WHATS IN A NAME

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“Getting married or falling in love does not mean that your better half or lover is the best in this world and now you won't be attracted to opposite sex. (Rather, you may have a wife and you are also dating your girl friend. :P) ” I think, this is also true when it comes to technology. Well, I am talking about Windows and Linux. These 2 names are so unconsciously loved by their users that they start abusing their competitors OS unknowingly. Many people have started debating on blogs about which OS is liked more, Windows or Linux? If it's only about liking them then, no one can like Linux and Windows more than there fathers (Bill and Linus). I use both Windows and Linux to some extent and I am not aware of everything in these 2 OS. But, few people questioned me about the comfort level while using these OS. I usually asked them “Whom do you like more, Krishna of Mahabharata or Krishna of Shri Krishna ?”. Even though we knew that Swapnil Joshi was not bad in Shri Krishna but we still imagine Krishna as Nitish Bharadwaj. (I have not talked about Mac OS. It is like Hritik Roshan playing Krishna's role. Full of style and glamour. :)). Sometimes, choices works on first come first serve basis. But at the end it's matter of choice.

I do like Linux and Windows both but since I work in Linux, I have little affection to it (kindly refer to my first line of this article.). I maintain my relationship with my wife and girl friend using Virtual Box. This tool helps me bluffing my wife (Windows) to date my GF (Linux). (My dear married friends, your life is like these OS and so please do not try this Vbox in your real life for it may have strong chances of your life getting crashed. :))

While personally interacting with many Linux users, I have realized few names in Linux that scare users or make them think that Linux is not user friendly. After reading few articles I understood that Linux was not developed keeping general user in mind. It was a result of experiments and test from hard core techies. But, Linux nowadays have changed a lot. Ubuntu is a good example.

The words that scared me the most are “Thallophyta” and “Pteridophyta”. These are the two words from my 8^th std. Science-II subject. Have a look at the word “Zygote”. The name itself gives an idea that something strange is going to happen (and in reality it is “you”). I am still wondering how to pronounce “Welwitschiaceae”. (See, even my auto dictionary on laptop is not able to recognize this word. It is suggesting me some name with 'c' as replacement :)) . It is one of the family of plants. I am also thankful to these words for making me realize to stay away from botany/zoology and their mothers and sisters. The names in their family have such amazing combinations of alphabets from A-Z that, when they are pronounced, sounds like these alphabets never existed in those names. These words will make you feel that your efforts to learn A-Z are in vain. I wonder if Shakespeare was studying botany when he said “What's in a name”. Huge spellings always annoyed me. But, when I used Linux for the first time, I was annoyed of small words.

“etc” is the word in English which represents the set of words that are not worth presenting. In Linux, it is important directory which contains configuration files and scripts for most of the stuffs running in Linux. User can hardly get any thing from the name of this directory.

“proc” is something which itself seems to be incomplete after pronouncing. Roughly speaking, it is something that is responsible to communicate between OS and applications.

“mount/unmount” in no way gives user any idea of what to do. They are like verbs in Linux. They mean you to take some action like “Attach/Detach”.

“sda/hda” are the words which scares the masters of Linux. Messing with them may result into Culpable Homicide not amounting to murder (unintentional murder of your OS by you :) ). They represent devices on your machine. (Like “sda1” may be the first partition of your SCSI device or hard disk.)

“usr” actually put user in dilemma (They wonder if it is spelling mistake). It is a directory that can be used by user. It also contains few more directories that is used by OS.

“/” and “root” are routes to difficulty for user. “/” is also called “root” directory which consist of all the other directories, which is different then “root” directory for “root” user (like “admin” user in Windows). :)

“sbin” makes user to think about dustbin. It actually consist of system binaries.

Windows has something contrast to this. It has names with at least 2 words. Like “My Documents”, “My Computer”, “My Pictures”, “Documents and Settings”, “Program Files” etc. ( :) remember etc??). Windows like to put “My” everywhere (even if it's not their's :P). I have observed how OS impacts on the habits of user. I asked one of my friend who use Windows to save some files which were very important. He created a folder with name ”Important Files for training” on Windows. I asked same thing to my friend who use linux, he ended up with “Imp_files_trng” on Linux. I did not realize the passion until I saw Linux guy trying find command line option for opening MS Visual Studio and Windows guy trying to find UI option for ping operation on Linux and then abusing each others GF(OS). I feel that if you replace or remove Windows and Linux from their computers they may start crying. I wonder if they start naming their babies as “Ubuntu”, “Fedora”, “Windows XP Service Pack 3”.

It is possible to drill a mountain with a nail and hammer, but then, you should be aware of what your doing. I believe that every single thing in this world is useless and useful in it's own way. It depends on the user who use it. “What's in a name”, anyways.

SIZE DOES MATTER

Among the very first things that we have learned in our school days while using computer is, to create new file. Our instructors used to tell us how to do that by right clicking the mouse button. And our excitement used to reach peak to fill that file with garbage.

But, over the time we used to wonder why there are two sizes for single file. If you are not aware of the reason behind this then keep reading.

Let's do simple exercise.
1. Right click mouse button and create some text file anywhere on your machine.
2. Add "abcd" to this file and save it.
3. Now, right click again and check the properties. You will find two infirmation related to size.

Size : 4 bytes
Size on disk: 4K (4,096 bytes) (This may vary depending on your computer settings which we will discuss later.)

The first size value that you see is obvious one. It's the total size of the characters you typed in your file. The second size i.e.  Size on disk is creating the thrill.

Now let's understand the reason.

Everyone might have taken some quantity of grains to flour mill at least once in a life time. (If not, then hats off to your wife or mother :) ). Well, let's say you are preparing for some event in your house and your mother or your wife has containers filled with 1Kg  of Pigeon pea & 4 Kg  of wheat for you to take it for grinding. Let's assume that both the containers can carry maximum 5 Kg of the quantity. So, here
1 Kg  & 4 Kg are the value of Size and 5 Kg is the value of Size on disk .

Putting the above paragraph in techical terms, replace Mother/Wife with OS, container with file and ingredients in container with contents in the file. Every OS has to manage the memory in the system. So, it creates fixed sized page. So, everytime you create some new file you are actually allocating a page. On my lappy, a page has size of 4 KB. And that's what we see as "Size on disk". This obviously means that if the contents of the file goes above 4KB (4096 bytes), OS is going to allocate another page for you. Thus you see two sizes. You may have page size of 1 KB.

DOOR TO WINDOWS

GRUB VERSION.........................
......................................................
grub>

Friends, if you have 2 OS installed on your system (Windows & Linux) and you ended up with the above message with no way to jump through the Windows, then something may have gone wrong with Linux. The reason is the absence of the configuration files required by the bootloader GRUB.

So, nothing to worry about. Assuming that windows partition is still intact and untouched on your machine, we will go straight away to the solution:

1. grub> rootnoverify (hdx,y) - where x is your hard disk and y is the partition number on that hard disk.
       NOTE: If you are not aware of  x and y, type hd and press TAB twice. You will see the list of the devices on your PC. (x & y begins from 0. So your 1 is actually your 0).

     e.g rootnoverify (hd0,1) ------  I have only 1 hard disk and windows is on partition no. 2

2. grub> makeactive

3. grub> chainloader +1

4. grub> boot

Bit of explanation for enthusiast and friends who are new to Linux:

First of all GRUB is a bootloader. Dhan ta Dhan!!!! Bootloader?????
Well bootloader is the second thing that runs on you machine after power ON. Wondering whats the first one?? That's BIOS.

Why bootloader??
As the name suggest that it's job is to load. It gets aware of what and where the stuffs are stored. It is the one which gives you multiple OS boot option and loads the one which is selected.

1. rootnoverify is a command that will give address of our OS to bootloader and will not send anyone to verify this :).

2. makeactive is a command that will tell bootloader that "This is it.This is the place where all information is loaded."

3. chainloader +1 will allow bootloader to transfer the control to the new OS or bootloader.

4. boot is the command which will do the final assault.

And your Door to Windows is open. :)

NOTE: If you will face this problem you won't be able to look at this blog unless you have another system with working internet :). So, kindly note these steps.

SD CARD ON ANDROID VIRTUAL MACHINE

Popularity of Android is increasing day by day. I was mesmerized by the look and feel of Android.
So, I wanted to wash my hands with Android. After installing Android on virtual machine I tried to access SD card which I found inaccessible.:(   hhhmmmm....

So, after some time I realized that the partition for SD card was not created at all.

Why do we need SD card by the way??
Well, you can download applications, music and videos on this memory. You can also install your own application using this memory.

Here are few steps for installing Android and mounting SD card on it.
1. Get your virtual box.
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

2. And android OS image.
http://virtualboximages.com/Android+OS+2.6.29+x86+Virtual+Appliance

3. Follow these steps.
http://www.android-x86.org/documents/virtualboxhowto

4. Have fun with Android.

HERIDITARY DISORDER

“It’s up high in the air and he has taken it. Misbah-ul-Haq is out and India is in the Finals.”, commentator screamed on TV.  

We jumped with joy. India has defeated Pakistan by 29 runs and has entered the Finals of World Cup 2011. It was a good win and indeed a thrilling match. Good to watch Suresh Riana riding the runs to decent level. Great bowling by Riaz.

I could feel that the hunger to win is satisfied for me and millions of Indians but hunger for food was getting intense in my stomach. So, I started leaving Arvind’s place to have my supper. It was 10.45 in the night. I kicked my bike and I could here nothing but sound of crackers. I and Nitesh (my pillion friend) were having useless detailed analysis of the match (useless only because we were not being broadcasted on TV).

We headed towards Bharti Vidyapeeth. I have not imagined the intensity of happiness running on the roads. I can’t imagine how millions would look like. But I have seen few thousands of people on road in Pune for the first time at 10:45 in night, including woman and children of almost all possible age. (It’s fearful for a moment, trust me). Boys were driving on the road, shouting every possible slogan they knew. I have seen flags of almost all the major political parties within an area of 1 KM.

I somehow managed to drive through fire crackers and drunken enthusiasts. I was excited, for India has also somehow managed to reach the finals. (It really feels good when such “somehow” works. Engineers would know better). After reaching my room safely, I went to the gallery. I could still hear the slogan. I could still see people with bottle of beer, stopping cars to enjoy fire crackers.

A kid, around 10 yrs. Old, was standing with his father and enjoying the crackers. He immediately popped a question to his father “Why are we celebrating?”. Father promptly replied “We defeated Pakistan.”. “But, we defeated many countries in this World Cup. Why don’t we celebrate then?” was the immediate question by the toddler. This question was answered by silence. Co-incidentally no sound of crackers for few seconds too. His father was not able to utter a word and suddenly his attention was diverted by a cracker. It was a million dollar question for every single Indian. (May be Indians don’t want to be millionaire. In other words don’t want to answer this question.)

This silence recalled all the sites I have seen in last 1 hour. And the answer that I found to kiddos question was “HATERED”. We all were happy because India has won. But we all were celebrating because we have defeated Pakistan. We hate this country so much that we love to see them loosing in all walks of life.

It’s been 60 yrs of separation. And the problem of differences in these 2 countries is getting intense day-by-day. I could imagine a kid in Pakistan asking same question about their defeat to his father. I could also hear the silence between them. The picture is clear. We are passing this hatred to next generation. Our generation has seen the terrible effects of this enmity. But, if we really want that our next generation to leave in peace, we should be able to overcome these wounds. It’s better to hide our wounds then to see our kids with the same wounds. And when I think of “We” I mean India and Pakistan. It’s spreading like disease.

Someday we have to stop the inheritance of this virus in our DNA.