.224.34.198
--> pppd: X[04][06][08]H [06][08]
--> remote IP address 220.224.134.72
--> pppd: X[04][06][08]H [06][08]
--> primary DNS address 202.138.97.193
--> pppd: X[04][06][08]H [06][08]
--> secondary DNS address 202.138.96.2
--> pppd: X[04][06][08]H [06][08]

4. /var/log/message Says:

Jul 24 15:39:17 priti-laptop pppd[6706]: pppd 2.4.4 started by root, uid 0
Jul 24 15:39:17 priti-laptop pppd[6706]: Using interface ppp0
Jul 24 15:39:17 priti-laptop pppd[6706]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/ttyS3
Jul 24 15:39:19 priti-laptop pppd[6392]: Device ttyS3 is locked by pid 6705
Jul 24 15:39:20 priti-laptop pppd[6392]: Device ttyS3 is locked by pid 6705
Jul 24 15:39:21 priti-laptop pppd[6706]: PAP authentication succeeded
Jul 24 15:39:21 priti-laptop pppd[6706]: local IP address 220.224.34.198
Jul 24 15:39:21 priti-laptop pppd[6706]: remote IP address 20.224.134.72
Jul 24 15:39:21 priti-laptop pppd[6706]: primary DNS address 202.138.97.193
Jul 24 15:39:21 priti-laptop pppd[6706]: secondary DNS address 202.138.96.2

5. Once all set look into /etc/resolv.conf which normally in ubuntu gets generated automatically by NetworkManager

nameserver 202.138.97.193
nameserver 202.138.96.2

# Note: If not, edit it manually, add primary and secondary DNS with reference to point 3 above.

6. root@priti-laptop:# nslookup google.co.in
Server: 202.138.97.193
Address: 202.138.97.193#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: google.co.in
Address: 72.14.207.104
Name: google.co.in
Address: 72.14.235.104
Name: google.co.in
Address: 72.14.203.104

# Note: i) With the value of baud 57600 in /etc/wvdial.conf, keep changes the value of baud_base as "n*baud " with `setserial` where n is 2,4,8,16

ex. baud=57600, baud_base=115200,230400,460800 ....

for baud_base 460800 or 921600 modem will start responding but may vary OS to OS.

ii) One can play with UART and baud_base together, if above doesn't work.

iii) Troubleshoot with Reliance ZTE CDMA 1X MG880 ?

Firefox l10n mr-IN: Journey from :( to :)

2007-06-13T01:09:00.001-07:00

Finally Done ! ! ! :)

It was a real nightmare when we started the activity. Since it's a volunteers activity it was bit slow initially but all those (though very few) were committed to their task, thanks to

Abhijit Mapgaonkar (MOS),

Anish Patil (MOS)

Gaurav Shah (IITB)

Girish Katre

Ivan Desouza (MOS)

Manoj Rege (IITB)

Parag Iyer (IITB)

Prashil Thakur (IITB)

Rahul Bhalerao (MOS)

Sandeep Shedmake (MOS)

Swapnil Hajare (MOS)

Vijay Barve (MOS)

Special Thanks to Dr. Alka Irani (Cheif Investigator of our project) for having faith in me.

They did their job, now it was my turn :)

Being a Langauge Coordinator for Marathi (mr-IN) my job was to coordinate the workdone so far and that was a REAL nightmare :(

Almost an year passed by during this translation activity and meanwhile there were so many changes happened upstream in the source code itself. Reflecting those changes in the localization tree itself was a tedious job.

I was carrying to versions of translations one by our Marathi Open Source Group (MOS) and one by Manoj's group from IITB . Then I had choose best translations out of those by seeing individual string in every file. Before that there was another crucial task of converting existing l10n tree structure to the standardized one which cvs has and that was done by the script langpack2cvstree.sh writen by Cédric Corazza.

This script needs a GNU/Linux distribution, a command-line cvs client, perl client and the ab-CD.jar of the xpi langpack.

Basically, it downloads the current version of en-US files from branch or trunk and reorganizes them in the proper way. You'll be asked if you want to include the toolkit part (in case you already have it on mozilla.org cvs). Then, it reorders ab-CD files against the downloaded local en-US directory. Finally, compare-locales.pl is executed and provides the results.log file which shows what files/strings are missing.

Howto

* Create an empty directory
* Copy into it the ab-CD.jar included in your langpack (if you
want to choose calendar, also copy the calendar-ab-CD.jar).
* Copy langpack2cvstree.sh into it
* Make a chmod +x langpack2cvstree.sh to make it executable
* Then run ./langpack2cvstree.sh ab-CD product where:
ab-CD is your locale name (two-letter locale code is accepted)
and product is either browser, mail or calendar
* Then, you are asked if you want to add the toolkit. Valid
answers are Y, y, N, n (for Yes or No)
* Then, you are asked the branch you want to use. Valid answers
are B, b, T, t (for branch or trunk. Currently, the branch is
MOZILLA_1_8_BRANCH)
* At the end of the process, you should have in the directory you
created the following items:
- en-US
- ab-CD
- locale
- results.log
- ab-CD.jar
* Then, open the results.log file in your favorite editor to see
what files/strings are missing. The missing files/strings can be
obtained from the en-US directory

NOTE: langpack2cvstree.sh essentially gives us the skeleton cvs tree structure equivalent to en-US and we have to fill it up with translated .dtd & .properties files.

ISSUES:

Some files in locale.rar, Manoj and in mr-IN l10n tree were in ascii format (all the translated strings were in hex form viz.\u0909\u0918\u0921\u093E\u0935\u0947) got a perl programme from Sunilmohan to convert it to text (utf-8). :)

#!/usr/bin/perl

binmode STDOUT, ":utf8";
while (<>)
{
s/\\u([0-9a-f]*)/chr(hex($1))/eig;
print;
}

Earlier I used to replace \u0 with in ascii file thro' text editor's (gedit) replace utility then save the text in html format, put
as a new line character to each and every line, then open it in a browser, copy & paste text to the text processor again then save it as .dtd or .properties , Hushh, that was quite tough job :(

Finally complete updated cvs tree structure sent to Axel Hecht for review !! ;)

Parijan (परीजन) - Indian tongues on the computer

2007-05-08T03:58:00.000-07:00

परीजन

Parijan (परीजन) - Indian tongues on the computer

DEMO VERSION

Introduction:

Accessibility is the development of a computing system to be accessible to everyone and Usability is the ability to use those systems for accessing information and gaining knowledge consequently.

So far, Accessibility has remained expensive and within the domain of English Language computing. With initiatives by many GNU/Linux developers, Open Source Community and C-DAC, Mumbai, this Accessibility Technology have also started moving towards supporting Indian Languages on the computer.

It's about helping the non-disabled understand the disabled from the non-disabled perspective.

In the context, Parijan essentially aids disabled (specially visually challenged) to readout Desktop screen in Marathi and Hindi.

Usage:
TO ENABLE SPEECH WITH ORCA*

Login Screen

For speech: ctrl + s

For Magnifier: ctrl + m

For Both: ctrl + g

Running orca (Properties) insert + space

Quitting orca insert + q

TO ENABLE TOOL-TIPS ACCESSIBLE

Currently Orca doesn't speakout tool-tips which Gnopernicus does.

Run 'Gnopernicus'* and set Speech Drivers to the particular voice (viz. hindi_NSK_diphone)

* Screen Reader using Indian Language Enabled Text-To-Speech engine (festival) at a back-end on Debian Sid

ToDos :- Live and/or Installable CD

Keep track of the blog for "Notes on Indic (Hindi and Marathi TTS)"

KDE Startup troubleshoot !

2007-05-07T23:43:00.000-07:00

This would be my comeback after a long long gap...

Started this blog with full enthusiasm, but then I always wonder what to post here !!!

Meanwhile I came across certain issues pertaining to my home and office PC (using KDE desktop), I could resolve that too without "google" (no network) :-)

Some workaround towards kdm start problem.

For a long time I was facing some problem with my Display Manager System (mainly KDM). Frequently I was left with the console login with the message 'KDM already running' but there were no graphical display at all.

Since there was no network access for last few days I took an opportunity to rectify that issue and finally I got the solution :-)

Reason:

While booting process when daemons services starts 1stly program checks whether that particular service is already running or not by getting it's pid, if it is then 'xxx already running' message is displayed. Same is the case with kdm and is controlled by /etc/init.d/kdm shell script which 'starts or stops the X display manager'. It firstly checks whether kdm is already running or not by matching it's pid with /var/run/kdm.pid if it matches it just displays the message 'kdm already running' without seeing whether kde has started or not. But if we comment or remove the entry of pid from /var/run/kdm.pid then problem solves. May be since there is no pid available in /var/run/kdm.pid to match program has to start kdm forcefully. Also check for entry of exec 'startkde' in /home/user/.xinitrc.

Even if solution seems to be workable, it is not desirable for novice end user. To get rid of this situation steps below worked for me (knoppix 3.8):

Default display manager can be set by making it's entry to /etc/X11/default-display-manager as /usr/bin/kdm (if one want kdm to be default) OR by editing /etc/init.d/kdm script.

Then either remove the entry of pid from /var/run/kdm.pid or comment it out.

In next login I never faced this kind of problem again :-)

Breakthrough !!!

My first post...

2005-10-24T00:06:00.000-07:00

Purpose behind creating this blog is to log (more appropriate word could be "share") my feelings, my experiences (sometimes bad but most frequently good/inspiring) with all my dear and near once (including myself in a long run !) :-)

First thing to share : About life :-)

The only good luck many great personalities ever had was being born with the ability and determination to overcome bad luck.

Isn't it true ?