Friday, February 28, 2025

QiLinux

QiLinux

Web site: www.qilinux.org (not active)
Origin: Italy
Category: Desktop
Desktop environment: KDE
Architecture: x86
Based on: Independent
Wikipedia (IT): QiLinux
Media:
The last version | Released: 2.0 | August 1, 2006

QiLinux – an Italian Linux distribution born in Turin and made completely from scratch for desktop, server and enterprise server.

QiLinux project aim is to integrate the work of the vast community of free software developers in order to create a modern, performant, safe and easy to use system for system administrators and desktop users.
Sponsored and maintained by QiNet company it is released according to GNU General Public License.

QiLinux Docet was an Italian Educational Live Cd based on QiLinux, for Italian-speaking Schools.
It provides educational plays, applications and exercises on school subjects like Maths, Geography, Geometry, Chemistry, Science, Italian, foreign languages, Technical Graphics, etc. QiLinux Docet includes the OpenOffice 2.0 Suite, development programmation areas, internet access configuration, and other multimedial functions.

Openmamba GNU/Linux

Openmamba GNU/Linux

Web site: openmamba.org
Origin: Italy
Category: Desktop
Desktop environment: KDE, GNOME, LXDE
Architecture: x86, x86_64
Based on: Independent
Wikipedia:
Media: Live DVD
The last version | Released: active
Zobacz po polsku Zobacz po polsku: openmamba GNU/Linux

openmamba GNU/Linux – an independent developed GNU/Linux distribution for personal (laptops, desktops, servers), and single-board computers.

It offers out-of-the box support for proprietary graphics drivers, wireless network cards, multimedia codecs and 3D desktop effects.

openmamba has roots in the discontinued QiLinux project, and uses APT and Synaptic as a package management tools for RMP packages.
The live system is available in following flavours: KDE, GNOME and Light (LXDE), as a LiveCD or bigger in size LiveDVD. The live system can be installed onto a hard drive using Calamares Installer.

The Live DVD includes a large set of open source applications, such as: Amarok audio player, Chromium web browser, VLC Media Player, Kaffeine video player, Miro, DVD Style, Clementine audio player, Ardour digital audio workstation, Blender 3D modeller, GIMP, digiKam, showFoto, UFRaw RAW image converter, aMule P2P, FileZilla.

Qimo 4 Kids

Qimo 4 Kids

Web site: qimo4kids.com (not active)
Origin: USA
Category: Education
Desktop environment: Xfce
Architecture: x86
Based on: Ubuntu
Wikipedia:
Media: Live CD
The last version | Released: 2.0 | May 27, 2010
Zobacz po polsku Zobacz po polsku: Qimo 4 Kids

Qimo 4 Kids – a Linux distribution designed for young users from 3 years old and above.

Qimo is built on the top of Xubuntu and uses the Xfce desktop environment as default.
It provides a large icon’s bottom panel for easy navigation for children.

Qimo features pre-installed educational games for kids: Childspaly, Laby, TuxPaint, eToys, GCompris, Tuxmath, and Tuxtyping.

Qimo 4 Kids was developing between 2009(?) and 2010 by Michelle Hall.
The last version of Qimo 2.0 is based on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx.

Red Star OS

Red Star OS


Web site: www.naenara.com.kp/en/kcc/ (not active)
Origin: North Korea
Category: Desktop
Desktop environment: KDE
Architecture: x86
Based on: Fedora (?)
Wikipedia: Red Star OS
Media: Install DVD
The last version | Released: 3.0 | 2014
Zobacz po polsku Zobacz po polsku: Red Star OS

Red Star OS – a North Korean Linux based operating system, developed at the Korea Computer Center (KCC).

The Korea Computer Center (KCC), the leading IT R& D base of the DPRK, was founded on October 24, 1990 under the careful guidance of President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il.
It develops and supplies software and hardware products for various fields such as operating system, computer network, control & signal processing, biosignal processing and information security and supports software development for important national projects.

Red Star 3.0 uses KDE 3 desktop environment, which was customized to look like Mac OSX desktop.
It features modified Mozilla Firefox browser called Naenara, to browse internet network known as Kwangmyong, and other apps such as: text editor, an e-mail client, audio and video players, games, and Wine which allows Windows programs to be run under Linux.

TrueOS

It erased my NUC in a Flash.

In a way, It was a good accident and this is the third time it happened to me. 

My NUC was full with Linux Iso Images of the past which were without ESP so I cannot boot them from a USB stick.

By the way I fogeot to download Gnome-BOX Utility.

TrueOS
This is the Distribution I used to erase all the traces of Microsoft Windows. Who says there are no alternatives to Apple Mac and Microsoft windows. I here having done all the damage next Microsoft OS is based on Linux Code. 

If YOU cannot kill embrace is a war time phrase.

Web site: trueos.org (not active)
Origin: USA
Category: Server
Desktop environment: CLI
Architecture: x86_64
Based on: FreeBSD
Wikipedia: TrueOS
Media: Install DVD/USB
The last version | Released: 18.12 ? | December 15, 2018
Zobacz po polsku Zobacz po polsku: TrueOS

TrueOS – an open-source Unix-like, server-oriented FreeBSD based operating system. The project started as the PC-BSD project.

TrueOS was also able to run Linux software, in addition to FreeBSD Ports collection, and it had its own .txz package manager. TrueOS supported OpenZFS, and the installer offered disk encryption with geli.

The project founder is Kris Moore.
It was under active development between 2016 and 2018, and finished in 2020.

OpenSolaris

 OpenSolaris
August 8, 2015 by pavroo

Last Updated on: 4th May 2023, 12:05 pm

Web site: www.opensolaris.org (not active)
Origin: USA
Category: Desktop
Desktop environment: GNOME
Architecture: x86, x86_64, ARM, PowerPC, SPARC
Based on: Solaris
Wikipedia: OpenSolaris
Media: Live CD
The last version | Released: 2009.06 | June 1, 2009

OpenSolaris – an open source operating system based on Solaris created by Sun Microsystems. OpenSolaris is a descendant of the UNIX System V Release 4 (SVR4) code base developed by Sun and AT&T in the late 1980s. It was based on Solaris, which was originally released by Sun in 1991.

OpenSolaris uses a network-based package management system “Image Packaging System” (pkg(5)), which could add, remove, and manage installed software and to update to newer releases. It includes a set of free applications, including popular desktop (GNOME 2) and server software.

In 2010, after the acquisition of Sun Microsystems, Oracle stopped open development of the system, and replaced the OpenSolaris with the proprietary Solaris Express. On September 13, 2010 Steven Stallion announcement at his blog, that the development of OpenSolaris is finished.

A group of former OpenSolaris developers forked the core software under the new name OpenIndiana, which is a part of the Illumos Foundation.

There are a few forks based on OpenSolaris, such as: BeleniX, EON ZFS Storage, Illumos, Jaris OS, MartUX, MilaX, Nexenta OS, NexentaStor, OpenIndiana, OpenSXCE, SchilliX, SmartOS, StormOS.

PC-BSD

When I had problem with my Laptop BIOS locked Up by Microsoft Guys I used BSD on a Live CD and erased everything. It used TureOS now gone dormant. That Laptop has Endless OS installed. I did not continue on BSD since it lacked software application, 20 years ago and is true to this day. 

However, I liked the Illumos Desktop.

PC-BSD

Web site: pcbsd.org (not active)
Origin: USA
Category: Desktop, Server
Desktop environment: Lumina
Architecture: x86, x86_64
Based on: FreeBSD
Wikipedia: TrueOS
Media: Install
The last version | Released: 10.3 | April 4, 2016
Zobacz po polsku Zobacz po polsku: TrueOS

PC-BSD – an open-source operating system based on FreeBSD and fully compatible with it. PC-BSD is easy to use and targeted to home and office users.

It has an easy-to-use graphical installer, the default environment is KDE, but the installer (since version 9.0) also offers GNOME, LXDE and Xfce desktops. From 2014, the project developed own, Qt based with Fluxbox window manager, desktop environment called Lumina.

PC-BSD uses the “.pbi” packages. The package manager allows you to install packages with dependencies as well.
Unlike FreeBSD and Linux, the “.pbi” packages contain all the libraries needed to run the program, so the manager installs each one separately.
The advantage of this policy is ease of installing packages, the disadvantage of their large size.

PC-BSD was offered in form of hybrid DVD/USB installation media.

In August 2016, PC-BSD changed its name to TrueOS and is a rolling release operating system.

The project founder is Kris Moore.

Scary Dream about Ceylon

Scary Dream about Ceylon

This was unusually short but scary dream.

I was woken up late afternoon at 3 P.M. by the dog barking, for me to open the door for my wife who had gone to see her doctor.

The flu that was going around in our house was not a total disaster as far as I was concerned. I was getting a big dose of dreams but unfortunately, I can remember only a few.

The plight or the outcome of the above dream could have been the same, if the dog did not intervene in the thick of it, which is not his usual habit anyway.

I was the master of ceremony at a wedding reception. I was (unfortunately) invited to be one of the witnesses of the registration of the marriage.

I have the habit of refusing to do that.

I wish I could have the option to refuse my actual ceremony, now that I am already writing a book on Myth, Mirage and Marriage for young ones who may or may not embark on this feat on an Airbus in Ceylonese Airspace.

It looks like all Sri-Lankan flights are like Wedding on high space or stratosphere anyway.

I cannot remember whether I was appearing for the bride or the bridegroom.

It does not matter.

I am going to send this to Maha Brahma, the Greatest and I will get those minor details which       I cannot remember from him, in the body of the interpretation.

I will be brief here since the interpretation from Maha Brahma was very, very long and interesting.

As as usual, I was on site, on time and it did not look like a Airbus but a Skyscraper of many flights and almost touching the stratosphere and I was feeling dizzy having reached the dizzy heights.

I went to the toilet in case, I throw my breakfast on the dancing floor and had a very light touch up of my personality and got seated on an easy chair with panoramic view (of all the invitees entering) of the lobby.

The idea was to take cover, if any of my doctor friends or enemies (mainly politicians in low offices since they are jealous, I occupy one of their tasks; for me it is no different whether I am signing a birth certificate, death certificate or a report of an not treatable cancer) would join the party.

I was an early bird and little while later the registrar came with a commando outfit giving him protection.

I thought to myself, this must be a wedding of      a son or daughter of a commanding officer.

Then an Imam came with his retinue which looked liked a guerilla outfit and took up the position covering him from all directions. He had a book which looked like Quran in his hand.

The outfit had something like machetes or similar ancient battle outfits. I was not sure whether they were protecting the Quran, the Imam or both.

I had a second look to see whether he was our veteran Anthony Fousi but he did not look liked him.

Little later an old Pusari came in with an outfit which looked no different from LTTE commando outfit in combat. They were holding a banana leaf over his head and I could not see his face.

By this time I was feeling the thump in my heart wondering whether I landed on the wrong place.

Then, in a little while a personality who looked liked the Pope came in and he had Royal Air Force cover.

He was the only one who came in with his own seat which looked like an inclined flat boat with three rockets like structures in front.

The bottom had a hovercraft type of cushion and it looked amazingly modern outfit, fit for a modern Pope.

The air force was in full attention not at ease.

Then a tiny chap came in with a huge elephantine wardrobe squarish, suitable for a library and it had four locks on all four sides but the guy did not have the keys in his hand but a remote control to control the wheels and a something similar to a tablet computer console.

Then, after some delay a Buddhist monk came in with a laptop in his hand and with no escort.

He also had a remote control which he pointed to the huge wardrobe and opened and closed each one of the locks as if he was checking integrity by a remote control and took up a high seat.

The look of him was very reassuring and I felt the pump in my heart easing off almost to a stall or standstill.

With all this entrees almost 50% of the floor was occupied and little by little invitees arrived filling the vacant seats.

Then of course before I could witness the arrival of the bride and the bridegroom, I was woken up and missed the full scenario.

I have to sent this to Maha Brahma for him to fill in the blanks in my memory and the appropriate interpretation and to reveal the missing second half of the dream.

As usual the Maha Brahma, the Greatest of all Gods responded almost instantly.

Why are you still sweating?

I said I had a thump in the heart which eased off with the arrival of the monk but with the global warming in full flight, the sweat does not dry up easily.

I asked him was it a funeral or a wedding.

A wedding, my boy.

I was there to witness the registration, wasn’t I?

Wrong.

I was there to see that the proceeding went on smoothly.

No.

I was on official duty.

Sort of.

I had to be there to examine the putative couple for their correct sex.

No, why?

Maha Brahma asked.

Now these guys wear Unisex Jeans, sometime,   it is difficult to say one is a boy or a girl.

Not like good old days.

Why on hell I was there?

It looked like hell anyway.

You were there to take blood samples.

To check the bride pregnant or not?

Urine sample would do it know, and  a technician can do that without a doctor.

Why me?

You know this story is futuristic like all your previous ones.

There is a new wedding protocol.

By testing Blood?

I don’t get it.

It is called an Ethnicity Test.

Each ethnic group has to have a blood test and depending on the result the wedding ceremony takes its course.

That is why all the dignitaries are there.

When one announces the result there is the very drawn out deliberation to fit the guy and the girl into the ethnic protocol.

This is Greek to me.

Can you tell me you are pure Sinhala.

No sir.

Not a Tamil or Muslim.

No.

You don’t have Caucasian blood?

No.

Why?

We are a mixed race Sir, one cannot say by a blood test that one isSinhala orTamil and only by registration, descent and convention we are grouped to an ethnic group, Sir.

That is the point.

Now learned geneticist had worked out a formula for the race inCeylon.

It goes like this.

1. A Muslim = 80% Sinhala blood + 10 Tamil blood + 10% Arabian or Caucasian

2. A Tamil = 60% Tamil blood + 30% Sinhala blood + 10 Arabic or Caucasian

3. A Sinhala man or woman = 30% Sinhala + 30 Tamil + 30 Muslim + 10 unknown, perhaps Caucasian in origin.

4. A Burgher man or woman = 85% Sinhala + 5% Tamil + 5% Muslim + 5% Caucasian

You mean to say Burghers (85%) and Muslim (80%) have more Sinhala blood.

Yes they have, they did not bring females when they settled first and they had several wives (5 for Muslims and 100 for Caucasians) and their male genes were diluted by 70% to almost 90%.

That is a scientifically establish fact, now.

What all this got to do with my participation at the wedding ceremony.

The result is anybody’s guess at the time of registration.

You have to look at the blood result and make a value judgement.

It is easy know?

One looks at the above formula and decide and a clerical staff can do that know?

Why a doctor involved?

Wait a minute.

That is a working formula to guide a doctor but not foolproof or null proof and nobody tested from the time of the testing began had fitted exactly into any of the four categories and almost 99% were borderline cases.

Just, touch and go!

It is hair splitting and sometimes brain splitting exercise.

You know the little guy who came in.

He is a statistician.

He does some statistics and fit the guy or girl in the best fit of the Bell’s Curve and then decide how much skewed and on the skew score decides his or her ethnic group.

Sometimes they have to average the two scores, like the Z-Score average made by the Department of Education and then the panel sit together and decide how much Muslim, how much Sinhala, Tamil or Burgher traditions are to be enacted and incorporated in the ceremony.

Then, the Buddhist monk will decide in which book it should be registered.

Why is that?

The panel is the best for that decision, know.

When this ceremony is being held,                   the percentage of Buddhists have fallen to the lowest.

His duty is to increase the number of Sinhala Buddhists, so that ethnic harmony is maintained and      a steady stream of guys and girls are allowed to enter the Sasana.

I do not understand.

The percentage dropped since most of the Buddhists have left the home front and joined the Sasana, like the Gautama Buddha and attained Nibbana,the Supreme.

The rest learned various foreign languages and went abroad on propagating Buddhism in the West and never returned to the motherland like an averageCeylonese.

The Sinhala Buddhist population went down drastically dueto their own good nature and goodwill.

The real threat is to the Buddha Sasana,

Buddhists monk cannot reverse his decision to enter the lay life and procreate.

You meant to say making young ones to become a monks is a very bad idea.

Not at all, since majority will attain Nibbana in one go, it is good for Buddhism.

It may be bad for heaven but on earth, by using the above formula and the panel discussion a certain quota is vested on Sinhala Buddha Sasana.

But, I thought, the Buddha Sasana is for everybody and their is no race attached to it.

That never works on Earth or Ceylon, one has to have a political strategy, just to preserve pure Theravada or any Vada that may arise on earth.

Good Bye.

See you soon with another dream.

Snippets of Betrayal of Buddhism

 Snippets of Betrayal of Buddhism 

 
USA and India Combo, The CIA and RAW are directly involved in this sinister project.

The current government is the culmination of their Project.

They tried the CIA method (infiltrate the Sasana) and failed and now using the 
 
"Niragamika Theme" (No religion) of the current PM / President Combo.

"Jayamangaka Gatha" was banned in the parliament BUT the full Curse of Christmas Thamasha was dished out.

Jayamangaka Gatha is for the blessing of the Entire World not only Ceylon.

War of Ukraine is an antithesis to Dhamma.

Karaneeya Metta Sutta is the first Sutta one should recite.

If you are Buddhist and over 50 years, You should become a Vegetarian Buddhist which I call the Eggotarians (unfertilized egg) clan of Buddhists.
 
If you do that one can say that one is a True Buddhist.

Monks should go for "Vegetarian Dhana".

That is only the beginning to stop this subtle betrayal
 
There is one Heart Specialist in Colombo who had a full "Vegetarian Wedding" for his daughter. 
 
Forget his name. 
 
He came after Walupillai.

1. In Kandy opposite the BPS they made a Missionary Hospital to promote Christianity
 
This was near a Buddhist Girl's School.

I was taken there as a kid. 
As a kid I could feel that the doctors there were poorly trained. 
 
On my retirement, one of my Catholic friends wanted me to raise it's standards but I gave up after one week.

There main aim is to promote Christianity through Medical Practice.

They have NO belief in medicine they dispense.

 
2. Number two is to enter Sasana and introduce moles.

Kiribathgoda Baththara Mulla is number 1.

Number two is the homosexual Mahamewna saffron Guy

Antidote is Do Not donate money to these guys.

Let the Catholic Church to fund them.

 
3. Translate Pali Verses into Sinhala and distort the contents and the meaning.

Antidote is to read Dhammapda.
 
The Dhammpada is out of production. 
 
Donate some money to BPS to print new copies.
 
I bought all of them and posted to my so called friends in Ceylon.

Just grasp one or two verses that suits one's heart's content.

 
4. Dalada Wadena Nilame is the most corrupt Guy.
 
Do not get caught to this Exposition Dalada to hoodwink the Buddhist in entirety.
 
I think it would do the opposite.
 
It would unite the Misguided Buddhists with the Guided Buddhists.
 
There was a branch of BPS at the rear side of the Maligawa, before he became the big guy.
 
First thing he did was to close this print outlet of BPS.

I made a vow not to visit Maligawa until he is eliminated from this post.

 
5. Meditation has become a business.
 
There is a book by me coming soon.

Dr. Steven Greer is in this game.

 
6. I am ambivalent of Weask Celebrations.

As a kid I can remember one of my less bright uncles made a Wesak Lantern with Baby Lanterns.
 
We could not take it out intact from the main door. 
 
We had to separate them and hang them in different locations.
 
For me, it was an experiment in physics.

Do not be a megalomaniac.

A few buckets and a few coconut oil lamps would do during Wesak.

"Olu Bukko Wigadama" should be stopped.

The buckets will burn showing the "Uncertainty Principle" of Buddhism.

Oils would burn out but the light of Dhamma shines

 
7. Wearing a Cross is Christian but do not wear any symbol of Dhamma.

Dhamm is for your Brain.

Digest the meaning.

There are many other distortion and vagaries.

Be mindful of every action

I hope you become a down to earth Dhamma Guy.

Be very simple and transparent.

Non interventional to begin with.

Politics of CIA and RAW are always interventional.

They got a good ally.

That is NPP/JVP Combo.

BEWARE.

The Dream-Devil Woman

The Dream-Devil Woman
I was on my way to a village in a very remote place. I came across a steep hill on the other side which appeared to be a cliff. The foot path up was on the rock which appeared slippery due to rain water dripping down.
On the bottom of the hill there were a few onlookers looking up in amazement to see a young mother climbing the cliff with two children one in each of her arms. In a glance without any hesitation dressed up in footwear not suitable for slippery rock and a heavy James Bond case in hand, I moved up in case,     if the mother needed help, that I could volunteer.
I suppose I wanted play James Bond in this remote village. A very ambitious intent.
In couple of fast steps, I reached up to where the woman has just got the older child barely off the difficult part the hill and was about to push herself up balancing her other child in her hand.
I asked her whether I could help her.
But annoyed, in a loud voice she said NO.
By this time I was balancing on one foot not able to go forward or stop myself slipping down.           I had only one option slip down ungracefully to the loud laughter of the onlookers. I may have dropped my suitcase in an instant too, but woke up with shame.
I was very happy it was a dream.
I immediately sat in front of my computer and emailed it to Maha Brahma, the Greatest of all Gods.
He replied in kind with his new global,                 No Battery Tablet, which is supposed to be bigger than the New Airport in Ceylon.
I thanked him profusely for his support that the inauguration went on smoothly with his divine help.   He said he loves anything airborne, even a weather balloon and Airbus was his high priority for Ceylon.
He also said he would standby with all his might for a few more air planes.
Then I asked him what about the carbon footprint.
Don’t be ridiculous how can a few Airbuses will change the world weather?
That was unexpected not knowing what to say, I retorted, what about the collapse of our economy and debt crisis.
I thought they were play tools like in heaven.
They not cost like a Heavenly Jelly Beans on earth.
It is quite the contrary. Sir.
I am sorry
I did not know that.
I am not an economist and we do not have a treasury or finance minister in heaven, he said.
What about the cash in heaven.
There is no cash here but eternal goodwill.
Is that so?
So rich people will have no chance of buying a ticket to heaven.
Noway, as long as I am the boss.

Interpretation

Did you really dream it?
You were very stupid know.
I was incapacitated Sir.
I came down to my bottom dollar of ego and down to earth instantaneously, Sir.
Well good then.
This interpretation is in three parts.
Why?
Will you wait for a while.
 
Part I
You did not know that woman was devil.
Wana-mohinie?
Wana-mohinie has only one child, I am told.
She is worse.
She will destroy your image first.
Then she will destroy your stature.
Thirdly she will eat you up live.
That is why you terminated the dream?
Yes.
Part II
Any sensible person in this world should not volunteer any help in Ceylon, even in a village and the U.N.O. is not excluded.
If you tried to do that she would drop the child in her hand. The onlookers will kill you and this devil woman would not sweat a bit for her catch.
But this is a Buddhist country know?
How can that happen?
Don’t you know some of the guys supporting Bodu Balawageya are devil’s incarnations?
Those fellows will even represent as lawyers for the devil in defence of their case.
I was dumbfounded.
Part III
The wise decision would have been for you to wait at the bottom till this woman safely crossed over to the other side.
But she would not cross but would linger and the onlookers will choose you to help her.
But none of this happened and she did cross to the other side, you know.
That is because while you slipped down you dropped the bag with dollars.
The onlookers killed each other for the few dollars.
She went to call the other devil guys / girls for the feast.
Maha Brahma disappeared quickly saying ”Devils always win on earth specially in Ceylon”.




Water Lilies

 Posted on June 6, 2015 by asokaplus
Water Lilies
Water Lilies
I am new to water lilies.
It is still in my learning curve.

I brought an expensive water lillie from an open market with the plastic container 2 years ago.

My wife put it an attractive container and pruned it and it died a natural death.
 
After two years of perseverance I got its yam to sprout a leaf or two.
 
They disappeared tangled with algae mesh.
 
I kept on removing the algae and after six months, I managed to get the first flower blooming.

The beauty is that it opens up everyday till the next flower blooms.
 
Few things I learned over the last three years.

1. They need a lot of sunshine.

2. They are slow to domesticate.

3. If you meddle with them they go into long hibernation.

4. They yams are versatile probably to withstand dry spells hidden in mud.

5. They are vulnerable and sensitive.

This is my worry the vendors at temples (they think it is a commercial item) vandalize them for profit.

Nominal Buddhists now only think of Profits and Image but no conviction in precepts but indulge in Cheap Practice and Politics.
I met only one guy in Colombo who had studied this with conviction.

6. He told me that some varieties spread by seeds.
 
7. I am trying my best for the last three years to get a new sapling but failed.
 
8. The latest discovery is I have a lily that is over 15 years old but not yet had flowers.
 
9. It goes into periodic hibernation but sprouts again.
 
10 I must confess the love for lilies I acquired from my wife.
 
11. She brought the first young sapling.
 
12. Now to the discovery. 
The first sapling is still in the original place but not in good condition (nutritionally deficient).
This has its own history.
The cement tank belongs to my mother in law who used it for mixing herbal medicines.
It is very heavy and I do not know how it was brought to the highest ground level it is stationed now.
It was not moved an inch from its orbit of influence, first from my mother in law and now from gravity.

I twisted her fingers and quietly made it to a fish tank.
 
My wife managed to get a tiny tortoise and it loved sun bathing on a little rock (it was nursed in one of my fish tanks and when it was gobbling my fish, it was transferred to the cement tank) placed inside the tank.
 
13. I did not know my father in law hated the tortoise and it disappeared from the tank when we were in Colombo for few days.
I never inquired about it.
The story was it escaped or eaten by crows.
I never believed it but figured out that it was released to the Mahaveli river and died an unnatural death.
It was too tiny to survive in the wild.
It was pity my father in law did not know the biology of it and it was a foreign species made stunted not by design but by (genetic manipulation) inbreeding.
We have eaten all our tortoises as a taste for illicit toddy (Kassipu) and even the Kandy lake has none now.

14. It was blessing in disguise sine they live long and looking after a tiny tortoise was not my choice either.
 
15. I had to give up fish keeping nearly 15 years to avoid pscine tuberculosis.
 
16. It took 2 years for me to diagnose it.
Nobody in Ceylon knew it then.
I believe it is endemic in inland fisheries, now which the government is hiding the facts.

17. Coming back to the fish tank, it was all taken over by my wife for the last two years and she had not put any fish in it.
 
18. The bottom line and the biological fact is that lilies need a lot of nutrition and that has to come from fish Urine.
But I have to feed the fish with high protein fish food for the lilies to bloom.
The this ecology is hard to reproduce in an artificial environment indoors.
 
That is why we have to protect our Will Pattu from human habitat and encroachment.

Will Pattu means (1000) thousands of little pools of water in the wet land.

Then only we will have tens of thousands of lilies blooming.
We are destroying every inch of our ecosystem in the name of shoddy development and Chinthanaya cronies.

The Golyas making Kassipu are still in evidence in these ‘will patulas’.

Wisdom Browser-Browser Hater

 Posted on February 2, 2013 by asokaplus
Wisdom Browser-Browser Hater

Wisdom Browser-Browser Hater

I am beginning to become a Browser Hater.

Most of the browser are good at eavesdropping at best but worse at preventing cookies with commercial advertisement
.

I am glad that I use live CDs, light weight Linux distributions and light weight non-intrusive browsers most of the time.

This is not true for many guys and girls using the Internet.

I thought, if I develop a browser these are the qualities, I will focus.

1. W for Wise Browser who is not eavesdropping on your habits.

2. I for individual freedom and the protection of the individual from all the vulnerabilities of the Internet specially Kids.

3. S for Simple. It should be simple to use even to a Kid.

4. D for dependability on all circumstances and should not feed the information to DOD or the State.

5. Oops for originality and ownership.

6. M for minimalism on resources of one’s computer and it should be light weight.

None of the commercial browsers fall into WISDOM category and a few Linux come close to the qualities mentioned above.

With cloud computing in mind Amazon has developed a light weight browser called Silk to use with the Kindle Fire but it seems not to keep up with the promise.

I have some more points especially with kids in mind.

If one types play and game on a browser the search engine with a few clicks will invariable detoured to a pornographic site to lure kids and young ones.

That is how it operates now.

I have few suggestions for a future browser development which parents can use at home and teachers at school
.

I think only Linux can address this and commercial browsers will never go to that extend.

1. The browser should be linked to a alight weight distribution like Bodhi or Arch (Manjaro).

2. It should have a cloud access (a password and an email address to access) through a minimal browser for the front end.

3. The back end browser should have protocols and priorities.

The user should have the sole access (in this case parent or teacher) of the contents in the private cloud.

The service provider should have a maintenance password of it own but no full access.

In making the children passwords the degree of difficulty in access should depend, on the age of the child and the parent / teacher should be able to monitor it and the content should be appropriate for the stage of development of the child.

That part of the cloud can be made private with all the public clouds reserved for the grown ups.

All this can be achieved with meticulous planning.

The cloud can be used to streamline content and protect our children worldwide.

4. There should be a language element for rare languages and search engines should be developed tailored for these languages and they should be used to bypass major languages.  
Otherwise few languages will dominate the web and language like Pali (original Buddhism was handed down by Pali) will become extinct which is a shame.

5. The front browser should be able to access the particular server end browser in that particular language.

By this method we might be able to preserve these language in pristine form for posterity.

There are lot of missing points and I hope developers will look at this scenario and teachers would provide inputs as the progress in development takes it course
.

Swift Linux

Posted on June 17, 2011 by asokaplus
Swift Linux
I have no hesitation of recommending Taylor Swift Linux
It has 4 versions. It is about 1,4GB. My only worry is it does not have Abiword but it has synaptic package manager and Gdei Installer.
It is based on Mx Linux. Its installer is bit difficult but it is graphic with instructions to follow. 
I used Mepis Linux to learn  formatting and installing many Linux derivatives in the past.
SimplyMepis has graphical installer and I downloaded two images with some difficulty but they work fine as usual.
 
It looks like the home site of the Swift Linux has been attacked few days after this comment and I could not download a single file (Image).

This is why I stated that one should host images with linuxtracker as torrent file or ones own site as torrents.

Even Linux tracker was attacked in this modern digital age if one is not careful.

They said they are rising from the ashes of phoenix and and they surely did.

One mad digital guy / girl with corporate backing can do enormous damage while most of the average guys and girls do wonderful things with digital (code and programming) fingers and code soup.

I once thought writing and blogging on Live CD and Linux are a waste of time but now I realize what a load of image building I have done for them without even knowing any one of them.

Keep up the good work.

This world has lot of good guys and only a few bad and ugly guys (I mean both sex).

I am a fan of Mepis and AntiX.

AntiX is lighter weight version of Mepis with lot of packages and works with old computers with low RAM.

I have been looking for weird form of Linux derivatives and came across Swift Linux some time ago.

After about 40 tries (download stream abruptly stops without completing) I managed to get a Diet Linux and Taylor Swift with  music at start up.

This was 0.0.2 version and I gave up because it was only live and no install.

I could not get the other images and then suddenly another version came.

The 0.0.3 but could not  download with similar failure as above.

However my interest did waxed and waned but when I saw Distrowatch including it as a viable option I decided to get the latest version.

It was not there in Distrowatch or Softpedia and typed home of Swift Linux.

Presto!

Big jump the version is 0.1.1 and I am currently attempting to download.

Their vision and goal are both honorable.

When Microsoft leave you high and dry, one need not throw the computer away or buy new one.

Swift will take over swiftly the vacuum left.

They have included OpenOffice which I have begun to hate now.

Hope they will include LibreOffice in future issues.

Please go and visit their site and I wish them good luck and hope they will leave the image at linuxtracker to prevent my agony of downloading.

I will come back with a honest report if I am successful in downloading it.

State without a Religion, the Faith, Fate and Fanaticism would Fail us

Posted on January 22, 2013 by asokaplus
State without a Religion, the Faith, Fate and Fanaticism would Fail us
These ideas were incubating in me and I let them be stored in my Private Web (not accessible in public domain) site at WordPress BUT having read Dhmmapada in depth I am a changed person now. 

If one need to understand Dhamma pick the Dhammdada and read a few of the verses  that suits YOU.

State without a Religion, the Faith, Fate and Fanaticism would Fail us.

Have you ever thought of a state  without a religion?

Yes it is possible.

In the mind’s world it is quit possible to attain this level of independence, how ever powerful the governing power state may be.

We have been going through this process mentally over very long period, the next stage would be a state (or states) without a religion.

Signs are obvious even in a small state like Sri-Lanka.

Even though,  we have many religions we are functionally a state without a religion.

I won’t elaborate on this any more except stating how justice is being meted out in this state.

Yes, criminals coexist with religious dignitaries in our parliament.

That is not an over statement.

However, theses religious dignitaries are either oblivious to the fact or shamelessly disregard the consequences considering their personal perks in high office.

So the climate is right for a change.

There are already people who belong to rationalistic groups.

I personally do not believe they would contribute statistically significant role.

They belong to a highly intelligent group of people who see that there is conflict in what they perceive as is right and what they see as in practice is wrong.

They try to bring objectivity to this scenario but there is no subjectivity
as far as the growing number of followers are concerned.
This is simply because their approach is an intellectual one of high quality which cannot be sustained at grass root level where the intellectual capacity is limited.

What I am discussing is this average minded majority who become alienated with how religions practice their dogma without adherence to basic tenet of human equality and justice.

For an example if a religion states that one who kills an infidel, he or she goes to heaven is not tenable in modern day of justice and fair play.

It becomes more relevant if the same group does not believe life after death or rebirth.

Even, rebirth is a concept that cannot be validated by substantial evidence.

I am bringing these two extreme examples to bring the spectrum into light in like minded thinkers but not to ignite “
flame wars” as seen in Linux communities.

So with world wide web taking over human communication by the scruff of the neck, an avalanche is ready to befall on mankind.

My writing it here not to say it is right or wrong but to state that it is slowly emerging and we are not ready for it.

We have not got enough philosophers to take the void.

Yes mankind had a few philosophers over 3000 years ago, before the religion emerged as a dominant force.

What I am saying is when the religion falls and fails as a dominant force we have no similar development in sight to cling onto.

Mankind needs something to embrace and cushion over this period.

The world wide web is not the right medium, even though everyone of us is in it already.

I see this as a failure in our education system from preschool to primary school to university.

What will happen is that even the morality outside religious conventions would fail.

All the signs are visible in this small country and we are not ready for its outcome.

Faith, Fate and Fanaticism would Fail us.

Even the very democracy and governance are failing us.

The political systems are failing to see  this predicament and the emerging context.

It is going to bust in some form or other.

Let me dispose the few of the state that practiced without a religion and how they fared.

China comes to my mind first.

Its rigid enforcement of family planning that forced couples to commit infanticide is a case in point.

Economic concerns and poverty took its toll.

Yin and Yang was not practiced in essence
.

It was same fate in Russia.

It got involved in superpower mentality in the cold war period disregarding the average masses.

It led to corruption and breakdown of the communist empire.

Both these countries concentrated on economy before people and what ever gained did not filter down to the average masses.

But corruption rules the higher echelon.

In the last 50 years they did not institute a system to take over the religion.

They ruling party became the religion and there was no alternative for the ruling party.

The system drags on while embracing open economy in a closed system of administration.

There is no new developments but increasing dissolution among the average person without any outlet to express the inbuilt frustration.

All these are symptoms of a state without a religion
.

That make people to embrace many personal ideologies and beliefs but won’t make the emergence of new religions or religious leaders.

Not only they dislike the system in place and lose faith in religion too
.

The system without religion continuous without any alternative strategies and the money becomes the driving force.

It is a communist state with capitalistic mentality.

Now takes a populace country, like India.

It is country with many religions and the division of Pakistan, Bangladesh and India is based not only on land but religion.

It has many problems, the women have no place and female child is an outcast
.

Equally there is caste system that divides people but fortunately it is not rigidly tagged to the religion but to birth of a person or heritage.

What will take us to the next phase?

That is my question.

This trend will become increasingly visible in the next 30 years which is a generation gap in my scale of predictions.

I will not be there to see it fortunately.

I had a belief that Buddhism will stand to this emerging trend at least in this country.

But my observation is, now that the monks in robes have taken politics as a way of life and survival, it cannot stand on its own ground to the rigors of emerging trends.

At the moment some elements are already arousing the very essence of tolerance that is embedded in its core.

It cannot be compared with Bible War but it is as bad as any hegemony that preceded it

LinuxExtras-Debain-6

Posted on March 13, 2011 by asokaplus
I do not procrastinate on the old distributions, I have used. 
I did forget when I started with Debian.
I started in year 2000.
Having gone through my old blog pieces it is moast likely from Debian 6 and now I am waiting for the 13th version.
LinuxExtras-Debain-6

In between World Cup Cricket, my work and students examinations, I found time to install Debian 6.0 KDE CD version, in one of my old IBM computer with 512MB RAM.
Unlike in the good old days new Linux distributions especially the KDE craves on RAM do not ever think of trying it less than 512 RAM and ideally 1 GB is necessary now.
I upgraded to 1GB.
This computer I fiddled with  to add some muscle (but could not find a SCSI hard disk) and it did not boot up (20 GB SCSI and 20 IDE).
I installed latest PCLinux KDE and it took ages to install.
 
The one thing that gives me headache in hard disk detection
One distribution does not recognize the nomenclature (a becomes b and b becomes a scenario) of the other distribution and only Debian figure out the architecture and the type of disks.

Sure enough, it did a good job of recognizing two other distributions and partition table was edited correctly since Debian was the one I used the last.

In www.distrowatch.com forum there was so much animosity towards this
distribution which follow Free Software principles and for that principle I call it the God Father of Linux (I did not get involved in the flame war).

I now have a special liking for it since for the first time a Sinhala Linux version has come in to being (it can be installed in Sinhala Graphic format) and that is Debian 6.

I went through Sinhala graphic installer and it selected Sri-Lanka as the location, correctly. 
I stopped at that point and installed it in English (my Sinhala computer vocabulary is next to nothing, having brought up in Science and in English) and I could not get Sri-Lanka as a location.
Now Sri-Lanka is reserved for Sinhala only.

This I found strange since we have Tamils and Muslims in this country and many of them do not work in Sinhala.
 
In defense of the Tamils Linux can be installed in Tamil but then they cannot select Sri-Lanka as a the location.

I decided to use Singapore as the location since Singapore uses English as their language operation.
 
I think Debian should allow Tamils and English installers the ability to select the location as Colombo.

This can be corrected after installation but this I found annoying to say the least.

It installs the basic (kernel) system and then let you select the installation type that include laptop and desktop.

Unlike PCLinux installation is fast and user and root passwords are selected in the first time round.

I can understand why many were against its installation mode.
 
It’s partition tool is not in graphic mode and only in writing mode (old habits die hard).
 
All these irritations are not found in Modern Debian Linux.
 
The instructions are clearly written for any sane person to follow.
 
1.Create a partition.
 
2.Format a partition.
 
3. Mount a partition with or without boot flag and the job is done.
The procedure has to be repeated for root, home, var and user partition.
There is nothing more to it.

Another point of importance is that it always assume that you are connected to the internet.

Missing packages can be installed with apt get and there are over 60, 000 to select.

Mind you if you do not understand partitioning it does it automatically for you.
 
Why bother?

Its GRUB automatically select what is to boot and the boot splash is very simple and not graphic intensive.
 
Because it does things in an organized and simple manner once configured it boots and runs program fast unlike other KDE counterparts, say SuSe.

It has no K3B (one of my favorite CD/ DVD writing tool), or OpenOffice (mind you there is a limit to what can be put in a CD with 700 MB).

All these are simple routines to me which I learned 12 years ago without any Guru but by trial and error.

If you want to learn nuts and bolts of Linux one has to use and learn Debian in its write mode.

Mind you best graphic partition tool is gParted and it is Debian based and it is very reliable and even better than that of Knoppix or Puppy.
 
Whatever criticism Debian will outlast all its other distributions since its resource base is over 60,000 and may grow up to 100,000.
 
That is why it had 40 odd CDs and now 8 to 10 DVDs.

One DVD will do the work for you and they are available in 32 and 64 bits.
 
I am currently downloading the first DVD and it will take two solid Sri-Lankan days for the download and I will be back with you soon.

India Turning Tables on its neighbor Sri-Lanka

 Posted on March 29, 2012 by asokaplus
India Turning Tables on its neighbor Sri-Lanka

India Turning Tables on its neighbor Sri-Lanka
It is nice to see true colours of Indian politicians who are bending backward to please US.

I cannot believe why was the rush for  US to bring the resolution against a tiny country.
My gut feeling now is US was tacitly helping India and Indira to manipulate on Ceylon and when that failed, cry foul both with India and Ceylon.

From Hiroshima to cluster bombs in Vietnam was chapter one in US history.

Did the U.N.O  help Asia then?
No.

Then came 1967 to 1973 destabilizing the Middle East.

What did the UNO did then?
Sweet Nothing.
 
That is the chapter second of the US sponsored global terrorism.
 
In Africa what did  they do? 
Killing Che Guerra is only a side dish (beginning of chapter three) and they were helping all the War Lords in African continent.

The third chapter is Iraq and Afghanistan and it is continuing unabated.
 
What they did to national museum in Iraq is vandalism of ancient culture and I believe many of the artifacts ended up in USA.

Can we appoint Americans as champions of human Rights?
The answer is BIG NO.

One cannot dump history like a prostitutes and potatoes.

History repeats and remain vivid in everybody’s mind especially with the old and mature.
 
Remorse at old age when close to grave is no good.

I expected Obama being young would be different.
 
He wants to show the Americans that he is a Big Bully before the elections.
His strategy certainly will back fire by December.

I hope Americans will give him the exit signal next time round and to me Bush was much nicer guy who was less duplicitous in international affairs.

He meant what he said.

Less said about Bun Ky Moon is the wiser counsel; he has become a singing parrot for Americans and a Darling Dolly of the West.
 
He has forgotten his Asian roots where two third of the world population lives.
 
Asians including Indians are still living in absolute poverty some of them do not have water to drink and for sanitation.
 
U.N.O. is a white elephant and got its priorities in wrong order.
 
People have to have basic living standards to enjoy living like humans.
Then only they can talk about human rights!
 
As for Pavans who raped Tamil girls and the price for which Rajive had to pay with life is still the living history and not yet gone down as past, yet in the minds of victims.

What did Indian politicians do?
Sweet nothing.

These girls had to come to Colombo and get their abortions done almost freely.

When a ship sinks rats come out but when the going go bad before elections politicians hold on to any straw, Human Rights included.

Fortunately there is no difference in Indian and American politicians in that regard.

They look like two sides of the same coin!

They want to hold on to power.

History should be accurately recorded.

That should be true for Ceylon.

Otherwise we cannot be proud of our past.

Tamils who remained in Ceylon in spite of the tremendous odds, deserve a better deal.
They are our true brethren.
Not the ones who went as  economic refugees, never to return but cry foul from a comfortable distance from their own brethren.

Revisiting my Asokaplus blog post

Posted on March 16, 2021 by asokaplus 
Revisiting my Asokaplus blog post

It took a bit of a hassle to blog a post, new.

I left this post idly by after joining Google blog post.

I forgot the password to begin with.

It was easy to set up a new password.

Thank you.

The dashboard is superb with the mobile.

I started this site from my computer.

My transfer to cellphone was not smooth.

I was not good at all with cellphones and their typefaces and keyboards.

Luckily I found Grammarly keyboard and it made my transition from PC to mobile easy.

I will stop blogging at Google with my last post “Live and Let Live”.

I started my blogging at WordPress.

It was a humble beginning with lot of typos and grammatical errors.

I will now edit the posts and update them if necessary.

Linpus Linux 1.4

Posted on June 17, 2011 by asokaplus
Linpus Linux 1.4

It is nearly two years ago that I used Linpus Linux.

At that time I was not interested in Live CDs.

I had downloaded it when I was abroad in Singapore and it had a heavy version and a light version.

I did not like the heavy version which was based on Redhat.

But I really like the light version and even though it did not mention that it is an O.E.M. version but it behaved like one and takes over the hard disk and install it in minutes.

It’s GRUB was not compatible with other Linux and I gave up because of its high handed take over of the hard disk.

It had all the making of a Mobile Linux but I was waiting for an update but I could never find a new version and totally gave up on it.

Today for curiosity I went to their site and looked for a free download iso and to my surprise and fortuitously I found the Light version 1.4.

It is only 411 MB.

It is for netbook and is for mobile use.

It has the following.

Firefox
Email Client
IM: MSN, Skype
Open Office Applications
Photo Management
Power Management
PC Folder
Social Network
Multimedia Player
Network Manager
Game Collection
PDF Reader
Live Update
RSS Reader
Sync Mail
File Manage
They have done a beautiful advertisement and those who did not get Android from Google, this is where one should start.

It is beautiful.

It is light weight.

It is free and one does not have to wait for Google to dish it for you.

It is Chinese with English capability and I am going to support it instead of Google’s Android from now onward.

Without much hype in two years Chinese in Taiwan has done a good job.

Thanks guys and girls at Linpus.

I hope you go from strength to strength and give Google a bit of scare!

If you have a nettbook this one is for you.

It might take over and erase your windows though.

They are developing touch and HTDV version too.

Visit Linpus Home and see it for yourself.

After about 4 to 5 attempts i finally downloaded it. Point to point download stream broke for no reason partly a fault at the home site and partly due to our Telecom’s failure.

Even though I was frustrated it was worth the wait and it did not take over the hard disk.

It has two options one for installation and one for boot form hard disk.

Download and enjoy but if the download fails try, try ,try again like the proverbial spider who finally climbed up and made a web of connections.