Good Bye Mandriva

I'm planning to leave Mandriva and change it with Slackware 10.1, since it had many trouble in the latest version, that should be better than the previous version. I can't browse anywhere and the last problem that i had is the PHP isn't working. I don't know what happened, since i used the same methods as i usually build PHP, but today perhaps is my bad day. Tonight it will be changed to Slackware.

Laptop Battery Monitoring

I have been searching for an application that can be used to monitor battery in laptop, since i need a good indicator for my battery, especially if i was travelling. In my Windows, it's available by default, but not in Linux. I have been trying to find some Linux application and found some good one, but i'm testing it right now. Let's hope i will find the best one.

Kernel 2.6.12-rc6

The next kernel version, 2.6.12 will contains a lot of new bug fixes. I can see it from the latest changelog for this version. It's rc6, can you imagine that? It's not unusuall for the kernel to reach Release Candidate 6 before it was published as the final kernel. Let's hope the final kernel 2.6.12 will be available soon and it's quite stable enough, just as the 2.6.11.11 (i haven't tried 2.6.11.12 yet).

Kernel 2.6.11.11 Installed

Finally i made up my mind and install the latest kernel version, 2.6.11.11 on my laptop and it worked. I follow Patrick J. Volkerding's advice and documentation included in Slackware 10.1 and do the tricks and it ended with a big success. I have also made some short article ("Installing Kernel on Slackware") explaining how to install kernel 2.6.x on Slackware. For those who want to install kernel 2.6 on Slackware, you can use that article as your guide. Please feel free to give your comments, critics, or suggestion to my emails.

Dare to Upgrade?

My friend in Jogja Linux User Group has sentenced that it was easy to upgrade from kernel 2.4.x into 2.6.x in Slackware. I was quite suprised, since i thought the process will be much more harder. Perhaps Patrick has made them easy with the use of the pkgtool. The only question is do i dare to upgrade to kernel 2.6.x? Not in the mean time. I have to make sure that everything will be OK before i do such process.

Drag n Drop Tabs on 1.1

Opera has a nifty feature that can reorder the tabs by using drag n drop. Firefox lack of this, but soon it will be available in the next Firefox 1.1 release, which i don't know yet. Here is another feature, taken from Gemal's blog :

"Another really cool and important checkin is the landing of the groundwork for the new Software Update Service. The new Software Update Service will support binary patching and I think it's based on bsdiff and bspatch. This will allow Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird to be updated with security patches without having to download an entire new version. It will be possible to apply patches. Great work from Ben Goodger, Benjamin Smedberg and Darin Fisher."

I have been looking for this feature since my Internet connection is rather slow, so download the full file would take a long time.

New OpenSource Community

One of my lecturer has tried to start a new OpenSource community on my campuss and i attended on their biweekly meetings to join up and see if i can be any help. They have good motivations to learn about GNU/Linux, even though using text mode. That's a nice start. Good work and keep it up guys.

Addicted To Fiction Novel

In the last two weeks, i have been addicted to Fiction Novel, especially to Dan Brown's novel, The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, Digital Fortress, and Deception Points (i'm reading it right now). It was a great novel and i love it, even though it brought some controversial theory within. I have collected them all and i can't wait for his next novel.

Object Oriented Programming

Starting today, i will be a practical assistant on Object Oriented Programming Class in my campuss. I worked with Setia Budi and we have 8 class in each week. We have prepared the modules and today was our first class. It uses Java for the primary language and i hope we can make the students understand what OOP is.

Upgrading Kernel on Slackware

Yesterday i tried to do my first experiment on upgrading kernel to my Slackware. I have downloaded all kernel 2.4.30 packages (kernel-ide, kernel-modules, kernel-headers, kernel-source) and also alsa-driver for the same kernel version from Slackware Package Browser website. It's not the latest version though, since the last kernel version for 2.4 version is 2.4.31, which has just been released few days ago. It will show up in the list in the next few weeks, after the Slackware developer customize the kernel package in order to make some changes so it suited to Slackware.

Here is what i did yesterday :
- make a backup copy of /etc/lilo.conf in case anything bad happened
- install all kernel package and alsa-driver using pkgtool (not UPGRADE)
- go to /boot and make sure vmlinuz pointing to the new kernel
- check the /etc/lilo.conf and check if it was correct
- run /sbin/lilo -v to make a lilo's changes permanent
- reboot (and pray)
- do some testing and check for kernel version with uname -a in konsole
- remove the old kernel package using pkgtool (do not use removepkg, since there are 2 version of kernel installed on your systems)

Can't wait for the next kernel arrives at Slackware's website.

Last Version of Knoppix

Knoppix 3.9 has been released with updates to Kernel, KDE 3.4, and also OpenOffice.org 2.0 BETA (German and English) and also all software upgrades from Debian packages, but the bad news is it will be the last version of Knoppix, since in the future, it will be split into a "Light" CD version, and a "Maxi" DVD release. For now, enjoy the latest version of Knoppix.

Star Wars on TV

Starting yesterday, there will be Star Wars episode on one of our local TV station every Friday (except for the newest episode, Episode 3). My Friday night schedule has to be cancelled, since i don't want to be disturbed. Can't wait for the next friday for Episode 5.

Office 12 and New Formats

Microsoft's next Office Suite, codename Office 12 will use new formats for their default file formats and it will use XML-based format. The new Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats will be designated as .docx, .xlsx and .pptx , respectively. Microsoft is referring to the family of new formats as "Microsoft Office Open XML Formats."

For users of older versions of Office — specifically Office 2000, Office 2003 and Office XP — Microsoft will make available software downloads that will allow them to read, edit and save using the new file formats. Microsoft also plans to release a conversion tool that will allow users to point to files in an older format and convert them en masse to the new Office 12 XML format.

The problem is "Will OOo able to read and modify the content of the next format of MS Office?" I'm looking forward to see this happening in the next OOo major release (perhaps OOo 2.2.x ?) since MS Office 12 will be launched next year.

MySQL Problem Solved

Finally MySQL is running well on my new Slackware. I missed the permission on the database directory (mysql). After a little chmod and chown, MySQL works perfectly. New problem arises when i want to access MySQL via web browser. I'm installing phpMyAdmin, a web-based application to manage the MySQL and when i loaded the index.php page, it displays an error message saying that MySQL Socket is not configured or something like that.

The main problem is the location of mysql.sock file in PHP configuration is different with the actual location. In PHP, it should be located on /tmp/mysql.sock, but in reality, it is located on /var/run/mysql.sock. The solution is to recompile PHP with another options '--with-mysql=/usr' '--with-mysql-sock=/var/run/mysql.sock'. After compiling, configuring, and installing PHP, restart Apache and reload your browser. It will display the correct page.

Touchpad On Slackware

My touchpad isn't working on my Slackware. My friend told me about a site that tried to discuss this. I shall try this and see if it works. Thanks to Agung from Jogja LUG mailing list.