Affordable, Accessible computing

This is an attempt to articulate few things I been thinking about for a long time, the thoughts here where hashed out while attempting to join the WSIS Arab NGO Caucus and through discussions with the /dev/cabal folks and Adel El Zaim from IDRC.

Warning

thats about the end of the organized well thought out part of this document, my mind is very jumbled, I'm writing this down to help me

LINKdotNET's CEO and president Khaled Bishara was arrested on fraud charges in New York. Read this or this http://www.jordantimes.com/thu/news/news5.htm

NetoDragon softmodems seems to be taking over the market from Motorola's SM56. Here is the installation guide:

1. Go to http://www.smlink.com
2. Download the latest Linux driver
3. Assuming that you have downloaded the file to your Windows partiton do the following:

cp /path/to/driver/tarball /wherever/you/wantcd /wherever/you/wantedtar -zxvf slmodem-2.9.X.tar.gzcd slmodem-2.9.Xmakesumake installmodprobe slamrslmodemd -c=YOUR COUNTRY'S NAME &

And Happy surfing

Here are some very short and small tips that can save someone's time.

If you are using linkdotnet's 07770777 and wvdial. Add this line to wvdial.conf

Stupid Mode = yes

as you all must have noticed we've been having many problems with our hosting provider, we decided to move to a new host and we've been working slowly on the migration and a upgrade to drupal 4.5

however yesterday we found strange changes to file permissions and the site theme was b0rked, we decided enough was enough and started on emergency migration. the idea was to move the hardly ever used eglug.net domain to the new host and work on the migration there then change the eglug.org domain, this way most users would not feel any downtime.

however a mistake/failure in communication lead to both domains being transfered.

Hi,

I'm totally new to the Unix/Linux world. I want to get a new PC dedicated for that. Is there any hardware list that i can refer to? PS. the next question will be which version of Linux OS can i install?

As part of the project of Center for Knowledge Society with the CDA of 3ezbet Bekheet in Mansheyet Naser, GNU/Linux is now installed in Mansheyet Nasr with the cooperation of EGLUG.

Yesterday (Thursday 11th November 2004), Manal, Alaa, Ezabi, MohammedSameer and DJ-King's laptop arrived @ Mansheyet Nasr @ 9 p.m after getting lost on the "autostraud" looking for a u-turn.

First, Ezabi and Manal were setting up the network, (Ezabi did the major part of course) while Alaa and MohammedSameer were installing GNU/Linux on one of the pcs in preparation of a network install.

Well, How r u all? it's the first time for me to write in this forum, I'm so happy to know u all. About me I'm a fresh computer Engineer, & I'm subscribe in a charity project called Life_Makers_Alex, it's to teach people languages and computer for free, actually I was trying to contact Allaa to get the free Linux course, but he told me to contact the Alex teams directely who I don't know, I want to tell that we can expand the idea specially I that I can communicate with my dept. students to learn this course & we've -as I told u our charity project- the plaace to teach it in, I mean to add htis course to the courses that we teach in our project, plz try to conytact me if u agree on my e-mail which is:

EGLUG جنو/لينكس مصر

من؟

بدأت مجموعة مستخدمى جنو لينوكس فى مصر عام 2004 وهي مجموعة غير رسمية من المتطوعين المصريين من مختلف الخلفيات والأعمار جمعنا اﻹيمان بفلسفة البرمجيات الحرة ونموذج المصادر المفتوحة وحب نظم الجنو/لينوكس

البعض مننا متخصصين، هواة، أو مستخدمين عاديين...
البعض مننا يعتمدون على تلك البرمجيات في أعمالهم بينما ينتفع بها البعض الآخر في إستخدامهم الشخصي

Peace, I would like to know if a package like KAPCKAGE exits for FedoraCore2. I have tried www.rpmfind.net, but the one I installed (kapckage-3.x.x.rpm) was installed correctly yet did not work. I typed kapackage and said it is not found! So, if there is any package manager for FedoraCore2 that would be great, the one that comes with it is awful!

Max

PS. I love redhat

And Here is the collaborative EGLUG WikiWikiWeb.

looking for help on WikiSyntax

please do not edit this page, create a new book page and attach it to an appropriate parent node instead.

Want To Learn how to use GNU/Linux

Call 7350702 and ask for EGLUG courses

Over the month of August, EGLUG will organize 4 GNU/Linux courses for begginers.

The course will last 3 days (sunday, tuesday, thursday) from 5:30pm to 8:30pm and will cover the basics of installing and using a GNU/Linux desktop system.

The courses will be held in Al Sawi Cultural Center in Zamalek.

اول اعلان عربى مصور عن اللينوكس
بفكر و ايد عربية
نعم و يعكس حالة الشباب العربى و تطلعاته و اماله و الظروف المحيطة به
The 1st Arabic advertisment for GNU/Linux
Don't miss this
xvid - mpeg

تعتمد الشركات المصرية بصورة كبيرة على البرمجيات مغلقة المصدر لأداء اعمالها. وهناك الكثير من الأسباب لهذه الظاهرة وعلى رأسها نقص المعرفة و عدم الوعى ببدائل تلك البرامج فى عالم البرمجيات الحرة/مفتوحة المصدر. و نجد دائما أن مديرى و مالكى الشركات لا يثقون بالبرمجيات الحرة (ذات التكلفة المعدومة ) ويكونوا حذرين منها. و هناك دائما سؤال شائع وهو "كيف يمكن لنظام تشغيل حر و مجانى أن يكون بكفاءة الويندوز؟؟". تقريبا كل شخص يمتلك نوعا ما من الخبرة مع الويندوز و ذلك يشعره أن الحصول على الدعم التقنى سيكون سهل.

ok folks we started the Drupal arabization project at arabeyes

this is mainly an interface translation project, but I'm also working on a bidi filter for bi lingual content (to replace the current dirty bidi in the theme hack).

please join us so we can get this translated ASAP, the number of strings isn't big at all.

• Uniball is working on:
  • "includes" directory, done.
  • "modules/forum.module.po" file.
• mhlmi is working on:
  • "modules/user.module.po".
  • "contrib/navigation.module.po"File, done.

last saturday Leila and Douaa from ArabDev joined us in the gathering to tell us about their FOSS initiative and discuss posibilities of cooperation.

Arabdev are organizing a series of workshops and trainings on the use of computers and the internet, with school children in the governerate of Menya (among other places).

they want the next set of courses to include sessions about FOSS and GNU/Linux (for many obvious reasons), but their experience with FOSS is limited.

Using Yum

No doubt that every single Yellow-Dog and Fedora user knows this awesome tool named YUM. In this article we will know what is YUM and how to use it and what are the advantages and disadvantages that exist in YUM. We will also talk a little bit about the yum.conf file. And finally we will get to know some useful links related to YUM. Here we go !. :)

What is YUM ?

YUM is an interactive, automated update program which can be used for maintaining systems using rpm . Meaning; You can use YUM to install new rpm packages or update exisiting packages. The word YUM stands for "Yellowdog Updater Modified".

أنا لا أحترم المتطوعين

هذه المجموعة سجلت أساميها فى الدروس المجانية التى نقدمها فى ساقية عبد المنعم الصاوى و أكد كل منهم حضوره قبل بدء الكورس.

ثم اختفوا

الاقبال على الكورسات شديد لدرجة اننا لا نجد الوقت الكافى لتغطية احتياجات الكل، أصدقائنا و أقاربنا عليهم الانتظار لمدة شهر و ربما لن يتمكنوا من حضور الكورس بعد ذلك.

و مع هذا فهده المجموعة لا تحترم المتطوعين و لا وقتهم، ولا احتياجات الاخرين.

For the next month we will organize a series of special short sessions at Al Sakia from a variety of topics covering Web Development, Programming, Networking and Advanced GNU/Linux usage.

طوال الشهر القادم سنقوم بتنظيم مجموعة من الجلسات التدريبية فى ساقية عبد المنعم الصاوى تغطى مواضيع فى تطوير صفحات الوب، البرمجة، الشبكات و الاستخدام المتقدم لنظم جنو/لينكس.

To set up a website the way we described in the Wiki (we need to import this stuff here) there are some descisions we need to make, and some challenges facing us that may require coding or altering the way we work.

The real challanges are not in the CMS though, its in coming up with new guidelines and rules of governance.

sticky topics like posting guidelines, moderation guidelines, administration guidelines, who belongs to which user group and how to determine the criterea, how to avoid conflicts, how to encourage contribution etc.

I will stick to the drupal specific problems here, the rest needs a long dialogue.

دستور مجموعة مستخدمى جنو/لينوكس فى مصر

وثيقة بهرام

البند الأول - الأسم

أسم المجموعة هو مجموعة مستخدمى جنو/لينوكس فى مصر - The Egyptian GNU/Linux Users Group وأيضا يشار لمجموعة مستخدمى لينوكس ب EGLUG - جنو/لينوكس مصر و أسم موقع المجموعة هو eglug.org

البند الثانى - لماذا جنو/لينوكس مصر موجودة؟

• لترويج استخدام البرمجيات الحرة/مفتوحة المصدر بشكل عام و جنو/لينوكس بشكل خاص فى مصر.

Egyptian companies have long relied on proprietary software to get their work done. There are many reasons for this, mainly lack of knowledge & awareness of the Free/Open Source alternatives. Most business owners/managers are simply wary of free (zero cost) software. "How would a free O/S have the quality of windows ??" is a popular question. Even grandma has some sort of windows experience, which makes them feel assured that it will be easy to obtain technical support, should problems arise.

Well, how about showing a real Egyptian business which relies solely on FOSS ??

Mr. Omar BayehElDin. is the owner of Abu Youssef company, which works in cloth. He's been running solely on GNU/Linux & Free software for years, and he's quite satisfied. He forgot all about crashes, viruses and has saved a lot of money ever since. here is the story:

6 years ago one of Mr.Omar's relatives (who was studing in U.S.A) showed to Mr.Omar And his Brother a strange Oprating System. that oprating system was GNU/Linux and they kept playing with it but it`s wasn`t a very friendly operating system like nowadays and it wasn`t known in Egypt at all.

In those old days windows was alrady installed in Mr.Omar company`s Lan ( 2 computers , 2 Laptops ) but he was using GNU/Linux on 386 box as a file server. After closing uneeded services it ran perfectly. He also used FoxPro for database stuff and sure the microsoft office on the computers of his Lan. but all that was about to change.

That change happend 3 years ago when el mosnfat (kinda like egyptian Intelectual Property police) sent Mr.Omar a letter asking him to rearrange his software and get rid of any pirated software he use if he using any or else face the consequences (very high fines and confisication of equipmen, not to mention lengthy trials and legal dances). so he chose to forget about that headache and save some money by switching to FOSS and GNU/Linux and use them full time in his company.

He started with the accounting system, after quickly reviewing Nola, Compier and SQL-Ledger he settled for SQL-Ledger which is a powerful accounting system that can do almost everything in accounting.

he also used OpenOffice.Org (and somtimes Koffice for compatibility with legacy proprietary formats like *.doc *.rtf), KDE as desktop env.

They're using Mandrake (after playing with Redhat, Slackware and Debian), currently running Mandrake 10, Mandrake was chosen for its ease of use and for adding arabic support very early on, but at the moment they're contemplating a move to debian due to the greater stability.

Mr Omar faced little hardware compatibility problems (some old soundcards that are now well supported), one big problem was internal winmodems, they avoided this eternal problem by buying external modems and switching to ADSL the moment it was available.

They get support online from free community sites, sometimes it difficult to find answers but a bit of searching is all they ever need.

Mr.Omar is quite happy and satistfied with FOSS and it`s work. since there is are viruses like windows and the system is less likely to be compromised, He says it was soo easy to switch to GNU/Linux becouse it did not required special skills from the employees all thay have to do is File->open stuff. Nothing fancy, just regular GUIs with menus, data entry fields and stuff which is user-friendly and quite similar to windows applications.

While Mr. Omar and his employees are no hackers, they're not simple users either, Mr Omar often finds himself using command line tools to find and grep things feeling that its much faster than the typical graphical ways.

when faced with a need that was not covered by existing FOSS apps, Mr Omar started thinking how he can help solve the problem by helping or contributing, the acountants needed a localized accounting package, Mr Omar quickly realised that if they don't do it themselves no one will, and after finding out that the process was rather simple he sat down and did the job himself, till this day he still maintains the Arabic translation of SQL-Ledger.

Really FOSS is great for all kind of work. and Mr.Omar Advise other small business owners to switch for FOSS if they are can dig enough into computers (or find employees who can).

We thank Mr. Omar for his contribution (FOSS is all about contributing and giving something back) - and for his precious time (as busy as he was, he gave us all the time we needed and was quite helpful). He showed us some of the very useful features of SQL-Ledger.

We hope this small interview would urge other businesses to migrate to Open Source software and benefit from the stability, security & cost savings. Having seen someone who's already done that may be just what we need.

if you know of other cases of FOSS usage or development in Egypt, tell us so we can cover them.

And now here are some pics of SQL-Ledger in Action.

NOTE:We coudn`t get (elmosanfat) letter since it was hard to find.

تم اقتراح فكرة تقديم كورسات عن البرمجيات الحرة خاصة بـ EGLUG, يقوم بتقديمها أعضاء EGLUG لأعضاء EGLUG. تحدثنا مع العاملين بساقية عبد المنعم الصاوى فى إمكانية إسخدام معمل الكمبيوتر الخاص بهم, فتحمسوا جدا للفكرة و وافقوا عليها.

نريد الآن عمل قائمة بالكورسات التى يستطيع بعض الأعضاء تقديمها, و قائمة أخرى بالكورسات التى يريد الأعضاء تعلمها.

What is IRC?

IRC is a text based chatting protocol. You as a user chat through what is called IRC client. The client is a program installed on your system and connects to an IRC network. A network is a group of servers connected to each other to manage the exchange of messages. Users connected to the same network can chat together even if each is connected to a different server as long as these servers belong to the same network. Each network has a group of what is called chat rooms or channels reaching to thousands of channels. If one join a room he'll be able to chat with all those who joined the same room in a conference fashion. As

eglug.org is now up, obviously, and I personally am fairly happy with how things look for a group so young.

It was suggested on the IRC channel (#eglug on irc.freenode.net) that a real-life meeting might be nice, and I think that it is an idea worth discussion.

Potential benefits:

1. We nasty fork()ers get to explain clearly what the ideals are
2. I get to clarify the charter to people (this is probably needed, my english is nasty)
3. It's good to know people you're working with

Potential drawbacks:

1. It's a logistical nightmare arranging this

Comments?

من يومان وجدنا عند الساقية شريط فيديو منسى مسجل يوم مهرجان اللينكس الذى . نظمناه معا مايو الماضى

Two Days ago at Al Sakia we accidentaly found a lost video tape from the May installfest

After the fail in taking the permission from the AIT to hold a linux Course what about holding a presentation about Eglug at AAST , i already talked to (mo3eid) Operating System and he said that no prolem if it's something good .. i'll talk to the Dean of Computer Science and i hope that maslan 'll be with me what about your opinion .. ? espc. maslan ?

At last here is the new and improved 0.77 release candidate of phaeronix.

This iso is generally stable and very usable, but a lot of the new features need testing. Among these are:

1. Hardware detection:
   • Mouse.
   • Modems : motorolla, smartlink, lucent, intel 536 537 and ham
   • Synaptics touchpad support
   • TV cards ( v4l supported )
   • Monitor settings detection ( dependant on X.org)
2. Arabic console and xterm using bicon:
   • Console is by default arabic.
   • Run AXterm from the menu.
3. Memory requirements:
   • I have calculated that the CD needs about 55Mb of RAM to run. Therefore you need at least 64Mb of RAM without swap for it to be useable. This needs to be verified, and posssibly optimised.

English Version

• Introductory Pamphlet - Beginner
• Introductory Pamphlet - Intermediate
• Introductory Pamphlet - Advanced

بالعامية المصرية

• Introductory Pamphlet - Begginer (3ameya)
• Introductory Pamphlet - Intermediate (3ameya)
• Introductory Pamphlet - Advanced (3ameya)

Egyptian companies have long relied on proprietary software to get their work done. There are many reasons for this, mainly lack of knowledge & awareness of the Free/Open Source alternatives. Most business owners/managers are simply wary of free (zero cost) software. "How would a free O/S have the quality of windows ??" is a popular question. Even grandma has some sort of windows experience, which makes them feel assured that it will be easy to obtain technical support, should problems arise.

Well, how about showing a real Egyptian business which relies solely on FOSS ??

Mr. Omar BayehElDin. is the owner of Abu Youssef company, which works in cloth. He's been running solely on GNU/Linux & Free software for years, and he's quite satisfied. He forgot all about crashes, viruses and has saved a lot of money ever since. here is the story:

6 years ago one of Mr.Omar's relatives (who was studing in U.S.A) showed to Mr.Omar And his Brother a strange Oprating System. that oprating system was GNU/Linux and they kept playing with it but it`s wasn`t a very friendly operating system like nowadays and it wasn`t known in Egypt at all.

In those old days windows was alrady installed in Mr.Omar company`s Lan ( 2 computers , 2 Laptops ) but he was using GNU/Linux on 386 box as a file server. After closing uneeded services it ran perfectly. He also used FoxPro for database stuff and sure the microsoft office on the computers of his Lan. but all that was about to change.

That change happend 3 years ago when el mosnfat (kinda like egyptian Intelectual Property police) sent Mr.Omar a letter asking him to rearrange his software and get rid of any pirated software he use if he using any or else face the consequences (very high fines and confisication of equipmen, not to mention lengthy trials and legal dances). so he chose to forget about that headache and save some money by switching to FOSS and GNU/Linux and use them full time in his company.

He started with the accounting system, after quickly reviewing Nola, Compier and SQL-Ledger he settled for SQL-Ledger which is a powerful accounting system that can do almost everything in accounting.

he also used OpenOffice.Org (and somtimes Koffice for compatibility with legacy proprietary formats like *.doc *.rtf), KDE as desktop env.

They're using Mandrake (after playing with Redhat, Slackware and Debian), currently running Mandrake 10, Mandrake was chosen for its ease of use and for adding arabic support very early on, but at the moment they're contemplating a move to debian due to the greater stability.

Mr Omar faced little hardware compatibility problems (some old soundcards that are now well supported), one big problem was internal winmodems, they avoided this eternal problem by buying external modems and switching to ADSL the moment it was available.

They get support online from free community sites, sometimes it difficult to find answers but a bit of searching is all they ever need.

Mr.Omar is quite happy and satistfied with FOSS and it`s work. since there is are viruses like windows and the system is less likely to be compromised, He says it was soo easy to switch to GNU/Linux becouse it did not required special skills from the employees all thay have to do is File->open stuff. Nothing fancy, just regular GUIs with menus, data entry fields and stuff which is user-friendly and quite similar to windows applications.

While Mr. Omar and his employees are no hackers, they're not simple users either, Mr Omar often finds himself using command line tools to find and grep things feeling that its much faster than the typical graphical ways.

when faced with a need that was not covered by existing FOSS apps, Mr Omar started thinking how he can help solve the problem by helping or contributing, the acountants needed a localized accounting package, Mr Omar quickly realised that if they don't do it themselves no one will, and after finding out that the process was rather simple he sat down and did the job himself, till this day he still maintains the Arabic translation of SQL-Ledger.

Really FOSS is great for all kind of work. and Mr.Omar Advise other small business owners to switch for FOSS if they are can dig enough into computers (or find employees who can).

We thank Mr. Omar for his contribution (FOSS is all about contributing and giving something back) - and for his precious time (as busy as he was, he gave us all the time we needed and was quite helpful). He showed us some of the very useful features of SQL-Ledger.

We hope this small interview would urge other businesses to migrate to Open Source software and benefit from the stability, security & cost savings. Having seen someone who's already done that may be just what we need.

if you know of other cases of FOSS usage or development in Egypt, tell us so we can cover them.

And now here are some pics of SQL-Ledger in Action.

NOTE:We coudn`t get (elmosanfat) letter since it was hard to find.

Purpose of this Document

The intent behind the composition of this paper is to define a guiding framework for cooperative activity between the EOSBC and the Egyptian Linux Users' Group. Broadly speaking, four concepts will be tackled.

These are:

1. Examine the current status of FOSS in Egypt.
2. Describe and rationalize the desired state of FOSS in Egypt.
3. Identify obstacles to making this transition.
4. Propose action to realize this transition.

We will be focusing on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and not simply open source software for the simple reason that the `free as in beer' aspect is the most immediately beneficial to a developing nation such as Egypt due to its effect of lowering capital investment requirements.

تعتمد الشركات المصرية بصورة كبيرة على البرمجيات مغلقة المصدر لأداء اعمالها. وهناك الكثير من الأسباب لهذه الظاهرة وعلى رأسها نقص المعرفة و عدم الوعى ببدائل تلك البرامج فى عالم البرمجيات الحرة/مفتوحة المصدر. و نجد دائما أن مديرى و مالكى الشركات لا يثقون بالبرمجيات الحرة (ذات التكلفة المعدومة ) ويكونوا حذرين منها. و هناك دائما سؤال شائع وهو "كيف يمكن لنظام تشغيل حر و مجانى أن يكون بكفاءة الويندوز؟؟". تقريبا كل شخص يمتلك نوعا ما من الخبرة مع الويندوز و ذلك يشعره أن الحصول على الدعم التقنى سيكون سهل.

نظام الملفات

في هذا الجزء سأستخدم كلمة نظام الملفات بطرقتين مختلفتين.هناك مظام ملفات في أقسام القرص و الاجهزة الاخرى و هناك نظام ملفات كما يعرض لك بتشغلك لنظام لينكسانك في نظام التشغيل لينكستقوم بإلحاق mount قرص نظام التشغيل على نظام ملفات نظام التشغيل.

في الجزء السابق,ذكرت ان سكربتات الـinit تقوم بفحص و إلحاق لنظام الملفات و الاوامر التي تقوم بذلك هي fsck و mount على الترتيب.