The Init Mag 02

The init magazine, Issue #2

editorial We feel proud to bring yet another issue of The init Magazine. We got really nice feedbacks and valuable suggestions after the release of the first issue last month. Thank you all! From this issue we have started two new sections - Question & Answer and Tips & Tricks. In Q&A section we'll try to solve the problems you are facing in Linux. This section will also feature some useful solutions that comes out of our mailing list. Similarly, Tips & Tricks section will contain various tips and workarounds in Linux environment as well as in Free Softwares.

Contents foss news .... p3. questions and answers .. p4. how to .... p6.

Collecting Hardware Information in Linux

This month yet another edition of Ubuntu 8.10 code named Intrepid Ibex was released and we had a wonderful release party at IOE Pulchowk Campus. For all those who were unable to attend the event, you can find the report of the event. To make it even sweeter, find the review of Kubuntu 8.10 and gorgeous KDE 4.1 inside. Apart from that, also find an introductory article on IRC and a "how to" on collecting hardware information in Linux.

tips and tricks .... p9.

For the last edition we had 300+ downloads. This month we are hoping for 500+ downloads. I hope you'll enjoy this issue like the first one. Do share the word around about the magazine. Send us your articles, feedbacks and suggestions at [email protected]

Getting started with Internet Relay Chat

review .... p10.

Kubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex

jump start .... p12. event .... p14.

Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex Release Party

Cheers, The init Magazine Editorial Team Published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. You are free to Share and to Remix this work, under the conditions that you must attribute the work in the manner specified (Attribution) and if you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same, similar or a compatible license (Share Alike). For more on this license, go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/

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The init magazine, Issue #2

foss news Firefox turns 4 Four years ago on November 9th, 2004, Mozilla announced the release of Firefox 1.0. Four years on and Firefox has grown to a point where it now commands 20 percent market share and has introduced users to a number of new features, many of which we could now not live without. Some of the most popular features in Firefox include pop-up blocking, fraud protection, integrated search and tabbed browsing.

FSF updates document licence The Free Software Foundation (FSF) yesterday announced the release of version 1.3 of the GNU Free Documentation Licence (FDL). The latest release of the licence now allows public wikis to relicense their FDL-covered materials under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CCBY-SA) 3.0 licence. The foundation says that

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Drupal Wins Best Overall 2008 Open Source CMS Award for Second Year in a Row Drupal has been named the best open source content management system (CMS) in the annual Packt-sponsored awards. The Drupal project won the overall category and walked away with the $5 000 prize for receiving more than 20 000 votes. In second place were Joomla and DotNetNuke. Drupal also won the Packt awards in 2007. Alongside the overall award, Packt ran categories for best open source PHP content management system and best open source CMS that isn’t written in PHP. The winner of the most promising open source PHP CMS was SilverStripe while the best non-PHP open source CMS was voted as Plone. this new permission has been added at the request of the Wikimedia Foundation, which oversees the Wikipedia project. The Wikimedia Foundation will now initiate a process of community discussion and voting to determine whether or not to use CC-BY-SA 3.0 as the licence for Wikipedia.

Ubuntu Intrepid released The much-expected Intrepid Ibex has been released. Some of the main features of this release include 3G Support, Write Ubuntu to and Install from a USB Drive, Guest Sessions, Latest Gnome 2.24 desktop environment

Google releases Android code Google has released the source code for its Android mobile operating system as open source software. The move comes almost a month afer the first Android-based phone - the HTC G1 - was launched. The Android source code has been released under a number of “grants” which Google says are based on the licences used by the Apache Foundation.

Source: Tectonic.co.za & Slashdot.org

The init magazine, Issue #2

QnA If you have any questions regarding FOSS send them in. We will try our best to explain them in this section. Send us your questions at [email protected] How do i compress and decompress a tar.gz archive? Archives of format tar.gz are pretty common in linux world. You will find most packages in tar or tar.gz and even tar.bz2 formats. Creating them from GUI applications is pretty easy. Using commandline is even easier. Let's see how. You are inside a directory and there is one folder and two files. $ ls Pictures README.txt Document.doc

To compress these into a single archive.tar.gz $ tar zcf archive.tar.gz Pictures README.txt Document.doc $ ls archive.tar.gz Pictures README.txt Document.doc

It is also very simple to uncompress the archive.tar.gz. Here is how you do it.

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$ tar zxf archive.tar.gz

Our college has a proxy server using NTLM authentication. How can i use normal applications in linux through the proxy? - Bikram (through [email protected]) Most of the applications in Linux can only use simple HTTP proxy server and cannot use an NTLM proxy server. To solve this we can you NTLM Authorization Proxy Server or NTLMAPS in short.

USER:063bct502 your full batch number PASSWORD:your_nt_password

Run NTLMAPS $ ./main.py

Now in your application, set the HTTP proxy to server:localhost port:8000

How do I set IP, DNS address and default gateway in linux? If in case you have static IP address, here is a screenshot in Windows XP which we will replicate in linux.

Download NTLMAPS from http://ntlmaps.sourceforge.net/ and change its configurations. $ tar zxf ntlmaps0.9.9.0.1.tar.gz $ cd ntlmaps-0.9.9.0.1/

Edit server.cfg and set following values LISTEN_PORT:8000 PARENT_PROXY:202.70.91.5 PARENT_PROXY_PORT:80 NT_HOSTNAME:ioe.edu.np

In terminal

The init magazine, Issue #2

QnA $ ifconfig | grep eth

If you have only one LAN card you will Restart network service see eth0 only but if you have two lan $ /etc/init.d/network restart cards you will see eth0 and eth1. Below we'll assume the interface to be eth0 Open file /etc/network/interfaces as root (you can use any editor you like other than vim, eg. gedit, kate etc). $ gksudo /etc/network/interfaces

You might see something like below in the file: iface eth0 inet dhcp

Remove this line and add following lines: iface eth0 inet static address 192.168.10.5 netmask 255.255.255.0 network 192.168.10.0 broadcast 192.168.10.255 gateway 192.168.10.1

To set DNS IP address, open file /etc/resolv.conf as root. $ gksudo /etc/resolv.conf Add the nameservers as nameserver 192.168.10.1 nameserver 208.67.222.222 # 208.67.222.222 is the ip of opendns

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The init magazine, Issue #2

how to Collecting Hardware Information in Linux Jwalanta Shrestha (2060BCT)

L

inux is considered as the best OS when it comes to hardware support out of the box. But there are several instances when a piece of hardware is not supported directly and you might have to dig the internet for drivers (perhaps proprietary). But before doing that we need the chipset/model number of the hardware right? Now you might be thinking of opening the box and peeking around, but stop! Linux already has enough tools to that.

Using lspci and lsusb

lspci and lsusb respectively list the PCI and USB devices in your system. $ lspci 00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 Host Bridge (rev 10) 00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge

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00:12.0 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 Serial ATA Controller (rev 80) ..

Use -v or -vv flags for more detailed output. Sometimes numeric ID can also be useful. -n flag displays numeric ID, nn flag displays both textual and numeric ID. $ lspci -nn 00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 Host Bridge [1002:5950] (rev 10) ..

Here the item [1002:5950] represents the numeric ID for the device. 1002 represents vendor (ATI in this case) and 5950 represents device.

Using dmesg

lspci and lsusb give a lot of information but the computer also

has other devices like SCSI, ISA, etc. We might also need information on CPU, memory configurations and others. The solution is to use dmesg, which displays a record of everything detected by the kernel. To view all dmesg output, use $ dmesg | less

This output can also be filtered to find information on specific devices. For example, to display all SCSI related information, $ dmesg | grep -i scsi [ 25.273680] SCSI subsystem initialized [ 25.602978] scsi0 : sata_sil [ 25.604225] scsi1 : sata_sil [ 26.407788] scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA Hitachi HTS54161 SBDO PQ: 0 ANSI: 5 [ 28.130501] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk [ 28.135722] sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type0

The init magazine, Issue #2

how to After I insert my USB webcam, $ dmesg | grep -i usb .. [87113.183288] usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 4 [87113.282505] usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [87113.462302] /build/buildd/linux-ubuntumodules-2.6.242.6.24/debian/build/buildgeneric/media/gspcav1/gspca_core .c: USB SPCA5XX camera found. (PAC7311) [87113.474834] usbcore: registered new interface driver gspca [87113.535958] usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audio

Live snapshot at /proc

Virtual filesystem /proc gives the live information of the hardware. You can browse the /proc folder and view the files. $ cat /proc/cpuinfo

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Collecting Hardware Information in Linux processor : 0 vendor_id : AuthenticAMD cpu family : 15 model : 72 model name : AMD Turion(tm) 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL-52 ..

There are tons of information that can be found under /proc. The important thing is that this information is live. For example you can view the current memory usage at /proc/meminfo $ cat /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 968888 kB MemFree: 15016 kB ..

Real-life usage

I had a Marvell Wifi USB chip which was not working right away and here's how I used the tools mentioned above to find drivers for it. After I inserted the chip, i got the following from lsusb $ lsusb

Bus 003 Device 009: ID 1286:2001 Marvell Semiconductor, Inc. ..

A quick googling with the device ID and name indicated that it's supported under linux and there's a proprietary driver for the chip. But it seemed like my linux installation wasn't recognizing the chip. dmesg output was as follows: $ dmesg | tail .. [87583.192880] usb 3-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 9 [87583.266900] usb 3-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [87583.197367] usb8xxx: request_firmware() failed with 0xfffffffe [87583.197376] usb8xxx: firmware usb8388.bin not found [87583.254153] usb 3-1: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 9 [87583.430261] usb8xxx: probe of 3-1:1.0 failed with error 12

The init magazine, Issue #2

how to We can see that the device is supported through usb8xxx module but the firmware file usb8388.bin was missing (perhaps because it's proprietary binary driver). Again a quick googling got me to the required file which I placed under /lib/firmware/ Now reinserting the chip gave me the following dmesg output.

Collecting Hardware Information in Linux - IBM Developerworks

$ dmesg | tail .. [87800.657796] usb 3-1: USB disconnect, address 9 [87801.562532] usb 3-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 10 [87801.634482] usb 3-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [87802.128882] libertas: eth1: Marvell WLAN 802.11 adapter [87802.024687] udev: renamed network interface eth1 to eth2

The Wifi chip was finally usable. References: - Linux Cookbook - http://tldp.org/HOWTO/HardwareHOWTO/

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http://xkcd.com/323/

The init magazine, Issue #2

tips and tricks Suraj Sapkota (2061BCT)

T

ips and tricks always come handy. They not only make our tasks easier but also save significant amount of time. Linux has a huge pool of such tricks that enhances the performanance of the system and are great time saver for you. Here I have collected some of them [1] and will continue to post them in upcoming issues. Also remember that for every task done in linux, odds are high that it can also be done in some other way as well. 1. Finding and removing the duplicate files in a directory. Prerequisite: fdupes $ sudo aptitude install fdupes

After getting fdupes in your system, Simply run the following. $ fdupes -r ~/Documents > ~/duplicates.txt

This will leave you a list of duplicate files in ~/duplicates.txt file.

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If you want fdupes to ask you interactively to delete duplicates you can pass it a '-d' argument. $ fdupes -r -d ~/Documents

2. Take Screenshot of selected area of screen. You can take screenshot of some selected rectulgular area of the screen. $ import -frame ~/myScreenShot.png

Now after the pointer changes to crosshair type and you can select the rectangular area in the screen to get its screenshot. This will leave you a file myScreenShot.png in your home directory. 3. Select and Search: Prerequisite: googlizer $ sudo apt-install googlizer

Drag the googlizer from Applications>Internet and drop it to panel for quicker access. Now you are all set.You can google anything with just a single click.Only thing you need to do is just select the word/phrase you want to search and click the googlizer button.

4. Terminal with a key Prerequisite: yakuake $ sudo apt-install yakuake

After installing the yakuake you can use F12 Key to hide/show the Terminal. The best side of yakuake is, it hangs at the top of the screen and takes no space in your windowmanager panel. For newbie: '~' another way to represent your home directory. '>' in bash prompt streams the output of the command to its left to the file given to its right. [1] Note: I have tested all the tips/tricks listed above in Ubuntu 8.04 and should work in other linux systems (may be with some changes). References: http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-tofind-duplicate-copies-of-files-usingfdupes-in-ubuntu.html http://www.quicktweaks.com/2008/10/01 /power-of-wonderful-linux-terminal-10challenges-for-windows-users/

The init magazine, Issue #2

review Kubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) Ruchin Singh (2062BCT) Sushil Man Shilpakar (2062BCT)

C

ode named "Intrepid Ibex" Kubuntu version 8.10 is the eighth installment released on November 5th, 2008. Intrepid Ibex comes six months after version 8.04 Hardy Heron. KDE 4 is the current K-Desktop Environment in 8.10. KDE4 is described by its

developers as a radical change to the desktop computing experience, not just KDE. At the same time it has also received criticism for not maintaining the familiar look-andfeel of KDE3.

Desktop and Graphics

Kubuntu 8.10 also has a number of enhancements over the previous versions, including customised

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Plasma widgets, a QuickAccess “plasmoid” in the panel which provides fast access to files in the home directory, taskmanager tooltips, and tools – from package management to printer setup – for integration with the rest of the Ubuntu system. 8.10 Desktop Edition sports a number of significant feature enhancements, including 3G network support, quick "guest sessions" to enable a computer to be shared on the fly. One of the biggest changes between hardy and intrepid is the move from KDE3 to KDE 4.1.2 desktop environment. Also, it uses newer Kernel 2.6.27,

Xserver 1.5, Adept Manager 3, KNetworkManager 0.7. It also comes with an all-new KDE 4 version of the Adept Package Manager featuring a new, refactored user interface and is much more stable, responsive, while at the same time being lighter on resources than Adept 2. KWin's nifty desktop effects will work by default

The init magazine, Issue #2

review in Kubuntu Intrepid Ibex as long as your card is supported and you have mesa-utils installed. The all new update-notifierkde serves as an updatenotifier and an apport crash notifier. The current release also supports notification for the need of a reboot as well as upgrade hooks. KMix now supports the multimedia-button functionality that

Improvements Now to the biggest improvements for me compared to kde 4.1.1 on hardy: • Installed with KDE 4.1.2 Intrepid is more stable and impressive • Significant performance, interaction and rendering correctness improvements in KHTML and Konqueror, KDE's web browser • User interaction, rendering and stability fixes in Plasma, the KDE4 desktop shell, PDF backend fixes in the document viewer Okular • Gwenview the image viewer is more

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Kubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) various keyboards offer.

Requirements

Running with stunning graphics environment Kubuntu requires relatively less juice. Requiring minimum of only • 300 MHz of processor • 64 MB RAM • 4GB Hard Disk space • 640X480 VGA. For better experience, the robust in retrieval and display of images • Kontact for kde4 • Guidance Power Manager does so much more than the standard battery widget: current frequency, brightness settings, shutdown if system is idle. • The quick access plasmoid is pretty neat! • The new device notifier makes easy to mount and unmount/eject removable media. • Intrepid has got familiar boot screen as well as setup process

recommended specs are as follows • 700MHz processor • 384 MB RAM • 8 GB Hard Disk space • 1024x768 VGA

Conclusion

Kubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex is a sweet and friendly distro. It is well rounded with many useful new features, specially aimed at increasing comfort and usefulness of the modern computer user. Lots of care and effort have been invested in smoothing rough edges, polishing the geeky ends. So you guys get your free copy today. http://www.kubuntu.org http://www.ubuntu.com

Send us REVIEWS!! If you want to review any OpenSource software in our magazine, send them at [email protected]

The init magazine, Issue #2

jump start Getting Started with Internet Relay Chat Bibek Shrestha (2061BCT)

I

nternet Relay Chat or IRC in short is a very easy way of real time communication. It is as simple as chatting in MSN Messenger but simpler because you do not have to register for any account or give your email address away. All you need is a URL like irc.freenode.net and the port number which is usually 6667. You can then connect to it and join one of the available channels. There are various desktop applications for connecting to IRC. For a list of IRC clients see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_I RC_clients. Lets see how to connect to IOE FOSS's channel at freenode using ChatZilla. ChatZilla is an addon to Mozilla Firefox. Since it's an extension there is no necessity to download and install like other applications and its platform independent. It

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can be downloaded from http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/add on/16. It is available for all platforms in which firefox runs. Once installed, it can be accessed from Firefox's menu Tools > ChatZilla and you will be greeted by following window. You can see various servers already

listed in the window as Available Networks. Freenode is one of the popular IRC servers with lots of channels. Channels in other word are rooms where people with common interest hang out. For example IOE FOSS's channel on server irc.freenode.net is #ioefoss

(with the hash sign). There are other rooms as well like #ubuntu

where anyone can ask for solutions regarding their Ubuntu problem or another channel #fedora

for discussions related to Fedora Linux distribution. Also, FOSS Nepal has its own channel called #foss-nepal

The init magazine, Issue #2

jump start

Getting Started with Internet Relay Chat

for all FOSS enthusiasts in Nepal.

window of chatzilla.

On Chatzilla to connect to freenode type

To communicate to a specific person, put their IRC nickname in front of your sentence. This way the receiver of your message will know its they you are talking to. Any message with your nickname on it will be highlighted so that you can identify messages directed to you.

/server irc.freenode.net:6667

to connect to a server. To visit nOE FOSSnel type /join #ioefoss

A new window will open with a list of nicknames on the left column of the

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Although anything can be written on the chat window, there are certain etiquettes which should be followed before starting a conversation. For example, whenever you ask a question about certain functionality, you should make sure you've searched the internet beforehand. Also it is considered harsh to talk foul language during chat. This could lead to banning you from the IRC channel or even from the server. For a comprehensive list of

IRC etiquettes see http://www.ircbeginner.com/ircinfo/et iquette.html Hopefully you can find IRC interesting place to hangout ;)

Few of the popular local irc channels on irc.freenode.net #foss-nepal

FOSSNepal's official irc channel. It is used to plan meetings, organize events, etc. At other times its used just for communication. #nepalinux

Discussion about the nepalinux distribution and its development #ubuntu-np

Channel for local Ubuntu users. Ask any support questions, talk on Ubuntu's releases, softwares etc. #ioefoss

Discuss anything related to FOSS culture in Pulchowk Campus

The init magazine, Issue #2

event Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex Release Party Manish modi (2061BCT) Saurab Rajkarnikar (2062BCT)

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o celebrate the release of Ubuntu 8.10 FOSSNepal Community had preplanned a release party. The information was circulated through its mailing list. The release party was coordinated by IOE FOSS community on November 9 at FSU Hall inside Pulchowk campus

premises. Programme started at around 4:30pm as scheduled and joined by students from Pulchowk Campus, Informatics College as well as other FOSS enthusiasts from FOSSNepal community. Since Canonical takes around four to five weeks to send original Ubuntu CDs through Ship-it program, we had a local sponsor Janaki Technology Pvt. Ltd. (http://www.jtpl.com.np) to burn the

CDs in advance. We owe a huge thanx to them. Coffee and cookies were served followed by CD distribution. First 10 people registered were awarded with the free CD Ubuntu 8.10. Finally the dusk had set and we had the candlelight vigil, candles were arranged to form logo of Ubuntu. The candle were lighting brighter to mark the bright future of Ubuntu and FOSS. See wiki.ubuntu.org.np/IntrepidIbexParty for list of participants.

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The init magazine, Issue #2

10 Cambridge Release Party

When

29th November, 2008 (Saturday) @ 4:10pm

Where

Zero Energy House, Pulchowk Campus

Programs

* Fedora 10 CD/DVD Distribution * Discussion * Snacks

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Thankyou P u bl i s h e d by I OE F OS S C o m m u n i t y P u l c h o wk C am pu s L al i t pu r N e pal

T e am s E di t o r i al J wal an t a S h r e s t h a, A n j an N e pal , B i be k S h r e s t h a, S u r aj S apk o t a, Y o g e s h A g r awal , S au r ab R aj k ar n i k ar

L ayo u t B i be k S h r e s t h a, J wal an t a S h r e s t h a

C o n t r i bu t o r M an i s h M o di , R u c h i n S i n g h , S u s h i l S h i l pak ar

Send in your articles, questions and feedbacks at [email protected]

Join our mailing list http://groups.google.com/group/ioefoss

Our IRC Channel server: irc.freenode.net channel: #ioefoss

Release date for next issue December 15th, 2008