Setting up appliances - the new way

 Posted on February 20, 2017  |  3 minutes  |  486 words  |  Ritesh Raj Sarraf

I own a Fitbit Surge. But Fitibit chose to remain exclusive in terms of interoperability. Which means to make any sense out of the data that the watch gathers, you need to stick with what Fitbit mandates. Fair enough in today’s trends. It also is part of their business model to restrict useful aspects of the report to **Premium Membership. **Again, fair enough in today’s business' trends. But a nice human chose to write a bridge; to extract Fitbit data and feed into Google Fit. [Read More]
fitbit  pip  python  linux containers  systemd-nspawn 

Micro DD meetup

 Posted on July 20, 2015  |  3 minutes  |  621 words  |  Ritesh Raj Sarraf

A couple of us DDs met here on the weekend. It is always a fun time, being part of these meetings. We talked briefly about the status of Cross Compilation in Debian, on the tools that simplify the process. Next we touched upon licensing, discussing the benefits of particular licenses (BSD, Apache, GPL) from the point of view of the consumer. The consumer being an individual just wanting to use/improve software, to a consumer who’s building a (free / non-free) product on top of it. [Read More]
linux containers  lxc  systemd  systemd-nspawn  machinectl 

Linux Containers and Productization

 Posted on December 26, 2014  |  3 minutes  |  595 words  |  Ritesh Raj Sarraf

Linux has improved many many things over the last couple of years. Of the many improvements, the one that I’ve started leveraging the most today, are Control Groups. In the past, when there was a need to build a prototype for a solution, we needed hardware. Then came the virtualization richness to Linux. It came in 2 major flavors, KVM ( Full Virtualization ) and Xen ( Para Virtualization ). Over the years, the difference of para vs full, for both the implementations, is almost none. [Read More]
docker  lxc  linux containers  virtualization 

Linux Desktop in 2014

 Posted on December 26, 2014  |  7 minutes  |  1348 words  |  Ritesh Raj Sarraf

We are almost at the end of 2014. While 2014 has been a year with many mixed experiences, I think it does warrant one blog entry ;-) Recently, I’ve again started spending more time on Linux products / solutions, than spending time focused on a specfic subsystem. This change has been good. It has allowed me to re-cap all the advancements that have happened in the Linux world, umm… in the last 5 years. [Read More]
linux  kernel  desktop  linux containers