Innovation Room

Events which happen around me, though seemingly distinct at first glance, tend to create a lasting impression in my mind which form the basis for further thinking.

Two events which recently took place were:-
i) joining the social ubuntu forum at www.myubuntu.ning.com(which rightly claims to be “the social side of ubuntu”).
ii) reading a comment at the ubuntu forums. The comment was posted by a linux user; who had doubts desciding to move over to ubuntu. However, he found coding something he found uninteresting. He wanted nothing to do with a CLI interface and was asking the forum members`s opinion on whether or not he should move over into ubuntu.

This got me thinking.

Consider the case of a businessman, or maybe a housewife who blogs regularly on her favorite recipies; anyone who considers coding as the last thing they wish want to try out(I don`t blame them). Linux variants, in most cases, have their settings easily configurable via the CLI. Now, does a businessman need to learn bash scripting for setting the desktop environment for his basic needs?

Now, suppose a user posts his view on any popular forum as www.ubuntuforums.org ; ive lost count of the number of times i`ve seen them go unanswered. True, some questions may seem “lame” but experienced linux users seem to disregard that fact that a person might be using linux; not because he`s interested in the code(or is a wannabe-coder), but because its free. Not helping newbies and choosing not to answer their queries is not a good practice.

And this, i feel, is one main reason for the increase in popularity of ubuntu taking place at an incremental rate; rather than the exponential growth we would like to see. This is one major way in which the requirement of the end-users is not being met with.

And as usual, this is my attempt to bring about a small change in the way people perceive things.

I`ve created a room in the social network at ning. try out the Innovation Room at http://myubuntu.ning.com/group/innovationroom

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The idea behind this group is to provide a platform for :-

1. Tending to the needs of new linux users.
2. Bridge the gap between End-Users and Developers so that the former get to tell the latter, what THEY feel is required to be done.
3. I`ll explain this point using a simple example. Consider the case wherein, a task needs to be automated. In most of the cases, people opt for shell scripts which can help them in their tasks. But now, Users can put forward their requests and have them replied to.
4. Most importantly, the results produced by #1, #2, #3 mentioned above can be used to understand end-user needs in a more effective way; thereby improving the overall quality of the next distribution release.

Cheers!!!

battery life ubuntu 9.04 update #1

The KDE-desktop environment, however, has surprised me. It had a power-management daemon which provided the following profiles; powersave, performance, aggressive powersave, presentation, and Xtreme powersave.

Also, i went through the internet looking for power management daemons which could automate these tasks for me; and i found none. It was a hot summer afternoon, and i was bored. So, i decided to make one by myself. I have`nt started on it yet, i`m just doing a bit of reading on power saving methods for now. I`m hosting a project at codeplex and i`ll release it at its successful completion. Updates on the mini-project`ll be put up here every now and then, though.

i`ve named the project power-Xtended; and the alpha version of it is about done. It`s got only a quarter of the features i`d intended to put in; the GUI is designed using the Glade-interface designer(this`s my first experience with it) and i`ve used python along with it. Here are the improvement-statistics i`ve come across on using power-X.

quite satisfactory, for an alpha, don`t you think? i`ll be releasing the next update, pretty soon, and i`ll need all your help for testing it out on various environments.

UPDATE #2
more features, `n hopefully better power mangagement; powerX beta is almost done. Will be released soon.

UPDATE #3
the project has been moved from www.codeplex.com into a site of its own. The site will be put up here soon. Due to unforseen difficulties, the release has being delayed. Please be patient.

battery life, ubuntu 9.04 ;-(

I`ve been off the internet for a considerable period of time; hence the large number of updates in a single day

13th May 2009
Yes, i`ve been off the internet for quite a while now and this is what i`ve been upto. I use a Lenovo Y410 latop which runs Ubuntu 9.04(64-bit). Previously, i used to have a battery life of about 100 minutes while running Windows Vista(and i expect around 120 minutes for Windows 7);however, i was shocked to find out that the battery life had reduced to only about 50 minutes when running ubuntu.

My initial reaction, was to believe that ALL 64-bit O.S.`s gave a reduced battery live`s(ya, i know that`s a stupid thought; but that`s what came to my mind at first); but then i recalled instances of better power management by 64-bit O.S.`s.

Searching the Ubuntu forums provided me a thread with a considerable number of people stating the same problem as i, myself had. A solution was already provided(which i implemented without haste)along with a link(www.lesswatts.org), which had to be referred to, in case you needed more performance-tweaking.

The site provided excellent information on the various tasks which use up your battery-life and could be disabled in order to save power. The power-saving methods explained on the site, however, were “general” and not for any specific linux distro; which meant i had to find the corresponding tweak in Ubuntu for myself.

I managed to find the location of these files, a lot sooner than i`d expected. The configuration of these files can be tweaked in a lot of ways; the easiest among them being the tweaking the files in the following directory:

/etc/laptop_mode/conf.d/

i`ve put a few scratch-notes i`ve made in the process; i just could`nt type them out again, it`d bore me to death!!
(sorry about all the scribbling, i guess i`m just not patient enough for a good handwriting )

i`m open to learning, so, ideas, criticisms; ALL welcome!