Yet another eid!

The fasting days are over. Its time to celebrate another Eid, Id-Ul-Fitr, one of the two important festivals each muslim is allowed to enjoy.
Pictures that come in to mind, when writing about Eid, are the good old Eids spent with our big family. we, my papa, umma and my bro, uncles, aunties and cousins, used to live in a single house, what we call tharavadu. Unlike the current nuclear families, it brings in a lot of joyous moments, love and care to your life.

We usually used to celebrate eid in a modest way with no extravaganza.New clothes and footwares are always an importartant part of the festival.unlike ready made stuff me and bro used to get our pants and shirts stiched and the footware usually would be uncle’s gift. Its a pleasure to stay awake in the night before eid, with no reasons some times, until mom pushes me and bro to bed.we’d wait for uncle to get some crackers in the night which we really enjoyed during those days.

The prayer in the morning used to be by around 7 in our mosque on the day of id-ul-fitr. we’d have some cake or sweets bought by uncle to have just before we leave to the mosque. Kochappa (My Uncle) would have few 100 rs note in pocket to gave away to all of us as ’sakat’ before starting to mosqu, well that was a huge amount for us :)

Previously, we used to have ‘eidkhah’ ,  an open shed like construction with temporary arrangements for prayer, just near to home.  Due to lack of space, the mosque committee was forced to shift the eidkhah to a small ground in front of a madrassa in our locality for the past few years.Once the prayer is over, an invited Imam would give away a short speech (qutuba) on the importance of day and gives advises. Everyone would pass wishes and hug each other on the eve of eid.

I’d visit few of my relatives houses near by after having the breakfast. Its a part of the festivel, you got to visit your relatives especially those who are sick .Well, the most imprtant part is the lunch on eid day :D. we’d have chicken biriyani usually along with other dishes. Me and bro,after the food, would set to kadalundy, my moms place to visit my grandma and uncles whom I always love being with. Fact is, whenever me and bro visit kadalundi, umma and pappa would have hard times to bring us back :) .I’ll be posting about kadalundi shortly.

Time just passed away and now, for this eid, I’m in bangalore along with work. I dint get to take leave due to some circumstances and had to stay back. Well, eid would hardly be complete for umma without us. In fact, I’ve had a couple of eids away from home. once when I was in coimbatore and once when I was in B’lore itself last time. Anyway, for the next eid, I’ll, for sure, be home to celebrate it at full fledge with all :)

Linuxsys

Here’s a short tutorial on ‘what and how powerful linux is’
The story starts here!

I should mention what GNU/Free software is before explaining Linux

Richard Stallman, who was working in Massachusetts Institute of Technology, came up with the concept of free software in early 1970’s. He always pointed out that the term ‘FREE’,means ‘freedom’, not zero cost.Now that we have some free softwares to work with, but the core of a machine - kernal was still in the hands of microsoft or mac.

After 6 years from this, Linux tourwald, a student of University of Helsinki, made some improvements on ‘Minix’, a linux based operating system developed by Andrew Tanenbaum, and that triggered a new era of free computing! .

unix was not free, which made Massachusetts to create GNU, a modification of unix.Now tourwald have a kernel of its own, and Massachusetts has a set of free programs - GNU.So combining the necessary programs provided by GNU in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a kernel, developed by Linus Torvalds in Helsinki, Finland, Linux was born. Due to the physical distances involved, the means used to get Linus’ kernel together with the GNU programs was the Internet

in late 1991, linux had his kernel clubbed with GNU and started showing people- `what linux is?`
The following lines were enough and more to attract leading developers and programmers to linux

“Are you without a nice project and dying to cut your teeth on an OS you can try to modify for your needs?… This post might just be for you.”

people began writing programs specifically to be run under Linux. Developers began writing drivers so different video cards, sound cards and other gadgets inside and outside your computer could use Linux.

linux had no proper document to install etc in the beginning as it was developed by torwald just as a hobby.This caused less reachebility to ordinary people . Also the writers who wrote about linux werent ‘to the point’.Later, companies like redhat wrapped the needfull components via kernal and GNU programs and an easy to install form.

Linux is available in various flavours - distributions suiting your needs.A number of companies, organizations and individuals have developed their own “versions” of the Linux operating system, known as distributions.

A pretty nice documentation for biginners is available here