The time applet in Ubuntu

Recently I discovered that there's one cool feature in the GNOME's time applet: the Locations tab. There I can specify my location and customize the applet look. One interesting feature attracted me the most - the "weather" label. I can see that the weather is if I take a look out of the window. But I think I couldn't say exactly how cold/warm is it - and the applet can show me this information. Small but neat feature I have to say! :)

Shell History in My Ubuntu

ant@ubuntu:~$ history|awk '{a[$2]++ } END{for(i in a){print a[i] " " i}}' |sort -rn|head
171 ls
134 cd
19 less
17 mogrify
14 rm
12 unzip
10 mv
8 java
8 idea.sh
7 mkdir

My Ubuntu

After years being a windows user, eventually I decided to join Linux community. The main reason is that this platform is more attractive from the open-source software point of view. After reading some forums and newsgroups I decided to try Ubuntu for my Fujitsu-Siemens laptop. Although I have a 64 bit system I have chosen not to ask for problems and picked the 32-bit distro.


The only thing that was keeping me from moving to Linux is M$ Excel, which is used is our university at the informatics lessons for VBA programming, and the last 5 years I had some friends asking for help with that. Now I think I have had enough of that and next time I would be asked for VBA help I'll say I know nothing about it :)

The first impression from using Ubuntu is very positive! Installation of the system was so rapid that I even thought that there's an error and something didn't work :) Very cool! First I tried to install only the KDE version but eclipse refused to work with that one. With Gnome everything is working, here's the check list:

- eclipse (ok)
- firefox, with flash player (ok)
- USB memory stick (ok)
- SD card reader (ok)
- external USB hard-drive (ok)
- playing wmv/avi/mpeg/flv (ok)
- playing mp3 (ok)
- burning CD/DVD (ok)
- viewing graphics/pdf/chm/djvu (ok)
- Skype/Gtalk/Yahoo!Messenger/MSN/ICQ (ok)
- Xilinx WebPACK/ModelSim - (haven't tried yet)

I haven't tried to connect a webcam so far. And one thing I have problem with is running Picasa on wine - it just hangs at the splash screen and does nothing.

Now I've got to find a file manager a-la Windows Commander, coz I'm not impressed with Nautilus file manager.

I have to say that I'm not a Windows-hater. I think that most of the "linuxoids" words that "Windows must die" or "Windows is a crap", are meaningless. I had no problems using Windows besides keeping the anti-virus database up to date, which is not that hard. It is just the nature of my hobby (read oss programming) that requires something else than a proprietary Windows system.

Compiling uClinux OpenRISC port

While compiling uClinux today I succeeded with some source modifications.

ERROR:
/home/ant/project/or1k/uclinux/uClinux-2.0.x/include/asm/board.h:63: Error: junk at end of line, first unrecognized character is `/'
SOLUTION:
include/asm/board.h: only /* */ comments are allowed. // comments should be removed

ERROR:
head.S:231: Error: junk at end of line, first unrecognized character is `,'
SOLUTION:
arch/or32/kernel/head.S: remove last coma from the line 231: .section .romvec, "ax",

ERROR:
/home/ant/project/or1k/uclinux/uClinux-2.0.x/include/linux/skbuff.h:424: error: label at end of compound statement
SOLUTION:
in include/linux/skbuff.h, at the lines 423 and 410, add ; after head

ERROR:
sched.c:440: error: label at end of compound statement:
SOLUTION:
in kernel/sched.c, at line 439 add ; after case TASK_RUNNING:

ERROR:
tcp_input.c:2349: error: label at end of compound statement
SOLUTION
in net/ipv4/tcp_input.c, at line 2347 add ; after default:

ERROR:
udp.c:202: error: label at end of compound statement
SOLUTION:
in net/ipv4/udp.c, at line 201 add ; after next:

ERROR:
filemap.c:775: error: label at end of compound statement
SOLUTION:
in mmnommu/filemap.c, at line 773 add ; after case 0:

ERROR:
or32-uclinux-ld -T arch/or32/board/rom.ld arch/or32/kernel/head.o init/main.o init/version.o \
arch/or32/kernel/kernel.o arch/or32/mm/mm.o arch/or32/board/board.o kernel/kernel.o fs/fs.o ipc/ipc.o net/network.a mmnommu/mm.o \
fs/filesystems.a \
drivers/block/block.a drivers/char/char.a drivers/net/net.a \
/home/ant/project/or1k/uclinux/uClinux-2.0.x/lib/lib.a arch/or32
/lib/lib.a /opt/or32-uclinux/lib/gcc/or32-uclinux/3.4.4/libgcc.a -o linuxor32-uclinux-ld: error: no memory region specified for loadable section `.rodata.str1.1'
make: *** [linux] Error 1
SOLUTION:

in arch/or32/board/rom.ld add entry for .rodata.str1.1 and .rodata.cst4 similar to that for .rodata. as follows:

        .rodata.str1.1 :
        {
        *(.rodata.str1.1)
        __etext = . ;
        } > flash

        .rodata.cst4 :
        {
        *(.rodata.cst4)
        __etext = . ;
        } > flash

With these modifications the application compiled and linked successfully.