i asked DJ if he wants to join me and after few weeks of coding there it was Manipal university’s first (working) Feedback System, when the point of hosting it came, i was surprised to find Manipal University has no Linux servers, i mean come on no Linux what are you people click sys admins, then we decided to setup our own server in the department, thus giving Manipal university its first Linux ( fedora 10 ) server.

currently it just hosts the Feedback System, but we are planning to use it as local ( internal ) fedora repository mirror, we need permission from the WiFi provider ION because almost all the students use only WiFi and not LAN, last time we tried we were denied by saying ” You are a threat to our network “, lets see how it goes this time. we will also require people to manage it but i think this can be handled very well by LUG Manipal, some pics

Fedora 10 server in Manipal

Fedora 10 server in Manipal

PS – i am looking for a way to convene them that setting up a mirror will be helpful for them as well as students can anyone suggest me how to go about it??

http://ostatic.com/blog/history-and-releases-are-cyclical-this-is-fedora-11

“The Fedora Project is rolling out some impressive new features and
functions with Leonidas. One of the most notable is the use of ext4 as
the default file system (while many distributions are planning on making
ext4 the default in the near future, some recent releases have chosen to
keep it optional this time around). The Fedora team says that aside from
ext4 performance enhancements, Leonidas users will be treated to faster
boot and shutdown procedures, an automatic font, codec and clipart
installer, and the DeviceKit device management tool designed to work
with (and sometimes stand in for) hal. Fedora 11 users can also look
forward to updated versions of the KDE, GNOME, and Xfce desktop
environments, improvements in direct rendering, and better volume
control and power management tools.”

For more reading on the F11 release..

http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3817686/Red+Hat+Fedora+11+Focuses+on+the+Linux+Desktop.htm

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=fedora_11_preview&num=1

http://www.h-online.com/open/Preview-of-the-Fedora-11-Linux-distribution-with-new-update-function–/news/113170

http://www.osnews.com/story/21388/Fedora_11_Preview_Release_Announced

http://ostatic.com/blog/history-and-releases-are-cyclical-this-is-fedora-11

The following one talks about the alpha release

http://linuxsysconfig.com/2009/03/fedora-11-preview/

For more from fedoraproject.org on F11 :

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing_F11_schedule

The screenshots and tour page is UP!..

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_11_tour

Screenshots of the beta:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Fedora-11-Beta-Screenshot-Tour-108264.shtml

The Indepth features of F11 can be found here:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Category:F11_in-depth_features

Playing Multimedia on F11 :

https://fedoraproject.com/wiki/F11_User_Guide_-_Playing_Multimedia

Most of the credit for the links is Rahul’s from the Fedora Marketing list..

Some screenshots:

To learn Linux you don’t need pen-copy and other stationary at your disposal. Just a cool mind, bubbling with confidence. Get a cup of coffee, sit back and relax. The plane is about to take off!

Learning Linux isn’t getting some specifications. Its a complete Operating system, which has user friendly GUI and has some great OS concepts for the geeks. The former part is not a big deal as its similar to learning windows, the latter part needs to be covered.

Before getting started please read these two FAQ:   FAQ 1 and FAQ 2

1) Get to know about the other distros: Do you know any other distros apart from the distro you are using? Say if you are using Ubuntu, do you know about other famous and friendly distros which are making as much news? Other great distros include Fedora, OpenSuse, PCLinuxOS and some examples of geeky ones are Gentoo, Slackware. Leave these geeky ones if your taste doesn’t match. Be a n00b till you feel free to break out to the wider world.

• List of Distros
• Comparison of Linux Distributions

2) Know about the history of the distro you are using: It may look foolish! What do I have to do with older versions? This is a nice way to know about the trend which your distro is following. What are the features they expect to include in their future releases. What mindset these distros follow while releasing their new versions. What is the release cycle of your distro? What is the next release date? Isn’t it useful? Think twice!

3) Learn about the different desktop Environment: There are many desktop environments available out there which include GNOME,KDE, XFCE. What are their features? What are the specialties? What are their requirements? Which one is lighter, which one heavy? I have hundreds of question to ask, you might be having much more!

4) What is a Kernel: Quite basic but a big geeky question! I have heard people looking at each other’s face when this question is asked and then they look at me. In Layman’s language, we can explain it as a heart of OS. Compare it with engine of a car, where kernel is engine, gasoline is external power, mouse as driving wheel. Oh wait! My explanation is becoming too dumb! There is not just Linux kernel available, search for GNU Hurd and many more kernels available, out of which Linux is most popular. Hey did I mention that Linux is just a kernel, the whole OS is called a “Linux based distro” or simply GNU/Linux.

5) Linux File System: You should learn about the filesystem tree of Linux, how different partitions are mounted/accessed. Did you know that each device connected to the computer is represented by a file, each disk, partition are also represented by a file. These are called special files. Even directories are files, they are infact a file which point to an array of files. Where are all the configuration files stored? Its in /etc. Where are partitions mounted to be accessed (Ans: /media). Where are all the installed software’s executables go? (Ans: /usr) Where are all the device files stored? (Ans: /dev)

6) Permissions: This is one of the biggest hurdles for a newbie coming from windows world. According to him, this one is the most annoying feature at the beginning until he/she learns why is it actually needed. It contributes a lot to the security enjoyed by Linux boxes. You can make a file read-only for others, writable for the whole world or give the write permissions to some limited people by forming a group. Fine tune your policies as you like, nobody gonna stop you anytime.

• Linux File Permission Guide
• Changing File Permissions

7) Root User: If God who holds unchallenged powers exists, then why cant we apply the natural law to this beautiful OS too? There can be many users whose powers are at par with root user,but never equal! Heard about sudo? It’s used by non-root users.This is a keyword to be prefixed before those commands which require root access like installation,network configuration. For this the user must be in sudoers list (by default most users are in this list)

• The Sudo Manual
• What is Sudo in a n00b language

8 ) The different Applications for Linux: Who says that there are shortage for applications/softwares for Linux. Bring him to me, rest I will take care Coming to the point, I can say that there are thousands and lakhs of softwares available all of which are in the repositories. Now what is repositories? Hope you have already checked out the FAQ’s Link given at the start of this article. You don’t need to hunt them down and install, just an apt-get or yum is self sufficient.

• Applications available for Linux
• Some Applications available for both Windows and Linux (some examples)

9) Package Management: This is one topic which I would speak less and ask you to work on more. This is one of those topics which had unlimited theories and similar crap to waste time by writing in the blog. Trying it out hands on would be the best way of learning. Basically there are two types of Package Managers, Debain based which uses APT and Red Hat based which uses YUM. Both are good and provides you alternatives in case you arn’t satisfied with one. I think I have said enough of package management. A Linux software doesn’t come packages as one single exe file. Many different packages constitute an application. Don’t worry about which all packages you need to download, this is the place where package manager comes into play. It resolves all dependencies which are required for installing some simplest to complex software. For more knowledge Click Here

These topics are just pointers for “How to Start? Where to start from?”. It isn’t a complete reference, remember “Google is your Friend”

Wait for another blog post, you would be able to gulp down the second one only if you read this and did tried out yourself most of the things.

Have Fun Mates!

ok so lets come to the point how exactly did i solved these problems for installing ATI driver i have already explained it earlier here and here , so now moving to ndiswrapper
you need to download the source code (the .tar.gz file) from http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net well from any other computer if you have net access only by WiFi, after u have the tar.gz file copy it to any folder like your home folder ( /home/<username>/ ) now simply right click on it and select extract here, now you have a directory with all the files of source code but to compile the source you will need to install some more software from the DVD for this go to Add/Remove Software in the Applications menu, enter your root password when it will open it will give you error saying something like Repository could not be updated so go to repositories in that and let the tick be there only in front of Install Media remove that tick from every other option, here select Development then tick Development Tools (remove them after compiling if you wont use them), after that go to Search tab and select All packages, there search for ‘Kernel headers’ you will find a package with name of Kernel-headers – 2.6.23.1-42 select that, click apply it will ask you for the DVD insert it and packages will be installed, now you can happily compile your ndiswrapper source

For compiling open up a Terminal from Applications >> System Tools >> Terminal type ‘ su ‘ , enter your password now type cd /home/<username>/<name of ndiswrapper directory>/ now when in the ndiswraper directory type make uninstall to remove any previous non working installs of ndiswrapper, after that type make here you if you see a error then you probably dont have the correct/complete source or are missing a required package, if it proceeds without a error which it will then you just need to install ndiswrapper type make install your work is now over you just need to install the windows driver by the method which i have described here all done now let us proceed to the xserver problem

For this just login as root ( which i wont prefer but is best for this time ) and type ‘ startx ‘ at the prompt after logging in then go to /etc/ in the file browser there right click on ‘ inittab ‘ file and select open with “Text Editor” in the file there will be some thing written as
id:3:initdefault:
change that to
id:5:initdefault:
and save the file, reboot and you will be greeted by a nice Fedora Infinity Screen enjoy!!!!