linux for your-oct-2009

8/14/2019 Linux for Your-Oct-2009

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OCTOBER 2009 Vol. 07 No. 8 ISSN 0974-1054

FOR YOU & ME

22 CrackingtheIInterviewFAQ

28 Slackware13:IsitReallyWorthyo

the21stCentury?

31 elepathy:LetTerebeEmpathy!

34 ODFOlympiad2009WinnerstoGetNetbooks!

36 GIMPorBeginners,Part4:Te

SelectionWand

40 WhatsCominginKarmicKoala?

42 LiberatingYoungScholars

Biz UsERs48 YouCanBankOnOpenSource!

AcasestudyonIDBIBank

AdMin

56 PerormanceuningandMonitoring,Part2

66 OpenSolarisonXen,Part1:Te

EcosystemotheXenPlatorm

69 OpenSolarisonXen,Part2:Exploringadom0OpenSolaris

76 CreatingVPNwithOpenVPN

GEEks

54 FineuningtheEnvironmentandMakingPassesatthe

CommandLine

72 TeNewSchedulerontheBlock,DedicatedtoDesktops

25 questionsthat are commoy ae.

Ofte they are ot hae we.

Tur to age 22 for t from a

etera o how to

Contents

| oCToBEr 2009 | LINUX For YoU | www.LinuxFU.cm


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Dear Readers,

Its the estival season, and is accompaniedby a lot o good news. Te I biggies havestarted hiring again. Some o them have alsoannounced their intention to restart theprocess o appraisals and increments.

But, did the demand or open sourceproessionals ever go down? Our interaction

with the industry indicated that while therewas a dampening eect o the salary levelsbeing oered, the demand or open source

proessionals remained the same as ever!Whether it was the small and medium

I frms or the biggiesthey kept lookingor proessionals with skills in open sourceprojects. In act, as more and more opensource projects are being recognised asbusiness ready, the demand or the skillsetsto work on these projects has also beenincreasing. For example, projects like Drupal(a popular content management system), orPentaho (a business intelligence sotware), arecreating many jobs in India.

In act, theres quite a demand or Iimplementers rom the Indian industry, asa whole. But the big issue is that everyone

wants people with proven skills, and thatswhere the Catch-22 arises. I you dontget a chance to work, how will you prove

yoursel; and i you dont prove yoursel,how will you get work?

Well, in the open source world, even thisproblem can be resolved. Pick up projectso your interest. Start reading about them,

trying them out, and then contributingto them. I you do learn something, yourknowledge will surely get recognised bythe project team, and its community. Tatrecognition is your experience certifcate. Inact, rom all the success stories I have beenhearing, there are very high chances that you

will get a call or an interview, even withoutyou having applied or a job!

O course, preparing or that interviewwill be your next challenge. But, we havesome valuable tips or youas you might

have noticed rom our cover this month. S.G.Ganesh, whos been a regular contributor

toLINUX For You, has written a book titledCracking the C, C++ and Java Interview,

which has recently been published. Hespicked some interesting chapters rom hisbook to share exclusively with LFY readers.urn to Page 22 to get valuable insights onhow to handle job interviews, which havebeen shared by a veteran whos been on bothsides o the table.

Heres a little secret: contributing toLINUXFor You orLinuxForU.com, and getting yourarticles published can be the road to ametoo. From authoring articles to authoringbooks, speaking at seminars, giving keynotes,and then perhaps becoming a top-notchconsultant could be a great way to promoteopen source in India.

Wish you a joyous estive season on behalo the entireLINUX For You team...

Best Wishes!

Rahul Chopra

Editor, LFY

[email protected]

If you dont get a chance to

work, how will you prove

yourself; and if you dont

prove yourself, how will

you get work?

Editorial

| OCTOBER 2009 | LINUX FOR YOU | www.LinuxForU.com


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Hats o to theLINUX For You team or giving us an

unimaginable distro. Yes, the Live Linux GamersDVD that was bundled with the September issue provedthat Linux is now an OS thats ready or gaming. I have aquestion is it possible to install this distro; i so, please letus know as it would be very helpul.

Sam Benny, [email protected]

ED:A live installer or this distro would have beengood, right? Unortunately, there is no easy way to installthe DVD. More details are available at: http://live.linux-

gamers.net/?s=aq

Te article on Develop a Simple DownloadScheduler was quite interesting, but what was

suggested is dicult to implement daily. Hope someonedevelops a small GUI-based download scheduler that canbe easily used by everybody. Te requirement or adownload scheduler is evident rom the article and I canguarantee a million or more downloads in a month iimplemented with a GUI. In act, I was desperately insearch o a download scheduler (most o my new Linux-using riends wanted one) when I came across this article.

An appreciable eortthanks to Sreekanth Balakrishnan.Still, I continue to hope that someone develops a ront-endGUI or this.

E Sathiya Sekhar, [email protected]

I searched your whole site but I couldnt nd whichLinux distributions you are providing with the

current issue. Please provide a detailed list o the sotwareand Linux distros provided with the magazine on theCurrent issue page.

Anup Unawane, [email protected]

ED: Tanks or your eedback. Were in the process o

conceptualising the Latest issue Web page right insideLinuxForU.comso that lymag.com becomes redundant.We hope to implement it in October.

I need back editions rom December 2008. Can Iorder them and pay by DD?

Anand, [email protected]

ED :Due to a space crunch, we do not stock issuesolder than three months. However, our associatesKitsn Spares (www.kitsnspares.com) sell old issues that aretypically up to a year old. Sometimes, they keep older

issues too. o check i they have the issue(s) you want,shoot them an e-mail at [email protected] or call themat 011-32975879.

Why arent searches based on author names

working on LinuxForU.com? Author Name is oneo the most common tags that people use to start asearch. Hope you will ix this.

Gurudutt Talgery, [email protected]

ED: Tanks or reporting this bug. Te problem wasour search query had been searching or user names on theWordPress installation, rather than the rst and the lastnames. However, we have managed to sort out the issueand hope it works ne or you now.

Hardware supportis Linux lacking?

First o allcongratulations on this very goodwebsite (and theLFYmagazine, o course!).

But with Linux, there is a problem (actually, lots oproblems!), which makes it impossible to run a PC withoutMS Windows. Why? Heres an example.

You cant print with USB printers. Maybe, it is workingor some o us, but there are too many requests or helpregarding this issue on the Internet. It is obviously not theprinters or drivers, but CUPS and USB, or a combination othese, which creates the problem. You even read that somepeople switched back to Windows just because o the(non-)printing issue.

As I am not a developer, I can only guess whatswrong, but in the world o distros too, there are manyfaws like this. I dont know whom but your magazine toaddress these issues to. I am sure your competence can dosomething in this regard, which will be useul to millions ootherwise rustrated users or wannabe users.

By the way, my system is home-made with anASUS M3M78-EM motherboard, an AMD 64-bit quadcore, 4 GB RAM, an Epson Stylus Photo R230 printer,an Epson Perection 3990 scanner and 2 hard discs. Myoperating systems are Mandriva 2009.1, Debian Lenny and

unortunately (yet unavoidably) XP Proessional. It wouldbe great i you can initiate a more cooperative systemaround the Linux core.

Hartmut Balke, [email protected]

Atanu Datta, assistant editor, LFY, replies:Tanksor your insightul eedback. I have one question w.r.t. theollowing hardware peripherals:

ASUS M3M78-EM motherboardEpson Stylus Photo R230 printerEpson Perection 3990 scannerI'm sure these manuacturers provided you at least

one driver CD with each o their products. However, in theabsence o these driver CDs, do these devices work out-o-the-box on Windows XP Proessional?

Yousaid it

| OCTOBER 2009 | LINUX FOR YOU | www.LinuxForU.com


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ypically, whom would you call up or ask or support

when any o these devices don't work as they should or asadvertised in the absence o drivers? Is it the OS vendorMicrosot or the device manuacturers, ASUS and Epson?

Would it not be the latter pair, rather than Microsot?Similarly, calling Epson or ASUS or support would be moreappropriate even with your Linux OS.

Linux, as o today, supports the most number ohardware devices out-o-the-box compared to Windowsand other proprietary OSs. Tis is largely due to theoccurrence o any o the ollowing three scenarios:1. Te hardware manuacturer works with the Linux

device driver developersthus pushing its drivers to be

included in the kernel, by deault. For example, Linux isthe rst kernel to support USB3 specications.

2. Te hardware manuacturer makes the hardware specso a device availablewhich enables the Linux devicedriver developers to write the required drivers.

3. Te hardware manuacturer neither works with theLinux device driver developers, nor makes the devicespecs availablewhich orces the Linux developers toderive the driver sotware by reverse engineering.Teres one other mode o hardware supportthe

device manuacturer makes proprietary drivers easilyavailable or dierent Linux distros to include, e.g.,NVIDIA. Tis is arguably not the best o solutions ( romthe reedom point o view), but it works, nonetheless.

Whats important to understand is the third scenario.Reverse engineering by guessing the specs o a device isnot the easiest o jobsyet many work at it just to makeusers lives easier.

We, non-developers, could also help FOSS developersoutby asking the hardware vendors to support our OS.I they dont, then we should return their products sayingthat they dont work as advertised.

Better still, beore buying a product, check i it works

on Linux. Even when you know it works, still ask the salesteam about itthey should know that Windows is notthe only OS people use. And reuse to buy a product thatdoesnt support Linux.

Its small things like these that can help you, and allo us, out. Why? Because the moment the manuacturerrealises that its losing out on potential customers in theabsence o Linux support, it has to rethink its strategy.

At the end o the day, manuacturers are rolling outproducts to make money by selling them. Tey support

Windows only because they think thats their only market.We users need to make them realise that there are many

people using Linux too. As long as we dont do our part,things wont change.

Hartmut replies: Following your suggestions I tried to

Please send your comments or suggestions to:

The Editor

LINUX FOR YOU Magazine

D-87/1, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase I, New Delhi 110020Phone: 011-26810601/02/03 Fax: 011-26817563

Email: [email protected], Website: www.linuxforu.com

download the device drivers:

ASUS, I just come to know, has no specic driver orany Linux system.Epson drivers are available and installed.So, it is not a problem with any o the hardware drivers

but with the handling o USB in the Linux system itsel.Connecting, disconnecting or re-connecting at any o theUSB jacks renders the entire USB system not to work,except or those units not disconnected or switched.Strange, isnt it?

Just check the loads o usb-printer-problems inthe respective websites o all OS favours and hardwarebrandseverywhere its the same problem. Te solutions

recommended are as many as the questions. It is a Linuxinternal matter.

In a German website I ound a question similar tomine, raised by a sotware(!) company. It was not able tosolve the problem and switched back to MS because o theneed to print.

Please nd out what is wrong. I dont have the meansto do this. Linux is using a lot o sotware made byoutsiders, e.g., CUPS, which is an Apple product. It works

with ghostwrite, oomatic, gutenprint .... It works, but whois going to standardise what is necessary?

You are right; we have to support and deend thereedom o our system. Salesmen want to sellor them,everything will work with Linux. Indeed, you will nd alot o workarounds even or extreme hardware on theInternet. Tat shows the power o the Linux idea but alsothe ignorance o (at least some) people working or it.Sorry, or my openness but with Linux, it has to be so...

ED: Its indeed strange that although you have theofcial Epson drivers, your printer still doesntwork. Hereat EFY, we oten connect HP printers using USB, to oursystems, and they work ne. We would recommend youcontact Epson, and also le a bug report about the problem

in the bug tracking system o the distro(s) youre using.Te FOSS ecosystem is a collaborative efortthats whythere are independent projects working on diferent sotwareand applications. For example, CUPS has always been the

print server sotware or LinuxApple bought CUPS only in2007. Anyway, wed love to have the views o the communityand our readers on the topic brought up by Hartmut. Tank

you or your valuable eedback. Keep it coming! :-)

Yousaid it

10 | OCTOBER 2009 | LINUX FOR YOU | www.LinuxForU.com


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I have created a virtual server using OpenVZ, onwhich I have installed CentOS 5.3 and MySQL 5.0.45.Ater installing MySQL I was unable to start mysqldbecause o the appearance o the ollowing error,according to the log fle: Fatal error: Can't open andlock privilege tables: Table 'mysql.host' doesn't exist".Please help me confgure MySQL.

Suraj Ghugtial, Lucknow

o overcome this issue you need to remove the MySQLdatadir. You don't have to worry about the data as youhave a new installation. Check the location o your mysqldatadir in /etc/my.cnby deault, it is /var/lib/mysqland remove it:

# rm -r /path_to_datadir

Now go to /usr/bin/ (or whatever your MySQL path is)and run the ollowing commands:

./mysql_install_db --user=mysql --ldata=/sqldata

./mysqld_sae --datadir=/sqldata --user=mysql &

Tis should resolve the issue.

I was trying out the KDE 4.3-based openSUSE11.1 implementation (LFY Sep'09 issue) and laterinstalled it on a Dell Inspiron 1420 laptop. I wouldlike to use the Reliance NetConnect USB on thislaptop. However, I could not get any specifc help onthe Web or at orums.opensuse.org. I am hoping you

will point me in the right direction. I have a RelianceNetconnect (CDMA 1x) ZTE / MG880 device. I wasable to capture the dmesg output ater I plugged-inand then unplugged the device.

usb 6-1: new ull speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 6

usb 6-1: confguration #1 chosen rom 1 choice

usb 6-1: New USB device ound, idVendor=19d2, idProduct=d

usb 6-1: New USB device strings: Mr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3

usb 6-1: Product: ZTE CDMA Tech

usb 6-1: Manuacturer: ZTE, Incorporated

usb 6-1: SerialNumber: Serial Number

On un-plugging the modem, dmesg shows theollowing:

usb 6-1: USB disconnect, address 6

R V Mishra, [email protected]

o connect and use your MG880 modem, ollow thesteps given below.

Open a terminal and switch to being the root user. Nowrun a modprobe:

# modprobe usbserial vendor=0x19d2 product=0xd

You can fnd the product and vendor ID in your dmesgor by running the ollowing command:

# cat /proc/bus/usb/devices

I assume that you have wvdial installed. Now just run:

# wvdialcon

Ater the successul completion o the command,check the /etc/wvdial fle, which should have the ollowinginormation:

Init1 = ATZ

Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0Modem Type = Analog Modem

Phone = #777

Username =

Password =

ISDN = 0

SetVolume = 0

FlowControl = Hardware (CRTSCTS)

Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0

Dial Command = ATDT

Baud = 460800

Stupid Mode = 1

Now run the wvdial command and wait or the modemto connect.


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US FCC to mandatenetwork neutralityfor the WebTe head o the United StatesFederal CommunicationsCommission (FCC) plans topropose new rules that wouldprohibit Internet serviceproviders rom interering withthe ree ow o inormation andcertain applications over theirnetworks. Te guiding idea is

that the big cable companiesthat build the inormationhighway shouldnt exert muchcontrol over where users drive.

he FCC chie JuliusGenachowski proposedtwo new guidelines, plus astrengthening o existing FCCstandards:

Providers cant favour their

own contentProviders obroadband Internet servicescannot discriminate againstparticular Internet contentor applications. Tis wouldcover the emerging arena o

wireless broadband services,delivered to smart phones.

Providers need to explain

variable Internet speedsBroadband providersshould disclose theirnetwork management

practices to consumers.his might include policiesthat cause some users toace a squeeze on theirconnection speed duringtimes o peak traic on thenetwork.

Providers cant limit access

to lawful contenthesestandards say that networkoperators cannot preventusers rom accessing the

lawul Internet content andapplications.

Dell and Canonical introduce Ubuntu Moblin Remix

Canonical, partnering with Dell, recently unveiled Ubuntu Moblin RemixDeveloper Edition. he oering, based on Moblin version 2, is optimisedor Dells Inspiron Mini 10v netbook that became available since September24th, this year.

According to a joint press release,Ubuntu Moblin Developer Editiongives developer communities a greatplatorm to develop and test Moblinand associated applications. his pieceo news mitigates potential concernabout Moblin pushing aside Ubuntuas a popular mobile Linux operating

system. Instead, the Dell-Canonical eort allows Moblin services and theMoblin graphical user interace to run atop Ubuntu.

However, Dells promise to re-introduce desktop PCs with Ubuntu stillremains unulilled.

Yahoo! may sell off ZimbraAs Yahoo works to reposition itsel as a more consumer acing company, it islooking at some o the businesses it has acquired over the years and how theyt. One o them that doesnt appear to have a place in the new Yahoo is Zimbra,

which, according to Channel Register [http://ow.ly/qrs4], is up or sale.Yahoo acquired the open source e-mail company back in September 2007

or $350 million. Te goal was to use Zimbras technology as a oothold intothe white-label e-mail business and to improve Yahoo Mail.

Apparently, Comcast and Google are amongst the companies beingcourted to purchase Zimbra, although the sale price is likely to be ar lessthan the $350 million Yahoo paid. With Zimbra, Yahoo! had an opportunityto dominate the white label collaboration and e-mail space. Instead, it let theproduct languish and allowed Google to take a big chunk o the business.

Androids on a rollAndroid seems to have caught the phone manuacturers ancy, big time. Tismonth, there have been a slew o releases on the platorm. While HC hasbeen touting its brand new hero with HC Sense, Samsung is also planning to

introduce India to its very rst phone with Googles OS in the core, called theGalaxy. Ten there is LG Etna to drool on. Motorola has joined the bandwagonand designed a completely customised user interace orMotorola Cliq and Dext, all on top o the open sourceoperating system, Android.

Moreover, to prove Androids popularity, Facebook hasnally come out with an ofcial Android appsomethingthey had reused to do earlier, hoping the developercommunity would get its hands dirty. Googles Eric Chu hasalso announced several upgrades to the Android Marketthat will eature in Android 1.6. In a post on the ofcial

Android Developers blog, Chu revealed that new changes

to the Android Market would allow developers to addscreenshots, promotional icons, and improved appdescriptions to show o their apps and games better.

FOSSBytes



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For any further information about the FOSS training special edition of LINUX For You, please contact

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MSs open sourcestrategist quitsSam Ramji, Microsots key gurein engaging with opensource developers, has letthe building. Hes quittingMicrosot and going to

work or a start-up, leavinga number o Microsotinitiatives, includingcontributions to the Linuxkernel and its CodePlex open

source code-sharing initiative,somewhat in the air.

Tat Microsot has workedwith the open source developercommunity at all would be newsto many. Apart rom being odderor analysts and public relations,theres very little businessincentive or Microsot to reallyco-operate with ree sotwarein most o the areas it operatesin. From Web servers to Webdevelopment platorms, compilersto dynamic languages, opensource competes directly withMicrosots own products.

Mesa 7.6 to be releasedbefore October 09Mesa 7.6 provides supportor a number o new OpenGLextensions with its sotwarerasterizer and the Intel i965 driver

mostly, there is the rewrittenRadeon/R200/R300 driver thatuses the buer manager (a.k.a. theRadeon 3D driver re-write), GL_EX_ramebuer_object supportor AI when using the Mmemory manager, proper OpenGL1.5 support or the AI R300 series(and VBO + OQ support), and theassembly shader rework. Tis, inact, is just a small portion o thechanges. Mesa 7.6 is quite a huge

update compared to Mesa 7.5,which was just released in July.

Jolicloud: The new social OS for netbooks

Netbooks have become the buzz word today. As they become more popular, itbecomes obvious that netbooks are very dierent rom laptops and should betreated dierently. ariq Krim, the ounder o Netvibes, is one o the many who arenot satised with the OS running on their netbooks. And this led to the creation o

Jolicloud (an OS based on Ubuntu Netbook Remix) thats designed specically ornetbooks, and the beta version o which is to be released very soon.

Jolicloud is currently at the closed alpha testing stage and only oersdownloads on an invitation basis. Te download is a LiveCD installer o around600 MB, distributed in ISO ormat. You will have to use a USB creator sotwareto mount the ISO le on a USB drive beore it can be installed on a netbook.

One o the major highlights o the OS is its light weight and the absenceo most o the applications one would normally use in your day-to-day lie.

Jolicloud has even decided to do away with the Synaptics Package Manager andreplaced it with a Prism dashboard called My Jolicloud. Te dashboard is thestarting point o your Jolicloud Web-centric experience. It contains news andnotications o the sotware updates or your netbook.

Te application panel unctions just likethe iPhone App Store where you can choosethe applications you want and install it in yournetbook, easily and quickly. You are not restrictedto install only desktop-based applications. Mosto the popular Web-based apps such as GoogleDocs, Zoho Ofce, and Youube can also beinstalled in your system (basically, they are just acustomised build o Prism).

Te app also has a social network built in,where you can ollow other Jolicloud users (a la witter) and get updates onwhat they install on their systems (a la Wakoopa).

MontaVista 6 targets multiple platformsMontaVista Sotware recently announced the general availability o new MarketSpecic Distributions (MSDs) o MontaVista Linux 6. By working closely withits semiconductor partners to deliver the right combination o eatures andunctionality or each platorm, MontaVista remains committed to providingthe broadest hardware support in the embedded Linux market, and aligning the

embedded Linux supply chain.Tese MSDs are the rst o a broad amily o semiconductor eature-compatible, market-specic Linux distributions announced in May this year.Built on a common ramework, and optimised or the respective hardwareplatorm and its target market, an MSD is designed to support the ull breadtho unctionality provided by the semiconductor vendors, be eature compatible

with the semiconductor vendors Linux technology, and provide the value-addeatures and quality MontaVista is known or. MSDs may be customised andoptimised or the target application, allowing developers to easily create atailored sotware distribution that ully exploits the hardware specic eatures.

MontaVista Linux 6 was announced on May12, 2009 and made generallyavailable on August 14, 2009. More than 40 MSDs are being planned and

developed and will be made available in the coming months. It also providessupport or the broadest range o hardware platorms rom each o the leadingsemiconductor vendors.

FOSSBytes



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Cracking the IT

InterviewThis introductory chapter from the book Cracking the

C, C++ and Java Interview is in the form of Frequently

Asked Questions (FAQ). It answers many of the basic

doubts most students and young programmers have.

These FAQ also clear a few misconceptions about

attending interviews.

What skills do IT companies look or in

prospective candidates?

I companies look out or various technicalskills and sot skills in candidates. In sot skills,communication skills are very important. Other sotskills include presentation skills, team-work, writingskills, etc. In technical skills, companies expect thecandidates to have good expertise in their area ograduation. For computer science students, evergreentechnical skills are C, Unix, operating systems and

networking. Candidates with these skills are likely tohave better chances o getting a job.

1

General questions

What is the dierence between a CV and

a rsum?

A CV (Curriculum Vitae) is a documentprepared by a student or a resher searching or a

job. It provides the academic details o the student.A rsum is prepared by a person having work

experience, which emphasises job history and on-the-job skills and experience.

3

FAQ2

When should I start preparing or

placements?

For sot skills, it is better to start preparingone year beore the placements start. Fortechnical skills, it is beneicial to ocusrom the irst year itsel. Otherwise, you canstart revising important subjectsrom the

placements point o viewrom one yearbeore placements.


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What should or should not be there in my CV?

A good CV will have the ollowing sections: objective, personal strengths, academic background,academic achievements (i any), extracurricular activities, project details, areas o interest, and personal andcontact details. It should have neat and simple ormatting. Ideally, it should be o 23 pages.

Some characteristics o a bad CV can be as ollows: overly complex ormatting or styles; typos, grammaticalmistakes; either too short (1 page), or too long (> 3 pages); too many personal details (e.g., parents occupation, 3rdconsolation prize in Rangoli competition); list o weaknesses, etc.

4

How detailed should the CV or rsum be?

Te CV or rsum should ideally have adequate details about ones job history or academic details,project details and achievements.

Te job history should be rom the current work experience to details o the rst job (i.e., in reverse chronologicalorder) giving the name o the company, role/position and number o years (preerably with joining and leaving dates).

Te academic details should cover the college/university, course, year o passing, percentages/CGPA, etc. Projectdetails should include the title, where it was done, sotware used, and a short description o the project. Other sectionscan be very brie and to-the-point.

5

How should I prepare or written tests?

o prepare or written tests, the ollowingshould be taken care o:

Know the general ormat o the question papersrom I companies. ypically, most o the Icompanies cover some or all o the ollowingtopics:

programming aptitude (C, data structures,algorithms, etc)quantitative aptitudeanalytical abilityreasoning (logical, critical, etc)

verbal skills (synonyms, grammar,composition, etc)puzzles

ry solving the previous years sample question

papersAttempting to solve previous years samplequestion papers is very important. his helps

you know where you stand , get experiencein answering questions quickly in the actual

written test, and, in general, become conidento clearing the written test.Read relevant books

GRE (Barrons guide)R.S. Aggarwals aptitude books (quantitativeaptitude, reasoning, etc)Shakuntala Devis puzzle books (Puzzles to

Puzzle You, More Puzzles to Puzzle You, etc)echnical books (Let us C , etc.)

6H

ow should I prepare or attending

an interview?

In the irst place, know the basic detailsabout the companyits main business,size, etc. I possible, visit the companys

website and get to know the general detailsabout the company. his helps to show that

you are interested in the company whenrelated questions are asked in the interview.

An experienced person looking ora job change needs to know about thecurrent position he is applying or (the jobproile), what is expected rom a person inthat position, and how he can it into thatposition.

An important aspect in cracking the

interview is your attitude (i.e., how youpresent yoursel). Show keen interest, beattentive and listen to the interviewer.Other aspects to look out or are eyecontact, body language, appearance, wayo speaking, showing respect, etc. Also, beon time or the interview (e.g., start early itraic jams are common in your city).

Knowing the latest advances intechnology and other happenings in yourtechnical domain would be an addedadvantage.

7

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How many interviews do I have to clear to

get a job?

It is usually a minimum o two interviews: atechnical interview and an HR interview. In some cases

(e.g., i the company youve applied to is in another cityor country), a telephonic interview is done to screenthe candidates beore calling them or ace-to-aceinterviews. In major Indian I companies and MNCsthat are product-based, there will be multiple technicalinterviews. Unless the hiring company is satised with

your technical skills (and communication skills) andyou clear the HR interview, you cannot get the job. Yoursocial status makes no impact in the interviews.

8

Why do companies have an HR interview

in addition to the technical interview(s)?

Te HR interview has two objectives(1) tocheck i youre t or the organisation; and (2) to check i yourrequirements match that o the organisation. I you havegood communication skills, a riendly personality, a positiveattitude, and keen interest in learning and contributing, andin addition, i youre an efective team player and it is likelythat youll stay or at least a ew years, its most likely thatyou will be benecial to the organisation. An HR interviewis intended to check all these aspects. In other words, an HRinterview checks your sot skills, attitude, and i youre theright t or the company.

9

Why is an HR interview important?

Simpleonly i you clear thisinterview, youll get a job! Also, i you getthe job, the HR department (o course, aterconsulting with the manager o the team or

which youre recruited) decides the pay youllget, your roles and responsibilities, etc.

10

Iam a class topper. Should I attend only

selective companies in our campus

interviews because I am sure to get a job?

Youre overcondent and this can spoil your chances o

getting a job. Being a class topper obviously gives you abetter chance o getting a job. But remember, the skillsrequired or getting a job are dierent rom getting highmarks. It is better to get a job rst and then start beingselective about your dream company, which you may

want to join as a second job. Also, i youre selective,you lose opportunities to attempt written tests andinterviews and hence when your dream companycomes or placement, youll be ill-prepared or it.

11

Igot a job, but I did not get a call to join

the company. Should I keep on waiting

indefnitely?

Dont worry. I the job environment is bad, it isnatural that your joining date can be very late (insome cases, the delay can be more than a year!). Keepin touch with the HR department o the concernedcompany and get to know the status rom othercandidates who have got placed in that company.Explore other alternatives: search or another job(who knows, you might be destined or a better job!);

join some job-oriented courses; do certications inthe areas o your interest .

12

That brings me to another question. Do

certiications help in getting a job?

Yes. oday certi ications are an e ectiveway to demonstrate your expertise in a particulartechnical domain. Getting relevant, valuable

certiications can signiicantly improve yourchances o getting a well-paid job.

13

Your favourite Linux Magazine is

now on the Web, too.

LinuxForU.comFollow us on Twitter @LinuxForYou

THE COMPLETE M AGAZINE ON OPEN SOURCE

BETA


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Ihave been searching or a job or more than

a year and I still have not got a job. What

are the options that I have?

Dont lose hope. Tere are examples o candidates who

have good jobs and successul careers, who couldnt getany job initially. Continue to search or jobs, but alsoexplore other options in this situation:1. Go in or higher studies and improve your academic

qualications.2. I you have a bachelors degree, consider enrolling

or a masters degree such as an MBA, M.ech, orother courses, depending on your interest.

3. Consider joining advanced courses, such as a post-graduate diploma programme rom C-DAC.

4. Do some certication courses in your areas ointerest, which can improve your chances o getting

a good job.5. Join some evergreen job-oriented courses such as

sotware testing and technical writing.6. Depending on your interest, take some specialised

courses such as advanced animation, or CAD-CAM,rom established institutes like Aptech, NII, etc.

7. Learn any new computer skills: new programminglanguages like C, C++, Java, operating systems (Unix,Linux), applications (ally, etc). Such job skillssignicantly increase your chances o getting a job.

8. Network with your college seniors, relatives orriends who are already working and ask them toorward your resume to their HR departments.

9. Send your CV to companies both directly andthrough consultants.

10. Improve sot skills: communication skills,presentation skills, learning oreign languages(Japanese, French, German, etc).

11. Do sotware projects: it adds value to your CV. rydoing a project rom a reputed organisation (MNCs,PSUs, government organisations, etc). Dont payor doing projects. Rather, try working as a trainee

without getting paid or with a minimum stipend (to

gain experience).

14I

s it necessary to change jobs requently to

get a better pay and position?

No, it is not a good idea to change jobsrequently. ry to stick to a company and work there or

at least 3 to 5 years.Tere are good reasons why one would change

a job or proessional reasons (better pay, careeradvancement, new work environment, new area o

work, overseas work assignments, etc), or personalreasons (getting married, want to live with parents,etc). It is perectly acceptable to change a job or suchreasons. However, dont change your job requently.Tere are many reasons why we should avoid jobhopping.

Potential employers look at the job history ocandidates beore selecting them. I a person has

changed jobs oten (say, 5 jobs in 5 years!), it is verylikely that the person will do so in uture as well, soemployers preer not recruiting such candidates.ypically, it requires around 6 months to becomeproductive in a new organisation and start contributing.I you leave the job within a short periodsay withina yearit is a loss to the company because o manyreasons: the company has ramped you in your new joband that eort is lost, the company has to spend againto recruit a new person or your position, the work getspending till the time the new person on board becomesproductive, etc. So it becomes dicult to get a new jobi you are a job hopper.

It is better to take a long-term view about yourcareer. It takes at least 5 years to learn enough aboutthe job, the company, the technology, become highlyproductive, and make signicant contributions to thecompany. Te pay and position we get in the companydepends on the level o contribution we make to thecompany. I you nd your kind o job and company andstick to it, and ocus on contributing to the company,

youll naturally grow and earn better than i you keepshiting jobs. Focus on learning than earningthats

what all the successul people have done!

15

Some FAQ to candidates and how to answer them

Tell me about yoursel.

his is an open-ended question that interviewers ask at the beginning o the interview to knowmore about you. hey also use this question to get an idea o how you look at yoursel and yourachievements.

Briely explain your proessional background, the projects youve done, signiicant contributions youve

made in your previous jobs, and conclude with a note about your personal background and a ew pointson your positive personal characteristics. Dont talk or an hour; make it short and to-the-point. Also, dontoveremphasise your personal details.

16




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What are your strengths and

weaknesses?

Tis is a question asked to check how youlook at yoursel and also how your strengths can

contribute to the team.Be honest and tell what you consider as

your strengths (I learn new skills ast, I am aneective team player, I have good leadershipskills, etc). Provide supporting details or yourstrengths (I learn new skills ast. In my previous

job, I had to learn scripting. I started to do shel lprogramming rom the next day itsel, and I didit!). For weaknesses, dont elaborate too much;some weaknesses can cost you your job (I cantresist stealing i I see costly mobiles!).

17

What do you know about our company?

his question is to check i youwould be interested in working in thatcompany (i youre a kernel hacker, it is unlikelythat youll be interested in Web programming,assuming that the company develops Web-based sotware). It is also to check i yourekeenly interested in joining the companyi

youre going or higher studies and attendinginterviews just-like-that, then you would nothave shown much interest in knowing moreabout that company, right?

o answer this question you should preparebeore attending the interview. Visit thecompanys website to know about the company.I you know anyone working in the company,contact them and get an idea o what thecompany works on, which countries (or states)it has a presence in, the kind o projects orproducts they are working on, etc. An overview

o the company is more than enough.

18

What do you think o your previous

boss?

his question is to check how well you canwork with, or relate to your new boss i you getthe job.

Speak about a ew good things you oundwhile working with your previous boss. However,

you cant be too open in answering this question!

19

Why are you planning to leave your

current job?

Be careul in answering this question.Usually acceptable answers are: Looking or

better pay; looking or a better role and growthopportunities; Got married and had to shit to thiscity. Bad answers: I didnt like my old boss! (youretoo rank to get this job!); Te project is nearingthe deadline and I dont want to work in that hecticschedule (you cant desert your project when it is ina critical situation!); I had to work! (come on, yourepaid or doing your work!).

20

Tell us about some challenges you aced inyour previous job and how you overcame

them.

Tis question is asked to check how condent youare in handling your day-to-day work and also yourcondence in sticky situations.

You can briefy explain some o the challenges thatyou aced in your earlier jobs, how you dealt with them,how your team or managers helped you, and how

you successully overcame the problems nally. Avoidtalking about bad experiences. Also avoid blaminganyone or the team or any problem. It is better to talkabout technical challenges and problems.

21

Are you a team player?

Sometimes the interviewer asks youthis question directly. his question is alsoasked indirectly, as in: Do you preer working inteams or working alone? or How comortable are

you in working as a member in a large team? his

question is to check how good and comortableyou are in working as a team player (particularlyin a ew types o jobs where team work is veryimportant).

Obviously we need to say, Yes, but support youranswer with more details or by giving a ew instancesin the past where you worked very well as a teamplayer. I you are a resher, you can talk about yourparticipation in or organizing o team sports events,get-togethers, etc.

Focus more about team strength than aboutindividual abilities. Tis question could also lead to

questions like how you handled conficts within theteam. So be prepared!

22


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Cracking the C, C++,and Java InterviewAuthor : SGGanesh

Publisher : TataMcGrawHillEducationPvtLtd

ISBN-13 : 978-0-07-007792-8

ISBN-10 : 0-07-007792-4Pages : 264

Price : Rs250/-

How much o a salary hike are you looking

or?

Obviously, this is one o the most dicultquestions to answer!

I youre honest and say, Double the current salary, youwont get the job. I you say, I am ne getting even the oldsalary, you might actually end up getting it! A sae answeris, Te same as the industry average hike one gets whilemoving to a new job (whatever that industry averagemeans!). I youve done enough analysis about the salarystructure in the new company and know that youll getmore or the same level o experience and skill set, youcan say: Te same as the salary that a person with similarexperience and skills will get in your company, and throwthe ball back in the interviewers court.

23

Why should we hire you?

Tis is a question that everyinterviewer has, while interviewing acandidate. Tey want a justication or why they shouldselect you. Te interviewer just bounces this ball to youand checks how you give the reason or hiring you!

ell them about your proessional and personalstrengths, relevant job experience, or academicbackground, your suitability or the current jobrequirements, etc., and give your view on why theyshould hire you. Bad answers: Because I am desperateor a job; I have searched or jobs or more than a yearand I didnt get anyyou should help me!

24

Do you have any questions or us?

ypically, an interviewer will askthis question just beore the end othe interview. his is to check i you have

any important questions that you want toget clariied. Instead o saying I have noquestions, it is better to ask relevant questionsto show your keen interest in getting the job.

Do show enthusiasm about the new joband ask about the new team, opportunities,company, etc. Good examples: What arethe current problems that the team is acingnow and how can I possibly help?, What arethe career growth opportunities available inthe company. Bad examples: Did I do theinterview well?, Will I get this job? (Both

are in the list o Frequently Asked WrongQuestionsnever ask these questions in theinterview! But yes, you can ask When can Iexpect to hear rom you?)

25

By: S G Ganesh

The author is a research engineer in Siemens (Corporate

Technology). His latest book is 60 Tips on Object Oriented

Programming, published by Tata McGraw-Hill. You can reach

him at [email protected].

This article is an excerpt from the bookCracking the C, C++ and Java Interview

by S G Ganesh. Courtesy: Tata McGraw-Hill Education Private Limited, 7, West Patel

Nagar, New Delhi 110 008




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S

lackware is old. No really, itsOLD! I youre used to the likeso Ubuntu or any o the other

modern GNU/Linux systems,setting up Slackware would seem like youreback in the early 90s.

Some will argue that Ubuntu and the restthat try to make lie easier or desktop usersdont give thatne-grained control over the

way you set up your system. Why should adistro try to make choices on your behal? Byconguring your system rom the bottom up,

youd ultimately learn the internals.Does it help? Yes, it does. Immensely!

Does everyone have the time and

inclination? NO!Whatever said and done, the majority

o those who use computers want to get on

with their workmost dont have the timeto peek into the innards o an OS. So, i youbelong to this category, youre probably better

o without Slackware.However, Slackware 13 has one surprisein its bagthe desktop somehow looks prettymodern, and works out-o-the-box. Yes,KDE4 has nally inected the conservativeSlackware developer(s). Pat Volkerding writesin the release notes, Im using it on all myown machines (including an Intel Atom

with compositing enabled), and Ive reallyallen in love with it once I got used to it. Tetools are integrated better with the desktop,Qt4 seems to be a aster and more stable

platorm, and nearly everything that wasavailable or KDE3 has been ported to KDE4and works great.

The latest version o the oldest surviving GNU/Linux distro comes with updates

galore, including a KDE4 desktop and ext4 flesystem. It perhaps even has

everything or a geek. However, whether it makes the cut or a typical desktop

user is the real question.

13


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Now, Pat doesnt put anything inside Slackware unlessand until hes completely satised with the piece o code.Hell still make you use LiLo instead o Grub, by deault!So, all this praise coming rom him could only mean howimpressive KDE4 is and what lies ahead in the coming

years.

Installation and configurationI think the rst Slackware version I had tried was 9.1that

was in 2003. As ar as I can remember, things pretty muchlook the same, even today. Its the same old ncurses-based

wizard thats ool-proo and stable.Anyway, or the uninitiated, Il l try to walk you through

the Slackware path. Ater booting the CD, youre promptedon whether you wish to use a US English keymap (or yourkeyboard) or not. We Indians do, so simply hitEnter. Tisbrings you to the login screen.

Log in as the root, and type setup to start the

installation. Note that i you need to congure yourpartitions, the installer wont oer you anything. So, do

your partitioning tid-bits using the cdiskutility and thenproceed with setup.

Tis will bring you to an ncurses-based menu. Readwhat theHelp option oers i you like, or jump straight tothe addswap option. Follow the instructions rom there on,and you should be up and running.

A ew things I noticed:Now that the kernel version is upped to 2.6.29,Slackware oers ext4 as the deault lesystem. Ocourse, other choices like ext3, XFS, JFS, etc, are stillavailable.It's better i you choose the recommended package

installation sections. Although this will installeverything available in the DVD, it won't bug you withall those prompts.Te package installation on my C2D 1.6GHz HP550 laptop with 1GB o RAM took only 15 minutes.Considering that the total install size is more than 4GB, that's pretty ast.

General configuration and desktopSlackware still boots you to init level 3that is thecommand line interace with networking enabled. Youneed to start X with either startxor by launching the

display manageror example, kdm. Tis setting is nice iI were to run a server on it, but Id rather have the desktopshow up by deault. So, its time to open /etc/inittab and setthe deault runlevel to 4yes, its not 5, like other distros.

Youll also need to set up a normal user account,manually. Unortunately, that was not a part o theinstallers job. Anyway, run the ollowing command tocreate one:


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useradd -m slacky

Replace slackywith whatever user name you preer.Logging into the KDE4 desktop made me realise that

Slackware has nally bought into the idea o desktopeectsKWin eects work out-o-the-box i your VGA

supports 3D. It could also be because Slackware has astrict policy o not customising the deaults oered byupstream sotware projects and here KDE oers desktopeects by deault.

Apart rom that, the desktop is plainwith onlya panel at the bottom, and no extra icons (nor Folder

View) on the desktop. Although Slackware has the IntelWi-Fi drivers or my wireless Ethernet card, it oers noNetworkManager or seamless wireless access pointswitching. In act, youd need to edit les manually or usecommand line tools like icongand iwcongto set upthe network.

For a while, I searched online to nd a SlackwareNetworkManager package, but unortunately, noneo the third-party Slackware sotware repos (likelinuxpackages.netor slacky.eu) had any sotwareavailable or version 13 as I write this. Hopeully, things

would have changed by the time you install it.Anyway, the/extras/section o the DVD has a GK

tool called Wicd, which is a drop-in replacement orNetworkManager. While were on the subject o GKtools, they all look ugly due to the absence o the gtk-qttheme engines.

Firing up Wicd gave me a permission-denied errormessage. Te good thing is that the error message alsogave a tip on how to x it. And while were on the subjecto error messages, herere a couple more:

KMix doesn't load because the user doesn't haverights to the sound device.Clicking on an unmounted volume in Dolphindisplays error messages.So, I red up Konsole to x things. Adding your user

name against the ollowing group names in /etc/groupxes the aorementioned issues:

audio this xes the sound issue.

video although video worked, I still added my username here or the heck o it.cdrom looked like this solved the CD/DVDmounting issuethough Im not sure.plugdev this was to enable the user to mount othervolumes (which probably includes optical discs aswell; so maybe adding the user name to the cdromgroup wasnt required).netdev well, this xed the issue with Wicdpermissions.

Ater saving the i le with the changes, and areboot, Wicd and KMix started as soon as I logged in

to KDE, and now I could also mount volumes (harddisk partitions and media devices) using Dolphin.

What a relie !

By: Atanu Datta

He likes to head bang and play air guitar in his spare time. Oh,

and hes also a part of the LFY Bureau.

Apps and toolsFinally, coming to productivity and entertainmentapplications, therere a lotmore than what I needed, atleast. And because I went or a ull installation, I had morechoices or each category o tasks than I d consider healthy.

Anyway, various audio and video le ormats worked just

neeven in deault KDE apps like JuK and Dragon Player.Yes, theres Amarok and MPlayer (as well as Xine UI) orpower usersI missed SMPlayer though. Only thing youdhave to do manually is get the Flash Player rom Adobe,Gnash, or elsewhere.

alk about an ofce productivity suite and this is whereSlackware is a BIG let down. It only oers KOfce version2, instead o OpenOfce.org 3. Id like to report here that Inever really had issues with the earlier versions o KOfce.But ever since version 2 is out, I nd its ont renderingcapabilities absolutely patheticthe characters/alphabetslook at with a reddish tinge on black onts.

Anyway, the good thing is that the accompanyingLFY CD has OpenOfce.org 3.1, and you can install it byollowing this guide: http://wiki.services.openofce.org/wiki/Documentation/FAQ/Installation/How_do_I_install_

OpenOfce.org_on_Slackware%3F

It works like a charm, but the OOo application iconsin the menu and run dialogue boxes will be missing. Andsince UK and US dictionaries dont get installedyou canmake use o the OOo Extension Manager (utility locatedunder the Toolsmenu) to nd and install them.

hankully, the version o Fireox is 3.5, and I alsohave Ktorrent, Kget and other assorted Internet appsthat I require. he GIMP is also available; however,DigiKam is missing.

Well, that basically completes my requirement actors.I you care about programming languages, server-typesotware, games et al, updated versions o most areavailable when you go or the deault installation. Tereseven the XFCE desktop or those who like GKish stusorry, no GNOME here.

As or bugs, the only one I came across was thatsometimes, ater logging in, pressing Alt+F2 launched the

XFCE run dialogue instead o KRunner. A re-login solved

this issue. I have no clue why this happens, but its prettyannoying.

At the end of the day...I think Slackware scores because o its stability and alower dependency on memory compared to the resto the distros. However, it requires plenty o manualconigurations beore one can be productive. I you canget along ine with that, I guess you wont have much to

worry about.


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O

ne o the primary issues aced by

new Linux users is the lack o anecient program or audio/videoconerencing along with good

integration with other desktop applications.Tis is something that Mac OSX has done

well, with its iChat program. While programsexist or multi-protocol text chat on Linux,until recently we did not have a nice solutionor audio/video chat and collaboration.Te solution to all these problems requiresa powerul communications ramework,

which is exactly what elepathy aims

to be. elepathy is as revolutionary acommunications application as GStreamer

was among media applications.

Whats this Telepathy?

Te elepathy project was started in 2005 bya company called Collabora Ltd. It is basicallya real-time communications rameworkand uses the DBus messaging system. It

was designed with instant messaging andVoIP-like applications in mind. What makesit really powerul is that it was designed romthe start to be highly modular and extensible.It provides a standardised interace, makingit easier to implement new eatures andsupport new protocols. Tis also resultsin code that is easy to maintain and that

is portable. Hence, elepathy can be usedon various hardware devices running a

variety o sotware platorms. It is because

What does Empathy, powered by the Telepathy framework, have in its bag for

us? Well, besides audio/video chat, theres geo-location and collaboration, with

more coming up.

Telepathy: Let There be

Empathy!

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or its shortcomings. For example, iyou have always drooled over howbeautiul Adium looks, then you are inluck as Empathy supports Adium chatthemes (and other themes as well),

which really make the conversationslook great.

Empathy was designed right romthe beginning to have good VoIP/

video chat eatures. Currently, videochat works only on XMPP and SIP,though hopeully, MSN and Google

video chat should be supported orGNOME 2.28, in time.

Empathy supports video chat

using open codecs like Teora and,thereore, should enable out-o-the-box video chat support, which couldhelp us in ditching proprietary appslike Skype. Being able to have audio/

video chats over popular protocolswill certainly enable a smoothertransition to Linux or many peopleand also improve the accessibility othe desktop.

Another cool eature thatEmpathy has is the sharing o

geo-location inormation using theGeoClue project. Tis enables us toannounce our current location and

we can, in turn, view the locationo all our riends on a map. Tisis part o a bigger push on theLinux desktop to have geo-locationsupport in as many apps as possible.Location inormation can range romsomething as specic as your streetaddress to something much lessaccurate. Te location is determinedby using GPS, network inormationand other available sources that canbe used by GeoClue. Unortunately,this eature is only supported by

XMPP servers that support PEP, andsadly, Google alk doesnt.

A recently added eature toEmpathy is the ability to share ourdesktop with our contacts. We haveseen how elegantly this eature isimplemented in iChat. A similarsimplicity is employed here as

wellyou just select a contact withdesktop sharing capability and thatsabout it! Tis is actually implementedusing elepathys tubes eature thathelps set up the connection anduses Vinagre or desktop sharing.

Tis eature opens up a world ointeresting applications. Imagine howuseul this could be when you have to

o these reasons that it is possibleor both GNOME and KDE to usethe elepathy ramework on theirrespective desktops with diferentront-ends.

Enter Empathy!On GNOME, elepathy is used bythe Empathy IM client. Empathy hasa user interace based on Gossip.Empathy supports various protocolslike XMPP, Google alk, MSN, IRC, SIP,etc. Furthermore, Empathy can alsouse libpurple via elepathy-haze and

hence support all the protocols thatPidgin does.Empathy was included as a

part o GNOME rom version 2.24.Hence it has been (or is about tobe) adopted by some o the majordistributions like Ubuntu and Fedoraas their deault IM client. Its inclusionin these distributions has meantreplacing Pidgin, which has causedsome controversy, as some peopleeel it is not mature enough. Tough

Empathy does require a little morepolish, it brings with it a huge numbero eatures that more than make up

Figure 2: Conversation window with Adium chat themesFigure 1: The contact list in Empathy

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x your parents computer remotelyor want to view les on your home PCrom your oce.

As Empathy is a part o GNOME,it integrates well with other GNOMEapplications. For instance, it interacts

with NetworkManager to know i aconnection is available or not, andi not then it doesnt try to keepon reconnecting. When somebodycalls you, it pauses the music inRhythmbox and then the musicresumes once the call ends. It canset your status message to show themusic youre currently playing inRhythmbox, as well.

While all this is certainly verycool and exciting, the best eature

that elepathy brings to the tableis something known as tubes.Essentially, what this does is to allowany application to take advantageo the elepathy ramework to addcollaboration eatures with maximumease. Te kind o power anduseulness this eature adds to theapplications is tremendous.

We already saw how this willenable desktop sharing using Vinoand Vinagre. Tere are many moreapplications or thisor instance,

we can collaboratively work on adocument in AbiWord using the

AbiCollab plug-in. We can sharecurrently playing music and othermusic les, which is soon going tobe possible in Banshee (and alsoRhythmbox) as a result o a GSOCproject. We can also play games withour contacts, a eature that is being

worked upon or GNOME Sudoku.

GNOME isnt the only desktoplooking to use elepathy; work isgoing on so that our KDE brethrencan also enjoy this wonderul tool.Kopete is looking to modiy itsel tobe able to use elepathys Q port.

As elepathy is a highly modularand portable ramework, it is usedin many other platorms apart romthe Linux desktop. In act, elepathy

was rst commercially deployed onthe Nokia 770 to handle its IM and

communication needs. Since then, ithas been used in many other Nokiadevices like Nokia 800, 810 and the

By: Praveen Thirukonda

The author is a third year computer

engineering student. He likes playingbadminton when not messing around on

his computer.

recently released Nokia N900, as itis part o the Maemo platorm. EvenIntel uses elepathy or its Moblinplatorm. Te Sugar desktop, which

was ormerly used by the OLPCproject, has also used the elepathy

ramework.

Moreover...Until now, both elepathy andEmpathy have mainly been workedupon to get the basic eatures in orderso that many cool eatures can beadded in the uture. Having audio/

video chat and le transer supporton all major protocols would reallybe great. Apart rom this, the additiono support or meta contacts using

the People or Soylent project is alsoplanned. Tis will allow us to mergemultiple contacts belonging to thesame person, on diferent protocols.Ten our contacts list will trulybecome a riends list.

Better integration with thedesktop is being worked upon orEmpathy, especially or the upcomingGNOME 3 release. Te GNOME Shellis being designed while keepingEmpathy in mind. Zeitgest, thesecond major application to eaturein GNOME 3, will also eatureintegration with elepathy to enableeasier access to chat history.

o enable audio/videoconerences with several people atonce, the MUJI (Multi User Jingle)project has been started. Tis willmake it possible to have conerencesover an open protocol using opencodecs out-o-the-box, rom your

avourite distribution. All this is sothat there is no longer any need orproprietary applications, which seemto be out o place on a ree desktopanyway.

I guess with elepathy, wemight have nally solved thecommunications part o the desktopLinux problem.

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Ater all the banter about the

various tools available, itstime to get our hands dirty

with the GIMP. Last month,we discovered various aspects o imageediting, along with the interace andlayers. But rom now on, we will explorenew eects, cool techniques and other

ways to create exquisite eects. In this

tutorial, we will start by creating a verysimple wallpaper using just the primaryselection and gradient tool.

Beore we get started, it is importantto know the size o the image we wantto create/edit. So i you wish to startcreating an image, I would recommendchoosing your monitor resolution.Using the same resolution will producethe best eects and you will not need toresize the image, in case you wish to useit as your wallpaper.

Step 1Fire up the GIMP and click on

FileNew. Set the resolutionto that o your desktop. I will be using aresolution o 1920 x 1200 so that those

with very high-end monitors can usethe wallpaper without any distortion.

Once you have created a new image,notice the white worksheet in the Gimp

workspace. (Eds note:You can select

the colour o the background and canalso make it transparent, i you want.)his is the base or the wallpaper.(See Figure 1.)

Step 2 Now, click on the Create newlayericon to create a

transparent layer. Change the layersname by double-clicking on it or by right-clickingEdit Layer

Attributes. Set thenew name asBase.

Welcome to the fourth instalment of tutorials on the GIMP. This is where we

start learning about the many techniques and exquisite effects that can be

created using this application. In this tutorial, we focus on the selection and

gradient tools.

GIMP for Beginners, Part 4

The Selection Wand


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gives a smooth aint look.

Step 7We will now

ocus on theother selection tool, i.e.,the Ellipse selection. As

usual, start by creating anew transparent layer andname it Lower Let BigCircle. Grab theEllipseSelection rom the toolboxor pressE. Draw a circularshape at the bottom letportion by pressing

Alt+Shiftand draggingwhile holding down the letmouse button as shown inFigure 5 -part1. he

Alt+Shiftkey combinationwil l help you draw a precise circular shape, withoutany distortion. Once you are done, navigate toEditStroke Selection, and with black as the oregroundcolour, stroke the selection with the line width radiusas 1. Deselect by pressingShift + Ctrl + A

Now create another circle with a bigger radiusand the same centre (Figure 5 Part 2). Repeat thestroke eect or the second circle as well. Once thatsdone, deselect everything by pressingShift + Ctrl +

A. Now right-click on theLower Left Big Circle layer

By the way, do not orget to enable a high colourchannel, i.e., GEGL. o enable GEGL, just navigate to

ColoursGEGL.For this tutorial, I will be working on a background

with a green blend that has a mix o two dierenttones. However, you can choose any colour.

Step 3Set the oreground (FG) colour to #496623and the background (BG) to #96c756. o set

the colour, click on the colour swatches and enter thecode in the HML notation bar.

Step 4Grab theBlend tool rom the toolbox or

pressL. Now, with theBase layer selected,provide a blend upside down. o achieve this, holddown the let button on the mouse and drag a linerom the top to the bottom o the white worksheet, asshown in Figure 3 part1.

Step 5Now lets add lines to the wallpaper. Create

a new transparent layer and rename it toLines. Now grab the Bucket filltool and paint thecomplete oreground white. With theLines layerselected, head toFiltersDistortsErase Every Other

Row. Keep the deault settings and click on OK. Set the

layer mode to Overlay. See Figure 3.Once weve got the background done, its timeto add some eects. We will add the eects in threeparts o the image, i.e., the top, the bottom let and thebottom right.

Step 6First, lets create a new transparent layer and

rename it Top Line/Bar. Grab the rectangleselection tool and create a rectangle as shown in Figure4 Part 1. Using the bucket tool, fl l it with white. Withthe same layer selected, create another rectangle justbelow it but with smaller dimensions as shown in

Figure 4 - part 2 and 3. Continue doing the same untilyou have created three rectangles o varied dimensions.Set the opacity o the Top Line/Barlayer to 50. Tis

Figure 1: Image template

Figure 2: Gradient settings

Figure 3: Setting the initial image

Figure 4: Top border effect


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Step 9 So, lets get on with the path tool. Createyet another layer and label it Right Line.

Grab the path tool rom the toolbox or press B. Oncedone, make an inclined shape as shown in Figure 6(part1). Just keep making dots and complete the

selection. o join the two dots, right at the end, holdCtrland click the nearby dot to complete theselection. PressEnterto make the selection active.

You wil l be retting that I have taken the path outsidethe canvas. Dont worry, the path tool is veryintelligent and will only create a selection inside thecanvas. So i you have very little space to work withinside, dont hesitate to exploit the outer territory.

Once you have completed the selection, ill itwith white colour and continue making smallersiblings as shown in Figure 6 - Part 2. Fill them as

well and reduce the opacity to 60. You can alwaysvary the opacity and the ways to create your owneect, but or this tutorial we will work in a propermanner.

he wallpaper looks a bit simple, doesnt it? Sohow do we spice it up? Lets add some bubble-likecircles to it. We will try to keep it simple with no

jazzy e ects, as o now.

Step 10So we are going to add some bubbles. We

will work in multiple bubble layers to easethe work. Create a new transparent layer and rename

itBubbles. Grab theEllipse selection tool and createa semicircle at the horizon o the wallpaper as shownin Figure 6 - Part 3. Fill it with white colour. Nowcreate a bigger selection, as shown in Figure 6 Part4, and navigate toEditStroke Selection and strokethe outer part with the line width value set to 6.Deselect bySelectNone.

he inal part is to create another ellipse justabove the outer ellipses border. Note that we have tocreate a selection just above the previous one so thatthey look very close and glued together. he newerline should not overlap the previous white line.

Once you have set the oreground colour to#496623, stroke the newly created selection with aline width o 6. his completes the bubble part. You

and choose theAlpha to Selection option. Noticethat the concentric circles become actively selected.he next step is to ill them with colour. We needto ill colour in between their boundaries. o do so,navigate to SelectInvert. Fill the selection with

white colour using theBucketill or simply drag thewhite swatch over the selection.

Right now the circle looks a bit plain, so we will adda shadow to it. Te GIMP has a pre-built drop shadowplug-in. Just right click on the Lower Let Big Circlelayer, selectAlpha to Selection and navigate toFilters

Lightand ShadowDrop Shadow. A new dialogue boxwill pop up. Set the X and Y values to 0 and leave theblur radius intact. Once you have provided the dropshadow, you will notice a ew transparent parts added.o remove them, just right-click theBackgroundlayer,selectAlpha to Selection and crop it usingImageCropto Selection.

he next step is to merge the drop shadow layer.o achieve this, just drag the drop shadow layerabove the Lower Let Big Circle layer and select theMerge downoption by right-clicking on the dropshadow layer. Once done, lower the opacity to 40.

Step 8o achieve a bit o a cartoon-like eect,

we will make conc entric circles. We neednot repeat Step 7 ever y time. You do remember that

we are working on one o the most powerul image

editors, right? So, just duplicate the Lower Let BigCircle layer and rename it Lower Let Mid Circle.Resize the layer using Scale ool rom the toolbox(or press Shift+T) and make a smaller circle. Use themove tool (m) to move the mid-circle inside the bigcircle. Continue repeating the step until you haveachieved the eect as shown in Figure 5 - Part 6.

I irst thought o introducing only the primordialselection tool but later thought Id add the pathtool as well. Dont worrythe path tool work inthis tutorial is just to get you amiliar with it. We

wil l work with the path tool more extensively in the

upcoming tutorials.he next step will guide you in spicing up the

bottom right portion o the image.

Figure 5: Circle effect Figure 6: Right side effect


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the current selection. In case your selection wentinactive, you can always get it working by right-clicking on the particular layer and selectingAlpha toSelection. When your selection becomes active, go toSelectGrowand increase the selection by 7. Nowstroke it with white using the EditStroke selection

and with 6 as the line width. For the outermost part,increase the selection by 4 and stroke it using 4 as theline width with the FG colour set to #496623. Set theopacity to 60.

o make multiple bubbles, just duplicate the layer,reduce the layer size using the Scale tool (Shit+)according to the resolution and move it using the

Move tool (m). Continue duplicating and moving untilyou reach the e ect as shown in Figure 7 Part 2.

Now, grab the brush and set the FG colour towhite. hen create a new layer and name itDots.Varying the brush size rom the Toolsoption, create

multiple small and medium dots around the circle.You can even use the Sparksbrush to give a yellowstar-shaped light.

Step 12Congratulations! We are almost done withour irst assignment. Now we just need to

jazz up the image a bit. Let us quickly create a newlayer and name itMiddle Line . Grab the rectangleselection tool and create a selection as shown inFigure 7 Part 3. Now choose the EditStrokeselection and with the line radius as 2, stroke it. Right-click the layer and click on Alpha to Selection.Navigate toEditBorderand stroke it again usingStroke Selection (keep 2 as the line width).

Now grab the path tool and create a path as shownin Figure 7 Part 4. Hold the vertical line with the letmouse button pressed down and drag it to give it acurved shape. You will notice directional dotted lines,

which help you provide a curve to the path. Arrangethe dotted line as done in Figure 7 Part 5. Stroke thepath with 4 as the line width. Now create an arrowusing either the brush tool or the path tool.

Add some text i you wish, and we are done.

hus, we created a simple, yet unky, wallpaper usingnothing but our tools. Isnt it great? Keep trying outnew things and do send me the results that you get. Inthe next tutorial, we will learn how to isolate imagesrom various backgrounds using dierent techniques.I also have something very special or writers. Anddo not orget to get the source o this wallpaper romthe LFY CD. I have also included some more sample

wallpapers. Have un, GIMPing!

must have noticed that the instant you stroke theellipse, a line appears at the bottom. Also note thatthe line overlaps the inner white core, the middle

white line and the transparent area between them .his doesnt look clean, so we will get rid o it. his is

a tricky part and needs some understanding.Lets start with the inner core. We have been

working on the same bubble layer ; so i you tr y toremove the line by using an eraser, you will wipeaway the drawing as well. o remove the lining inthe drawn part, we will use the brush. Grab thecolour picker tool and make sure the bubbles layeris selected. Now click on the inner core. Because wecoloured it white, its not necessary to use the colourpick. But this trick comes handy with unknowncolour codes. So grab the brush, whose colour is nowset to white, and careully clean only the area thatsinside the inner core. Zoom in or maximum control.

Now we will clean the transparent/backgroundpart. Since we are working with layers and we haventdrawn anything in between the inner and the outerlines, we can use the eraser. Press Shift+Eto evokethe eraser and careully erase the line rom thetransparent/background portion, and not rom the

white lines.We are almost done now. Just get the brush again

and set the FG colour to white. Zoom in and removethe green line rom the middle white-bordered ellipse.

Continue doing this until you are satisied. Oncedone, reduce the opacity to 60. he inal look shouldresemble Figure 6 Part 7.

his sums up the irst bubble/hal bubble.hankully, we wont have to go through the sameprocedure again and again. I ll make the next bubblecreation simple, since we will be creating the nextround o bubbles in the complete canvas.

Step 11Create a new transparent layer and name it

Main Bubble . Create a medium circularselection using the ellipse tool and ill it with white

(Figure 7 Part 1). he next step is pretty similar tothat o the previous one. We will not go into creatingmany selections. So to ease your work, we will expand

By: Shashwat Pant

The author is a FOSS/hardware enthusiast who likes to review

software and tweak his hardware for optimum performance.He is very interested in Python/Qt programming and fond of

benchmarking the latest Linux distributions and software.

Figure 7: The final image


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May 2009 saw the Ubuntudevelopers meeting in Barcelonaor the UDS (Ubuntu DevelopersSummit), where they drew

up plans or the next version o Ubuntu,codenamed Karmic Koala and set to bereleased on October 29. As it is expectedthat Ubuntu 10.04 (i.e., the

version ater KarmicKoala) is going to be aLong erm Support(LS) release, a lot

o changes are planned or this cycle. Whichmakes this one o the most exciting releasesin a long time. Various changes have beenproposed at the system level while tryingto ocus on improving the user experience.Many changes that were postponed in theprevious cycles have been accepted this timein the hope o having a better LS.

Foundation-level changesVarious changes to the core o the system aregoing to be made, such as:

Making ext4 the deault flesystem:Tis will lead to a substantial boostin perormance as well as reducesckoccurrences by about 10 times. Tis waspresent as an option or Ubuntu 9.04 butnow will be the deault choice or new

installations.Moving to GRUB2.

Moving to GDM: Tis should lead tomuch better and prettier login screens. It

was not included in previous releases asit lacked conguration options, which arebeing worked upon in this cycle.As many changes are being made to

the core, I would recommend everyone toreinstall rather than upgrade rom a previousrelease. Te reason is that many o thesechanges will be held back i you upgrade, as

it is dicult to update such sotware withoutbreaking the system. So to get the maximumperormance, reinstall rom scratch.

Ubuntu 9.10 is scheduled for release on October 29, 2009. Heres an

introduction to the primary features being planned for the release.

Whats Coming in

Karmic Koala?


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Boot experience improvementsIt is rightly said that the rst impression lasts. Keepingthis in mind, Ubuntu is aiming to completely revamp theboot experience. Te target or the boot time is 10 secondson a Dell Mini 9 or the 10.04 version. Tis would bereduced to around ve seconds, along with SSDs and some

customisation.Apart rom boot speed, many steps are being taken

to make the whole boot experience much prettier

linux for your-oct-2009

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