At last, the old webcam Logitech Quickcam Web works on my Debian box!!!

I followed whatever is suggested at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=654153.

I had followed the commands that are given there. Recounting them here..

aptitude install qc-usb-sources
cd /usr/src
sudo m-a prepare
sudo m-a build qc-usb
dpkg -i qc-usb-modules-[your_version].deb
modprobe quickcam


Now, firing up gqcam fails. In XTerm, it was exiting with message, device file not found. In /dev, the file that corresponds to the cam is /dev/video0. I did a ln -s video0 video and now gqcam show a vague resemblence if what lies in front of its eye.

Wow! never expected I’ll get this cam working on this beige machine. Remember, the cam is no less than seven years old. It worked OK under Windows. But after quitting Windows, I had almost given up hopes on getting this cam work.

Now, gotta learn how to use this cam under Pidgin or such applications..

here is what ‘lsusb’ says about this cam: “Bus 002 Device 002: ID 046d:0850 Logitech, Inc. QuickCam Web”

Gotta be careful what to put in load-path

Rmail was giving out a backtrace. I had nothing relevant to rmail in my .emacs file. So I was inclined to think that rmail was at fault. I pasted the backtrace on #emacs@freenode.net’s paste. Only to discover that rmail was added with a hook that none of the regulars had ever come across.

Looking at its definition, I soon discovered that shebang.el was the file that containing the hook that was creating the problem. Upon removing the hook and disabling the file from being loaded automatically, I got rmail working properly.

So, who had added thee offending file? I was suspecting my sister would have added since she had used Emacs a few times. But turns out that she knows nothing about adding things to load-path. So, I must have put that file in the load-path for whatever reason. heh, gotta watchout for what I put into the load-path from next time on.

Slackware’s magic pakcage manager

Until I read this post, I was thinking that dependency checking and related things is a part of package manager tool.

This post says otherwise. But, I have old memories of being a Slackware 9 user. I should find time to have Slackware on my system now. But the old experimental computer has just 128M RAM. Recent editions of Slackware need no less than 256M RAM. Gotta check out. Now with a bit more interest as this tool looks real great to work with — the oooooold school Unix (and Slackware’s policy as well till date). And I looove it!

A circa 77 year old lady, mother, grandmother in the street

There is a lady here in my street. She has been wandering this street for well over three years now. She has left her home in Rasipuram. Her sons and daughters live there. All of them have abandoned her. She happens to be a classmate of one of my relatives who lives in this street. This abandoned lady wears what the houses of this street give her, eats what is given to her. There is a temple in this street. Sri Rukmani Sametha Panduranga is the chief deity there. This lady draws some of her food from this Temple.

But when it comes to sleeping, the houses are not so hospitable to her as they were. She was let to sleep in the front portion of many houses, which took turns. As time went by, she started waking up very early and yell at the air in front of her as if there were someone. Now, her plight has come down to sleeping near the shady doors of the houses. That is to say, there is no roof on her head. The temple does not care to do that bit either. Every once in a while, someone in the street sponsors her tonsure.

Nobody in this street knows fully why her sons and daughers abandoned her. So far, only the essentials such as food and clothing are being provided by the residents of this street. There seems to be some link between her past and this street. Perhaps her childhood home was here. She refuses to leave this street. Refuses to go to oldage homes either. So there is no knowledge of any ailments she might be having.

A painful sight to see in the street. I learnt from our relative-her erstwhile classmate that her name is Sulochana. Whatever be the reason, she abandoning her home or her children abandoning her, the outcome is a real painful sight.

Anybody got suggestions about getting her return to her home? Or getting her accept to go to an oldage home?

The street name is Manikkam street. Located in Shevapet, Salem.

Some old cartoons

Swat Kats and Centurions were cartoon series that were ruling the roost on Cartoon Netwrok, when I was a kid. Couldn’t find where Centurions is. Swat Kats is all available in the link given above. Some old memories from over a decade ago.

Some Google tech talks on git

Git is the source control system for the Linux kernel. From the talks, git looks like it provides just the mechanisms to manage a fully anarchic development model. The ‘manage’ bit comes into the play. There is no one single boss. Instead, you can download the source tree from whoever you trust the most. ‘Trust’ is the keyword that will make more people download your source tree. The more the number of people downloading the sources from your repository, the more they trust in you and you gain that much wide recognition. Trust, being what it is, needs lots of work. So, even though git supports an anarchic model, ‘trust’ comes in to put some order in it.

Watch these videos yourself to dispel the long held beleifs of software development models.

The day the routers died

some upcoming slick browsers

Kazehakase, Hv3 and Midori look promising for a computer that I have here. All these look slick, with very small claims for real estate. That is a boon for my 128 meg, over six!!! year old computer. It is not my primary computer, but I don’t like to have it lying idle. So at least I can use the oold computer for some basic web browsing.

Now, I use Epiphany browser on it. Sometimes that slows down the computer a lot largely due to low RAM. It seems there are still people who use low RAM machines, and I’ll be lucky to find small browsers and other applications taht don’t hog memory on my old computer.

Just installed Galeon to see how it feels on this antique computer. Its been ages I used Galeon. It was the only browser that would work on this computer only a couple of years ago. But when I discovered Epiphany, I had almost forgot about Galeon.

PS: I can upgrade the computer. But it uses an obsolete Intel850 chipset with RDRAM. So I see it as an antique piece for anyone interested. I find this computer interesting, so I’ll not upgrade it in the foreseeable future. I’ll use my laptop for serious work and use this for some pastimes and experimenting.

A cool looking application for Linux

http://www.linux.com/feature/120000.

FSLint. Sounds a bit like Windows’ Disk Cleanup. But who knows. I haven’t used Windows in ages and got only a less then vague memory of what Disk Cleanup does.

Organic food found to be better

According to http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7067100.stm report, organic food is better for humans.