Debian GNU/Hurd on VirtualBox

One of the great things about Debian is the wide range of kernels it supports can run. This gives the user the flexibility to not spend time on the common userland stuff. For example, most apps, package management and system admin tasks are common across all Debian platforms. These platforms may not be optimal at par to Linux, but still, choice is good. For long, I had used Debian GNU/Hurd, only on a KVM hypervisor. [Read More]

Linux Containers and Productization

Linux has improved many many things over the last couple of years. Of the many improvements, the one that I’ve started leveraging the most today, are Control Groups. In the past, when there was a need to build a prototype for a solution, we needed hardware. Then came the virtualization richness to Linux. It came in 2 major flavors, KVM ( Full Virtualization ) and Xen ( Para Virtualization ). Over the years, the difference of para vs full, for both the implementations, is almost none. [Read More]

Linux Desktop in 2014

We are almost at the end of 2014. While 2014 has been a year with many mixed experiences, I think it does warrant one blog entry ;-) Recently, I’ve again started spending more time on Linux products / solutions, than spending time focused on a specfic subsystem. This change has been good. It has allowed me to re-cap all the advancements that have happened in the Linux world, umm… in the last 5 years. [Read More]

Laptop Mode Tools 1.66

I am pleased to announce the release of Laptop Mode Tools at version 1.66. This release fixes an important bug in the way Laptop Mode Tools is invoked. Users, now when disable it in the config file, the tool will be disabled. Thanks to bendlas @github for narrowing it down. The GUI configuration tool has been improved, thanks to Juan. And there is a new power saving module for users with ATI Radeon cards. [Read More]

Windows 7 Profile Synchronization

Lately, for my day job (to be more efficient for the time I spent), I am required to use Windows, back again. :-) It is great to be back. By back, I mean using Windows for some of the workflows. All these years, I’ve been using Linux based tools (Debian, Kontact | IceDove, Konq | Chromium | IceWeasel etc) to get my job done. It is great to try back Windows for some of the workflows. [Read More]

Power consumption on Linux 3.10

The power consumption on the Linux kernel 3.10 is pretty bad. On kernel 3.10, with the follwing config, the PowerTop results are: # # Timers subsystem # CONFIG_TICK_ONESHOT=y CONFIG_NO_HZ_COMMON=y # CONFIG_HZ_PERIODIC is not set CONFIG_NO_HZ_IDLE=y # CONFIG_NO_HZ_FULL is not set CONFIG_NO_HZ=y CONFIG_HIGH_RES_TIMERS=y PowerTOP v2.0 Overview Idle stats Frequency stats Device stats Tunables The battery reports a discharge rate of 28.0 W The estimated remaining time is 23 minutes Summary: 1785.5 wakeups/second, 0. [Read More]

I am so indebted to the community

As someone who learned computers on his own, I always acknowledged the value that the Free Software movement has brought. The accessibility of these topics, which are only supposed to be part of text books and schools, is available for anyone and everyone who has the resource and passion to do it. But this past week, 2 things made me pretty impressed with the maturity and quality of work that we do. [Read More]

apt-offline - 1.3

It is still 2012 in this part of the world and the world is still intact. Since nothing major happened, I thought of spending the new gifted time to add a long pending item to apt-offline. As shown in the screen shots, apt- offline’s GUI now has support to detect and display the downloaded offline bug reports.

This is part of the just released, version 1.3.

Reporting bugs with Apport - III

Hello World. This is the follow-up to the last [2](http://blog/report-bugs- with-apport) updates on the state of apport in Debian. A lot has changed since the last update on Apport. Currently, in Experimental, we have version 2.6.1-2. With this version, and going forward, there will be no hacks to make it work for Debian. Thanks to Martin Pitt, with his assistance, Apport now has a very basic crashdb in place for Debian. [Read More]

Laptop Mode Tools - 1.61

Laptop Mode Tools, version 1.61, has been released and will land up soon for Debian. This is the version that would be targetting Wheezy. This release includes many bug fixes and should make power savings much better on your machines. This is mainly a bug fix release. Some parallel module execution approach has been used which could show runtime improvements. Changelog: 1.61 - Thu May 17 17:44:26 IST 2012 * Handle devices with persistent device naming. [Read More]