Thursday Dec 13, 2007
I was trying to install this amarok script called amarokEspeak. If you get the message, "amarokEspeak cannot find the executeable 'aplay'" then this guide is for you.
Looking at the source, I figured out that this error message is actually coded to appear when eSpeak is missing! This script depends on two things - aplay and espeak. Further investigation revealed that espeak was missing, while aplay was installed. aplay is a part of the ALSA library, which mostly comes installed on most boxes.
So, I set about getting espeak. You can download the precomiled zip here. Extract it to wherever(I'm using /home/user1 as an example.)
Then execute these commands in your terminal window
sudo cp -r /home/user1/espeak-1.29-linux/espeak-data/ /usr/share/
sudo cp -r /home/user1/espeak-1.29-linux/shared_library/ /usr/lib/
cp /home/user1/espeak-1.29-linux/espeak /usr/bin/
cp /home/user1/espeak-1.29-linux/speak /usr/bin/
after this try executing "espeak --help" on your command line. If it throws an error saying
"espeak: error while loading shared libraries: libespeak.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"
then, just rename the libespeak.so.1.29 to libespeak.so.1 using this command
sudo cp /usr/lib/libespeak.so.1.29 /usr/lib/libespeak.so.1
This should solve all your issues. Now if you're using espeak, like me for the amarok script - then just load and run the script from amarok script manager and you're good to go.
Note that if you use a different version of espeak, then replace the version numbers appropriately in the above commands.
Tuesday Dec 11, 2007
Heh, check out this list of bearded gods. Very nice indeed.
Hat tip: Amit Varma
Tuesday Dec 11, 2007
Being involved with the brilliant Campus Ambassador team that we have here, helps me take a holistic view at the way things are shaping up at Sun, technology-wise. Sure, I have fewer ideas when it comes to the servers/hardware space - but in the whole Open Source domain, there is a lot of interesting stuff going on. Here are few of the things I'm most excited about:
1. Sun SPOTs
This is something not many of you might've heard about. Sun SPOTs (Small Programmable Object Technology) are kits having 3 small devices. Two of them are identical, and this is where all the action takes place. The third unit - it the "base station" of sorts to talk to the other two. The best past is that, these devices run a specially built JVM for such devices called Squawk. So, this allows you to code in Netbeans, get the SPOT module, say "deploy to Sun SPOT", and you're done! I'm personally very excited about receiving my SPOT kit - we're planning to use it for this huge competition coming up. This is our competitive advantage - so more details only when the "top-secret" mission is actually done!
2. Indiana
Yes, yes - I know. Everyone is talking about this! I got my developer preview as soon as it was released. My greatest request for the Solaris-of-old was a really decent installer. I must say that the guys at the Caiman team have done an excellent job. Apart from that there is the much-awaited Distro-Constructor which is a part of the Caiman project. I personally think, this idea is more "cool" than really useful - but I've really not seen anything of this kind myself in the Linux world - so for Solaris to do this, in such an early phase of Indiana, is brilliant.
3. Netbeans 6
I have used Eclipse quite extensively for one project that I was working on - so I'm in quite a good position to do the famous "Eclipse vs Netbeans" face-off. But - I will not. The only thing I can say is that, after having followed discussions in the Eclipse community over the GUI builder like Netbean's Matisse - I don't think something that good is coming to the Eclipse platform anytime soon. Netbeans supports everything, of course, from Ruby, JRuby to the older traditional J2EE stacks. I'm looking forward to see, how Netbeans can react and provide support to Google's Android platform. They've chosen Eclipse for some reason to start of with - but I'm sure, that Netbeans will come up with Android support soon.
There are more things of course - and I will hopefully talk about them soon.
Till then, check out stuff from FOSS.IN at the Sun FOSS.IN blog and excellent photo-rep.
Tuesday May 15, 2007
I wish I could roll up my sleeves and get down to writing some real code right away to solve all these problems that I am going to point out, but I just can't. I need to know more and learn heaps before I can get anywhere near that stage, but I believe I'm contributing this way - and hope this helps someone who is actually working on this.
The point is this. Installing Solaris is not pretty. It's not the toughest thing in the world, and from what I hear its got friendlier and easier along the way - but it would be very rare to find a case where someone got it running without a workaround or some hacking into the code, minor though it may be.
The first problem that we as a community need to solve, is to remove the initial roadblock. Noted Indian blogger Amit Varma talks about the Halo Effect, ie about how first impressions affect things and how so on. This applies to OSes too, I'm afraid and no matter how brilliant the actual product is, it needs to work without any hassle out of the box.
I'm sure this will happen along the way, as more hardware gets supported and more issues come to light, and here are a few things that I thought should've been better about my installation :
Critical Things :
* Network (pppoe and all) needs to run out of the box. Without this, you can't even ask for help!
* Grub did not handle my Windows properly, most probably because both were on different disks.
* Startup times need to reduce
* Why is the setup 5 Gb ?
Equally Important :
* Replace pseudo-GUI with pure GUI installer.
* Encapsulate as much system messages, and replace with newbie friendly language, images and slideshows about features etc.
* Sound does not work at most places.
Where we need to eventually get is to the level of Wubi. Wubi is this brilliant ubuntu package which allows you to install Ubuntu when windows is running! I haven't tried it myself, but the screenshots look amazing.
Will this be possible one day?
PS : Looking forward eagerly to Belenix 0.6, good luck to Moinak and gang.
PPS : Solaris beat Ubuntu wrt graphics/resolution though. Mine ran out of the box, while Ubuntu needed configuration.
Wednesday May 09, 2007
Some of those here who know me, might also know that I am extremely passionate about quizzing (though opinions differ as to whether i'm bad, or i'm really really bad at it). We have this quiz club called "The Boat Club Quiz Club" (BCQC) and I run the club's website at bcqc.org
We have formal and informal meetings, and we're lucky to be sponsored by the wonderful people at Landmark (the bookstore) - so that we have book vouchers to profit from at the end as prizes.
Every year we have this internal fest called "InFest", where all we do is quiz around all day. This year we had specialty topics (ala Mastermind India if anyone remembers) ranging from Monty Python's Flying Circus to Pink Floyd to West Indies Cricket and The Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett. There were lots of guys(+ 1 girl), and we had a total ball, the whole thing culminating with a brilliant sortie to a restaurant nearby.
Anyway, a lot of these guys are a)from my college, b)were from my college c)students from neighbouring engg colleges or d)IT professionals working in Pune/Mumbai. So obviously these guys are doing linux programming, research in Natural Language algorithms and suchlike. So I snatched away some of their time, and distributed the Temple of Sun forms and told them about Sun Studio and they all seemed pretty keen to win the $20!
We're all meeting again this Saturday (there are two quizzes). More details here: India Quiz, Sports Quiz. Hoping to get a lot of people to get involved with Sun Studio and Temple of the Sun in this way.
Note for CAs : I guess a lesson to learn is to leverage not only course/academic contacts but also other associations which may seem appropriate.
Saturday May 05, 2007
Did a small entry level level "Mixer" about Sun Studio. Lots of people in college have played Temple of Sun, and lots of them have used Sun Studio (making my work much easier!).
Gave out forms and collected them. Still need to count and tabulate them!
I plan to do a proper mixer soon, for the less inclined and less acquainted - and see how it goes! More news coming soon!
Cheers,
Friday Apr 20, 2007
Here are the presentations that I used for today's demo. It went very well. About 30 people turned up, which is great for a very focused area and at 9 am in the morning during submission time! Lots of people missed out due to not waking up on time!
Anyway, will post soon about the plans for the next two sessions on Monday and Tuesday - need to get these demos in place.
Here is the first presentation that I used : Netbeans Desktop
I also talked about web development using an Open Source CMS like Drupal and using web design tools like Statcounter effectively. I also quoted from Jakob Nielsen's brilliant Useit archives about the greatest mistakes in web design.
The other resources available are : Netbeans GUI - Matisse
Creating a web service client in Netbeans
Cheers and stay tuned for more info about forthcoming workshops.
Thursday Apr 19, 2007
I'm planning to do a series of workshops on Web Development in NetBeans in college from tomorrow. Here is the mail i sent out. Lets see how it goes!
I'll be doing a live demo of how to develop web-applications in NetBeans using javascript/ java server faces(JSF). As usual, this is incredibly easy with netbeans and you only have to come tomorrow to find out!
I would like to hold 3/4 1 hour sessions starting from tomorrow. Further schedules can be decided later. These sessions are open to everybody, but 3rd year and 2nd year comp/IT guys are exhorted to attend.
Details :
Time : 9 am to 10:30
Place : Lab 2, second floor, comp&it dept.
Here is what I propose to cover :
1. Basic Web Design principles.(GUIs, UI design, HTML, CSS etc)
2. Graphic design basics
3. Web design tools.
4. Developing a Web Service based application (the demo I have will return weather forecast for a given city name.)
5. Hopefully the demo I have about embedding Google Maps into the web application works. This is really cool!
As usual there will be goodies to be won, and more information on the Sun Project Competition.
Call me at 9890726322 in case of any doubts.
Cheers,
Abhishek
Tuesday Mar 20, 2007
OK. Now we're down to serious business. Of having fun that is ;-)
Guys from the Bangalore IEC (India Engineering Centre) will be visiting COEP to conduct a series of lectures. Here are the details:
Date: Friday, 23rd March.
Venue : COEP Auditorium, COEP, Pune. (Problems Getting there?)
9:30 to 10:15 - Introduction to opensolaris(Shantanu)
10:15 to 11:30 - Introduction to world of Java(Mayuresh)
------------- 11:30 to 11:45 Break ----------------------
11:45 to 12:30 - Open Solaris - A great platform for development and deployment(Sriram)
12:30 to 1:30 - Introduction to netbeans(demo) (Mayuresh)
Who all can attend?
You do NOT need to be a COEP student to attend. Anybody from any branch from any college (or even others) can attend. The auditorium can easily seat 500+, so we have lots of space!
Some points about the programme itself:
1. We'll try and make this as much fun as possible. Guys reading this, pointers please.
2. There will be no publicity propaganda. All the software we'll be talking about is open-source and thereby free.
3. There is no prior registration required. Just turn up!
4. For students from non-Comp/IT branches, there will be lots of interesting stuff to learn and absorb. We'll try and make this fun for people from all backgrounds. You DO NOT need to have an Comp. Sci. background to attend and enjoy.
I will also try and butt in at some point in time. Here are a few things that I will be bestowing upon the populace at COEP ;-)
1. Official Launch of the COEP OSUG. (The online page is nearing completion. Yay!)
2. Announcement of a project competition in Solaris and Java. (More details on this after the programme.)
3. Talking about the possibilities of internships at Sun.
4. Telling people about SAI.
Tuesday Feb 27, 2007
My first post on my new, cool, hip Sun blog has to be about that cool, hip, funny dude i know : me.
Name : Abhishek
Location : Pune, Maharashtra, India.
Age : 20
Designation : Campus Ambassador, COEP, Pune.
5 things I like : My comp, Movies, Music, My bookshelf, Quizzing.
Cheers,
Abhishek.
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