Ritesh Raj Sarraf's Blog Weblog of a WWW Illiterate 2010-01-12T21:50:04-08:00 Ricky http://www.researchut.com/blog/index.php rrs@researchut.com tag:researchut,2010:RiteshRajSarrafsBlog Pivot Copyright (c) 2010, Authors of Ritesh Raj Sarraf's Blog Debian PS3 Installation 2010-01-12T21:50:00-08:00 2009-12-30T22:10:00-08:00 tag:researchut,2010:RiteshRajSarrafsBlog.116 It is holiday time and so finally time to installing Debian onto the Sony PS3 box. The installation was smooth as most of the stuff is already documented. The Debian Installer has all the support needed, to install onto the Sony PS3. As of now the only thing not working perfectly is the boot loader. It seems to be taking default is the kernel that was booted last. Even if I change the default in /etc/kboot.conf, it still boots into the kernel that was booted last time. It is holiday time and so finally time to installing Debian onto the Sony PS3 box. The installation was smooth as most of the stuff is already documented. The Debian Installer has all the support needed, to install onto the Sony PS3. As of now the only thing not working perfectly is the boot loader. It seems to be taking default is the kernel that was booted last. Even if I change the default in /etc/kboot.conf, it still boots into the kernel that was booted last time.

]]> rrs Horror 2009-11-21T22:13:00-08:00 2009-11-22T12:13:00-08:00 tag:researchut,2010:RiteshRajSarrafsBlog.115 Paranormal Activity It is a Gem in the Horror genre. If you are not much used to horror movies, don't watch it. It will scare the shit out of you. OTOH, if you enjoy horror and would like to see it, please not alone. I did that mistake. Paranormal Activity

It is a Gem in the Horror genre.

If you are not much used to horror movies, don't watch it. It will scare the shit out of you.

OTOH, if you enjoy horror and would like to see it, please not alone. I did that mistake.

]]> rrs apt-offline 2009-10-13T22:15:00-08:00 2009-10-14T12:15:00-08:00 tag:researchut,2010:RiteshRajSarrafsBlog.114 It all started long back when I worked for a giant computer manufacturing company. Certain IT policies led fo the need for an Offline APT Package Manager While I got it working for a long time, I didn't have the aggression to polish and push it for general usage. Thanks to my friend appaji, apt-offline (a.k.a pypt-offilne) is now part of Debian. It all started long back when I worked for a giant computer manufacturing company. Certain IT policies led fo the need for an Offline APT Package Manager

While I got it working for a long time, I didn't have the aggression to polish and push it for general usage. Thanks to my friend appaji, apt-offline (a.k.a pypt-offilne) is now part of Debian.

]]> rrs Father 2009-09-15T01:37:00-08:00 2009-09-15T15:37:00-08:00 tag:researchut,2010:RiteshRajSarrafsBlog.113 "Be kind to thy father, for when thou wert young, Who loved thee so fondly as he? He caught the first accents that fell from thy tongue, And joined in thy innocent glee." -- Margaret Courtney     I miss you Dad. "Be kind to thy father, for when thou wert young, Who loved thee so fondly as he? He caught the first accents that fell from thy tongue, And joined in thy innocent glee." -- Margaret Courtney
I miss you Dad.
]]> rrs New GPG Key 2009-08-06T01:06:00-08:00 2009-08-06T15:06:00-08:00 tag:researchut,2010:RiteshRajSarrafsBlog.112 Given the recent switch to a stronger key by everyone, here's mine. The old key that I'll still keep using till I get the new key signed by a good amount of people. pub   1024D/04F130BC 2003-08-18       Key fingerprint = CF0F EDEF 1052 83D2 62A4  0549 E118 62EA 04F1 30BC uid                  Ritesh Raj Sarraf uid                  Ritesh Raj Sarraf uid                  Ritesh Raj Sarraf (NetApp) uid                  [jpeg image of size 52128] sub   1024g/A876BF8F 2003-08-18 sub   4096R/5D93A273 2009-04-25 sub   4096R/7FBB6077 2009-04-25  And here's the new key, that's been duly signed with the above old key. pub   4096R/F00A2BE6 2009-08-06       Key fingerprint = 43DE F582 F9E6 7111 CE00  8917 F2F1 1C23 F00A 2BE6 uid                  Ritesh Raj Sarraf uid                  Ritesh Raj Sarraf uid                  [jpeg image of size 52128] sub   4096R/0B488290 2009-08-06   Given the recent switch to a stronger key by everyone, here's mine.

The old key that I'll still keep using till I get the new key signed by a good amount of people.

pub 1024D/04F130BC 2003-08-18
Key fingerprint = CF0F EDEF 1052 83D2 62A4 0549 E118 62EA 04F1 30BC
uid Ritesh Raj Sarraf <rrs@researchut.com>
uid Ritesh Raj Sarraf <riteshsarraf@users.sourceforge.net>
uid Ritesh Raj Sarraf (NetApp) <rsarraf@netapp.com>
uid [jpeg image of size 52128]
sub 1024g/A876BF8F 2003-08-18
sub 4096R/5D93A273 2009-04-25
sub 4096R/7FBB6077 2009-04-25


And here's the new key, that's been duly signed with the above old key.

pub 4096R/F00A2BE6 2009-08-06
Key fingerprint = 43DE F582 F9E6 7111 CE00 8917 F2F1 1C23 F00A 2BE6
uid Ritesh Raj Sarraf <rsarraf@netapp.com>
uid Ritesh Raj Sarraf <rrs@researchut.com>
uid [jpeg image of size 52128]
sub 4096R/0B488290 2009-08-06

]]> rrs Evolution Newsgroup UI 2009-05-28T11:40:00-08:00 2009-05-29T01:34:00-08:00 tag:researchut,2010:RiteshRajSarrafsBlog.111 I've been using KDE for a while now, probably 9yrs. I've also been an early adopter of KDE 4.x. While KDE 4 is still far way behind in proving its worth of the radical core changes it made (take for example: Nepomuk, Strigi, Phonon, Decibel - I still wonder when they are going to be ready for the *user*), I still find KDE apps far far ahead of GNOME. Probably, many would disagree. Possibly, they might flame me too.I mean everyone supports GNOME as the default - Red Hat/Novell/Ubuntu. And I always wonder WHY. Was it the licensing ? I can't think of anything else. Anyways, why I still think that the GNOME design sucks, I'll give an example. Evolution: Many call it the real killer app for GNOME. Maybe. There's one small feature in Evolution, that I've tried many times and I just feel that it is a UI design with stupidity at its best. The NewsGroup plugin of Evolution. Ever tried ? How fast can you subscribe to newsgroups there. Take these examples. I'd be interested to know how Evolution users subscribe to newsgroups. I personally use leafnode to cache the news contents. In Kontact Knode, when the Gmane newsgroup listing appears, it appears with thousands of newsgroups. But KDE allows me to run a search on that list and find for the relevant newsgroup that I need. Such a basic feature and I wonder what was there in the mind of the GNOME Evolution devs when they were designing that interface. I've been using KDE for a while now, probably 9yrs. I've also been an early adopter of KDE 4.x. While KDE 4 is still far way behind in proving its worth of the radical core changes it made (take for example: Nepomuk, Strigi, Phonon, Decibel - I still wonder when they are going to be ready for the *user*), I still find KDE apps far far ahead of GNOME.

Probably, many would disagree. Possibly, they might flame me too.I mean everyone supports GNOME as the default - Red Hat/Novell/Ubuntu. And I always wonder WHY.

Was it the licensing ? I can't think of anything else. Anyways, why I still think that the GNOME design sucks, I'll give an example.

Evolution: Many call it the real killer app for GNOME. Maybe. There's one small feature in Evolution, that I've tried many times and I just feel that it is a UI design with stupidity at its best. The NewsGroup plugin of Evolution. Ever tried ? How fast can you subscribe to newsgroups there. Take these examples. I'd be interested to know how Evolution users subscribe to newsgroups.

I personally use leafnode to cache the news contents. In Kontact Knode, when the Gmane newsgroup listing appears, it appears with thousands of newsgroups. But KDE allows me to run a search on that list and find for the relevant newsgroup that I need.

Such a basic feature and I wonder what was there in the mind of the GNOME Evolution devs when they were designing that interface.

]]> rrs Compressing Backups 2009-04-03T12:44:00-08:00 2009-04-04T02:41:00-08:00 tag:researchut,2010:RiteshRajSarrafsBlog.110 Once upon a time CPU power was low. In those days, what we have today, was termed to be Super Computers. Thanks to tough competition and great engineering, we now have CPU in the range of Gigahertz and multiple cores. But on  Destkops/Laptops, do we really have applications that utilize the ability of these processors ? So I thought about making these powerful CPUs to do some work. There are different views about Backups. My preference has always been that my backup should be an identical image of my entire OS. That'd include the cache, the packages installed, my personal data, my mail spool et cetera. Given the requirements, my preferred choice of Backups has been LVM Snapshots. And now to add to that is this rrs@champaran:~$ dd if=debian-500-amd64-i386-powerpc-netinst.iso | bzip2 -v > /tmp/bzip.test   (stdin): 965192+0 records in 965192+0 records out 494178304 bytes (494 MB) copied, 291.708 s, 1.7 MB/s  1.058:1,  7.559 bits/byte,  5.51% saved, 494178304 in, 466933711 out. rrs@champaran:~$ du -h debian-500-amd64-i386-powerpc-netinst.iso /tmp/bzip.test 472M    debian-500-amd64-i386-powerpc-netinst.iso 446M    /tmp/bzip.test rrs@champaran:~$ dd if=/tmp/bzip.test | bunzip2 -dc | dd of=/tmp/bzip.uncompress 911979+1 records in 911979+1 records out 466933711 bytes (467 MB) copied, 135.861 s, 3.4 MB/s 965192+0 records in 965192+0 records out 494178304 bytes (494 MB) copied, 136.115 s, 3.6 MB/s rrs@champaran:~$ du -h debian-500-amd64-i386-powerpc-netinst.iso /tmp/bzip.uncompress 472M    debian-500-amd64-i386-powerpc-netinst.iso 472M    /tmp/bzip.uncompress rrs@champaran:~$ md5sum md5sum            md5sum.textutils rrs@champaran:~$ md5sum debian-500-amd64-i386-powerpc-netinst.iso 6c8cdaeaff65741a6fd37366a1ecc1b0  debian-500-amd64-i386-powerpc-netinst.iso rrs@champaran:~$ md5sum /tmp/bzip.uncompress 6c8cdaeaff65741a6fd37366a1ecc1b0  /tmp/bzip.uncompress Now, the thing I need to verify is is wether D-I ships bzip2 utils on the CD. Once upon a time CPU power was low. In those days, what we have today, was termed to be Super Computers.

Thanks to tough competition and great engineering, we now have CPU in the range of Gigahertz and multiple cores. But on Destkops/Laptops, do we really have applications that utilize the ability of these processors ?

So I thought about making these powerful CPUs to do some work.

There are different views about Backups. My preference has always been that my backup should be an identical image of my entire OS. That'd include the cache, the packages installed, my personal data, my mail spool et cetera. Given the requirements, my preferred choice of Backups has been LVM Snapshots.

And now to add to that is this

rrs@champaran:~$ dd if=debian-500-amd64-i386-powerpc-netinst.iso | bzip2 -v > /tmp/bzip.test
(stdin): 965192+0 records in
965192+0 records out
494178304 bytes (494 MB) copied, 291.708 s, 1.7 MB/s
1.058:1, 7.559 bits/byte, 5.51% saved, 494178304 in, 466933711 out.
rrs@champaran:~$ du -h debian-500-amd64-i386-powerpc-netinst.iso /tmp/bzip.test
472M debian-500-amd64-i386-powerpc-netinst.iso
446M /tmp/bzip.test
rrs@champaran:~$ dd if=/tmp/bzip.test | bunzip2 -dc | dd of=/tmp/bzip.uncompress
911979+1 records in
911979+1 records out
466933711 bytes (467 MB) copied, 135.861 s, 3.4 MB/s
965192+0 records in
965192+0 records out
494178304 bytes (494 MB) copied, 136.115 s, 3.6 MB/s
rrs@champaran:~$ du -h debian-500-amd64-i386-powerpc-netinst.iso /tmp/bzip.uncompress
472M debian-500-amd64-i386-powerpc-netinst.iso
472M /tmp/bzip.uncompress
rrs@champaran:~$ md5sum
md5sum md5sum.textutils
rrs@champaran:~$ md5sum debian-500-amd64-i386-powerpc-netinst.iso
6c8cdaeaff65741a6fd37366a1ecc1b0 debian-500-amd64-i386-powerpc-netinst.iso
rrs@champaran:~$ md5sum /tmp/bzip.uncompress
6c8cdaeaff65741a6fd37366a1ecc1b0 /tmp/bzip.uncompress

Now, the thing I need to verify is is wether D-I ships bzip2 utils on the CD.
]]> rrs Crab Mania 2009-03-31T08:56:00-08:00 2009-03-31T22:52:00-08:00 tag:researchut,2010:RiteshRajSarrafsBlog.109 Do you like crabs ?  Have you bitten one ? Or been bitten by one. That'd be the case if they weren't tied. Do you like crabs ?

Have you bitten one ?

Or been bitten by one. That'd be the case if they weren't tied.

]]> rrs Duniya Maange US, US maange us 2005-07-03T11:47:00-08:00 2005-07-04T01:46:00-08:00 tag:researchut,2010:RiteshRajSarrafsBlog.16 This is one good article I always like to read and recommend. It’s about “Why really do the Americans want Indians so desperately” detailed by an American. This is one good article I always like to read and recommend. It’s about “Why really do the Americans want Indians so desperately” detailed by an American.

]]> rrs Go for (a) geek lover(s)! 2005-07-03T11:38:00-08:00 2005-07-04T01:35:00-08:00 tag:researchut,2010:RiteshRajSarrafsBlog.15 This article is one among the many articles proving why geeks are the best men. There are many more available on the net to prove it. But for me, my time hasn’t tickled yet This article is one among the many articles proving why geeks are the best men. There are many more available on the net to prove it. But for me, my time hasn’t tickled yet :-(

]]> rrs Basic RAM Information 2005-07-03T11:32:00-08:00 2005-07-04T01:30:00-08:00 tag:researchut,2010:RiteshRajSarrafsBlog.14 A small amount of research I did before adding more RAM into my laptop. By the end I had ended up with some information which I thought was worth putting up on my website. A small amount of research I did before adding more RAM into my laptop. By the end I had ended up with some information which I thought was worth putting up on my website.

]]> rrs Linux-Nepal 2005-07-03T22:57:00-08:00 2005-07-04T01:23:00-08:00 tag:researchut,2010:RiteshRajSarrafsBlog.13 Linux Nepal is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting GNU/Linux in the kingdom of the Himalayas, Nepal.

Linux Nepal is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting GNU/Linux in the kingdom of the Himalayas, Nepal.

]]> rrs pypt-offline 2005-07-03T10:54:00-08:00 2005-07-04T00:54:00-08:00 tag:researchut,2010:RiteshRajSarrafsBlog.12 My first contribution to FSF. pypt-offline is an offline package manager for Debian and its derivatives. My first contribution to FSF. pypt-offline is an offline package manager for Debian and its derivatives.

]]> rrs Professional Services 2005-07-03T10:48:00-08:00 2005-07-04T00:47:00-08:00 tag:researchut,2010:RiteshRajSarrafsBlog.11 I’m available as a freelance consultant. Here’s a list of services I offer. You can email me for details. I’m available as a freelance consultant. Here’s a list of services I offer. You can email me for details.

]]> rrs Why Debian 2005-06-24T01:45:00-08:00 2005-06-24T14:45:00-08:00 tag:researchut,2010:RiteshRajSarrafsBlog.5 A small talk I gave about Debian and its merits at the ILGUD on 18th of April, 2004. A small talk I gave about Debian and its merits at the ILGUD on 18th of April, 2004.

]]> rrs Compaq Presario 2203 running Debian 2005-08-16T06:09:00-08:00 2005-06-10T21:25:00-08:00 tag:researchut,2010:RiteshRajSarrafsBlog.3 Useful documentation about my notebook, Compaq Presario 2203AL, running Debian documentation about my notebook, Compaq Presario 2203AL, running Debian ]]> rrs