With a few ISO files given by Shyam, I am starting a collection of various Linux Distros. I hope that a good collection of older and latest distros will be helpful for those who want to try and settle on Linux. The CD’s and DVD’s will be distributed to all those who want it, with just the cost of the CD/DVD and cover. My contact details can be seen here [this is a link]. Following CD’s and DVD’s are now available with me.

Debian

• Debian Lenny Testing Official snapshot i386 – 1 DVD

• Debian Lenny Testing Official snapshot i386 – 1 CD

• Debian etch 4.0 r3 i386 – 1 CD

• Debian etch 4.0 r0 i386 – 3 DVD’s

• Debian etch 4.0 r0 i386 Live GNOME – 1 CD

• Debian etch 4.0 r0 with SMC Softwares – 1 CD

Ubuntu

• Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop Edition – 1 DVD

• Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop Edition – 1 CD

• Ubuntu 7.10 for PC – 1 CD

• Ubuntu 7.10 for 64-bit PC – 1 CD

• Ubuntu 7.04 for PC – 1 CD

• Ubuntu 7.04 for 64-bit PC – 1 CD

• Ubuntu 6.06 LTS for PC – 1 CD

• Ubuntu 6.06 LTS for 64-bit PC – 1 CD

• Ubuntu 6.06 LTS for MAC – 1 CD

• Ubuntu 5.10 for PC – 2 CD’s (Live and Install)

• Ubuntu 5.10 for 64-bit PC – 2 CD’s (Live and Install)

• Ubuntu 5.10 for MAC – 2 CD’s (Live and Install)

• Ubuntu 5.04 for PC – 2 CD’s (Live and Install)

• Ubuntu 5.04 for 64-bit PC – 2 CD’s (Live and Install)

Kubuntu

• Kubuntu 7.10 for PC – 1 CD

• Kubuntu 7.10 for 64-bit PC – 1 CD

• Kubuntu 6.06 LTS for PC – 1 CD

• Kubuntu 6.06 LTS for 64-bit PC – 1 CD

Edubuntu

• Edubuntu 7.10 for PC and Server – 1 CD

• Edubuntu 6.06 LTS – 1 CD

IT @ School GNU/Linux

• IT @ School GNU/Linux 3.01 – 2 CD’s

• School GNU/Linux by KSTA – 1 CD

Fedora

• Fedora 8 Live i686 – 1 CD

• Fedora Core 6 – 5 CD’s

• Fedora Core 3 – 4 CD’s

RedHat

• RedHat Enterprise Linux ES 4 (i386) – 4 CD’s

• RedHat Linux 9 (i386) – 3 CD’s

• RedHat Linux 7 (i386) – 2 CD’s

Mandrake

• Mandrake Linux 10.1 – 4 CD’s (3 installation and 1 support)

MEPIS

• SimplyMEPIS 6.5.02 32Bit – 1 CD

gNewSense

• gNewSense Live Deltah 2.0 – 1 CD

Gentoo

• Gentoo Linux 2007.0 x86 – 1 CD

Knoppix

• Games Knoppix 3.7.0.2 – 1 CD

I’ll be updating the details of the collection in my site; http://www.tvmanukrishnan.uni.cc/ and also at the MESCE GNU Lab wiki.

I also started installing one among the 20 systems and is almost finished. What left is few softwares like SQL server. Installing other systems will be much easier after completing one as all the systems are alike and hence backup softwares like Ghost can be used to make copies of the entire hard disk. Haven’t tried it yet with SATA drives; hope it works.

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After a long time, the latest version of Debian detected the USB modem in my LG G1600 phone. Querying is success, but I haven’t yet tried connecting net. I am always misfortunate, because by the time my system recognized the USB modem, Airtel, the service provider which I use for the GPRS connection has reduced the validity of RS 274 GPRS recharge from 30 days to 15. Now, I should try with Idea, which provide GPRS at the rate of RS 9 per day.

I was also successful in configuring the permissions of the fat32 file systems accessible through Linux. Now, I could give write permissions to individual users by editing the “etc/fstab” file. This is much needed for me as by brothers are also using my computer and I don’t want them to accidently delete any files in the fat32 partitions.

The exams till now, was somewhat easier compared to the first exam, M1. Four exams are over by now and there are five more left.

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As decided yesterday, I reinstalled Lenny as a fresh installation. It was really time consuming as the DVD drive is not in good working condition, showing read errors. Not only the drive, each and every part of the system is facing problems. I hope I could carry on with it for two more years. When calculating, the system is 3 year, 1 month and 10 days old and only the hard disk has the warranty left.

Taking the case of Lenny, it has changed much from etch. Its visual effects has improved, file permission settings are working better, renders Malayalam better and has GNOME with 80% interface localized to Malayalam. My next step is to try a distro with KDE. I have left out a 7GB for trying out new distros.

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First university exam was over today. Engineering Mathematics I was tough and many are in the doubt that whether they will pass. Hope it won’t be the same with others.

MESTECH was amazing, especially the bike stunts. Many has taken videos and photos of the event and I’ll be uploading some soon. The exhibition of bikes were also good. Bikes which costs more than 20 lakhs were present in the exhibition.

  

I also attended a class by Kiranchand on Web Hosting. It helped me to know beyond what I could study with the free hosting services, like the admin panel of CPanel, etc.

There were many competitions which I could participate, like quiz, debugging, web designing, etc. It was really a loss for me.

Today, from Shyam, I got the testing version of Debian Lenny DVD. I upgraded etch to Lenny. It looks nice and is working, but still there are a few compatibility problems with the softwares. So, most probably, I’ll be reinstalling it tomorrow.

—
Photos are added later, taken by Najeeb in his Nokia N70

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Modems are the major help for villagers to access net, since broadband connections haven’t reached much of the villages. And for Linux users, configuring a modem, which is originally designed for Windows(Winmodem) still stands like a giant wall.

Many of the modem manufactures are providing binary files of the drivers for Linux with the driver CD. Even though for a new user, its hard to compile, experienced  persons could help in configuring it. But, take the case of Conexant, one among the leading Modem Chipset manufactures. Usually, with every piece of hardware we purchase, we also get the drivers needed for working with it. But, Conexant isn’t providing drivers for Linux with the driver CD. Its ok. May be Linux is now growing up and many hardware vendors don’t provide drivers for Linux in the driver CD, but it can be downloaded from net for free. So, when we search for its drivers, what we will come across is a site named Linuxant, who provide Linux drivers for Conexant chipsets. But, the free drivers they provide is somewhat like a trial version, which supports just 14.4Kbps, while the modem can support upto 52Kbps. It means, with it, we can use the modem in Linux, but maximum speed is limited to just above 2KB per second…

Another funny thing is that they are providing full drivers for 20US$. The modem costs below INR 300(around 7US$) and for the driver we need to pay extra money, which is thrice the cost of  modem.

This is a fact to think about. Why is a company like Conexant behaving so to Linux?

I tried in every way to achieve the full speed, like what we usually do with softwares in Windows, but it doesn’t work. I even managed to make the driver say its full version, but still by calculating the data transfer rate, the speed is the old 14.4Kbps. Has anyone found any way to manage through this? If so, please help me…

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