Free as in Freedom (Apr 06 09)

My friend and co-teacher Dr. Prof. Mr. Kardi Teknomo, associate professor of computer science at Ateneo de Manila University, one day asked me why some programmers write free open source programs. He reasoned out that a good programmer can make a lot of money from the programs that they write, and he could not understand why they give their programs away for free. I could not give him a short one sentence answer that will be satisfactory both for him and for me. I have read three books: "A Quarter Century of Unix", by Peter Salus (http://www.amazon.com/Quarter-Century-UNIX-Addison-Wesley-Systems/dp/0201547775), "Just for Fun: the Story of an Accidental Revolutionary", by Linus Torvalds and David Diamond (http://www.amazon.com/Just-Fun-Story-Accidental-Revolutionary/dp/0066620724), and "Free as in Freedom", by Sam Williams (http://oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/), and I know that the answer is in one of those pages that I have read. It's just that these three books make a beautiful account of the struggles of the programming community to write programs and to share them with the rest of the programming community, without regard for monetary reward. In particular, "Free as in Freedom" is an account of Richard Stallman's crusade to make source code of programs available for programmers to study and to improve upon, and to make the source code of such improvements available for programmers to study and to further improve upon. If the source code is kept a trade secret (by making only the binary executables available for sale or for free), then only the programmers hired by the copyright owner can make improvements to the program, and the program does not grow as fast as when the source code is made available. This seems to be the view of Stallman, and it is a view shared by all free open source advocates, and by companies that have made their products open source, products like Mozilla's Firefox, Sun's OpenOffice, Apache's webserver, Debian's GNU-Linux operating system, Canonical's Ubuntu Linux operating system, UC Berkeley's BSD derivative operating systems, and many others.

All that we wait for is for Bill Gate's Windows-8 operating system to be made truly free GPL open source, with GFDL manuals, so that we can use it to teach our operating systems laboratory course in the university.

Philippine Eagle in Ubuntu Wallpaper

In January 2009, Linux Torvalds was in Australia (http://apcmag.com/in_pics_linus_torvalds_shaves_open_source_legend_down_to_size.htm) and in March, we read that the Australian Tasmanian devil will be the new mascot of the linux 2.6.29 kernel (http://apcmag.com/australian-marsupials-get-stellar-billing-in-the-linux-community.htm). The Tasmanian devil is in danger of extinction, and adopting it as temporary mascot of the Linux community is a step towards preventing that from happening.

Now in the Philippines, the monkey-eating eagle Pithecophaga jefferyi, the world's largest eagle, is also in danger of extinction. If I put it in an Ubuntu wallpaper and people download it, then maybe we increase people's awareness of the near extinction of this beautiful bird. Note that the Linux mascot, Tux, is also a bird, just like our own Philippine eagle.

Download this wallpaper, and use it as your Linux or Windows wallpaper. Then visit the Philippine eagle website, http://www.philippineeagle.org/, and see how you can help save the Philippine eagle.

Installing Debian Squeeze/Sid (Mar 12 09)

I recently installed Debian 5.0 Lenny on my Neo Empriva M540 laptop. After installation, I was a bit disappointed that Lenny came with kernel 2.6.26, and this disappointment is due to the fact that Ubuntu 8.10 which was released earlier in October is already shipped with kernel 2.6.27 while Lenny still comes with an older kernel.

So I decided that I wanted kernel 2.6.28 and that Debian Squeeze was therefore the way to go. So I followed the instructions in:

http://www.go2linux.org/how-to-upgrade-from-debian-lenny-to-squeeze

to get Lenny upgraded to Squeeze. Essentially, the steps were as follows (working as root):

1. Edit /etc/apt/sources.list, replacing occurences of Lenny by Squeeze. My newly edited sources.list now looks like

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main contrib non-free
deb http://volatile.debian.org/debian-volatile squeeze/volatile main contrib
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze-proposed-updates contrib non-free main

2. Then do the upgrade using the commands:
aptitude update
aptitude install apt dpkg aptitude
aptitude full-upgrade

When I rebooted, I now had Debian squeeze instead of Lenny. But still, the Squeeze kernel was 2.6.26. I now have to force installation of kernel 2.6.28. Working as root, I added the following line to /etc/pat/sources.list:

deb http://kernel-archive.buildserver.net/debian-kernel trunk main

Then I had to install kernel-archive key:

wget -q -O - http://kernel-archive.buildserver.net/key | apt-key add -

Then finally, I could install the latest kernel:

aptitude update
aptitude install linux-image-2.6.28-1-686

Upon rebooting and running Synaptic package manager, I was asked to upgrade the library to glibc 2.9-4, and gcc to 4.3.3-3.

Now I have the latest and the greatest linux kernel 2.6.28, running the the latest and greatest GNU C library 2.9!

What's Wrong with SSS? (Feb 24 09)

I went to the SSS website today to check on the status of my retiree's pension. Instead of the expected Social Security System web page, I got the Oracle 10g web page. I thought I had made an error typing the URL, but it is www.sss.gov.ph clear as day. Something must have gone wrong with the gov.ph web pages, so I decided to check out www.dost.gov.ph, and I got the Department of Science and Technology website. I had expected this, since DOST is quite reliable, despite its ridiculously diminutive funding among all government agencies. How is it that DOST can tell the world via the Web what's happening in Philippine Science, but SSS can not tell its retirees via the Web what's happening to their pensions? Does not SSS have so much money that Commissioner Neri wants to invest SSS funds in "dangerous" ventures? Is not Neri supposed to be a "trustee" entrusted to keep the SSS funds growing in safe investments? Why can't he spend a small amount in keeping the SSS website up and running, so that members can check where he is putting their money? Members have a right to know!

Barack Obama is 44th U.S.A. President

According to the CNN commentators, as of 12:00 noontime on October 20, 2009 president-elect Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States of America, by a provision of the Constitution of the U.S.A., even before Obama was sworn into office by Chief Justice Roberts, at about 12:30 EST, about 1:30 AM October 21 PHT. My whole family (wife Dulce, daughter Karen, and myself) was up early morning today, watching the CNN telecast of Obama being sworn into office, and watching two million Americans celebrate the inaugural of the first African American President ever. Today we are all late for work, because we stayed up late last night until the early morning. But we don't regret the lost sleep, since Obama's inaugural address promised a better and less greedy America, and America's more fair treatment of the rest of the world.

MSNBC has a video of the entire proceedings:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Long live democracy, wherever it is alive and is nurtured!

Installing Linux on Neo Empriva 540SVB (Jan 05 09)

The Neo Empriva 540SVB was the first laptop that I bought when I retired in April 2006. Back then, the 512MB model was selling for PHP29,999.00 and that was value for money at that time. Today, PC Corner is selling the 2GB model for only PHP25,999.00, and it comes with the following:

Intel® Core™ Solo T1300
1.66GHz, 2Mb, 667MHz
2.0Gb DDR2-667MHz
80Gb SATA
DVD Dual
14in. Wide (WXGA) 1280x800
Built-in web camera
VIA Chrome9 VN896 Integrated
802.11BG WiFi / 56Kb Modem
Windows Vista™ Home Basic
60-Days Office 2007 Trial
PhP 23,999.00 - NO OS
PhP 25,999.00 - with OS

[Note: Outside the Philippines, this laptop is sold as the Clevo M540SE.]

This would be an ideal machine if it came with Core2 Duo, 160GB-250GB SATA disk, and dedicated video ram. It does not, so it is not my dream machine. But I had to live with my original purchase, and since I am a Linux person, I had to get Linux working on this laptop.

Nondestructively repartitioning the disk to preserve Vista and allow installation of Linux is straightforward. You can use one of the live Linux boot CDs (Knoppix, GRML, Debian Lenny Live, etc), boot the CD in text mode, and run the parted program to do the nondestructive repartitioning.

Actual installation of Linux is the challenging problem. Neither Fedora 10 nor Ubuntu 8.10 will install a properly working GUI desktop, since the VIA Chrome9 VN896 video driver support under Linux (the Openchrome project) is still experimental.

Fortunately, the up-and-coming release of Debian, code-named "Lenny" seems to have worked out the kinks of the openchrome driver, and so, with some post-installation reconfiguring, Lenny can be made to get GUI working on the Neo-Clevo M540SE.

First you need to repartition the 80GB SATA disk. In my case, I left 30GB for Vista, created 15GB for Linux root, 2-4GB for Linux swap, and the rest for Linux /home. I like leaving generous space for users' home directories, so that if I need to reinstall either Vista or Linux, the users' data in /home can be preserved.

Next you need to download the Debian Lenny installer CD. It is sufficient to download CD-1 only, since the rest of the Debian packages can be downloaded from the Debian internet repositories during and after installation. CD-1 is available as:

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/lenny_di_rc1/i386/iso-cd/debian-testing-i386-CD-1.iso

After completing the download, you need to burn this file to a CD. If you are using Nero or a similar CD burning program, you need to set Nero to "burn a CD from an iso-image file". Now stick this CD into the Neo's DVD drive, connect the Neo using a UTP cable to the Internet, and turn the Neo on. The installation may take a while, so it is good to connect the AC adapter to the Neo. While booting, press the [enter] key, move the cursor to the choice [Select Boot Device], and select the option [Boot OptiArc DVD]. The Debian Lenny installer CD will now boot.

At the Main Debian Installation Menu, cursor to the first installation choice [Install], press [TAB], and edit the boot options by adding to the end of the line the boot option "vga=771". Just type this at the end of the line, but without the quotes. Then press the [Enter] key. Installation will now proceed normally. Without this boot option, the installation can not proceed, since you will get an unreadable screen, since the screen will be cut in several pieces, and the pieces will display in a very confusing jumbled up way, that you will be forced to reboot the Neo (by continuously pressing the OFF-ON switch).

During installation, you will be asked to answer various questions. If you live in the Philippines I suggest the following responses: Keyboard: US-English, Language: English/Philippines, Timezone: Asia/Manila or GMT+8 (Taipei), Choice of Debian repository: US/ftp.us.debian.org or JP/ftp.jaist.ac.jp. If you are connected to the Internet during installation, you will be asked to choose which additional package groups to include in the installation. Aside from the the default choices, add "laptop" support.

After installation is completed, you will be asked to remove the installation CD from the DVD drive, and to press the [Enter] key to reboot the Neo. If you are a mouse user, this is a good time to attach a mouse to a USB port. Now remove the installation CD, and press the [Enter] key to reboot.

At the GRUB boot menu, cursor to the second choice [Debian recovery mode], and press [Enter] to select this boot mode. This will boot the Neo to Linux single user mode. At the shell prompt, type

cd /etc/X11
vi xorg.conf

This will allow you to edit the "xorg.conf" file. Look for the section "Screen", and make the following additions to that section:

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
SubSection "Display"
Modes "1280x800" "1024x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Save your changes (you have to know how to use the vi text editor), and then type the command:

exit

This will continue booting to GUI mode, and you will get a working Debian Lenny installation.

The default wallpaper is a light blue screen with a small red Debian swirl. The Lenny wallpaper that you see in the picture above is designed for the Lenny distribution by Raveenz:

http://www.debian-art.org/content/show.php/Debian+Lenny+Os-Tan?content=90982

http://raveenz.deviantart.com/art/Debian-OS-Tan-99889934

Enjoy!

Happy New Year: Media Noche and Computing (Jan 01 09)

My family usually spends New Year's Eve at home with us, sharing the traditional Filipino media noche, the midnight dinner of spaghetti, queso de bola, Filipino tsokolate, and fruits. The spaghetti was vegetarian, tomato and mushroom with semola spaghettini. I got the cheap Balducci semola, which is almost half the price of San Remo. For the non-vegetarians we had hotdogs and salami on a separate platter, far away from the vegetarians. We also had vegetarian hotdogs and ham, which my wife bought from Harvesters' Veggie Mart, the vegetable store and bakeshop next to Bodhi Vegetarian on Banawe Street in Quezon City. My neighbor, the Oafallas, gave chicken cordon blue and Korean noodles, so the non-vegetarians had two additional dishes.

Before dinner, we exchanged gifts. Every year, we had this problem of drawing names of the family member for whom we buy our annual Christmas gift. The problem is there were too few members of our family: wife Dulce and myself, son Paul and wife Mia, daughters Karen and Abigail. (This year, Abigail is in France on a Mundus Forum scholarship, so she missed our media noche and gift giving). The chance that we draw our own names was so great that we had to redraw many times until we got a satisfactory draw. This year though, Karen discovered Elfster:

http://www.elfster.com/

and Elfster solved our problem for us. Elfster not only drew unique names for everyone, but also Elfster gave everyone a chance to specify the gift she/he wanted. If you have a small family like ours, you should check out Elfster.

After dinner, I told Paul and Mia that Karen and I are working on a tiling problem that we intend to present to the 2009 Philippine Computing Science Congress in Siliman University, Dumaguete City:

http://computingsoc.blogspot.com/
http://ccs.su.edu.ph/pcsc2009/theconference.html

Mia got Paul interested, and Paul agreed to help. When I showed Paul my notes, he immediately saw a error in my brute force enumeration, which of course, got corrected. The rest of the early morning (after midnight dinner) was spent by my children working on the tiling problem. I believe that this is a good way for a family to spend New Year together.

Happy New Year everyone!

Ubuntu's New Network Manager Autoconnects to Smart (Dec 27 08)

Ubuntu Intrepid has a new Network Manager that automates the connection to mobile broadband providers Smart, Globe, and Sun. The process of connecting to the dial-up or 3G network has been made simple. First cable your 3G phone to your laptop, then turn the laptop on. After logging in, Network Manager recognizes the 3G connection, and will configure the connection for you, do the auto-dialling, and give you the option of keeping the connection alive. You will be given a list of available providers to choose from, depending on the area where you are located (I think). In my case, the list included Globe, Globe WAP, Smart, and Sun. Since my Nokia 6680 has already been preconfigured with Smart Internet/MMS/etc settings, I chose Smart from the list of choices provided. The connection took only a few seconds, and I had Internet service right away. I was able to check my Ateneo mail and Yahoo mail before things started to go wrong. After a period of use, the connection is dropped and I had to reconnect by clicking on the Network Manager icon on the panel (task bar on top of the screen). This dropping happened several times afterwards, that I got tired, abandoned Network Manager, and reconnected using wvdial instead.

Well, that's so much for Network Manager for me for managing mobile broadband connection. I will stick to wvdial, until I figure out what went wrong.