HP has agreed to pre-install Novell's Linux distribution on some of its notebook and desktop range in India. However, the computer maker said it currently has no plans to extend that deal to EMEA.

SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10-loaded HP computers will begin shipping to India in the second quarter of this year.

The deal marks HP as the latest big name vendor to provide systems pre-installed with the Linux distribution to the consumer market.

Section "InputDevice"
Driver "wacom"
Identifier "stylus"
Option "Device" "/dev/ttyS4"
Option "Type" "stylus"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Driver "wacom"
Identifier "eraser"
Option "Device" "/dev/ttyS4"
Option "Type" "eraser"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Driver "wacom"
Identifier "cursor"
Option "Device" "/dev/ttyS4"
Option "Type" "cursor"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"

8.Now on the top panel click on System> Preferences> Sessions> Startup Programs
Click "Add" to paste the following string /usr/X11R6/bin/./xinput set-button-map stylus 1 3 2 4.

Arod is my Acer C310 tablet notebook system. He's got 512mb of RAM and came with XP installed. So far, I haven't reached a point where I need more with this system, so I'm hanging on to it. Like all my travel computers, I've always wanted to have it dual-boot, Linux of some flavor to play with and Windows because I get paid too much to screw around if it's crunch time. Bottom line is, there are a lot of PowerPoint presentations and Word documents that just don't look the same in OpenOffice.org.

That said, I do most of my work in Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) these days. I installed Ubuntu back in October. I'm Charlie Brown and Linux is my Lucy. I see the football, I run to kick it, the football vanishes, and I land on my back. I think I've kicked it this time.

I've found a great resource in my quest to replace XP, The Perfect Desktop - Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn. The author's goal was to replace Windows with open source apps for audio and video editing/manipulation. The stuff added to a basic Ubuntu install through this resource is a great start for me.

So far, the bulk of my time in Ubuntu has been using Firefox and Thunderbird. I've been experimenting with plugins for both, making judgements whether or not a specific task is best done inside the browser or with a separate application.

First application up is something to blog with. In Windows, I use either , Scribefire in Firefox, or a freeware program called wbloggar. In Linux, my choices are Scribfire again, or BloGTK as a replacement for wbloggar.

A lot of bloggers will wonder why bother with a client that's separate from the blog software itself in the first place. If you've ever had dKos, WordPress, or Blogger lock up and vanish in the middle of a diary you were writing, you'll appreciate the usefulness of working in a local client. You can type up your entry, spell-check, etc., locally, then either post directly to your blog, or (in the case of sites like dKos) copy/paste the finished entry into the site's page.

Scribefire is a "plugin" for the Firefox web browser. The idea is to allow you to stay in the browser while blogging, making it a bit easier to link to other sites, copy/paste, etc. From a technical perspective, using a blogging client that's part of the browser means less network stuff to configure anyway. I found Scribefire to be a good entry point for my Moveable Type-based blogs. Unfortuntately, I got curious with Firefox and upgraded to the beta-test version, 3.02, and the Scribefire plugin is not compatible.

No biggie, back to the stand-alone client. I use BloGTK, a basic blog-entry client that supports blogs based on Blogger, Moveable Type, WordPress, and other platforms. BloGTK has a solid editor with spellcheck, with basic html formatting capabilities:

So far, BloGTK has delivered the same functionality I got with the Windows-based program. Chalk up this application as a win for moving away from Windows.

Endymion first paraded in 1967. At this time, Carnival was nowhere near the huge celebration it is today. Prior to WWII, parades were held by krewes "old-line" organizations made up of members of various downtown luncheon clubs, such as the Boston, Pickwick, and Louisiana Clubs. After the war, however, many New Orleanians felt that if the rich Uptown men could parade, why not them? Endymion joined the ranks of startup krewes when they rolled out from Trafalgar St. onto De Saix Blvd., rolling through Gentilly to downtown. The parade was an unqualified success, and the mostly Ninth Ward men who made up the original krewe soon found that a lot of other men wanted to parade with them. The krewe reached "super krewe" status in the mid-1970s, when the local media began to consider Endymion as an important part of the Carnival package, along with Bacchus and Rex.

Endymion has grown from a neighborhood parade of 70 men rolling mostly through gentilly and Mid City to over 2000 riders and dozens of bands and marching units. My son's band was one of those units last night.

The modern route of Endymion has the parade starting at Marconi Blvd. and City Park Ave. From that step-off point, the parade rolls down Orleans Ave, makes a right-turn onto N. Carrollton, rolls on that street to Canal, where it turns left and rolls down the city's main street until St. Charles Ave. Endymion turns into the CBD there, going up to Lee Circle, rounding Robert Edward's statue. The krewe then makes its way to the Superdome, where its "Extravanga," a huge after-parade party/dance/all night bash is held.

We got to my son's school around 2pm on Saturday afternoon. The boys got changed into their uniforms and loaded up their instruments. We took two school buses over to the staging area on Marconi Blvd., and were out there by 3pm. The krewe had some technical issues getting several of the huge floats from their den in Metairie to the start of the route, so they were late getting started. By 4:45pm, the boys had stepped off into the street on Marconi, in front of the king's float.

Orleans Ave. and Mid City was very happy to see Endymion. This was the first year since the storm that Endymion took its usual route, having been forced to use the Uptown route in 2006 and 2007. With enough of Mid City rebuilt and returned, it was time. And did the neighborhood ever show its appreciation! The crowds were huge, all yelling, cheering, dancing, and clapping. The city had barricaded the Orleans segment of the route, so there were no issues with the crowd interacting with the band.

We turned onto N. Carrollton Ave. around 5:15pm, making our way to Canal St. Things were going fairly well, in spite of the massive size of the parade, until a tractor breakdown behind us forced the front of the parade to stop and wait. We didn't finish the seven blocks from Orleans to Canal for another 45 minutes. It was slow going, but the crowds were glad to have the boys playing. Once we made the turn onto Canal Street, our timing improved greatly. The eight blocks from Carrollton Ave. to Jefferson Davis Pkwy. had heavy crowds who had come out to catch the massive amounts of beads, doubloons, cups and other trinkets Endymion are well-known for throwing.

The make-up of the crowd changed a bit once we passed Jeff Davis, because the neighborhoods that come together in this part of Canal are more Latino and African-American. The white folks from the suburbs usually congregate in the beginning of the Canal leg of the route, so they can make a faster escape home once the parade has passed. The boys received a lot of cheers from the crowd, along with some good-natured taunting from some St. Augustine band alumni (one of their biggest rival schools), as well as from folks at Warren Easton High School, whose band was two floats behind them in the parade.

Once we got to Broad Street, the parade route got a good bit darker, and that's not a reference to the ethnic makeup of the crowd. There were a lot of streetlights out from Broad to Galvez. That's not a problem for the floats with all their fibre-optic and regular electric lights strung from one end to the other. It's not a problem for the flambeaux carriers that were marching in between the band and two lines of "riding Lieutenants" on horseback. Still, there were minimal stops and soon were were past Galvez, walking up to Claiborne Ave.

I don't have many memories of Claiborne Ave. before the construction of I-10 destroyed what was one of the loveliest boulevards in New Orleans. Now, Claiborne Ave. is home to an elevated expressway that has become a boundary between Mid City and Treme. The area under I-10 has also become a "tent city" for hundreds of homeless New Orleanians.

My memories of crossing under Claiborne into downtown from when I was marched in high school and escorted a band as a teacher in the 1980s were totally different from last night. The crowds this were were very light and very white. I noted this and immediately knew the answer--the residents of public housing in the area are still not back from the storm. The crowd from Claiborne to Loyola was incredibly light and consisted mostly of tourists who had made their way from the Quarter out to the parade.

The crowds began to thicken on Canal as we walked from Loyola Ave. to St. Charles. Here the mix of locals and tourists was fun, and the boys enjoyed the cheers and support. We made the right-turn onto St. Charles Ave., passing under the balcony of the Pickwick Club, where the young heirs to wealth and power clapped and waved at the boys. The band was a popular feature in the Central Business District, as we passed reviewing stands set up in front of banks and office buildings. This is the workplace of thousands of middle-class New Orleanians and suburbanites, many of whom sent their boys to Brother Martin, so the band was a big hit.

Of the many places for a band to march in a parade, the boys were in one of the best for both exposure and fun. They were the "king's band," marching right in front of the king's float. There were half a dozen marching units in front of them, including bands from the USMC, Southern University, St. Augustine High, St. Mary's Academy, and Xavier University Prep. Our boys were in between the Queen and the King. In parade terms, these are "quiet" floats. The monarchs don't throw stuff off the floats, and they're not celebreties like the floats carrying The Doobie Brothers and Kevin Costner. The crowd hasn't converged on the float in front, so they don't need to push back to make room for the band; all they have to do is enjoy the music.

We had a few stops in the CBD portion of St. Charles Ave., as the float with Grand Marshal Kevin Costner stopped at Gallier Hall to toast the mayor. We crossed Poydras and entered the Arts District, marching past the massive reviewing stands in front of Lafayette Square, as well as Mayor C. Ray Nagin and his guests at Gallier Hall. Gallier Hall, named after its architect, was City Hall for New Orleans until 1952, when the current municipal government complex Poydras and Loyola was completed. C. Ray wasn't all that impressed with the boys, but nobody's overly impressed with hizzoner these days, either.

The walk through the Arts District was fun, as crowds in stands erected in front of the various architectural and law firms along the avenue cheered the boys on. We reached Tivoli Place (the name of the circle separating the CBD from "Uptown" until the large column with a statue of Robert E. Lee was erected in 1881. We circled the Virginian in a 3/4 clockwise turn, coming out on Howard Avenue, where we marched up to Loyola Ave.

There were still crowds on Loyola, mostly folks from Tulane and LSU Medical Schools. We made our way past the federal buildings and US Post Office, turning to approach Da Dome. Only the band marched into the Extravaganza; us low-rent parents weren't welcome. It wasn't long before the boys circled through the big party, passing by all the teevee cameras and performing four songs for the crowd.

The boys marched around the corner and officially ended the parade at 10:30pm, almost six hours after we stepped out in Mid City. We all made our way back to the buses for the ride back to school.

There are a lot of boys at the school who just don't understand why the band marches in parades. It's a lot of work, but these guys are musicians. They love to play, and this is the biggest audience many of them will every play for, and they love every minute of it!

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