My experiments with Linux!

Windows! The operating system that rules 95% of the PCs in the world!
Linux! The "spin-off" from UNIX based servers that was first developed for x86 platforms(in user's terms Intel architectures), a big thanks to Linus Trovalds!
For the last few years, though Linux is gaining much popularity, it hasn't really captured the market share for windows;When I said PCs I meant Home users. why? some of the very useful, reliable, easy to use softwares have been written for windows...
But, does that mean the software that is available on Linux is not reliable??No!
For some time, I've been considering to switch my PC O.S. from Windows to Linux.
It would be around 3 and half years now! I've had Linux installed on my machine for a long time now; but I had actually started using Linux when I had to do my final yr. project on Linux O.S and no where else!.So, I used Linux to fulfill my project requirements.
During that course of one year, I've understood that MOST of the software for Linux is free and available readily as RPMS; the traditional way being free source code and compile-run on the respective distro. of Linux and respective architecture.
Check out http://sourceforge.net/ for interesting open-source software!
At the time, I started using Linux, Redhat was one popular distribution; at that time, I didnot understand the concept of "support availability". So, I thought, I'd pick any distro. and just used Redhat; It turned out that Redhat was one of the few Linux distros for which support was available. I hadn't heard of SuSE at that time..
there is this one frnd of mine, who always pestered me to suggest which distro. to use, and always asked me to teach commands etc,.but he never actually kept up wiith that; the reason: he wanted to install all kinds of linux, windows OSes on his machine and ended up formatting his hard drive a lot of times...so i decided to stick with Redhat and learn wat was all available in there.

During the course of my project, I had to stick around with Linux a lot of time, which left me a lil' bored as I had very less to do other than prjt on my Linux ...games...I wasn't and 'm not interested...
so i thought, how about playin some music and some videos...i was already a big fan of F.R.I.E.N.D.S by that time! That is when I heard about xmms, an opensource mp3 player for linux; but Redhat had issues with xmms in licensing and though xmms is installed, i couldn't use it :( ..
then i looked for winamp and realplayer distributions for linux, they were available, but highly restricted;winamp played only mp3, realplayer (http://www.real.com/linux/ ) played only 'rm' and 'mp3'; I wanted someplayer which played 'wma', 'wav' and most importantly divx compressed videos too! Then I met the 'Xine' player.. I was collecting Linux software from people who were sorta interested in Linux stuff! and one of them turned out to have this Xine player which played out a lot of file types, but then there was problem with playlists, video files/formats etc,. Then I met the 'MPlayer' and the 'GMPlayer' (GUI version of MPlayer), which turned out to awesome!
Check out http://rpm.pbone.net/ to find out RPMs that matter to you!
I had some fun, experimenting with my Redhat and configuring network and using the media players, but then I wasn't very serious with using Linux as my "favourite" desktop, because some features in windows beat the crap out of identical features in Linux! (Or I felt so....)
One such thing was the SMB protocol support which was at that time(I donno about now), not by default supported by the Operating System (much unlike Windows); one had to download the samba client and samba server;but I thought, "What the heck?", I'll try to make it work..but never could :(
But, that was something VERY VERY important in college to be able to sync up with other people, there was this option of FTP or SCP(about which I knew only when I joined the company)...but no one else uses those features!
So, as soon as my prjt. work is finished, I moved back to windows for better reasons!
After my final yr. I had to give away my PC to my bro. for his project purposes, I requested him to retain my partitions (including the Linux partition); he remained good and didnot mess with the filesystem.
This one year, I have had the oppurtunity to work with not only Linux, but many other UNIX platforms and architectures...In anycase, I have been a lil' bit biased towards Linux,
In my company, I learnt about 'SuSE', another Linux distro(http://www.novell.com/linux/), developed and supported by Novell. I almost immediately felt a liking for this new distro.
There are some features in SuSE that can kick Redhat's butt, in terms of desktop usage.
It took me sometime to understand the nuanses of SuSE, but once I got the hang of it, I could not resist installing SuSE on my desktop; much against my bro.'s protests, I removed Redhat and installed SuSE; and in turn seriously screwed up! I did not properly choose the partitions (the comment, which I vehemently oppose) and ended loosing a lot of my selected collection of songs, videos and movies! :( :( ...that is a completely different story...I don't want to get into the details of it now...

Any way, I got SuSE onto my machine, installed a few softwares....like Firefox, JDK, mplayer...etc,. As I said, I lost some of my stuff during the installation of SuSE, it turns out , I lost the RPM, that I used to install GMPlayer on Redhat...So, in search of the RPM, I found something, but had some many dependencies..that frustrated me a lot. Finally, after satsifying some dependencies, which I thought were logical, I did a force install and somehow, it worked !! Now, I play many formats of songs, videos etc,. :).
To my surprise, SuSE supported NTFS file systems and I was amazed when I inserted a USB stick and it was immediately recognised! The same didnot happen with an iPod though :(
But, yes, for some operations, I need to switch back to windows, which I'm trying avoid as much as I can! One such thing for example, is iTunes, which is available only for Windows and MAC. I read somewhere about a software, that converts windows like instructions into Linux instructions and make many a windows softwares (including some highly deemed games) work on Linux; but guess what? Its not freeware :(
Check http://www.codeweavers.com/site/products/
sigh! I thought, something like that would be a freeware..anyway..probably in this week i'll try this out, so to say, a trial version in Windows parlance!
right now, I'm planning to shift my desktop (again, much against my bro.'s protests) to Linux; daily morning, I boot into Linux, browse the web, play some music, etc.
I'm planning to use openoffice for my office "type" work! I donot know, how much successfull I would be, but what the hell, its worth a try, isn't it?? and a different experience too!!
Remember ?? "Change is the only constant thing in this world!"


P.S: Actually, I started out this post to compare the features available in windows and Linux, in terms of desktop usage, but somehow ended up describing my journey through the Linux world!

LRMB

LRMB aka., Lage Raho Munna Bhai..., the 2nd innings for the blockbuster 'Munn Bhai M.B.B.S',
the movie that is re-generating the ripples that rocked the ppl. from the Gandhian era...
The movie that preaches Gandhigiri (will define this term shortly). Last sunday, I went to wacth this movie; whether this movies delivers a message or not but, it is definitely a two and half an hour non-stop entertainer.
It so happened that my bro. and his frnz wanted to visit some concert by a band 'Gel'(or something that sounds like Gel), and they wen to Kachiguda to get the tickets for the concert. They got the tickets on saturday and the concert was on sunday.
They paid 150 bucks (in India rupees), for each ticket and assumed that the concert would take place in NALSAR city campus (a law college in Hyderbad). Something they didnot know was that the NALSAR univ. campus was some 30 kms (appox.) frm Hyderabad city. The next day, my bro and his frnz got ready and decided to leave for the concert; playfully one 'em turned around the concert ticket and noticed that some kinda map was provided to reach the place...they were bewildered and checked the ticket again only to find that the concert was happening univ. campus; they thought, okay, wat the heck, we'll have a gud ride, but the downpour didnot allow them..
so they decided, y not watch a movie and there was a gud movie being screened close where we live...the movie was LRMB. I simply called up my bro. to check if he reached the concert yet.. i jumped up with joy when he said, they cancelled the plans to go to the concert;instead, decided to watch LRMB, and tickets were available! (who woudn't jump?)..
I called up my another gud friend (whose name also happens to be Ravindra !) to see if he could join us..but, alas, he had other plans..newayz, i called up my bro. and got me a ticket reserved for two-n-half hours of non-stop fun 'n' entertainment!
The movie was to be screened at 6:45 p.m and it was already 6:00 p.m, but no worries, the movie hall was like only 10 mins frm my place..so, i set out frm my home at 6:20 and reached there at 6:30 p.m , met my bro and entered the movie hall......
The first 20-30 mins, it was like a joke after a joke....ppl all over the hall were laughing, clapping and jumping out of their seats( a bit over exaggerated,but watever)...
The next part of the movie was also fun ,only that the frequency of the comic parts has come down, from a joke every sec. to a joke for every 15 secs... :D
For me, it was like, there definitely is pure comedy out of F.R.I.E.N.D.S !! (look for the below posts to see how big a fan of F.R.I.E.N.D.S I am).
I wouldn't describe the movie a lot here, b'coz it is worth watching and all fun-movie lovers must and should watch it..
There were some sentimental scenes (infact many), but definitely NOT the "typical bollywood senti."..it was different and it was definitely fun!
This movie coins the term Gandigiri aka,. "Following the principles defined by Gandhi"( aka., the father of the nation!)
The Delhi govt. an the AP govt. have given full tax exemption for the screening of the movie in the respective states.
I know that the movie preaches Gandhigiri, but, if it were upto me, I'd suggest tax exemption for the pure, un-adulterated comedy!
The latest newz sayz that the movie is being sent as an entry for the Oscars in the 'Best foriegn movie' category (independently by the director, ofcourse, RDB being the official entry). Letz wait 'n' c...I'm not sure, if this movie suits the Oscars,but it is the 'one of its kind' movie...
Lage Raho Munna bhai !

P.S: One of my frnz suggested that I use too much '...'s in my posts...I too thought my posts look a bit ugly with all the '...'s, So I tried to cut 'em down to make this post (look 'n' sound) beautiful!