The Savior and The Community

For long, most of the world was ruled by darkness and insecurity. The self proclaimed Saviors rose and perished without making any impact on this world. Many longed for a savior who is yet to be born and save this world from its darkness. The savior as it was desired, will not be born out of big corporate to plunder more from the people who cannot afford, but out of a common man, who was one of them, who understands the pain of the people who expect. And so, the Savior was born and identified by people across nations beyond the differences.

It's the common man who needs him than the financial powerhouses who could afford to spend billions

This savior put a seed for the communities realizing that it's the common man who needs him than the financial powerhouses who could afford to spend billions. This community grew steady and slow, establishing itself firmly driving away the power of darkness and insecurity out of the lives of the ones who touched it and yet some are not convinced that this is the savior.

There are various reasons behind the motivation of this high profile community. For some; it gives them a chance to get what they were lacking for years. For another; it gives them an ideal platform to showcase their intellectual prowess. For some other; it gives them healing for their wounded and broken hearts after years of helpless wandering in humiliations and insults. For some; it gives assurance. For the rest; it gives a fancy feeling to get into it and being treated special.

This millennium thrives on communities. The whole scattered Internet users of previous millennium are getting together as communities. They get closer with someone who lives miles apart, never met, through community. The online community reflects where the people are heading to and what will be the whole of this millennium. The community shares the joy, sorrow, ideas, philosophies and the things that happen to them on their daily life. Among these social communities, friendly communities, religious communities and service communities, there exists another community which is unique and with another noble cause.

This community grew up in a hard way, facing lots of hurdles, temptations, threats and yet, grew in spirits with every newly added soul

This community grew up in a hard way, facing lots of hurdles, temptations, threats and yet, grew in spirits with every newly added soul, giving hopes for millions. The people of this community have a great deal of passion which cannot be crushed by any of the monolith giants. The strength of this community is 'togetherness'. They have same goal though different ways of executing it. This community gives you the freedom which was not found before. But not all loves to be free. Some, despite numerous proofs, stay doubted and unfaithful. Some tried to fork the spirit of the community by their ugly works or ignorance, only to strengthen the bond this community share.

The mistakes are forgiven and corrected instead of condemnation and demolition because the community is all about love and share

The power of this community lies in sharing what they have and by making a collaborative contribution they get close to their goal. This community relies on testimonies of individuals that touch the hearts of the wanted and those in despair without any hopes. It gives you total freedom which you have never experienced before. This community does not condemn or accuse anyone, instead, it values everyone. The mistakes are forgiven and corrected instead of condemnation and demolition because the community is all about love and share. The love of this community cannot be mistaken because of its transparency and openness.

Because of this I am proud to be a part of this community and this community is known as GNU/Linux Community. Each GNU/Linux distribution is built around a certain community. Overall, the communities of different distributions work towards a single goal. To provide a best operating systems for the common man as well as the corporate men. I firmly believe, it will not be so long for people to identify that the savior they are looking for is not yet to come, but is here already: GNU/Linux.

Unlearn before Learn

I often hear people saying that Linux is hard to work on, which make me wonder what they mean by that. For me; a menu, whether being on Top or bottom or on side doesn’t make any sense as long as I am able to communicate to the system in best way and get things done. Also, I see my partitions as drive letters of names does not make any sense since all that I care about is: how safer my files gets saved and how fast can I access those files.

But there are people who are more sentiment about where the menus should appear in their computer and so on. That’s not because it’s the best method in the world, rather it’s just because they got adapted to one way of thinking over the years using a particular operating system. They have learnt to do things in certain way and only in certain way and thus we believe that it is the only way to do things.

I remember my first experience with Macintosh operating system 4 years back when my previous employer bought one G4 for the graphics designer of the newly started sport magazine. I found it weird without any right clicks (at least with the mouse I had) and dragging and dropping the files into the applications. I was using Windows XP as my operating system then. I am so used to do things in Windows way.

I use to think that just because there is no mouse right-click, Macintosh is not a good operating system. But then after spending some time learning, debugging, troubleshooting the system, I got involved in a process of unlearning what I had learnt and re-learn thing in Mac way. Once my learning curve was over, it became really easy to use and I didn’t feel the necessity of having a right click.

Well, my exposure to Mac till date is very brief and short, but I did understand the basic principle of adaptation loud and clear: Unlearn and Re-learn.

When people at times go through my Laptop (openSuSE 10.2 installed with Beryl Window Manager), they enquire about drives (C drive, D drive, etc like in windows) and when they learn that there is no such C drive, D drive under Linux, they feel it’s some sort of beginner level, fancy operating system not serious enough to consider it for their use.

The best approach to get used to Linux for Windows user is: Unlearn your windows ways of thinking and using and re-learn the Linux way of doing. Once you have done that, all your complaints will become irrelevant. One of the major whining I often hear is that Linux does not have Installers like in Windows. Well, I completely disagree to that and in fact, Linux automated installers are much more advanced than windows.

It’s just that Linux Installers does not do it Microsoft way, rather in Linux way. Also in another instance one of my friend asked about disk de-fragmentation tools under Linux. It took some time for me to explain him about the idea behind disk de-fragmentation and why Linux does not require such one.

So, as Linux community I guess we have to put lots of effort for the people to unlearn things first and then re-learn in Linux way.

Let’s do it.
Have nice day. God bless you

Zones

Well, we all fall under some category because Human Beings always live life in certain pattern. It’s hard for most people to break the pattern they have been following for years in the past. It always requires a huge deal of sweat and work for them to get out of a pattern and into some other pattern.

We can also call those patterns or category as Zones. The below are the generalized zones:

Zone 1: Risk taking
The people in this zone take do or die approach. They just hate being someone to follow others. These people when succeed, end up being fame and leading example. For them, it’s all about “I was there first” than “I too was there” or “I don’t want to be there unless everyone is there”.

These people make a huge deal of innovative contributions to the World by inventing something at some point of their life. God knows when we will invent telephones if Alexander Graham Bell didn’t choose to be in Zone 1.

Zone 2: Early Adapters
Then there is a small crowd who are early adapters of inventions. These people don’t invent anything, but are willing to use the inventions at their early stages in their life and provides their feedbacks based upon the usage. These people are essential for an invention to reach bigger audience.

The early Linux adapters who used it, tested it, provided constant feedback to the kernel developers, desktop manager developers falls into this zone. They were not inventors, but gave

Zone 3: Safety Adapters
This third group has large population of people. Most of the Linux users at this point fall into this zone. These people watch the happenings around them, when they find something shaping nice and when they feel confident about certain things, they start using it.

These people do not get actively involved in shaping up the products, but they use it for their daily needs, but they do contribute to the invention by sharing their troubles, looking for solutions and thus helping the invention moving from Geek environment to a balanced environment (shedding Geek feeling attached to it for years).

Zone 4: Followers
The people who fall under this 4th group are in bulk. Their sole principle in life is ‘never risk life coz you don’t get to live again in case things goes wrong’. They will never consider alternatives unless the alternatives itself becomes main stream. This is the audience the Linux community aiming to reach. If Linux reaches this audience, then the task is complete. This is where Microsoft is placed right now over the years.

Zone 5: Deaf, dumb and mute
This is an almost extinct group where exists certain people who by accident tried out something, satisfied with it and stop exploring and persist staying with it. Certain windows users come to my mind who still use Windows 98, Office 97, etc… Fortunately people under this zone is very less, almost close to be extinct, but importantly they do exists.

As you can see, it’s not that you can never get out of one zone and join another, it’s just that this is what we normally are; someone in any of these zones. We don’t live life completely out of nowhere. So it’s all about shaping a product best enough for people of various zone thing about using that product because they feel its in their zone. It takes time, but tell me which product clicks just out of factory? Time is always required for anything.

Let’s present people with best Linux and let them decide whether it has reached their zone for them to use it.

Have nice day.

Daily Life with Linux

Well, I am going to tell why Linux is perfect Desktop solution through my daily usage. First, let me explain my daily routine when it comes to personal need.
Daily Needs

I need to get connected with my chat buddies around the world who will be in either Yahoo or MSN.

I need to write my daily blogs, prepare my HLD for the projects I am working on, some UML diagrams during that process.

I need to edit some photographs and do some color alterations to make it brighter and better.

I need to download videos through Torrent network.

I need to listen to music while I am working.

I watch downloaded videos.

I need to work on HTML, Perl and SQL for my persona project.

I need to burn the downloaded contents in DVDs to keep it outside my hard drive to view later.

And finally,

I need to manage my e-mails and surf the internet.

Applications that I Use

Well, now let me see the applications I use for these under Linux.

To get connected with my chat buddies who use Yahoo and or MSN, I use Kopte which comes with my Novell forked KDE (and of course its nothing to do with Novell, it comes with KDE in fact).

To write my daily blogs I use OpenOffice’s Write application and use odf format to save files.

For UML I use AgroUML.

To edit photo graphs and images, I have two best choices in Krita and GIMP, but I use GIMP for its rich choices.

To download and share documentaries and other videos I use Azureus: Java BitTorrent Client which I installed through Yast.

To listen to music, what else best choice can I ask for other than Amarok? I maintain 120 GB of my music collection with Amarok and it’s incredible.

To watch Movies and downloads Videos, I have plenty of applications under Linux. I have Xine, Kaffeine, Totem, RealPlayer, VLC Media Player to name a few. I currently use Kaffeine and VLC Media Player alternatively.

For HTML, Perl work, I use BlueFish editor and for SQL, I use MySQL and Apache as my personal web server. MySQL GUI Administration, Query Manager can be downloaded from the MySQL WebSite as RPM and installed to be used with the MySQL Services.

To burn DVD/CD’s I use a wonderful application called K3B. I can’t ask for more, I was using Nero for long time when I was in Windows, but now I love K3B and my Linux for past 5 months since I’ve moved to Linux completely.

To manage e-mails, I have vast choices, but I preferred Evolution from Novel since I guess I feel comfortable with it more than other clients (I’ve used Thunderbird before).

To browse Internet, I use Mozilla Firefox which is the best browser I’ve seen till date (including in Windows platform).

Well, now tell me, except for the PC Games (I am not a serious gamer anyway, but I do appreciate gaming companies consider Linux seriously for their future releases), tell me what do I lack?

Oh yeah… I’ve forgotten to mention Anti-Virus, Anti-Spam software’s… Ouch!!! I forgot for an instance that I am using Linux (Not that it’s 100% robust, but it allows me to work without worrying about viruses by nature, but then it’s my choice whether I want to spend money deliberately and keep my old windows habits); and yeah, I don’t do the annoying de-fragmentation under Linux since Linux file systems are far more advanced and brilliant than windows counterpart.

As of now, I don’t do much Video editing, but I’ve already read about plenty of options under Linux, I will be trying out few in coming days.

Seriously: pick up your favourite distribution (my favourite: openSuSE 10.2 with KDE) , move to Linux (any leading community based Linux will do, for instance apart from openSUSE, there is Ubuntu the leading desktop linux and then Fedora from RedHat community), and live trouble-free life with your computer.

Have a great day.

Linux Education

I often get baffled by people’s curiosity, suspicion and definitely the myth that Linux is harder than Windows in everything (In installation, usage and manageability). There exists certain amount of people who have heard about Linux, but never believed that Linux had advanced into better GUI than Windows long back. Long once they had tried Linux and were driven away from it with bad taste in their mouth because of its lifeless GUI and complex installations.

I have to swear at least 10 times to convince them that Linux has become a lot easier to use these days, in fact, managing a Linux box is of less worry and a lot easier than managing Windows. People never got convinced until I show my Laptop with Compiz and Beryl effects along with the wonderful default GUI my Linux box offers.

The second area where I catch people by surprises is the Antivirus section. I feel pity with people spend money on all that anti-virus software’s starting from Norton till Kaspersky to protect their PC and still live insecure while Linux offers maximum protection right out of box. Also, I get baffled by people saying that with right way of configuration, Windows is more secured than Linux. Here I am talking about protection right out of box without doing anything to it. Apart from that, Linux distributions have their own firewalls which I am sure much better than what their windows counterparts offer and then Application guard.

I dare any windows users to disable the anti-virus, firewall in their Windows box and put it connected to Internet for 48 hours and prove their windows is much better than my Linux box which is online for past 10 days non-stop without any firewall (I had to switch it off because of my need) or anti-virus. I am not saying Linux is completely out of virus attack, but definitely not as prone as Windows.

More importantly, people just don’t get that it’s not because of the popularity, but because of the architecture fault that Windows is much vulnerable than Linux. Also I get tickled by people’s validation that Vista is much secured because of few dialogs that pops up before you try installing anything. Frankly, I get annoyed with those dialogs getting popped up at least 10 times during my installation of same program. Linux (or a Mac in fact) does intelligent stuff in this regard which I am damn sure windows can never do that.

Next, I am amazed by one stop shop facility that Linux community offers regarding application installations. I just have to re-direct my Yast to the repositories maintained by the Vendor or 3^rd party and select the apps I need to get installed, the rest of the things will be done without me have to do anything about it. Adding to the existing application management, I have one personal request to RedHat that not to make RHX just for RedHat distributions or at least someone put effort to set up a online market place for Linux products (for all popular distributions) which can be downloaded and installed through package managers, for commercial (if commercial, unlike windows products, reasonable price appreciated) or not-paid.

Regarding painful installers in Linux: Don’t ***ing tell me Windows does not have too many installers. That’s because you never looked around to see the windows installers. Definitely Windows applications comes with all dependencies to avoid looking for the dependencies somewhere else, but I like the Linux way because it educates me to really know I am doing. I am sure 80% of the Windows users have no idea about libraries. You may argue that it’s none of your business, but then I have simple answer: Let god save you from yourself. Though complicated if you are new, I feel Linux way of installing applications are way better than windows because it don’t let anyone install apps by accident. You know for sure that you need that before installing in Linux.

Finally, against the complaint against too many distributions under linux; which version of Vista are you planning to buy buddy? At least I don’t get crippled versions of the same product under different names (Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium, etc etc). We have only one product and we offer it just like that and the choices we have are real choices (openSuSE, Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, Linspire, etc) which are not crippled versions of same products, but full products in different ways by different vendors.

I hope I have educated you a little today.

Have great day. God Bless You.

Get Your Acts Straight

In all those articles I have read about Linux and it’s latest improvements, developments; one frustrating thing I come across over and over is, their desperate steps to defeat Windows. Hello people out there, let’s focus on creating a best Desktop or most powerful Server rather than getting into these war, trying to wipe out Windows or Microsoft products.

I believe that if you want to defeat your rival, the only way to do so is, become successful despite the stiff competition and rivalry. The more you focus on the rival, the more you get into these comparisons and the more you try to overcome the differences, the more you become imitative. Well, I guess we don’t want an operating system which imitates Windows or Microsoft products; rather, we need a good operating system which performs amazingly and give what we want.

I personally feel that, beyond a level, having glossy and shiny Desktops/User Interfaces (for example Aero effects of Vista) is pure trash since the ultimate goal of having a good and secured personal computer gets lost. I prefer an effective, secure operating system which runs on most of the hardware, occupying minimal resources and is fast.

What am I going to do with my Aero effects in long run? Come on, in first place, why do I need to invest 128MB Video Ram for an operating system? I rather invest those for my Games, which is most required or for some 3D rendering applications.

I suggest to get your acts together to give a best operating system rather than fancy operating system. However, I don’t mind my operating system being a bit stylish (if it takes minimal resource), something like SUSE Linux Desktop 10.1 with KDE Interface and Compiz effects, but I guess beryl effects such as special effects on minimizing windows, etc are too much distractive.

Thus, the time spent for fancy user interface can be spent on something more productive and making the operating system more simple (getting rid of geeky feeling out of it, I mean, definitely it has come long way out of the geeky look, but still it has to improve in certain areas) and more powerful.

All the best for those efforts,

Adios.