[Fsf-friends] Re: help wanted

Wed Feb 11 18:12:10 IST 2004

Frederick Noronha said on Wed, Feb 11, 2004 at 12:44:40PM +0530,:

 > > systems but we are forced to surf the net from windows due to the non 
 > > avalibity of drivers on GNU/Linux.The following is the list of soft/int 
 > > modems we have.

Sure. we can understand the situation your friends are in. Ask them to
google.

 > > Motorola SM56 Voice fax
 > > Motorola SM56 Speakerphone

As somebody said,  grind these fine powder, and make  tea or coffee of
these.  If tea/coffee of finely  ground Motorola SM56 modems gives you
the cramps, put them in a glass case, and keep them in the showcase of
your front room.  If somebody asks, claim that the exhibit was in fact
gifted  to  you  by your  friend  Mars.  You  will  not be  lying.   I
promise. For all  practical purposes, when it comes  to support for SM
56 Modems, people at Motorola live in the Mars.

Motorola has discontinued support for Motorola SM 56 modems, but still
refuses  to tell  the  world how  these  work. Intrestingly,  Motorola
`proudly' advertises the ``world's first `linux' phone''.

 > > Conextant (Rockwell chipset)

Semi free  (the non-free  part is payment  and non copyleft  license +
crippled features) drivers are at mbsi.ca

I doubt if these would work  with kernel version 2.5, coz I understand
that  from  here,  way  in   which  loadable  modules  work  has  been
overhauled. 

 > > Dax int modems
 > > Intex int modems
 > > Ham int modem found on a Compac system

No idea. Check the chipset.

 > > I know  the ideal  answer would be  get a hard/ext  modem,but pls
 > > understand that  this is  not possible.I am  sure many  ppl would
 > > like to find the same but cannot.

No choice  here. Internal  modems transfer the  job of  MODulation and
DEModulation to the  processor; and the Kernel has  to handle the job;
which  simply cannot  be  done unless  the  chipset manufacturers  are
prepared to work with the kernel developers.

 > > Also can u suggest some tips & tweaks to make the system work 
 > > faster.Most of us have old systems 2 to 4 yrs old like K6-2,K6-3,PIIs 
 > > with a avg of 128Mb ram per system.

You really cannot make formula I cars out or bullock carts, can you??

You  can use  hdparm to  tweak the  hard disk  parameters;  reduce the
daemons running,  etc. No  generalised `one size  fits all'  answer is
really not possible. People hereabouts use PIIs @ 233 MHz, and seem to
be quite happy with that. 

 > > One hack is to use a light and fast manager

Hey!!!  Using a  better window  manager is  not a  `hack'!!!  A better
`hack' is to work from the console ...

 > > GCC,JAVA,latest Kernel sources etc locally present.

Java is not free. 

 > >  It is  indeed very  sad that in  India we  do not have  a single
 > > local  mirror of any  distro or  GNU/free software.China  and Pak
 > > have them but why not India???.

It is  indeed very  sad that  India, we do  not have  people who  do a
google before asking  questions.  ... the mirrors are  there ...  just
look  around; people  do not  just go  around tom-toming  existence of
mirrors ... the bankdwidth is simply tooo expensive ...

Debian, for example is mirrored at http://ftp.iitm.ac.in.

Sure,  it  is good  for  `linux' of  other  distros  were mirrored  by
somebody; but if  it is `freedom' ang `GNU/Linux'  that you want, then
http://ftp.iitm.ac.in/ is enough.

 > > Why don't  the big company's  donate their old computers  to NGOS
 > > and educational  bodies. Wipe the  data from its Hdd  and install
 > > any of GNU/LINUX on it.Rather that just 'junk' them.

Few weeks  back, a few corporates  (yes, *corporates*) signed  up on a
list for spreading  a popular desktop environment. One  of the minions
even wrote in,  wanting how the corporate can help.  One or two later,
the  topic of participating  in a  popular event  came up,  and people
needed  a  few  bucks (about  1/2  of  what  is  paid to  entry  level
engg. graduates proficient in  *GNU/Linux*) came up. The list suddenly
went  silent  ...   and  remains  silent  ....   in  spite  of  people
volunteering time and energy to man the exhibits.

One  of   the  corporates   is  a  *partner*   in  a   kernel  testing
consortium. Did  any body know that??  Not me. Google told  me so. The
corporates'  web site is  certainly silent  on that.  The consortium's
site, OTOH, gives this company a real prominent place ...

No idea what to expect from such corporate citizens of the GNU world.

(do I spy clouds for a flame war gathering???)

 > > to  try to  install  gnome 2.4  from  the source  on  my red  hat
 > > 9.0,after 3  days and 3  almost sleepless nights still  no luck.I
 > > would have  been ever  grateful if  I could just  DL the  RPM and
 > > install it.

May be, you  were trapped in RDH.  (RPM  dependency hell).  Try debian
Sarge/testing.

My 2 ps.

-- 
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+

  Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M.,                   
  'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road,               
  Ernakulam, Cochin-682018,               
  Kerala, India.                          

  http://in.geocities.com/paivakil         

+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+