Ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes, when you press that win start button and get the pop up? Within that microsecond’s delay, here are some quick step-by-step explanation what goes behind the scenes.
1) Process Initiation After the windows key is pressed, a scan code is generated, scan code is the binary code released to the pressed on the keyboard.
2) Interrupting the processor Keyboard micro-controller interprets the scan code and stores it in the special memory till the processor is ready. A hardware interrupt is sent to the CPU for further action.
3) The Processor Initially, the interrupt from the micro-controller is kept in a queue, till the processor is free. On coming across the scancode, it is routed to the operating system. The OS decides for what task the key was pressed.
4) Calling RAM The OS involves the Explorer which determines that the win start key was pressed. Necessary 0s and 1s are generated to be sent to RAM.
5) OS Role The explorer calls the OS to display the output on the monitor. OS reads RAM and sends the output to the video memory of the graphics card.
6) Mission Achieved The graphics card shootout the relevant signals via the display port. This causes the Start Menu pop-up to display on your monitor, the next time it refreshes.
Here is the quick step-by-step note, how all this happens just behind you naked eyes within a fraction of seconds.
1) Entering Query in Google. This stage is the starting point for an end user. Guy sitting in frony of his computer, typing out a search term (keywords or query) on Google.com through his web browser. This is where the fun begins, an Alice in Wonderland moment for our search query.
2) Query processing stage As you start entering your search term, Google tries to complete your query based on closest matching search terms entered by Google users around the world. This is done by a query processor that tries to predict and serve results (Google Instant) off Foofle’s servers.
3) Index Servers After pressing Enter, the query hits Google’s Index servers. index servers are thousands of server farms housed in datacenters located around the globe that record every single webpage on the internet through “spiders”
4) Using Page rank Next up, using page rank technology, the top search results for your query are calculated by document servers.
5) Ad server Google’s Ad server then tries to plug in contextual ads in the search result page.
6) Social As Google prepares to display your search result page, it also checks with facebook and Twitter to see if people are talking socially about your search query. It plugs in these links if necessary.
7) Search Result Viola! within milliseconds, the Document Server’s top 10 search results, Ad sever links, and social elements come together to form the Google search result page.
Ubuntu is a Linux distribution and as they say, Linux is for geeks. Although Ubuntu makes it too easy on you by offering you really nice and cool ways to search and install software, there always is a more sophisticated way to search and install software, there always is a more sophisticated way to do it. To install software from the terminal, you should know the right commands to be used. Before installing the software however, you must get the updated list of software from the Ubuntu servers, at least once. Performing any software install using built in commands for package
management would require internet connection (except when you are removing them).
The most used command for installing software from the command line is ‘apt-get’.
To get the updated list of packages from the Ubuntu servers, run :
sudo apt-get update
This will make Ubuntu contact the servers and fetch the list of software packages and consider them the next time when installing software. So if it happens that someone says that a particular software or some specific version of it is available in the Ubuntu repos but your system does not agree, run an update. Remember however that an update is different from an upgrade. While an update gets only the list of software from the servers, an upgrade will actually get those packages and install them on the machine.If you wonder what the ‘sudo’ command does, it makes you the root user when you enter the command. If you do not use ‘Sudo’ in the begin
ning of the command, the command will fail because it requires admin privileges on machine to install software.
Installation of programs on Ubuntu is also a simple job. You just have to change the action for the apt-get and add in the package name of the software which you want to install.
To install gimp, for example, type this into the terminal:
sudo apt-get install gimp
The above command will automatically find out whether gimp is already installed or not. If it is installed, you will be notified. If it is not installed, apt-get will find out how much data it needs to download in form of software and dependency packages, how much space will it consume on disk after installation and then prompt you if you want to continue. If you think that it is fine to go with, just confirm and it will automatically download, install and update the menus to reflect the changes.
Now if you wonder what if the internet connection break down while downloading packages, let us tell you that you will have to type in the same command again to make Ubuntu complete the installation. Be not worried however because the download will resume exactly from the point where it broke down from.
Another question that would come up when installing software from command line is : How do i search for a particular software package? There is no search bar! Well, as a surprise to many, apt-get does not help you search for packages in Ubuntu repositories, but aptitude does. So install aptitude first.
sudo apt-get install aptitude
After aptitude gets installed, you can search for packages by using the command in format :
aptitude search <package_name>
For example, if you wanted to install chromium but ‘apt-get install chromium’ is saying that the package name is incorrect, you should first search for the exact package name. Once you get to know the name, install the package using apt-get.
sudo apt-get install chromium-browser
Even if every graphical program is failing, you can make use of the terminal and install something new on the machine.
How to update your Ubuntu using terminal aka command line :
If you want to update your Ubuntu in terminal you need to remember a simple command line.
first you need to update the list of new updates available officially by Ubuntu. to do this type :
sudo apt-get update
it will refresh your Ubuntu update list with newly available updates. Then you need to finally run a command to update the system.
sudo apt-get upgrade
you will be asked a confirmation whether you want to update the system along with the information about how much data will be downloaded and what space it will consume on your HDD.
press ‘y’ if you want to update or type ‘n’ (without quote) if you don’t want to update Ubuntu at that time.
Note: when you enter password in terminal, it doesn’t show up like it does in GUI mode (the ” *** “) however the terminal is accepting your inputs it doesn’t show up any significant characters.
We said Ubuntu comes with everything which a home user would need, but we keep coming up with ways to want more! In this section we should show you what Ubuntu comes with and how you could have those things which you do not get in the default package.
What comes pre-installed with Ubuntu?
Ubuntu is a great OS when it comes to ‘install-n-go’ situation. The first reason is that you can run it from USB/CD without installing it. The second reason is the availability of software.
Unlike the default Windows installation which would require a messaging client, an office suite, an antivirus to complete the picture, Ubuntu comes pre-installed with almost everything one needs to get the basic job done.
Web browsing: You have one of the best software available with Ubuntu as default web browser. it is the same software which holds the record for maximum downloaded in 24 hours. it is fast, secure and offers lot of functionality with add-ons. ok, no more riddles, we are talking about Firefox.
PIM: Although we are used to the web mail, there are some cases and people requiring the old email client method to read the email. Outlook you say? Well, we do not have windows in the picture here. nonetheless, the software Ubuntu offers is a great one. it’s called evolution. It can manage your Email, Calendar, Contacts and a few other to-do items. Nice replacement for Outlook; and a free one.
Social: Man is a social element and web has become a social circle. Thanks, to MZ. You can use Gwibber to update your status to both Facebook and Twitter. In case you ask ‘how to tweet’, well it has support to twitter to too!
Office: We have already talked enough about this. LibreOffice can take care of all your needs, almost.
Bit Torrent: This is one technology which has been made infamous largely because of it’s wrong use. However, there is legitimate software, especially free ones which are distributed over bit torrent networks. Ubuntu comes with ‘Transmission’, a simple, intuitive client to take care of torrents.
Chat: Before there was Facebook, there was yahoo messenger. people who belong to the pre-facebook era still are in love with yahoo and Gmail messengers. it allows them to talk to buddies not only in the SMS style but also in the phone and 3G style. Ubuntu’s answer is empathetic. It comes with a chat client called Empathy which facilitates text, voice and video calls over Google and Yahoo (and many, many other) networks.
Music:Windows media player might be the best bet for those who have nothing to do outside of the word ‘MP3’. For some who want fewer restrictions with their music, prefer free codecs. Ubuntu comes with banshee as the music manager which easily takes care of your existing music as well as allows you to purchase new music from Ubuntu store. It however does not play MP3. Do not be disappointed. We give you two reasons : first, you can always ask Ubuntu to get the MP3 and other restricted format codecs; second, their are alternate and most powerful player out their. you can always go for VLC (which 70% of user uses to play any kind of media)
Pictures: If you have shotwell, you will have a nice feature set to help you manage your pictures. Shotwell is the picture album manager with basic editing capabilities to satisfy your needs.
That is much of an exhaustive list but then as we said, Ubuntu does come with the basic software for everyday purpose.
Installing new software packages
Though Ubuntu has everything we would need in our everyday lives, we show you the trick for the one which would be special. Ubuntu categorizes software into the categories according to how open they are. To get the most out of the online software treasures, first enable all available repositories.
To do this, you need to launch the Ubuntu software center. You should find it as the last item of the Application menu in the Gnome shell. In Unity, you can search for it on the dash and you will have it. After the window opens, edit the software sources by clicking the edit menu and then selecting software resources. On the first tab, named Ubuntu software, make sure that all the repositories (main, universe, multi verse and restricted) are enabled. This will give you the most number of options for installing software. After making the changes, close the window. Ubuntu will automatically try to get online and update it’s list of software packages. Once it is done you can search for the software in Ubuntu Software center and install the one which you want.
Not only this, since the new release of Natty Narwhal (version 11.04). Ubuntu software center also facilitates the rating system so that you can get to know how good or bad a software os considered to be in the eyes of those who have used it. However, if you think that a software has been rated by too few people and you believe that it’s the on which can help you complete the task, go ahead and try it (bandwidth meter be in front of your eyes though) and tell others how well it worked.
Once you select software for installation, USC will automatically find out which other packages are needed to make software run and installs them. These additional software packages required to make a particular software run are called dependencies. If you wonder why is it necessary at all, let us get back to the description of /lib directory. We already said that Linux maintains a single set of software libraries. We also gave a sample example where we said that if a software (say a picture management application) wants to use the Bluetooth device connected to the computer, it will have to use the library which can communicate with the hardware and get the work done for software. in this case, the first software (the picture manager application) depends on the Bluetooth library without which it might not work properly. In such a condition, we call the package which provides the Bluetooth library as a dependency for the picture manager application.
Using Ubuntu software Center is not the only way to install new software. For a fine level control, you might have to start up the synaptic package Manager which does the same work as Ubuntu software center. the difference lies in the level of control offered by these two different looking programs. While Ubuntu software center (OK, lets call it USC henceforth) simply shows you the software which you want to install, Synaptic shall show you both the requirements, the dependencies, the size to be downloaded and consumed after the installation of the software, individual file progresses and a lot more options to choose from. Synaptic is for those who understand what software packages are and how to install them. Using synaptic package manager is slightly more difficult than using USC.
i know it’s little difficult for the newbie to get totally used to the new interface and steps to get the job done, but once you are the pro you’d love to be called ‘a Linux user’ .
Next time i will tell you how you can install softwares in Ubuntu in more pro/geeky way.
