This is a little story. It has a moral too. And that moral is very very simple. Something that everyone should follow.
Well, here goes.
It was about 9:30 PM. I was coming home. As I reached halfway up the stairs to the first floor of my building; I saw a man standing there; smoking a cigarette. A stranger. I hadn't seen him anywhere near my building before. The sight annoyed me. You are not suppose to smoke a cigarette, standing in the stairs of a residential building; especially one in which you don't live. But I was helpless as the society had't put up any notice to prevent this.
So I had to ignore him and climb up past him. I reached the first floor and started up on the second flight of stairs; when the man finished with his cigarette. I stood there observing him. And exactly as I expected; he threw the butt right there in the stairs. Then he started climbing up. He threw a blank stare at me as he noticed me observing him.
"Excuse me. Why did you just throw that cigarette in the stairs?" I enquired.
"Oh. Doesn't matter. Its so small!" He exclaimed; because really; this was routine to him and to him it really didn't matter.
"Well, there are dustbins around to throw your garbage into. Why did you just throw it in the stairs?"
"Oh. Fine. I'll throw it in the dustbin next time." He was annoyed; I could tell. This was probably the first time he was being interrogated regarding such an action.
"What of the one that you've just thrown onto the stairs?"
"What? You want me to pick it up and put it in my pocket or what?" He was literally fuming!
And hahahah! Thank you. He chose his own doom hahahah! I merely gave him a stare and he understood. He went downstairs and started searching for the cigarette butt; some two feet away from where he had thrown it.
"Where is it? I can't even see it. It is so small? What of this? This is garbage too!" He had picked up some random string of wool lying there. I'm sure he'd have cut off my head had that been a sword instead!
"Yes, it is. Thanks for picking it up. But your garbage still remains.." I obliged.
"I can't even see it! It is so small and irrelevant!!" He stomped around a bit.
I went to where he had thrown that butt, picked it up, handed it to him. He took and put it in his pocket.
"Happy now?"
"Yes sir! Absolutely. Thank you. Now just remember to use the dustbin from now on." I said pleasantly and started climbing upstairs.
A few seconds later; I head him banging the door of the first floor residents; whom he had apparently come to pay a visit.
That's about it.
Moral of the story? Don't smoke a cigarette in a residential place. It annoys people like me. No; I am fine with people smoking. All my pals do; even I do, seldom; but not in the stairs of a residential building. If you do have the urge to do so; however; make sure that building isn't mine. If the building is mine; make sure you don't throw the butt anywhere other than into a dustbin; especially; when I'm around. Oh and make sure you scuff it out. Because if I find you at this; that butt might just burn a hole in your favourite shirt's pocket.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Ketaki
Ah finally! This is my first portrait ever!
This is my friend Ketaki.
This one took some real efforts. I had to span it across two days. On the first day, 15th October 2006, I finished the face. On the second, 21st October 2006, I dealt with the hair. Pretty tough work. Anyway, I think it looks pretty decent. Not bad for the first effort.
This is my friend Ketaki.
This one took some real efforts. I had to span it across two days. On the first day, 15th October 2006, I finished the face. On the second, 21st October 2006, I dealt with the hair. Pretty tough work. Anyway, I think it looks pretty decent. Not bad for the first effort.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Another step closer to "Bye bye Windows!"
Alright. Wine is seriously cool! The only problem is that it takes a LOT of time to compile and it took out nearly 400MB from my /usr!!
Anyway, its way too cool to cry about all that.
The thing is, Guitar Pro 5 works great in wine. All I needed to do was to install timidity++. I had to go ~amd64 on it, because the current stable 2.13.2 didn't compile. I was not in a mood to debug it, so I just changed the keywords and the testing version 2.13.2-r2 worked perfectly. I went with the default timidity-eawpatches.
Next came wine. It failed during ./configure because /usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.a existed, which, from what the error message said, prevented linking against the OpenGL libs. I thought of going -opengl for wine, but then felt like experimenting and moved the libGL.a file somewhere else. libGL.la exists in the same location anyway. Wine got installed fine then.
Once, done with winecfg, I launched the Guitar Pro installer with winelauncher. It installed fine, even with that RSE thing selected.
With RSE however, it doesn't play the sound properly. I had to remove RSE and it worked perfectly. Also, do not touch the Change Skin button in GP5. Trashed mine. Plus of course, the Windows Volume Control button doesn't work, which is kinda obvious.
I have slight performance problems when a KDE notification pops up while playing a file in GP5. But that's a minor. Maybe I wouldn't have the problem if I disabled XGL. Who knows?
Anyway, so there I am. Another step closer to "Bye bye Windows!". The only thing that remains now, is running Pro Evolution Soccer on Linux and this will be a single boot box of Gentoo! :D
Anyway, its way too cool to cry about all that.
The thing is, Guitar Pro 5 works great in wine. All I needed to do was to install timidity++. I had to go ~amd64 on it, because the current stable 2.13.2 didn't compile. I was not in a mood to debug it, so I just changed the keywords and the testing version 2.13.2-r2 worked perfectly. I went with the default timidity-eawpatches.
Next came wine. It failed during ./configure because /usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.a existed, which, from what the error message said, prevented linking against the OpenGL libs. I thought of going -opengl for wine, but then felt like experimenting and moved the libGL.a file somewhere else. libGL.la exists in the same location anyway. Wine got installed fine then.
Once, done with winecfg, I launched the Guitar Pro installer with winelauncher. It installed fine, even with that RSE thing selected.
With RSE however, it doesn't play the sound properly. I had to remove RSE and it worked perfectly. Also, do not touch the Change Skin button in GP5. Trashed mine. Plus of course, the Windows Volume Control button doesn't work, which is kinda obvious.
I have slight performance problems when a KDE notification pops up while playing a file in GP5. But that's a minor. Maybe I wouldn't have the problem if I disabled XGL. Who knows?
Anyway, so there I am. Another step closer to "Bye bye Windows!". The only thing that remains now, is running Pro Evolution Soccer on Linux and this will be a single boot box of Gentoo! :D
Friday, September 22, 2006
The Chosen One?
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
"Kelkar Naka"
My first painting after nearly 6 years. Done with poster colours on a standard A4 sized drawing paper. It's 12cm by 16cm in size.
Its the Mithagar Road in front of V. G. Vaze College in Mulund East. That's our "Kelkar Naka" hehehe. :-)
Done on Sunday 10th September 2006. Took nearly 3 hours.
Its the Mithagar Road in front of V. G. Vaze College in Mulund East. That's our "Kelkar Naka" hehehe. :-)
Done on Sunday 10th September 2006. Took nearly 3 hours.
Friday, August 18, 2006
fsck automatically on reboot
Here's a nice little trick I found.
I had a couple of hard reboots, due to power failures and I wanted to have all the ext3 filesystems in my fstab to be checked during the next reboot. Here's what I did.
There's an option in tune2fs, -C, which allows one to manually set the mount count for an ext2/3 filesystem. By default, on my Gentoo installation, all the ext3 filesystems are checked automatically after 38 mounts or 180 days, whichever happens earlier. By using tune2fs, one can set the mount count of a filesystem to be greater than this value and the filesystem will be automatically checked when the system boots up next time..
I did a
tune2fs -C 50
for all the ext2/3 filesystems in my fstab and they were all checked upon the next reboot.
Another way of doing this would be to change number of days since the filesystem was last checked to be greater than that value of 180. This can be done with the -T option of tune2fs.
In case you're wondering, you can change the default values of the mount count or the day limit using the -c and -t options to tune2fs respectively. As always, check man tune2fs for details ;)
I had a couple of hard reboots, due to power failures and I wanted to have all the ext3 filesystems in my fstab to be checked during the next reboot. Here's what I did.
There's an option in tune2fs, -C, which allows one to manually set the mount count for an ext2/3 filesystem. By default, on my Gentoo installation, all the ext3 filesystems are checked automatically after 38 mounts or 180 days, whichever happens earlier. By using tune2fs, one can set the mount count of a filesystem to be greater than this value and the filesystem will be automatically checked when the system boots up next time..
I did a
tune2fs -C 50
for all the ext2/3 filesystems in my fstab and they were all checked upon the next reboot.
Another way of doing this would be to change number of days since the filesystem was last checked to be greater than that value of 180. This can be done with the -T option of tune2fs.
In case you're wondering, you can change the default values of the mount count or the day limit using the -c and -t options to tune2fs respectively. As always, check man tune2fs for details ;)
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
4294967294
Alright, by far the most amusing thing I've seen recently.
r00723r0 comes into #gentoo-amd64 complaining about his init scripts failing to start due to "too many links" in /var/lib/init.d.
Now, here's the fun and how people neglect the most basic of things..
So me and some other people in the channel take him on a tour that included re-emerging of baselayout, editing config files properly (especially /etc/conf.d/rc), checking the system clock, making his bash handle some pipelines.. ("find / -print 2>/dev/null | xargs ls -ld | tr -s ' ' | sort -t ' '+1 | head -n 50 | less" courtsey of codermattie) and a few reboots. Nothing works. We even wondered about a misconfigured kernel. But nope.
So then comes the most basic of things that was needed to be done. A simple ls -lR into /var/lib revealed this gem...
drwxr-xr-x 4294967294 root root 4096 Aug 15 06:26 init.d
And here's the response it got in the channel..
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:46:36] [r00723r0] i'm pretty sure it's my kernel
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:46:43] [floyd_n_milan] look at that link count on /var/lib/init.d!
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:46:49] [floyd_n_milan> drwxr-xr-x 4294967294 root root 4096 Aug 15 06:26 init.d
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:46:54] [r00723r0] wtf???
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:47:00] [r00723r0] how do i fix it
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:47:07] [codermattie] holy poo !
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:47:10] [codermattie] that's it !
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:47:15] [floyd_n_milan] yeah LOL
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:47:17] [r00723r0] wow
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:47:19] [r00723r0] lol
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:47:24] [r00723r0] owned
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:47:30] [codermattie] man, that's the freakin 32 bit limit !
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:47:35] [r00723r0] haha
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:47:38] [r00723r0] oops?
Right. So the simple solution was to boot from a livecd and do an fsck.jfs on that filesystem...
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:59:21] [r00723r0] AHHH
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:59:30] [r00723r0] incorrect link counts have been detected
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:59:35] [r00723r0] will correct
Yes!
So from now on, please remember to do the simple and the most basic things first :P Oh yeah, and always, always, be very very careful with etc-update!!! ;)
I must say though that, the origins of that 4294967294 are definitely worth exploring. :D
P.S. Here's the comment r00723r0 left on the original livejournal entry:
The origin is from me rebooting (obviously during fsck) because I forgot to compile in framebuffer support.
Nice post, might be my home page for a while :P
r00723r0 comes into #gentoo-amd64 complaining about his init scripts failing to start due to "too many links" in /var/lib/init.d.
Now, here's the fun and how people neglect the most basic of things..
So me and some other people in the channel take him on a tour that included re-emerging of baselayout, editing config files properly (especially /etc/conf.d/rc), checking the system clock, making his bash handle some pipelines.. ("find / -print 2>/dev/null | xargs ls -ld | tr -s ' ' | sort -t ' '+1 | head -n 50 | less" courtsey of codermattie) and a few reboots. Nothing works. We even wondered about a misconfigured kernel. But nope.
So then comes the most basic of things that was needed to be done. A simple ls -lR into /var/lib revealed this gem...
drwxr-xr-x 4294967294 root root 4096 Aug 15 06:26 init.d
And here's the response it got in the channel..
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:46:36] [r00723r0] i'm pretty sure it's my kernel
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:46:43] [floyd_n_milan] look at that link count on /var/lib/init.d!
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:46:49] [floyd_n_milan> drwxr-xr-x 4294967294 root root 4096 Aug 15 06:26 init.d
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:46:54] [r00723r0] wtf???
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:47:00] [r00723r0] how do i fix it
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:47:07] [codermattie] holy poo !
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:47:10] [codermattie] that's it !
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:47:15] [floyd_n_milan] yeah LOL
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:47:17] [r00723r0] wow
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:47:19] [r00723r0] lol
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:47:24] [r00723r0] owned
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:47:30] [codermattie] man, that's the freakin 32 bit limit !
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:47:35] [r00723r0] haha
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:47:38] [r00723r0] oops?
Right. So the simple solution was to boot from a livecd and do an fsck.jfs on that filesystem...
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:59:21] [r00723r0] AHHH
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:59:30] [r00723r0] incorrect link counts have been detected
[Tue Aug 15 2006] [15:59:35] [r00723r0] will correct
Yes!
So from now on, please remember to do the simple and the most basic things first :P Oh yeah, and always, always, be very very careful with etc-update!!! ;)
I must say though that, the origins of that 4294967294 are definitely worth exploring. :D
P.S. Here's the comment r00723r0 left on the original livejournal entry:
The origin is from me rebooting (obviously during fsck) because I forgot to compile in framebuffer support.
Nice post, might be my home page for a while :P
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Birdslave, I!
Hehehe, yeah that's right! I now have birds coming to ask me for things they need. :D
We have a small terrace attached to our flat. There are a few plants and stuff. There used to be many more plants, but the damned society objected. Anyway, that's a different matter.
So.. for a couple of years now, my dad has been placing two trays filled with water in the terrace for the birds to use. Every morning a pair of Robins and a Sunbird visit the tray and enjoy a nice bath. Then during the day quite a few Sparrows, Crows, Pigeons and an occasional pair of the rare Golden Oriols come looking for a nice drink.
Today, my parents had to catch an early train off to Talegaon. So the tray wasn't filled. At about 2 pm, this crow comes screaming into my bedroom window. I wondered what he was doing, because they never approach the window so openly. He was nearly inside the room. Then I realised what the problem was. I looked outside and for sure, the trays were empty. So I just filled them up and fellow shut up.
Hehehe, that was so sweet :D. Birdslave, I :D
P.S. I forgot to take snaps. I might do it later..
We have a small terrace attached to our flat. There are a few plants and stuff. There used to be many more plants, but the damned society objected. Anyway, that's a different matter.
So.. for a couple of years now, my dad has been placing two trays filled with water in the terrace for the birds to use. Every morning a pair of Robins and a Sunbird visit the tray and enjoy a nice bath. Then during the day quite a few Sparrows, Crows, Pigeons and an occasional pair of the rare Golden Oriols come looking for a nice drink.
Today, my parents had to catch an early train off to Talegaon. So the tray wasn't filled. At about 2 pm, this crow comes screaming into my bedroom window. I wondered what he was doing, because they never approach the window so openly. He was nearly inside the room. Then I realised what the problem was. I looked outside and for sure, the trays were empty. So I just filled them up and fellow shut up.
Hehehe, that was so sweet :D. Birdslave, I :D
P.S. I forgot to take snaps. I might do it later..
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Kubuntu on HP NX6125
Right.. that went great :D
Now I would have lost had I given up halfway through the process..
Oh, I'm talking about Linux right now. I was installing Kubuntu on this HP/Compaq NX6125 laptop. I got very much frustrated halfway through the installation because of the damned 3D acceleration. What happened is, during the initial upgrading of packages, apt installed a new version of the kernel 2.6.15-26-386. This version didn't have the linux-restricted-modules package associated with it. As a result, even with a proper 'aticonfig' version of the xorg.conf, I didn't get direct rendering. The simple solution was to boot with the older 2.6.15-23-386 kernel, which had the restricted modules installed.
Once direct rendering was working, I simply followed the wiki instructions and went on to install XGL and compiz. That was risk, because I had no idea whether XGL worked on the ATI Radeon XPRESS 200M 5955 (PCIE) card on the laptop. It turned out that XGL ran fine. Now that's pleasure! All the night's hard work bore fruit and what a fruit!
So now I'm off to edit the wiki page for Gentoo and update the Radeon XPRESS 200M 5955 (PCIE) section. And since I haven't slept the whole night, working on this thing for 12 hours straight and its nearly 7 am, I'll go to bed.. or maybe get some breakfast and then go to bed.
Btw, these links will definitely prove useful if you're installing Linux on this laptop:
Updates from HP: http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hpcpqnk/us/locate/64_6170.html#0
Kubuntu on NX6125: http://wuestenleer.de/ku/index.html
Gentoo on NX6125: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_HP_Compaq_nx6125
Now I would have lost had I given up halfway through the process..
Oh, I'm talking about Linux right now. I was installing Kubuntu on this HP/Compaq NX6125 laptop. I got very much frustrated halfway through the installation because of the damned 3D acceleration. What happened is, during the initial upgrading of packages, apt installed a new version of the kernel 2.6.15-26-386. This version didn't have the linux-restricted-modules package associated with it. As a result, even with a proper 'aticonfig' version of the xorg.conf, I didn't get direct rendering. The simple solution was to boot with the older 2.6.15-23-386 kernel, which had the restricted modules installed.
Once direct rendering was working, I simply followed the wiki instructions and went on to install XGL and compiz. That was risk, because I had no idea whether XGL worked on the ATI Radeon XPRESS 200M 5955 (PCIE) card on the laptop. It turned out that XGL ran fine. Now that's pleasure! All the night's hard work bore fruit and what a fruit!
So now I'm off to edit the wiki page for Gentoo and update the Radeon XPRESS 200M 5955 (PCIE) section. And since I haven't slept the whole night, working on this thing for 12 hours straight and its nearly 7 am, I'll go to bed.. or maybe get some breakfast and then go to bed.
Btw, these links will definitely prove useful if you're installing Linux on this laptop:
Updates from HP: http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/f
Kubuntu on NX6125: http://wuestenleer.de/ku/index.html
Gentoo on NX6125: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_HP_Comp
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