The Story of My Experiments with Linux-II

So, finally I found an almost perfect Linux laptop. I admit I had my doubts initially before buying this machine, but when I finally decided to take the plunge, it turned out to be worth it. A Dell Inspiron 3437. It is almost perfect as it does not feature an Intel WiFi card. The rig comes with an Nvidia GeForce 720m. I would have much rather preferred a 740m, but then in India, this is as close to perfection as it can be.

 

What the laptops does have is:

 

• Core i5 4200- U
• 4 GB Ram DDR3 clocked at 1600 Mhz
• and 4-5 hours of battery life.

This is pretty much awesome I think.

Now, Dell has a history of ruining Windows OS with their own bloatware. I thought maybe Linux would escape unscathed. On the contrary it was even worse. They had not only bloated it, but ruined it!

How?

Well, with the proprietary OEM drivers for WiFi. The driver registered with the kernel as a module. So, as soon as I pulled a kernel upgrade, wham! The WiFi stopped working as the previously installed module was not compatible with the current kernel. And, that was the end of the story.

I obviously, had to reformat the whole laptop, but this time to my satisfaction. Moreover, instead of the buggy Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, this time I installed Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander. I can’t ever recall a LTS version I have hated more than 12.04. Everything will break down eventually if you are using 12.04. Stuff works so much more smoothly in 13.10. Moreover, 13.10 contains updated builds of almost every package. If you are not using these, you are literally left out. To say 12.04 wasn’t properly planned or was overly ambitious and presumptuous would be a gross understatement. I almost considered switching from Ubuntu to maybe Linux Mint or Debian-unstable.

Now, that I am using 13.10, I am loving it. As of now, I am running a MySQL server and a self-programmed Web Crawler on my machine since this past week. Needless to say, the machine response is pretty much awesome. The CPU usage is hardly 5 per cent.

I do have a plan to push the CPU usage to 100% by using a brute force decryption tool. But that is a story reserved for some another day.

PS: I still hate Unity, but have learned to admire it for its ability to not break even when hell cometh over. I still wish to try Xfce though, but then, since, I am using my Linux machine as a development platform, my willingness to experiment has diminished in favour of stability. I need my machine to be available. I still have my fun, and a couple of scripts up my sleeve, which I will share soon.

The Story of My Experiments with Linux

 

Almost 4 years ago, I started playing with Linux. I started with Red Hat but it wasn’t long before I switched to Ubuntu. It was the summer of 2009. A good one. I still have fond memories of that time.

 

I have for the most part self-taught myself Linux. I however am still not an advanced user, as I still haven’t custom compiled a kernel for my machine, nor can I fix problems on my fingertips. I however can google a lot and read through forums and fix a problem for you should one arise. I have also over the years learned to recognize when the given solution in a forum is crap and when it will work.

 

The purpose for me writing this post. When I started playing with linux, it often led to system downtime. My father, with whom I used to share my home desktop system with instead offered to buy me a laptop- Dell Studio 15. A machine which I later realised had more design faults than pros.

 

Moreover, my choice of configuration especially and specifically the processor has wreaked havoc- Intel Core i3 clocked at 2.4 Ghz. I had selected this processor due to its 32 nm MOSFET, believing that it would produce less heat and will optimise my battery life. However, my personal practical observations with comparison to Core i5 have proven otherwise.

 

I am sad and not for the lack of trying. I have tried everything, well mostly. Like I mentioned, I still haven’t tried installing/using a custom compiled kernel. It may help, it may not. I am not sure. To be honest, I feel lazy after 4 years to try this. Maybe, it will be my swan song. Maybe not. It will be a crazy one night stand. Let that night come. That is another matter.

 

I have installed linux, repeatedly. I loved Ubuntu 9.04. Those were the days when they used to ship original installation media all over the world. I still have mine, with the original packing. The second version that I fell in love with was 10.04. It was a very stable version and I admit a very robust one as well.

 

My love for Ubuntu took a beating when they unified and the default version started bundling Unity interface. It took another downfall, when I got over my fascination of GNOME 3. It simply isn’t worth it. If any package breaks (read: any fun with the graphics driver) it falls back to GNOME 2. I mean, I liked GNOME 2, but I will use it on my own free will, not when I intend using GNOME 3. If you think I am confused, I am not. I am just a difficult person.

 

Every time, I have installed Linux I spent the next week customising the look and feel of the core operating system. The menus, the desktop gadgets. Everything. It’s hell of job, because not everything works. But then I like my eye-candies. Some things work which work easily in Unity don’t work at all in GNOME 3, or some other environment. Why? You may ask. And I have no answer. The linux community is heavily biased, they feel that people will install some of these gadgets in some particular desktop environment only. These people will never bother testing them on XFCE, LDE, or Cinnamon.

 

Why? Because fuck you. That’s why.

 

You must suffer.

 

And so I did. After one painful week, I would be done customising, looking over all the problems, installing different stuff. And then, something as simple as a kernel update means that some of these settings are not compatible anymore. I have to do it all over again.

Or, that my system is behaving like a heater, that I don’t need heating in my room anymore. I have to turn it off. Worst still, I have to reboot and load up Windows. I love Windows. It’s the greatest and the most robust operating system I have used till date. I mean to say I haven’t used Mac, yet.

 

So, overheating issues coupled up with persistent issues, meant I never installed Linux for more than 3 months at a stretch on my laptop.

 

However, in an interesting turn of events, I thought of buying a new laptop. This time with a more carefully selected specifications.

• 14 inch screen- to make it portable
• Intel Core i5 4200U- well it wasn’t going to be Core i3 obviously and so an undervolted Core i5 to boost battery life.
• 4 GB Ram
• At least 1 GB Discrete NVIDIA graphics card preferably 740M but even 720 or 730 would do.
• Intel Wireless Adapter
• Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

 

I don’t care for hard drive space or RAM as they can be upgraded by loosening a couple of screws. No big deal.

 

The specs that I have put together, I expected to pull it in at around 45k INR. 50k being the upper limit. I expected there to be at least 4 models at this spec sheet from different manufacturers. What I have wound up with was Windows 8 laptops which would each offer me a Windows experience and that too only with some partial set of these specifications.

I don’t expect manufacturers to spring up with my custom spec sheet. But this is something decent, and not exactly out of the blue or weird or unheard off. This in my honest opinion is a decent rig and anybody would be happy to have it.

 

What irritates me the most is not even the unavailability of a laptop with these specs, but the tendency of OEM units to bundle these machines with Windows. Not that I hate Windows or anything, but shouldn’t it be my choice whether I need an Operating System or not. And to top it all, they then gloat over this supposedly genius idea of forcing people to pay for software that they are never going to use. I mean what is with the bundling, especially in Indian sub-context. Not everyone pirates Windows. And, even if I admit that I have in the past, and intend to do it again in future. Then,

 

So fucking WHAT? What are you going to do about it? I would like to see you try.

Microsoft makes money not through personal home users, but by corporate sales and support, and even though a significant chunk of their revenues is down the drain due to piracy, but then Microsoft knows exactly when each copy of Windows is pirated and they take pride that they have invaded our homes and offices and eventually our personal lives through their sometimes substandard piece of software which absolutely refuses to perform what it promised.

 

You might talk about buying a cheap linux laptop, but I don’t like the cheap stuff, and for obvious reason if you still haven’t understood why, then I suggest you to stop reading further.

 

This is my cue to end, because I see people in black uniforms and helicopters hovering outside my Windows. Seems like Microsoft got wind of my little piracy admittance.

Disclaimer: The writer proclaims that this article is a work of fiction, and any fact or declaration can not to be held against him for it may not be true. If proven otherwise, it’s one of those funny little comedy of errors called as “the coincident” which means the Universe is trying to screw him. Please Universe, that is quite enough. Thank You.

Windows never ceases to Amaze!

These past few days I have been working towards my scholarly paper which hopefully will culminate into a thesis. The problem at hand requires me to implement a system. I will not talk anything about the system itself, but rather the programming part. Programming furiously, I had designed a system ground up after reading a paper on the same. It was a tough task, more so on the GNU C++ compiler, which is rather strict in adherence to some technical specifications- more specifically the ways I could call an object constructor and initialise the object.

It was a little irritating at first, but I like programming and it only required a minor change in my style. Plus I really had no other option than to oblige. Majbuuri ka naam Mahatma Gandhi.

While compiling the program, though it seldom happens with me, but this time it happened big. The dreaded word “Segmentation Fault” appeared on the gnome-terminal. Now, since I was using an older version of Linux the debugger plugins simply won’t install. Attaching the gdb manually is a little too mundane for me, plus the extra code I would have to write would only have bloated the program and given more headaches. What to do?

At time like this when faith in Linux is shaken, I always look towards Saint Bill Gates. Windows to the rescue!

Now the funny part happens, I fired up Orwell Dev C++, and put all the critical variables in the watch stack. But every time I compiled and ran my program, somehow the IDE would crash every time, without any sufficient explanation.  There had to be one. I double checked by writing a dummy “Hello World” program, the compiler install was intact. There had to be another reason.

And then one of those Eureka moment happened, when realisation dawns upon you.

Windows have a feature of DEP (Dynamic Execution Prevention), which when translated into English means, whenever a program tries to access memory locations other than its own, the Windows OS shuts down the program as a potential malware which could cause harm. Due to Segmentation Fault, my program was accessing memory locations which were out of bounds, hence the sudden IDE crash.

Sometimes I forget how amazing Windows OS is. But moments like these remind me why it’s still the most popular. Speaking of Windows, I recently and finally acquired Windows Phone 8. A proper review of my phone Lumia 720 shall soon follow. But in one word it is simply beautiful.