Layman Linux

It has been more than a month since the release of Fedora 11. Many top sites have already posted their review of this eleventh version of Fedora. Meanwhile I decided not to jump on the bus too soon but use Fedora 11 for a month before giving my words on it.

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Fedora 11 bought an excellent feature to its package manager YUM. If you have been religiously following the discussions on mailing list then you might know it. If you are clueless then let me tell you. It is known as ‘Presto’.

Presto is designed to save bandwidth incurred when the user upgrades the current software to a new release (version). Presto relies on Delta RPM’s which are smaller in size than regular RPM’s. The good thing about Delta RPM’s is that they only contain the incremental data which is added in the new release of the software. This means the download size will be significant lesser. Presto promises to reduce the download size by about 60% – 80%.

To use Presto you will need to first install the presto plugin for YUM. To install it, simply enter the following command in a terminal,

Yum install yum-presto

I upgraded Pidgin 2.5.5 to 2.5.7 on my Fedora 11 system using Presto & saved 90% of my bandwidth due to presto being enabled. Impossible? See the screenshots below to believe for yourself(Click on the screenshots to enlarge).

Those with limited bandwidth internet plans will thank developers for coming up with such a simple yet wonderful piece of software. Presto will also off course save time which is often too long for downloading software updates in addition to system updates. All in all a must have if you’re on an distro which uses Redhat Package Manager(RPM) as its package manager. What are you waiting for? Install Presto & let your mind free of the bandwidth worries.

Ubuntu is a good distro to start your linux journey. It is also the most user friendly distro & also the highly recommended one on forums for anyone who is new to the world of Linux. In this guide, I will explain how to install Ubuntu on your machine. I will be installing Ubuntu 9.04 via the Live CD. The steps underlined here in this guide remain similar even if you need to install a different version of Ubuntu.

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Adopting Open Source was the decision I took solely as per my heart. It was not forced upon me by anybody. It received appreciation from some while others continued saying I have gone mad. But I am happy with my decision as it came from within my heart & was not a forced/influenced one. Open Source also is a phenomenon which should not be forced. I have seen many die hard fanatics going overboard & create OS wars which are an utter waste of time. These are known as fanboys. They exist for every OS – Linux, Mac or Windows. However most of the people don’t know that a person will follow/preach a particular product only when he is thoroughly satisfied with it. You cannot force an individual to use Linux. You need to make him/her understand the pros & cons without being biased.

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