Being a Debian user, I always like to experiment with the latest packages, and so I have many third party debian repositories listed in the sources.list file. Whenever I am adding it for the first time, I usually get the error:

“The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available”

On googling multiple solutions can be found to add a public key using apt-key, but most of them has 3 or 4 commands, including downloading the key, move it to a file and then import. But the one line command that does the same is as below:

apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver_url --recv-keys key_id

Recently, I received a free 128MB chunk (That’s what they call a VPS) with 3GB storage and 35GB bandwidth per month for free. They says that its free for lifetime, if put into some use. My plan is to use it for delivering this site, which runs on wordpress, along with few other stuffs.

128MB RAM is very limited and there is no extra burst memory available. But, being a XEN VPS, I hope to get a satisfactory performance. The first thing I did was to measure the performance using UnixBench benchmark suite and the report is as follows.

My laptop, HP NC6220 is confirmed dead. Its issue with display repeats after 3 days of servicing and the service engineers couldn’t rectify it permanently. So, they agreed to give a refund and I am forced to buy a Laptop. Thanks to the financial support by parents, I bought a Lenovo Thinkpad Edge E430 (3254 AM4) yesterday. Special thanks to my cousin Prakash for arranging it at the lowest rate possible.

I also bought a Lenovo G580 7036 for my friend Deepak and spent most of the time, yesterday configuring it. Will post a review of that asap.

So, I have used the thinkpad for just few hours and here goes my experience with it.

The basic configuration of the system is:

Intel Core I3 2330M – 2.20GHz
2GB DDR3 RAM
500GB HDD (7000 RPM)
14″ HD Antiglare Screen
DVD Writer
720p Webcam
Card Reader
Finger Print Reader
4 USB ports (2 with USB 3 support)

We @ DayScholars finally managed to arrange a good PC to setup as a centralized server for our code and databases. The server is running a customized Debian Squeeze distribution with MySQL Version 5.1. So the next requirement is to allow MySQL access for all of us. This is how we managed it. You must login as root user or must have root privilege to do this.

Edit the MySQL configuration file, located at /etc/mysql/my.cnf.

We prefer using vim. You can use any others like nano or even gedit.

If you’ve never used GNU/Linux before and have always opted for Windows, then you’re missing out big time. GNU/Linux is not only free, but it’s actually a far superior series of operating systems in many ways. Read on to learn about why this open-source approach is going to benefit you as a user of a computer.

Firstly, aren’t you tired of paying hand-over-fist for the latest operating system, only to realise that it’s full of bugs, slow, infested with bloatware and just generally not worth the money? Me too, and that’s one of the reasons GNU/Linux really is a demonstration of just how good an operating system can be despite its lack of a price tag.

This isn’t a hard-to-install OS, either – whether you’re a programmer or a poker.de player, all you need to do is know how to burn files to a disc. After that, it’s just a case of using that disc to install your new operating system. Presently, most GNU/Linux distributions support installations from USB drives too.

The best thing about GNU/Linux is the considerable choice you get, when it comes to your operating system. Believe it or not, it’s not just “Linux” – there are many different operating systems built using the foundations GNU and Linux has set down. Ubuntu is quite a common variation on the Linux theme – a friendly, easy-to-use method of doing anything from playing games to writing a novel.

Of course, GNU/Linux is also extremely fast – there’s no pre-installed bloatware to slow down your computer, and it makes optimum use of your system’s hardware capabilities. It’s really difficult to fault it for what it does, and even if it cost just as much as Windows you’d be hard-pressed to criticse the fact that all the software for it is – you guessed it – also free. GNU/Linux is an incredible boost to anyone tired of the current operating system market, so dig in and find your own computing happiness.

I personally use Debian in my Laptop and servers, but for newbies, I recommend Linux Mint