Linux Live USB Creator

I found a very handful software about making live USB linux systems. Personally I create USB based linux system with virtualization softwares like VirtualBox so I can use it like I do on my own computer; I mean the storage will be full persistent and I will be able to install softwares or save my account settings. But of course this is totally another story and is not the case all the time. Lots of you probably want to try linux without changing anything in your computer. With this software you can do it with your USB thumb drive. There is also a portable version of VirtualBox on site so you can run linux directly on your Windows without restarting by using the virtualization technologies.  And here it is, Linux Lice USB Creator.

Linux Live USB Creator ScreenShot

Linux Live USB Creator

Multiplication Table Calculation Implementation using Artificial Neural Networks

I have done a multiplication table calculation implementation using artificial neural networks at university as a homework project. Uploaded the project with full source code to my site, here. Feel free to use it anywhere you like. Of course comments and references appreciated. Not much of a tutorial here and it is not suitable for newbies, but object oriented implementation of neural networks should work fine to give ideas who will try to grab the nuts.

Parallels Desktop for Windows and Linux

I decided to give a chance to commercial virtualization products because of bad performance issues I have encountered with VirtualBox on ubuntu linux. You need to install RealTime kernel for your virtualization system work as you expect on ubuntu. Even with RealTime kernel virtualization on ubuntu is not good enough in every phase. For linux host machines I figured out the best system is Fedora, but this is not our case right now.

I have installed Parallels Desktop on both Windows 7 Pro. and Ubuntu Karmic. 2 guest operating system was my test case, which were Windows XP Pro. and Ubuntu Karmic (again :D ). By the way I have licences for all operating systems I use both as host and guest. Quick and dirty way of telling my observations to you is a pros and cons list i guess.

Pros:

- Automatic installation of Windows systems (Requires you have a licence of guest OS)

- Simpler shared folder management

Cons:

- Bad performance compared to other virtualization products

- Similar product is free (VirtualBox) but this one is commercial

- Really bad visual performance and responsiveness

- 3D support doesn’t worked out of the box on Ubuntu Karmic guest.

- Linux version’s performance is good but of course if you can make it run!

Results: Short way, there is no need to pay some bucks to commercial software while you have a better one free, VirtualBox. Looks like a fine system if you are planning to use it on server virtualization because non-graphical application performance is really good and supervisor have an option for dynamic balancing of system resources. But for a workstation virtualization this software is far from perfect. Linux installation is easy but installing and running guest OSes is a head ache. Also have a USB driver problem on linux hosts which ends up with a frozen system. My opinion is give a chance on Parallels server systems but for desktop virtualization use VirtualBox.

Windows Virtual PC

I just able to get my hands on Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7. Can’t say Windows XP Mode is awesome but it works and it works better then any alternative on the market. Another free tool can be used to replace Windows Virtual PC is VirtualBox but of course VirtualBox can’t give you the slick usage Windows Virtual PC with Windows XP Mode installed. There is support for USB devices in native form so even if your device is not recognized by Windows 7 you can still use that device on Windows XP Mode. XP performance on Windows XP Mode is good, it is pretty much as fast as you can get by other virtualization software on the market. Also installed programs on Windows XP Mode appears on Windows 7 start menu so you can have a seamless integration for your old software. For newbies I recommend using Windows XP Mode as last solution because it will slow down both problematic running software and the entire system as a result of virtualization.

By the way maybe one of the most important things I observed while playing with Windows Virtual PC is it’s problems with linux. Do not try to install linux on Windows Virtual PC. I have tried installing Ubuntu, although live CD and installation worked fine i couldn’t started the installed system. I didn’t check the manuals about this (or the help files as Microsoft calls them) but what i was expecting is to at least seeing buggy working linux. On this phase you have great alternatives on market like VirtualBox which supports Windows and Linux OS as guest and host.

Update: Recently installed Windows XP on VirtualBox and when it comes to performance VirtualBox is far more better than any other alternative, again.

YouTube Music Discovery Project and Playlist Creation Tool

YouTube Disco is YouTube’s new toy, where you can search for a song or artist and start listening right away. Service also includes videos and it’s free.

Google as an ISP?

Where we have lost the line? Do not get me wrong I’m really a fun of Google’s works and services. I like their business approach and customer satisfaction policy. They are giving best free online mail service with POP3 and IMAP support. Nearly all of their services are free. But they started with a search engine. Then they added social web services. Bought every major company on their way like YouTube. Created a mobile phone product. Working on their own OS, GoogleOS. Started serving public DNS service. Trying to change e-mail system with their own way, Google Wave. Lots of products Google has created could be observed easily very successful and harmless if they are not considered with a wide angle of view. Now Google is preparing to enter ISP business. You got the big picture? Another monopoly firm that takes control of every communication technology. Their policy as now is nothing like that. They do their business and earn money from their advertisement systems and their services. But with this much control power and that much income it will be only a matter of time for them to turn Dark Side. I hope they will continue to extend their portfolio, because they are really good in this business and they give more service to customer much more cheaper. For now on IT sector no other firm is better than Google, even there is much more evil firms trying to earn money by doing nothing.

Only solution for avoiding a company to take control over electronic communication systems is simple, using and forcing open standards. On the wave started with Mozilla Firefox we have been able to come these days; where web is not restricted to one specific browser or OS and free for everyone. Support open standards like Google do and use them. Only this way companies like Google will continue to preserve their quality of service and Internet will be free as in freedom and free as in beer.

Pacemaker

Some very creative guys made a portable dj console. Not just you can carry around with it’s bag, you can play and mix even when your are mobile. Sounds incredible right? It’s like an mp3 player with mixing support. Check it’s pacemaker website and youtube channel for more information.

Happy New Year!

Yes it’s another new year. Happy new year to everyone.

Top things to do after installing Ubuntu Linux 9.10 Karmic Koala

32bit Xdebug on 32bit LAMPP on 64bit Linux (WTF!?)

Many times I found myself trying to figure out how to work with 32 bit Xdebug on 32 bit LAMPP server on 64 bit linux. I have done exact same searches on Google over and over again in time. So I decided to mix those informations up once and not to search Google for this subject again. I assume that you already know about Xdebug and LAMPP server.

First thing to do is to install XAMPP for linux on your system. There is nice explanation about how to do this on it’s own site, so i think this won’t be a hard task for any of you geeks or nerds.

Second thing is to download and install development package for XAMPP on linux. It could be installed the same way and of course there is an explanation for that too.

So you have downloaded, installed and configured (secured) your XAMPP for linux and it’s development package. Surpirse! Development package was not needed. Really, you could done the all procedure without installing development files, but I insist on installing those files because they probably will be needed for others things you would try to do in feature.

And yet comes the tricky part. If you are using a 64bit linux system like I do, trying to compile Xdebug as 32bit extension for PHP on a 64bit compiler, don’t do it. Well, I am sure about it there is a way to do this right but my opinion is trying to this is really pain in the **s. Our trick to get Xdebug extension without compiling it is to visit this website which has remote debugging packages for Komodo IDE. You will need 32bit linux “PHP Remote Debugging” package. There is your 32bit compiled Xdebug extension, in somewhere on that package.

Next step: “cp xdebug.so /opt/lampp/lib/php/extensions”, with something like this command, copy your Xdebug extension to your php extension directory on your LAMPP install.

If you had no problems until here, then your job is nearly finished. Only thing left to do is to tell your php installation to use Xdebug as an extension. Adding these lines to your php.ini

[Xdebug]
zend_extension = "/opt/lampp/lib/php/extensions/xdebug.so"
xdebug.profiler_output_dir = "/tmp/xdebug/"
xdebug.profiler_enable = On
xdebug.remote_enable = On
xdebug.remote_host = "localhost"
xdebug.remote_port = 9000
xdebug.remote_handler = "dbgp"

will do the work. But remember you can not use Xdebug extension with Zend Debugger together. You have to choose one of them. If your installation is configured to work with Zend Debugger, please disable it.(by commenting out the Zend Debugger extension)

That’s all and your 32bit Xdebug extension on 32bit LAMPP installation on a 64bit linux should work fine. Feel free to leave feedback.

Also if you like to compile your own Xdebug here the sites I found while i was searching over and over:

Install ‘xdebug’ PHP extension for XAMPP on linux

Getting Xdebug to work with Apache/XAMPP to debug PHP