I’m a leecher

Yes, I am leecher.
##I don’t mean torrent thing (I always try to get at least to ratio 1.5).
I mean FLOSS world.

The whole idea is about taking and giving. The soft is OpenSource to make it possible for everyone to edit and improve it. This is clear that opening source boost the developing process.

Well, the problem is… I only take it. I download, install and use my GNU/Linux. I read manuals, use community support. But don’t give anything. This is how this ‘new wave of linuxers’ acts.

It’s not about intention. I would really like to help somehow. But I can’t! I’m not programmer. My IT knowledge is… let’s say rather ordinary. I think that many of those today linoobz have the same problem. We are all some kind of FLOSS-leechers. Taking but not giving.

When we buy software – we can use it as we like – we’ve payed its authors. When we use free software – the things get more complicated.

It was written by community for community. No matter if for purpose like “I want to make all soft in the world free/open! or “I’ve written an app and it maybe useful for u guys too!”

We can use all this stuff legally and with no limitations as far as we contribute to development. This is my understanding of the whole FLOSS thing.

But… fortunately there are other ways to contribute. We can report a bug, or submit our hardware data to linux-friendly-device database. We can write post about how we tried something and problems we encountered (so others can see what may be problematic). What’s more – even our cries on forums and mailing list “My ubuntu just stopped working! I’ve edited blablablah.conf and it went all black!” are some kind of documentation.

We just have to encourage ordinary users to do so. If you can’t help directly… help indirectly: write tutorials, try to help some people on forums. Even converting Windows-users may be helpful (maybe this guy will contribute directly in future).

This mighty software was created by hard work. And let’s pay for it with our hard work, too! We don’t have to agree to license that noone reads. But everyone installing open/free stuff should agree to the general promise:

They’ve written all this. They’ve helped me. So I have to help them!

And let’s do so!

Debian vs. Ubuntu

It’s the first time ‘conflict’ between affected me someway. It was always somewhere on the horizon.

‘Yeah! People are people! They have to argue…’

Distant ideological conflict. Hera fighting Athena.

But now when I tried to get my source.list (the file which contains repos adresses in ubuntu) as full with possible sources as I could, I came to the idea of adding Debian repos to my software sources. This uses .deb and this uses .deb… it has to be possible.

I googled. And I found out it’s impossible due to mutual incompatibility. Great. And here’s the moment when ‘the war up there’ comes down here to the ordinary user. Like politicians’ arguments about taxes (which seem distant to most of society) finally affect citizens.

I don’t know who’s fault it is, but I think that if you use someone’s work as much as Ubuntu does you gotta make your work usable for them as well. There’s no need to create other standards within the same packaging system.

I hope this conflict will soon end with each distro having their own main repos, but sharing the universe one. I don’t know much about software packaging, but this seems quite reachable for me.

Whaddya think?

Reason for using linux #1

Tonight I’m preparing presentation for my polish lessons. I needed to edit one track.

This is how would it probably look like if I used Windows:
01. google ’sound edit software’
02. open first 5 pages
03. google ‘FREE sound edit software’
04. Open first 5 pages
05. read overviews and download one installer
06. allow myself to download the file (or I should rather call my administrator)
07. run the installer
08. allow myself to run the file (or ask my administrator to do it)
09. tick the box “I’ve read license…” which is a LIE
10. hit ‘next’ until the mighty creator starts installation
11. restart my computer
12. run the app
13. edit the track
14. click ‘export’ just to find out that it is a trial version, so I can export random 1/10 of my work (which wasn’t written on site, but was probably written in the license)
15. google once more ‘freeware sound edit’
16. download installer (and allow)
17. run the installer (and allow)
18. tick the box “I’ve read license…” which is a LIE
19. hit ‘next’ until the mighty creator starts installation
20. restart my computer
21. run the app
22. edit the track
23. export it.

This is how I did it using GNU/Linux (Ubuntu 8.10):
1. google ’sound edit linux’
2. read ‘the best 5 sound editing apps for Linux – overview’
3. find out that the most used and quite functional is audacity
4. run terminal
5. type ’sudo apt-get install audacity’
6. type my root password
7. type y and hit enter
8. type audacity
9. edit the track
10. export

I know that installing software in Linux isn’t ALWAYS that easy, but that’s like 80% of my installations. I’m also aware that installing soft on Windows may be easier, but almost ALWAYS when I needed a tool to do one little thing and continue near-to-deadline project I got this license confusion and was forced to search one more time.

I know you’d say I had to search better the home site of program to find out about the limitations, but sometimes man needs something done quickly and can’t play with all those closed licenses.

With GNU/Linux (or rather OpenSource/FreeSoftware) it is possible!

Comments are welcome
However if you’re boiling of hatred for me now, don’t troll this blog and concern this post as simply not funny

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Lech came from a long journey

#although the match was yesterday, I’ve decided to write this relation today because I was horribly tired yesterday night, and writing on my mobile’s keyboard isn’t that easy
Yesterday’s match between Lech Poznań and Udinese ended in draw. In first half there was no visible advantage of one team. Between 50′ and 55′ Italians scored two times. First one after nice free throw. The second goal was only a good luck. After confusion near our goal Lech’s goalkeeper Ivan Turina, accidentally hit Manuel Arboleda and there was 2:0.
Some people said it’s over. That they won’t raise in this match. I said that Lech had several times raised from hopeless situations (only to mention match with Austria Wien won in 120′) and there is no reason why he wouldn’t now.
And he did, though nothing indicated that in first minutes. Players were tired and shocked of what had just happened. They left Udine too much space and it seemed there will be more goals for the opposite team.
But after Smuda (our coach) made first change, which was unlikely for him as he never changes player before 80′, Lech’s play became agressive again.
There were several unused 100% situations. But then we scored! The hope was back again. After short time Arboleda hit the goal from great pass from corner. And there was 2:2!
This time the Italians were shocked. They lost all their advantage over some tiny club from tiny city in Asia.
For the rest of the match Lech’s advantage was undeniable. We had several chances to get the leading, but unfortunately we didn’t. I had that feeling that if match had lasted a little bit longer we would have smashed them.
So there’s draw. 2:2 which is almost as uncomfortable as defeat. Why? Next match will be played on their stadium. They’ve scored twice away, so they will only defend the score in next match.
Current Lech’s situation:
Whoever wins next match – passes.
Draws: 0:0 and 1:1 make Udine play in 1/8 of final.
Draw 2:2 – extra time.
Any other draw – Lech passes.
This seems both bad and good for us. Bad because we will have to shoot two goals to have some security in next match (and that’ll be very difficult)
Good because… There are more possible results that give promotion to Lech !

We’ll see.

#now I gotta go. Otherwise I’ll use all internet credits on my mobile. There’s also very visible lack of sport vocabulary in my inner dictionary I have to work on that.

Winter holidays

As currently I have winter holidays, I’m leaving tomorrow to visit my grandmother. She lives in a beautiful town in Pomerania – Szczecnek. I’m taking my bike with me. (first time in winter ).

I’ll be absent on the blog though I may be available on Jabber. I’ll finish the bluetooth-thing later.

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Something about tidying

Normally, man doesn’t like tidying. What’s more: the more dirty his surroundings are, the less will to tidy up he has. But when the dirtiness reach some particular level – tidying up can be quite entertaining (the feeling when you finally have dug to the floor is priceless).  The problem is that for many (including me) this level is too high to reach it regularly.

My attempts to use Nokia E51 as a 3G modem (part1)

Tonight I’m going to configure my Nokia E51 to use it as a 3G modem under ubuntu.
I found this tutorial which seems to be quite accurate:
http://outhereinthefield.wordpress.com/2008/06/13/nokia-e51-as-bluetooth-gsm-modem-on-ubuntu-gutsy-gibbon/

unfortunately I failed in 1st step

he dongle is already used for sending and receiving file “Bluetooth File Sharing”, so I need to enable “Network Service” on my bluetooth connection by right-clicking the bluetooth icon on my taskbar, click on preferences, click on “Service” tab, and tick “Network Service”

I dind’t have any Bluetooth icon on my taskbar

uncle Google suggested reading this:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=94713

I’ve installed every mentioned software and… failed again.

- right-click on the desktop and click Create Launcher
- in the Name field, type something like “Send file via bluetooth”.
- in the command field, type gnome-obex-send

the launcher say’s there’s no such command

Uncle Goo says:
http://lists.usefulinc.com/pipermail/gnome-bluetooth/2008-January/001348.html

so the commands in bluez had been reorganised… Informed tutorial’s author about it and continued doing the rest of the tutorial

- from now on, just drag and drop a file onto the shortcut to send it via bluetooth. You’ll then be able to choose your device in the dialog that comes up (assuming that your phone is set to be “visible” so it can be detected by other bluetooth devices)

succes! or not really – there are no devices available to send files to :/

author of the tutorial writes below

I’ve just realised that this HOWTO will only work with phones that don’t have to be paired before they can transfer files. My 6680 doesn’t need pairing to swap files but I think some, like the Sony model a friend of mine had, aren’t as easy going.

so I’ve decided to google one more time to see if I can pair my devices properly. The result? Another tutorial:
http://ubuntuliving.blogspot.com/2007/02/pairing-cellphone-with-ubuntu-via.html

This time I got as far as point 3!

Then, run hcitool scan. Sample output is:

Scanning …
00:17:B0:B4:52:C8 Nokia6233

my scaning returned:

cezary@cezary-laptop:~$ hcitool scan
Device is not available: No such device

some searching for devices

cezary@cezary-laptop:~$ hcitool dev
Devices:

it seems Linux doesn’t see my bluetooth device!! It’s built in my Toshiba laptop.

What to do? Search!
http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/mirrors/bluez/toshiba.html

#let’s count… it’s fourth tutorial I’m using write now and I didn’t make any closer in the first one (still failure in step 1)

The new notebook’s from Toshiba have builtin Bluetooth. Toshiba uses a USB Bluetooth chip from Silicon Wave, but by default this USB device is not enabled (not plugged in). The control of this device can be done trough the toshiba driver which is included in the Linux kernel 2.4.x and an extra program which allows to enable this device. To activate this driver it should be compiled as a module and the following lines have to be added to the file (…)

So it is clear now! Gotta have it turned on.

After downloading a lot of stuff I’ve managed to run ‘dmabt’ tool which informed me:

DMABTenable v.0.01.1
====================

BT Wireless Switch CHECK successful!
BT module powered on successful!
BT module attached successful!

!!! Your Bluetooth DEVICE is ready to use !!!

I can go back to pairing devices.

cezary@cezary-laptop:/$ hcitool dev
Devices:
hci0 00:03:7A:0A:0F:15
cezary@cezary-laptop:/$ hcitool scan
Scanning …
00:15:B9:5B:F2:92 SGH-E530
00:1A:8A:0A:6D:8E SGH-E250
00:1D:6E:B7:E5:79 E51

YUPPI!

Just to make sure I’ve run the ’send via Bluetooth’ launcher – it’s detected bluetooth devices!! And sent text file properly laptop=>mobile

but not otherwise :/

when searching the air with my mobile – there’s no track of my computer there so I cannot pair them from the mobile. hmmmm the configfile doesn’t seem to have ‘visibility option’ I’ll see the other related web resource:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/2006-November/098548.html

well it just wont let me enter a code to pair the phone, no matter how many
times i run sudo hcitool auth 00:0F:DE:BB:7E:F0

aha! This step wasn’t mentioned in the tutorial I used. Seems like authentication for phone. I’ll give it a try.

cezary@cezary-laptop:/$ hcitool scan
Scanning …
00:15:B9:5B:F2:92 SGH-E530
00:1A:8A:0A:6D:8E SGH-E250
00:1D:6E:B7:E5:79 E51
cezary@cezary-laptop:/$ sudo hcitool auth 00:1D:6E:B7:E5:79
Not connected.

bad attempt…
looking in other tuts

!! Since I’ve enabled the built-in Bluetooth device, the System=>Preferences=>Bluetooth has more options it’s so simple
This very-complicated-and-deeply-hidden GUI lets me set my bluetooth name and… add new paired device

The only thing I have to do from phone is set authorization (so the connection will be established automatically).

but it still doesn’t want to push objects from mobile to laptop.

#restart of Bluetooth File Sharing app on computer helped. Transfer succeessful!

UUUUUUF! Bluetooth device turned on, all possible utilities installed, devices paired.

It’s time to go back to the first tutorial and try to establish modem connection using my mobile phone

http://outhereinthefield.wordpress.com/2008/06/13/nokia-e51-as-bluetooth-gsm-modem-on-ubuntu-gutsy-gibbon/

I’ve rebooted for changes to take place and…. there is no bluetooth device again!

Dmabt can’t initiate it for me due to the conflict with acpi:
If ACPI is used the dmabt utility won’t work and a modified toshiba_acpi kernel module is needed. More details can be found here.

yeahhh so my options are:
1. remove acpi from computer (which I am not gonna play with – too dangerous… I don’t want to burn my pc)
2. install modified toshiba_acpi kernel module

let’s do it! But maybe I’ll do it tomorrow [it’s 3:00am and I wasn’t sleeping well last night). The rest in next note!

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Priority in Jabber

#After I managed to finally get my Jabber+gadu-gadu mix working both on my phone and #computer, the time has come to focus on cooperation of those two devices.

XMPP lets us to log into our jabber account with multiple clients at once. This is both useful (you don’t get kicked out from network because of some other attempt to log in) and potentially uncomfortable (when you’ve got two clients open you never know where the incoming message will come to).

For that reason, the ‘priority’ has been developed. This is a number from range of -127 to +127 sent to the server together with status change. In psi you can add a priority value to every preset status (you can also set it manually every status change). This way I can setup such statuses (#should it be written like that or with latin form ’stati’?):

feel like talking -> 100
online (by the keyboard) -> 100
away (short time) -> -50
eXtended away (XAFK) -> -100

and consequently if my mobile client (I’m using Slick – it allows me to set up one priority value for all statuses) is set to priority 75 it receives my messages only when I’m away or XAFK (i.e. when psi has lower priority than Slick). When I come back to keyboard and change status to online – the messages will come to Psi!

What’s more, I can also change priority value of my mobile client to -75 – then I will receive IM on mobile only when XAFK. That can be useful when I inform my interlocutor I’m going to be away for some time (so I’ll see his/her messages on screen after I come back), but it happens I have been away for longer time than I said I would. That way I’ll receive messages only after psi automatically changes my status into XAFK, so I can read all those ‘r u there?’s.

#The only thing I’m still fighting with is gadu-gadu status. Even when phone has #reater priority, transport imports status of Psi. The only moment it imports status #of phone is… when I go offline on Psi

#But this probably has nothing to work with priority, ’cause the rest works well!

Migrating contact list is harder than it seems!

I’ve got bored with my IM – Kopete. I’ve decided to once more transfer all my ontacts into jabber and use it also on my mobile.

For my Nokia E51 (with Symbian onboard) I’ve chosen Slick. It’s client for googletalk, icq and others but what I wanted most was a Jabber client. It is also very eye-friendly!

When talking about PC… I think I’m going to use psi – in fact I got it installed already to manage jabber’s services, but I think I’ll switch to it for some time.

But there were lot’s of problems. First of all gadu-gadu transport refused to import my contact list properly. So I’ve changed the transport. It also didn’t want to help me. After long searching I’ve came across to http://www.nogui.yoyo.pl/tuty/GG2Jab/index.html which could help me out… if I had my contact list in txt format.

Unfortunately Kopete offered me only export to KDE contact list or something like that (big minus for developers – the most annoying example of being closed!). I’ve decided to install native gg client and export from there.

Another failure – the client has recognised my contacts from server (ITS server!) as groups :/ Totally pissed, I’ve tried one more thing. Searching for some old version of gadu-gadu (the website allows only to download the newest one! I’ve become so unused to the proprietary software I forgot it is possible!). After some googling I’ve found some old installator.

This one worked! Finally! I could export it to .txt format and import it using chomik’s script. Yupi!