Thursday, April 14, 2011

Ten (10) Minutes of Digital Linux-Multitasking

I was bored to death of this long new year holiday and having had a long sleep overdue for sometime switched on the two computers one for my daily work and the other for the downloading of Linux gamers.

One I use regularly is a secondhand IBM overhauled by me into prime condition with two SATA disks.

Other one is one overhauled just two weeks ago with one of my old second hand IBM computer's bare bones (mainly 133 bus speed SDR RAM which I used for the last 4 years, day and night and coming to its terminal stage of life and wanting to say good bye (on off switch is not working properly, graphic card is grumbling at times being unable to bear the load etc) but all the old SDR RAM Cards which I paid a fortune to get the (my ) minimum requirement of 1 GiB in working order, old CD Writer (combo) not much used and a DVD ROM hacked to its optimum use still working.

Now the SDR RAMs which I paid a fortune have no secondhand market value and throwing them into a dustbin was not my intention and roamed all the secondhand dealers in Kandy (looking for a IBM with SDR slots) and found a NetVista with 16 GB Graphic card (but the mother board supporting above 32 and above up to to 512 GB but the vendor selling it cheap, knowing it has no market value) and I was test driving it for buying it at a later date.

While I was doing all that another buyer (probably having minimum of Rs.10,000) without any respect to my age or dignity promptly wanted to buy it for cash on the spot. I took a back step and made a funny wink at the salesmen (by now who are very friendly with me) and said OK and sell it without the stranger form a nearby village knowing it, knowing I can have another later with a new power pack and the agreement of the dealer for providing a 32 GB graphic card (64 GB is the minimum for Linux now).

This incident reminded me of the post Christmas sale and mad rush in London high street where customers almost kill each other (I never went for any of them fearing my life like an Asian going to a English Football Club for a prime football match-unlike cricket of course-where one can get trampled to death by design if not by default- stay at home in London and watched them on TV instead) for a purchase which I wondered how could it happen in a civic society who teaches democratic values to Middle East sheiks.

And to put the story in perspective, I duly purchased the Kit with a 80 GiB IDE fortunately one day before the agreed buy / sell date saving time in my hand in the process (since I managed to get my salary one day before the due date) so that I could fiddle with it (in spite of many security tags they put on inner hardware) and get it in working order to download Linux games during New year holidays.

These are the things I did in 10 minute while K-torrent was downloading to images in two different computers in the background.
1. Copied a 1 GiB image in K3B - WiildLinux which is pretty good.
2. Went through my email answered new year greetings in double quick time.
3. Changed the screen saver on the newly assembled computer and almost ruined the graphic card of 64 GiB with plasma effects and comic strip. Please do not try these extreme graphic effects of Linux on new graphic cards not supporting Linux. You will invariably ruin them in few seconds.

4. Made a cup of tea in between and let it brew.

While my daughter was on Skype and my son watching peoTV on the same DSL line.

In spite of the slow speed of our Telecoms achieving all this is due to digital capability of Linux and not Microsoft.

Can Microsoft boast for same multi- functionality or multitasking?
I doubt very much!

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