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Time for another software related post. People familiar with the GNU/Unix system would know that the standard way to install about any GNU software from code is to run the following commands configure make sudo make install These commands are from the GNU autotools environment. Knowing the GNU environment, these tools are what I used to compile most of the (relatively small) pieces of code I wrote. Until I discovered CMake. CMake, or Cross-platform Make is a tool that serves the same functionality as the GNU autotools (hereafter referred to as autohell). As the name suggests, CMake can be used to compile software across multiple platforms. Why am I encouraging CMake over autohell? Well, firstly, it’s not autohell! The GNU autotools are extremely useful when compiling on Linux. That’s what they are designed for. Cross compilation is extremely easy with the --host= flag. Unfortunately, when it comes to using them on Windows, the system just becomes a pain in the neck. P...

Some months ago, I had written a post on why Mark Shuttleworth never fails to disappoint . Today, I installed Ubuntu Oneiric Ocelot on my computer, and it managed to last for just 5 minutes. This post should give a good overview of the five minute experience that is Ubuntu Oneiric Ocelot. I recently bought a new computer. I need Linux on it, so I decided to install Ubuntu. However, I realized that Natty Narwhal was just too old, and that I had to wait for just a week to get my hands on the brand new Ubuntu Oneiric Ocelot. The promos promised a lot. The very name, Oneiric, which is associated with dreams seemed extremely enticing. Moreover, it was not really all that worth installing Natty, then updating it within a week. For some reason, I have never had a good experience with Ubuntu upgrades, and hence I prefer clean installations. So, today, I finally downloaded Wubi and an AMD64 iso of Ubuntu 11.10. I ran Wubi, installed the system, and rebooted into Ubuntu. I was impressed with the...

A post after a long time. Not really because I was busy, but because I am lazy, and tired having to relive my frustrations by writing on this blog. No Mom, I am not really frustrated, that is just a funny way of writing this blog! But it is hard to be completely happy when you have a Narwhal taking up 20 odd GB of space on your laptop. I am sure that by the time this post would be published, I would have lost a lot of friends on facebook , those who appreciate and like Ubuntu. Note to self: One line paragraphs are not fun enough... loads of the <p> and the </p> tags. But I digress... coming back to the person I want to bash today... Mark Shuttleworth, a South African entrepreneur and a person so insanely rich, that he has funded his own space trip, making him Shuttle-worth-y. Unfortunately, it is through his benevolence that we are blessed (?) with the Ubuntu Operating System . Firstly, the reasons I use(d) Ubuntu Back in 2007, when I first fired up Linux, Ubuntu...

If there is anything that annoys a geek like me, it is being forced to use/do/say/think something. More so if it is useless and annoying. I have a Compaq laptop. It came pre-installed with Windows Vista. Along with the OS came a bunch of goodies utterly useless software by HP. They were HP Health Check, HP Battery Check, HP Wireless Assistant and HP Update. I shall now proceed to attack these software one-by-one. I start with HP Health Check. Perhaps the most annoying software of them all. It checks your PC periodically for issues(?) and then gives the most annoying pop-up of them all. It reads HP Health Check has finished checking your PC. Click this balloon to view results. And when you click the balloon to view the issues, most of the time, you are greeted with this message: HP Health Check did not find any issues with your computer Sometimes, it finds a whole bunch of drivers which are outdated. But it does not update them, nor does it give an option to select the drivers to b...

Well, here is the post that most of my friends would have tired hearing me repeat. However, there really are no good OSs out there that can truly satisfy my requirements. So, a course that I am currently completing discusses the POSIX API, and the UNIX system. For trying out any of the concepts in the course, I would need to have at least a Linux installation. But which one should I choose? I require my Linux installation to be friendly, so GNOME is a must. Moreover, it must have support for easily installing non-free software, like Adobe Reader, EAGLE, flash, MP3 plugins etc. It should be stable and functional, and should be fast, efficient, and better than Windows :) in terms of speed and power management. Naturally, there are three contenders. Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE. Ubuntu Debian based, Ubuntu seems to be the distro of choice for many who are switching from Windows to Linux. It has many features that facilitate an easy migration, especially ability to shrink Windows partitions, t...