Saturday, June 30, 2007

I managed to get my CanoScan FB330P to work in Linux

I get my above scanner to work in Linux.

It's very easy,just download the driver from http://canon-fb330p.sourceforge.net/,untar the file, change to the uncompressed directory,and just './configure','make',and 'make install' it.

BUT MAKE SURE YOU DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL THE FILE FROM http://cyberelk.net/tim/libieee1284/index.html BEFORE YOU PROGRESS.

OTHERWISE YOU COULDN'T GET IT TO WORK WITHOUT LOGGING AS SUPERUSER(root),WHICH IS A VERY DANGEROUS THING TO DO

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Mepis:not bad

I tried mepis on my system.

THe mepis is not bad,considering it is easy to use and it can configure my peripherals correctly.

And I want to know how to configure my scanner in Linux?
THank you.

Mepis rating:7 out of 10

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

I can't get my internet to work immediately with Wolvix


I tried Wolvix,a distro derived from Slackware-based Slax.

I can't really accept that I cannot get my internet to work immediately with it.

Other than that,Wolvix performs quite good in my system,with a lot of software such as GIMP,MPlayer and many more.

And I think it really suitable as a recovery CD.Why?First it has also a lot of software including GParted which is really good for recovering some partition.It has also NTFS configuration tool which I think can be used to write to NTFS system,and it is important if you want to edit boot.ini file,the essential loader for Windows NT.

It uses XFCE GUI interface,not bad and the interface looks clean like SLAX,which some people will dislike it because you have to fire up your file manager to open your HD partition,or use command line if you like it.But you can always tweak it to your preferences.

Rating:5 over 10(if I can get my internet to work then it will be 7.5 over 10)

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Link exchange

Would you like to do link exchange with me?

If you like,please contact me at yuchankit@hotmail.com
Thank you.

PC LinuxOS,just a average Linux OS


I run the Debian-based distro above on my computer.

I found that it is just an average distro.Why?it does not look much different with other KDE distros.I know that all Linux distros are about the same,but PC LinuxOS does not give us a reason why I should install it instead of the other Linux OS.

Anyway,here is my screenshot



Nothing much to say anyway,but anyhow it configures all my stuff correctly and it can do normal activities like surfing,office application and listening to music.

It uses OpenOffice as its Office application,firefox as browser and Amarok as its music player,Mplayer for playing VCDs and DVDs,K3B for CD and DVD burning and software like GIMP,Synaptic Package Manager is included.

I think it runs quite well if it is install to HDD,and runs more slowly in CD Drive,therefore it is not suitable to use it as emergency CDs(can actually but it's not too ideal) or in an old computer with <128 onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYUGMBLp4S9rQjqMJ7zfs2HdNX4mEGm5NTrozDE_WpOBP1RnN1bcJsL2ch7T-lhLQBigyeCRTcYWNZ97Bo_qxOKNS_pkUijuv6oku14v_DtKmXro1zJiTIyNgR_Rh6MXbmPkZdKCKUdO4/s1600-h/PCLinuxOS1.jpg">

It offers a very efficient control panel which let user setup something like printer or anything, control setting and many more.

It's not that it is not a good linux distro,just that there are many distros that offers same features therefore makes it not "good enough"

Rating: 6.5 over 10
Next distro review:XenWalk(slackware-based)

Monday, June 4, 2007

Slackware:proven to be toughest Linux distro

I installed slackware on my system.

THe installation went smoothly,although the graphical installation of SLackware is quite command-like but the installation is very easy.But I'm little sad about the fact that I could not install grub for my installation,it only offers lilo which I think is not as good as Grub as I have to reinstall lilo if I update my kernel.

I chose KDE as my GUI and when I booted into Slackware,I'm surprised that I could not get my connection ready to use.I thought Slackware had already setup the network for me.

So I entered the ifconfig-a command and it detected my NIC and I thought it was easy.I just entered the following command;

ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.151 up

But I still cannot get my network work.So I went to google( I rebooted to Windows) and I found that I need to edit something and add something to kernel route and I was blurred.

Although the GUI is very simple(it's designed to work without GUI anyway) but I think Slackware offers toughest distro in Unix.It is like something like 4x4 5-speed pickup truck,very hard to handle but if you know how to handle it you will get to know how to handle the other car(other Unix distro)

And can anyone offer me a solution how to get my network ready?

Monday, May 28, 2007

Ubuntu 7.04,great OS


I had recently installed Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Pawn in my system.


After I had installed it,I found the GNOME enviroment is not bad,although I like KDE a lot.There are updates always from its official website and the apt-get is easy to use.

But the multimedia is quite dissappointing,with less multimedia application which I think wouldn't be good if I want to do any multimedia related acivity.But of course I can get extra program using Synaptic Pacakage Manager or apt-get command.

My pehripherals were easy to be configured,my printer works using CUPS but I haven't tried yet to configure my CanoScan FB 330P which is still working although it had been 10 years old.

The office application is same as others,it had OpenOffice as Office application and the other which I forgoted to mention.Anyway I will update this post with a screenshot from my Ubuntu.

Actually the only office application in Ubuntu is OpenOffice package and Evolution and of course,you could get extra office apps with using apt-get install.

Overall I think Ubuntu is good only in Synaptic Package Manager and it's great support,otherwise it will be same as the other OS.

Rating:7.5 out of 10.

Next OS to review:SAM Linux

Thursday, May 24, 2007

OPENSUSE 10.2 view

I recently installed OpenSuse 10.2 on my computer.

The installation went quite smoothly,the GUI of the installation page are very helpful and I get a lot of choices on how I'm going to install OpenSuse.

I choose to install GRUB on the /root partition instead of the MBR since I'm going to load Opensuse using Windows Bootloader,ntldr.

It took me about 2 hours and 30 minutes to install it and configuring my printer,Epson Stylus C65.The printer is configured easily,thanks to CUPS and gutenprint.
I install it using 6 installation cd(including Non-OSS addons) since I didn't have a DVD writer.

Overall it's quite good,but I personally think the GUI(I install KDE) is only average and I expect more of it since the installation took 8GB+.

THe packages in opensuse is managed using YaST.I think YaST is not bad but I think Snaptic Package Manager is better because it can install your dependacies and I think it will ease users even more.

THe browser includes Konqeror and Firefox 2.0,so I went to http://software.opensuse.org to get the latest firefox there.I install is using YaST and it took me about 3 minutes and soon I'm running the latest version of Firefox.

The multimedia section is average,with most of the aplications cannot play .mp3 files in a directory so I have to always open my folder and click on the .mp3 file to hear my music.

So I went to http://videolan.org to download VLC player.I followed the instruction in the site and I'm required to insert installation CD1 during the installation.

I gave the rate of 7.5/10 for Opensuse 10.2