Update your Linux Kernel in real time without rebooting your machine

When ever Ubuntu updates the Linux kernel to a more recent version, I have to go through the rigmarole of rebooting my machine for the changes to take effect. While for a home user, it may not be such a big thing, while running Linux in critical situations, it may not always be feasible to reboot the server each time the kernel gets updated because running applications have to be stopped, and daemons have to be terminated for the reboot to take place - which inevitably leads to loss of time and inconvenience to others.

Enter a new technology called Ksplice.

The Ksplice service called Uptrack will update the Linux kernel in your system while it is running without disrupting your operations or requiring a reboot.

Christopher Smart has written an in depth article on Ksplice where he dwells on the advantages of running the Uptrack service on your machine. Currently, the Ksplice Uptrack service is available for Ubuntu 9.04 aka Jaunty Jackalope.

Firefox 3.5 released with support for the HTML 5 Video Tag and much more

Firefox team is striving to remain in the cutting edge of technology. The newest Firefox release namely version 3.5 is considered by many to be one of the fastest web browsers leaving its competition far behind. Mozilla claims Firefox 3.5 is over 2 times faster than Firefox 3.0 and 10 times faster than Firefox 2.x.



But one exciting new feature in Firefox 3.5 is no doubt the support for the HTML 5 video tag. Web browsers which support the HTML 5 standard can embed OGG format videos and audio in web pages, making Flash player nearly redundant for watching videos online. You can even right click and save the video to your desktop.

Then Firefox team has been catching up with Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 8 by including a feature found in these browsers called the Private Browsing Mode where the browser forgets the history of the session and destroys any traces of the websites you visit during this session.

Other new features found in Firefox 3.5 are location aware web browsing, downloadable fonts and improvements in CSS, web worker threads, JSON and SVG support.

Firefox 3.5 is available in 70 languages in Mac OS X, Windows and Linux which makes it truly a fabulous web browser. Of course, one needn't even mention the 1000s of Add-Ons available which extend the utility of Firefox to make it behave in which ever way you want it to.

Listen to what Mike Beltzner - the Director of Firefox Development has to say about Firefox 3.5.



You can download Firefox 3.5 at Mozilla.com.

Ext4 file system how to, tips and tricks

Ext4 file system (4th extended file system) is the next generation of journaling file systems, retaining backward compatibility with the previous file system, ext3. Ext4 was released as a functionally complete and stable filesystem in Linux kernel 2.6.28. Ubuntu 9.04 aka Jaunty Jackalope was released with support for the ext4 file system, so do many latest builds of many other Linux distributions.

One of the most evident advantages of ext4 for end users is the drastic reduction in time taken to do an fsck operation of your hard drives. The other advantages of ext4 file system over ext3 are - it provides better performance and greater reliability. Also it increases the maximum file system size to a whooping 1 exabyte. Compared to this, ext3 supports a maximum of only 16 TB of file system size.

So it was inevitable that I chose ext4 as the file system when I installed Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jakalope on my machine - dual booting between Windows XP and other Linux distributions. And I had no complaints at all.

Then recently, Microsoft released Windows 7 RC to the public for testing, which was too tempting an offer to pass off. And so I diligently downloaded the Windows 7 OS and installed it on my machine. Of course, as with all things Microsoft, Windows 7 wiped off my GRUB menu on MBR. Repairing the MBR would be a clinch until I realised that to mount the ext4 file system, you need to have a Live distribution which supports ext4. So I was unable to re-install the GRUB menu to the MBR because the Live CD of the Linux distribution I used could not detect the ext4 file system on my hard disk.

Fortunately, I still had a CD with Ubuntu 9.04, which I used to re-install GRUB boot loader on my machine.

Bottom line : A drive with ext4 file system cannot be mounted within older Linux distributions as they don't have support for ext4.

To know more about Ext4, read the following resources ...

• Ext4 Wiki
• Creating an Ext4 file system
• Converting Ext3 to Ext4 file system
• Anatomy of Ext4 file system

Linux eventually garners a 1% market share

Linux has garnered the magical 1% global market share of computer users. As of April 2009, it is exactly 1.02 %. It is an understood fact that we have a long way to go to catch up with the market leader Windows which is still way ahead at 87.90%. But 1.02% of the total computer users the world over is by no means a small amount.

If this trend is to be believed, people are waking up to the various alternatives they have over Windows. If you take a closer look at the chart below, you will find that the Windows share has been decreasing across subsequent months - October 2008 being an exception. And the market share of all other Operating systems have seen an increase during these periods.



Let's hope the Linux share increase rapidly in the coming years to form a viable force in the desktop computing arena. All the power to Linux!!

[Source]

An indepth look at OpenOffice.org Office Suite

OpenOffice.org is arguably the finest office suites available in the public domain. It is a direct competitor of Microsoft Office. It includes a Word processor (OpenOffice.org Writer), a Spreadsheet (OpenOffice.org Calc),a Presentation program (OpenOffice.org Impress), a Drawing program (OpenOffice.org Draw) and a Database (OpenOffice.org Base).



While it might seem ironic to blog about this fabulous piece of open source software now, especially owing to the recent developments of Oracle taking over Sun Microsystems, fact remains that this is one office suite that has stood its ground against Microsoft Office - and even posed a threat to it.

But for a first timer, like any software, there is a learning curve involved in mastering OpenOffice.org. It involves getting to know the interface, knowing the equivalent functions of the suite vis-a-vis Microsoft Office, and being productive. This is where a well balanced tutorial gains importance.

WorldLabels.com blog has posted an in-depth article explaining the various features of OpenOffice.org and also comparing OpenOffice.org Writer with Microsoft Word (2003 & 2007). But that is not all, the article elucidates on the 6 step process involved in shifting from using Microsoft Office to using OpenOffice.org in an organization, which is really enlightening to say the least. While the article is essentially Windows centric, the functions and tips explained in it are applicable to even Linux users as OpenOffice.org is a truly cross platform software. The article is dotted with a vagary of links to very useful plug-ins and templates. For instance, do you know how to reduce the size of your presentation in OpenOffice.org ? This article teaches you that.

Sun Microsystems merges with Oracle

Sun Microsystems gets acquired by Oracle. This is the hot news making rounds on the net. This is a news which could have wide ramifications for the Open Source crowd. Why? Because Sun Microsystems creates some of the most well received, robust open source software around. Just to put it in perspective, let me list some of them which come to my mind.

• MySQL - The most widely used database online.
• Java - Was released under an Open source license.
• OpenSolaris - The free as in beer and freedom UNIX operating system.
• OpenOffice.org - The robust office suite which is a part and parcel of any Linux distribution.
• VirtualBox - The virtualization software that most open source enthusiasts have grown to love.
• Netbeans - The Java IDE
• Sun xVM Server - The open source virtualization software for data centers.
  

Sun Microsystems is no doubt a pro open source company. Will it stay that way under its new master namely Oracle ? Only time will tell.

The following is the official press release from Oracle. And read the press release from Sun Microsystems. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion.

The following is a nice video showcasing the legacy of Sun Microsystems.

GNOME Do - An intelligent launcher tool for GNOME

GNOME Do is an intelligent launcher tool which makes all your default menus and panels in GNOME redundant. Since last time I had written about GNOME Do, it has gotten only better. Just a glance through the numerous plugins available for GNOME Do will be enough for any sceptic to fall in love with it.

Just to give you a feel of what can be achieved with this marvellous tool, do yourself a favour. After installing GNOME Do in your Linux distribution within GNOME, start it and open the GNOME Do preferences dialog box. Click on the plugins tab and glance through the diverse plugins available for GNOME Do - right from Twitter, to Google tools and more.



Another neat trick is to use GNOME Do as a dock, like in Apple's Mac OS X. To achieve this, the prerequisite is -

Your GNOME desktop needs to run using a composite window manager. You can enable it by opening the System > Preferences > Appearance GUI tool. Then click Visual Effects tab and enable the special effects.

Once you have enabled visual effects, you can use GNOME Do as a dock by simply changing it's theme to "Docky" in the "Appearances" tab of GNOME Do preferences dialog.



The blog I'Been To Ubuntu has a fabulous article on how you can use GNOME Do and a few other packages available in Ubuntu Launchpad repository to transform GNOME into a Mac OS X like Desktop. Really inspiring.

Of course, in Linux, we have another option for a dock such as Avant Window Navigator. Or you can transform your traditional KDE desktop into a Mac OS X.

Can you name a GNOME Do equivalent tool in Windows, Mac OS X and KDE respectively ?