OpenSource Tools and Technologies

Bootchart is the great tool to graph the system bootup performance. As its name suggests, this creates charts displaying exactly what starts during boot-up, and the time it takes. Once installed by Synaptic (search for the bootchart package), it runs as a background service and no configuration is necessary. After each boot you’ll find the chart it has generated in the /var/log/bootchart/ directory to view it, just precede its filename at the command-line with eog or browse to it using Nautilus and double-click it. The chart shows the total time taken to boot along the vertical axis, and beneath this shows the time taken by each of the startup services to complete. See an example taken from my test computer. Bootlog Graph Remember that programs such as Bootchart that log boot-up speeds can themselves impact performance. When you’ve finished with it, be sure to use Synaptic to remove the package.

With this in mind, use Synaptic to search for and install cowsay. Once it’s installed, open a terminal and type the following: $ cowsay "Ubuntu Kung Fu" Cow Says .... You can have the cow say a single word or an entire phrase. Cows aren’t the only things that can talk. If you look in /usr/share/cowsay/cows/, you’ll find other models that can be made to talk. Just specify the model using the -f command option (without the .cow extension). For example, to have Tux (the Linux mascot) appear instead, type the following: $ cowsay -f tux "Ubuntu Kung Fu" For a little fun, add one of these commands to the end of your .bashrc file (to edit the file, type gedit ~/.bashrc). Then you’ll see it every time you open a terminal window or log in at a virtual console. You could even use this command to have your quotation of the day come out of the mouth of a cow. Just add the following line to your .bashrc line (adding any cowsay command options you wish after the command) ...

The Ubuntu installer is fully capable of squeezing Ubuntu onto a computer that has Windows on it. What about the other way around? What if Ubuntu is the only operating system that’s installed and you want to install Windows alongside? Here’s how it’s done—these steps tell you how to make space for Windows, install it, and then repair the boot loader so that Ubuntu can once again boot: Boot from your Ubuntu installation CD/DVD and select the Try Ubuntu... option from the Ubuntu installer boot menu. Once Ubuntu is up and running click System → Administration → Partition Editor. This will start the Gparted partitioning tool. Right-click the Ubuntu partition (it will be the largest in Gparted’s display) and click Resize/Move. In the dialog that appears, click and drag the right-hand edge of the partition so that the Ubuntu partition shrinks to make space for Windows. About 3-4GB should be enough, depending on your needs. Click the Resize/Move button. Then click the Apply button in the ma...

Ubuntu Linux If you’re using Ubuntu on an older computer, you might find that performance is not what you’d like. The best solution is always to expand the system if possible, and more memory will make the biggest difference. However, if that’s not possible then you might want to try relinking. This makes for faster program start times by linking library files and executable for better memory usage. However, it doesn’t work with all programs and larger programs in particular seem to benefit most. In fact, you may not see much improvement and a handful of users have even  reported that some applications won’t start after prelinking. However, it’s trivial to remove prelinking, so you might as well give it a try. To enable prelinking, start by using Synaptic to search for and install the prelink package. Once installed, open a terminal window and open the prelink configuration file in Gedit: $ gksu gedit /etc/default/prelink Look for the line that reads PRELINKING=unknown and c...

Gnome-thumbnail-font is a great utility if you want to quickly create text banners as a image file, perhaps for use on websites or presentations, you can use GNOME’s font preview tool. It isn’t really designed for this but appropriation of existing commands is the beauty of Linux! You need to specify the text, plus which font to use (including its full path), and the output filename. The following will create a banner saying ‘Ubuntu 10.04’ using the Ubuntu font contained within my Linux/Windows partition, outputting a file called banner.png Command to produce the above image Obviously, if want to use the windows font, you should ensure your Windows partition is mounted (select its entry on the Places menu) before running any command using fonts contained in its file system. You can also playing with image size by using the convert command look at  http://tinyurl.com/b44a4j Source : Ubuntu Kung Fu Book

Wishing you a Happy new Year ! May the festival of lights be the harbinger of joy and prosperity. As the holy occasion of Diwali is here and the atmosphere is filled with the spirit of mirth and love, here's hoping this festival of beauty brings your way, bright sparkles of contentment, that stay with you through the days ahead.  Best wishes on Diwali and New year.

After a small break I am back to show some of the interesting features of OpenERP 6.0. In this blog I am going to explain how you can configure and use the payroll efficiently which is also integrated to the holiday management and accountings. The major changes in payroll module are, you can use this module without installing the accounting module. The dependency to the account module is removed in the 6.0 which was there in the version 5.0. So, there are two different module hr_payroll and hr_payroll_account. Lets install the payroll module, follow the steps described below. Select the Human Resource Application Customize the Human Resource application further to have the capabilities of the payroll. Select the Payroll Management Lets start with the Configuration Payroll Configuration Payroll configuration is very easy, there are two important objects that we have to configure to run the payroll calculations and other computations. First and most important object is Salary...

Are you looking for good the Python IDE ? Eclipse will be the first choice If you have worked on the Eclipse Based IDE, which can be a Easy Eclipse, Aptana or Eclipse Itself. You love to work on the same with PyDev plug-ins. Eclipse is the very good for the development platforms and become the first choice because of the repository management plug-ins. You can see the it is widely used for the customized product based on the Eclipse . On the wikipedia you can see that there are almost 10+ IDE's listed and many of them are the open source released under the GPL or MIT License .There is a most popular discussion on the linked python group that pin points the same topic, that what which are the good Python IDE ? According to the discussion and lots of replies PyDev with Eclipse, NetBeans , WingIDE, Eric , Komodo, where Wing and Komodo are not open source. You can configure gEdit for OpenERP specific developments, here are the configuration snippets for python + xml + java ...

My Desktop with Elementary theme Installing the Elementary Theme sudo add-apt-repository ppa:elementaryart/ppa sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install elementary-theme elementary-icon-theme Installing Global Menu apt-get install indicator-appmenu Install Window Navigation - AWN apt-get install avant-window-navigator