Irfan’s Corner on the Web On Mac, Linux, Grid, Virtualization and Software Technology

22Jun/0710

KDE’s default sound system is in the stone ages!

In in Software terms it is! And let me explain why.

KDE's default sound subsystems, aRts (Analog realtime synthesizer) has been part of KDE since ages. I really appreciate the quality of lots of software it comes with, however aRts is a real disappointment. Since Windows 98 I believe MS Windows's sound system had the capability of running multiple sound streams at the same time, this is 2007, and one of the most popular window managers for Linux lacks this capability.

I was yesterday running an online video conferencing application, based on Java, and due to some bandwidth issue it wasn't going so well. So I logged into Skype, and guess what? Skype couldn't open the sound device, because it was already engaged by the Java application, hence I could run only one sound application at once. I've been aware of this problem since ages, from a previous Slackware 9.0 experience, however when I encountered the problem again yesterday I was both surprised and shocked how this problem could have gone unaddressed since ages. It turns out that since Dec 2004 development on aRts has been abandoned.

And if your wondering? No! There are many sound subsystems for Linux, which do not have this problem, you can run Amarok on Xine, and play some DVD movies on Xine at the same time, and you'll face no problem or you can run two instances of mplayer without any issue, however mplayer is an application. And there is no way

Fortunately, in the next major KDE release aRts will be replaced by an engine which makes it easier use more capable backends like Xine. In the meantime while KDE 4.0 is not out, we have to bear with aRts!

Filed under: kde, linux, open source 10 Comments
17Dec/064

Free OpenSuse 10.2 DVDs

From the last few posts you can easily see how much I've come to love openSuse 10.2. Many geeks in Pakistan unfortunately don't have access to highspeed internet to download openSuse 10.2 DVD, and only old Fedora and Redhat 9 are available in the local market, using older distros discourages people fomr switching to Linux. So I've started a mini-campaign to spread openSuse in Pakistan, I'll be 'shipping' 100 DVDs intially and over a period of 1 month, and seeing how well it goes. I could scale up with a little help.

I would love to write the ISO image of the DVD so that someone can burn a copy for their friends.

If you are in Pakistan and are interested in trying out openSuse 10.2, please mail your address to freesuse@phantomos.org

Filed under: FOSS, industry news, kde, linux, open source, operating systems, software 4 Comments
17Dec/067

OpenSuse completely supports my Notebook!

Good news for Dell Inspiron Users: Your notebook is completely supported in OpenSuse 10.2

You can check out these tutorials for getting ubuntu run on Dell Inspiron and this one for Fedora. What do both have in common? Massive manual configuration encompassing kernel recompilations and what not.
However in OpenSuse 10.2, I didnt have to do any special configuration at all to get my hardware running. OpenSuse 10.1 supported everything except the MMC card reader (from Ricoh). Now this is supportedd aswell.

However one thing that is not supported is hardly openSuse's fault: The Connexant Modem. Connexant Modems are notorious for their proprietory hardware standards and focus on the Windows users! Besides I hardly use a dialup connection so this is irrelevant for me. For those reader who do use dial-up connections, I would suggest that you get those cheap external modems (hardly $30).

Ubuntu came to fame purely through marketting and hype! I believe that OpenSuse is the better Desktop/Notebook distro and without any proportional marketting/advocacy large parts of the human population will be deprieved of the 'better' Linux. I personally will soon get a pack of DVD's and spread it amongst my friends.

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Filed under: FOSS, industry news, kde, linux, open source, operating systems, software 7 Comments
10Dec/0611

SuSe takes over my Desktop!

Since yesterday I've been evaluating SuSe, and I'm pretty impressed by the distro. It's not the first time I've used SuSe, I used it before Novell acquired it. It was one of the best one at that time, but not ready for the Desktop. After the Novell acquisition I think SuSe has improved greatly! It's an awesome distribution now. However the desktop installation did not go as smoothly as that installation on my laptop. I had to manually configure my soundcard, with alsaconf, that's it.

Now, I don't believe that noobs should use SuSe/Fedora etc. straight when they dive into Linux, yes these distributions make a life a lot simpler with Linux, but I believe that you dont learn much about GNU/Linux, the platform, while you are using these distros. For example, since I have installed SuSe I haven't as of yet needed to compile anything from the sources, and just used YaST. So if some software is not available there some noobs who could think that, that software is just not available on Linux, they will not learn about how to find software from sourceforge and compile it, handle dependencies, or if something is wrong with the graphics settings, how to change to xorg.conf file and make the appropriate changes, or if there some problems with iptables, how to delete/add rules manually. One experience I had with a noob, who was a fedora user, was when he had problems with his networking, and he was testing settings in the GUI tool which ships with Fedora/redhat. I investigated using the ifconfig and route tool, and found out there were problems with the gateway routing rules, within the next few seconds I fixed them. In Slackware there is no GUI tool for networking configurations, and you mostly use either the netconfig script or the ifconfig/route commands to get your network working. Using raw distros like Slackware/Gentoo hence has enormous advantages, and I believe every Linux user should use it atleast once to learn the platform.

Filed under: kde, linux, open source, operating systems 11 Comments
   

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