0 GOD'S OWN COUNTRY

Kerala (Malayalam: കേരളം?; Kēraḷaṁ) is a state located in southwestern India. Neighbouring states include Karnataka to the north and Tamil Nadu to the south and east, and the Arabian sea is to the west. Major cities include the state capital of Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Kollam, Palakkad, Thrissur, Kozhikode and Kannur. Malayalam is the principal spoken language.
A 3rd-century-BC rock inscription by emperor Asoka the Great attests to a Keralaputra.[2] Around 1 BC the region was ruled by the Chera Dynasty, which traded with the Greeks, Romans and Arabs. The Tamil Chera dynasty, Ays and the Pandyan Kingdom were the traditional rulers of Kerala whose patriarchal dynasties ruled until the 14th century AD. Pliny the Elder who visited Kerala in the first century AC reported in his book Natural History (Pliny) that the Northern Kerala was ruled by the Chera Kings while the southern Kerala was ruled by Pandyan Kingdom who had the capital at Nelcynda with port at Porakkad (Ambalapuzha).[3][4] The Dravidian Villavar tribe which established the Chera Kingdom were Patriarchal in descendency. Ay kings ruled southern Kerala. The Later Chera Kingdom otherwise called the Kulasekhara dynasty was founded by King Kulasekhara Alwar who is considered as a Vaishnavaite saint. After the repeated attacks of Rashtrakutas in the end of first millennium the northernmost portions of Kerala. Later Chera dynasty came to an end weakened by the Rashtrakuta and Chola invaders.
Feudal Namboothiri Brahmin and Nair city-states subsequently gained control of the region.[5] Kolla Varsham or Malayalam Era, which is assumed to have been established by King Udaya Marthanda Varma, King of Kollam, in 825 AD, serves as the official calendar of Kerala.[6] Early contact with Europeans gave way to struggles between colonial and native interests. Kerala state was created on 1 November 1956 via the States Reorganisation Act which merged the former state of Travancore-Cochin, Malabar district of the former Madras State, and Kasaragod taluk of Dakshina Kannada.
The state has a 91 percent literacy rate, among the highest in India. A survey conducted in 2005 by Transparency International ranked Kerala as the least corrupt state in the country.[8] Kerala has witnessed significant migration of its people, especially to the Gulf countries, starting with the Kerala Gulf boom, and is uniquely dependent on remittances from its large Malayali expatriate community. Kerala has the lowest rate of population growth in India, with a fertility rate of 1.6 per parents.

source(Wikipedia.org)

visit officiel website of government of Kerala:http://www.kerala.gov.in/

0 Dream Linux - Fresh Linux For Old Computers

DREAM LINUX - Fresh Linux For Old Computers






Dreamlinux Burn/Boot Tutorial
After download of the Dreamlinux CD/DVD
Verify that the md5sum for the ISO corresponds with the md5sum listed alongside the download link! If it does not, download again and again and again (perhaps from different sources) until you have a valid copy in your download folder.
Make sure that you select "Burn disk from image" or something similar in your burning app - do NOT put the ISO image onto the disk and burn it as a regular data disk.
To get the best result, make sure that the media you use is regular CD-R/DVD+-R. Do NOT use CD-RW/DVD+-RW, those are OK for regular use but NOT for an operating system.
Burn the ISO to disk with the slowest speed that your burning application can provide.
Scenario ATry to boot your burned CD/DVD (boot is halted almost instantly)
Grab a pen and a piece of paper!
As a rule of thumb; have only one CD-ROM connected to the computer when trying to boot - preferably an internal P-ATA/IDE drive (more about this further down).
A second rule of thumb; Unplug any USB storage devices that you do not need right now.
If you are unable to load the Live CD, i.e. it boots but stops the loading process very early with some cryptical error message about kernel panic or unable to mount filesystem:- You did verify the md5sum, right?- And you also burned at the slowest speed possible on regular media, right?
- Take a note of those error messages for future reference, it is much easier to help you sort things out if others can get access to that info - none of the forum users are mindreaders - some may have x-ray specs, but that is a whole different story...
What you could try before asking for help (not that questions aren't welcome, but sorting things out by oneself IS always a small personal victory;)):- If it is an IDE drive, open up your computer and swap the IDE cable for the CD-ROM with the one for the hard drive and try to boot again (this may lead to an already installed Linux/Solaris/BSD system not booting. No worries, you can easily swap back to get to your system - this is only for troubleshooting) As for Windows, its own bootloader happily boots from anywhere as long as Windows is on the first hard drive/partition in the chain. If there is no hard drive on the IDE connector then just plug the CD-ROM into the other (or third) IDE slot - make sure the CD-ROM is attached to the end of the cable, not to middle contact. Make a note of the changes you made and start up the computer.
- If it is an IDE or SATA drive, enter bios by holding down the [Del] key while booting (some computers uses the [F2] key, there should be a message in the lower part of the POST screen that indicates what key to use). Inside the BIOS you change the boot order for removable/optical/fixed disks. There may also be settings for SATA that can be switched between IDE mode/Compatible mode/Enhanced mode, you could try out these different settings too (changing these settings will make the BIOS hand over info to the bootloader in different ways - sda could become hda etc...). Make a note of what the initial settings are, you may want to switch back to them later. Save and exit, the computer will reboot.
- If it is a SATA drive, check to see if there is another controller on the motherboard that can be used - You will usually get this info from the manual that came with the board, or you could search the net for the model name and number of the board. Switching cables around on the same controller usually has no effect, but that depends on how well behaved the BIOS is - Some BIOSes hands over their info to the bootloader in a peculiar way so you could try this approach as well. Make a note of the changes you made and start up the computer.
- If it is an external USB drive, you may be out of luck. You could try to borrow an internal IDE drive from a friend/family member/neighbour just to get the system installed.
- Please note; any and all of the above modifications can be made to test this out - they are not mutually exclusive. Just remember to take notes so you can get your system back if anything breaks!
If none of the above made any difference, or you don't really feel like performing surgery on your computer, start a new thread inside "Live CD Boot Up Support" http://dreamlinuxforums.org/index.php/board,31.0.html and supply relevant info about your setup (if possible; motherboard make and model, type of internal/external peripherials connected to the system, amount of RAM etc). Someone may have a solution for you involving installing Dreamlinux on a USB stick on another computer and use that stick to boot yours - or something completely different, what do I know. Just remember; when posting, start a new thread even though you see a thread with the exact same questions as you want to ask.
Scenario BThe system fully boots but you cannot get to the desktop (Xserver error)
Grab a pen and a piece of paper!
This is when you only get a black screen with lots of text, some of it saying something about not being able to load the Xserver. Or maybe no error message at all, it just hangs there with a line stating that it is starting the Xserver. Take a note of those last lines.
You may also get a blue background with an error note, if that is the case just hit enter to see the message log and take a note of what the problem is (usually you will find the essentials in the last three or four lines) Continue hitting the enter key till there are no more messages.
This is caused by Dreamlinux not recognizing your graphics card/chip or/and the placement of the card/chip on the PCI bus.
- Hit [Ctrl][Alt][F1] or [F2] to get a fresh console.Login with:user: dreamerpassword: dream
- FYI: Linux is cAsE sensitive. i.e. x11 is NOT the same as X11
First of all, identify the PCI bus listing of the card/chip:issue the following command:Code:
lspci
look for a line containing "VGA compatible controller"make a note of the numbers in front of that linee.g. if the numbers are 02:00:0 that will translate to 2:0:0 inside xorg.conf
Next, edit the xorg.conf file:
- Solution #1 (edit xorg.conf with Midnight Commander):issue the following command:Code:
sudo mc
navigate to /etc/X11/xorg.confhit [F4] to edit the fileChange the statement with Driver "name_of_driver_here"to Driver "vesa"If the PCI statement is different from what you translated out of the lspci command, change it to the proper BUS ID - e.g. PCI:2:0:0If there is no BusID PCI:x:x:x statement, leave it at that for nowplease take a note of what it says before you change ithit [F2] to save the file and [F10] to exitissue the following command:Code:
startx
Hopefully this will bring you to the desktop
- Solution #2 (edit xorg.conf with Nano):issue the following command:Code:
sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Change the statement with Driver "name_of_driver_here"to Driver "vesa"If the PCI statement is different from what you translated out of the lspci command, change it to the proper BUS ID - e.g. PCI:2:0:0If there is no BusID PCI:x:x:x statement, leave it at that for nowplease take a note of what it says before you change ithit [Ctrl] X and then y to save and exitissue the following command:Code:
startx
Hopefully this will bring you to the desktop
- Solution #3 (reconfigure the Xserver):(does not give you the choice of editing the PCI statement, may be done automagically?)issue the following command:Code:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
select whatever is default except for the graphics driver - here you select VESAcontinue with defaults until you are back at the command lineissue the following command:Code:
startx
Hopefully this will... yadda yadda yadda
- If none of the above helps, you could try Solution #1 or #2 again, but this time add this inside Section "Device"BusID "PCI:x:x:x"where x:x:x would be the numbers translated from the lspci command
- If still no go, I am sure you are glad that you acquired that pen and pencil. Now you can easily transfer your scribbling to "Live CD Boot Up Support" http://dreamlinuxforums.org/index.php/board,31.0.html Just remember; when posting, start a new thread even though you see a thread with the exact same questions as you want to ask.
Scenario CYou make it to the desktop (hooraay!!!)
- Please do post about any error messages even if you manage to successfully boot going via scenario B - the info you provide can come in handy for the developers.

Remember, the forum has an excellent search function - use it from the front page and you will be amazed/enlightened/puzzled/or_just_plain_frustrated!
For more Go To:http://www.dreamlinux.com.br/tutorials.html

0 LINUX ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

Environment variables provide a way to influence the behavior of software on the system. For example, the "LANG" environment variable determines the language in which software programs communicate with the user. 

Environment variables consist of names that have values assigned to them. For example, on a typical system in the US we would have the value "en_US.UTF-8" assigned to the "LANG" variable. 

The meaning of an environment variable and the format of its value are determined by the application using it. There are quite a few well-known environment variables for which the meaning and the format have been agreed upon and they are used by many applications. 

Manipulating environment variables and values

While quite a few graphical system configuration applications actually manipulate environment variables in the background, the command-line allows for maximum flexibility when manipulating environment variables. 

Note: The shell techniques explained in the following sections apply to the Bourne Shell family of command line shells, which includes sh, ksh, and bash, which is the default shell shipped with Ubuntu. The commands may be different on other shells such as csh. 

Setting values to environment variables

In order to set a value to an existing environment variable, we use an assignment expression. For instance, to set the value of the "LANG" variable to "he_IL.UTF-8", we use the following command: 
LANG=he_IL.UTF-8

If we use an assignment expression for a variable that doesn't exist, the shell will create a shell variable, which is similar to an environment variable but does not influence the behavior of other applications. 

A shell variable can be exported to become an environment variable with the export command To create the "EDITOR" environment variable and assign the value "nano" to it. 

There are several ways to accomplish this. However, we will use the following formats: 

EDITOR=nano
export EDITOR

The bash shell (the default command-line shell in Ubuntu) provides a shortcut for creating environment variables. The previous example could be be performed with the following single command: 
export EDITOR=nano

Examining values of environment variables

The printenv command prints the names and values of all currently defined environment variables: 
printenv 

To examine the value of a particular variable, we can specify its name to the printenv command: 
printenv TERM

Another way to achieve that is to use the dollar sign ($), as used in the following example: 
echo $TERM

There is a command for doing temporary, short-term changes to the environment. It can also be used to display the current environment. This command is env. 
env

The dollar sign can actually be used to combine the values of environment variables in many shell commands. For example, the following command can be used to list the contents of the "Desktop" directory within the current user's home directory. 
ls $HOME/Desktop

Erasing environment variables

While simply setting an empty value to an environment variable, as shown in the example below, may nullify its effect in most cases, there are a few variables such as "POSIXLY_CORRECT" whose mere existence, even with an empty value, influences the behavior of programs. 
export LC_ALL=

The unset command can be used in order to completely erase the existence of an environment variable: 
unset LC_ALL

It is also possible to use the "-n" switch to the export command in order un-export an environment variable and therefore demote it to become a shell variable while preserving its value. 
export -n LC_ALL

Working principles of environment variables

A few simple principles govern how environment variables work and achieve their effect. 

Process locality

The values of environment variables are local, which means they are specific to the running process in or for which they were set. This means that if we open two terminal windows (which means we have two separate bash processes running), and change a value of an environment variable in one of the windows, that change will not be seen by the shell in the other window or any other program currently on the desktop. 

Inheritance

When a parent process creates a child process, for example when we run the "gedit" command from the terminal and "bash" (the parent process) creates "gedit" (the child process), the child process inherits all the environment variables and values the parent process had. 

This means that if we set a new value to the "LANG" environment variable in the terminal, and then run "gedit" from that same terminal, "gedit" will inherit the new value of "LANG", and therefore may display in a different language than the rest of the processes on the desktop. 

Note that because of the Process Locality principle explained above, once we run Gedit, changes to environment variables of the parent process will not be seen by the child process and vice-versa. 

Note: in the Gnome graphical desktop environment, gnome-session is the parent process of all the processes running on the desktop. This fact (along with the Inheritance principle) is the key to our ability to powerfully influence the operation of our desktop with environment variables. The equivalent process in KDE is kde-session. 

Case sensitivity

The names of environment variables are case sensitive. This means that lang is not the same variable as LANG, Lang, or laNg. 

It is a common practice to name all environment variables with only English capital letters and underscore (_) signs. 

Bash's quick assignment and inheritance trick

The bash shell has a trick to allow us to set one or more environment variables and run a child process with single command. For example, in order to set the "LANG" and "FOO" environment variables and then run "gedit", we would use the following command: 
LANG=he_IL.UTF-8 FOO=bar gedit

Note: When using this command, the new values are only assigned to the environment variables of the child process (in this case gedit). The variables of the shell retain their original values. For instance, in the example above, the value of "LANG" will not change from its original value, as far as subsequent commands to the shell are concerned. 

A similar behavior can be achieved with other shells by using the env command. 

Persistent environment variables

So far we've only discussed ways set an environment variable value temporarily until the shell session in which it was set is closed. One may wonder if there is a way to somehow permanently set an environment variable to a certain value. 

The way to achieve that is to place a command setting an environment variable value in one of the script files that get executed automatically in one of the stages of the system and user's session startup processes. Along with the inheritance principle, this ensures the value is seen by applications loaded at later stages. 

Session-wide environment variables

In order to set environment variables in a way that affects a user's entire desktop session, one may place commands to set their values in one of the "hidden" script files in the user's home directory. The more common such files are outlined below. 

~/.profile - This is probably the best file for placing environment variable assignments in, since it gets executed automatically by the DisplayManager during the startup process desktop session as well as by the login shell when one logs-in from the textual console. 

~/.bash_profile or ~./bash_login - If one of these file exist, bash executes it rather then "~/.profile" when it is started as a login shell. (Bash will prefer "~/.bash_profile" to "~/.bash_login"). However, these files won't influence a graphical session by default. 

~/.bashrc - Because of the way Ubuntu currently sets up the various script files by default, this may be the easiest place to set variables in. The default configuration nearly guarantees that this file will be executed in each and every invocation of bash as well as while logging in to the graphical environment. However, performance-wise this may not be the best thing to do since it will cause values to be unnecessarily set many times. 

System-wide environment variables

Environment variable settings that affect the system as a whole (rather then just a particular user's desktop session) can be placed in any of the many system-level scripts that get executed when the system or the desktop session are loaded. Ubuntu defines several locations dedicated to placing such settings: 

/etc/profile - This file gets executed whenever a bash login shell is entered (e.g. when logging in from the console or over ssh), as well well as by the DisplayManager when the desktop session loads. This is probably the file you will get referred to when asking veteran UNIX system administrators about environment variables. In Ubuntu, however, this file does little more then invoke the /etc/bash.bashrc file. 

/etc/bash.bashrc - This is is the system-wide version of the ~/.bashrc file. Ubuntu is configured by default to execute this file whenever a user enters a shell or the desktop environment. 

/etc/environment - This file is specifically meant for system-wide environment variable settings. It is not a script file, but rather consists of assignment expressions, one per line. Specifically, this file stores the system-wide locale and path settings. 

Note: When dealing with end-user/home desktop systems it is probably best to place settings in the session-wide files discussed above rather then the system-wide ones since those files do not require one to utilize root privileges in order to edit. 

List of common environment variables

Each application is free to define and use its own environment variables. Many manual pages include long lists of environment variables that can effect the behavior of the application they describe. However, the most useful variables are common to many applications. 

File-location related variables

The following variables determine how the system locates various files in order to operate. 
Variable 
Value Examples 
What it's for

PATH 
/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin 
When you type a command to run, the system looks for it in the directories specified by PATH in the order specified

MANPATH 
/usr/share/man:/usr/local/man 
List of directories for the system to search manual pages in

LD_LIBRARY_PATH 
/opt/app/oracle/lib 
List of directories where the system searches for runtime libraries in addition to those hard-defined in ld and in /etc/ld.so.conf

TMPDIR 
/var/tmp 
The directory used for temporary file creation by several programs


Locale setting variables

The following environment variables determine the locale-related behavior of the systems such as the language of messages sent to the user and the way times and dates are presented. 

The values that can assigned to the locale environment variables are names of locale setting packages installed on the system. To see which such packages are installed on the system, one can use the locale -a command. Locale setting packages can be generated with the locale-gen command. However, Ubuntu includes pre-generated locale setting packages in the language-pack packages available within the package management system. 
Variable 
What it's for

LANG 
The basic language setting used by applications on the system, unless overridden by one of the other locale environment variables

LC_CTYPE 
The character set used to display and input text

LC_NUMERIC 
How non-monetary numeric values are formatted on screen

LC_TIME 
How date and time values are formatted

LC_COLLATE 
How to sort various information items (e.g. defines the order of the alphabet so items can be ordered alphabetically by the sort command)

LC_MONETARY 
How monetary numeric values are formatted

LC_MESSAGES 
Which language is to display messages to the end user

LC_PAPER 
Definitions of paper formats and standards

LC_NAME 
How names are formatted

LC_ADDRESS 
How to display address information

LC_TELEPHONE 
How telephone numbers are structured

LC_MEASUREMENT 
What units of measurement are used

LC_IDENTIFICATION 

LC_ALL 
This variable serves as a powerful override over all the other locale environment variables. When its value is set, applications use that value to determine which locale settings to use regardless of the values of the other variables


By utilizing various combinations of settings for the locale variables, you can make interesting tweaks to the behavior of your system. For example, you can make your system display message in US-English while using number, date, and measurement formats that are more common to European countries. 

The locale variables can effectively override each other's value in some combinations. Therefore examining the values of the variables themselves may not always provide clear indication of how the system will behave. The locale command can be used to examine what the effective values are to the applications. 

Preferred application variables

These environment variables indicate to various programs what the user's preferred applications are for performing certain tasks. 

These variables are typically not respected by GUI applications that tend to include their own built-in text display windows and editors. Most desktop environments also contain their own preferred application selection system. 
Variable 
Value Examples 
What it's for

PAGER 
/usr/bin/less 
The name of the utility used to display long text by commands such as man.

EDITOR 
/usr/bin/nano 
The name of the user's preferred text editor. Used by programs such as the mutt mail client and sudoedit.

VISUAL 
/usr/bin/gedit 
Similar to the "EDITOR" environment variable, applications typically try the value in this variable first before falling back to "EDITOR" if it isn't set.

BROWSER 
/usr/bin/lynx 
The name of the user's preferred web browser. This variable is arguably less common then the rest


Graphical desktop-related variables

Variable 
Value Examples 
What it's for

DISPLAY 
:0.0
localhost:10.0
terminal01:0.0 
This variable is used to indicate to graphical applications where to display the actual graphical user interface, the value consists of 3 parts: A host-name followed by a colon (:), a display number followed by a dot (.) and a screen number. The host-name part can be used to have the graphical output sent to a remote machine over the network. It can be omitted when the output is meant for an X server running on the local machine. The display number allows selecting among multiple X servers running on the same machine (Ubuntu uses multiple X servers to enable multiple graphical desktop sessions). Although the screen number is used to select among multiple physical screen that are managed by the same X server, it is rarely set to anything other then "0" nowadays. Manually setting the "DISPLAY" environment variable's value is rarely needed nowadays since it can be automatically and intelligently adjusted by many applications such as "GDM" and "SSH" when needed.

XDG_DATA_HOME 
~/.local/share 
Indicates to applications that conform to the freedesktop.org specifications, where to place the user's private data. This variable is typically unset since a sensible default fall-back value was defined by the specifications.

XDG_CONFIG_HOME 
~/.local/share 
Indicates to applications that conform to the freedesktop.org specifications, where to place the user's configuration information. This variable is typically unset since a sensible default fall-back value was defined by the specifications.

XDG_DATA_DIRS 
/usr/local/share:/usr/share 
A colon-separated list (similar to "PATH") of directories where data is searched for by applications that conform to the freedesktop.org specifications. This variable is typically unset since a sensible default fall-back value was defined by the specifications.

XDG_CONFIG_DIRS 
/etc/xdg 
A colon-separated list (similar to "PATH") of directories where configuration information is searched for by applications that conform to the freedesktop.org specifications. This variable is typically unset since a sensible default fall-back value was defined by the specifications.

XDG_CACHE_HOME 
~/.cache 
A location used by applications that conform to the freedesktop.org specifications to cache temporary data. This variable is typically unset since a sensible default fall-back value was defined by the specifications.


Gnome-specific variables

Variable 
Value Examples 
What it's for

NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_SELECTED_FILE_PATHS 
/home/ifireball/about.html 
This environment variable is set by Nautilus, the Gnome file manager, to a newline-delimited list of the currently selected files, when a script is invoked from the right-click menu. This variable is only set if the files are local, e.g. not from a network share or an SSH connection

NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_SELECTED_URIS 
file:///home/ifireball/about.html 
This environment variable is set by Nautilus to a newline-delimited list of the URI addresses of the currently selected files, when a script is invoked from the right-click menu.

NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_CURRENT_URI 
file:///home/ifireball 
This environment variable is set to the URI address of the location currently displayed by the Nautilus window, when a script is invoked from the right-click menu.

NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_WINDOW_GEOMETRY 
828x511+251+342 
This environment variable is set to the on-screen position of the Nautilus window, when a script is invoked from the right-click menu.


Program execution variables

Arguably the most powerful (but dangerous) environment variables, the following allow tweaking the basic way software actually runs. 
Variable 
Value Examples 
What it's for

LD_PRELOAD 
/usr/lib/valgrind.so 
This variable can be used to inject a custom dynamic library into an application's memory when it loads. It can be used to do things like replacing the application's built-in memory allocation library with a debugging version in order to detect memory leaks. It can also be used to override the way it does various things like play sounds.


Compilation and software development related variables

Variable 
Value Examples 
What it's for

CC 
gcc  
The name of the C compiler to use 

CFLAGS 
-o out.o  
A list of debugging/optimization flags to pass to the C compiler 

CXXFLAGS 
-Wall  
A list of debugging/optimization flags to pass to the C++ compiler 

CPPFLAGS 
-DDEBUG  
A list of flags to pass to the C/C++ pre-processor/compiler 

LIBRARY_PATH 
/usr/lib/firefox  
A list of directories (separated by colons) in which library files should be searched for 

INCLUDE 
/opt/app/src/include  
A colon-separated list of directories in which header files should be searched for 

CPATH 
..:$HOME/include:/usr/local/include  
A colon-separated list of directories in which header files should be searched for 


Other environment variables

Variable 
Value Examples 
What it's for

USER 
myuser1 
The name of the currently logged-in user. This variable is set by the system. You probably shouldn't change its value manually.

LOGNAME 
myuser1 
Similar to "USER", some programs prefer to read this variable rather than USER.

HOME 
/home/myuser1 
The location of the currently logged-in user's home directory.

PWD 
/home/myuser1/Desktop 
The current working directory of the shell.

SHELL 
/bin/bash 
The user's preferred command-line shell as it is set in the /etc/passwd file.

POSIXLY_CORRECT 
N/A 
If this environment variable exists, regardless of its value, it causes the behavior of quite a few utilities to more closely match the behavior defined by the POSIX standard. This typically makes various GNU extensions that make life easier not work, but it may just be what's needed to make an old UNIX script execute successfully.

HOSTALIASES 
/etc/host.aliases 
The name of a file containing host-name aliases for use with various network programs.

TZDIR 
/usr/share/zoneinfo 
The path of the directory containing time-zone information files. This typically does not need to be set manually, as the system searches for such files in /usr/share/zoneinfo by default.

TZ 
IST-2
:Japan 
This variable was used by older UNIX systems to specify the system's time-zone. However, Ubuntu and most other modern systems use the /etc/localtime file for that purpose. This variable can, however, be used to make one user's particular session display times in a different timezone than the rest of the system.
The value of this variable can either be the name and offset of a time-zone (as seen in the first example) or the name of a zone-info file in /usr/share/zoneinfo (as seen in the second example).

TERM 
xterm 
The name of a terminal information file from /lib/terminfo, this file instructs terminal programs how to achieve things such as displaying color. It may help to fiddle with this variable if you're trying use an odd terminal emulator program or trying to connect a hardware serial-port terminal emulator and getting undesired results.

TERMCAP 
 
This variable can be used instead of "TERM" to manually specify terminal information rather than point to a file.

COLUMNS 
80 
The number of text columns in the terminal window. Try adjusting this variable if lines don't seem to wrap properly in the console.

LINES 
25 
The number of text lines on the console window. Try adjusting this variable if you're getting strange results when scrolling text.