http://ananael.blogspot.com/2008/10/magick-not-another-one.html

My bad, I didn’t do my homework. With definite inspiration from Rock On!! the movie, “Magik” was what I considered first, because it seemed to fit in well with the spirit of Mylin but a programming language by the same name caused some apprehension. After looking at other plays on the word “magic”, I liked “magick”; it seemed to have more texture and it just looked so much more better. I was unaware that it was much more than just another play on “magic”. Now after looking it up, I understand the ambiguity it may cause.

Scott also suggested “Magix”; while I agree it keeps the tradition of *x, it sounds a little sophisticated. So I’ve decided to go with “Magik” and keep the original reference to the music band from the movie I mentioned earlier. I suppose it won’t make much of a difference considering it’s all still vapourware but perhaps it’s a step in the right direction. Hurrah for open discussion.

http://websvn.kde.org/trunk/kdereview/plasma/applets/rssnow/

It will probably be included in the official KDE 4.2 packages.

I announce “Magik”, a GNU/Linux operating system based on Arch Linux. What is Arch Linux? Arch Linux is an i686 optimised community driven, rolling-release based linux distribution that is flexible and lightweight, and tries to “Keep It Simple”. From their wiki :

“Arch provides a minimal environment upon installation, (no GUI), already compiled and optimized for i686/x86-64 architectures. Arch is lightweight, flexible and simple. Its design philosophy and implementation make it easy to extend and mold into whatever kind of system you’re building- from a minimalist console machine to the most grandiose and feature rich desktop environments available. Rather than tearing out unneeded and unwanted packages, Arch offers the power user the ability to build up from a minimal foundation without any defaults chosen for them. It is the user who decides what Arch Linux will be.”

You can find more here :
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Linux

Why Arch Linux? Why not Ubuntu or Debian? I have always liked Debian based systems and I have been a big fan of apt-get. Having a system based on Ubuntu brings many advantages - vendors releasing compatible packages, a large amount of existing documentation and howtos, an enormous user community, the immensely huge repositories and all the little tweaks and polish that goes into Ubuntu. But what if Magik is not destined to be a superset of Ubuntu? Would all those advantages still apply just as much? I want to build Magik from the ground up, rather than make it from breaking something else. Arch Linux offers me just that; the ability to build something from a minimal foundation without any defaults chosen. What is unique about Arch Linux though is its amazing package manager, called “pacman”. It combines a simple binary package format with an easy-to-use build system called ABS which is a ports-like system for building software from source. Building from source? But who am I targeting? Magik will target the basic desktop user. One of its goals is to pass the WaG (Wife and Girlfriend) test. ABS simplifies building packages from source and thus brings bleeding-edge to the masses. The concept of user repositories (Arch User Repositories) only expands the already huge software repositories of Arch. Finally, and most importantly, I love Arch and that is the biggest reason why Magik will be based on it.

Why another linux distribution? How is Magik different? I had heard a lot about openSuse’s YaST and when I finally used it in openSuse 11.0, I was thoroughly disappointed, not because I cannot complete tasks with it but because itis confusing to the basic desktop user, in contrast to the Mandriva Linux Control Center which may not do as much but what it does, it presents clearly and in a manner that allows the basic desktop user to use it without much apprehension. Mandriva however lacks the polish of openSuse; the branding, the artwork and the visual appeal. Not long later, the intro video of Pardus Linux blew me away. All these different ingredients from different worlds I thought would make an amazing recipe together. Magik will take the best elements (which I understand is a subjective matter) from various works and put them together ; but that still doesn’t make Magik different or unique.

Presenting “The Wand”. Without taking anything away from the command line, little graphical user interfaces often make the difference between
- the basic desktop user being able to use the awesome power of CLI tools
- and deciding that Linux is not for them.

Distribution vendors try to tackle this problem by writing their own front-ends using either Gtk or Qt and often both, that requires them to maintain two sets of programs. “The Wand” is a custom implementation of the Mylin framework that is geared towards building web-interface based wizards and front-ends. The advantage of using the web-interface is two-fold; one that it can be cross-toolkit compatible and second that it can seamlessly work over the network. The Qt port of Gecko is coming along nicely, and Prism-like minimal instances of Gecko (or Webkit) can be used to display the applications. Gecko/Webkit also means there will be support for SVG, Canvas and CSS3. While not necessary, it could be extended to use Flash as well. Consistency is a good thing but often it limits our interfaces. There is no holy-grail of interfaces that can do it all and each task may have a different interface that can be most effective for what is being done. Moving away from traditional toolkit interfaces can remove the mental block and push us to create unique interfaces that are more usable for the tasks we want to achieve. Magick will use “The Wand” to create wizards and tools to cover the most common tasks. It will have a repository, very much like the Firefox Add-ons portal to expand its functionality and install new applications that may be standalone or front-ends to different CLI tools. This will make Magik unique. Well then, let there be magik.

Dear Mr.Sridhar,

I was really put off by your answers to my questions about your stance on open source. To put it straight, it seemed to me like you were beating around the bush. You were not clear about it. That’s not wrong. It’s perfectly ok to NOT have an opinion about it or even have your OWN opinion. It’s ok to not believe in it. But it is NOT ok to be hypocritical about it and say something on your website that you do not believe in.

Your website represents you. What it says, I will assume is what you believe in or what you represent. When your 20 PhDs can write nice content for your home page, why the rip-off treatment to the open source page? If you do not care about it, why do you even have a page about it? Do you use it as a buzz-word that clients find attractive? I hope you understand that “contributing” isn’t necessarily the same thing as “using” open source technologies (well, unless you also put your money where your mouth is and promote it, or take that extra step to file a bug, push feedback or perhaps atleast send a thank you note). It is NOT wrong to be using open source technologies without contributing back but to claim that you contribute back when you don’t is wrong.

It is also wrong on my part to assume that you do not contribute to the open source community but based on the non-truth you put into your answers, it is hard to trust you. Perhaps you do contribute though. That’s my point, if you do, then that is what you should have on your open source page, rather than copy-paste content from other sources on the internet. Write about what YOU believe in and what YOU did; NOT what _somebody else_ believes in. It baffles me that somebody else’s stance can be your stance, word-to-word.

Please don’t give me crap that you own seven other companies and perhaps google displays similar content from the websites of those companies; or that other companies actually ripped off the write-up from your open source page. I will NOT buy that. That is plain dumb.

Even till March 23rd of 2007, you still had this : http://web.archive.org/web/20070323132742/http://www.prithvisolutions.com/

I don’t see open source there, or perhaps it was tucked away deep inside? I don’t know and I will never know for sure but I will assume the current open source content went live AFTER March 23rd, 2007. I find the same few paragraphs on  QuintaGroup.com and that has been there since 2003. Do you own QuintaGroup? If you do, then I stand corrected. If you don’t own QuintaGroup, then make sure your website represents YOU and not somebody else.

Your open source page says and I quote :

“Open Source technology makes business sense. Besides being free and of very high quality, it is often more powerful than most commercially available products.”

Yet you tell me verbally that open source is NOT used by the top companies because they prefer a “STABLE” solution? That you use open source technology to _only_ make proof of concepts? You know what? Either I live in a dream world or you have been fast asleep for the last few years.  That is easily the most absurd thing I’ve heard since Steve Ballmer’s FUD about Linux. You are spreading FUD. That’s hard to believe but sure, if Microsoft can do it, why can’t Prithvi Solutions.

While I can only assume that some form of open source technology exists in the biggest of the biggest companies, it’s not something I am trying to pass as fact simply because I do not know. If they are using it and leveraging its benefits morally, good for them. If they are not, I don’t give a fish. I will not be surprised if there isn’t much leveraged in the Fortune N companies because the decisions are often taken by brain-washed ill-informed people from the top management who buy into the FUD that certain people pass. My problem is with the word “stability”. Open source technology is NOT cheap plastic. Implying that open source software is _free_ and HENCE it is not stable is being stupid (see comment#3 for a more honest choice of words). Mr. Sridhar, you deal with those Fortune N companies everyday, so you would definitely know better if they do not want to use open source technology but heck, implying it is cheap and of low quality is spreading FUD. THAT can turn Bruce Banner green a 100 times over.

Dear Mr. Sridhar, I am so very glad that you don’t run India. I hope one day you realise that we can also CREATE and not just serve. We are not MADE to serve. We just do NOT have the balls to dream. We care more about making money. And some people like you do not care about the how. You bow down with folded hands and speak with pride when you say “We are made to serve”; the kind of pride that should be there if you were serving for free. You arent’t. None of us are. I understand that you don’t know the joy of creation; maybe if you create your “own” content, you’ll start to appreciate it.

Dear Mr.Debashish,

When you said “We do not do charity work. Does that answer your question?”, I assume you were addressing me; is that correct? That’s strange, I never asked you anything about charity. Rather, I asked if you folks give back to the open source community. Do you see that as charity? Well, I have news for you then : you guys indeed do charity work! Congratulations! Surprised? Don’t be; your own website claims that. And I quote :

“Working with Open Source technology is not easy, though, and we leverage Open Source technology to a degree that is still very uncommon. But this dependency is our strength, because we’re backed by the thousands of people who engineered the software we use. We’re indebted to them, and do our part to contribute back to the Open Source communities.”

You should be proud. Oh wait, save yourself that effort, this content is from QuintaGroup.com anyway; meh.

It was nice to see you stand up and defend your company though. I’ll give you that.

I was following the Linus-Bonwick story on Jeff Bonwick’s blog, reading comments, some speculating ZFS’s coming to Linux, when I stumbled upon Alan Hargreaves’ blog. He was in China when the quake hit and he blogged about it. Among his posts was one that spoke about heroes, real ones. Heroes, unsung. Ordinary people who chose to be brave when it mattered. Perhaps being brave is NOT about NOT being scared; it is about standing by what you believe in and doing what you think is right. Here are five inspiring stories of people who made this world a beautiful place :

Yuan Wenting - Lest We Forget
Wang Guangxiang - Class, village, touched by longtime teacher
Zhang Jiachun - Their Man in Purple
Wang Gang - Son and husband remembered for making ultimate sacrifice
Parents grateful for time spent with boy

It made me ask myself - Did I ever do anything to make a difference? All of us get opportunities to do what we think is right, to follow our hearts. Time gets suspended for a brief moment giving us a chance to make a decision, a decision we do not make, a decision that could have made the difference. Perhaps we are not brave enough.

http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/50428/the-website-is-down-because-someone-removed-the-x-box.html

http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2005/12/adding-windows-fonts-in-linux.html

With that out of the way, he was telling me about his day at work. A Microsoft Windows XP machine got screwed pretty bad and it didn’t allow him access to anything connected to the USB ports. He needed to transfer files, oh and fast. Out popped a Linux Mint 4.0 Live CD from his bag and into the tray. He let it roll and the caped penguin kicked ass. The job was done. The files were safe now. The unsung hero quietly slipped back into his dark abode as the doors closed on the machine and it went back to peeping out at the freedom outside from behind its windows. I guess he cannot tell anybody about how he used the live cd even if it did something good; so much for company policies.

He’s using Linux Mint 4.0 at home. He hasn’t switched completely, he dual boots the machine with Windows XP but I guess it doesn’t matter, it’s all about choice. He keeps telling me how his windows partition is full of worms and how he keeps booting into Linux to get things done. He hasn’t found a replacement in it yet but perhaps any change will see friction; but it will get there, one day. I know one thing for sure though, he’ll always carry a live cd with him. Long live choice!

mv ~/.config/menus/applications.menu ~/.config/menus/applications.menu.old
mv ~/.config/menus/settings.menu ~/.config/menus/settings.menu.old