Blog Moved to ravisagar.in

This blog has been moved to www.ravisagar.in :)

5.1 Sound on Fedora 7

I am using Linux for so many years now but I also keep windows installed on my PC. I need windows just for one damn single thing, 5.1 sound! I was never able to enable 5.1 on fedora. I have been searching on internet, sending mails to mail groups and asking every other Linux geek but none helped. I guess today is my lucky day :)

I came across this page on the internet ALSA Multi-channel Audio mini-HOWTO by Uday Bondhugula. I followed the instruction given by him on this page. After following each and every step carefully I was able to get all my 5 speakers and Sub-woofer working!! But when I ran speaker-test -c 6 -D surround51 command I realized that my center and LFE speakers are actually swapped :( then I quickly mailed Uday asking for help and not hoping for his reply. To my surprise he replied soon (God bless you Uday) and asked me to run cat /proc/asound/card0/id command. He then asked me to make the changes in my /etc/alsa/cards/ATIIXP.conf file. Actually earlier I was struggling with /etc/alsa/cards/ICH4.conf file.

Now everything is great. I can hear sound from all my speakers on fedora 7. I am using MSI RS480-IL motherboard. Which has an on-board sound card.

If you find any difficulty enabling 5.1 on your Linux then let me know. May be I can help you :p

Happy Dolby!!

CiviCRM Hindi Translation

Great news! I have started working on the Hindi Translation of CiviCRM. I remember that Kurund mentioned in his presentation at OSSCampDelhi that there is currently no one working on Hindi translation. I thought why not I start it. I mailed him couple of days back asking him how should I start working on it.

He gave me email of Piotr, who created CiviCRM Hindi Translation project in the Pootle. Along with me my friends Nizam, Bagish and Salim have also started helping me in this translation project. I know it will take lot of time to complete the translation, but someone has to start it. I hope many other people will also join us in this work.

Translation using pootle is easy. It provides you with the web based interface, you just need to select which language you want to work on. For detailed instruction of web-based and offline translation (using .PO files) check this page.

For starting working on CiviCRM Hindi Translation project you will need to register yourself here.

Any difference between Bath and Shower??

Staying clean and maintaining a good daily hygiene is a part of healthiness. There are many ways to achieve this like brushing your teeth everyday, cutting nails and taking a bath. One second, taking a bath or taking a shower? What is the difference between the two? Or is there really any difference? Yes, there is a difference.
The average human being living in a civilized world takes a shower everyday. A shower is fast. You apply soap on your body, make lather and rinse off. That's it!! It saves time, it is quick and efficient. Taking a shower is better (and faster) than taking a bath as it kills more germs and washes off the dead skin when you rinse. All the dirt from your body flows to the sink along with the dirty water. Baths should be taken to relax and not for cleaning. While bathing all the germs and dirt from your body stays into the bath tub. Even if you want to take a bath it is always recommended to get into shower first and clean your body with soap. That ways your bath water will not have germs and dirt from your body because you have already removed them.

I know it is the feeling of the bath, lying in the bath tub for a long time has no other alternative (unless you have a Jacuzzi :p) but always remember to take a shower before a bath. You'll be cleaner and actually fresh.

So next time if "someone" asks you to take a bath or take a shower, answer both and explain why :). Let's have a cleaner you.

The great Indian "Bura" - Finely grained sugar

Why am I writing about “Bura”? Most Indians know about it. It is finely grained sugar and generally eaten with rice and ghee. As far as I know everyone knows about “Bura”. It’s the most famous desert for common Indian people especially in Uttar Pradesh.
I love it with Chawal (Rice) and Dahi (Yogurt) and whenever I don’t feel like eating those stupid yuck vegetables “Bura” saves my day!! It is used with other Indian dishes like Panjeere (Made in winters), pickles and many more.

Bura is pure sugar that is carbohydrates. Poor people eat their 2 day meals with it along with chapatti (Bread) and it is very cheap. You can get a kilo of it for few Rupees only. We eat it everyday but no one talk about it. Couple of months back a good friend (aahhmm aahhmm) of mine asked me what is Bura? I was shocked to hear that. We had a brief and not so quiet altercation (oops) about it. And we ended up not talking to each other for a day or two. It took me a while to convince my friend that bura is one of the most common thing found in Indian kitchens. We almost killed each other that day. Well I generally don’t discuss this topic with my friend now.

But it raised an important question in my mind that there are still many people in this country who don’t know about the food of the common people.

Chaka Jaam in Various parts of Delhi

I have to go to office today but some activists have blocked many major roads in Delhi for protests. I don't know how will I reach office today (I am not interested in going also). This is sick how some political parties sponsors these stupid things and common people suffer.

Our team is going out today for lunch today but I would rather sit and relax at home :). I have many things to do today like I have to configure Drupal on my system. Rajesh just called up and he said lets go late today at 11 PM.

Journey back to home

Going back to home from office is a task. I am sitting in bus number 460. I'll go central sec metro station and take metro. Till last year i used to come back daily using buses and metro. For the past 10 months i come with Rajesh who work in my office. It takes me around 2 hours to reach home. By the time i reach home i am dead tired and sleepy. Good thing is winter are coming. In summertime traveling in buses is hell. Metro is an excuse, thanks to the AC in it. But traveling in buses gives you enough time to think and It's good to spend time with yourself. You get to see strange people everyday. Each has own challenges in life. When you travel in the same bus everyday you start recognizing people. It's funny that you tend to make judgments about strange people you see everyday.

OSSCampDelhi - 9th September

I wanted to rest at home on Sunday but somehow I reached Noida and attended the second day of the OSSCamp. Hardly 40 people were there on the second day. I interacted with Arunima who was one of the organizers of the camp. She is working with Value One. This OSSCamp was organized by this company only in Delhi. I asked Arunima if I could help them or contribute in some way to this OSSCamp.

OSSCamp was rocking and I would say it is a good start. Hope to see more such events in the near future.

Pictures of the OSSCampDelhi

Slides of the presentations at OSSCampDelhi

OSSCampDelhi - 8th September

I am excited and full with new enthusiasm. This is the first time I am writing a blog!! Would you believe that?? Well I am new to Open Source World, although I have been using Linux distros for couple of years now but I never contributed in any open source project. For the past few days I was so frustrated with my stupid job that I finally decided to do something useful in my life. last week I joined Fedora Ambassador Project hoping to find some place to start my open source venture. I have not done programming for ages now and that is why I can not straight away start with the development projects. I found one guy on fedora community named Ankit Patel who runs a site called www.indianoss.org . He is into translating Fedora Packages into Gujrati. I am in touch with him and helping him in translating his website into Hindi and later on I will try to translate Linux Packages into Hindi (using .po and .pot thingy). Well I have just started my journey of this endless Open Source world.

I came to know about OSSCampDelhi through some online discussion groups. I decided to attend this seminar as I was sure to get some good ideas there. And I was surely so right!!

Though I was late. I reached there at lunch time. I was so impressed with the presentations on PHP Documenter, CiviCRM and DRUPAL. I came to know about DRUPAL just yesterday through some website and I did not know that DRUPAL is a famous CRM tools among Open Source Geeks. I am also now thinking of contributing to DRUPAL Project. This will also brush up my programming skills and I really like this idea of Open Source (Freedom….) where people from all across the globe work together.

I am all set for day 2. OSSCampDelhi was rocking!!

Pictures of the OSSCampDelhi

Slides of the presentations at OSSCampDelhi

Cheers!

Change resolution in Fedora 7

Change resolution in Fedora 7

1. First check possible resolutions supported by your graphics card using the following command.

'xrandr'

It will display all possible resolutions like this.

Screen 0: minimum 400 x 300, current 1152 x 864, maximum 1152 x 864
default connected 1152x864+0+0 0mm x 0mm
1152x864 75.0* 70.0 60.0
1152x768 55.0
1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.0 60.0 87.0
832x624 75.0
800x600 85.0 75.0 72.0 60.0 56.0
640x480 85.0 75.0 73.0 67.0 60.0
720x400 70.0 85.0
640x400 85.0
640x360 85.0 75.0 70.0 60.0
640x350 85.0
512x384 87.0
416x312 75.0
400x300 85.0 75.0 72.0 60.0

The current selected resolution will have a * next to it.

2. Change resolution.
Suppose your graphics card support 1024x768 resolution then you can change it using the following command.
xrandr -s 1024x768