Lost Opportunity for Indians-Cricket World Cup

I am made to believe that India is the home for computer experts and it has a home base of IT literate who can dish and dash Linux at the drop of a hat.

I have to reserve that judgment now.

I have been looking at who is grabbing the opportunity that Linux has opened up.

It is not India.

It is not Pakistan.

It is not Sri-Lanka.

It is not Bangladesh.

To my surprise who is leading the field.

It is America.

Obama is quietly but effectively spreading the message of wisdom.

Education, Education in IT.

I won't tell you how I gather the information.

That is top secret.

Even though, it is not at all significant statistically and in numbers who are the people who visit my blogsite with Linux information.

It is again Americans who top the list.

I have been very vocal and forthright with American diplomats and their way of dealing with international affairs.

If one is an American he or she would be very annoyed with what I usually write about Americans but I am glad I have to complement the Americans who would search, gather information and reach for anything that is useful academically.

Then who are the people who disseminate this information to others.

It is again Americans.

It is not these big Universities like Harvard that spread the message.

It is the up and mobile ordinary Americans.

Thanks guys, even though some of your diplomats and politicians are bringing bad name to America you guys are spreading the message of goodwill, especially related to Linux.

Why I say Indians lost a trick.

This is the time all the guys from the West come here to watch cricket and enjoy the warm holiday.

All of them love to carry a netbook or a laptop with them.

Indians could have sold large number of netbooks and laptops to these guys for a very cheap price, if they mastered the Linux Operating System and Utilities.

The idea that the operating system is free could have galvanized them and the amount of saving on each buy / or purchase would have made them to buy not one but three for the price of one they pay in their countries.

Once they got the idea of the price and the use of Linux they would be coming back to Asia for bargains for the next 10 to 20 years to come.

All they have to do is to entice the buyer with wireless dongle and a Flashy Linux Distribution installed in the laptop or the netbook. If they provided a flashy media player to watch the matches (recording and playback) and the value added would have been infections.

This could have been easily accomplished in India, Bangladesh and Sri-Lanka.

But nobody wanted to explore and promote Linux in this part of the world.

In Sri-Lanka the reasons are many and I do not want to waste my time discussing that.

Why Indians lost this trick is my amazement.

There is no incentive to learn Linux in Asia because of pirating of software.

There has been an explosion of Linux utilities from last December to now, to Music, to Guitar, to Video to Graphic Rendering like Maya.

If the can at least sell some netbooks with GutaristX installed, that will get the ball rolling, even now.

It is not too late, even now but one should sell the hardware for OEM price and show that you are a good an honest businessman.

We are lacking that type of gentleman businessmen too due to pirating.

For the visitors who come to enjoy cricket and holidays I have a warning,

Please do not buy laptops and netbooks with pirated copies installed.

You cannot take them back to your country. You will be charged at your airport of entry. Same for videos and music and films. Watch them, listen to them while you are here but drop them to a dustbin before you leave.

But if you get a computer with Linux installed, buy that without any fear or get somebody to install Linux for you here. We have few guys in the University (undergraduates) who can do that for you and most of our Sri-Lankan vendors are clueless as regard to Linux.

But please make sure to install KDE desktops like PCLinux, Suse, Mepis in additions to Ubuntu which is Gnome and perhaps Pinguy for glamor.

For information as regard to Linux visit my blogspot at Google (parafox) or WordPress (asokaplus).

In the 6 weeks you are here if you can learn Linux (it can be achieved in 4 weeks) that is something that you can take home without any fear.

Good Lick with Cricket and Linux.

House Sparrows, a vanishing species?

I had been looking for an answer for why our house sparrows have become a vanishing species?

I have not found any luck.

Our ornithologists and bird watchers have not done enough.

I put the question to myself and these are the emerging facts.

1. This coincided with the disappearance of the migrant bird species which I counted over 30 in 1984.

2. Last 5 years I have not seen more than five species coming to our neighbourhood.

3. The last species who lost the habitat due to development was a type of robin who makes nests in the paddy fields. I call them the paddy birds and dearly as the last of the singing Bohemians. Once they lost the paddy field they started nesting on grass and when the remaining little waste land (now there is a three story building there) was encroached upon they disappeared. Till then I used to see at least 4 to 6 of the young ones yearly.

4. The house sparrows are more close to human habitat but they disappeared some 20 years ago.

Why?

That was my question.

I have seen one or two sparrows in Kandy City Center occasionally but none in the suburbs.

1. Unusual predator

2. Unusual predator of the eggs

3. Unusual destructor of their nests

4. Poison in our food and grains

I come to the last conclusion.

The amount of poison we eat every day in our food is sufficient to kill all the house sparrows over the last 30 years.

By way of aggro-economics we are killing our birds.
The story is true for pigeons too.

K-Torrents

There are many clients for torrent downloads.

Below is how to make good use of K-Torrents
1. One needs a Linux distribution with KDE desktop.
2. Look in the Internet Section and open K-Torrents (K stands for KDE)
3. Use Firefox or the web browser and access www.limuxtracker.org
4. Click torrents (not Linux distributions)
5. You are now in the first (the latest) download page
6. Look for the distribution of your choice
7. If necessary go to page 2 or 3 or …....
8. Click
9. Now you are in the download page of the distribution
10. Click the image link and in a few seconds a log file link to image is made (do not forget to click and say Thank You)
11. Go back to the download folder (if you did not change your preferences where to download, elsewhere)
12. Click the log file which automatically start the K-Torrent
13. Decide where to download (I make a separate folder ) and click OK
14. As you click OK it start downloading
15. Select Group View from the Graphic interface
16. You will have to click Active Downloads to see how active and the speed
17. If nobody else is using the network, I configure preferences to (speed of the download) to both upload and download to unlmited. Otherwise adjust it to 25 to 50% of the maximum speed, to prevent choking others in the network).
18. Then go to sleep if there are enough seeders and and download is to the maximum of my bandwidth (download speed depends on the seeders)
19. Otherwise go and repeat the procedure and find another distribution with at 10 seeders
20. Configure the graphic interface to your liking and see what is happening every nansecond and enjoy the bight sleep.

10 or more good things about K-Torrents

1.It lets one controls the download speed so others in the shared network has band width

2.It is timed to nanoseconds of bit and bytes transfer

3. It is graphical

4. It is a workhorse

5. It never breaks down and starts automatically after shutdown.

6. It checks the data for integrity

7. It lets one shares with the entire globe and there is no discrimination-Give and Take both.

8. It is a community

9. It is open source

10. I can now sleep without any worry

11. One can see from where they come and where they go but never hold it still to capture a moment in freeze state

Linux Lovers In Sinhala

I have now with me all the Debian (386) Live and Installable CDs / DVDs for spreading the message of Linux in Sinhala. It can be installed in Tamil Telangu and English too for Linux Lovers in the Indian Subcontinent.

Currently downloading 64 bit versions.

I would initiate a mechanism to make it available initially in Kandy and the University where I work does not permit me to access public directly.

Please log at this particular writing (two more above) and make comments below.

There is another alternative to Drop it at Droppbox but that will be lot of work for me.

A paper advertisement in another alternative.

Please do not contact me (no emails accepted) other than this portal.

I am happy to report that Debian 6 is available with Sinhala Graphical Installer.

10 (Ten) things a Linux Guy / Girl could do

10 (Ten) things a Linux Guy or Girl should do to become a geek and show off he is becoming a new groovy (I have coined this in the same tone as savvy).

1. Linux Guy (means both s / he) should be able boot at any moment day or night. Should be able to boot out or weed out Linux of Microsoft as soon as possible (any dual facility of booting is taken as sign of weakness or of a transvestism).

2. Should be able to root at any moment especially at night to look at the nocturnal misbehaviour of a server platform or your computer.

3. Should be able to flame a war with any vendor who is dishing out and venturing into virtues of New Windows 7 (which is 4 years old now anyway).

4. Should be able to flame a war with any neighbour who is using any windows without a screen cover. All windows should have curtain cover so that you should not be seeing what your neighbour's daughter is doing or up to.

5. Should carry a mini (business type) card or a Pendrive with at least Puppy Linux or Knoppix installed (this is a new addition to becoming a savvy-carry minimum of luggage in person).

6. Should have a old computer resurrected from an attic and used as a mail server educating newbies and flaming them with fire if they cannot boot or root instantaneously or as a dedicated seeding plot (seed potato type to germinate at any given time and not as a Microsoft couch potato type) with at least 20 to 30 hacked (means used many times) distributions for dissemination by K-torrent running 24 / 7 schedule.

7. Advocates running the computer 24 hours a day non stop (for seeding distributions to natives hitherto unknown with pidgin languages) for doing Cron jobs and midnight commander. If you tell this to a Microsoft Gut / Girl s/he will get a heart attack or they will be doing virus checking every half an hour.

8. Should be able to do short cuts with any combination of all 12 x F (function ) keys, Tab, Alt, Ctr. Shift (should never use the window key even with a sterile screen on top of it-why the hell it is there I still do not know in the key board) and any other alphanumeric key to do a simple jobs not understood by a kid or newbie. When you do that with the last touch of the key on F-12, a word presto should pop out for a second and a pause and then ask what next please (really you should write a mini shell script for above and assign it to the 12^th Function Key nobody seems to be using it nowadays. Linux never extended it beyond 8 in my time. Or else you must design a few Cron jobs yourself and assign them to F9 to F12

If nobody is impressed at least your girl friend or boy friend will be impressed by this activity.

9. Should be able to work with virtual keyboard even when the normal keyboard has coffee or tea spilled all over it by a kid while watching your antics.

10. This is a new one again since Microsfties think that Linux guy cannot play games. You must use the guitaristX (new distribution in Linux) key to play a game or two while stringing some music with John Lenon or Paul McCartneyin in the background.

11. This is an extra for a Sri-Lankan guy to show off that you can do Linux now in Sinhala and that is you say "you are an eternal Distressed-Distro-Hopper". You like plain hoppers, egg hoppers, Linux hoppers, jaggery hoppers or hoppers from heaven (in any case it looks like food is coming down from heaven when one look at the prices).

Important

I have now with me all the Debian (386) Live and Installable CDs /DVDs for spreading the message of Linux in Sinhala. It can be installed in Tamil Telangu and English too for Linux Lovers in the Indian Subcontinent.

Currently downloading 64 bit versions.

I would initiate a mechanism to make it available initially in Kandy and the University where I work does not permit me to access public directly.

Please log at this particular writing (two more above) and make comments.

There is another alternative to Drop it at Droppbox but that will be lot of work for me. A paper advertisement in another alternative.

Please do not contact me (no emails accepted) other than this portal

I am happy to report that Debian 6 is available with Sinhala graphical installer.

Freedom, Friendship and Sinhala Capability

Important

I have now with me all the Debian (386) Live and Installable CDs / DVDs for spreading the message of Linux in Sinhala.

It can be installed in Tamil Telangu and English too for Linux Lovers in the Indian Subcontinent.

Currently downloading 64 bit versions.

I would initiate a mechanism to make it available initially in Kandy and the University where I work does not permit me to have direct access to public.

Please log at this particular writing (two more above) and make comments.

There is another alternative to Drop it at Droppbox but that will be lot of work for me.

A paper advertisement in another alternative.

Please do not contact me (no emails accepted) other than this portal of inquiry.

I am happy to report that Debian 6 is available with Sinhala Graphical Installer.

Well. well I am happy to tell you that I downloaded KDE version (currently downloading Gnome version) of Debian 6 and it can be installed in Sinhala but I prefer installing it in English and then using Sinhala capability by changing the language after installation.


I am going to make it available locally in Kandy and you are free to copy it, (no selling except the price for CD and copying) install it and send me a comment below if there are any difficulties in using it.

The Sinhala terminology in there was like Greek to me but when I have the free time I will install it in one of my spare computers in my office and see its virtues.

In the mean time, I get a few of my university students who are versed in Linux to try it and give me a feedback.

It is advised that one downloads it as K-Torrent and not as normal web browser download.

Thanks you Guys and Girls at Debian for doing the honours for Sinhala Language.

I have to thank Anuradha (who comes from Kandy) profusely for his initiation.

Please do not worry him he is a busy person and doing some other important work. It is time for you to make local Linux Groups and spread the message of wisdom in Sinhala.

It was long time waiting for me but I am now at a different level and carry Linux in a Pendrive and enjoying it as pastime. and promoting Live CDs.


Visit my blog at www.wordpress.org (Linux for Computing and updates at asokaplus).

There over 200 hundred versions but many of them are not in Sinhala and many do not have multilanguage capability.

I am now more interested promoting it globally and activating K-torrent Groups who are posting and seeding Linux distributions globally for every nation on this planet to use without copyright laws.



For me this as an achievement of a few dedicated Sinhala (not the race but the Language) loving IT Guys and Girls who had devoted their free time to make Sinhala available in Linux.

It was our own Anuradha who tried to Make Sinhala Linux.

Unfortunately he was drawn into Presidential Forces after tsunami and he could not persevere with this project due to his workload and lack of support of dedicated Linux Guys.

Our own Rev. Mettavihari (foreign) of course added Pali and Sinhala font and its unicode version of Sinhala some years ago but nobody took active interest in prompting Sinhala Linux.

Please note www.worpress.org has Sinhala capability and it is open source and I have seen a few using it in Sinhala.

One reason (now there are many) I felt out Microsoft is when it introduced XP there was No Sinhala in its 40 odd languages.


Please note the note below.
Due to the lack of translation updates two languages were dropped in this release: Wolof and Welsh.

If we do not persevere it will be dropped from Linux like Welsh.

Asturian, Estonian, Icelandic, Kazakh and Persian have been added to the graphical and text-based installer.

Kannada, Lao, Sinhala and Telugu have been added to the graphical installer.

Linux-100-Extras-PCLinuxfullMonty-03

PCLinuxfullMonty has everything you want and it has I believe 64 bit capability too.
Go for it when the going is good.
4 GiB of it and it is a very affable Gorilla.

Linux-100-Extras-Fedora-14-04

Another new version (14 a brand new conceptually) has come out after I felt out of with Fedora 3 (Redhat 8 and 9 were my favorites) and I have been looking at it from version 9 (also because of ADIOS which got stuck at Fedora 8).
It has shed some of its old routine stuff but has failed catch the trends in other emerging Linux distribution.
I have installed Fusion which has Dropbox and it has all the virtues of Fusion

It is under 700 MiB and fits into 4 different (Live and installable) Standard CD.

It is pleasing and packed with minimum of utilities.

Have taken the trouble to release 32 bits, 64 KDE and Gnome in 4 CDs.

KDE has K-Office and Gnome has none.

Very soon Gnome has to embrace LibreOffice of document foundation which is doing a good hob.

I wish success with this new version even though I hesitate to introduce it to a newbie.

A savvy could pick and choose its packages from the repository but I have not visited it myself.

If you had been a Redhat fan (like me in the past) go for it.

I won't leave PCLinux (it is my Gold Standard) now that the PCLinuxfullMonty is out (Gorilla version) which has everything (cater for 64 bits too) I need and more packages to learn.

Who goes first?-Key Point-02

Have you ever thought of the identity crisis the key would have of its own if s/he has a brain?

Who am I the duplicate or the triplicate or the original?

Who goes first, me the original, you the duplicate or you the romeo?

Who will have the break me, you or the other?

Have you ever thought of what will happen if 100 replicas are produced from a single stem cell and the names of the beings such produced are given?

Stem Cell-01 being, 02 being to 100 being.

What will happen if they decide to come to a supermarket for shopping with only one credit card given to the original stem cell?

What will happen if they come for a super bowl?

It is mind boggling isn't it?

Thank god the key does not have a brain of its own!

Key Point!

What is the best place to hide a key?
I say in the key hole!
Then who is going look after it?
I haven't got a clue!


What is the best place to keep a car key?
It should be inside the car and locked!
Then who will drive the car?
I guess car key should!


I wonder, if the world is without keys and locks?
Then evolution and innovation of man would stop at that point of time!

Linux Tracker and Linux Tracking

It is very unfortunate that because of pirating of proprietary software, songs and films many organizations blacklist torrent downloads.

But it (torrent with many clients) does a yeoman service to the Linux Community.

What I say below is for K-torrent as a client and I have stopped using Microsoft for the last three years and soon would be changing to LibreOffice by dropping Open Office due to Oracle's underhand dealing with Sun Java Suite that they have purchased.

Big monopolies that come from America take every opportunity to retard the progress of the Open Source Movement but it bounces back with vigor and vitalizing its base, come what it may.

My “hats off” for the Guys / Girls doing service to the community.

I am against the practice of pirating (it is stealing) in the third world countries especially from India and then the Controlling authorities turning a blind eye and allowing the pirating as a normal practice and this retard the growth of Linux in the Asian countries including Sri-Lanka.

What is appalling is even in Universities this practice is rampant.

Universities should take the leadership in preventing pirating and they are the ones who would benefit in the long run since their proprietary rights that come as scholarly work is protected from infringement.

The initiation to protect the copyright and prevent illegal reproductions should be their onus in conjunction with controlling authorities.

But this never happens.

Writing this is for some other purpose.

We need to protect productions that come out of community collaborations, especially in Linux. Even these are getting hijacked by the big companies buying the well establish Commercial Linux products and endeavors like Suse and insinuating few proprietary slip ins in between the Open Source Products where their purity is tarnished in a legal manner.

Law is an Ass and it stands true when these manipulations are freely allowed by the law of the land.

Engineering splits in the Mandriva Linux are also in their sinister plans.

Point 1-No donations

With all these problems Linuxtracker Organization is doing what it can do to keep the community intact and developments tracked and updated regularly.

It only requests only $300 per month (that is a 10 dollar a day).

But people are stingy to donate even that which I find how selfish we are when it comes to be a consumer and a customer.
We must donate even as little as possible to keep these volunteers working for Linux.

Point 2-Slow Speed of Downloads

In the third world 90% of the people have no access to internet at home.
The 10% who have access, the download speed is very slow.
They can never think of downloading a DVD.
For example it took nearly 9 days, 4 days and 2 and half days to download 3 DVDs (Kororaa, 1.5 GiB Knoppix 3.4 GiB and PClinuxMonty 4 GiB-the fastest).

ArchBang 536 MiB took over 10 hours.

That is also my K-torrent running almost 24 hours..

I share these images with my friends and students.
In addition I leave a few images in my Dropbox for my friends here and abroad to share.

Point 3-How can we help the community?

One way is to donate few dollars.
The other way is to keep the images in the folder without removing them and let the computer idle or do some other download so that your computer work as a seeder for uploading.

This will enormously improve your download speed, too.

The rule is give as much as you take!

I am happy to say at times there is more uploads from my computer than downloads.

It is seeding well.

I have decided to dedicate my computer to torrent images (when I got my regular office work is organized in another computer) in the coming year once I have downloaded the most urgently needed updates and few games DVDs to add some spice into my plate.

The least that one can do is to leave the computer door open (Linux knows how to choose the port) for others to upload for a few hours a day.

In return your download speed will also improve.

That is the way torrent works.

It is also a community that is alive and active.

Be an active member of K-torrents.

Trees

He cannot read or write.
He has not got a Agriculture PhD.
He is over 60 and an African by birth.
He knows the trees by their smell, more than the name.

We in this country cut and sell trees but he grows them in a desert land.
We are lazy but he is not.

Leaves serve other purposes. After they fall to the ground, they act as mulch, boosting soil fertility; they also provide fodder for livestock in a season when little other food is available. In emergencies, people too can eat the leaves to avoid starvation.

The improved planting pits developed by Sawadogo and other simple water-harvesting techniques have enabled more water to infiltrate the soil. Amazingly, underground water tables that plummeted after the droughts of the 1980s had now begun recharging. "In the 1980s, water tables on the Central Plateau of Burkina Faso were falling by an average of one meter a year," Reij said. "Since FMNR and the water-harvesting techniques began to take hold in the late 1980s, water tables in many villages have risen by at least five meters, despite a growing population."

Some analysts attributed the rise in water tables to an increase in rainfall that occurred beginning in 1994, Reij added, "but that doesn't make sense—the water tables began rising well before that." Studies have documented the same phenomenon in some villages in Niger, where extensive water-harvesting measures helped raise water tables by fifteen meters between the early 1990s and 2005.

Over time, Sawadogo grew more and more enamored of trees, until now his land looked less like a farm than a forest, albeit a forest composed of trees that, to my California eyes, often looked rather thin and patchy. Trees can be harvested—their branches pruned and sold—and then they grow back, and their benefits for the soil make it easier for additional trees to grow. "The more trees you have, the more you get," Sawadogo explained. Wood is the main energy source in rural Africa, and as his tree cover expanded, Sawadogo sold wood for cooking, furniture making, and construction, thus increasing and diversifying his income—a key adaptation tactic. Trees, he says, are also a source of natural medicines, no small advantage in an area where modern health care is scarce and expensive.

"I think trees are at least a partial answer to climate change, and I've tried to share this information with others," Sawadogo added. "My conviction, based on personal experience, is that trees are like lungs. If we do not protect them, and increase their numbers, it will be the end of the world."

Monty Python and Python Programming Protocol (PPP)

I never thought Linux has any relationship to Monty Python's playacting and his scripts.
Now I discover python language's name comes from his acting skills and not due to any programming language as long as a reptile called python.

In my case any programming language is a python to me whether it is C or C++ or Java or Beans (they never spell or spill the beans or code in anyway comprehensible to human mind but to computers only) and sometimes with cobra venom installed in them and any sane guy start hating them.

All these changed when I discovered Linux. Whether you like or not one needs to know few starting scripts and rooting responses, booting and Grubbing files, if one wants to embrace Linux.

So I did.

Now I hear suddenly from nowhere 'A' Level students are made to learn python in schools and act like Monty Python of BBC.

BBC Basic was the first language I started learning before Sinclair's Basic and long time before I discovered there is something called C and later Unix.

By the way, the language is named after the BBC show “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” and has nothing to do with reptiles.
Making references to Monty Python and acting skills are actively encouraged by the Linux community.

Some of Python's notable features:
Uses an elegant syntax, making the programs you write easier to read.

Is an easy-to-use language that makes it simple to get your program working. This makes Python ideal for prototype development and other ad-hoc programming tasks, without compromising maintainability.

Comes with a large standard library that supports many common programming tasks such as connecting to web servers, searching text with regular expressions, reading and modifying files.

Python's interactive mode makes it easy to test short snippets of code. There's also a bundled development environment called IDLE.

Is easily extended by adding new modules implemented in a compiled language such as C or C++.

Can also be embedded into an application to provide a programmable interface.

Runs on many different computers and operating systems: Windows, MacOS, many brands of Unix, OS/2.


Is free software in two senses. It doesn't cost anything to download or use Python, or to include it in your application. Python can also be freely modified and re-distributed, because while the language is copyrighted it's available under, an open source license.

Python is an easy and powerful object-oriented programming language. It was originally created back in the 1980's, but saw it's first public release in 1991. After the release of Python 1.0 in 1994, it quickly became one of the preferred programming language for the creation of web applications in the Internet, alongside with Perl and PHP.

It's creator, Guido van Rossum has played a major part in the Python development from it's first release and has a central role in deciding the direction of the Python development.

Python is often used as a scripting language for web applications in combination with the "mod python" module for the Apache web server. Python's easiness of use and ability to integrate with different SDKs allows the creation of many different programs for Windows, Linux, Маc ОS and other operational systems.

This is what Eric Raymond gas to say about Python

I had already heard just enough about Python to know that it is what is nowadays called a “scripting language”, an interpretive language with its own built-in memory management and good facilities for calling and cooperating with other programs.

So I dived into Programming Python with one question uppermost in my mind: what has this got that Perl does not?

Perl, of course, is the 800-pound gorilla of modern scripting languages.

It has largely replaced shell as the scripting language of choice for system administrators, thanks partly to its comprehensive set of UNIX library and system calls, and partly to the huge collection of Perl modules built by a very active Perl community. The language is commonly estimated to be the CGI language behind about 85% of the “live” content on the Net.

Larry Wall, its creator, is rightly considered one of the most important leaders in the Open Source community, and often ranks third behind Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman in the current pantheon of hacker demigods.

To say I was astonished would have been positively wallowing in understatement.

It's remarkable enough when implementations of simple techniques work exactly as expected the first time; but my first metaclass hack in a new language, six days from a cold standing start?
Even if we stipulate that I am a fairly talented hacker, this is an amazing testament to Python's clarity and elegance of design.

There was simply no way I could have pulled off a coup like this in Perl, even with my vastly greater experience level in that language. It was at this point I realized I was probably leaving Perl behind.

Now Guido van Rossum who has a major role in development in Python will join the elite three mentioned above.(Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman and Larry Wall).

It is not easy to master a computer language but one who has background knowledge and basic understanding of several language would benefit from it.

Jumping into it straight away may not be the best way.

Learning C and Unix, Linux and how scripting done and modules used to take advantage of Linux kernels is necessary before embarking on this adventure.

In any case Linux is the winner.

It is an object oriented interpretive language with graphic capability may be better than Visual Basic but if one needs to advance in programming language one need to know the code and syntax behind the ant graphic interphase.

There are lot of language wrapped behind the Linux kernel and scripting. It is far better to master Linux and simple commands and scripts before delving.into an advanced language with powerful capabilities.

I still prefer to call it a python with reptilian image because it is a very very long language behind the big modules.

Enjoy Linux and one will enjoy Python too but do not let it wrap round your neck and squeeze your wind pipe and suffocate you.

Better learn few piping tricks in Linux and put the python inside a pipe and tame it.

Then it will work for you like a poor captured cobra dancing!

PCLinuxfullMonty-The Gorilla has Come to Town!

Yes, I do not miss a punch when I say gorilla has come to town!
The KDE 4, PCLinuxfullMonty has come to town bringing with it a bounty of packages.
I prefer it called a PCLinuxBounty instead of Monty.

Better still call it dearly as the PCLinux-The Gorilla in Town.

First of all let me thank the guys / girls who packaged this 4GiB-Gorilla of a version in a DVD and then posting it on only LinuxTracker, in the beginning of the year not in the middle or nowhere in the year.

Posting it on K or bit torrent was an absolute requirement since if I wanted to download on a normal browser it would have taken ages and would have never been able to accomplish it. Even the K-torrent it took solid 2 and a half days of continues downloading.

Thank god we had a holiday for our Independence Day, I could do that on that day was an achievement.

Please do not post this on a normal sever. It will kill the interest of a newbie in the poor third world countries wanting to download it.
S/he never (mostly he's) would be able to download it with the appallingly slow download speed here and poor servers (switched off in the night) here.

They would not have the perseverance of an old man like me who would never take a No for an answer.

It is never too late.

I must tell you it was not without pain I mounted it on my old computer with 1GiB RAM.

I had to go back to SuSe days and press F1. F2. To F6 to get the bearing and mounted a old kernel to boot it up,

It was not quick to boot with 64 RAM old graphic card.

Once mounted after very slow response (KDE4) it had packages well into the Knoppix 3.4 GiB live CD packages.

Only difference was Knoppix was fast still my favorite as a live CD.

It looks like texstar had done another first.
It has 32 and 64 bit capability too.
After some fiddling it mounted on one of my spare 64 bit computer. Took a hell of a long time to install but once installed wit was smooth running on 512 Graphic Card and 1 GiB RAM.
Even though it tool a long time to install it only used 60% of the RAM unlike SuSE 3.5 KDE which gobbles up all of the RAM and sometime freezes,too.
None of those problems and I was playing patient card game while it was installing.

I must confess my gut feeling is this is 64 bit and I my reading was right it was stated in the F1 documentation.
The packages were that much it nearly took me 20 minutes to glance through them and to find the install drop-down.
While all this was going on I was testing light weight archbang openbox distribution and unlike PCLinux when right clicks the first item of the drop-down was install.
Monty would have been better serves if I could find install like with openbox but nonetheless that 20 minutes was used up looking for all the new packages which was fun.

This time Knoppix has done honours by allowing it to be installed into hard disk.
(Whereas I could not find it in the PCLinux. I think it may be there in the F1 or somewhere else which I did not delve deeper. I will find it when I am ready to install it).

Thanks guys / girls for including LibreOffice, Blende and Skype, Scribus and many more.
It is comprehensive.

So enjoy both when it is hot hot like a spicy meal.

I could wait I have now installed it and running now and may be daily.
Activated K-Torrent and started downloading Salix Live KDE!

Linux-100-Extras-Kororaa-03

After nearly five years Kororaa has hit the market with three distributions including 64 bits.

Enjoy the graphic feature and it was on of the most downloaded distribution few years ago.

Kororaa project has released a live CD demonstrating the new Xgl technology for 3D window manipulation and other unusual effects:

Today I am happy to release a Kororaa live CD showcasing Xgl technology.

If you would like to find out what it's all about, then download the CD and boot up your PC!

The Live CD comes with X.Org 7.0, GNOME 2.12.2, 3D support and of course Xgl. Supported drivers are 'nvidia' (NVIDIA) and 'fglrx' (ATI).

Minimum recommended configuration is Pentium 3 with NVIDIA GeForce video card..

After a period of hiatus Kororaa Linux, famous for being one of the first live distributions with out-of-the-box support for the Xgl technology and 3D window manipulation, has been reborn as a Fedora-based live DVD for Linux beginners. Chris Smart on the project's home page.

know that you'll be looking for something Linux related to do over your Christmas holidays and New Year, so I've just released the first installable live DVD beta for testing. The final release will be Kororaa 14 (derived from Fedora 14), code-named 'Nemo'.

As with the original Kororaa, it's based on KDE. Essentially, Kororaa has been reborn as a Fedora remix, inspired by Rahul Sundaram's Omega GNOME remix.

It aims to provide all general computing uses out of the box and it aims to include software packages that most users will want to use.

Linux-100-Extras-Saline-02

Another new distribution based on Debian “squeeze” with xfce graphic interface.

It is over 700 MiB and fits into DVD, hence I won't call it light weight.

It is pleasing and packed with lot of utilities.

Have taken the trouble to release 64 bit version too which is value added ingredient.

Linux-100-Extras-Knoppix-01

I have been lying low as far as Linux is concerned mainly not because of my lack of interest but due to lack of support from the Sri-Lankan Telecoms.

Its download speed is well below its stated or paid for service contract.

It is often below 10 and consistently down to 5 KB per second even at night do not ever think of downloading a DVD.

At 10 KB per second it amounts to I MiB per minute and that works up to 50 to 60 for an hour which is pretty slow and it is like that for the last 3 or 4 months.

I have been trying to download over 250 distributions (mostly updates) which are paused state over a month and consistently Firefox breaks down halfway through the process.

I have tried to downlod Taylor Swift (609 MiB) an AntiX-Mephis derivative for old computers and it broke down over 10 times but I am persisting till I get it down and test it which has almost become an obsession.
It broke down again few minutes ago.

In 10 minutes less of 24 hours finally, I manged to s download Knoppix DVD and it is fantastic.

Thanks to the guys who were seeding the image. There were over 250 seeders and out of which 50 were active when I downloaded it. There were over 50 leeches inactive which was fine for me and I was the only leecher in this part of the world at night.

So finally it was burned and tested one month after the CD version was downloaded and tested on the 1^st of January (was a holiday).

Finally it gives the option of installing it to the hard drive and USB version is going to be my handy friend.

Thanks guys and girls at Knoppix and a Happy 10^th Anniversary and Happy New Year 2011 for all of you!

Rough Guide to the Tree Equivalent of Man and their Re-plantation

This is not referring to the commercial scale of replacement since the rate at commercial scale exploitation cannot be estimated to any accuracy.

This is based on the use of tree, timber and its products by man during his productive life. If we were to sustain each man or women has to grow at least 10 trees and maintain them till their mature life. This he has to done in 4-5 year cycles and older you (above 35 years) are the cycle has to be at least 1-2 years.

Ideally each man or woman plants a tree on their birthday!

1. The use as timber products for roofing and housing
2. To replace the use of paper products
3. Use of fire wood (this has to be in relation to the use)
4. The use of furniture
5. Wastage in every production line
6. The trees not sustaining themselves due to bad planting or weather conditions
7. The last 4 are for unaccountable felling and vandalism encountered and may have to vary according to the country.

This amount is to keep the balance of nature. If one has a house with 4 adults in it this estimate makes it 40 trees around their neighbourhood and the way the houses are built in a city next to each other there is is no room for to grow enough trees. Not even a single tree or hedge to act as windbreaks and shade. (please look at how rich Americans build their houses and walkabouts). That means every major city has to have a buffer zone (this is how the ancient people built cities) of tree cover equivalent the population that is incarcerated in the name of development.

Colombo city can never regain its splendor what ever we do now for it.

The Kandy city has almost 3 three times population density of Palestine Refugee Camps and we are going to be no different to Israel in another 10 or 20 years. We are losing it faster than it's regeneration.

Regarding the commercial exploitation the re-plantation has to be according to the tree's cycle. If the tree grows to maturity in 4 years for every tree harvested 4 should be planted and only a few trees fall into this category.
For some trees, if it is lost it is lost for ever.
They take may be 400 to 500 years for it to grow to maturity and often not reproducing fast enough due to their longevity and this simple equation cannot be applied in recreating it natural habitat.

This is only a rough estimate and we have lost about 60% of our forest cover in 50 years of unsustainable use.

I do not think these people with mega-development ideas have understood the problem or have insight into the matters of concern we are facing now.

The have no futuristic goals but presence of mind for exploitation.

Very soon we will be like Dubai, the work we have to do now is enormous if we are to arrest these trends.

Growing Grass Under My Feet

It is high time that we calculate the CO2 foot imprint of every living human on this planet before it is too late.

It is one of the most important mathematical exercise that we can undertake now.

It may be easy to do that on an animal say a cow but it may be an extremely difficult preposition for even a forest dweller of today.

Since he carries his cell phone and at least box of matchers or a lighter to the deep jungle, his carbon footprint cannot be even remotely compared to a pre-historic man.

Where ever he set foot even the deep sea he leaves behind lot of CO2 footprints.

What we can do is to calculate it for an average American and then compare with a Chinese, Indian and hypothetical man who lives for 60 years.

On the alternative we can calculate for a bull or cow and extrapolate that to sedentary American man.

American Man eats 3 to 4 cows by the time he is 45 and probably 5 by the time he says good bye having consumed every possible advantage and resources available on this planet earth.

Then we calculate for a hypothetical bionic man who needs energy for all his activities including his air travel from say New York to Delhi and all over the globe in one year to schedule a typical American company owner.

Then we have to figure out how many American live hand to mouth existence with minimum of car ownership.

The equations will go like this

1. 5 bulls X A (poor American)

2. USA X USA (Wealthy American) +5 bulls X A (poor American)

3. Now (1 and 2) each has to be divided by ( American census-minus rich Americans)

4. or ( American census-minus poor Americans)

5. The results 3 and 4 should be multiplied to get a total figure

6. This figure should be now divided by the total current human population

My estimate even without going into nitty gritty of the equation is like this.

1. An average American (poor) will have a figure of 1000

2. A rich American will be 1000 x1000

3. Average Chinese is 100

4. Rich Chines will 100 x 100

5. Indian will be 10

6. Rich Indian 1000 x10000 (more that a rich to Americans)

   The total CO2 foot print of China comes first.

   America comes second.

   And India comes 3^rd even though the population come only second to China since after many years of open policies some Indian still live and breath air and do not produce much CO2 since their meals are going down including onions.

   This is what India call it 21st century progress and send rocket to the space and moon and still find a way to fail in Cricket World Cup including completing venues.

   While China is barely able to feed its masses India has failed to make a square meal for the poor whereas a poor American eats 100 times equivalent to a poor Indian.

   I want American Scientist to disprove my equation and discovery and publish a relevant article in the prestigious magazine, American Scientist.

   While all this happening I grow grass under my feet to cushion the CO2 foot prints of mine with my urine added to make it's growth luxurious unlike our banana growers.

Sea Front and the Land Lost

This a comment i wrote with two comments copied for posterity below>
Dubai, the state of The World is in dispute

This is a good one in spite of the Arab (rich) bashing.

Americans never leave a car behind but the ex-wife in a foreign land when going after a new flame (bird).

Coming back to Sri-Lanka this is the only country in the world lets the sea gobbles the land with massive development projects. It lets the sea in for nearly 10 days to fill the land and our media were there to witness it minute by minute but never said a word against or "it was a stupid idea".
I call them the Prudent Presidential Pundits (P.P.P. Adviser for short).

In Singapore and Maldives the try to do an utmost to prevent erosion and advance the land front.

We do not have similar blue print to protect in spite of a major tsunami in 2005.

We do not know how to release flood water to sea in an emergency.

Recent Batticoloa flood was an eye opener and the devastation (vegetation and structural) worse than tsunami, I believe.

I have my hat's off for the Arabs at least for the project idea but not its implementation.

Sri-Lankans looks to the ships when we run short of Onions and Coconuts.

It is 6 years after the tsunami we have not planted enough trees (including coconuts).

My only advice for the Arab friends is do not take any Sr-Lankan on any board of directors in these projects even if they promise you that they will intervene with the gods and bring results!

Two comments copied are relevant to this Island too.
1. Lets see now how the rich change there mind about climate change.
2. I think they should rename the islands to "Atlantis"..

Bamboo and Windbreaks

This fastest growing plant rather a grass is one of the most vandalized plant in this country. Since it is growing fast we take for granted to destroy at every opportunity available and never care to plant any.
I have never seen a nursery for bamboo even though there are hundreds of varieties.

These plants are not seen in the temperate countries and in early as 18th century Americans took them from Asia and started growing them as ornamental plants.

While they do research on these plants we vandalize them.

Why?

We have plenty of them and we do not care for the mother nature.

If I write one plant a day and continue I may have to continue for years how we destroy our wealth of plants.

The plants going extinct were never recorded in our history and we have not even begun to take an inventory as a proactive exercise.

This is not to elaborate on that issue but to state how bamboo tree protects our river beds and roads that run along the rivers.

The do protect the embankments but what our guys do is to chop them at will since they are not protected by the local authorities.

River basin and embankment is nobody's business in this country.

It also act as a windbreaks.

It cools the air on a warm day with with gentle air currents.

Not only that it reduces our CO2 foot prints.

None of these are taken into accounts since our guys who gets to the parliament have never studied any including social science and not at all pure science.

They use environment issues to form green parties but never practice what they preach once they get there.

If we want to do as little as possible for our mother nature grow a few bamboos around river path and the surrounds.

Like eating a banana a day (not poisoned by UREA) is healthy for our life growing a bamboo a day would protect our rivers, roads and environment (air) too.

That is my message for today.

Raindrops and Coconut Palm

I asked some of my students to list 10 important points about coconut tree as a creative thinking exercise and I couldn't get anyone of them to think it as related to mother nature.

Then I told them we are the only animal species on planet earth who behave like aliens.

The coconut tree purifies the water and present us a drink superior to saline that we inject as a life support in an emergency. In the second world war it was used as saline substitute when things were in short supply. 

How they did I do not know but it is a hearsay!

It gives us water to drink.

It cleans the carbon foot print of ours by taking in CO2 and releasing O2.

The two most important things the animal life needs for its survival but yet we forget to mentioned them but obsessed with coconut milk and coconut oil.

Why?

We tend to think we are the only important living animal on this planet.

We are the only selfish animals on this planet.

That is true and will remain true for the current century unless we open ourselves to creative thinking and awareness of our mother nature.

We build houses.

We build roofs to protect us from rain and sun.

If we take the plant kingdom.

The story is different.

It lives by the day under sunlight but rest by night but never sleeps.

It takes rain as survival god never complains if there is snow or frost

They are in constant touch with air currents and the wind

They are in harmony with all physical elements.

Remain and stay put for another day come sun or rain what it may.

When rain drops fall on the roof and runs through the gutters if makes a constant and a big racket and and I even find it difficult to sleep at night.

But when rain drops falls on tree tops and leaves there is no rackety pitch.

We only hear the wind blowing but raindrops hardly make a noise. They gently touch the leaf surface and trickle down gently to the soil. No big gush and the roots soaks in as much so that the water that seeps out is clear.

But on a rainy day in a city we see all rubbish and mud that comes out of the gutters and frequently see minor floods all over the place till the rain ceases.

There are no tress with roots to soak the extra water.

Coming back to coconut tree it leaves take the water in a peculiar way not sen in other smaller leaves. The peculiar way it handles water make it and excellent covering for roofs and thatched coconut leaves that used to cover the village huts did not make a big racket on a rainy day but the asbestos sheets that cover us now are totally different and alien to mother nature.

Mind you the coconut tree takes all the shocks of thunder and lightening too.

If not many of us would be dead by lightening.

The golden rule was not to rest under a tall tree in a thunder storm.

None of these came out of my students creative thinking exercise.

What the hell the education system is doing to them in schools and university?

I do not know.

It is said that even in America in the first two years in the university they do not gain any extra incites or creativity.

Why?

Education is now a money spinner.

No more creativity left in it now.

Make money when going is good but leave the students without opportunities.

Coconut Tales of Tail Spin and the Windshield of Whirlwind

Coconut tree which lives over 50 years of productive life sometimes more than 80 years if left untarnished by human activity lives behind a tell tale story of the weather beaten life. If one looks at a human face at 80 (eighty) it leaves behind a sad tale of wrinkles but never leave behind the tale of destruction he or she has caused over his or her life time. On the contrary, the coconut tree tells us all the rough times it has had over the years, if we look at the way the trunk had twisted and turned against the air current around it.
In fact it can tell the exact time of the last grand cyclone it had managed to withstand on its own.

Unlike the human they are a barometer of wind currents of today and tomorrow.

If one looks at its leaves, the gentle rustle they create with the wind and how it raises a rhyming tune with some alarming whirring of a whirlwind, foretelling a thunderstorm that is about to land is something we have taken for granted but never given thought in any scientific manner.

We take it for granted that the water is abundant but at the same time pollute it in every possible way from Adams peak to the sea.

The same story is true for the coconut tree.

It is vandalized to the stem and we cry hard only when the coconuts go high in price but never cared to listen to its story and the windshield it creates on a daily basis.

My observation days back to my childhood inquiry not necessarily based on any scientific themes. If I wanted to fly a kite I look at the coconut trees and their leaves and then bring out the kite if I consider the conditions are favorable.

Then I get to a place where I can get the kite over the coconut trees quickly and off I go with the wind.

I never paused to think what a service it does as a wind breaker.

This little piece is to finally put to rest and peace of my mind with the wind physics (theory) of biological nature and facts which I call the biophysics of coconut saga.

I should have done this decades ago!

Not only the coconut tree stands to the wind upright but it divide the wind to upstream high and a downstream gentle for us to live in peace. This we forget when we chop it for fast growing development and consumption as timber.

It is the scene of coconut trees that touches my heart when the plane lands on Katunayake. It was strikingly beautiful 30 years ago but now we see s few coconut trees near the airport and the sudden thud of landing.

The landing is also not as smooth as it used to be.

I even go to the extend of saying that the planes used to land smoothly due to the coconut plantation driving the unnecessary tailspin and head wind currents well above the plane as it touches down making it easy for the pilots.

I wish our veteran pilots do some study on this keeping in mind those who were on service during the second world war II might know it better than the present day autopilot youngsters.

Coconut tree is a wind breaker and a windshielder.

Of course it will provide its trunks to climb when the next tsunami comes if we start growing thousands and thousand of them around our beeches instead of polluting hotels that divert the sewerage to the sea.

This is my wishful thinking but I am sure more trees will be down to move the fast development trends of our political mights.

Good Bye my friend windshield and welcome thy whirlwind!

LibreOffice is Out- Enjoy the Freedom

This is an Update of LibreOffice

Straight from Softpedia

As we speak, OpenOffice.org is being replaced by the new LibreOffice suite in many Linux distributions, including KNOPPIX, Pardus and Ubuntu.

LibreOffice 3.3.0 comes with lots of original and new features, such as:

· ability to work with and import SVG files;
· import filter for Lotus Word Pro documents;
· import filter for Microsoft Works documents;
· easily format title pages and numbering in LibreOffice Writer;
· enhanced Navigator Tool in LibreOffice Writer;
· better ergonomics for cell and sheet management in LibreOffice Calc;
· PDF import support;
· slide-show presenter console;
· better report builder;
· comes bundled with lots of great extensions.

We are excited: this is our very first stable release, and therefore we are eager to get user feedback, which will be integrated as soon as possible into the code, with the first enhancements being released in February. Starting from March, we will be moving to a real time-based, predictable, transparent and public release schedule, in accordance with Engineering Steering Committee's goals and users' requests." - said Caolán McNamara from RedHat

Tail Spins and Tail Wagging

The tail wagging period is over.
Now it is the time of tail spinning.
It is like that of a gecko ready to pounce on a meal.
What if the tail spins with the tail wind of an aircraft in full flight.
Nothing much one can do except till the first flight officer says now you can loosen your seat belt and the turbulence is over and we are free flying again in high altitude with clear visibility.
The market forces are so powerful and food prices are going up by the minute and the poor voter who wagged his tail expecting miracles are left with their head and tail spinning on opposite direction.
His visibility is not clear as seen by our local reports of price of food items
The flight attendant of course can readily dispense face towels to clean the sweat of fright in mid air but there is nobody to calm the political gloom in the air.

Tail Spin

What if the tail spins by a tail wind of an aircraft?
Chop the tail like a gecko and exit fast!