MX Linux KDE-Install

 I must say it is much better than Ubuntu Linux.

MX Linux KDE-Install 

After the trauma with Catbird Linux and AV Linux MX Edition failures, I decided to Install MX Linux KDE in one of my Debian Instances without erasing the home partition.

It is almost over.

Its installer is graphical just like Debian Mepis Linux of the old time.

If one is a newbie carefully read the graphical instructions in every step of the way. 

I did read every instruction.

Yes, MX Linux has lot of tools,

See you soon with MX Linux booted. 

It has a lovely graphical boot menu  and it took a little while to boot unlike Debian which is simple and text mode at the beginning and let me know the current sate of the system.

I installed Abiword on the live mode and the beauty was it remembered it and kept with the installation.

I need not install it again. 

I have to learn how the MX Linux package Installer work.

Anyway, I am going to use it for the next couple of days and post you with updates. 

Its updating takes a hell of a lot of time. That is the problem with KDE. 

I want to get Synaptic package manager installed but automatic update is frozen in mid air and not finishing the task intended. Says 77%. Finally it finished.

But I had to install missing parts of Abiword and Synaptic Package Manager.

Installed virtual machine BOX but it did not work. Similar with Gnome Pie.

Gnome USB formatter did not work .

Worse scenario was that it could not remove large image file to save some space. It was already there in the /Home folder of Debian which I did not format.

All in all this is the same reason I never use K.D.E. I started my Linux life with KDE desktop of Suse. 

I may consider used MX Linux XFC or Flushbox simply because of its MX Utilities.

I should try and see how they work. 

I am left with fancy looking KDE boot up menu.

Update

Overall not a bad expeirnce.

It has K torrent as default.

I installed Delge using Synaptic and it works fine.

I down loaded the MX 23.5 64 bit version for as a saftey mechanism.

It has two browsers, Firefox as the fdefault with Knoqueror as secondary.

I downloded Falkon and dill using Synaptic.

It graphic intensive and slow to boot but very neat and clean unlike Glossy windows.

One who comes from Windows background I recomment to use the KDE version of MX Linux.

Better still use Netrunner which is (only 2.6GB) better organozed with alphbetical list of applications. It already has synaptic bundled in.

Anyway, Linux is the winner but it has many more window managers than Gnome and KDE.

I have most of them installed with Debian Gnome and one has to pick and choose the desktop one want to use at boot time.

This will end my Linux blah blah and I am going to finish my books.

One book will be finished here. It is about three wonderful dogs.

AV Linux MX Edition

Torrent file does not work.

Direct download is painfully slow.

I haven't used it for long time (from the 32 bit era).

It is difficult for me to recommend it to a newbie. 

Its image may be about 5.5GB but it got stuck at 4.8GB.

I think I am going to Give Up. 

Yes, I did give up and downloaded MX23.5-KDE-Desktop.

I have Netrunner which has a  KDE Desktop.

AVL guy tried to use MX Tools which I have now.

Al these start with Antix which was one of the smallest Linux distributions I used during 32 bit time.

There better application available with Debian.

OBS studio and KDNlive.

Maintaining an Iso is a full time job not a part time job. I am making these comments as a long time Linux User and I am not at all involved in Linux Development, in my twilight years.

AV Linux MX Edition

The multimedia content-creation focus AV Linux has provided since 2008 is now combined with the powerful versatility of MX Linux! AV Linux MX Edition (AVL-MXe) comes with a high-performance Liquorix Kernel and the beautiful and efficient Enlightenment Desktop Environment. In addition are a whole host of useful tools including the venerable ‘MX-Tools’ paired with the convenience of specialized custom utilities. This system is tuned out of the box for fast low-latency Audio performance, seamless PipeWire integration and optional support for Windows Audio and Plugin applications through Wine-Staging and yabridge. Currently AV Linux MX Edition is recognized by MX Linux and utilizes its Build tools and Packaging but is not an official MX Linux product.

 

DOWNLOADS

Downloads are provided on my own VPS with extra mirrors generously provided by Bytemark. ISO files with accompanying MD5, SHA256 and SIG files are all provided for security verification. AVL-MXe is only available in 64bit architecture with MX ‘AHS’ (Advanced Hardware Support).

AV Linux MX Edition is provided free of charge and is fully functional (except for included 3rd party Software Demos). It takes a tremendous amount of time and effort to develop and maintain such a specialized Operating System and these efforts all have associated costs both monetary and otherwise. If you use AVL-MXe regularly I would ask you to consider making a donation here or to the MX Linux parent organization in recognition of the costs involved. People doing content production regularly purchase various Add-ons, Plugins and other Applications in the course of their work, I would ask you to give the same consideration to the Operating System that hosts them. 

 If needed the Live Media password is ‘demo’

AV Linux MX Edition contains some Customized Applications and Packaging that is not available within a Repository at this time. In the event that you need to retrieve or reinstall any of that special Packaging an archived web FTP folder has been provided for your convenience here

SUPPORT

This is a spare time project, it has been maintained since 2008 when time and resources are available, I cannot commit to full time daily support and as such there is no dedicated User Forum. Most common questions are covered in the Video linked above and when time allows I can be found in the MX Linux Respins sub-forum and in the Linuxmusicians Distribution sub-forum. Help is always needed and wanted for existing Users of AVL-MXe to assist other Users.

Catbird Linux

In spite of the Web Hype I have nothing good to talk about Catbird Linux

Do not use it and run into problems. It not the problem of Debian but the guys who are trying to fiddle with the kernel.

Reasons

1. It is Sid version which unstable and never released by Debian developers.

2. It cannot configure my RAM which was  *GB but it assumed it was 4GB.

3. It could not configure my NUC WiFi.

4. It live USB does not boot fully.

5. No user login or password checking.

6. Probably no root account.

7. Command line did not work.

8. My NUC has no Audio output but it configured the non existing Audio to 100%.

9. Torrent does not have any seeders.

I am not sure from and how I god its torrent file into my system. May be from listen to an amateur Linux Guru in the YouTube.

10. I am totally disappointed and I will delete the iso image and go and download AV Linux MX version.

Catbird Linux

 

Catbird Linux is an operating system built for media creation, web scraping, and software coding. It is the daily driver you want for retrieving data, making videos or podcasts, and making software tools to automate the repetitive tasks. It is ready for work in Python, Lua, and Go languages, with numerous packages for web scraping or downloading data via API calls. Using Catbird Linux, it is possible to accomplish in depth stock market analysis, track weather trends, follow social media sentiment, or do other tasks in data science. The system is programmer friendly, ready for creating and running the tools you use to measure and understand your world.

 

 Welcome to Catbird Linux, an operating system built for media creation, web scraping, and software coding. It is the daily driver you want for retrieving data, making videos or podcasts, and making software tools to automate the repetitive tasks. It is ready for work in Python, Lua, and Go languages, with numerous packages for web scraping or downloading data via API calls. Using Catbird Linux, it is possible to accomplish in depth stock market analysis, track weather trends, follow social media sentiment, or do other tasks in data science. The system is programmer friendly, ready for creating and running the tools you use to measure and understand your world.

Catbird Linux v2 live username:  user    password:  live

Introduction

Welcome to Catbird Linux, an operating system built for media creation, web scraping, and software coding. It is the daily driver you want for retrieving data, making videos or podcasts, and making software tools to automate the repetitive tasks. It is ready for work in Python, Lua, and Go languages, with numerous packages for web scraping or downloading data via API calls. Using Catbird Linux, it is possible to accomplish in depth stock market analysis, track weather trends, follow social media sentiment, or do other tasks in data science. The system is programmer friendly, ready for creating and running the tools you use to measure and understand your world.

Catbird Linux v2 live username:  user    password:  live

catbirdlinux-2.8.0.iso (Release Date 2024/12/17)

Content Creation Tools

Start creating content by developing your ideas and writing them down. Obsidian is a premier application for note-taking in markdown format. Neovim also works great with markdown. Write books and export them to multiple formats using LibreOffice. Creating ebooks for the Kindle or other readers can be tricky; use Sigil to open up ebooks and edit them as HTML projects.

Aside from writing text, creating content involves working with audio, video, and images. Catbird Linux is ready to work for you with these applications:

• Audacity, for audio editing. Plenty of processing and analysis plugins are installed.
• GIMP, for image editing in a gui.
• Imagemagick, for image editing on the command line.
• Inkscape, for vector graphic image editing.
• OBS-Studio, for video streaming and screen recording.
• Shotcut, for video editing. Processing plugins included.

Data Science

Here are some of the main Python packages integrated into the system:

• Python 3.12, pure and simple. It is the base upon which capabilities are extended with extra custom modules.
• Requests, a simple, yet elegant, HTTP library.
• Ipython, a command shell for interactive computing in Python.
• JupyterLab, an application for creating, testing, and sharing documents containing live code. Jupyter Notebooks are configured for Python, Go, Lua, Javascript, Typescript, and Bash kernels.
• Pandas-Datareader, a library for managing and formatting for display or input to other applications.
• Matplotlib, a 2D mathematical plotting library.
• Scipy, a core Python library for computations in science and engineering.
• Sympy, the Python library for symbolic mathematics.
• Numpy, a core Python library for advanced mathematical computations.
• Astropy, containing essential computational tools for astronomy and astrophysics.
• MetPy, a Python library for reading, visualizing, and performing calculations with weather data.
• WorldWeather is the largest three-dimensional web-based interactive browser of satellite, weather, climate, and other publicly available time-aware geospatial data, built upon NASA's revolutionary World Wind technology.

For web scraping, these specialized packages are installed:

• Beautiful Soup, a library for exreacting data from HTML and XML documents.
• Selenium, a suite of tools automating web browsing.
• Scrapy, a powerful and extensible web scraping and crawling framework. It is not especially user friendly, but once set up, it really brings in the data you need.

Sentiment of scraped social media or news content can be measured with natural language processing (nlp) software tools. Whether favorable, neutral, unfavorable, or perhaps outright love and hate, populations can be evaluated by by what they say. Bots and trolls can be found and evaluated too! The Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK) is the main language processing tool in Catbird Linux. It has numerous components which parse, tokenize, classify, and evaluate the semantics of written language. Catbird Linux is configured for English, but it is possible to install modules for other languages. VADER Sentiment Analysis is a valence-aware dictionary and rules-based analysis tool crafted for social media analysis. WordNet is effective on groups of words, adept at assigning values based on phrases built on synonyms, antonyms, or neutral with respect to other words.

TextBlob is a package which your scripts will use to examine blocks of text - breaking phrases into parts, then tagging, evaluating, and quantifying sentiment. It is powerful, but easy to use: collect your text, with programmatic instructions, feed it to the processor for evaluation.

Catbird Linux includes a wide variety of python packages ready to work on start-up. If you have your own scripts or Jypyter Notebooks, copy them into the system and run them. Additional packages may be easily added with the pip install or other commands. It is suggested to set up separate Python virtual environments built around specific packages and tasks.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools

Artificial Intelligence has quickly proven itself to be an essential element of data collection, interpretation, and content creation. It seems that each week, creative people are finding new ways to use ChatGPT, Bard, Midjourney, and other intelligent tools to reimagine their workflows and be super productive. Catbird Linux is now incorporating some of those tools. Several are bookmarked in the web browser for quick access, while others are included as stand alone apps or browser plugins.

Use Terminal GPT (tgpt) to engage the Bai Chatbot, which may be used anonymously and for free - with no API keys. Look for the Google Bard web browser plugin or HuggingChat sidebar accessory to enhance your experience in Firefox.

Go and Lua: Elegant - Efficient - Fast

Go and Lua are open source programming languages focused on simplicity, reliability, and efficiency. Writing either Go or Lua to create your applications, you work in a more direct manner, without the bloat and clutter of other programming languages. Golang code is compiled into lightweight, efficient binaries, while Lua is interpreted and executed quickly and reliably.

Gather an analyze data with Python, but use Go to do the heavy work with your refined data. It is 40x faster than Python, similar to Java or C++ but more probrammer-friendly.

Javascript and Typescript: Dynamic Web Content

Neovim and JupyterLab are both configured with syntax and formatting support for Javascript and Typescript. In fact, you can test your code incrementally in JupyterLab. Of course, Firefox is a web browser which will run Javascript or Typescript right out of the box.

Office, Programming, and Multimedia Applications

In addition to data science applications, Catbird Linux is equipped with the full LibreOffice productivity suite. For code writers, there is the Neovim editor, with included plugins supporting Python, Go, Lua, Java / Javascript, HTML, Markdown, and other languages. Multimedia files and data streams are available in the MPV Media Player. Internet accessible software defined radio servers are indexed in, SDR-Map and SDR-Bookmarks for accessing live, off-the-air broadcasts from around the world.

Command Line Tools

Catbird Linux contains a plethora of efficient and fast command line tools.

• Terminal GPT (tgpt) provides acces to the Bai Chatbot. Open it and send some prompts to accomplish interesting things.
• Neovim and Nano are a pleasure to program in, in part, because they are so fast.
• Newsboat is an RSS / Atom feed reader.
• Castero is a lightweight podcast player.
• Browsing the web is a breeze in text mode with W3M.Navigate pages with Vim-like keys and enjoy cleaner, stripped text using the Readability utility.
• Surfraw is a search tool providing well over a hundred different websites to access for information not easy to find on the major portals. You can look for aircraft in flight by registration or ADSB hex code, find answers to computing or math problems, or even do lookups of slang phrases or rumors appearing in the news.
• TwitGrid pulls multiple topically related X / Twitter feeds and displays them as a broadsheet in Firefox. Temporarily running as a multi-tabber as the X page formats keep changing, breaking the broadsheet.
• Irssi is a terminal based internet relay chat (irc) application for anyone wanting to go "old school" in text based communication.
• lf is a fast and efficient terminal file manager. Navigate with Vim-like keys, with previews and user configurable management commands.
• fzf, ripgrep, and fd are tiny yet very effective tools for searching and organizing files or text. With these, you can reach into dozens or hundreds of files to recursively find words, phrases, code, or even terminal command history.
• uv is a new and extremely fast Python package and project manager, written in Rust. It is the tool to use for installing or removing packages and keeping the dependencies in order. Uv makes it easy to set up and run virtual Python environments.

Network Accessibility and Security

Catbird Linux contains applications promoting a decentralised, content neutral, and censorship free internet. For evading national censorship barriers, Wireguard VPN, OpenVPN, and Sshuttle are effective tools. Tor-Remote is for discretely acessing the Tor network by ssh tunneling first to an intermediate server, which is connected to a Tor entry node. DNS privacy and authenticity, are protected with DNS over HTTPS, ensuring that censors cannot monitor or poison domain name lookups.

Local files need protection too! VeraCrypt provides strong cryptographic protection in the form of storage volumes which resist tampering or unauthorised access. Bleachbit is a powerful system cleaner which can also eliminate traces of deleted files by wiping free disk space.

Usage and Installation Options

Catbird Linux is built primarily to run as a live environment you boot from a flash drive. However, it is now easily installable with the Calamares application! Write this great Linux system to your desktop or laptop hardware and go forth to do great things. It is lightning fast on bare metal.

To create a bootable flashdrive, consider using Etcher or Rufus. Ventoy may be used to set up a portable multiboot drive you can use for USB booting as many live Linux environments as you can fit on the device.

The live iso is packaged as a DVD image, but it is not recommended to burn an actual DVD to run any live computing environment. DVDs are far, far too slow! Use a flash drive or SSD for a portable set up; install to bare metal for top performance.

Technical Notes

Catbird Linux is a 64 bit system. As of Version 2.0, it is based on Debian's Sid branch of GNU/Linux. Catbird Linux uses the Dynamic window Manager (DWM), with a great set of patches, to provide an efficient workflow light on resources and fast. The system builds on and extends the capabilities of its parent distros: easy software updating, great graphics, system resource management, and adaptability to user needs. The system runs quite well on modest hardware, and is blazingly fast on strong multi-Core CPUs with abundant memory.

This live Linux system may be customized and the iso file regenerated with the included Bash scripts. Copy the directory /usr/local/src/linux-respinner to a location with free space at least four times the size of the iso file. Edit the variables at the beginning of the "group update" and "multifunction" scripts so they contain the actual paths to be used. See the respinner README for more information.

Integrity and Authenticity of Catbird Linux

Great effort goes into making Catbird Linux safe and free of malware. To verify that your copy of the iso image file is authentic, undamaged, and unaltered, check the sha256sum against the official authentication document and verify the digital signature of Catbird Linux. The authentication document is available by the download link at Catbirdlinux.com. Use the Passwords and Keys or Seahorse application to check the signature. Import the Catbird Linux public key from pool.sks-keyservers.net or keyserver.ubuntu.com.

Disclaimer

Catbird Linux is provided as-is. No guarantees or warranties are applicable to Catbird Linux. Catbird Linux is an independent distribution derived from Debian GNU/Linux, but not endorsed by or affiliated with Debian or any other organizations. End users bear all responsibility for access and use of data obtained with Catbird Linux and any works created with it.

AV LINUX Live Login

 Monday, April 23, 2018
AV LINUX Live Login

 

This has morphed into MXLinux.

AV LINUX Live Login

For Login both Username and Password are Required.

Previous versions used an auto-login.

When the Live ISO finishes booting and proceeds into the  Login Screen you will need to enter the following

Username and Password:

AV Linux 32bit :

Username: isotester

Password: avl32

AV Linux 64bit :

Username: isotester

Password: avl64

Root Password:

avl32admin

avl64admin

My Grand Overall of Linux Iso Images

My Grand Overall of Linux Iso Images

I have only 360GB hard disk in my NUC.

Even then, it has three Debian instances and Netrunner installed.

I have 50GB NTFS partition for iso images.

I left two big SATA hard disks at home, fearing my luggage will exceed.

I traveled by Sri-Lankan Airways to Singapore and by Qantas to Australia.

It was the cheapest flight available at that time. Needless to say, the Sri-Lankan Airbus was very dirty. 

Even the Ceylon Tea was of poor quality. At least they should have given a good quality, Ceylon Tea.

I promote Ceylon Tea all my life.

How can I recommend it?

I have no space for additional iso images and I decided to install them in 12 of my USB sticks, so that if I need space in future.

I would list them in priority wise but I have to say Damn Small Linux cannot be written to a USB stick. I just wrote it to 4GB USB stick and it lacks the  ESP bootable partition of a few MBs for the initial booting sequence. 

I hope the guys developing it would rectify this minor discrepancy.

Its Window Manager is Fluxbox.

I mounted it on Genome BOX utility and it has good selection of utilities including my favorite Abiword. It is less then 700MB for a CD disk but I found an image which was 1.2GB some where in the iso archives.  Certainly, not at Linux Freedom site.

I am going to stop talking about Linux for a little while.

My list of favorites are:

1. Debian Gnome 12.9.0, the latest (3.5GB)

2. Debian CD 1 of 12.9.0 of 4GB (not the Source image that is for developers)

This has all the desktops from Gnome to Cinnamon to Mate. One has to select the desktop at boot time.

3. Debian Mate 12.9.0 (3.3GB)

Please not Debian keep it under 4GB to fit into old USB sticks.

4. Parrot Security-6.3.2 (5.9GB)

Parrot is much better than Kali Linux. I have never used Kali (Indian Blood thirsty female God) in my life. I am not a hacker but I can do that if one try any one tries to trick me. It is only a safety valve but I use Parrot Linux.

5. Parrot -6.3.2 Home Edition (2.6GB)

6. Linux Mint-22.1- Cinnamon (3GB)

7. Manjaro - Gnome-24.2.1-2412 (4.1GB)

8. Ton of old and new Puppy Linux images filling my download folder from  250 MB to 1GB.

9. Notable mention of AVL Linux MX Edition which has moved to Debian kernel and has Enlightenment Desktop. 

My attempt to download both direct and torrent failed. So I decided to try Catbird Linux.

10. Elive Linux 

11. Catbird Linux 2.8.0 4.7GB

It is Debian Sid derivative for media with AI enhanced.

I personally do not like AI Technology.

That is my favorite on a USB stick but regular guy of course, is Debian which never failed me for over a decade or more.

I have my old flames Mandriva and SimplyMepis for demonstrations.

I have deleted Endless OS from this list, simply because my old ACER Laptop boots only with a CD/DVD. 

These Microsoft Guys have blocked the booting with USB. It had Microsoft installed and I erased it using TRUE OS CD booted and mounted and linked to the Internet. True OS is defunct, (than you) but Free BSD is live and well. 

This how and when, I started hating Microsoft and Windows.

Berkeley (BSD) or Berkeley Software Development.

FreeBSD is a free-software Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). The first version was released in 1993 developed from 386BSD, the first fully functional and free Unix clone and has since continuously been the most commonly used BSD-derived operating system.

AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969[1] at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and others. 

They started the C language which started the Free Coding.

Scottish Guy Earl Grey in Russia

By the way Earl Grey is good Ceylonese Tea which I love. When I Google, I get there to Tea and not this guy.

I haven't heard of him in YouTube for a long time and I browsed the Web and found him.

He looks older and his accent is now bit thick and he has adapted to Russia.

He is school teacher and he may be teaching English to Russians.

His description of Russia in 5 points.

1. Law and Order

2. Everything Works and in Order

3. Taxation is low, only 13%.

4. Borders are kept strict and for legal visitors only.

5. Common Sense 

Russian posses common sense.

In UK currently, over 5000 petty thefts a day.

I am glad I left UK in 1988. 

I am in Australia and it is thousand times better.

Evolution and Spread of Buddhism

Evolution and Spread of Buddhism
Before, coming to nuts and bolts of Dhamma, let me state few historical facts, some related to geography and some to language.
Word of Buddha reached China 700 years after Parinibbhana and was memorized in Sanskrit.
It reached Burma and Thailand 1000 or more years later, probably by sea route and was memorized in Pali,
Nepal or the Magada State is landlocked and Buddhism did not reach Tibet until 1200 years or more.
One should assume that all these countries had some form of a belief system and were not conducive, if not antagonistic to imported or foreign ideas.
China is a good example.
Things were recorded in Matale, Aluvihara in Ceylon 1700 years later, after the passing away of Buddha.
My point here is, with passing away of time and cultural influence and errors in memory chain, nothing called Pure Dhamma existed but colossal literature, that include Dhammapada, which gives an insight,  to the Teaching of Buddha.
What excited me was that the discussion on the Beauty of the Mind and its Behavior.
Every volitional action is related to the Mind and many years of me studying  Medicine did not prepare me to understand the Mysterious Nature of Mind.
Prudently, I postponed digging into Dhamma in my young years.
I bought a huge dictionary of Buddhism and it had more than 10 pages on the word Dhamma.       

From the very beginning, I knew, most of  the English and French translators got them wrong somewhere down the line, having not studied Pali in depth.
However, I have veneration for the German erudite who translated Pali into English and German. Not only that they initiated the opening of the   Buddhist Publication Society, in Kandy, Ceylon.
The Tibetan approach, I never liked and trying to become a Modern Buddha with the glamour of TV screens is an alien concept. After all, I hate China for subduing  Dalai Lama and invading Tibet for no reason other than economic and expanding its Silk Road Initiative.
I think Coronavirus was the befitting curse that befell on China for decades to come and its Silk Road dream of economic strangle will peter out, in real terms and in real time.
I hate Mao Zedong and Carl Marx for destroying thousands of years of Chinese Culture.
In that case,  President Putin is much wiser, who sticks to Orthodox Church.
The long preamble is essential and many Mahayana and Hinayana traditions are a utter waste.

Violence

 

Violence

It appears to me none of the religions except Buddhism abhor the violence that include self inflicted violence. What I mean is the suicide bombing in the name of religion or terrorist cause. Destruction of life whether it is self or otherwise and all beings is alien to Buddhism.

This is where Buddhism stand alone in high ground.

This is where we have to define the role of a suicide bomber in the modern society. There is no justification for the existence of similar entity and for that matter intolerance or discrimination of any human being for his or her, origin, class,creed,religion,race,sex or whether rich or poor.

We are at a cross roads.

There is alarming trend of religious fanaticism and atheistic views raising their heads.

This is where the Buddhist Moral Principles should stand erect and relevant. They are strikingly different from all modes of other religions where it is espoused that killing oneself for the sake of a religion or sect (there was a similar sect-Ishihara- in Japan),    is as the supreme sacrifice and results in being born in heaven. This is a myth we must dispel with utmost vigor.

This is happening in Ceylon too but for a different reason and goal. Labile children with childhood trauma are selected and indoctrinated to take life for a course which they themselves cannot enjoy in return. The fallacy of this inhuman misdemeanor has to be born clear of all religions. The religious leaders and dignitaries have failed in their duty and the present political systems, whether authoritarian, capitalistic, communist, religious or liberal systems have failed to deliver any form of organization except further division. Devoid of human values (we may call it moral principles) the perceived global village is collapsing.

Divine Abode

The four sublime states of mind described in Buddhist Psychology the loving kindness (Metta), compassion (Karuna), altruistic joy (Mudita) and equanimity (Upekka) are the very essence of humanity that is lacking in the modern world.

Why thesePaliwords do not have a place in Oxford or Webster's dictionaries is an indication how the world politics are shaped up in the current century.

There is no English synonym for Avihimsa (world sans violence) and that is how the Western Democracy has evolved. From Romans to modern day Mandela the way of dealing with crisis was absolute violence without recuperation. Only now there is some form of dialogue emerging but with western bias. Instead, hate, vengeance and violence are the operating themes of the world be that it may be terrorism or state sponsored violence sanctioned by the UNO.

The Suttas description of development of these supreme states is as follows.

"There, O monks, with mind full of loving kindness (compassion, altruistic joy or equanimity) pervading in one direction, then a second direction, then a third one, then the fourth one, just so above, below and all around and everywhere identifying himself with all, he is pervading the whole world with mind full of loving kindness with mind wide, developed, unbounded, free from hate and ill-will."

Thereafter he follows the same theme with compassion, altruistic joy and equanimity.

It is said that in this country there were hospitals caring for animals. The decadence that has set in our society and world at large has to be reversed. We must not let the politics, economics and business mechanisms to decide our future however powerful they are.

They are not the only stakeholders.

Silent masses without a voice is quite evident after the tsunami episode. We must be self critical of our failures. We must be mindful and expose the changes that is currently taking place globally due to unsustainable scientific and economic exploitation of the third world.

The Way Forward

The world and all beings big or small need kindness, compassion and freedom to live with dignity. Live and let live should be the only currency for the modern world and why all the religions and religious sects (except perhaps Buddhism) are failing to arrest these dangerous trends is the question the UNO should be asking itself?

17th April, 2006

Linux Freedom- Old Iso Site

Linux Freedom - Old Iso Site

https://linuxfreedom.com/mepis/download.html

It took two hours of trouble for me to find the Linux Freedom Site.

To begin with I forgot the name. 

I typed in Linux Wisdom which did not help.

Long before www.dictrowtach.com came into existence, this is the site where I go and look for Linux distributions.

Mandrake is one of the first distributions, I have used. An iso image is avaible at Linux Freedom site.

Mepis is there which is Debian based, one of my favorite because of its Graphic Step by Step Help when installing, the distribution.

Ultimate Linux is also there.

Byzantine OS is also there.

Even Google origin gOS is there.

All these distributions  are defunct but I need to mention these tiny winy bits, in my book "Linux Essentials" for completeness sake.

I think people should donate to this site, like what I said about FOSS when it was running into financial difficulties.

Thank YOU Linux Freedom for your old time help.

I am now completely Debian Guy.

Jon Hall and Peter Parfait were my Linux Gurus

 Reproduction

Jon Hall and Peter Parfait were my Linux Gurus.

I read a book by them called "Joy of Linux" in the same Style as "Joy of Sex".

Having read that I got rid of the "Fear Psychosis" I had on Linux.
I am reproducing on of his "Wisdom Thoughts" here.
I am using Linux utilities and figuring out to put his photo here.
Hope I will be successful.
The Raspberry Pi computer has rekindled interest in tinkering with hardware and created a market for products combining the tiny computer with customized software. 
By Jon "maddog" Hall

The format of the Photo was not accepted by Google, unfortunately.
 
Those of you who know me know that I designed electronics circuits in high school and then studied Electrical Engineering at Drexel University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). Unfortunately during that career I was almost electrocuted by 13,600 volts and 800 amps (twice!). Fortunately I found software as much fun and a lot safer, other than paper cuts from ripping printouts. Back in those days electronic components were very expensive (US$ 128,000 for 64KB of core memory), so I took the software route and let someone else pay for the hardware.
I continued to be interested in hardware, and I even assembled my own computer from chips and prototype digital circuits with the use of breadboards, sometimes with wire-wrapping. Soldering tens of thousands of pins perfected my soldering technique, and you really don't want to know about the wire-wrapping.
About two years ago, I became involved with the Arduino, which has been a lot of fun, but my time with it was limited, and to me it was not a "real" computer because it did not run GNU/Linux.
Then I heard about the Raspberry Pi (RPi). This was what I had been waiting for: a US$ 35 computer that ran a real operating system and allowed you to tinker with electronics just as you could with the Arduino. In fact, people were using the Raspberry Pi and the Arduino together, which was even cooler.
The founders of the Raspberry Pi Foundation are modest people who thought that only 1,000 very low priced computers would be enough for the world, and in doing so, they unfortunately created an imbalance between supply and demand. (Alas, many great visionaries underestimate their influence.) In fact, they took 100,000 orders before they shipped a single Raspberry Pi, and for many months, people who wanted them could only order one at a time with a 12-week delivery lead time.
Last September, just before Campus Party Europe in Berlin, I contacted the Raspberry Pi Foundation and asked if they would be willing to attend and perhaps give a talk or two about their wonderful machine. Not only did they send Alan Mycroft, one of the original founders, but they sent three enthusiastic graduate students and lots of RPis and bread boarding gear, and they even gave three hands-on workshops. I attended one of them and worked with a young "Campusero" from Spain who I thought was going to go berserk over the fact that his software could make an LED blink Morse code. Then, I taught him that pushing a button was not as simple as he thought when the button has key bounce.
Over the past several months, I have had the privilege to work closer with the Raspberry Pi Foundation, learning more about their history and dreams for the computer. I have seen people create the most interesting projects with it, and in some cases move beyond projects to selling actual products based on a Raspberry Pi with some customized software (e.g., a three-person ERP system for small companies).
At Campus Party Brazil, I also met another of the product's founders, Pete Lomas, whose tales of bringing the RPi to market reminded me a lot of my days back at Digital.
I also gave two talks at Campus Party Brazil on the RPi: one about the RPi in general and another about how to make a media center out of the RPi from really inexpensive components. Attaching an RPi to a VESA-equipped monitor could create a very powerful, low-cost thin client/media center for digital inclusion. It has no fan noise, uses very little electricity (3W when idle), and has no moving parts to wear out.
Most refreshing was the real desire to keep the price of the RPi as low as possible yet still deliver enough compute power to students who want to experiment. The Raspberry Pi Foundation has now shipped more than 1 million units, and they are set to deliver another million this year; however, I think they might need to manufacture 2 or 3 million.
Another thing I like about the RPi is the number of different Free and Open Source operating systems that have been ported to it (including Firefox OS) and the number of cottage industries that are building up around it – cases, an online magazine driven by the community, bread-boarding packages, and other add-ons.
Every once in a while there is a "step function in fun" for computing, and the Raspberry Pi Foundation has hit a home run. If you have not investigated it, particularly if you are part of a school or university, I suggest you visit their website.

Ten (10) or more things I would like to see happening before the end of 1012

 Posted on September 18, 2011

Ten (10) or more things I would like to see happening before the end of 1012

Ten (10) or more things I would like to see happening before the end of 1012.

Some saints are predicting end of the world by 2012 but I have a few predictions and I would like to see some of them happening before the end of 2012.
I will list them here first and would enlarge upon them on a future date depending on the time at my disposal.

 
These are made without any attachment to any country or state or company at large.

 
The concept I would like to develop is that there should be greater good to the average person on the street or is born every 7 seconds or so  to this World / Century with IT industry expanding and penetrating into every corner of life from medicine to agriculture to information technology.

Everybody enjoys music.

Similarly everybody loves reading a magazine or daily paper.

Both have become part of our lives.

Cellphone is universal now.

Information and its technology is no different.

Information should not be concentrated on few rich countries nor few rich companies nor a few rich guys/girls.

When O.L.P.S (One Laptop per Child) came up everything possible was done to kill its impact in its infancy by the rich and the powerful.
Unfortunately credit crisis and debt crisis came in at the same time and put a powerful lid around spread of information to the poorer countries and copyright laws and similar instruments are used to keep the knowledge hub in the hand of vested interests.
This cannot go on for ever, if we have a defunct Organization called United Nations Organization.
U.N.O does not think that Linux exists but only Microsoft and Apple.
Unite Nations does not even have a Language Policy now.

Only English is dominating.

I cannot go there and address an audience in plain Sinhala but Linux and Debian/Fedora can do that without the support of UNO.
Linux Community has done a lot to World Languages much more than the White Elephant U.N.O.
Vatican uses one Linux computer and U.N.O does not have even one from the statistics available currently on the Web.
This organization should be closed for good since the end of the world is already predicted by the saints and Maurians.

If not me American politicians think so and would not like to spend money running this organization except their interests.

What I state here should come from U.N.O or W.H.O but the guys and girls there are only interested in Human Rights of some godforsaken countries deprived of every possible avenue of help; from poverty, hunger to malnutrition and exploitation of rich mineral sources by corrupt rulers and administrators who come to power or attempt to come to power by not so democratic means  or by shear deception (L.T.T.E and their backers included).

It is true that a few western countries which dominate the world  of IT industry.

That domination should end, sooner than late.

1. In my list Apple Mac comes first.
Its domination with its pricing scale should come to an end sooner than late. 

It should be affordable if not it should be replaced by similar applications.
Could alternatives fill in?

Yes Linux can do that.

2. Domination of Microsoft should end.

It is already happening thanks to its own creation of wealth around itself.

Linux has already made inroads and has enough weaponry to offset any more exploitation..

But windows 8 has already gone paranoid.

3. Domination of IBM in high tech area should be squeezed especially its classmate kits for rich kids.
It can be done easily with tablets and anti-androids that come from the Asian continent.

4. Google will kill itself by following policies similar to Microsoft in its Android (Linux inventions tampered with minor details) manifestation.

5. Intel’s domination should end with alternative chip making and it’s already happening.

There are alternative chip manufacturers.

If I am attacking all the powerful companies is there anything left to fill the gap.

Yes there is enough.

6. Amazon should step in.

Its kindle, its publishing arm, its cloud services and powerful marketing philosophy should move forward and take the lead and stretch its arm all over  the world including China and India.

This should come before U.N.O declare human right violation in China.

In India Human Right Violations including rape happens everyday.

Nobody talks after IMF incident.

Yes it’s an American adventure but it does not matter if it is doing the right thing at the right time for the children of the world and ordinary masses.

I hope the CEOs there make the right decision for this century and be proud after 100 years from now.

Amazon had been doing a silent service.

Its cloud service going to be the next important thing that will change how things should be shaped up right now.

We must not let Oracle with its powerful database machinery to take over the IT industry with other selfish collaborators.

7. Cloud computing is going to shape up everything from year 2012.

Linux has developed all the tool kits.

It looks like rich companies are going to hijack all the innovations that came from Linux.

We must put an end to this.

There are over 100 very good Linux distributions out there.

If we let the current trends to dictate about 10 companies will determine the wealth of information while Mr Bunki Moon and Mrs.Pillay are dabbling with human right issues while allowing USA and UK going unscathed.

The 10 or so companies are gearing  readily albeit  slowly to strangle the whole world economy.

Nobody in the U.N.O speaks.

Those human rights issues are carrots to donkeys, issues when compared to what you see how things are shaping up in the West in the IT industry.

I am here with Richard Stallman.

What free software and Linux achieved over the last 20 years will be used by these few companies and become much more richer.

There are 10 Linux distributions for each exploiting company as it is now. 

They should divert their resources to take up the challenge and cloud computing seriously.

Ubuntu One is there.

CloudUSB and JoliOS are also there both Ubuntu derivatives.

Then there is Mobilin derivative MeeGo.

Why can’t the other distribution take some lead now?

8. What can the China do.

It can do a lot.

It can flood the market with tablets with anti-androids.

Its space industry (GIS -  Global Internet Service) should take over the Internet service sector and cloud computing.

India cannot contribute anything to this scenario since they are taken for a ride by the American companies and American interests.

Mind you Chinese use graphic language unlike English which is words language.

Graphic language is far superior in the tablet and cloud industry.

Even the people without English knowledge can use the technology  with graphics and charts included without reading a word.

This is where Chinese innovation and invasion is good for the world economy.

India is not ready and that is the biggest advantage for China.

9. For over 100 years what we used were slate and slate pencil.

Instead of the slate and the pencil, tablet, the mini-version of the portable computer and the cellphone alternatives will be the game changer from 2012.

Governments providing obsolete printed books Sri-Lanka included will be the thing of the past very soon.

What is preventing is the cost of the (O.L.P.S for example) O.E.M.

Tablet will change everything from communication to way we teach and learn.

Is U.N.O ready.

Not at all UNICEF is dead now and only a concept.

Only hindrance is the speed of the Internet.

Moment this barrier is broken like the sound barrier of the last century, everything will change.

The game changer has come to live but U.N.O is sleeping with it Mr. Bunki Moon.

It will be sooner than we have anticipated.

More satellites and fibro-optic connections will take IT industry forward.

We Sri-Lankan do not have a satellite of our own even  though the country is placed in a superior position in the Geo-Space.

10. What is necessary is training of personnel to take over the this challenge but that is where we are the slowest and the laziest.

There is a lot of resistance to change.

That is the human nature but few powerful companies are pushing us towards this goal whether we like it or not.

But U.N.O is sleeping.

We must be ready with alternative strategies as well as alternative technologies.

Linux can provide it. 

Its Community Spirit is more powerful than the USA or the sleeping U.N.O.

Already 95% of the industry depends on Linux.

We must not let 10 or more companies to take the copyright ownership of the Linux achievements.

This is specially so because U.N.O is sleeping on big capitals.

I hope this piece of writing is also a game changer.

What if one wants to try Linux?

 25-07-2013

 

What if one wants to try Linux?

 

This is a short recipe but the steps are far too many.

1. Decide what one needs

List the utilities one needs

Web browsing using only a cloud utility

Anonymous web browsing

Needs a word processor free of copyright, for example LibreOfiice

Needs a photo editor

Video/Audio player +++++

2. Decide on the CD/DVD image (DVD is preferable) of the distribution

3. Download preferably a torrent file which checks the file integrity and checksum

4. Decide on the hardware Laptop (never use a secondhand laptop) PC or self assembled PC.

Old secondhand PC computers with updated RAM (minimum of 1 GIB is my recommendation) with a graphic card of 256 to 512 MB is a good choice especially if it is the spare computer one is going to use it as.

On board Ethernet card is mandatory.

If there is no spare computer to download or the download speed is slow like in the developing world one has few options.

I do not download or test distributions now to save my electricity bill.

If I can save one month's of electricity bill I can buy the Linux magazine for a whole year.

That is what I do now.

One can visit and browse the Linux Magazine site and buy old copies of the magazine with Linux DVDs in them.

If you do so and buy a magazine copy, go for the copy with Knoppix DVD (as an extra copy) and a another copy of your desired distribution.

My approach.

One has to decide on either 32 bits or 64 bits (can have more RAM) version.

I will have five to six distributions in one box, few for my use and others for testing.

1. Knoppix CD (not DVD)

2. Gparted CD.

3. Linux Mint KDE (15)

4. Peppermint 4

4. Kiwi Linux

6. SuSe Linux KDE

7. PCLinux LXDE

8. Tails

9. Kali Linx

10. Debian 7.0
11. Pinguy Linux and many more

STEP 1

I boot up the Knoppix 7.0 CD.

This is to check my hardware.

This is the best Live CD to check on my hardware and it never fails.

If you buy the Linux magazine one is able to read the articles (questions and answers mostly) written by Knoppix himself.

I use this CD to partition my hard disk using Gparted.

It needs a rerserFS partition and a swap partition (onw has to use sufficient capacity for the DVD).

Then I install Knoppix CD version on the hard disk (follow the instruction while installing).

STEP 2

Then I boot Gparted Linux CD (Gnome Linux) and verify what was done and format all the partitions, (except where Knoppix is installed) for my need (read my articles on partitioning).

STEP 3

Then I install one by one all the distributions and see which one has the best GRUB utility.

Suse has the best configuration, partitioning and Grub file.

Peppermint comes close second but has very few utilities (cloud friendly Google based).

No word processors, torrent or disk burners.

Kiwi is pretty good alternative to Ubuntu

STEP 4

Redo the Step (three) 3 so that I get the best start up grub file that boots all the distributions.

I do this once a year and I have finished that cycle a few hours ago and I installed (downloaded) all the missing files of Peppermint except one that creates (it is not available in graphic form) an iso image of my final upgraded distribution.

Few comments worth mentioning.

 

1. use a router and not a telephone hookup.

2. Do not listen to guys/girls who test them on virtual machines.

There is a big difference in performance in actual hardware than in a virtual machine.

3. Do not install while connected to the Internet, it takes hell of a long time.

It is a waste of time.

4. Use SATA with at least 150 GB not IDE of 80GIB.

5. Do not use more than 15 partitions (SuSe cannot detect more than that).

6. Have three partitions for your most used Linux distribution.

/root., /home and /var and the rest of the distributions can be installed in one or two partitions.

5. Have two users always, one for root or administrator and one for regular user with good passwords.

 

All my users name come from the primate family from chimp to bonobo to gorilla.

Ubuntu forums tells me that their password file is compromised and that means my account too.
So strong password is mandatory now with lot of hackers out there.

Once one is familiar with a distribution try to stick with it without upgrading if the system is running well.

6. Do the preparation in mid July and not in December when everybody is on leave.

We were on a long industrial action in 2012 and I had nothing to do except fiddling with Linux and that was a discovery I made quite fortuitously.

Before that I did it on December and found that I had to re-install some f them in April or May.

Linux distributions tend to mature by mid year, strangely enough!

Stupid Things that I have done in My Life

Stupid Things that I have done in My Life

I am glad to say I never did stupid things in my student days.

I was way ahead of other kids.

I hated Scouting.

I did Junior Cadetting and went to Diyathalwa on three occasions and last time as the Sergeant.  Every year of visiting to Diyathalwa was worse than the previous occasion including food and free time. I excelled in sports and we were third in the overall championship. Even, if we came first, I do not thing I would have taken army as my career.

 

Only thing that I enjoyed was watching the streams of butterflies coming down the hills. 

I felt butterflies were much freer and I wish to be free as butterflies on air and no bondage.

 

A very Buddhist attitude of mine.

I was thrashed by the cadetting master until the Albizzia

(Persian Silk Tree) 

stick broke into many pieces, for refusing to join the senior cadetting unit.

My idea was to join the university (never wanted to become a doctor) on the first attempt.

There was another teacher, very considerate who even discourage me taking o part in even in athletics.  I used to beat his elder son in the class in academics and he should have made me to divert my attention to other things. I was active in Wall Papers and he said they are useless activities and you have potential to go to the university, it is difficult but try that instead.

His son who became a good friend entered university on the third attempt and became a very good Veterinary Surgeon. I used to meet him, also I used to visit him (forget why) in the Veterinary Hospital which was next door to the brand new Japanese built Dental School, where I worked as a pathologist.

 

Coming to the current topic, I used to do stupid things as a medical student including gambling once year at Bogambara, Mr. Balasuriya's  casino joint.

 

1. I would start with the last thing first.

Volunteering to Coronavirus jab was one of them.

Vaccines should be time tested (it takes 20 years or more for them to become safe) before introducing them in mass scale.

Nearly 20 million died on vaccine related incidents which WHO is hiding the real figures.

I ended up with Myocarditis which almost killed me, which ended up me writing two books one on Coronavirus and the second on Interleukins.

 

2. The next worst thing I did was to volunteer for alcohol test in Pharmacology (third year).

Both of us ended up as unconfirmed alcoholics. I weaned myself 6 years ago, I do not know about my friend who is in Isle of man as a Radiologist. I met him last in our 50 year anniversary in Ceylon. He does not respond to my emails. 

By the way, I have stopped sending emails to any, now.

3. Third was the worst.

I volunteered to test myself with Radioactive Thyroxin in the first year.

I do not know, the dose they gave me.

Its radioactive trace effects lasted over one year.

Of course, they built the Nuclear Biology Unit, on the rear side of the Medical Library, exposing medical students to the hazards. 

It was a Department of Physics Project.

As a seconded officer in the University, I activated the campaign opposing it on the grounds they were using unsuspecting young girls in the Kandy District.

This guy probably hated me (he was a PhD guy) and I never saw him.

Incidentally he was from my collage.

I was interested in Thyroxin and I wrote a Protocol (It was probably related to grey hair), for a guy who I considered a friend of mine on the understanding that he would mention my collaboration.

He did not.

I ended up doing a research project (Penetration Study of Linux) with a young guy.

I did most of it but told him not to mention my name at all.

I wanted him to take Linux as a career but he did not.

We had a nice meal before leaving Ceylon.

I did the wrong thing of telling him of his weaknesses which included believing in astrology and the Manios (maniacs). 

I did with good intentions.

Now he does not respond to my emails.

Ego or personality are the biggest hindrance to progress in this modern world.

I hope President Donald Trump, take a leaf out of my experiences.

He is older than me but President Putin is younger.

Well I am into five books.

They need finishing touches.

There will be less of blog pieces here.

I have downloaded all my Linux images.

Just today, I noticed, Debian has all the images in Linuxtracker.