Monthly meet on FOSS in Tamil at MIT, Chennai

வணக்கம்,

வரும் பிப்ரவரி மாதம் மூன்றாவது சனிக்கிழமை தொடங்கி ஒவ்வொரு மாதமும் சென்னை, குரோம்பேட்டை, MIT வளாகத்தில் அமைந்துள்ள NRCFOSS வளாகத்தில் தமிழ்க் கணிமை & கட்டற்ற மென்பொருள் தொழில்நுட்பக் கூட்டம் நடைபெற உள்ளது.

இந்திய லினக்ஸ் குழு – சென்னை பிரிவின் மாதாந்திர கூட்டத்தை போலவே ஓர் வாரத்திற்கு முன்னர் அளிக்கையிட அழைப்பு விடுக்கப்பட்டு விக்கி பக்கம் அமைக்கப்படும். இந்நிகழ்வு இரண்டு அம்சங்களை கொண்டதாகத் திகழும்.

1) கட்டற்ற தமிழ்க் கணிமை தொடர்பான விஷயங்கள்,

2) கட்டற்ற மென்பொருள் தொழில் நுட்பம் சார்ந்த விஷயங்களை எடுத்துரைத்தல்

கட்டற்ற தமிழ்க் கணிமை சார்ந்த தங்களது படைப்புகள் & கட்டற்ற மென்பொருள் சார்ந்த தங்களது அனுபவங்களை மொழிச் சிக்கலேதுமின்றி எடுத்துரைக்க இந்நிகழ்வினை குழுமத்தார் பயன்படுத்திக் கொள்ளலாம்.

தேதி: பிப்ரவரி 20

நேரம்: மாலை 3.00 மணி தொடங்கி 5.00 மணி வரை

முதற் கூடுதல் பற்றிய அறிவிப்பிற்காக காத்திருங்கள்

English: A monthly meet to be Organized every third Saturday at NRCFOSS, MIT Campus, Cromepettai, Chennai emphasizing  Tamil Computing  &  Sharing  about  Free  & Open Source Software. Will be of similar kind to the ILUGC meet at IIT. You are encouraged to present in Tamil

–

ஆமாச்சு

Ubuntu One – Ubuntu User Days Session

“Ubuntu One” is a very interesting project, that comes with the latest ubuntu release 9.10.

I wondered on the first sight.

Ubuntu One is a personal cloud. You have 2 GB of space to store files, notes, contacts.

Storing, syncing and sharing files, contacts, notes, and bookmarks is the service given by Ubuntu One.

Let us discuss here about installation, web and GUI clients, syncing files,notes,contacts, future plans and getting support.

Intro – As I told already, Ubuntu One is a storage service. You can think here as this is equivalent to “DropBox”.
We can store 2 GB of data for free. If we need more space, we can buy. Canonical provides commercial space.
You can buy a 50 GB space for the cost of 10$/month.

Ubuntu one supports partial downloads. It resumes the downloads automatically.
if a file is changed, it is re-synced with entire file.

All the files are stored in amazon S3 servers in USA

Let me goto Installation.
If you have ubuntu 9.10, Wow. you have already in your wallet.
It can be installed in ubuntu 9.04 too. but not in other lower ubuntu versions.

https://one.ubuntu.com/support/installation/
see this like for installing in ubuntu 9.04

Once Installed, you can access via Applications->Internet->Ubuntu One.
To use this, we need a Launchpad account.
you can go to http://one.ubuntu.com and login using launchpad account.
Then you can choose a subscription free 2 GB or paid 50 GB.

After subscribing, you can access the “Ubuntu One” gnome client.
This will take you to a page, where you have to add your computer to “Ubuntu One” cloud.
This is essential for the server to recognize your personal computer. Once added, you are done.

Now, you are ready to get thrilled. Your home folder has a special folder called “Ubunt One”.
This is where the magics happens.

After running the ubuntu one client, you can see a icon in top panel,
click the panel and click “connect” to connect with the server.
You can right click it. select “properties” to select the visibility options for the icon
and to change the bandwidth settings.

Once connected, you are ready. Now access the “Ubuntu One” folder via Places->Ubuntu One.
It looks like any other normal folder. But has hidden magician.
Create a folder inside and paste a file from any other folder.

Wow !
   
See the notification area. It is saying “Updating files“.
After a little time, it says that “updating Finished”

Thats all. This is called syncing.

Any files or folders placed inside “~/Ubuntu One” will be synced to the server.
You can create, modify, move,delete the files as you do in any other folders.
But, all your actions will be reflected in the server too.

Normally the sync happens once in 10 min. There is another interesting thing is here.
You can share your folders to other ubuntuone users. Right click any folder inside “~/Ubuntu One”.
Choose “Share on Ubuntu One”. You can give a users email address.

For example, if you want to share any folder with me, give my email address there.
You can even give me rights to modify your files by selecting “Allow Modifications” checkbox.
Then click “share”. This will send me a email saying that [name] wants to share a folder with you.
I have to accept a this by clicking a link provided in the email.

My “~/Ubuntu One” folder has a sub folder called “Shared With Me”.
This is the folder, where I get all the folders which are shared with me by other ubuntu one users.

Want to share photos? albums? letters? documents? with your family and friends?
Just place in ~/Ubuntu One and share by giving their email id.    
You reach many people in a easy path.

You can login to one.ubuntu.com via browser and see all the files.
Browser is another way of managing the ubuntu one folder
https://one.ubuntu.com/files
Here, a web based file browser helps us.

We can create folder, delete folder. Click a folder and “sharing” to share with others.
Same as we did with gnome client. You can upload files too.

Currently one file at one time is possible. Bulk upload options are yet to be developed.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOne/Tutorials/FileSharing
This link explains about file sharing in details.

Next, let is see on syncing “Tomboy Notes”. Tomboy is a perfect note taking application.
We can use it to take all kind of notes, todo list, reminders.

In Tomboy preferences, select Synchronization tab, select ubuntu one by service as “Tomboy Web”.
Thats all. All your notes will be synced.
You can get them in browser via “notes” tab.
You can create, edit, delete in browser too.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOne/Tutorials/Notes
read for further info

You can sync, evolution contacts.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOne/Tutorials/Contacts
See this link for syncing evolution contacts

There are many future plans like

• Syncing files outside ubuntu one folder
• Indication remaining time/bytes on sync
• Clients for other distros
• Screen sharing
• High capacity storage
• Mobile clients, console clients
• Encrypted file storage
• Sharing notes,contacts
• Public accessible shared folders via a single URL

login is secured via ssl and oauth
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOne/Security

ubuntu one community gives awesome support
Forum – http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=367
FAQ – https://answers.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntuone/+faqs
LP answers – https://answers.launchpad.net/~ubuntuone-users
LP project page – https://launchpad.net/~ubuntuone-users
account asst – https://one.ubuntu.com/support/account-assistance/
You are welcome to report bugs here.
Bugs – https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntuone-client

“Sharing is Caring”
Share you with the world

Forget to say, #ubuntuone is the excellent place to hang out.

You can sync your own applications too with ubuntu one api.
Contact the helpful developers in maling list/irc

Thanks all. Hope I have done.

—-
QUESTION: Is kubuntu setup to use the same service in the same way as ubuntu?
ANSWER:    yes. you can use the same client in kubuntu too. but requires to install gnome libraries.
   
—-
Question: We were discussing the differences between dropbox and one.
how does one stack up on various OSs?
Answer : Good. Currently Ubuntu One supports only ubuntu.
The support to various distros are future plans

—-
QUESTION: if I can install the same client in kubuntu, will it also auto sync contacts in Kontact like it does in Evolution?
ANSWER: No support for kontact now. But, ubuntu one api is simple and anyone can develop kontact sync

—-
QUESTION: Are there any limitations on file types that can be stored on Ubuntu One?
ANSWER : No limits on file types. You can store any file.

—-
QUESTION: Are files encrypted?
ANSWER: No. files are not encrypted. Encryption may give issues on sharing.

—-
QUESTION: What do I do if I get OpenID login failed?
ANSWER:    sometime, this may happen. We need to check why login failed.
It failed for me too saying like “invalid timezone error”.
I changed my timezone settings in launchpad and it worked
#ubuntu helped me on this.

—-
Question: with contacts I can see how to add people one at a time,
but how do I sync it with empathy to add all my contacts?
Answer: You can sync evlution contcacts. Not with empathy contacts.

—-
QUESTION: My sister uses Windows. Can I share files with her via Ubuntu One?
ANSWER:    Not possible now.

—-
Question: I asked earlier, I get a lot of .u1onflict markers on my folders.
I’m constantly updating between my labtop/workstation and sometimes don’t sync up before modifying, is there any good way to resolve these? Some of my folders seem to have stopped syncing becuse of it.

Answer: Well. sometimes, conflict too happen.

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntuone-client/+question/77902

This page says that
you have to choose which version of file to keep and remove all the file except the required one.

—-
Question: Can you share notes like you can share files?
Answer : Currently, we can share files only

Ubuntu One

“Ubuntu One” is a File storage service provided by canonical ltd. It comes with ubuntu 9.10.

This is an alternate to the service like “dropbox”.

Currently, every ubuntu user gets 2GB of free space to store all the files.
Even we can sync our tomboy notes, evolution contacts and firefox bookmarks.

Here are some interesting links.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOne/Tutorials/Subscriptions
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOne/Tutorials/FileSharing
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOne/Tutorials/Contacts
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOne/Tutorials/Notes
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOne/Tutorials/Bookmarks

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/openweekKarmic/UbuntuOne

I had some issue with syncing files with ubuntu one.

I could not sync with ubuntu one.

Asked question in #ubuntuone irc channel.

A nice guy called “verterok” helped me a lot.

The solution is to look the log file
~/.cache/ubuntuone/log/syncdaemon.log

There is no error with authentication.

So deleted the configuration file
rm ~/.config/ubuntuone/syncdaemon.conf

Restarted the ubuntuone client.

Wow. Now I can sync the files to ubuntuone cloud.

Thanks to the #ubuntuone community.

Ubuntu User Day – 23rd Jan 2010

User Days was created to be a set of courses offered during a one day period to teach the beginning or intermediate Ubuntu user the basics to get them started with Ubuntu. User Days is a series of online courses where you can:

• learn how to install Ubuntu
• find equivalent programs in Ubuntu
• learn how to get help
• learn the basics of how to use Ubunu
• learn how to get involved in the community

The Timetable

Saturday, January 23rd 2010

Time	Subject	Presenter
12:00 UTC	Introduction	cjohnston pleia2 Pendulum markthecarp
13:00 UTC	Switching to Ubuntu & Installation	Nagendra
14:00 UTC	Command Line Basics	markthecarp
15:00 UTC	Finding Helpful Resources	starcraft.man
16:00 UTC	Restricted Drivers	FirasKraiem
17:00 UTC	Using Launchpad	NigelBabu
18:00 UTC	Seahorse and GnuPG	mhall119
19:00 UTC	Choosing hardware that works with Ubuntu	MagicFab
20:00 UTC	Partitioning 101	popey
21:00 UTC	Ubuntu Equivalent programs	cprofitt
22:00 UTC	Getting involved in the Ubuntu Community	JorgeCastro
23:00 UTC	Trusted Software, Where to find it, and why	paultag
0:00 UTC	Package Management Basics	Hellow
01:00 UTC	Using Ubuntu One	shrini [ Ya. Its me ]
02:00 UTC	Using IRC	nhandler

If you want to join this class check here

FOSS promotional calendar 2010 is ready for sale

FOSS promotional calendar 2010 is ready for sale.

Interested members reply me [ tshrinivasan@gmail.com ] with your

name,
address,
phone/mobile number,
specify the mode of delivery

and

number of copies.

Currently we offer mode of delivery through VPP and cash-on-delivery.

This is done purely on NO PROFIT basis by Kanchi Linux User Group.
[ http://kanchilug.wordpress.com ]

The cost of the calendar is Rs.120 + transit charges.

Web Link : http://picasaweb.google.com/kanchilug/GnuLinuxCalander2010FinalPrinted#

Source svg files can be downloaded at
http://code.google.com/p/gnucalander/source/checkout

Free Software Foundation, Tamil Nadu needs developers

Free Software Foundation, Tamil Nadu , requires free software developers for its various projects.

College students can participate in the development with FSF-TN.

The following are the projects taken up by Free Software Foundation , Tamil Nadu -

• Study of GRASS GIS (Geographic Resources Analysis Support System, Geographical Information System)
• Deployment of StatusNet
• Development on GTK+ (GIMP Toolkit)
• Private Communications : email and instant messaging
• Forum – Web-based bulletin board systems
• Blogs and Online contents using CMS
• Wikis and Version Control Systems
• Social networking software
• Virtual Reality
• Delivering Large downloads – Swarming
• e-Commerce

Interested programmers can send a mail to siddhu.fsf@gmail.com, to take part in the projects.

http://fsftn.org/content/projects

Solution to Sound Problems in Ubuntu 9.10

Troubleshooting the sound problems in linux is an annoying one. We all expect that the sound devices should work as charm. But, sometimes, they never do their job.

Ubuntu 9.10 comes with the PULSE audio driver. There is ALSA too. some other mini drivers also available to drive our speakers and microphones.

As I communicate to people via email, chat and irc, I hardly use any VOIP applications. Wondered o ubuntu 9.10, when it gave me the voice chat via empathy. Skype also gives VOIP. I use the speakers extensively to enjoy the heaven by music.

Pulse seems stable. But it gives issues on when we update our ubuntu. I regularly update it. But luckily, Pulse never broke my audio experience.

The story is much different for some people. Pulse kills many people, who lives with microphone in skype or empathy.

My manager, Mohana krishna, is one of such a person. He was struggling with ubuntu and skype.
He really struggled a lot with pulse.

He read so many blogs, forums, discusses with me, googled a lot, installed, uninstalled, upgraded, downgraded, reinstalled ubuntu, did all the things many times.

Atlast, he found the solution for a stable pulse.

Here, I give his words.

————-

Hey shrini,

i had problems with  my sound recently with my 9.10. It started with some updates from ubunu where my sound stopped working, my gstreamer-properties app test would not show any errors but then wont play any sound as well. Changing the device to pulse worked for a while then my video stopped working.  symptoms – Volume controller shows up, Audio does not play. video gets stuck [both streaming & device players].

Removing pulse helps but then your volume controller will not be present.

I tried everything& reading through many many many many posts finally this worked.

Removed all files inside ~/.pulse folder using sudo nautilus. or
rm -rf ~/.pulse in terminal.
Added my user name for the audio group sudo adduser ‘mohan’ audio
Removed pulse cookie sudo rm ~/.pulse-cookie
[this was owned by root & was existing in my home folder which caused permission issues]
sudo rm -f ~/.pulse-cookie

The above steps works only for machines where sound device is identified & worked before & is not a solution for problems where sound device is not identified.

If you want to post my findings in any of your blogs feel free to do so.

———————— 

Sound interesting?

We like people who learns by themself. We can introduce linux to people. But, it is upto them to have self interest to learn and play around.

Thanks Mohan.

Android Workshop @ Sun Dec 13th

Workshop on Android Mobile Platform:
====================================

ILUGC and ethics Technologies jointly organizing this workshop
to introduce the Android Mobile Platform to the beginners.

Date : Sunday December 13th 2009
Time : 9AM to 4PM
Venue: Aerospace Dept, IIT-Madras, Chennai.
FEE  : Rs 200/- (For the snacks, tea and lunch)

Schedule:
——–
09:00 AM – Registration
09.30 AM – Introduction to Android
10.30 AM – Applications development on Android
11.30 AM – Tea break
11.45 AM – Applications development on Android

01.00 PM – Lunch break
02.00 PM – Simulator installation and demonstration
03.00 PM – Current trends, Career and Training opportunities
04.00 PM – Questionnaires

Seats are limited and Allocation is based on first come first
serve method. For planning purpose, please register here:
http://ethicstech.in/workshop/

A story of rootkit attack on a linux server

Yesterday, got a request from a friend to check his linux server for any security compromise.

Hmm. Linux is a very secured one. But, it is upto the admin who maintains it. We have doors and locks. We have to make sure that the doors are closed and locked.

Checked the server. I felt that it was cracked.

“last” says that
saravana pts/2        78.96.162.69     Thu Dec  3 03:22 – 03:23  (00:00)

geoip sites said that.
IP Address:     78.96.162.69
Country:        Romania romania
Country code:   RO (ROU)
Region:         Vrancea
City:   Focsani

All histories before dec 3 were cleared.

After some checkup, found the culprit.

Found that some cracker entered on Dec 3 as user saravanan.

He runs so many ssh daemons and do a lot of port scans to other servers.

ps aux | grep ssh | wc -l
450

found so many processes like ./ssh 270 and ./x

there should not be any separate process like ./ssh and ./x

so searched in /home/saravanan.
hahaha. here, the thief lives.

found some hidden folders as “.a” “.c” “.d” and “h” in /home/saravanan

In the folders there are so may scripts to call ssh and do portscan
and try various username/password by using bruteforce algorithm.

This made our server to scan many servers and they mark us spam.

I deleted the .a .c .d h folders.

killed all ssh processes and requested for a re-installation of the server.

The root cause of the issue are

1. very very very weak password for user saravanan.
2. there is no firewall
3. no powerful logging methods
4. no limits on no of processes/diskspace

Chennai Linux User Group is so helpful. When I asked suggestions regarding this case,

Arun SAG:
Disable password login to your remote server, use ssh keys instead.

If possible configure your system so that  it stores logs in another system.

Find out the open ports and check for any know vulnerabilities .

Arun Khan:
Looks like somebody guessed your password.

Somebody local with access to a machine in RO could have come in and
cracked your system and make it appear that the attacker is physically
from RO.

For RPM based distro you can verify the integrity of your files
with –verify option; assuming the cracker has not messed with your rpm
data base.  I don’t know the Debian equivalent.

You may luck out with the cracker just wanting to break in and if your
file integrity checks out in your favor.

Rather than spinning your wheel figuring out what is b0rked;   a fresh
install would save you time.  After a fresh install create a `ro’
signature db of your files (aide/tripwire) and keep a copy in a
separate location.  aide/tripwires can be configured to check integrity
of the installed files v/s in the signature db.

Raja Subramanian:
Setup an iptables based connection limiting rule so that you deny more
than 3 ssh connects per minute from any IP address.

Ther are more intelligent scripts like fail2ban, but I usually find a
simple 2 line iptables connection limiter sufficient to stop bots from
brute forcing your passwords.

Thanks folks.

Latex Intro talk at Madras Universiry

Today, got a chance to talk with some Ph.D(Maths) students in Madras University.

Got a call from thyagu(ilugc member) for giving a talk on latex to them yesterday. Agreed.

I have played around latex two years before. Scratched my old memory. No use.
So googled around for some tutorials.

As always, google gave tons of links. Read through the following links.

The Not So Short Introduction to LATEX
An Introduction to Latex

http://www.google.com/search?q=latex+intro

Read through those links and got settled with latex.

Slideshare.net also helped me by giving the following nice slides.

The talk was so interesting. Explained the basic concepts of latex.
Hope they can learn it easily.

You can’t you try latex once?