The Grid Approach Towards Fighting Swine Flu

It has been unanimously agreed that Computational Grids are proven tool for complex and resource consuming computational challenges. It is evident that these challenges need not to be a routine laboratory experiment always.

Today's one of the similar challenge for the human race is to fight against the pandemic Swine Flue or Influenza H1N1. An adorable initiative has been started to delegate and utilize the idle computational cycles of voluntary contributor computers to find the best matching chemical compounds to fight against the virus.

For more information the visitor is requested to visit http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/projects_showcase/flu1/viewFlu1Main.do . Even you can contribute in this and other projects that are helpful for the entire human race, just by downloading a small program and voluntarily contributing the idle computational cycles of your computer from http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/reg/viewRegister.do .

List of Globus 4.2.1 Commandline Tools

A very handy list of Globus Toolkit (GT) 4.2.1 Commandline tools can be downloaded in PDF format from http://www.globus.org/toolkit/docs/4.2/4.2.1/commands/gtCommands.pdf with due thanks to http://www.globus.org.

Connecting A USB Mobile with AIRTEL GPRS connection to Internet in Linux

Though the newer versions of Linux come with a GUI configuration utility (A NetworkManagerApplet) to configure a USB compatible phone to connect to the Internet still, in many contemporary as well as older versions do not have a graphical utility. So, in this post we try to tweak a USB phone by connecting it to the Internet. The Major part of this how-to is inspired from Dave's Blog (http://davestechsupport.com/blog/2008/02/28/how-to-connect-linux-to-your-cellular-internet/) and some more tweaks are also made later on based on heuristics.

The steps to be followed are as under:

1. edit /etc/wvdial.conf in your favourite text editor and make these changes:

[Dialer Defaults]
Init1 = AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","airtelgprs.com"
Modem Type = USB Modem
Phone = *99#
Password = pass
Username = user
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
Baud = 460800

2. In the 2'nd line Init1 shows the initialization string for your phone. airtelgprs.com will be the acceess point of you are using Airtel GPRS. For other carriers kindly contact your Internet Service Providor. The second last option Modem is the USB device, which may be traced by supplying the command dmesg | grep "ACM"

3. issue the command # wvdial and note down the DNS addressses. Now just disconnect by pressing Ctrl + C or somthing similar.

4. now some extra tweakings, despite doing these changes I was unable to browse the Internet, and heuristic worked here:

edit the file /etc/resolv.conf and append it with obtained Name servers, something like this:

search xxx.yyy.ppp.qqq
nameserver xxx.yyy.ppp.qqq
nameserver xxx.yyy.ppp.abc

5. Now it is almost ready to surf, just open a console and issue command # wvdial

6. Open Firefox and go to File -> Uncheck on Work Offilne option.

Now it is ready to!

Google's Summer Double Bonanza Offer!!

Freinds, this time we are talking on something else and no linux, no PI, no supercomputing.
On March 19, 2008 around 5.20 pm IST, (GMT +5.5) the orkut server suddenly seemed to have started a double bonanza offer and the number of scaps and fans was doubled. However, this lasted for only 10 minutes and hats off to the google people as the problem was resolved !! Can't beleive?? See the following screenshots.

(Original)

(Double Bonanza!!)

Install Linux from iso image without buring on CD

It's a very obvious practice to burn the downloaded iso images of linux (in general sense any operating systems) prior to the installation to an optical removable media (CD/DVD). However, for a change we will see how we can install a new linux distribution from an existing linux distribution and without making any copies of iso image of the operating system on a CD/DVD.

There are some pre-requisites for this task, which are as follow:

- A preinstalled linux distribution with superuser rights

- The GRUB bootloader- A Pre-downloaded Linux iso image (we will be installing zenwalk linux which can be downaloded from http://www.zenwalk.org/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=1)

- Free disk space to install the new linux distribution from the iso image

Now folllow the below mentioned steps:

-> Start your existing linux distribution
-> Copy the zenwalk iso in your home folder say /root/home
-> Execute the following commands :

#su
#mkdir -v /mnt/zenwalk
#mount -o loop /root/home/zenwalk-x.x.iso /mnt/zenwalk
#mkdir -v /boot/zen_iso
#cp /mnt/zenwalk/isolinux/*.* /boot/zen_iso
-> Now fire up your favourite text editor, open /boot/grub/menu.lst for edititing and paste the following lines at the end:
title Install Zenwalk
root (hd0,x)

kernel /zen_iso/vmlinuz-2.6.xx.x root=/dev/hdax+1 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us fromhd=/dev/null bootfrom=/dev/hdax+1/root/home/zenwalk.x.x.iso
initrd /zen_iso/initrd.splash
-> Now save your work, you have edited your GRUB so that it will take you to the Zenwalk kernel
-> Reboot your system and select 'Install Zenwalk' option
-> This will start your Zenwalk kernel
-> Escape from installation menu
-> Mount your existing linux partition somewhere at /mnt/linux by the following command:
#mkdir -v /mylinux
#mount /dev/hdx+1 /mylinux
-> Mount the Zenwalk iso image from this partition as given below:
#mkdir -v /zw_install
#mount -o loop /mylinux/root/home/zenwalk-x.x.iso /zw_install
-> Restart the Zenwalk installation program by the following command
#setup

-> Follow the on screen instruction for partitioning etc.
-> Specify the 'other' location to be /zw_install
-> Proceed to the installtion process
This should install the Zenwalk without burning it to a DVD/CD!Note: To determine your linux partition you may use lvmdisscan grep "hda" command

Easiest Way Finding PI

Once again we have decided to play with the mysterious ∏. However, this time rather than just merely talk about this mysterious figure we will be implementing a simple algorithm to find an approximate value of the same. The said method as follows:

• Inscribe a circle in a square
• Randomly generate points in the square
• Determine the number of points in the square that are also in the circle
• Let n be the number of points in the circle divided by the number of points in the square
• PI ~ 4 n
• Note that the more points generated, the better the approximation

A simple C program for the same may be downloaded from here:http://equinox-northeast.110mb.com/xus/pi.c

kindly send your feedbacks and bug reports on xitij1983@rediffmail.com

Recover the Linux Boot Loader (Grub)

Most of the Linux users who are using multiple operating systems installations in a single hard drive. Many of them (Especially those of Microsoft's) have to encounter the erasure and re-writing of MBR (Master Boot Record) after re-installing or fresh installing Windows after Linux. This situation is very frustating as despite the Linux partition being intact, one has to reinstall the Linux distribution everytime after installation of Windows.

By issuing the below commands, one can retrieve his/her previous Grub Bootloader screen in 6 easy steps.

Prerequisites:

• You need a bootable Linux CD (Preferably a live CD)
• Please note that the Linux partiton for which you are going to recover the MBR should be installed on an un-encrypted filesystem

Stpes:

• Boot with the bootable linux CD
• Invoke the shell
• Give the following commands
• # grub (This will drop you on the grub prompt)
• grub>geomettry (hd0) (Your Primary Hard Drive. Determine the Linux Partition number say "n")
• grub>root (hd0,n) ("n" is your linux partition searched by the previous command)
• grub>setup (hd0,n)/boot/grub/menu.lst
• quit

Voila!!.... just restart your computer and find your previous MBR restored!!