What Should I Use?

There will always be a long debate if there's a discussion about "What kind of software should i use?" because each side gave their advantage for their own side. But i just read in Newsforge a good article about "Why proprietary software is dangerous for business-critical applications". It's not meant to blame proprietary or just use open source as the solution, but at least, you will get an idea what will happen in the future if you are too dependent on a proprietary software. Well, the advantage is that you will get support for it, but as long as you paid for the license and if they were merged or bought by other bigger vendor and they didn't care about the old version, then you will have a nightmare until you get the new system or migrate to other system.

How Much Needed

In some forums or mailing list, i often found a question "How much virtual memory is needed on my system?". It's hard to answer this as nowadays, you can easily build a system with 2 GB of RAM (or more) and the old rule to use 2x RAM will not be efficient anymore (then you will have a 4 GB of SWAP partition). If you have some quite time, then i suggest to read this discussion at Slashdot. It's a very very very long discussion about this and take a look at the answers given by other people. At the end of discussion, perhaps you will find better information about this topic.

TranslationPage Is Syncronized

After a long wait, finally the translation page for Mandriva Linux l18n Project is now syncronized with the CVS and SVN services. There has been a long request by many translator who works on this, as they always get the old status. Right now, Mandriva developers tried to inform what changes has been made to the PO files on the mailing list and it will be updated in the page also, so it does work right now. They already link http://svn.mandriva to some other developments links, such as CVS service, SVN service, bugzilla, and Wiki pages. Nice :D

Recover Your Deleted Files

I have seen some questions about "How do i recover my deleted files in GNU/Linux?" Well, it's not a simple question to answer, since most of the time, your file isn't recoverable if you are using GNU/Linux. If you use ext2, you might have a chance to recover it by using third party tool. If you are using other file systems, you might want to read this article. He uses TestDisk and PhotoRec to recover your files. It's not guarranted that your files will be recovered perfectly, but at least give it a try. Please note that it's better to use other harddisk to try to recover your deleted files, or it will be overwritten by your other data and it will totally unrecoverable.

Finishing MCF

I'm not talking about Multimedia Container Format or Meta Content Framework, but i'm talking about Mystery Case File, a fun pc game that i have just finished last night and this morning. I knew this game from my girlfriend when i went back to Jogja few weeks ago and i copied the game from her. I played it for 2 days and yesterday, i finally finished the first one, MCF Prime Suspect.

After watching MU match at TV7 (MU wins yeahh...), i continued to played the second version, MCF Huntsville. This version was a lot simpler then the first one as you don't have to look for batteries and no dark room, but you will have more limited time to complete each levels. It also contains less levels (15 compared to 20 in MCF Prime Suspect). I played this game until 4 am this morning and finally i beat it. Here are the screenshots after i finish the game.

Happy Birthday Linux

Linux is now 15 years old and it was born by Linus Torvalds when he was a college students in 1991. It was only a small project and now, it has been developed by hundreds of people around the world to provide the most stable, flexible and secure linux kernel available. Here's his message when he introduced Linux for the first time:

"Hello everybody out there using minix -

I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since April, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).

I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months, and I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-)

Linus (torva...@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

PS. Yes - it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT portable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(. "

Right now, it's not a small anymore and it's huge project. A lot of vendors have tried to contribute to make their product runs smoothly in any GNU/Linux distro. Not only that, even big vendors such as HP is willing to gave their product to support the Linux kernel developments. Everybody is enjoying the development of Linux kernel.

Happy Birthday Linux!!!
Without you, there won't be any Slackware Linux that i like :D

Slackware 11.0 RC3

If Microsoft has just released IE 7.0 RC1, then Slackware also just released Slackware 11.0 RC3. It was one of the biggest updates i ever had besides previous updates due to upgraded libpng library which caused all application to be recompiled. This time, Pat has decided to more 2.6.17.11 from /testing to /extra, which means, it will be the default kernel series supported in the next Slackware release along with 2.4.33.2 (after being patched by Pat to read the new kernel naming in 2.4.x series). The complete changelog can be seen in Slackware's official website.

Lots and lots of application has been upgraded to the most stable and (hopefully) updated version for now, but wait... It's not the last RC probably as there will still a chance for another RC. Just wait and see...

Re-upgrade Again

Yesterday i have downloaded 2.6.17.10 kernel which contains some bug fix which related to security. Last night i installed that kernel and this morning i saw another updates to the -stable kernel again, which was 2.6.17.11. This updates also contains quite a lot of fixes and most of them have major impact if it matches the system architechture (some of the fixes are spesific to certain architechture). I have download this kernel version and if i don't have lot to do tonight, i will re-upgrade my kernel version.

Upgrading kernel itself is not a difficult one. The problem is time. In my laptop, all upgrade process will take approximately 1 hours (including editing lilo, rebooting, re-installing NVidia driver, and testing the kernel itself). but luckily, most of them can be done automatically (installation process). Only some part should be done manually. Waiting for the next kernel release (2.6.18).

Microsoft Office in Linux??

In DetikInet, i saw a news which stated that Microsoft is predicted to start working on Microsoft Office which runs on GNU/Linux platform in the next two years. IMHO, i'm quite agreed with this. Microsoft Office is one of their biggest product and it gaves a lot of revenue to Microsoft. I'm not sure whether they want to make it running on GNU/Linux platform, as they will lose alot of money from Microsoft Office itself.

Besides, Microsoft uses their own proprietary format which limits many people when they want to open other product to open their own files, such as OpenOffice.org even they had created odf-converter to convert between each files. I don't think many people who have used to work with OOo will like this idea, unless Microsoft is willing to use OpenDocument Format as their default format.

Other problem is that Microsoft Office is very close with Windows and it will make interoperability is very hard to be done even with optimized Wine, just like Picasa. You will have an instable product or inconsistent product. But, if Microsoft is willing to do so, then it surely a good news. Let's just wait and see for the next big issue :D

Back to Jakarta

After 7 hours of travelling via train (plus 1 hour of delay), finally i'm back to Jakarta. The trip was quite fun as i went with my colleague and we had some talk on the train. We also watched some movies on the train (The Medallion and the other one i forgot the name). There was an incident when we were on the train. Some local people (perhaps children) threw a stone into our train and it damaged the glass and it cracked. The first threw only hit the body of the train but the second one managed to get the passengers who was sitting on the seat surprised, as she brought her son and he was sleeping. After being cleaned up, they go to sit again.

After arriving at Gambir, i tooked a cab and go to the office to syncronize all of my work while i'm in Jogja and do some updates on my laptop. Finally, i have to get some rest or i'll be knocked out tommorrow :D

Coming Back to Jakarta

Tommorow, i will go back to Jakarta again after quite a long holiday in Jogja. I will leave at 8.53 AM by train and i will arrive at Jakarta at 16 PM approximately. I have spent a lot of time visiting new places (mostly i spent on Plaza Ambarukmo) or places which i haven't visit for a long time since my last visit. Well, today i had a lot of activities and tonight i will prepare myself for tommorow. It will be quite a long trip travelling to Jakarta by train :D

Slackware 11.0 RC2

Today Pat has announced the Slackware 11.0 RC2, which comes with an updated kernel and also some other packages, such as slackpkg and pkgconfig. The kernel changes is that Pat decided to switched the default kernel to use sata.i which supports both parallel and serial ATA, which is the most widely used interface in storage devices. He recompiled most of the directory for the next Slackware 11.0 installation to reference to the new one. I hope it will be better, although we will not see any graphical improvement on the installer just like Debian or Gentoo which provide a new graphical installer. Slackware will (and i think it will always) use the ncurses-based installer which is fast, but works. That's what i like about Slackware. Not too much nitty gritty stuffs, but it simply works, robust, and stable.

In this second release, Pat will freeze any changes, unless bugs (or irresistible upgrades) or even security fixes. I can't wait to see the next Slackware 11.0 released by Pat :D

Two Earthquakes

This morning, when i was reading a comic book at 00:40, an earthquake struct Jogja again. It happened again at 4 AM, but i was sleeping, so i didn't know about it. It wasn't quite big, only 3,7 and 2.x but it's enought to make people panic, as it happened after midnight and when sun hasn't rosen up. You can see the news at Detik

No Days Without Updates

In the last two weeks, Slackware-current changelog is very busy with changes. Some of them are just typo or small mistakes, but the rest is a list of upgraded or patched packages in order to give better stability and security of the next Slackware release. Pat has decided to label the current status as Release Candidate 1 and it means that it will ship in short time. Slackware release date is not scheduled nor published in some kind of roadmap or schedule plan. Pat will decide it's release date when he think his creation is ready and stable enough to hit the public as he is very concern about security and stability on his great product. Most people who has used Slackware will be glad to hear that there will be another release for Slackware (including me), but those who are using -current will see not so much surprises as -current reflects the latest snapshots of the next Slackware release (and this is what i used right now, so i had to updates tons of updates everyday in the last two weeks, due to rapidly changing changelogs). Some of them were skipped due to slow Internet connection at my home, and i will leave it until i got back to Jakarta. It's only KDENetwork and KDEBASE. As for KDENetwork, it's ok for me to skip this package, as i don't use Kopete for my messaging client. I used Gaim and i'm quite OK with it. And for KDEBASE, i don't have any problem so far when i'm using Slackware and loaded KDE as my window manager, so i think it's ok to postponed this packages. PHP package was not so very important also, as i usually download it from PHP.net directly and compiled it by myself.

Well, i think until Slackware 11.0 is released, there will be no days without updates. Stay tuned at the changelogs :D

WiFI in PA

Today i went to Plaza Ambarukmo again with my mother and my girlfriend. We went shopping for about 6 hours (that was a record for me as i never go shopping for this long before). When we had lunch at Red Bean, i noticed that they have a WiFI facility on the food court, so if you like to go to PA and have a lunch at the food court (or someplace near the food court), you could have access to the Internet also. I'm not sure whether it's a free facility or you should pay some money to use it, but i think they provide them also.

Other place that provide WiFI connection is at Centro. They had a small cafe at the back and they provide free WiFI connection on it, but i'm not sure about the speed as i didn't bring my laptop today (i don't know if they provide WiFI on it). Hohoho... Prepare for legal war driving :D