Nirmal Jayasinghe

Old friends: Saddam Hussein greets Donald Rumsfeld, then special envoy of President Ronald Reagan, in Baghdad on December 20, 1983 [courtesy of Wikipedia]

So old Saddam was hanged. When the decision was published, I never really thought he would be executed. Atleast not this quickly. He may have been a criminal, like the one we have here, but the so-called justice he was given, well I think it was an insult to the word. It would’ve been better if he was executed without a trial: shot at his own mousehole when he was found by the US forces. Else it would’ve been justice if the decision was taken by Iraq itself, not the US backed free Iraq.  But neither happened. Perhaps the US wanted him to suffer a bit before he went. Whatever.

On the news

Didn’t see a useful report til I watched CNN this evening where they have taped several countries’ reactions to the event. In places like Kuwait, Iran and UK [expat Iraqis] it was like carnival. In UK it was reported that they watched the execution video again and again and again and cheered each time.  So they must’ve suffered that much by his tyranny. Kuwait and Iran sure had their share with Saddam so no surprise. Palestine and other Arabic people seemed to think that he was executed solely by a puppet trial mastered by US. Palestine people too, said it’d have been fair if the decision was by a truly Iraqi tribunal.

SL link

At last the foreign ministry denounced the execution taking place at a Muslim religous festival, at least.  Didn’t expect them to have courage to denounce the execution, even thinking that Iraq was a big tea buyer from SL and gave us a lotof aid in the aftermath of 1978 natural disasters. I think they built an entire village here.  Being close to him while he was strong and forgetting him completely when he’s at his downfall, well hmm.. I don’t know.  What had been our idea about him? Perhaps it changed over time. lol

If the video showed it right, he faced it straight. Not alot of people can do it, now. He was killed not for his crimes, but for not being a rebel against important US interests in the region I think. There weren’t many people who talked up against the US democracy. Saddam payed for that.

Since I got involved with IT seriously, I’ve been a proponent of the Free and Open-Sourced Software [FOSS]. Sometimes I really wonder why. There seems to be no real reason though. Here in Sri Lanka we really don’t feel a price difference between the two when it comes to software for a PC you buy off Unity Plaza or somewhere. I think I liked the spirit of the movement. And being able to mess with the code and get something tailored to me when I like it: it really appealed to me. Not that I customize everything I get. But the feeling that I’m using original software that would make no difference where they’re used, and I would be able to use the skills anywhere in the world, regardless whether there’s a distinction between FOSS and proprietary, is a fulfilling thought.Not that I live off FOSS completely. I use both Windows and Linux, but I tend to use FOSS solutions wherever possible. I do most of my general purpose computing on Linux and do stuff that cannot be done on Linux on Windows. Some people tend to think that FOSS is Linux, which is not. There’s a range of FOSS solutions that can be used on windows as well. Here’s some:

Office Suite

On both Windows and Linux, I use OpenOffice.org, which put out the 2.0 version recently. It now comes complete with everything a commercial package like Microsoft’s hallmark Office can provide, such as a database solution and a spreadsheet and latest XML-based open document format. In extra they’ve thrown in a couple of extra programs, Math and Draw, which are a powerful equation editor and drawing application. I use another quick-fix word processor which default opens my documents, that is Abiword. It is not as sophisticated as Writer, OpenOffice’s word processor, but is very fast.

Web

Web browsers come first. I use Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox and Opera. Mozilla is the heavy heavy guy, but my favorite is Firefox, now in its 2.0 release. It enjoys a steadily increasing user base while most big players are getting there pie slashed. Opera is again the lean and mean thing, I’ve got it in my flash disk. Just in case a lab computer hasn’t got Firefox, I can still get on. I’ve addicted to tabbed browsing now, I kinda feel handicapped without it.

When it goes to programming for the Web, there are several tools. I use Apache and Apache Tomcat mainly as Web servers. Apache is a hifi server which runs like >70% of the world’s servers. Actually I’ve installed XAMPP, which gives a ton of stuff [namely Apache HTTPD, MySQL, PHP, Perl, FileZilla FTP Server, phpMyAdmin, OpenSSL, Freetype, Webalizer, mod_perl, Turck MMCache, mcrypt, SQLite, JpGraph, Mercury Mail Transport System and PHPBlender/PHP Compiler] all in one package.

For HTML editing there’s this nice tool called Nvu [N View] which is W3C compliant and has features like CSS editing, basic FTP client and integrated HTML validation. Not exactly Dreamweaver, but created for a different user segment.

Entertainment

Ever got that file with a format unsupported by your player? Welcome to VLC Media Player. This supports a lot of formats, including Ogg Vorbis and MP4. It is claimed to use the controversial libdvdcss decoder library to decode encoding on region coded DVDs. If it doesn’t play something, you can safely bet Windows media player can play it. So far I have never been unable to play any media format I’ve come across. This is one player you’ve got to try out.

CDex is a useful CD ripper. It can rip them off into a range of formats, like OGG, AIFF and MP3. I didn’t have an MP3 player in Linux so I used this tool to convert some MP3s I had in my Windows partition into OGG format. Cool.

Other

Other stuff include the great archiving tool 7Zip. It would open almost any archive that exists. Features include wide format support [.rar, .arj, .gzip, .bzip2, .tar, .ACE, .cpio, .rpm, deb archives], it’s own format with about 20% more compression than .zip, and 256-bit encryption support on files. For IRC I use GAIM, the well-known multiprotocol client. Recent additions are Scribus desktop publishing program [yet to be given some proper testing] and a calculator program, SpeedCrunch. But I use Windows calculator more. FlightGear will remain grounded on my home PC till I get a proper 3D card with OpenGL driver support.

That’s about it. It’s amazing how much free software are available for Windows. Actually it’s possible to run an entire workstation only with Windows as the proprietary system. One thing is you need access to a broadband connection to get the stuff over the Internet. Since stuff can be bought off streets for peanuts, that’s not worth dying over it seems.

Sometimes I think here also we had to pay what it takes to software. Then people would’ve realized how much it’s worth, and what a difference can be made with free software. It would be a much different place than now we know here.

Time to revamp my computer system. Especially the Windows partition. It’s got cluttered with all sorts of software installments during last two or so terms [come to think of it, three!] and has become quite slow and sorts. If I could I’d like a memory upgrade and a graphics update as well, but they aren’t that pressing. However I’m not that interested in the Windows thing. Had Windows 2000 since the beginning of time and I may just replace it with XP, but that’s just for eye candy. What really needs replacing is my Linux installation.

I’ve used Red Hat 9 since I used to use Linux, since about mid-2005. We did a C++ course in the first year, and that was in Linux environment. After that too, we did stuff on Linux, such as CNET Network Simulator, CGI scripting with perl, bash scripting, some Real-Time OS practicals etc. For a beginner it was easy to use. Almost all required stuff come on the CD-ROM install media, and the workstation installation puts in almost everything required. Whenever I needed something extra, what I had to do was just pop in one of the CDs under the guidance of Red Hat Package Manager and select packages and then, press update. Pretty easy. And Linux, too.

But since then I’ve come some way and I need a better thing. RH9 was too oldy. It was too slow, and had OpenOffice.org 1.0.3 or something til I recently jumped to 2.0. I need something more modern. But RH9 has almost everything I need in my programming life and I will need my new distribution too to have [or to be able to have, without much hassle] those stuff. I’ll make a list of stuff I’d like to do with Linux, and tools req.d:

• OpenOffice 2.0 [this comes with all modern distros so no need to mention even, I think]
• Apache, MySQL and PHP. Nowadays I almost program on the World Wide Web for a living, so these are musts.
• LaTeX Document Preparation System for the TeX typesetting package. This is with what I prepare almost all official documentation, from loveletters to PhD theses, so I want it.
• For general life programming tools I’d like to have the GNU C compiler, perl, and it would be nice to have Java too.
• Public utilities, like decent PDF viewers, OGG/MP3 players [again ubiquitous, I think], image viewer [I'd love if it can support picasa]
• speak USB, I’ve had had enough of having to have Windows 2000 to get my flash disk unloaded.

My other general wish list would include a modern- and spiffier-look, speedy behavior than old Red Hat and quick startups and shutdowns. I don’t have broadband at home yet so I’d want to download packages off the Internet from a lab or somewhere, rather than having a package manager system to suck’em up straight off Internet.

So that generally sums up the Next-Generation Linux Requirement competition. There are several runners already, some of them are:

• kubuntu and ubuntu, versions 6.06 LTS [kubuntu is much, much closer]
• Fedora Core
• SuSE ['soose'!]
• Mepis

Of these my preference so far is kubuntu. I’ve experimented around a bit with the live version and it has been promising. But I don’t know whether it lacks any serious requirement listed above. If you’re a kubuntu user, please tell how it is like to live with.

There’s something else I like about Ubuntu project [of which kubuntu is the KDE arm]: their mission statement:

Ubuntu is an ancient African word, meaning “humanity to others”. Ubuntu also means “I am what I am because of who we all are”. The Ubuntu Linux distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world.

Desmond Tutu described ubuntu in the following way:“A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole.”

We chose the name Ubuntu for this distribution because we think it captures perfectly the spirit of sharing and cooperation that is at the heart of the open source movement. In the Free Software world, we collaborate freely on a volunteer basis to build software for everyone’s benefit. We improve on the work of others, which we have been given freely, and then share our improvements on the same basis.

I was doing some work regarding accessing and manipulating databases using PHP [Personal Home Pages]. Actually in the lab it was quite fun, cause the database management system we were using, MySQL, was properly setup in those lab computers. But the real fun was at home. I of course had XAMPP installed, with Apache, PHP and MySQL, but I was having some difficulty in invoking MySQL client.

Windows story

Well this is what happened in Windows. I had XAMPP installed, as I said earlier, since I started work in PHP in October 2005. XAMPP has it’s own method of starting up MySQL, but afterwards it’s impossible to connect to the MySQL client over command line. It’s annoying enough. So I tried installing MySQL separately in C:\ using install media, but it didn’t work either. This was a permissions problem, for sure, and I had a bursting amount of assignments to do. So I did it quick way: logged into a lab computer, dragged the whole MySQL folder from C:\ to my flash disk, and dragged it back ashore on my home computer’s My Documents folder. Now it’s a breeze. I cd to My Documents, say ‘mysqld start’ (opeeen sesame!), and then MySQL works without any complaint. Yeah I know it’s a bit un-sporty and ‘dirty’ quick-fix, but I didn’t have any other choice for the time being. I’m not very sure as what happened, but I’m looking into it. If someone has an idea, of course you’re very welcome to leave a helpful comment. I just can’t bear going through obscure MySQL documentation.

Can’t understand XAMPP MySQL installation’s permissions problem. I had installed WordPress lately and it had no problem connecting and writing to the MySQL database. Wonder how.

Linux story

With Linux, ahh it’s a different story. Got Red Hat 9 so MySQL and PHP come prepackaged. Installed. OK ready to rock. Hmm.. mysql, what?? the client doesn’t even start up. OH, it hasn’t been started. Hadn’t had much experience with MySQL in Linux so turn to the Lanka Linux User Group. Got an entire Gmail account dedicated to their mailing list. Got some useful help. But not right bang on point. So do a search with *mysql* on my PC, get all the locations and here’s a screendump of what happened:

[astdb@localhost astdb]$ cd /etc/rc.d/init.d
[astdb@localhost init.d]$ ls
aep1000 crond iptables lisa ntpd saslauthd syslog
anacron cups irda mysqld pcmcia sendmail tux
apmd firstboot isdn netfs portmap single winbind
atd functions kdcrotate network postgresql snmpd xfs
autofs gpm keytable nfs random snmptrapd xinetd
bcm5820 halt killall nfslock rawdevices squid ypbind
canna httpd kudzu nscd rhnsd sshd
[astdb@localhost init.d]$ mysqld
bash: mysqld: command not found
[astdb@localhost init.d]$ sh mysqld
Usage: mysqld {start|stop|status|condrestart|restart}
[astdb@localhost init.d]$ sh mysqld start
touch: creating `/var/log/mysqld.log’: Permission denied
chmod: changing permissions of `/var/log/mysqld.log’: Operation not permitted
Initializing MySQL database: mkdir: Preparing db table
cannot create directory `/var/lib/mysql/mysql’: Permission denied
chmod: failed to get attributes of `/var/lib/mysql/mysql’: No such file or direc
tory
mkdir: cannot create directory `/var/lib/mysql/test’: Permission denied
chmod: failed to get attributes of `/var/lib/mysql/test’: No such file or direct
ory
Preparing host table
Preparing user table
Preparing func table
Preparing tables_priv table
Preparing columns_priv table
Installing all prepared tables
ERROR: 1049 Unknown database ‘mysql’
Installation of grant tables failed!

Examine the logs in /var/lib/mysql for more information.
You can also try to start the mysqld daemon with:
/usr/libexec/mysqld –skip-grant &
You can use the command line tool
/usr/bin/mysql to connect to the mysql
database and look at the grant tables:

shell> /usr/bin/mysql -u root mysql
mysql> show tables

Try ‘mysqld –help’ if you have problems with paths. Using –log
gives you a log in /var/lib/mysql that may be helpful.

The latest information about MySQL is available on the web at
http://www.mysql.com
Please consult the MySQL manual section: ‘Problems running mysql_install_db’,
and the manual section that describes problems on your OS.
Another information source is the MySQL email archive.
Please check all of the above before mailing us!
And if you do mail us, you MUST use the /usr/bin/mysqlbug script!
061224 22:18:02 Aborting

061224 22:18:02 /usr/libexec/mysqld: Shutdown Complete

[FAILED]
[astdb@localhost init.d]$ cd /usr/bin
[astdb@localhost bin]$ mysql
ERROR 2002: Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ‘/var/lib/mysql/m
ysql.sock’ (2)
[astdb@localhost bin]$

The point is I cannot use MySQL other than as a superuser [su] or root in Linux. MySQL can be started and used as root or superuser. I usually use Linux as a normal user, exercising root/superuser privileges only for system administration purposes. If anybody has an idea about how to configure MySQL to use as a normal user in Linux, please leave a comment. Thanks.