Connecting to BSNL on linux

I have used BSNL broadband connection for some years now and have connected to the internet through BSNL on various linux distributions like Arch, Gentoo, openSUSE and Debian. I shall share the procedure for the same here. However, before the procedure I would like mention some basics.

• Basic information

BSNL uses point to point protocol over ethernet (pppoe). So, your kernel should have it enabled. If you want to share your connection through another ethernet port or wifi; then you might be interested in bridging options too. DNS information is obtained from BSNL; you do not have to set it.

• openSUSE

The easiest of them all is getting it done in openSUSE. The package needed is kinternet; so ensure that you have it installed during initial setup [It is not selected by default in the installer]. In YaST, configure the ethernet interface, which most likely would be eth0. Use static address 192.168.1.2 and subnet mask 255.255.255.0. Configure the gateway 192.168.1.1. The DNS is obtained from the ISP. Clicking the kinternet icon in the tray should get you connected.

• Gentoo

Gentoo lets users configure their kernels. Make sure your kernel meets the requirements mentioned in the Basics section. I prefer using Roaring Penguin PPPoE scripts. Install them during your installation. To configure before first use, issue the following command as root.

pppoe-setup

Provide you username and password when asked. Enter 'server' when asked for DNS servers. The defaults should do for the rest. Edit /etc/rc.conf to configure the ethernet interface as follows:

eth0="eth0 192.168.1.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255"

INTERFACES=(eth0)

To start and stop the connection, use the commands pppoe-start and pppoe-stop. In case, you can connect yet can't view web pages then set the obtained IP address for the pppoe interface as your DNS server. You may also need to specify the default gateway in rc.conf as 192.168.1.1.

• Debian

Debian also uses Roaring Penguin scripts. Configure as mentioned for Gentoo and Debian shall connect automatically.

• Arch

Arch uses the same scripts. However, you will have to issue the commands as in Gentoo.

Distribution change

So far, I have tried various flavours of linux. I have tasted various desktop environments, stability policies, maintainance policies and packaging policies. I have tried KDE 3, KDE 4, GNOME, Enlightenment, XFCE. KDE 3 is undoubtedly "rock solid". GNOME is simple. XFCE is leaner GNOME. KDE 4 has slowed down with semantic desktop. However, much of the work is yet to be done to get back the old KDE feel. Enlightement is fast and stable; however the development is on. I like working in Enlightenment. However, I also have KDE 4.

Coming down to packaging, I have experienced .debs, .rpms and compressed source files. I also have rpm packaging experience. I would say all of them solve different purposes. They define (or may be match) the distro's policies and philosophies. For business oriented distros, rpms are a good choice. However, Debian's package management is also nice. It is a mark of their stability. Compressed source files however are the most flexible ones. Gentoo's packaging clearly reflects its philosophy of flexibility.

I had been running openSUSE for a long time now. Recently, I had decided to go for a change. I wanted to go for a rolling release as I wanted to keep at the edge of technology. Moreover, events like the okular problem inclined me towards rolling release distros.

The first option that came to my mind was Gentoo: its a lovely distro. However, I didn't have time for all the compilation so I thought of trying Arch. Distrowatch said its a lean distro that provides bleeding edge software. I downloaded the netinstall image and started my installation. After multiple Gentoo installs (successful ones), I was ready for it as soon as I had the image copied to my USB stick.

One common problem that I face while installing any distro is that my internet connection is PPPoE and not many people have it so its hard to find help regarding that. To add to it, I don't like to download unnecessary packages or large images. So, I spent some time trying to figure out how to connect during installation. Once that was done, I had a pretty smooth install. Arch linux is a nice experience. However, I miss Gentoo's community support on Arch. #gentoo is far more responsive and friendly than #archlinux. Interestingly, I solved Arch problems while talking at #gentoo.

I had KDE 4 installed on it. Then I moved on to get the latest svn snapshot of Enlightenment and installed it. Both are working fine. Arch's package management is not as flexible as portage in Gentoo. Also, sometimes you need to know your way around. For example, I had installed Ark on KDE; but was not able to unzip any of my .zip files. It was because I had installed zip with it; but not unzip. After installing unzip, its working fine.

Okular problem

Recently, poppler was having a bogus memory allocation bug. It had creeped into okular. Some pdf files were rendered okay; while some others flashed instantaneously and closed. The problem was on both of my systems openSUSE and Gentoo. As soon as poppler fixed the issue, Gentoo was quick at releasing it in stable tree. It was back in February.However, not until a couple of days back was the patch provided by openSUSE. Meanwhile, the inability of accessing my documents was really pissing me off. As my linux experience has evolved, I have gradually drifted away from openSUSE; though I love it as my first distro and still have it on my laptop.

Slower boot on newer kernels

Recently, I upgraded my kernel on my Gentoo x86 and patched my kernel on openSUSE 11.1 x86_64. I found both booted slower than when I charted booting last time, earlier this year.

The increase in boot-time was more in case of openSUSE compared to Gentoo.

Multi-tasking in openSUSE

This post is testimony to my satisfaction with openSUSE 11.1. On my Compaq Presario v6409, I am freely multi-tasking wihtout bothering for system crash or hangs.

On the same system, with a Windows OS, I would not try music, Firefox with multiple tabs, Thunderbird, two open pdf files simultaneously ever; but with openSUSE I can do even more and it runs smooth. Actually, here I have got a couple of KWrite sessions, an emacs session and a chat sessions on as well. Moreover, if it were Vista, it would be crawling halfway through the trial. By the way, I also edited the blog images in Gimp with all these open.

Fine tuning boot on openSUSE 11.1

Recently, I have been trying to fine tune my bootup process. I installed sreadahead from openSUSE build service. I also installed mkinitrd, aaa_base, bootchart, udev, and sysvinit from the devel:playground:fastboot repository. Here is the result.

The disk usage is more frequent but bootup time increased. Also I found that while shutdown the drives could not be umounted properly and my system time was configured to UTC instead of IST.

Next I installed module-init-tools, libvolumeid1, sysconfig, glib2, glib2-devel from that repo and tested. Here are the results.

The disk utilization has improved. Another observation was uniformity in CPU utilization. Earlier it used to be heavy at some periods, and nearly no CPU utilization rest of the time.

Next I have tried installing gconf2, gconf2-devel, gvfs, gvfs-backends, gvfs-fuse, kbd, libbonobo, libbonobo-devel, libgio, libgio-fam, libglib, libgmodule, libgobject, libgthread, libgvfscommon and xorg-x11-driver-video.

Bootchart on opensuse 11.1

After my trials on my Gentoo system, I wanted to chart out the bootup of my opensuse system.

Opensuse has parallel boot by default. It is interesting to see that out of the box, without any tweaking it is one of the fastest booting systems.