Nokia announces new Mobile (N900) that runs on linux (Maemo)

We have always had linux for mobile devices. But use of linux as mobile OS has mostly been limited to enthusiasts who like to fiddle around with technology and somehow it has not been able to break into the mainstream mobile market.



But all that is going to change with Nokia, one of the largest mobile companies in the world, announcing their forthcoming release of N900 which runs on linux based Maemo platform. It not only has the capabilities of supporting the normal smartphone features but also utilizes the limited resources available in mobiles optimally (which comes naturally to linux :P). It has all the regular linux desktop features including multiple desktops. Just go through the N900 feature set and you will get an idea about its capabilities. And although it already has so many apps made for it ,as it is an Open Source you can expect regular improvements and loads of free apps as it catches on in popularity.


Another aspect of this release, which excites me the most is that finally linux will be used by common people who usually get scared hearing the name of linux (although unknowingly they use it very often, maybe directly or indirectly). Even though linux for PCs have become more user friendly over the years and still most people have the misconception that it isn't like that and is meant only for geeks.

So lets wait and watch the impact of this release.

How to enable voice and video in pidgin (linux only :D)

Finally we have voice and video support in pidgin. It had always been so hard to understand why it is taking them so much time to implement it. Better late than never.

The new pidgin (version 2.6.1) has been released with media support in linux only at the moment. It was done by someone as summer of code project. You can find the list of new features and the whole story about it on their site.

Now coming to the real point. As soon as found out about this release it soon tried installing. Now the issue is that it had been released as source and though it works perfectly on most distros, it wasn't working on ubuntu 9.04 (working with earlier versions) . The problem was that jaunty isn't having the right versions of libraries needed to compile it and so the debs available on the net didn't install pidgin with voice and video support.

But things move fast in the open source world ... someone managed to compile it successfully on jaunty and has added it to ppa.

So here are the instructions:

To add the sources, go to the main menu, click System, then Administration, then Software Sources. Click on the Third-Party Software tab, then click the Add button.

Paste Code:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kalon33/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Click Add Source, then click the Add button again and add the PPA:
Code:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/korin43/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Close that window then open up a terminal and put this in:

sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install pidgin

This is it. It should work now :)

Cooliris (Formerly known as Piclens) now available for Linux

I’ve always been a fan of Cooliris and I think that it has been a great innovation in the browsing domain but I was disappointed that I couldn’t actually use it on my own Linux machine.


But thankfully now finally the long wait is over. Much to the joy of hundreds of thousands of linux users Cooliris released the linux version about a month ago.

Visit this link to find all information regarding the linux version, the minimum requirements, install instructions etc. and go ahead and change the way you browse pics and videos on the web.

cheers

HOW TO make a GSM data card (like Airtel, Vodafone data cards) work in linux

It all started when one of my friends Prakhar who has an Airtel data card wanted to shift entirely from windows to linux... but the only problem was that the data card wasn't working... we tried to make it work , tried googling to figure out on how to make it work but it was of no use..we could not get all d useful info in one place where the whole process was given to install it on linux.. then we went to our champ friend LYNUS (something is there in the same i guess)for help... he worked for around 2-3 hrs and figured out everything and made it to work.... :)

LYNUS at work- click here to download one of his projects

The process:

plugin the datacard and type : ls /dev/ttyUSB*
check if the following files are listed
/dev/ttyUSB0 /dev/ttyUSB1 /dev/ttyUSB2 /dev/ttyUSB3
if not then

Download the file : huaweiAktBbo.c
(http://www.kanoistika.sk/bobovsky/archiv/umts/huaweiAktBbo.c)
type lsusb and check the output ...

It should b something like this:

rishi@rishi-laptop:/proc$ lsusb
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 12d1:1001 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. E620 USB Modem
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

line number 5 shows the vendor ID is 0x12d1 and product ID is 0x1001

now open the c file and search for
vendor = 0x12d1;
product = 0x1003;
and replace dem with your values...
vendor = 0x12d1;
product = 0x1001;
in my case

The libusb-dev package is required to compile the c file..
to install it Ubuntu or Debian users Type:
sudo apt-get install libusb-dev

Compile:
gcc huaweiAktBbo.c -o huaweiAktBbo -lusb
Run:
sudo huaweiAktBbo

Download the GUI from betavine:
https://forge.betavine.net/frs/?group_id=12&release_id=116
pick your choice from the list whichever is applicable for you and download the software..

chmod +x vodafone-mobile-connect-card-driver-for-linux-2.0.beta2-ubuntu-installer.run
./vodafone-mobile-connect-card-driver-for-linux-2.0.beta2-ubuntu-installer.run
On running the setup it might get stuck for a while downloading dependencies ... so get a cup of coffee and get back...if it is still not done then wait ..if dere is a message Installation complete den everthing is fyn..

once the software is installed then run it from the applications--> internet --> vodafone ...
a windows will pop up listing the devices found ..press ok if your device is listed ....den make a new profile ...

give a profile name... username and password (if it is not to authenticate your account den give some random values)...choose your connection type and authentication mode and den give the APN... for example , for airtel india users it is airtelgprs.com... check it with your service provider...
its done.. now connect and enjoy....


yoyo...happy surfing... :)

SongBird - The Open Media Player

Since the time shifted to Linux , i was looking for an equivalent of iTunes ..
i used Rhythmbox , Exaile, Amarok , banshee, audacious, etc..... but wasn't really satisfied with them...

Rhythmbox has no EQ and its interface is hardly customisable ... amarok is for KDE (which i don't like to use)... Exaile is supposed to be a clone of amarok for gnome users, but it is far from a finished product... other players too have their cons...

So i was searching for a better audio player for my system and then i came across Songbird..
Songbird promises to be the Firefox of media players. Songbird is an open-source customizable media player that's under active development.

The songbird developers are working on creating a non-proprietary, cross platform, extensible tool that will help enable new ways to playback, manage, and discover music. There are several features of which the team is proud of, but they are the first to admit that others need ironing out, are experimental, or are just plain missing. There's still a lot to do.

But the important thing is that it is being developed fast ... i installed the previous version (0.6) a months back and after upgrading to the latest version (0.7) i was really amazed with all the new features it was offering .... i must say i has most of the feautres from the best of the players like smart playlists, album art cover flow, last.fm, shoutcast besides having an amazing number of addons and extensions that are available to us...it has large support from the mozilla developers and others from the open source world..

And yeah one thing that i forgot to mention is about the OS support... it runs on all major platforms.. it has released versions for windows , linux, Mac OS X for both 32 and 64 bit machines..and IT CAN also play video files... ithas support for many formats like mpg, mp4, mov...and it will increase with time as more extensions are developed by its ever growing community...

So visit Songbird, look at the list of all the kewl features it has to offer till u download it and start using it ;) ..