Computer Operating Systems » PC-BSD

Operating Systems

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:32:17 +0000

By: Kevin M Papenhaus

Introduction

Linux OS was first created by a student from the University of Helsinki in Finland. The creator’s name was Linus Torvalds and he had an interest which turned into a passion for Minix, a small Unix application which was later developed into a system that surpassed the Minix standards. He started working on the minix in 1991 and worked heavily until 1994 when the first version of Linux kernal 1.0 was released. This Linux kernal sets the foundation to which the OS of Linux is formed. Hundreds of organizations and companies today have hired individuals and used them to release versions of operating systems using Linux kernal.
Linux’s functioning, features and adaptation have made Linux and Windows OS’s are excellent alternatives to other OS’s. IBM and other giant companies around the world support Linux and its ongoing work after a decade from its initial release. The OS is incorporated into microchips using a process called “embedding” and is increasing the performance of of appliances and devices.

History of Linux

Through the 1990′s some computer savy technicians and hobby insistent people with an interest in computers developed desktop management systems. These systems including GNOME and KDE that run on applications on Linux are available to anyone regardless of the persons motive to use the system. Linus Torvalds was interested in learning the capabilities and features of an 80386 processor for task switching. The application originally named Frea

x was first used with the Minix operating system.

Both the Freax and Minix designs seemed to be sacrificing performance for academic research and studying. Many of the computing specialists now are making assumptions that have changed since the 90′s. Portability is now a common goal for these specialists of the computer industry and this is certainly not a academic requirement for software. Various ports to IA-32, PowerPC, MIPS, Alpha, and ARM along with supporting products being made and sold to wholesalers and retailers, commercial enterprises gave Linus a Alpha based system when tasks on Linus’s priority list moved up to a notably busy point.

History of Windows

Presidents of Microsoft were Bill Gates and Paul Allen they shared the title until 1977, when Bill Gates became president and Paul Allen vice president. In 1978 the disk drives of the Tandy and Apple machines were 5.25-inch. First COMDEX computer show in Las Vegas introduces a 16-bit microprocessor, and from Intel manufacturers they introduce a 8086 chip. Al Gore comes up with the phrase “information highway.” The same year Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak developed the first programming language called Integer Basic, this language was quickly replaced by the Microsoft Applesoft Basic.

Also in 1978, there was a machine that had an integrated, self contained design and was priced at less than $800, known as the Commodore PET which was a Personal Electronic Transactor. On 4/11/78 Microsoft announces its third language product, Microsoft COBOL-80. On the 1st of November in 1978 after their third language introduction, they opened their first international sales office in Japan. Microsoft delegates ASCII Microsoft, locatwed in Tokyo, asits exclusive sales agent for the Far East. And finally on New Years Eve of 1978 Microsoft announced that their year end sales was over $1 million dollars. The following year in April of 1979 Microsoft 8080 BASIC is the first microprocessor to win the ICP Million Dollar Award. The big computers were dominated by software for the mainframe computer, the recognition for the pc computer indicated growth and acceptance in the industry.

Both Allen and Gates return home to Bellevue, Washington and announce plans to open offices in their home town, thus becoming the first microcomputer software company in the Northwest.

Technical Details of both Linux and Windows OS’s

An OS takes care of all input and output coming to a computer. It manages users, processes, memory management, printing, telecommunications, networking, and etc. The OS sends data to a disk, the printer, the screen and other peripherals connected to the computer. A computer can’t work without an OS. The OS tells the machine how to process instructions coming from input devices and software running on the computer. Therefore every computer is built different, commands for in or output will have to be treated differently. In most cases an operating system is not a gigantic nest of programs but instead a small system of programs that operate by the core or kernal. The pc computer system is so compact these small supporting programs it is easier to rewrite parts r packages of the system than to redesign an entire program.

When first created OS’s were designed to help applications interact with the computer hardware. This is the same today, the importance of the OS has risen to the point where the operating system defines the computer. The OS gives off a layer of abstraction between the user and the machine when they communicate. Users don’t see the hardware directly, but view it through the OS. This abstraction can be used to hide certain hardware details from the application and the user.

Applied software is that which is not generic but specifically for one single task machine. The software will not run on any other machine. Applications like this are SABRE, the reservation system of airlines, and defense systems. Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) Creating software is an expensive and time consuming process. These programs will support and in some cases replace the engineer in creating computer programs. Cad cam systems is the computer aided design &computer aided manufacturing. The electronic drawing board in a computer program the features are multiplying. Like premanufactured elements, strength calculations, emulations of how a construction will hold in earthquakes.

In Linux there has been a question that has been going back and forth now for a while, is SCSI dead for workstations? There have been many advancements in SATA and the mainstream acceptance of 10K RPM Western Digital Raptor maybe this made SCSI too expensive for what is needed in a workstation. It’s time we take a look at Linux. How does the Western Digital Raptor WD740GD compare to the three latest Ultra320 SCSI drives: the Seagate Cheetah 10K.7, Seagate Cheetah 15K.3, and Seagate Cheetah 15K.4. This section covers the technology of the drives, acoustics, heat, size, and performance.

Lets take a look at the latest generation of the Seagate 10K Cheetah line and 15K Cheetah line. We will also be taking an in depth look at the latest 10K SATA drive from Western Digital the 74GB WD740GD. Starting with the Western Digital Raptor, WD pushes this drive as the low cost answer to SCSI. On their website, they like to show off the drives 1,200,000 hours MTBF(Mean Time Between Failure) which matches the last generation MTBF of the Seagate Cheetah 15K.3 and is very close to the reliability rating of today’s Cheetahs.

In Linux’s datasheet or newsletter, they also mention that the Cheetah drive is designed for “high performance around the clock usage.” Both the Cheetah and the Western Digital Raptor drives have the same amount of cache memory. When you are speaking of operations in a multi-tasking/multi-user environment, the benefit of various queuing techniques is an advantage. All Ultra 320 SCSI drives support what is called Native Command Queuing or NCQ. This technique is where all commands sent to the disk drive can be queued up and reordered in the most efficient order. This stops the drive from having to request service on only one side of the disk, then going to the other side of the disk serving another request, in order to return for the next request.. While some of the SATA drives do support NCQ, the Raptor does not. The Raptor does have another form of queuing called Tagged Command Queuing or TCQ. This method is not as effective as NCQ and requires support in both the drive and host controller. From what they have been able to determine, TCQ support is sparse, even under Windows.

The SATA drive has itself backed up on their durability claim by stating their use of fluid dynamic bearings in their drives. The fluid dynamic bearings replace ball bearings to cut down on drive wear and tear and decrease operating noise.

Microsoft Windows XP technologies make it easy to enjoy games, music, and movies in addition to creating movies and enhancing digital photo’s. Direct X 9.0 technology drives high speed multimedia and various games on the PC. DirectX provides the exciting graphics, sound, music, and three dimensional animation that bring games to life. Direct X is also the link that allows software engineers to develop a game that is high speed and multimedia driven for your PC. Direct X was introduced in 1995 and it’s popularity soared as multimedia application development reached new heights. Today Direct X has progressed to an Application Programming Interface (API) and being applied into Microsoft Windows Operating Systems. This way software developers can access hardware features without having to write hardware code.

Some of the features of the windows media playerb 9 series with smart jukebox gives users more control over their music. With easy cd transfer to the computer, cd burning and compatibility is available on portable players. Users can also discover more with services that have premium entertainment. Windows media player 9 seriers works well with windows xp using the built in digital media features and delivers a state-of- the- art experience.
When Windows Millenium Edition 2000 came out of stores it was specifically designed for home users. It had the first Microsoft version of a video editing product. Movie Maker is used to capture and organize and edit video clips, and then export them for PC or web playback. Movie maker 2, released in 2003, adds new movie making transitions, jazzy titles, and neat special effects. Based on Microsoft Direct Show and Windows Media technologies, Movie Maker was originally included only with Windows Millenium Edition. Now Movie Maker 2 is available for Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Professional.

With the release of Windows XP in 2001 came Windows Messenger, bringing instant messaging to users across the internet. Users communicate using Text messages in real time in Windows Messenger. Real time messaging with video conferencing has been available for a long time before now. The first communication tool provided by Windows Messenger used integrated, easy to use text chat, voice and video communication, and data collaboration.

Linux is being developed and thus is freely redistributable in code form. Linux is available and developed over the internet. Many of the engineers who took part in producing it are from over seas and have never meet one another. This operating system is at a source level code and is on a large scale that has led the way to it becoming an featureful and stable system.

Eric Raymond has written a popular essay on the development of Linux entitled The Cathedral. and the bazaar. He describes the way the Linux kernal uses a Bazaar approach that has the code released quickly and very often, and that this requires input that has provided improvement to the system. This Bazaar approach is reported to the Cathedral approach used by other systems like GNU Emacs core. The Cathedral approach is characterized in bringing a more beautiful code that has been released, but unfortunately it is released far less often. A poor opportunity for people outside the group who can not contribute to the process.

Some of the high-lights and success of the Bazaar projects do not include the opening the code for everyone to observe, at the design level of the Bazaar. On the same token the Cathedral approach is widely viewed by everyone and is appropriate. Once debugging the code is executed, it is necessary to open the Bazaar to have everyone find different errors involving the code. If they can fix the code this a great effort and help to the coders.

Advantages and Disadvantages of the two OS’s

The writer of this Linux OS web page Chris Browne, describes the way that Linux efforts are distributed and some of the advantages and disadvantages of the Linux OS. The Linux OS comes with some experimental versions such as the 2.5. x series where version numbers go steadily upwards every week. The stable version changes only when bugs are detected in the system and the bugs must be fixed in the experimental series, and this occurence does not change very often. Linux users know that this happens, and they work to resolve the bugs.
It is not guaranteed that all users will immediately fix their problems with the systems if they are not being affected (or don’t notice they are affected) by problems, there are fixes quickly available, sometimes distributed across the internet after a few hours of diagnosis. For Linux fixes are available more quickly than commercial vendors like Microsoft, HP, and IBM usually this diagnosis is before they even know there’s a problem. This acknowledgement is in contrast to other companies behavior, Bill Gates claims in his press releases Microsoft code has no bugs. This seems to mean that there are no bugs that Microsoft cares to fix.

Microsoft came to the conclusion that the majority of bugs detected in their systems are present because users don’t use their software correctly. The problems that remain for Microsoft are few in number and are caused by actual errors. There is remaining work to get the stable Linux system, with configured Linux kernels that should and do have suitably configured software on top of the workload the systems have to run for hundreds of days without rebooting the computers. Some of the general public as well as computer professionals like engineers and technicians complain that Linux is always changing. Chris says that “effort and interest of the Linux kernal will stop when people want to stop building and enhancing the Linux kernal.” As long as new technology and devices like the video cards are being constructed and people interested in Linux keep coming up with new improvements for Linux, work on Linux OS will progress.

The disadvantage of the Linux OS is that it may end because of there being a better platform for kernal hacking, or because Linux in the future will be so displaced that it becomes unmanageable. This has not happened yet but many researchers say that in the future of Linux, with various plans for attaining services to the consumer or business, Linux is moving away from the base kernal and into user space which creates less room for data and information. The announcement of a Debian Hurd effort suggests an alternative to the problem of kernal hacking. The Hurd kernal, which runs and is sent as a set of processes on top a microkernal such as MACH, may provide a system for those people that are not satisfied with changes to the linux kernal. Mach has a “message passing” abstraction that allows the OS to be created as a set of components that will work in conjunction with one another.

Competetive, Collaborative Efforts

To start this section I’ll tell about the beginning of the personal computer and it’s roots with IBM. Vertically integrated proprietary de facto standards architectures were the norm for the first three decades of the postwar computer industry. Each computer manufacturer made most if not all of its technology internally, and sold that technology as part of an integrated computer. This systems era was ascendant from IBM’s 1964 introduction of its System 360 until the release of the 1981, personal computer from IBM. This was challenged by two different approaches. One was the fragmentation of proprietary standards in the PC industry between different suppliers, which led Microsoft and Intel to seek industry wide dominance for their proprietary component of the overall system architecture, making what Moschella (1997) terms the “PC era” (1964-1981). The second was a movement by users and second tier producers to cvonstruct industrywide “open” systems, in which the standard was not owned by a single firm.

The adoption of the Linux system in the late 1990s was a response to these earlier approaches. Linux was the most commercially accepted example of a new wave of “open source” software, the software and the source code are freely distributed to use and modify. The advantages of Linux in contrast to the proprietary PC standards, particulary software standards controlled by Microsoft. Product compatibility standards have typically been considered using a simple unidemensional typology, bifurcated between “compatible” and “incompatible.” Further more, to illuminate differences between proprietary and open standards strategies, Gabel’s (1987) multi-dimensional classification attribute, with each dimension assuming one of several (discrete) levels:

“multivintage” compatibility between successive generations of a product:

“product line” compatibility, providing interoperability across the breadth of the company’s

product line-as Microsoft has with its Windows CE, 95/98/ME, and NT/2000 product families.

“multivendors” compatibility, i.e. compatibility of products between competing producers.

The first successful multi-vendor operating system was Unix, developed by a computer science research group at Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL) in New Jersey beginning in 1969. As with the earlier Multics research project between MIT, BTL and mainframe computer maker General Electric, Unix was a multi-user time-shared OS designed as a research project by programmers for their personal use. Other characteristics key to Unix’s success reflected path dependencies by its developers and early users( Salus 1994):

AT&T was forbidden by its 1956 consent decree from being in the computer business, so it did not sell the OS commercially. After publishing research papers, Bell Labs was flooded with requests from university computer science departments, who received user licenses and source code but a lack of support. Along cam budget constraints that limited BTL researchers to DEC minicomputers opposed to large mainframe computers, Unix was simpler and more efficient than its Multics predecessor, based on the simplified C programming language rather than the more widely used PL/I. Although originally developed DEC minicomputers, Unix was converted to run on other models by users who found programmer time less expensive than buying a supported model, thus setting the stage for it to become a hardware-independent OS.

Maybe one of the most important developments was the licensing of UNIX by the U.C. Berkeley Computer Science Department in 1973. The Berkeley group issued its own releases from 1977 to 1994, with much of its funding provided by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The result of the Berkeley development included (Garud and Kumaraswamy 1993; Salus 1994) :

The first Unix version to support TCP/IP, later the standard protocols of the internet;

Academic adoption of BSD Unix as the preferred OS by many computer science departments throughout the world;

Commercial spread of BSD -derived Unix through Sun Microsystems, cofounded by former BSD programmer Bill Joy;

As they evolved their versions of Unix, fragmentation of Unix developers and adopters into rival “BSD” and “AT&T” camps.

AT&T Unix provided a multivendor standard which, when coupled with the BSD advancements, helped spur the adoption of networked computing. Helped by Sun, whose slogan is “the network is the computer,” Unix rapidly gained acceptance during the 1980s as the preferred OS for networked engineering workstations (Garud and Kumaraswamy 1993). At the same time, it became a true multivendor standard as minicomputer producers with a small amount of customers, weak R&D and immature OS licensed Unix from AT&T. The main exceptions to the Unix push were the early leaders in workstations (Apollo) and minicomputers (DEC), who used their proprietary OS as a source of competitive advantage, and were the last to switch to Unix in their respective segments.

Some of the advocates from the two producers formed a number of trade associations to promote Unix and related operating systems. In doing so fueled the adoption and standardization of Unix, they hoped to increase the amount of application software to compete with sponsored, proprietary architectures(Gabel 1987; Grindley 1995). These two groups promoted these under the rubric “open systems”; the editors of a book series on such systems summarized their goals as follows:
Open systems allow users to move their applications between systems easily; purchasing decisions can be made on the basis of cost-performance ratio and vendor support, rather than on systems which run a users application suite (Salus 1994: v).

Despite these goals, the Unix community spent the 1980s and early 1990s fragmented into AT&T and Berkeley warring factions, each of which sought control of the OS API’s to maximize the software available for their versions. Each faction had its own adherents. To avoid paying old earlier mainframe switching costs, U.S. Department of Defense procurement decisions began to favor Unix over proprietary systems. As AT&T formalized its System V Interface Definition and encouraged hardware makers to adopt System V, it became the multivendor standard required by DoD procurements

BSD group was only developed for DEC minicomputers, its Unix variant was not multivendor and less attractive and appealing for DoD procurements. The numerous innovations of the BSD group in terms of usability, software development tools and networking made it more attractive to university computer scientists for their own research and teaching, making it the minicomputer OS preferred by computer science departments in the U.S., Europe and Japan (Salus 1994). The divergent innovation meant that the two major Unix variants differed in terms of internal structure, user commands and application programming interfaces (APIs). It was the latter difference that most seriously affected computer buyers, as custom software developed for one type of Unix could not directly be recompiled on the other, adding switching costs between the two systems. Also, both the modem-based and DARPA networking facilitated the distribution of user donated source code libraries, that were free but often required site-specific custom programming if the Unix API’s at the users site differed from those of faced by the original contributor.

Microsoft Windows continues to invest in products based on the Itanium processor family, and the Itanium Solutions Alliance will further this investment by helping growth of the ecosystem of applications and solutions available on Windows platform and SQL Server 2005,” said Bob Kelly, general manager, Windows infrastructure, Microsoft Corp. “We look forward to working with the members of the Itanium Solutions Alliance to help IT managers transition from RISC-based Unix servers to Itanium based systems running on the Windows platform.”

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Linux Versus BSD With A Little Focus On OpenBSD

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:31:32 +0000

By: Juraj Sipos

What is a BSD Unix?

This article is not about the history of Unix; however, Unix is such a complex issue that it deserves few words in this respect: BSD family of Unix systems is based upon the source code of real Unix developed in Bell Labs, which was later purchased by the University of California. Thus, the name of the family of Unix systems called BSD is derived from “Berkeley Software Distribution”. The contemporary BSD systems stand on the source code that was released in the beginning of 1990′s (Net/2 Lite and 386/BSD release).

No one person or any entity owns BSD. Enthusiastic developers create it and many of its components are open-sourced.

BSD is behind the philosophy of TCP/IP networking and the Internet thereof; it is a developed Unix system with advanced features. Except for proprietary BSD/OS, the development of which was discontinued, there are currently four BSD systems available: FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and Mac OS X, which is derived from FreeBSD. There are also various forks of these, like PC-BSD – a FreeBSD clone, or MirOS, an OpenBSD clone. The intention of such forks is to include various characteristics missing in the above BSD systems, on which these (forks), no matter how well they are designed, only strongly depend. PC-BSD, for example, has more graphical features than FreeBSD, but there are no substantial differences between these two. PC-BSD cannot breathe without FreeBSD; FreeBSD or OpenBSD are independent of one another.

What is Linux?

Alb

eit users like to use the term “Linux” for any Linux distro including its packages (Red Hat Linux, Mandrake Linux, etc.), for IT professionals Linux is only the kernel. Linux started in 1991, when its author, Linus Torvals, began his work on a free replacement of Minix. Developers of quite a few Linux system utilities used the source code from BSD, as both these systems started parallelly in about the same time (1992-1993) as Open Source.

Today, there are a few, if not many developers of their own kernels/operating systems (FreeDOS, Agnix, ReactOS, Inferno, etc.), but these guys simply missed the right train in the right hour. They did not lose anything except for the fact that they may be even better programmers, but without the public opinion acknowledging this at large. Linus built his fame also from work of many developers and he went on board in the right time. Linus deserves a credit as a software idea policy maker and he helped very much in this respect.

(Open)BSD vs Linux

It is often difficult to say what is better if you compare two things without regarding the purpose of their use. Mobile Internet may appear better for someone who travels often, but for people working at home such mobility is not necessary. In this view, it is a stupid question when someone asks: “What is better, a mobile or static Internet?” It all depends…

If you compare Linux and OpenBSD in their desktop environment features, Linux offers more applications than OpenBSD; but in a server solution BSD systems are known to be robust, more stable and secure, and without so many patches distributors release soon after their new version of Linux slithered to light.

BSD systems are based upon real Unix source code contrary to Linux, which was developed from scratch (kernel).

Differences between BSD and Linux

1) BSD license allows users/companies to modify a program’s source code and not to release changes to the public. In other words, BSD licenses allow commercial use and incorporation of a code into proprietary commercial products. This is how Microsoft incorporated BSD networking into their products and how Mac OS X earns money through muscles of FreeBSD.

Linux uses GPL license for most of the time (applications in Linux can also have a BSD license – or any license; it is up to developers how they decide). With a GPL-licensed program anybody can change the source code, but he or she MUST share it with the Open Source community to make sure that everybody will benefit from such a change.

2) BSD has the so-called “core system” (without packages). The core system consists of basic utilities (like ssh, fdisk, various commands like chmod or sysctl, manual pages, etc.) and anything beyond this is strictly seen as an add-on. Linux (not only the kernel, of course) is usually packaged as the whole system where this difference is not seen.

3) On BSD systems, all add-on packages are strictly installed into the /usr/local directory: documents to user/local/share/docs/application_name; themes and other things to /usr/local/share/application_name; binaries to /usr/local/bin/application_name. By application_name we mean a program’s name, so if you install IceWM, for example, its binary will be here: /usr/local/bin/icewm. With Linux, on the other hand, all applications get mostly installed into the /usr/bin directory.

4) BSD systems use the system of “ports”, which are fingerprints of applications in the /usr/ports directory, where a user may “cd” and execute a make command, which will download, via a directive contained in such a fingerprint’s code, the application’s source and the system will compile it as well. “Ports” are actually add-on packages for BSD systems and they are also packaged in packages repository of a concrete BSD system. They can be installed as binaries, too, with use of the “pkg_add” either directly from the Internet or locally. But “ports” have that advantage that if an author of any package makes a new version, a user can immediately get its newest/updated version. Packages released for a particular BSD version (like OpenBSD 4.1) are not updated and users have to wait for a new BSD release (like OpenBSD 4.2).

5) BSD systems have also their stable version. With FreeBSD, for example, you have a FreeBSD-Release (a version that can be used normally), FreeBSD-Stable (system more profoundly audited for bugs and security holes), and a development version – Current, which is not stable and not recommended for a regular use. Some Linux distributions started to imitate this philosophy, but with BSD systems this way of making distributions has become a rule.

6) Of course, the kernel is absolutely different.

7) BSD has FFS file system; it is the only file system on BSD’s contrary to Linux, where you can use dozens of file systems like ext2, ext3, ReiserFS, XFS, etc.

BSD systems divide their partitions internally. This means that after installing a BSD system to a hard disk, programs like fdisk, Partition Magic, Norton Ghost and many others will not see this internal division of a BSD (FFS) disk; thus, repartitioning of a disk is not such a pain when administrators require a rigorous partitioning (for /home, /tmp, /var, /etc directories). As a consequence, the naming convention also differs a little: a disk – /dev/ad0s3b in FreeBSD indicates that you deal with “slice” 3 (“s3″), which is the equivalent of Linux /dev/hda3; the internal “partition” has the name of a letter: “a”, “b”, “e”, etc. (“b” is a swap partition). BSD systems also use different naming conventions for devices (disks, etc.).

9) Unless you make a good kernel hack, BSD systems can only be installed into the primary partition. This is not the rule with Linux. However, as BSD systems offer the above-mentioned internal division of partitions, this is not any pain. PC architecture for disks (IDE) follows the rule that you can have only four primary partitions. We will illustrate this on Linux: /dev/hda1 (note: first partition on master disk on first IDE channel), /dev/hda2 (second partition), /dev/hda3 (third partition), /dev/hda4 (fourth partition). PC architecture allows creation of the so-called logical disk on a physical disk (/dev/hda5, /dev/hda6, etc.). You can have as many logical disks/partitions as you wish and you can also install Linux into these “logical disks”. On the other hand, installing a BSD OS into such a “logical partition” is not normally possible.

10) System configuration is manual for most of the time, but various clones like PC-BSD break this convention. The manual approach is a very good thing, as administrators have everything under control without being pushed to waste time in a labyrinth of bloated configuration menus. A good comparison is to imagine a car mechanic repairing the car’s engine covered by a thick blanket. To give you even a little better example – you will hardly find a Linux distro that does not have a default X startup (graphical environment). Of course, you can switch off the X environment during the installation configuration, but if you keep forgetting like me and forget to switch this off, or you have difficulties to find it in the menu somewhere, you realize that most Linux distributors do indeed impose on us only one approach – to put our fingers first on the thick blanket, then on the engine. If you are a good administrator, you do not usually trust vendors who program you how to use Linux – you are the boss and you must have your own freedom. However, in most cases you lose few hours instead by deactivating various services, which are, unfortunately, not even necessary but almost always activated by default. Linux is praised both for being a good desktop and server, but administrators of a good server do not need X. The more software is stored on your hard disk, the more security problems you will face, because it is impossible to audit every package in every unthinkable situation. Good and secure systems are always tight, light and simple.

11) All BSD systems have a Linux emulation support. Running BSD binaries on Linux is a little harder.

12) BSD systems have less support from driver vendors, thus they lag behind in this view (they are not worse, but many vendors support only Microsoft and Linux). With a BSD system you must carefully research the Internet for supported products/chipsets before purchasing any hardware.

13) BSD systems do not use the Unix System V “runlevel scripts” (initialization startup scripts) like Linux.

14) BSD kernels can be set to several security levels. This is also possible with Linux, but BSD’s have taken a very good care of this kernel-tuning feature, which makes it even impossible to change something in files in higher security levels – you cannot delete them.

15) BSD’s have everything under one ROOF. Various Linux programs are often not even compatible with other Linuces. For example, if you install a SuSE RPM package on Mandrake, it may not work. BSD’s have one solid crown of power. If you move from Linux to FreeBSD, you will soon find out that you got out of this chaos. Do you want a package? Just visit: http://www.freebsd.org/ports/ and download it. Unless its developer made some programming errors, it will always work.

16) Generally, BSD systems boot and reboot faster than Linux. Linux can do this, too, but it must be tuned. It is very surprising that Linux is shipped, on the one hand, on huge DVD’s and, on the other hand, it has a compressed kernel. BSD systems do not use (but they can) a default kernel that is compressed, thus the system boots always faster. As I mentioned earlier in this article, Linux vendors program users to use various, often unnecessary services. I do not need SAMBA (file and print services) and many other things as well. Linux reboot process takes longer because various services running on Linux need time for deactivation. Many Linux users do not even know what is the purpose of these services.

17) In comparison to BSD, most Linux distributions are overbloated. Few good users noticed this some time ago and a new trend in the Linux world started with ideas to get closer to a BSD-style use. One of such distributions is Gentoo Linux, but also Slackware Linux, which has preserved a very good shape since its first release (1993). The Gentoo “About” page (http://www.gentoo.org) says that, “Gentoo is a free operating system based on either Linux or FreeBSD…” Therefore, if you use Slackware or Gentoo, these Linuces will always reboot faster than any other Linux.

18) If you compile programs from ports, you will not stumble into compilation errors. BSD packagers prepare their packages carefully, so that users will always compile them successfully. This does not always happen with Linux.

Conclusion

I am the author of One Floppy CD Audio and MP3 Player: freshmeat.net/projects/1fcdbsd and I really like all BSD systems. Some advertisements follow the same pattern as viruses and advertised products are not always good. If you are interested, FreeBSD has the best documentation from all BSD systems, so reading it will only help.

Author’s website about FreeBSD and OpenBSD: http://www.freebsd.nfo.sk

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Linux Power Tools – Great Tools to Make System Administration Easy

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:27:01 +0000

By: Amarjyoti Krishnan

World War II – Germany decided to attack Poland.
Poland had many great warriors. They all prepared to fight the Germans.
They were all ready with the best armor, the best and well trained
horses, and ofcourse the best weapons , swords , spears …. And
the Pols were brave and were ready to give their lives for their
country. Sadly they did just that… give their lives. The Germans
had tanks… It is very important to have the right weapons when one
goes for a war.

In the same way it is very important for system administrators to have
the right tools to to work smart. Linux is a great desktop OS for
developers as well as system
administrators. Let us take a look at some of the utilities which makes
this a great environment for system administrators and developers. Most
of the content below is taken from the home pages of these apps and the
I make no claims on the originality. My aim is to introduce the reader
to the
wonderful tools that are available in a Linux/BSD desktop environment.

Konsole

features include simple configuration and the
ability to use multiple terminal shells in a single window, making for
a less cluttered desktop. Konsole is also available as kpart and
can thus be easily embedded in other applications, like practiced by
Kate and Konqueror.

As most system administrators need log into servers on a regular basis
the konsole gives them a benefit over the Windoze command prompt. In
windows one needs to use a program like putty to log in using SSH. Also
as linux is the desktop OS the techs can use the man pages on the local
system.

One can also try out the various commands locally. Consider a simple
example.

Is it

$ ln sourcefile destinationfile

or is it

$ ln destinationfile sourcefile

Such things can be easily found out locally without carrying out
experiments on the server. Many techs believe that servers are places
where they can experiment. However, such experiments can lead to major
losses to the customers due to one small error. A system administrator
must understand that people have immense faith in them when they give
their entire data to them and they cannot risk carrying out simple
experiments on servers.

Some screenshots of the konsole can be seen at the konsole site

Personal Information Manager / Groupware

There are two popular choices here. Evolution
from Novel
and the Kontact
from KDE. Both these an email client, calendaring, meeting
scheduling, a task list, contact management and syncing functionality.
Kontact is essentially the regular KDE PIM components which have been
put in together i.e. kmail, korganizer, knotes etc.. It is very a very
neat package and is stable and light. Both these are very
functional and can connect to many groupware servers.

Klipper

Klipper is the KDE clipboard utility. It stores clipboard history, and
allows you to link clipboard contents to application actions. Klipper
can perform actions on the contents of the clipboard, based on whether
they match a particular regular expression. For example, any clipboard
contents starting with “http://” can be passed to the web-browser as
URLs to open.

Copying text is as simple as highlighting the text. And to paste the
text all one needs to do is click on the center mouse button. This can
be particularly useful for sys-admins as they use a sequence
of commands from time to time. Having these in the clipboard and using
them often can make the work a lot easier.

Gaim / Kopete

Communicating via an instant messenger is an essential these days.
Linux has a very clean solution for this. Both Kopete
(http://kopete.kde.org) and Gaim (http://gaim.sourceforge.net/) are
capable of
handling multiple IM protocols such as supporting AIM, ICQ, MSN,
Yahoo, Jabber, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Lotus SameTime. Gaim is
a multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X,
and Windows. It is compatible with AIM and ICQ (Oscar protocol), MSN
Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, GroupWise Messenger,
and Zephyr networks.

Kjots

KJots is a small program that helps you to write down some
short notes
and organizes them for you. It has two basic items used to organize
your notes – “Books” and “Pages”. This is a good light tool to
write in all the templated responses and other important notes for
quick references.

Kwallet

A lovely password manager which can store passwords for all the logins
including those of kopete and websites.

Tea Cooker

KTeaTime is a handy timer for steeping tea. No longer will you have to
guess at how long it takes for your tea to be ready. Simply select the
type of tea you have, and it will alert you when the tea is ready to
drink. Now how can a tea cooker be useful for techs. Often techs get
involved in solving a problem and forget to update the client about the
progress. Without communicating with the client, on many occasions the
entire effort goes down the drain as the client get very agitated
thinking that nobody is looking at his problem. What the tech can do is
use the tea cooker and get a reminder so that he can respond the client
with the progress.

Koffice/ Open Office

M$ Office is one of the most used software and a major reason why
customers do not shift to other operating systems. They need Word and
Excel for just about everything. K-Office and Open Office are two great
solutions. Open Office can open M$ Office files and can even safe the
files in M$ Office format which makes it easy to communicate with those
who still use M$ products.

Lyx

Besides office suites which replicate the windows world products in
features, Linux also has some great alternatives. LyX
(http://www.lyx.org) is an example of a great document processor.

What is LyX?

LyX is the first WYSIWYM (What you
see is what you mean) document processor.

LyX is what?!

LyX is an advanced open source document processor that encourages an
approach to writing based on the
structure of your documents, not their appearance. LyX lets you
concentrate on writing, leaving details of visual layout to the
software. LyX produces high quality, professional output — using
LaTeX, an industrial strength typesetting engine, in the background;
LyX is far more than a
front-end to LaTeX, however. No knowledge of LaTeX is necessary to use
LyX,
although it will give a user more power. LyX is stable and fully
featured. It has been used for documents as large as a thesis, or as
small as a business letter. Despite its simple GUI interface (available
in many languages), it supports tables, figures, and hyperlinked
cross-references, and has a best-of-breed math editor.

Dia

Dia is a great tool for creating diagrams. It has a huge in-built
library of objects which are specially useful for software engineers.
So making a diagram of a computer network is as easy as dragging a few
computers and switches from the list of objects available. It currently
has special objects to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML
diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and simple circuits. It is also
possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files,
using a subset of SVG to draw the shape.

Gnucash

An average tech earns a good salary and spends it is well too. To keep
track of all these personal expenses the best is to have a great
software. Gnucash is an ideal way to manage personal finances. Designed
to be easy to use, yet powerful
and flexible, GnuCash allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income
and expenses. As quick and intuitive to use as a checkbook register, it
is based on professional accounting principles to ensure balanced books
and accurate reports.

KTuberling

And finally a product for all those techs who maintain their servers
well and have no work or pending issues and yet have to sit through the
nights waiting for some issue to popup.

KTuberling (http://opensource.bureau-cornavin.com/ktuberling/) was
originally game intended for small children. Of course, it may be
suitable for adults who have remained
young at heart. Most techs in general love this software. It is a
“potato editor”. That means that you can drag and drop eyes, mouths,
mustache, and other parts of face and goodies onto a potato-like guy.
Similarly, you have a penguin and an aquarium on which you can drop
other stuff.

There is no winner for the game. The only purpose is to make the
funniest faces you can. There is a museum,like a “Madame Tusseau”
gallery, where you can find many funny examples of decorated potatoes,
penguins and aquariums.

Konsole

Let’s start from what most people think Linux is all about – a text
based shell. Konsole is what
is known as an X terminal emulator, often referred to as a terminal or
a shell. It gives you the equivalent of an old-fashioned text screen on
your desktop, but one which can easily share the screen with your
graphical applications. What makes Konsole special?
Konsole’s advanced features include simple configuration and the
ability to use multiple terminal shells in a single window, making for
a less cluttered desktop. Konsole is also available as kpart and
can thus be easily embedded in other applications, like practiced by
Kate and Konqueror.

One can also try out the various commands locally. Consider a simple
example.

Is it

$ ln sourcefile destinationfile

or is it

$ ln destinationfile sourcefile

Some screenshots of the konsole can be seen at the konsole site

Personal Information Manager / Groupware

Klipper

Gaim / Kopete

Kjots

Kwallet

A lovely password manager which can store passwords for all the logins
including those of kopete and websites.

Tea Cooker

Koffice/ Open Office

Lyx

Besides office suites which replicate the windows world products in
features, Linux also has some great alternatives. LyX
(http://www.lyx.org) is an example of a great document processor.

What is LyX?

LyX is the first WYSIWYM (What you
see is what you mean) document processor.

LyX is what?!

Dia

Gnucash

KTuberling

And finally a product for all those techs who maintain their servers
well and have no work or pending issues and yet have to sit through the
nights waiting for some issue to popup.

Amarjyoti Krishnan heads bobcares.com, a tech support company for webhosts and ISPs. He is the co-founder of Poornam Info Vision Ltd., a software and IT services company which specializes in Linux based solutions for Webhosts and ISPs. Poornam Info Vision is an ISO 9001:2000 certified company with a team of over 100 engineers.

Amarjyoti is a Computer Engineer based in India and has over 7 years of experience in the hosting industry. He has spoken and written extensively on the subject. His articles have been published both online as well as in print in magazines.

http://poornam.com
http://bobcares.com
http://amarjyoti.com

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Google Is Not Only A Search Engine!

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:26:43 +0000

By: Walter Vandenhoute

When you now organize a street interview and ask people “What is Google”, I assume more than 90 percent of the people answer that Google is a search engine. Indeed, Google is a search engine and it is probably its core business, but Google is much more!

A short overview of the main services of Google:

++ Category One : Google Web Search Features ++

- Besides the traditional Google search engines in different languages, there is also a local search engine available: Google Local. As Google Local is in beta, only US searches are possible.
Are you living in Detroit and hungry and you want a taco, do a search on http://local.google.com and you get a list of all taco restaurants.

- Google Mobile : search with your cell phone online information

http://mobile.google.com

- Google Print puts book content right in the Google search results
http://print.google.com

- Calculator: Type a mathematical expression (e.g. 5+2*3) in the Google seach box and you get the result, even with complicated math!

- Definitions: when you search for ‘define Personal Computer’, you get the definition of that word;

- With Froogle, you can search for products (independent free service)
http://froogle.google.com and target="_new" rel="nofollow" href="http://labs.google.com/frooglewml.html">http://labs.google.com/frooglewml.html (Froogle for your cell phone)

- With ‘I’m Feeling Lucky™’ next to the Google search box you will see directly the first web page for your query. You will not see the other search results at all.

- Movies: To find reviews and showtimes for movies playing near you, type ‘movies’, ‘showtimes’ or the name of a current film into the Google search box

- With PhoneBook you can search for US business and residence phone numbers in the Google search box, e.g. ‘John, Fitzgerald, Washington’

- Q&A answers (all) your questions in the Google search box, e.g. birthplace Bill Clinton

- You can get specialized information in the Google search box of parcels, patents or other specialized numbers.

- Restrict your search to a specific site (Site Search), e.g. ‘google site: http://www.wallies.info‘ for wallies.info pages with the word ‘google’

- Stock Quotes in the Google search box, e.g. GOOG for the Google stock quote

- Weather conditions and a four-day forecast for a particular U.S. location, e.g. ‘weather Miami, fl’ in the Google Seach box;

- Travel information: To see delays and weather conditions at a particular airport, type the airport’s three letter code followed by the word ‘airport’; To check the status of a U.S. flight, type the name of the airline followed by the flight number.

- Google Alerts send you an email with the latest search results of your query.
http://www.google.com/alerts

- With Google Catalogs you can search mail-order catalogs online.
http://catalogs.google.com

- Search for images with Google Image Search
http://images.google.com

- Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature.
http://scholar.google.com

- Google special searches: http://www.google.com/unclesam (U.S. Government), http://www.google.com/linux, http://www.google.com/bsd (BSD), http://www.google.com/mac.html (Apple Macintosh), http://www.google.com/microsoft.html

- Google University Search enables you to search to a specific school website.
http://www.google.com/options/universities.html

- The Google web directory
http://directory.google.com/

++ Category Two : Webmaster Tools ++

- Enter ‘link: http://www.wallies.info‘ in the Google search box will show you all pages that point to wallies.info;

- Add your URL to Google on http://www.google.com/addurl;

- Develop your own Google applications with Google Web API’s.
http://www.google.com/apis/

- Google Adsense: place relevant ads on your pages and get paid
https://www.google.com/adsense/

- With Google Adwords you can create your own ads.
https://adwords.google.com

++ Category Three : Stand alone services ++

- With the xml Google Sitemaps, https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ the Google crawler should index faster your website. See also http://www.wallies.info/blog/item/132/index.html.

- Google Blog is the official weblog of the people behind Google:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com

- Blogger is the free weblog service of Google
http://www.blogger.com

- With Google Maps can you search for a specific US location on street level and see a satellite image of that location
[http://maps.google.com/!]

- Gmail is Google email with 2GB space
http://www.gmail.com

- Google Groups are discussion groups
http://groups-beta.google.com/

- Keyhole: nice satellite imagery of our world.
http://www.keyhole.com

- Google Video enables you to search a growing archive of televised content – everything from sports to dinosaur documentaries to news shows.
http://video.google.com/

++ Category Four : Google Software

- Gmail Notifier : Check your Gmail messages without opening your
browser.
http://toolbar.google.com/gmail-helper/index?promo=gdl-en

- Google Deskbar lets you search with Google right from your Windows taskbar
http://toolbar.google.com/deskbar/

- Google Toolbar is the open-source Googlebar for your browser
http://toolbar.google.com/googlebar.html

- Search your own computer with Google Desktop
http://desktop.google.com/?promo=gdl-gds-en

- Picasa is free software that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC: http://www.picasa.com

- Google Video Viewer is needed for Google Video
[http://video.google.com/video_download.html]

++ Google Labs ++

Google labs showcases a few of our favorite ideas that aren’t quite ready for prime time – http://labs.google.com/

- Google Personalized Search: Get the search results most relevant to you
http://www.google.com/psearch

- Personalize your Google Homepage with information for you
http://www.google.com/ig

- Save time online by loading web pages faster with Google Web Accelarator
http://webaccelerator.google.com/

- My Search History Easily access and manage your Google search history from any computer
http://www.google.com/searchhistory/

- Find a taxi, limousine or shuttle using real time position of vehicles with Google Ride Finder
[http://labs.google.com/ridefinder]

- As you type your search, Google Suggest offers keyword suggestions in real time
http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en

- Google SMS: Get precise answers to specialized queries from your mobile phone or device
http://sms.google.com/ and http://www.google.co.uk/sms/

- Google Sets: Automatically create sets of items from a few examples
http://labs.google.com/sets

++ Various ++

- Google Store: pens, shirts, lava lamps of Google, http://www.googlestore.com/

Maybe there are a few services we’ve forgotten as this list is already so extensive.

Last to know the Google quote on Nasdaq (GOOG): http://quotes.nasdaq.com/asp/summaryquote.asp?symbol=GOOG%60&selected=GOOG%60

For comments on this article, please visit [http://wallies.info/blog/item/171/index.html]

Walter V. is a self-employed internet entrepreneur and founder-webmaster of several websites, including wallies.info :: A snappy blog about snappy blue things :: blog | wiki | forum | links – http://wallies.info mblo.gs :: A snappy moblog community – http://mblo.gs

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Compiling a Free BSD Kernel

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:23:45 +0000

By: Amarjyoti Krishnan

Ever since my college days, I always loved to have my own
compiled
kernel. It gave me that special feeling of “my machine is better
than
yours”. I am sure each time my new kernel boots up the feeling I
have
is is the same as what Super Man has when he bashs up the bad
people.

A custom kernel boots up the system faster, it takes up lesser
memory space and one can install drivers for hardware not
supported by a default kernel. Besides these benefits, a custom
kernel
serves as an interesting conversation topic with geeks. Just ask
them
“What is your kernel size ?”. This would keep the Geek busy for
sometime where he would explain all the great things he did to
the
kernel options to optimize his box.

If you happen to be a geek yourself, this is a great question to
put forward to those lowly Nubies. They’ll never trouble you
with stories of their nephew or kid sister after this

Before we get down to compiling our own kernel, it is a
wonderful idea
to backup the present kernel.

# cd /boot

# cp -pvr kernel kernel.orig

The original generic kernel is now stored as kernel.orig. In
case the
kernel does not boot (which has happened with me many times)
boot up
with the generic kernel and try again. Booting any other kernel
is
simple. At the boot time goto to the boot prompt and simple say
“boot
kernel.orig” and the default kernel would boot up.

The kernel sources are located in the /usr/src/sys directory. If
not
installed, the kernel sources can be installed with the
following
commands. First insert the FreeBSD install CD in your CD drive.

# mount /cdrom# mkdir -p /usr/src/sys# ln -s /usr/src/sys /sys# cat /cdrom/src/ssys.[a-d]* | tar -xzvf  -

Then go to the director where the configuration files are
located.

#cd /sys/i386/conf

In this directory the GENERIC kernel configuration file is
located.
Copy this file and it as your custom name.

#cp -pvr GENERIC BABYBSD

# vi BABYBSD

First change the ident value from GENERIC to BABYBSD (or
whatever name
you prefer). I have given my sample configuration file at the
end of
this article. The options are quite easy to understand and a
good
starting point would be the FreeBSD
Handbook which has documented most of the kernel options.

You can also go to a shell and run the command #make LINT
in
this directory which would create a file called LINT which has
all the
options supported by the kernel listed.

After this stage just run the following commands

#/usr/sbin/config BABYBSD

#cd ../compile/BABYBSD

#make depend

#make

#make install

Please note that you must be root to run the make install.
Reboot and
the kernel should boot with your shining new kernel.

# My Sample Kernel Configuration File for FreeBSD/i386

machine i386

cpu

I586_CPU

cpu

I686_CPU

ident

BABYBSD

options SCHED_4BSD

# 4BSD scheduler

options INET

# InterNETworking

options INET6

# IPv6 communications protocols

options FFS

# Berkeley Fast Filesystem

options SOFTUPDATES

# Enable FFS soft updates support

options UFS_ACL

# Support for access control lists

options UFS_DIRHASH

# Improve performance on big directories

options MD_ROOT

# MD is a potential root device

options NFSCLIENT

# Network Filesystem Client

options NFSSERVER

# Network Filesystem Server

options NFS_ROOT

# NFS usable as /, requires NFSCLIENT

options MSDOSFS

# MSDOS Filesystem

options NTFS

options CD9660

# ISO 9660 Filesystem

options PROCFS

# Process filesystem (requires PSEUDOFS)

options PSEUDOFS

# Pseudo-filesystem framework

options GEOM_GPT

# GUID Partition Tables.

options COMPAT_43

# Compatible with BSD 4.3 [KEEP THIS!]

options COMPAT_FREEBSD4

# Compatible with FreeBSD4

options SCSI_DELAY=15000 #
Delay
(in ms) before probing SCSI

options KTRACE

# ktrace(1) support

options SYSVSHM

# SYSV-style shared memory

options SYSVMSG

# SYSV-style message queues

options SYSVSEM

# SYSV-style semaphores

options _KPOSIX_PRIORITY_SCHEDULING # POSIX
P1003_1B
real-time extensions

options KBD_INSTALL_CDEV #
install
a CDEV entry in /dev

options
AHC_REG_PRETTY_PRINT #
Print register bitfields in debug

# output. Adds ~128k
to
driver.

options
AHD_REG_PRETTY_PRINT #
Print register bitfields in debug

# output. Adds ~215k
to
driver.

options ADAPTIVE_GIANT

# Giant mutex is adaptive.

device
apic

# I/O APIC

# Bus support. Do not remove isa, even if you have no isa
slots

device isa

device eisa

device pci

# Floppy drives

device fdc

# ATA and ATAPI devices

device ata

device
atadisk

# ATA disk drives

device
atapicd

# ATAPI CDROM drives

options ATA_STATIC_ID #
Static
device numbering

# SCSI peripherals

device
scbus

# SCSI bus (required for SCSI)

device ch

# SCSI media changers

device da

# Direct Access (disks)

device cd

# CD

device
pass

# Passthrough device (direct SCSI access)

device
ses

# SCSI Environmental Services (and
SAF-TE)

# atkbdc0 controls both the keyboard and the PS/2 mouse

device
atkbdc

# AT keyboard controller

device
atkbd

# AT keyboard

device
psm

# PS/2 mouse

device
vga

# VGA video card driver

device
splash

# Splash screen and screen saver support

# syscons is the default console driver, resembling an SCO
console

device sc

# Enable this for the pcvt (VT220 compatible) console driver

#device vt

#options XSERVER

# support for X server on a vt console

#options FAT_CURSOR # start
with
block cursor

device
agp

# support several AGP chipsets

# Floating point support – do not disable.

device npx

# Power management support (see NOTES for more options)

#device apm

# Add suspend/resume support for the i8254.

device pmtimer

# PCI Ethernet NICs that use the common MII bus controller
code.

# NOTE: Be sure to keep the ‘device miibus’ line in order to use
these
NICs!

device
miibus

# MII bus support

device rl

# RealTek 8129/8139

# Wireless NIC cards

device
wlan

# 802.11 support

# Pseudo devices.

device
loop

# Network loopback

device
mem

# Memory and kernel memory devices

device io

# I/O device

device
random

# Entropy device

device
ether

# Ethernet support

device sl

# Kernel SLIP

device
ppp

# Kernel PPP

device
tun

# Packet tunnel.

device
pty

# Pseudo-ttys (telnet etc)

device md

# Memory “disks”

device
gif

# IPv6 and IPv4 tunneling

device
faith

# IPv6-to-IPv4 relaying (translation)

# The `bpf’ device enables the Berkeley Packet Filter.

# Be aware of the administrative consequences of enabling
this!

# Note that ‘bpf’ is required for DHCP.

device
bpf

# Berkeley packet filter

# USB support

device
uhci

# UHCI PCI->USB interface

device
ohci

# OHCI PCI->USB interface

device
ehci

# EHCI PCI->USB interface (USB 2.0)

device
usb

# USB Bus (required)

#device
udbp

# USB Double Bulk Pipe devices

device
ugen

# Generic

device
uhid

# “Human Interface Devices”

device
ukbd

# Keyboard

device
umass

# Disks/Mass storage – Requires scbus and
da

device
ums

# Mouse

# Specific to my Machine

device
atapicam
# for CD Writer to be detected by K3B and other CD writing
software

device
sound

# To Enable Sound

device
“snd_ad1816″

device
“snd_als4000″

device
snd_cmi

device
“snd_cs4281″

device
snd_csa

device
“snd_ds1″

device
“snd_emu10k1″

device
“snd_es137x”

device
snd_ess

device
“snd_fm801″

device
snd_gusc

device
snd_ich

device
snd_maestro

device
“snd_maestro3″

device
snd_mss

device
snd_neomagic

device
“snd_sb16″

device
snd_sbc

device
snd_solo

device
“snd_t4dwave”

device
“snd_via8233″

device
“snd_via82c686″

device
snd_vibes

device
snd_uaudio

device pcii

device
acpi

device
acpi_asus

device
acpi_video

device
cbb
# cardbus (yenta) bridge

device
pccard #
PC Card
(16-bit) bus

device
cardbus #
CardBus
(32-bit) bus

options DEVICE_POLLING

options HZ=1000

options PERFMON

device
apm_saver # Requires APM

options
AUTO_EOI_1

options AUTO_EOI_2

options VESA

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Buying Property That Has Building and Safety Problems

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:20:07 +0000

By: Ken Sheppard

One of the best ways we have found to purchase real estate is to buy property that has issues with The Building and Safety Department (BSD). These are properties that BSD has flagged as either unsafe or in need of repairs. The property that is vacant is the best of the best in this category. The most efficient way to locate these properties is to contact the BSD in your local area, drive by the properties, find those that are vacant and research the property. Sometimes the list is online or the BSD may have other procedures to acquire the list. Also, these properties rarely are listed with a real estate agent, so they are less well known, which is always good for the investor.

The key here is to find the owner and see if you can arrive at an agreement with the owner (title holder) to sell the property to you. There are many ways to find the owner. We will review these below:

1. Contact the local property tax office and ask if you can research the address with them. You are looking for the address where the property tax bill is mailed.

2. Visit the neighbors and ask if they have a contact number for the owner. Many neighbors will help you, especially if the property is vacant and in need of repairs, as it is to the benefit of the neighbor to have the property near them (or next to them) in repaired condition.

3. If the property is vacant (and only if it is vacant), walk the property to see if there are any abandoned cars on the property. If there are, write down the license plate number. Then, contact the local Department of Motor Vehicles in your area and ask how to acquire the address of the car owner. If the DMV asks you why you want the information, merely tell them you want to buy the car and it appears abandoned.

4. Create an arrangement with a skip tracing firm to find the owner. I have seen this work in the past, although it could be a more costly option.

5. Send the owner a letter expressing your interest in the property. You might also include pictures and the Building and Safety notice.

6. Attempt to locate the telephone number of the owner. Sometimes a person with same last name is related.

The bottom here is THINK LIKE A DETECTIVE!!!

If you cannot find the owner after you have tried all of the above,
(this may be very hard to do), try again in a few weeks. If you keep at it, you will find owners that hold title to these properties.

When you do find an owner, I suggest you mention to them that you can buy all cash, with a quick close and that you need very few contingencies. All you are seeking is a short time period for inspection, as well as any other approvals you and the owner can agree on that you feel you require to purchase and close on the property.

We are always willing to assist you if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

Kind regards,

Ken Sheppard
Please Note: All investment information contained in this electronic mail has been secured from sources First Class Investments believes are reliable, but we make no representations or warranties, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy of the information. The views, opinions, conclusions, and other information expressed in this electronic mail are not the responsibility of First Class Investments in any manner. First Class Investments accepts no liability for the content of this email, or for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided. First Class Investments recommends that you consult with a Financial Advisor, Attorney, Accountant, and any other professional that can help you to understand and assess the risks associated with any investment opportunity.

Mission Statement: The mission of First Class Investments is to seek financial sources/capital interested in a specific business sector, then to identify all of the elements necessary to complete the package, meet the criteria of the capital and facilitate funding. Within the recent past, we commenced a search for sector funding in entertainment, publishing, communications, green energy/renewable energy, healthcare, sports, internet and digital media and have located parties both domestically and internationally that have expressed an interest in these spaces. The principals that we have accessed are capable of providing capitalization for projects and opportunities to the appropriate funding level as the case may dictate. Some of the sources are well versed in the inner workings of a specific industry and have participated in this business sector in the past. On behalf of our client base, our objective is to secure and limit the downside risk of any investment as well as to protect and preserve the client position for revenue recapture and profit in the shortest time frame possible. Thank you for your time and consideration.

First Class Investments
Ken Sheppard
22704 Ventura Blvd. #417
Woodland Hills, CA 91364
(office) 310-358-7087
(fax) 818-783-8819
Email fci@pacbell.net

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Macintosh and Mac OS X – Is it Hard to Make the Switch?

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:17:21 +0000

By: Bjornar Kibsgaard

I have been interested in computers for as long as I can remember. The major part of my life was invested in using some version of Windows. As my interest grew I tried several operating systems during the years. Somehow I never got around trying the operating systems Apple computers used.

The systems I used was working fine for me because I knew how to make things work. If my computer had a problem I would almost always know how to solve it. Living happily until i discovered Mac OS X.

It was a friend of mine with his 12-inch PowerBook that made me open up my eyes. Nerd as I am I was a little bit impressed by the Mac OS X Aqua interface. Deep down inside though I thought: It looks nice on the outside but what about the inside? My friend didn’t know so much about the insides of Mac OS X so I had to find out for myself.

After a little bit of research I found out that Mac OS X runs a BSD like system under the hood, which in turn is similar to some of the Linux distributions. Getting this knowledge was the spark that made me make the first Mac purchase and after this the snowball kept on rolling.

My first Mac was the iBook, a nice little notebook that made me open up my eyes on how easy a computer could be used. I did not believe all hype about “it just works.” but when I tried it for myself I had to change my beliefs. Using a Mac is all about making you productive without having to take shortcuts. While the Mac is generally more expensive than the PC counterpart you get your moneys worth in all included software.

Hardware and software is tailored to work seamlessly with each other and it really does work.

If you have used Windows all your life making the switch to Mac OS X will probably take you a few weeks until you are fully productive. You will learn how to do things the Apple way and be amazed when you realize how easy it was to do a certain task. The time it would take to adjust is different from person to person.

However I was not ready to make the switch entirely just yet. My old PC was still the most used computer. One reason was games, the Mac did not have the processing horsepower to run my games smoothly. After a while though I noticed I was only using the PC for games and nothing else. All my productive work was made on my Mac.

It would still take a year or so before I completely made the switch, but now I will never look back anymore.

Author: B. Kibsgaard

Apple Laptops

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Compatible Licenses

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:10:56 +0000

By: Sunil Tanna

Open Source software is distributed under a variety of licenses each of which usually permits licensee to distribute and modify the software, provided that the licensee complies with a specified set of terms and conditions.

A question that can therefore arise, is a licensee legally permitted to create modifications which combine elements of two (or more) different existing works into a single work, and distribute the result?

The answer is that these types of combinations are generally only legally permitted if the licensee can comply with all the pertinent terms and conditions of all the licenses.

- In some cases, one license agreement may contain terms and conditions which can not simultaneously be satisfied with the terms and conditions of another, thus making compliance with all the terms and conditions impossible. Such licenses are therefore said to be “incompatible”. It is therefore not legally permissible to combine and distribute code which is under incompatible licenses – because you, as a licensee, will always be in breach of at least one, and possibly more, of the licenses.

- In other cases, it may be possible to simultaneously comply with each license agreement’s terms and conditions. Such licenses are therefore said to be “compatible”. It is therefore is legally permissible (assuming there are no other legal reasons to stop you) to combine and distribute code which is under compatible licenses – provided you, as a licensee, comply with all the pertinent obligations in all of the

licenses.

Additionally, it is worth noting that compatibility may only be in one direction. For example:

- It is permissible to use software code which is under some variants of the BSD license in a GPL licensed project, and then to distribute the result under GPL.

- It is not permissible to use software code which is under the GPL license in a BSD licensed project, and then to distribute the result under the BSD license.

Finally, if you are the copyright holder of some code, it is should be possible for you to place your own code under whichever license you want (even if you have licensed it under a different license before – provided that was done a non-exclusive basis) – thus allowing you a lot more flexibility as to which other code you can combine with. Of course, you can not relicense other people’s code in this way – but if you are completely stuck, you do have the option of approaching the author and asking them whether they might consider dual licensing their code.

Please note: The author of this article is NOT a lawyer. This article is NOT intended as, NOR should be construed as legal or professional advice.

Orginally published at http://www.softwarelicenses.org/p1_open_source_glossary_compatible_licenses.php

For more articles and information about software licenses, please visit http://www.softwarelicenses.org/

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TV on your PC – Satellite TV channels to your PC

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 11:13:17 +0000

By: Tv For Pc

TV on your PC? Are you looking for a good Satellite TV to PC service that will give you awesome TV entertainment on your PC? If you are then you are in the right place. Satellite TV for PC is a service that enables you to watch over 3500 Satellite TV channels on your PC with no monthly bills and no hidden costs whatsoever. Millions of Television viewers from all over the world have already switched from the regular Satellite TV service to Satellite TV for PC because of its awesome advantages, CLICK HERE – TV on your PC – Satellite TV channels to your PC – TO PREVIEW.

To watch Satellite TV channels to your PC, all you are required to do is join the website so that you can gain full access to download the awesome TV for PC software that will connect you and enable you watch TV on your PC. The TV for PC software is so user friendly to both the young and the old, anyone can operate it very easily. The PC-TV software runs an automatic search and receives over 3500 live Satellite TV channels ranging from movies, music, TV talk shows, kids channels, documentaries, cookery channels, Live sports, wildlife channels, news from all over the world and much, much more. If you compare this Satellite TV for PC service with the regular Satellite Dish service you will be amazed by the benefits of Satellite TV for PC.

The greatest advantage of Satellite TV for PC is that there are no monthly bills whatsoever, once you have downloaded the PC-TV software all you are required to do is install the software on your PC and that’s it

, you will continue to receive the service for the rest of your life at no costs whatsoever, With the regular Satellite dish TV service you are required to pay about 100 dollars every month for a limited number of Satellite TV channels most of which you do not enjoy watching, oh yes I’ve been there before I know it, I was on the regular Satellite dish TV service for about three years before I discovered Satellite TV for PC and believe me you wouldn’t want to go through the same I lost a lot of money but thanks to God because I was able to discover Satellite TV for PC early enough, there are friends of mine who used the regular Satellite dish TV for over ten years just imagine how much they spent during this period.

There are many other benefits for using Satellite TV for PC; the PC-TV software has many features like child lock, Recording option, CD burning and editing to enable you record your favorite content to CD, this PC-TV software also comes with a free powerful antivirus that scans your PC for any virus and mal-ware threats. The PC-TV software works from any part of the world it doesn’t matter whether you travel a lot, you will be able to receive the Satellite TV channels with crystal clear quality from anywhere in the world as long as you are connected to the internet. There is no need for you to keep loosing money on the regular Satellite dish TV service for limited TV channels, DOWNLOAD YOUR SATELLITE TV FOR PC COPY HERE and watch TV on your PC – Satellite TV channels to your PC.

VISIT – http://tv-for-pc-ed.blogspot.com

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TV to PC TV on PC TV for PC

admin — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 16:54:40 +0000

By: Tv For Pc
To watch satellite TV channels on your PC is the best experience you will ever have, I have personally used the “TV for PC” service for about two years now and it is the best TV experience I have ever had. Before I discovered that it’s possible to watch “TV on PC” I was on the regular Satellite Dish TV service for about three years and I used to bay about 100 dollars every month for the service, it was tough I wouldn’t even want to calculate how much money I wasted during that period, If you are still using the regular Satellite dish TV service I want to tell you that this is your golden opportunity for you to put your “TV to PC” and receive more channels and at the same time save money.

There are many advantages associated with TV to PC compared to the regular TV services. The TV for PC service offers more over 3600 TV channels and thousands of radio stations at no monthly fees something you won’t find anywhere else. To get the TV on PC service all you are required to do is visit the TV for PC website by clicking here. You will then be required to download the TV to PC software which will enable you watch over 3600 TV channels and thousands of radio stations instantly, the TV on PC software is so user friendly with simple step by step installation instructions to enable you install by your self, no additional hardware or equipment is required and no technicians needed like in the case of satellite dish TV service.

The TV to PC software transmits the TV stations via internet and there for you should ensure that you are connected to the internet to get the service. Some people ask how possible it is for the software to transmit TV channels on the PC without a satellite dish and the answer to that question is easy, the TV for PC website simply uses the latest technology, they have big PC servers connected to satellite dishes at their headquarters and it is through this servers that they are able to transmits the TV channels through the internet to your PC thru the TV to PC software, its that simple. The TV and radio channels you receive are of high quality digital signals that you can receive from any part of the world.

The TV channels you receive come in all categories and languages ranging from live TV shows, live TV sports, TV news from all over the world, latest movies and music, TV documentaries and wildlife, Kids channels, news from all over the world and much, much more. To get an excellent TV for PC service ensure that your PC meets the standard requirements, like 256 RAM and above, a minimum of 20 GB PC hard drive space, and a Pentium 3 PC motherboard or higher, some people fail to check this PC requirements and the end up getting bad TV for PC service. With a good PC it is even possible for you to connect your PC direct to your TV set and watch The TV channels on big screen. No need for you to quarrel with the family over TV, its time for you to watch TV at your own time and privacy. CLICK HERE to get your copy. TV on PC TV to PC TV for PC.

VISIT – http://tv-for-pc-ed.blogspot.com and DOWNLOAD TV to PC-TV on PC-TV for PC

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