How to add Puppy Linux "Frugal" installation to the Grub2?

Having a light-weight Linux distro like Puppy Linux is always handy to have on hard disk. Of course, you can keep it as a CD or USB and boot it as and when required. But, I prefer the traditional way - have it in HDD when there is no scarcity of space.

First install Puppy after booting it from CD or USB. Installations are very easy to follow and self-explanatory. Choose the "Frugal" option if

Future scope of Linux based on today's operating system usage pattern

If I see the current usage of different operating systems, there is scope of Linux OS in next 2-3 years to expand from its present user base of 5%. Simply put, significant volume of users are still using Windows XP even after the support for it has ended. Currently the app providers are supporting XP but within 2 years or so that support would be minimal. Further, a significant chunk of that

Another Mate 1.2 desktop alternative to Linux Mint: Salix 13.37

Linux users who are fond of Gnome 2 desktop can't get enough of Mate 1.2. The project to advance Gnome 2 started by an Arch Linux user, seems to be gaining popularity with another Linux OS pursuing Mate apart from Linux Mint.

On 19th June, George Vlahavas announced the release of Salix OS 13.37 "Live MATE" edition, a Slackware-based live CD featuring the MATE desktop. It has both 32-bit and

Lightweight Linux Distribution: Which one to choose and for what purpose?

Accept it friends, with attractive interface and eye-catching effects the major Linux distributions like Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora and even Debian, all have become very CPU & RAM intensive. And if you have anything less than a Pentium Dual Core, you are bound to face difficulties in multi-tasking; sometimes even loading the distribution becomes a big pain.

So, you can have two options:

either to

Conky: Some great looking conkies for your linux desktop

Conky really can make a desktop look a lot more attractive. If you are not familiar what is a conky, definition is given below from the mother site:

"Conky is a free, light-weight system monitor for X, that displays any information on your desktop. Conky is licensed under the GPL and runs on Linux and BSD"

I was searching for some great looking conkies yesterday and found some really cool

Puppy Precise: Ubuntu Precise in a different flavor

Last week I reviewed Puppy Lucid, derived from Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. Today I tested the Puppy Precise beta2, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS derivative. A slightly bigger file (142 MB), you can get the iso from http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/test/precise-5.2.60/. Like Slacko and Lucid, it booted nicely and fast. The desktop interface is usual puppy linux.




Applications installed are similar to Puppy Slacko.

Light Linux Series: CrunchBang - Minimalistic but robust

CrunchBang is derived from Debian with an openbox desktop. Minimalistic in design but highly functional.

I downloaded crunchbang-10-20120207-i386.iso (662 MB) from CrunchBang Download. Like all Linux distros these day, it offers 32-bit and 64-bit versions. My desktop suited 32-bit. Download file size is bigger than other light-weight linux distros I reviewed earlier.

I booted the OS from a

Light Linux Distribution Series: Puppy Linux - Lucid Puppy & Slacko Puppy!

If you are thinking of the light weight Linux distros, few can miss the Puppy Linux. Now with the release of Lucid Puppy 5.2.8 and Slacko Puppy 5.3.3, puppy has more variety to choose from and a more pleasing desktop.

I downloaded both the versions from the download page. Slacko is built with Slackware binary
packages whereas Lucid is from Ubuntu 10.04 packages. Another Precise Puppy from

Light Linux Distribution Series: Slitaz 4.0 Small distro packed with a punch!

For quite sometime I was thinking of trying my hands on some very lightweight linux distributions. Really they have a special place in the linux history - distributions which not only brings life back to your old rejected computers but make them highly functional.

And perhaps Slitaz 4.0, a minimalist linux distro, has a special place even among the light-weight linux OSs. Why? Where do you get

Comparison of Linux Giants: Fedora 17 "Beefy Miracle" Vs Ubuntu 12.04 "Precise Pangolin"

5th July, 2012: With a new machine in my possession and booting both the distros in my VirtualBox, I could make a fair comparison of both the OSs. Now Gnome 3 would load for Fedora and Unity 3D for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.







I had the 32-bit OS of Fedora 17 and hence, though I had 64-bit of Ubuntu, but compared with the 32-bit only.

Fedora's Gnome 3 interface looks really great and on clicking

Creating a RAMFS

With the previous method i found it slow for being a ram disk, i read that ramfs does no swapping, i want to test it:

mount -t ramfs -o size=50m ramfs /ramcache

This is a good resource:

http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2008/11/overview-of-ramfs-and-tmpfs-on-linux/ 

Linux RAM filesystem

I do datamining, and the first thing learned is that 80% of this wonderful science is datapreparation.  I am looking for cheap wais to manage large about of data, and today i want to try how a RAM disk in Linux performs to create a dataset for weka.

As root, i want a 10MB file (yes, even though it is far away from being big data, the data preparation was taking several minutes)

root@talento:~# mkfs -q /dev/ram1 10240
root@talento:~# mkdir -p /ramcache
root@talento:~# mount /dev/ram1 /ramcache
root@talento:~# df -H | grep ramcache
/dev/ram1               11M    95k   9.6M   1% /ramcache

[SOLVED] Install Adobe flash in Debian and make it work!

The default flash player won't play a lot of videos for me. Hence, I installed Adobe flash player 11 directly from Adobe site.



First uninstall default flash player by #apt-get remove gnash
Download latest Firefox
install_flash_player_11_linux.i386.tar.gz from Adobe site, store it in
downloads and exit Firefox or any web browser.
Hit root terminal and type

#cd ./Downloads#tar xvf

Install Firefox 13 in Linux: I installed in Debian squeeze

Debian Iceweasel is not Firefox, even if it is derived from Firefox, sadly. Once I updated the default flash player to Adobe flash player, Iceweasel crashed more often than not.

So, the best option was for me to install Firefox and what's better than the latest version! I got considerable help from this site. Essentially the instructions are simple:

1. Download Firefox from Mozilla channels

Review: Ubuntu 12.10, code name "Quantal Quetzal" alpha 1

Being an avid follower of development of Linux OS, I lost no time in downloading and testing the Alpha 1 release of Quantal. You can download it from here. It's still a comparatively lighter OS (remember precise, 800 mb+!) and can come easily in a CD. However, I prefer USB and made a bootable USB out of the iso downloaded. It booted on my system without any pain and could recognize my internet

Some quick fix for Debian to get all the desired functionalities

I am jotting down the issues that I faced with Debian, in case I or any user requires it for future reference.

1. Change grub: Once Debian installs, it updates the grub and makes it the default distro. In case you have Ubuntu/Mint/Windows installed, you may like to have a different default distro. Steps are


Record the sequence where your default distro is (starts with 0)
Go to root terminal

Review Debian Squeeze 6.0.5 : The Father of Linux Distro

Last few months I was thinking of testing Debian. Why? Because all Ubuntu and Ubuntu derivatives derive their origin from Debian only. However, net reviews said that Debian is not for beginners; hence I refrained for sometime till I had enough expertise in handling minor/major problems in Ubuntu and derived OSs.

This week I downloaded Debian squeeze (debian-6.0.4-i386-CD-1.iso) from http://

How to normalize a variable

This is simple procedure, to normalize a variable and bring it from a scale to another, this is the procedure:

The minimum values of A and maximum values are obvious (i hope),
D and C are the new ranges.  Being D the maximum from the new range and C the minimum from the new range.

This is an example:

Review: Bodhi Linux 2.0.0 Alpha with Enlightenment desktop

Somehow I really like Enlightenment desktop because of it's extremely light but stable feel while using it. I have used MacPup and Puppy Linux earlier but never gave a shot at Bodhi Linux.

Today I downloaded daily build of Bodhi 2.0.0 from http://bodhilinux.com/  to test it from Pen-drive. The installation file is about 540 mb and can be downloaded from Sourceforge. It uses Ubuntu 12.04 Precise