Subscribe Feed (RSS)I'm sitting in my train to Bhopal.I have my second minors from 12th March and a couple of weeks of classes before them.After that I'll be back home again and this time for a longer span of time.There won't be any posts for the next 3 weeks or so.You can follow me on twitter till then.I'll try to tweet regularly.
Archive for February, 2009
Save Our Sofas
February 21st, 2009 by Naman Bagga | 1 Comment | Filed in UncategorizedThe Save Our Sofas campaign was established in February 2009 to promote the re-use of unwanted sofas.This campaign is aimed at providing people alternatives to throwing their old sofas in the junkyard.The Save Our Sofas Campaign encourages people to refurbish, recycle or Re-use their old sofas.If you have an old sofa,the S.O.S campaign can help you re-use it,saving your hard earned money.You can also participate in the 'Ugliest Sofa in the UK 2009' competition.All you have to do is upload a picture of your ugly sofa.The winner of the competition will receive free re-upholstery.So don't just throw away your old furniture, visit the Save Our Sofas campaign and competition for better alternatives.
OpenSUSE USB ADSL Modem Problem
February 19th, 2009 by Naman Bagga | No Comments | Filed in Linux, Tech TalkI recently installed OpenSUSE 11.1 on my PC.When I installed it,I faced just one problem that bothered me a bit.OpenSUSE was not detecting my ADSL modem connected via USB.I searched for a solution to this problem.Ankur also searched for a solution but most of them said-"Hard luck,get Ethernet".My PC does not have an Ethernet card so connecting the modem through Ethernet was not a possibility.I also did not have time to buy an Ethernet card.I eventually did find a solution to the problem.Read on.
The Solution to the Problem
I kept trying different things to solve this problem.There are 2 types of network managers in openSUSE.You can either use the GNOME Network Manager or you could use the YaST network manager.I tried using the GNOME network manager first.I was unsuccessful in connecting to the Internet using the GNOME network manager.Then I used the YaST Network manager.I first set the DNS in the 'Hostname/DNS' tab and then set the default gateway in the 'Routing' tab.Then I switched to the overview tab and set all the IP address and Subnet preferences.Also set the device to automatically start on cable connection.Basically,I did not do anything special but I just decided to share my experience to help out other people facing the same problem.
If you too are facing the same problem,try doing what I did and leave a comment to tell me if it works or not.
openSUSE 11.1
February 18th, 2009 by Naman Bagga | 2 Comments | Filed in LinuxI've been using Linux for about 2 years and all I had used properly was Ubuntu.A few months ago,I felt like I needed some change and wanted to try something new.This feeling was also motivated by a couple of buggy Ubuntu releases.Ankur suggested me to wait for openSUSE 11.1 which was scheduled to be released on 18th December 2008.After my Majors(in December),I decided to try out openSUSE 11.1.
So I started my quest to get an openSUSE CD/DVD.I checked out various tech-magazine DVDs but none of then had openSUSE11.1.I was not in the mood to download the CD so I decided to buy a DVD.This decision was also motivated by the huge repositories availiable on the DVD.Thus,I ordered a openSUSE 11.1 DVD from Linux Bazar.I got the DVD the very next morning but it turned out to be an openSUSE 11.0 DVD.I spoke to the Linux Bazar guys about this and they offered to send me a replacement DVD in a few days.They took 2 to 3 days to download the openSUSE 11.1 DVD.By the time I received the openSUSE 11.1 DVD I had just 2 days of my semester break left.
The installation was a bit slow as compared to Ubuntu but considering the number of packages the installer was installing,it was pretty fast.The openSUSE installer-YaST is very good and has a user friendly interface.YaST is also a system management application which is used by openSUSE as a Control Center.I decided to install openSUSE with GNOME as the desktop environment.The installation was hassle-free and I didn't face any problems in installation.I installed all the essential stuff,media codecs etc and just got a feel of openSUSE before leaving for Bhopal.
openSUSE gives equal importance to GNOME and KDE.This is something that lacks in Ubuntu.Ubuntu variants in other desktop environments like Kubuntu and Xubuntu are just KDE or Xfce and nothing more than that.The GNOME version of openSUSE looks like KDE because it has a single panel and a menu that looks similar to the KDE4 menu.openSUSE has given me an opportunity to use rpm package manager.Using openSUSE 11.1 has been a good experience so far.Somehow it gives me a better feel of Linux.I would therefore say that it is not suitable for absolute noobs.People who know their way around Ubuntu should definitely try out openSUSE 11.1 once.
