Linux is a great platform for engineering and scientific research. But making GUI software on Linux is not as easy and fast as it's on Windows. Microsoft made the Windows and the APIs for Windows programming. And, they made an IDE, Visual Studio. On Linux, we have so many APIs to use, GNOME, KDE, and so many IDE's to use. Gee, I want to focus on my algorithm. Wanna build beautiful graphic interface for your algorithm on Linux in just few minutes? Try LabVIEW. It's just a few clicks away.

by Forrest Sheng Bao http://fsbao.net

I have a neighbor called Jordan. He gave me an Apple laptop for free last week. This is an old iBook, made in 2002. The CPU is very poor, G3 500Mhz. It even doesn't have a DVD drive. So it is impossible to install Mac OS X onto it. But, don't panic. Linux, the most powerful operating system in the world, gives me an ultimate solution to rock this old brick.

by Forrest Sheng Bao http://fsbao.net

The QuickCam Communicate MP Plus (USB ID number: 046d:09a1) is supported by uvcvideo project. Thus, it could work with Linux without any problem. But Ubuntu 7.10/8.04 doesn't support it out of the box, maybe because they didn't come with the latest version of uvcvideo.

So, a five-minute work is needed to rock the webcam.

by Forrest Sheng Bao http://fsbao.net

I just a got an eMac with only $20. It comes with Ubuntu 6.06 for PowerPC. Well, Ubuntu doesn't support PowerPC Mac anymore, only ports for PowerPC Mac and IBM PowerPC/Cell servers. No, I don't like them. It wastes me almost one day to make it work, including copying the xorg.conf of OpenSuSE to my Ubuntu on PowerPC. But, the Ubuntu still couldn't start X. SuSE is so stupid and slowly. I don't like it either.

by Forrest Sheng Bao http://fsbao.net

My Mac just crashed. I ran Skype on that Mac, to talk with my friends, my professors, my families, and, I have a $5/mo unlimited In/Out plan all over the North America. So, I gotta run Skype on my 64-bit Linux box now. But, there is no 64-bit version Skype for Linux. Neither 64-bit version for Windows.

However, a good benefit of Linux, compared with Mac OS and Windows, is when you have problem, you can always google out a way, and, lotta zealots will work it out with you.

by Forrest Sheng Bao http://fsbao.net

Validated on Ubuntu Linux 7.10 and 8.04.

I got a laptop from my professor. Ah, it's not my property but a "Property of State of Texas and Texas Tech University".

Although Ubuntu made most of the stuff out-of-the-box, there are still some tricky parts. Let's spend 10 minutes to configure it.

The touchscreen

You need a regular USB keyboard and mouse to perform the installation since Ubuntu can't detect the touchscreen and let it work properly.

by Forrest Sheng Bao http://fsbao.net

"It's mine...My own...My precious..." - The Lord of The Rings

by Forrest Sheng Bao http://fsbao.net

/* Nope, I don't use Windows. I generally use Linux and Mac. Sometimes, I wanna try something different, so I will use Solaris or FreeBSD. So, I wanna help Texas Tech Linux users connecting to TechDrive, which is a file sharing service running on a Windows computer! Oh, gee, I can't believe they run it on Windows. It's much cheaper, safer and better on a Linux box. Windows, hmmm, I don't trust it. */

by Forrest Sheng Bao http://fsbao.net

original in en Forrest Sheng Bao

Abstract:

One killer application of Linux is to be used as the operating system of an embedded system. ARM is an architecture preferred by many embedded Linux developers. In this article, we will use SAMSUNG S3C2440X processor as an example processor using ARM instruction set. We will discuss how to deploy the basic system onto an ARM development board.