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 The init magazine, Issue #4

editorial
We feel very proud to bring yet another issue of 'The init Magazine'.
Contents
Also, we'd like to apologize to our dear readers as we could not
publish this month's issue on time. However, 'better late than never'.
FOSS articles
Commercial market of FOSS ........,,,,,,,,,. p3
From now onwards our 'the init magazine' will be published on 1st of FOSS for Windows................................... p5
each calendar month. Thank you all!

From this issue we have started a new section - Guest. In this section
we'll publish the articles submitted by non IOE students.
Questions and Answers............ p8

This month yet another version of KDE - v4.2 code named 'The Guest Section
Answer' was released. Find the review of slick and sexy KDE 4.2 OpenSource Software History &
importance............................................. p10
inside.

I hope you'll enjoy this issue like the previous three. Do share the Reviews
word around about the magazine. Send us your articles and Hadoop................................................... p12
encourage your friends too. Besides articles, feedbacks and KDE 4.2................................................... p14
suggestions are also most welcome. Write to us at
ioefossnewsletter@gmail.com.

Cheers,
The init Magazine Editorial Team

Published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

You are free to Share and to Remix this work, under the conditions that you must attribute the work
in the manner specified (Attribution) and if you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may
distribute the resulting work only under the same, similar or a compatible license (Share Alike). For
more on this license, go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/
p2 .
 The init magazine, Issue #4

Articles Commercial market of FOSS

Commercial market of FOSS

Niju Shrestha (062BCT) for that?” Upon this questionnaire to been free and open source vendors
anyone they would say, “Silly, FREE selling solutions in this space for over

A
ll of us know number of does not mean FREE OF CHARGE it 15 years. At no stage do open source
persons who make tons of means FREEDOM OF USE.” Let me give licenses preclude the commercial
money selling their software. some more light to above answer. exploitation of the software. Open
When I first came across the concept of source licenses are not anti-
FOSS, I pondered upon- “How come To many the following sentence may commercial; they are anti lock-in. Open
they work so hard to create innovative come up as a surprise- “Open source is source is not suddenly going
software and still not expect being paid commercial software.” There have 'commercial'; it always has been.

Write a program, but have two versions

of it. One version is licensed for retail
consumption and must be paid to use.
The second version is licensed under
GPL (General Public License) or similar
OSS license, but can't be used for retail
purposes; it can only be used for
continuing open-source ideas. For
example, say I created a database
program. The first version you have to
buy from me but you're free to use it
for your company to create profits for
you. The other version is GPLed and
totally free financially, but you can use
it only for non-financial purposes. You
can't make money off my work unless
you compensate me first.
Open source developers make money
through services. The open source

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 The init magazine, Issue #4

Articles Commercial market of FOSS

revenue model is one based on a turn around and give it away. So the the GPL license is that if you bind
service revenue stream rather than a answer again is in the service revenue closely to GPL code in your application,
license revenue stream. Most open of supporting the software, whether a you must also GPL your code. For
source business models focus around Linux distribution or just one companies that decide they want to
giving away the software and selling application. The most beautiful part is sell their application that incorporates
some ancillary service, like support or that FOSS allows us to go to the best MySQL, the organization offers a
consulting. And not only support, free service provider. The following traditional paid license.
software allows you to get paid for examples will clarify a lot more about
changes in the code (features, etc.) the commercialism of open source Upgrade to proprietary software (e.g.,
requested by companies that need software. SourceFire and Sun) -- Sun uses this
them. This fosters competition model with its tools line, offering an
amongst vendors for any class of entry point with the open source IDE
software. Most open source software is NetBeans. From there, if developers
copyright, but released under licenses want all the bells and whistles, they
which allow free re-distribution. It is can move up to Java Studio Creator or
this attribute which allows for the Java Studio Enterprise. The same holds
distinctive economic benefits that open true for OpenOffice.org users who want
source accrues. And it is this in turn support and advanced features buy
which attracts a number of potential StarOffice.
customers to consider using software
which is sourced from smaller Hence, in answer to the question of
development houses. Paid support (e.g., Red Hat and JBoss) -- "How do people make money with free
Most of the revenue of the Red Hat and software?" They don't. They make
The simplest answer to how open JBoss models is derived not from selling money by providing a service that
source software developers make software, but from varying levels of people want. You only get to use the
money would be that they provide support packages. FOSS software FREE OF COST for non-
services that people are willing to pay financial purposes. Thus, ‘free’ of free
for. Proprietary software may make Dual license (e.g., MySQL) -- The and open source software means ‘free
some money at the initial stage, but it approach taken by the popular open of cost’ only to some extent but it
is in providing maintenance services source database company MySQL definitely means FREEDOM OF USE.
where the real money lies. With FOSS offers the software under the GPL for
software whoever buys software may open source developers. The catch with

p4 .
 The init magazine, Issue #4

Articles FOSS for Windows

FOSS for WINDOWS

Sanjana Bajracharya (062BCT) So are there viable alternatives to be involve high maintenance costs either,
used in the Windows environment? The are customizable, regularly and quickly

W
hile there is a trend in the answer is YES! Alternatives that don't provide security fixes in response to
industry moving towards have exorbitant licensing fees and will feedback and also have community
GNU/Linux and driven support. What
Free and Open Source are these wonderful
Software - FOSS -
viable alternatives? It's
Microsoft Windows is still
Free and Open Source
a dominating force. Many
applications have been Software that run on
developed around it and Windows too! A large
many continue to do so. and wonderful catalog
Most of this software is of FOSS applications
also proprietary and exist for Windows users
includes heavy license today. From Web
fees. Proprietary software browsers and mail
may cost anything from a clients to graphics
few hundred dollars to software and content
millions of dollars for management systems,
licensing fees alone. As a
it's all out there ready
developing country, most
to download and use!
individuals and even
In educational
companies cannot afford
institutions, both staff
such prices and resort to
(administrative and
using illegal copies of
academic) and students
software. Pirated software
require a suite of office productivity
may cost only a fraction of the actual not result in intellectual property
software consisting of a word
price but the implications can be far violation lawsuits being slapped
processor, spreadsheet and
greater. against you! Alternatives that do not presentation software. Microsoft Office
p5 .
 The init magazine, Issue #4

Articles FOSS for Windows

is the most widely used productivity Sumatra PDF is a free and staff and students. As it supports
suite. However, the FOSS productivity open source, light weight various image file formats,
suite, OpenOffice is gaining much pdf reader designed for interoperability with other programs
popularity as its features are becoming Windows. Sumatra has a should not be an issue. GIMP is
comparable to the proprietary Office minimalistic design. Simplicity has a considered to be the FOSS equivalent
suite. It is a multi platform, multi higher priority than a lot of features. of the proprietary Photoshop software.
lingual free office suite which is easily It's small and starts up very fast. It's
available at www.openoffice.org. It can designed for portable use: it's just one Visio and Smartdraw are some
be run on Windows side by side with file with no external dependencies so proprietary programs that allows the
Microsoft Office. The look and feel are you can easily run it from external USB drawing of diagrams. FOSS equivalent
similar to Microsoft Office. A prominent drive. called Dia (http://gnome.org/projects/dia)
feature of the latest version of has been designed to provide similar
OpenOffice is the ability to export Like Winzip and Winrar, 7- functions. It can be used to draw many
documents directly to pdf format. This zip is a free and open file different kinds of diagrams and has
feature is not available in its archiver with a high special objects to facilitate the drawing
proprietary counterpart. compression ratio. You can use 7-Zip on of flowcharts, network diagrams and
any computer, including a computer in simple circuits. The program is
There are a number of a commercial organization. You don't available for the Windows platform in
Open Source browsers need to register or pay for 7-Zip. addition to FOSS operating systems.
available such as Mozilla, A wide range of multimedia FOSS is
Konqueror(for KDE available, including graphics editors Audacity(http://audacity.sour
desktop) and Galeon(for and video players that can serve as ceforge.net) is a FOSS audio
Gnome Desktop). Mozilla tools for enhancing educational content editor through which you
is a popular browser. and its delivery. can record sounds, play
Apart from a browser it editor through which you
also contains an email client, a Web GIMP(GNU Image can record sounds, and
authoring tool and other utilities. It is Manipulation Program - import and export files in various
cross-platform and a version for http://www.gimp.org ) is the formats. It can be used to edit your
Windows is available that can be most well-known FOSS for audio, mix tracks together, or apply
downloaded and installed without image editing and graphic design. It is effects to your recordings. This
affecting existing Internet Explorer a desktop application that can be used software will be useful when there is a
installation. for various purposes by both academic need to digitize audio or make

p6 .
 The init magazine, Issue #4

Articles FOSS for Windows

recordings for incorporation into free antivirus for Microsoft Windows. Its content and settings.
multimedia educational content. features are high detection rates for
It runs on most Unix systems viruses and spyware; Scanning There are many more FOSS desktop
(including GNU/Linux )and Windows. Scheduler; Automatic downloads of applications, games, multimedia,
regularly updated Virus Database; graphics editors, network services
VideoLAN-VLC Media Standalone virus scanner and right- alternatives for Windows. I personally
player(www.videolan.org) click menu integration to Microsoft encourage the readers to go for FOSS
is another FOSS cross Windows Explorer; Addon to Microsoft because they avoid penalty fees and
platform media player Outlook to remove virus-infected lawsuits, reduce high costs involved in
that supports a large attachments automatically. purchasing and maintaining
number of audio video There are FOSS alternatives for commercial enterprise software, are
multimedia formats databases and content management. tailor software to suit your specific
without the need for needs, bug fixes are turned out
additional codecs. It can also be used Drupal is a free and open regularly and quickly in response to
as a server to stream in unicast or source modular framework feedback and provide large knowledge
multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high- content management system. base available along with support
bandwidth network. Drupal can run on any computing contracts if necessary.
platform that supports: a web server
You can secure capable of running PHP (version FOSS Nepal has also compiled Free and
Windows with free 4.3.5+), including Apache, IIS, Open Source Software for Windows,
and open security Ligthttpd and nginx, a database, such Nirvikalpa and it was distributed in CAN
tools. ClamWin is a as MySQL or PostgreSQL to store Infotech 2009.

p7 .
 The init magazine, Issue #4

QnA
If you have any questions regarding FOSS send them in. We will try our best to explain them in this section. Send
us your questions at ioefossnewsletter@gmail.com
1. I just removed a Desktop syntax highlight for my extract them
Manager (KDE or Gnome), and i am programming. How do i do that?
still getting the old display More over i want not to leave vi for http://www.esnips.com/doc/2ca0b83
manager. How do i get my display running any commands. 3-cae6-4522-81ff-d6d0439ddf70/65-
manager back? persistent-storage.rules.tar
Ans:- create a file called .vimrc in
Ans :- the home directory and insert the http://www.esnips.com/doc/79f10bc4
sudo dpkg-reconfigure following lines -bb62-439c-995d-398a7b9ac210/40-
<DISPLAY_MANAGER> permissions.rules.tar
set ai sw=4 wm=5 sm
<DISPLAY_MANAGER> = gdm or kdm syntax on Rename 65-persistent-storage.rules
in above case
to 60-persistent-storage.rules
To run commands from inside vi in Copy 60-persistent-storage.rules
2. I recently installed an Operating command mode run :!<any linux and 40-permissions.rules in
System on virtual box, but i can't command> /etc/udev/rules.d/
still access my pendrive on guest e.g :!gcc -o myprog myprog.c
operating system. How do i do cp 60-persistent-storage.rules
that? Search vim on synaptic and install /etc/udev/rules.d/
Ans: - Add a following line to vim, vim-common and vim-runtime cp 40-permissions.rules
/etc/fstab and remove other previously /etc/udev/rules.d/
installed anything that says it's vi.
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs Now enable Now try to mount your phone, it
devgid=46,devmode=664 0 0 should work.
4. I have a mobile phone that has
3. My vi on ubuntu does not micro sd card. Until Intrepid Ibex i 5. I recently downloaded a video of
behave as it should. It inserts could easily connect it with a musical show from youtube. I
many symbols and characters at Ubuntu. But in intrepid ibex it does want to extract only the song from
different situations. It is very hard not mount. How do i mount it? the video. How do i do that?
to write something. I even want Ans:- Download these two files and Ans:- run this command (install
p8 .
 The init magazine, Issue #4

QnA
ffmepg before doing this)
ffmepg -i source.flv mysong.mp3 -
ab 128k

6. I recently installed Ubuntu

intrepid ibex. I now know compiz
does not run on intel 845 on ibex.
But the screen still flickers. How do
i correct this.
Ans: - If you have intel i8xx and i9xx
family of mother board, add these
line inside /etc/X11/xorg.conf, inside
the Device section. My Device section
look like this. Adjust your

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured
Video Device"
Driver "intel"
Option "AccelMethod" "exa"
Option
"MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
EndSection

After adding these lines flicker should

be gone. One thing to note though.
Don't use a higher resolution that
does not support at least 75 Hz of
refresh rate, else your eyes will start
to strain if you see the monitor for a
longer time.
p9 .
 The init magazine, Issue #4

Guest Open Source Software: History and Importance

Open Source Software: History and Importance

Sarba Raj Bartaula modify, a world and secondly, these softwares
A-level, Rato Bangala School concept that were totally “free”. That is, there
was prominently was not only the freedom of usage,

S
upposedly developing for the put forward for of distribution, and of copying as in
past 25 years, Open Source the first time in the case of “free softwares” but also
Software has always had a 1983, with the the actual freedom from cost.
great importance – it has created establishment of the Free Software Therefore, OSS is also sometimes
historical milestones through its salient called the “free anti-commercial”
Foundation (FSF). The “Free
features. But the bitter truth is: no
Software”, however, did not software. But it just doesn't end
matter how promising Open Source has
necessarily mean “freedom from there. As the name suggests, the
been, no matter how versatile, how
how compatible and how stable it has cost” such as in “free goodies” but source of the program is open.
been through the decades, it has not “free” as in “freedom of speech”. Therefore, the end-user can actually
yet truly reached the public. Awareness This created a term ambiguity in the see the source code and modify it in
is the key here – it's something that the corporate world and the general accord to his/her needs and publish
general public doesn't have even today. public was also very confused. it under a suitable open source
“What is Open Source? How did it come license, such as the MIT License or
to existence? What are its importance; In order to counter these the GNU-GPL license.
how do I benefit from it? How can such drawbacks, “Free Software” evolved
a thing even exist?” - such are the into something much clearer, OSS has great importance in the
questions that the people – the trained world of software usage. In
something that we today know as
and aware people – usually face while
OSS. This evolution took place in comparison to the “closed-source”
handling Open Source awareness
1998 through the introduction of a programs (i.e. the commercial and
programs.
modification to the “Free Software” non-commercial programs in which
by the Netscape Corporation. OSS the source code is hidden from the
Open Source Software (OSS) is an
had two two major changes in end-user, such as the Microsoft
initiative that has its roots in the
comparison to its predecessor: Windows®), the major open-source
“Free Software”, which are those
firstly, the term “Open Source” was softwares are generally more stable,
softwares that the users have
not ambiguous to the corporate more secure and with more frequent
freedom to copy, to use and to
p 10.
 The init magazine, Issue #4

Guest Open Source Software: History and Importance

updates because of the Open dollar closed-source corporations

Source Development Mechanism, are thriving all over of the world, Even if you are not from IOE, We have a
which accounts for another article to OSS has been existent for a long special 'guest' section reserved.
be written on. time: it is the public who was
unaware of such an existence. It is a Please send us your articles to
Besides, OSS is a lot more sad fact that although we have the ioefossnewletter@gmail.com along with
economical than closed source power, although we have the better your name, grade and institute.
software. According to the report by alternative, “they” are the major
the Standish Group, the adoption of players of the industry: they have
OSS has resulted in an global annual heavy economy to back their
saving of about USD 60 Billion to the projects up, to advertise and to
consumers (a.k.a. the end-users). create “closed-source” chains. It is
Although it is difficult to believe that only public awareness through
such a thing can even exist, which we can succeed.
especially when the multi-billion

p 11.
 The init magazine, Issue #4

review
Articles Hadoop: OpenSource Map-Reduce framework

Hadoop: OpenSource Map-Reduce framework

Suvash Sedhain (062BCT) The Map-Reduce is based upon the as C++, python etc.
functional programming paradigm.
Introduction: Users specify a map function that Why should I Care?
Parallel computing was favored from processes a key/value pair to generate You should, if you think big.....
the early days of the computing. In a set of intermediate key/value pairs,
early 80's vector-based model for and a reduce function that merges all Internet has become ubiquitous , the
parallelism was used by the intermediate values associated with density of the information distributed
supercomputers. With the need of the same intermediate key. over the Internet is extremely huge
more computing power the thread and ever increasing. However, the
based parallelism was adopted. In the Hadoop is a current problem with this data
mid 80's people came up with the idea software distribution model is the information is
of massively parallel architectures and framework that unstructured. So its a opportunity and
the Message Passing Interface(MPI). enables challenge for every computer scientists
However, the bandwidth was a big distributed and professionals to organize this
problem. In the early 90's the manipulation of large amounts of data unstructured data. Map-Reduce is
cluster/grid architecture was getting using the Map-Reduce model and is paradigm and Hadoop is the solution if
increasingly popular. The adoption of written in Java. Hadoop is reliable since you are ready to take this challenge of
the cluster computing reduced the it maintains several copies of working information retrieval, data mining and
installment and maintenance cost of data to ensure that processing can be data structuring.
the system drastically without the redistributed around failed nodes in the
compromise in performance. The rise case of failure. It is also scalable, Yahoo! currently has the largest
of Internet and companies like Google permitting operations on petabytes of Hadoop Linux production architecture,
took the distributed computing to the data. It relies on commodity servers, which consists of 10,000 cores with
extreme. making it inexpensive and available for over five petabytes of storage
use by anyone. So any one with access distributed among the DataNodes.
Map-Reduce is a programming model PC's can turn their basement research Within their Web index, there are
and an associated implementation for to a high end computing lab . roughly one trillion links. But your
processing and generating large data Applications on Hadoop may be problem may not require a system of
sets introduced by Google research . developed using other languages such that scale, and, if not, you could use

p 12.
 The init magazine, Issue #4

review
Articles Hadoop: OpenSource Map-Reduce framework

the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud is a different way of viewing problems. Conclusion:
(EC2) to build a virtual 20-node cluster. Hadoop has been used to help solve a Hadoop is a very efficient, scalable and
In fact, the New York Times used variety of problems, including sorts of fault tolerant OpenSource Map-Reduce
Hadoop and EC2 to convert 4TB of TIFF extremely large data sets and greps of framework. It is suitable for crunching a
images—including 405K large TIFF particularly large files. It's also used as huge dataset for the computational
images, 3.3M SGML articles, and 405K the core of a variety of search and purpose. It has huge community
XML files—into 800K Web-friendly PNG recommendation engines. support and is being used for wide
images in 36 hours. This process, variety of the applications.
known as cloud computing, is a unique Besides Yahoo!, many other
way to demonstrate the power of organizations are using Hadoop to run Visit http://hadoop.apache.org/ to grab
Hadoop. Google uses Map-Reduce for large distributed computations. Some the recent copy of the distribution and
indexing every Web page they crawl. It of them include: Start playing with hadoop. For getiing
relies upon Map-reduce with its proven • Facebook your hand dirty follow the link
efficiency in processing very large, • IBM http://www.michaelnoll.com/wiki/Runnin
unstructured datasets. • ImageShack g_Hadoop_On_Ubuntu_Linux_(Single-
• ISI Node_Cluster).
Hadoop is a surprisingly versatile • Joost
framework for development of • Last.fm
distributed applications; all that's • The NewYork Times
necessary to take advantage of Hadoop • Rackspace

References:
• http://labs.google.com/papers/mapreduce-osdi04.pdf
• http://hadoop.apache.org
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadoop
• http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-hadoop/
• http://code.google.com/edu/parallel/index.html

p 13.
 The init magazine, Issue #4

review KDE 4.2.0 Review

KDE 4.2.0 Review

Ruchin Singh (062BCT) displayed in a unified fashion via the different effects as window switcher,
system tray. making changing windows most efficient.

K
DE community, on January 27, Efficient and smooth window Tasks can be grouped
2009, released KDE 4.2.0. It is management The Plasma Panel now groups tasks and
the latest major release in KDE To save space, system tray icons can display multiple rows.
4 series. KDE 4.2 builds on the now be hidden. The panel can now
technology introduced with KDE 4.0 in
automatically hide in order to free up File manager-like desktop powered
January 2008. KDE community assures
screen space. Widgets can be displayed by Plasma
that KDE 4.2, codenamed “The
Answer”, improves user experience, in panels as well as on the desktop. File management becomes faster and
applications and development more efficient. The Dolphin file manager
platform. now has a slider to easily adjust the icon
size. Further user interface
improvements include tooltips with
Highlights of KDE 4.2.0: previews and a capacity indicator for
removable media devices. These
New and improved applets changes have also been applied to the
It includes a Quicklauncher, weather file dialogs in KDE, making it easier to
information, newsfeeds, comics, quick New breathtaking desktop effects spot the right file.
file sharing via "pastebin" services. In KDE 4.2 it employs motion physics to
Plasma applets can now be used on top give a natural feel to old and new effects
of the screensaver. like the "Cube" and "Magic Lamp". KWin
only enables desktop effects in the
New system and application default setup on computers that are able
notifications to handle them.
The enhanced system tray now tracks
longer running tasks such as downloads. Easier configuration
System and application notifications are Now KDE 4.2.0 allows the user to select
p 14.
 The init magazine, Issue #4

review KDE 4.2.0 Review

New and improved applications New and improved

KMail's email list views have been printer manager
reworked by a Google Summer of Code Printing is much easier
student. The user can now configure the and interactive than
display of additional information previous version.
optimizing the workflow for each
individual folder. Support for IMAP and Supports new
other protocols has also been improved languages
making KMail much faster. Web browsing KDE 4.2.0 also adds
becomes better. The Konqueror web support for many new
browser improves support for scalable languages, such as
vector graphics and receives many Arabic, Basque,
performance enhancements. A new find Icelandic, Romanian, Hebrew, Tajik and identity in everything - in icons, widget
dialog makes for less intrusive searching various Indian languages (Bengali India, theme, panel and desktop theme,
inside webpages. Konqueror now shows Kannada, Gujarati, Marathi, Maithili). window decorations, etc. If you just need
your bookmarks on start-up. In comparison with previous, the 4.2 one reason to switch to KDE4.2.0 - it's
desktop looks modern and makes 4.1 the look. The modern polished and
stale :P. What's important is stylish look makes your desktop
that it certainly doesn’t copy experience as pleasant as possible. It
neither Windows Vista, nor might just be “The Answer”.
Mac OS. It has its unique

p 15.
 Thankyou
Send in your articles, questions and
P u bl i s h e d by feedbacks at
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