Ubuntu

Let me repeat the title - be very careful while you use tasksel on Ubuntu (or a Debian based Linux distribution for that matter).

Here is something that I am going through right as I write this entry that might save you the trouble. I was back from work, and it was 2 AM in the morning but I still wanted to do some setups on my laptop. It had been recently upgraded to Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) and I wanted to setup a LAMP stack.

I invoked tasksel and saw that Ubuntu Desktop was highlighted. I unchecked it, checked LAMP server and hit OK.

And all hell broke loose.

It was uninstalling the Ubuntu Desktop packages right in front of my eyes!

Well, I killed the process half way through but some harm was done. If I shutdown my laptop now, or it crashes I need to use a CD to recover it. But since I had been through a similar situation before, I know I should be able to recover from this.

It might sound cocky since I am still on the recovery process, but I do have confidence that it will pull through.

Bottom line though is that be careful of the GUI wrappers like tasksel or even Synaptic Package Managers. They can do a lot of harm for the "ease of use" they provide. Stick to explicit command line that does only what is told. And also, do not do critical system changes with sleepy eyes. :)

I am currently in the process of getting the Alternate CD downloaded through BitTorrent since my ISP (Airtel) is pretty bad, and I do not want to rely on their falsely stated 256 kbps connection for an upgrade from 8.10. That said, I have been looking around for news on Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope - Canonical's latest release of the operating system.

Here is one I found on cNet: Ubuntu 9.04 as slick as Windows 7, Mac OS X by Renai LeMay

I guess I should be taking extra care when I am doing multi-tasking. I was casually cleaning up the old kernel images of my Ubuntu install, and I realized that I had removed all the kernel. I still had my OS up and running, and in working condition and from my experience, it can go on theoretically for ever as long as there is power supply.

But, I was anxious to restore, and quickly serched for the Kernel MetaPackages. Quoting:

These metapackages install the latest linux kernel and modules through a series of dependencies. These make upgrading the kernel much easier, and safer, since they ensure that all required modules and headers are also installed.

• linux-generic: Always depends on the latest generic Linux kernel available.
• linux-headers-generic: This package always depends on the latest generic kernel headers available.
• linux-image-generic: This package always depends on the latest generic kernel image available.
• linux-restricted-modules-generic: This package always depends on the latest restricted modules available for generic kernels.

So I fired up Synaptic Package Manager and installed those packages. To ensure everything was working, I rebooted.

Next login, I was greeted with a command line.

Snooping around, I found out that my nVidia drivers had gotten uninstalled and it was not able to start the X session.

It took a bit more snooping around in the command line. Brought back some memories - I know, it sounds geeky.

$ sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx nvidia-kernel-common

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Package nvidia-glx is a virtual package provided by:
nvidia-glx-96 96.43.09-0ubuntu1
nvidia-glx-180 180.11-0ubuntu1~intrepid1
nvidia-glx-177 177.82-0ubuntu0.1
nvidia-glx-71 71.86.04-0ubuntu10
nvidia-glx-173 173.14.12-1-0ubuntu4
You should explicitly select one to install.
E: Package nvidia-glx has no installation candidate

$ sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx-180 nvidia-kernel-common

That installed the video drivers. A startx would not start the X session. So another boot, and I was back to normal.

Fun times.

To state or ask clearly, should we love to hate Microsoft?

Though not stated clearyly in his blog post, I guess I was living in a Foss world, (and if he did I am sure there would be a huge list of links), I am sure Mayank did aim the post at me. And just to be sure, he did plug about it in a chat just before.

I guess I know where he comes from when he asks the question. To answer frankly, I do not lote to hate Microsoft. I would love to love Microsoft but it just is not plain possible.

I see that he goes about pointing at few selected comments, from I am not sure who. There is no point in that - but actually, quite goes to show that Microsoft is quite good at market share. There is no denying that. Even if it does, Linux will take a long time to attain what Microsoft has achieved in terms of market share. But again, I would digress if I start quoting people's comments. Comments are good, and they are opinions. They do at most portray the voice of a vocal share of the market. But we should take it with a grain of salt.

That too, comments on a blog post which is some one's opinon or statement. I mean, who is Randall C Kennedy. Until that link in the post, I did not know who that was. (But seems like he is a notable person, at least in terms of Wikipedia. See Randall C Kennedy entry).

To answer another quote, I do not mind paying for software. I am a software engineer by my day job, and I respect another person's labor. That said, it for the same respect that I tend to hate Microsoft. I have been exposed to almost five years of enterprise software development - and I know the results of vendor lock in. There could be huge saving and increase in productivity if people and organizations were free to choose the tools and products regardless of the tools and products they bought earlier.

To explain further, it is the practices that Microsoft indulges in - specifically the anti-competitive practices that makes me avoid using their product as far as I can.

It is because I respect other peoples work, I do not approve of piracy. I know from my recent trip to India, where I had to service three different PCs, and they were crippled. (I ended up installing Ubuntu - it was more than enough for their use case scenarios). They were crippled because of use of priated software right from the OS. What concerned me the most, was that my young cousins would be exposed to only Microsoft products and would not know they had a choice. These kids would grow up to run organizations tomorrow, and they would be the ones in decision making positions. The general public, at least in India, is not concerned about piracy due to lack of education. Microsoft would not want to change that - because when India breeds new generation of software developers and system architects, they are only acquainted with Microsoft tools. And that makes it harder for me.

On another note, to illustrate my point of why I avoid Microsoft, let me point you to another link - Is it OK for Microsoft and others to forbid disclosure of benchmark results? Yes, I discovered that link from the Wikipedia entry of Randall.

So, to answer Mayank, I do not love to hate Microsoft. And I do not even overlook the positives of their product. I do use Microsoft products at my day job, and use Linux at home for general computing and personal projects. I can not say for everyone else, but my opinions are based on my experiences using products from both sides of the proverbial fence.