Update on Coronavirus

Update on Coronavirus

This is in response to a few of my friends.

In other words if one takes a vegetarian diet at least in old age without beef is actually the best way of healthy living.

1. This virus originated in China and those incubating the disease landed in Singapore and entered Europe most likely by Singapore Airline or its subsidiary Airline.

2. Airline pilots and cabin crews, incubating this disease had been traveling all over world before the travel restriction, including USA.

3. It is very difficult to quarantine a patient in a plane in pressurized atmosphere and it is very common to catch a flu on a long haul flight.

4. Few airlines going bust due to credit crisis is welcome and most of the charter flights, the quality of service plummeted but the their income went up exponentially.

5. My last flight by Singapore airline was hopeless and I could not get a extra glass of water from the cabin crew.

It was the young passenger who was seated next to me who came to my rescue and offered me a glass of water.

6. China for its own part tried to suppress the information and one of its doctors who tried to exposed the secrecy succumbed to the virus.

7. Now 7 doctors in USA had died and another 20 infected due to poor coordination of public health information of and its potential danger.

8. Now even Africa is affected (most likely India, too) due to lack of testing agents.

9. In Ceylon they allowed the Chinese travelers free entry and they are allowed (not Ceylonese passport officers) to process their own passports- (nowhere in the world, there is a scheme like this) and only quarantines plane load of our students.

10, Our health officers are not divulging the true facts (bungling by the present governments) about “how late in handling’ the quarantine issue.

11.Closing the schools and universities came too late and I bet our election commissioner will hold elections in spite of the risks involved to the voter and public who would not bother voting.

12. Most of our sports facilities (schools,too) do not have proper washrooms and toilets and the sharing the towel and water bottle, habit of J.V.P. camaraderie is a high risk in this country.

13. In my opinion a face mask is a big risk both of collecting a viral load and disposing (burning) after use DUE to relatively big size of the virus which is 120 nm. 

A high quality face masks are not available even in our surgical theaters, not allowing 15 to 20 nm (that is the size of the small branches of the bronchial tree) particles that penetrate the virtual lung barrier.

14. Most optimistic preventive measure is by washing of hands up to the elbow with soap and water. (The mounting and standing bars of buses and staircase elevators are never cleaned)

14. Not to share cutlery and utensils even at home (how many can afford).

15. Stay at home with early signs of any infection (it is too late in most infections, disease is spread during the incubation period which is six weeks in infective hepatitis).

16. Take Vitamin C (cheaper than fruits) as a habit.

17. No western medicine available but there are lot of Aurvedic remedies.

18. Coriander seeds as a drink and coriander leaves as a curry.

19. Garlic, Ginger, Lime, Lemon, Tumeric (not Wada Kaha) and Vinegar.

20. If you can find Perumkayam!

21. In other words if one takes a vegetarian diet at least in old age without beef is actually the best way of healthy living.

22. Egg is allowed as a default vitamin store.

Below is a reproduction from Wikipedia and I want to make few comments even though, I am not a virologist.

There are roughly three types of viruses, DNA, RNA and Retrovirus (AIDS is an example).

Coronavirus is a RNA virus that hijacks the cell protein production factory the Ribosomes with its own RNA dependent RNA polymerase.

1. It hijacks cell protein factory the ribosome

2. Its receptor is cells own protein component.

3. CD (Cell Definition) classification is yet not well defined.

4. What cells have this CD specificity is unknown.

5. It uses a poly-protein of its own creation and a protease to dissect its own protein components. That leads to relative protein deficiency for cells that are affected.

6.We do not know the homology of the viral protein with the normal cell proteins.

7. If the homology is great the body won’t mount an active antibody production to avoid autoimmunity.

8. Whether it causes protein deficiency and autoimmunity needs to be worked out.

9. My belief is that it is an animal virus that causes no problem for in the animal kingdom but once it enters the humans population it can create havoc.

10. If it originated from a bird avoid eating chicken (starve the virus of its base protein hijacking ability) similarly if it originated from pigs (bigger animal) avoid eating pork and beef (to starve the virus of is base protein hijacking ability).

11. If it originated from bats (most likely), I do not have any worthwhile suggestion to contribute.

12. It is better to revert to vegetable protein like ToFu (amino acid composition is different to animal protein) instead of animal proteins.

13. My prediction is because this virus has a RNA dependent RNA polymerase which can mutate at its own will the epidemic will last at least a decade until the herd immunity takes its toll but by then another virus more potent than this will emerge from a viral laboratory that do do not have rigid protocols and closely not monitored by a regulatory authority.

14. I believe all developed countries and China may be developing biological weapons secretly and science (biological) may be killed by its own science initiative.

Regulation is mandatory!

Coronavirus Morphology

Coronaviruses are large pleomorphic spherical particles with bulbous surface projections.
The diameter of the virus particles is around 120 nm.
The envelope of the virus in electron micrographs appears as a distinct pair of electron dense shells.
The viral envelope consists of a lipid bilayer where the membrane (M), envelope (E) and spike (S) structural proteins are anchored.
A subset of coronaviruses (specifically the members of Betacoronavirus subgroup A) also have a shorter spike-like surface protein called hemagglutinin esterase (HE).
Inside the envelope, there is the nucleocapsid, which is formed from multiple copies of the nucleocapsid (N) protein, which are bound to the positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome in a continuous beads-on-a-string type conformation.The genome size for coronaviruses ranges from approximately 27 to 34 kilobases.
The lipid bilayer envelope, membrane proteins, and nucleocapsid protect the virus when it is outside the host cell.

Coronavirus Replication

Infection begins when the virus enters the host organism and the spike protein attaches to its complementary host cell receptor. After attachment, a protease of the host cell cleaves and activates the receptor-attached spike protein. Depending on the host cell protease available, cleavage and activation allows cell entry through endocytosis or direct fusion of the viral envelop with the host membrane.
On entry into the host cell, the virus particle is uncoated, and its genome enters the cell cytoplasm.[
The coronavirus RNA genome has a 5′ methylated cap and a 3′ polyadenylated tail, which allows the RNA to attach to the host cell's ribosome for translation.
The host ribosome translates the initial overlapping open reading frame of the virus genome and forms a long polyprotein.
The polyprotein has its own proteases which cleave the polyprotein into multiple nonstructural proteins.
A number of the nonstructural proteins coalesce to form a multi-protein replicase-transcriptase complex (RTC).
The main replicase-transcriptase protein is the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp).
It is directly involved in the replication and transcription of RNA from an RNA strand. The other nonstructural proteins in the complex assist in the replication and transcription process. The exoribonuclease non-structural protein for instance provides extra fidelity to replication by providing a proofreading function which the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase lacks.
One of the main functions of the complex is to replicate the viral genome. RdRp directly mediates the synthesis of negative-sense genomic RNA from the positive-sense genomic RNA. This is followed by the replication of positive-sense genomic RNA from the negative-sense genomic RNA.
The other important function of the complex is to transcribe the viral genome. RdRp directly mediates the synthesis of negative-sense subgenomic RNA molecules from the positive-sense genomic RNA. This is followed by the transcription of these negative-sense subgenomic RNA molecules to their corresponding positive-sense mRNAs.
The replicated positive-sense genomic RNA becomes the genome of the progeny viruses.
The mRNAs are gene transcripts of the last third of the virus genome after the initial overlapping reading frame. These mRNAs are translated by the host's ribosomes into the structural proteins and a number of accessory proteins.
RNA translation occurs inside the endoplasmic reticulum. The viral structural proteins S, E, and M move along the secretory pathway into the Golgi intermediate compartment. There, the M proteins direct most protein-protein interactions required for assembly of viruses following its binding to the nucleocapsid.
Progeny viruses are then released from the host cell by exocytosis through secretory vesicles.

Coronavirus

Below is a reproduction from Wikipedia and I want to make few comments even though, I am not a virologist.

There are roughly three types of viruses, DNA, RNA and Retrovirus (AIDS is an example).

Coronavirus is a RNA virus that hijacks the cell protein production factory the Ribosomes with its own RNA dependent RNA polymerase.

1. It hijacks cell protein factory the ribosome

2. Its receptor is cells own protein component.

3. CD (Cell Definition) classification is yet not well defined.

4. What cells have this CD specificity is unknown.

5. It uses a poly-protein of its own creation and a protease to dissect its own protein components. That leads to relative protein deficiency for cells that are affected.

6.We do not know the homology of the viral protein with the normal cell proteins.

7. If the homology is great the body won’t mount an active antibody production to avoid autoimmunity.

8. Whether it causes protein deficiency and autoimmunity needs to be worked out.

9. My belief is that it is an animal virus that causes no problem for in the animal kingdom but once it enters the humans population it can create havoc.

10. If it originated from a bird avoid eating chicken (starve the virus of its base protein hijacking ability) similarly if it originated from pigs (bigger animal) avoid eating pork and beef (to starve the virus of is base protein hijacking ability).

11. If it originated from bats (most likely), I do not have any worthwhile suggestion to contribute.

12. It is better to revert to vegetable protein like ToFu (amino acid composition is different to animal protein) instead of animal proteins.

13. My prediction is because this virus has a RNA dependent RNA polymerase which can mutate at its own will the epidemic will last at least a decade until the herd immunity takes its toll but by then another virus more potent than this will emerge from a viral laboratory that do do not have rigid protocols and closely not monitored by a regulatory authority.

14. I believe all developed countries and China may be developing biological weapons secretly and science (biological) may be killed by its own science initiative.

Regulation is mandatory!

Coronavirus Morphology

Coronaviruses are large pleomorphic spherical particles with bulbous surface projections.
The diameter of the virus particles is around 120 nm.
The envelope of the virus in electron micrographs appears as a distinct pair of electron dense shells.
The viral envelope consists of a lipid bilayer where the membrane (M), envelope (E) and spike (S) structural proteins are anchored.
A subset of coronaviruses (specifically the members of Betacoronavirus subgroup A) also have a shorter spike-like surface protein called hemagglutinin esterase (HE).
Inside the envelope, there is the nucleocapsid, which is formed from multiple copies of the nucleocapsid (N) protein, which are bound to the positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome in a continuous beads-on-a-string type conformation.The genome size for coronaviruses ranges from approximately 27 to 34 kilobases.
The lipid bilayer envelope, membrane proteins, and nucleocapsid protect the virus when it is outside the host cell.

Coronavirus Replication

Infection begins when the virus enters the host organism and the spike protein attaches to its complementary host cell receptor. After attachment, a protease of the host cell cleaves and activates the receptor-attached spike protein. Depending on the host cell protease available, cleavage and activation allows cell entry through endocytosis or direct fusion of the viral envelop with the host membrane.
On entry into the host cell, the virus particle is uncoated, and its genome enters the cell cytoplasm.[
The coronavirus RNA genome has a 5′ methylated cap and a 3′ polyadenylated tail, which allows the RNA to attach to the host cell's ribosome for translation.
The host ribosome translates the initial overlapping open reading frame of the virus genome and forms a long polyprotein.
The polyprotein has its own proteases which cleave the polyprotein into multiple nonstructural proteins.
A number of the nonstructural proteins coalesce to form a multi-protein replicase-transcriptase complex (RTC).
The main replicase-transcriptase protein is the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp).
It is directly involved in the replication and transcription of RNA from an RNA strand. The other nonstructural proteins in the complex assist in the replication and transcription process. The exoribonuclease non-structural protein for instance provides extra fidelity to replication by providing a proofreading function which the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase lacks.
One of the main functions of the complex is to replicate the viral genome. RdRp directly mediates the synthesis of negative-sense genomic RNA from the positive-sense genomic RNA. This is followed by the replication of positive-sense genomic RNA from the negative-sense genomic RNA.
The other important function of the complex is to transcribe the viral genome. RdRp directly mediates the synthesis of negative-sense subgenomic RNA molecules from the positive-sense genomic RNA. This is followed by the transcription of these negative-sense subgenomic RNA molecules to their corresponding positive-sense mRNAs.
The replicated positive-sense genomic RNA becomes the genome of the progeny viruses.
The mRNAs are gene transcripts of the last third of the virus genome after the initial overlapping reading frame. These mRNAs are translated by the host's ribosomes into the structural proteins and a number of accessory proteins.
RNA translation occurs inside the endoplasmic reticulum. The viral structural proteins S, E, and M move along the secretory pathway into the Golgi intermediate compartment. There, the M proteins direct most protein-protein interactions required for assembly of viruses following its binding to the nucleocapsid.
Progeny viruses are then released from the host cell by exocytosis through secretory vesicles.

Executioner Parity (Gahalaya Party) of Ceylon-S.L.P.P.

Executioner Parity (Gahalaya Party) of Ceylon-S.L.P.P.

I predict the S.L.P.P will become the grand executioner party (Gahalaya) of its predecessor the S.L.F.P that tried to become the executioner party of the Grand Old U.N.P.

Its (S.L.F.P.) decimations befits its original CRIME of disrupting a party that united all races and religions.

Of course U.N.P. is destroying itself by the son of its predecessor executioner Ranasinghe Premadasa (according to L.T.T.E running without direction-President) who has ambitions but no direction or democracy in mind.

His son epitomizes the his fathers genetic political trade (eliminate rivals).

It is again D.M.O’Crazy if S.L.P.P. comes into power with or without two third majority.

S.L.P.P wants to emulate worse of J.R.J.

History repeats itself, “they say”.

J.R.J. and Ravi J are dead and gone but this ruling family wants to own our democracy by might but not right.

D.M.O’ Crazy and Myanmar type of military government is in the offing.

That is the biggest threat for Ceylon's democratic traditions and it will be reinvigorating militancy (and military by reciprocal gut reaction) both in the North and South.

Are we ready for one party and one religion country?

Five Star Democracy and its grading

First a reminder to our Chief Election Commissioner, that he should ban all public display of posters and overhead hangers littering the country side for over three months from now.

He should advise them to deliver hand bill personally by the candidates (not by stooges).

For his part President of the Country should as the Chief Litter Collector, because he believes in beautifying the country by his own will.

The street painters of the new vogue should stop vandalizing the street walls of the country (wasting valuable learning time (English in particular) of the kids who have artistic talents).

If they want to to do any arts, they should avoid all political colours in their public paintings.

I saw an elephant painted in blue.

They are brown to lighter black are never green or blue.

I had a suggestion that Election Commissioner should ban using animal as political symbols including cocks and cockerels.

Let me begin with the star grading of hospitality trade (hotels) and hospitals.

I can dispense with hospital with one line, “There are no hospitals with any star grade both in private and public arena on empathy and sympathy”.

I sympathize with the few new entrants who start with some stars but become structured in five years and become rigid and frigid, the entire life with money as the only motive.

Now my star system has No Stars as the base line and they go from 1 to 5 with six gradings.

1.Let me start with buses.

Most of the public buses go into no grading with no leg space or room to breath, just like domestic and international airplanes in economy class.

Only five star buses are for the tourists.

2. Come to political parties, most of them hold no stars for over 70 years and they love to display their lack of stars.

Only a few will get one star or two.

No five star parties and we never will.

3. Telecoms industry Lanka Bell (4 stars) and Dialog (3 stars) get few stars and Mobitel none.

4. Water Board and Electricity board gets no stars.

5. Public sector including Education gets no stars.

6. Immigration and Emigration get one star.

7. All candidates from major parties (Not attended schools is a basic qualification) including supposed to be intellectual over 55 who are retired from public service (if they hold stars they should be serving the Universities abroad. There is a dearth of intellectuals in universities) get no stars or one.

8. Most of the politically appointed ambassadors also get no stars.

9. I missed Three Wheeler Drivers (operated by local mafia) spearheaded by S.L.P.P gets NO Stars.

Mind you traveling by a Taxi is much safer and quicker!

Five Star Democracy and its grading

Five Star Democracy and its grading

First a reminder to our Chief Election Commissioner, that he should ban all public display of posters and overhead hangers littering the country side for over three months from now.

He should advise them to deliver hand bill personally by the candidates (not by stooges).

For his part President of the Country should as the Chief Litter Collector, because he believes in beautifying the country by his own will.

The street painters of the new vogue should stop vandalizing the street walls of the country (wasting valuable learning time (English in particular) of the kids who have artistic talents).

If they want to to do any arts, they should avoid all political colours in their public paintings.

I saw an elephant painted in blue.

They are brown to lighter black are never green or blue.

I had a suggestion that Election Commissioner should ban using animal as political symbols including cocks and cockerels.

Let me begin with the star grading of hospitality trade (hotels) and hospitals.

I can dispense with hospital with one line, “There are no hospitals with any star grade both in private and public arena on empathy and sympathy”.

I sympathize with the few new entrants who start with some stars but become structured in five years and become rigid and frigid, the entire life with money as the only motive.

Now my star system has No Stars as the base line and they go from 1 to 5 with six gradings.

1.Let me start with buses.

Most of the public buses go into no grading with no leg space or room to breath, just like domestic and international airplanes in economy class.

Only five star buses are for the tourists.

2. Come to political parties, most of them hold no stars for over 70 years and they love to display their lack of stars.

Only a few will get one star or two.

No five star parties and we never will.

3. Telecoms industry Lanka Bell (4 stars) and Dialog (3 stars) get few stars and Mobitel none.

4. Water Board and Electricity board gets no stars.

5. Public sector including Education gets no stars.

6. Immigration and Emigration get one star.

7. All candidates from major parties (Not attended schools is a basic qualification) including supposed to be intellectual over 55 who are retired from public service (if they hold stars they should be serving the Universities abroad. There is a dearth of intellectuals in universities) get no stars or one.

8. Most of the politically appointed ambassadors also get no stars.

Wise Sayings

Reproduction from my friends

Wise Sayings

Wife to her Accountant husband

*what is inflation?

Husband: 

Earlier you were *36-24-36.* 

But now you are

*48-40-48.* 

Though you have everything bigger than before, your value has become less than before. 

This is *INFLATION*

*Economics is not that difficult if we have the right examples.*

Interviewer: What is Recession? 

Candidate: When *"Wine & Women" get replaced by "Water & Wife", 

that critical phase of life is called Recession!!*

*Accountancy fact:*

What is the *difference between Liability & Asset?*

A drunk friend is liability.

But, A drunk Girlfriend is an Asset.

*An Economist beautifully explained two reasons for having 2 wives.*

A- Monopoly should be broken.

B- Competition improves the quality of service.

If u have 1 wife, She fights with u!

If u have 2 wives, They will fight for you!!

Wonders before and after marriage.

* When you are in love, Wonders happen.

But once you get married, You wonder, what happened.

Philosophy of marriage* :

At the beginning,

every wife treats her husband as *GOD*..

Later, somehow don't know why..

alphabets get *reversed*.

*Secret formula for married couples...*

*"Love One Another"*

And if it doesn't work, bring the last word in the middle.!!!!

Going Wireless

Going Wireless
Let me state first that "Going Wireless" is an option freely promoted but never achieved or maintained in this country due to the divisive nature of our politics and interference from India and China.
The range of wireless coverage is poor and not inclusive, in spite of being a island nation.
We should have made satellite communication a goal but India and China are interested due to our strategic nature of our Geo-Position or location.
Quiet accidentally in nineteen eighties, I happen to be protecting a satellite due to be launched by organization spearheaded by 42 countries in the name of I.M.M.I (later became IWMA).
It was sabotaged by India using D.J.V (in the South) as proxy, just like it sabotaged Tamil community (in the North) in this country using L.T.T.E.
I advise President Donald Trump not to believe Indian politicians just like he does not believe in Chinese politicians.

My solution is satellite communication (mind you space is supposed to be non politicized) not wired communication with few heavy duty wireless towers.

Coming to wireless suppliers we have two good local commercial institutes, namely Dialog and Lanka Bell.
I must say I hate Telecoms and Mobitel which was ruined by M.S. and his brother D.S.
They could not provide us rice without contamination of five or more  varieties of chemical poisons.
So how come they advance solid trusted technology service?

Lanka Bell started with CDMA and it provides a good service for the needy. 
It also has a new broadband and mobile router with a rechargeable battery.
The Mobile routers is only Rs.2000/= higher (if you consider the inflation it is cheaper) less than my first solid wireless router I used as a battery charger for my phones with a Ethernet card jacked in with an appropriate (I collected these items when I go to Singapore. They are piled up like our limes and lemons in the market place) plug in jack.

Dialog has a big broadband which is pretty good but do not have a battery and needs to be plugged in to an electricity socket (no wireless connection when electricity is down).
In need 24/7 service and in that sense Lanka Bell tops the list of mobility and 24/7 service.
Peo TV costs four times the Dialog bottom line service.
Lanka Bell is even cheaper and one pays for the data one uses without "Time Constriction" which all prepaid services charge you.
I use a Mobitel SIM ( I was one of its original customers, until Sira came in to ruin it) to link with my bank both by wired and wireless connection.
In fact, I lost my bank card lately, and that day I could not ring the services in Colombo (later found that the telephone wire was savaged by the local road developers and Telecoms failed to repair it in spite of informing disconnection) to deactivate my accounts.
The Mobitel router is a cheap Chinese duplicate with Ethernet wires get glued to the set and difficult to dislodge.

Now I will wind up saying that I upgraded my tablet and Android game console using Dialog broad band and Wingle wireless services.
I will use Lanka Bell on the move.
We do not need Indian or Chines or Middle East suppliers in this country if we support Lanka Bell and Dialog from resources wasted by Telecoms and Mobitel.
Hang Telecoms and Mobitel which are political institutions.

Free Inquiry at a time of faked(lies) news

Nealy 90 (ninety) years ago, Moncure D Conway, the author of "My pilgrimage to the Wise Men of the East", I visited Colombo.
He was a friend of Sir Ponnambalam Ramachandra (then Solicitor General of Ceylon) and together with him Conway went to Vidyodaya Pirivena (destroyed by converting to a university) to learn something of the Buddha's teachings from Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Nayaka Thero, the founder of the institution.
The Nayaka There explained to them the principles contained in the Kalama Sutta and at the end of the conversation Ramachandra whispered to Conway " Is it not strange that you and I who come from different religions and regions, should together listen to a sermon from the Buddha in favour of free thought, that independence of traditional and fashionable doctrines, which is still the vital principle of Human Development?
Conway;
" Yes and we with (Kalama) princes the doctrine of goodwill"!

Free Inquiry at a time of faked(lies) news

Nealy 90 (ninety) years ago, Moncure D Conway, the author of "My pilgrimage to the Wise Men of the East", I visited Colombo.
He was a friend of Sir Ponnambalam Ramachandra (then Solicitor General of Ceylon) and together with him Conway went to Vidyodaya Pirivena(destroyed by converting to a university) to learn something of the Buddha's teachings from Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Nayaka There, the founder of the institution.
The Nayaka There explained to them the principles contained in the Kalama Sutta and at the end of the conversation Ramachandra whispered to Conway " Is it not strange that you and I who come from different religion
s and regions, should together listen to a sermon from the Buddha in favour of free thought, that independence of traditional and fashionable doctrines, which is still the vital principle of Human Development?
Conway;
" Yes and we with (Kalama) princes the doctrine of goodwill"!

Pencil Sketch of Twitter Nest

It is hard to reproduce nature!

Update on Linux

Reproduction Update on Linux SparkyLinux 2020.02 The SparkyLinux team has published a new snapshot of the distribution's rolling release platform. The new media is based on Debian's Testing branch and features several key package updates. "Sparky 2020.02 'Po Tolo' of the (semi-)rolling line is out. It is based on the testing branch of Debian 'Bullseye'. Changes: system upgraded from Debian Testing 'Bullseye' repos as of February 9, 2020. Calamares installer 3.2.18. Linux kernel 5.4.13 as default (5.5.2 & 5.6-rc1 in Sparky unstable repos). Firefox 72.0.2. Thunderbird 68.4.2. LibreOffice 6.4.0. VLC 3.0.8. Exaile 4.0.2. Added the new Sparky public key." The release announcement warns that the distribution's Calamares installer may fail in some situations: " Calamares installer fails if you install Sparky in full auto mode with full disk encryption and a swap partiton; it works fine without a swap partition." Ubuntu 18.04.4 The Ubuntu team has published updated media for the distribution's 18.04 LTS series. Version 18.04.4 of the distribution, along with its Community Editions, provide optional updated hardware support and security updates for supported packages. "The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS (Long-Term Support) for its Desktop, Server, and Cloud products, as well as other flavours of Ubuntu with long-term support. Like previous LTS series, 18.04.4 includes hardware enablement stacks for use on newer hardware. This support is offered on all architectures and is installed by default when using one of the desktop images. Ubuntu Server defaults to installing the GA kernel; however you may select the HWE kernel from the installer bootloader.Kubuntu 18.04.4 LTS, Ubuntu Budgie 18.04.4 LTS, Ubuntu MATE 18.04.4 LTS, Lubuntu 18.04.4 LTS, Ubuntu Kylin 18.04.4 LTS, and Xubuntu 18.04.4 LTS are also now available." Further information can be found in the release announcement and in the release notes. Project Trident 20.02 Project Trident has completed its initial move from being based on TrueOS to adopting the Void Linux distribution as its foundation. The Project Trident team have published their first stable version, 20.02: "Project Trident is pleased to announce the first official release image based on Void Linux, available on the Project Trident download page. Please note the Project Trident installer supports four different installation levels: Void: Only the base-system from Void Linux and ZFS-related bootloader packages are installed. Server: A CLI-based system with additional services and utilities installed from Project Trident (firewall, cron, autofs, wireguard, additional shells) Lite Desktop: Everything needed for a graphical desktop install using Lumina. No extra fluff. Full Desktop: The Lite install with quite a few additional end-user utilities (office suite, Telegram, multimedia apps). Note: These installation levels provide pre-defined lists of packages to install for user convenience. The installed system can be easily be changed afterwards using the built-in package system." Further details can be found in the project's release announcement. NetBSD 9.0 The developers of NetBSD, a highly portable operating system that runs across over two dozen CPU architectures, have published a new release. The new version, NetBSD 9.0, improves support for 64-bit ARM processors, introduces kernel ASLR, and improves ZFS support. "Sixth months after the start of the release engineering process, NetBSD 9.0 is now available. Since the start of the release process a lot of improvements went into the branch - over 700 pullups were processed! This includes usbnet (a common framework for USB Ethernet drivers), aarch64 stability enhancements and lots of new hardware support, installer/sysinst fixes and changes to the NVMM (hardware virtualization) interface. We hope this will lead to the best NetBSD release ever (only to be topped by NetBSD 10 - hopefully later this year). Here are a few highlights of the new release: Support for Arm AArch64 (64-bit Armv8-A) machines, including "Arm ServerReady" compliant machines (SBBR+SBSA). Enhanced hardware support for Armv7-A. Updated GPU drivers (e.g. support for Intel Kabylake). Enhanced virtualization support." Further details can be found in the project's release announcement. MX Linux 19.1 MX Linux, an increasingly popular desktop Linux distribution based on Debian and antiX, has been updated to version 19.1. Besides standard bug fixes and package updates, this version features a special build designed for current hardware: "MX Linux 19.1 now available. MX Linux 19.1 is a refresh of our MX 19 release, consisting of bug fixes and application updates since our original release of MX 19. If you are already running MX 19, there is no need to reinstall. Packages are all available thru the regular update channel. Due to the increasing presence of users with newer hardware (particularly newer AMD or Intel hardware), with this release, in addition to the standard 32-bit and 64-bit ISO images with 4.19 LTS kernels, we have produced a third ISO image that we call 'Advanced Hardware Support' or AHS (pronounced Oz) for short. AHS is 64-bit and ships with a Debian 5.4 kernel, MESA 19.2 as well as newer X.Org drivers and various recompiled applications that will use the newer graphics stack." Read the rest of the release announcement for further details. Tails 4.3 A new version of Tails (The Amnesic Incognito Live System) has been released. This Debian-based distribution strives to help users communicate securely and browse the web anonymously. The project's latest release, Tails 4.3, includes several key package upgrades along with fixes to the upgrade process interface. "Tails 4.3 is out. This release fixes many security vulnerabilities. You should upgrade as soon as possible. New features: we included the trezor package, which provides a command line tool to use a Trezor hardware wallet for cryptocurrencies. Changes and updates: update Tor Browser to 9.0.5; update Thunderbird to 68.4.1; update Linux kernel to 5.4.13 - this should improve the support for newer hardware (graphics, Wi-Fi); update Tor to 0.4.2.6; update VirtualBox Guest Additions to 6.1.2. Fixed problems: fix the progress bar and prevent closing the window while an upgrade is being applied. Known issues: None specific to this release. Automatic upgrades are available from 4.2 and 4.2.2 to 4.3. Tails 4.4 is scheduled for March 10." Additional details can be found in the distribution's release announcement.

E-Phone

Reproduction An /e/ phone in 2020 One of the projects I have been watching with curiosity over the past year is /e/ (formerly Eelo), a mobile operating system that is based on Android, but with the pieces associated with Google's software and services removed. The project is described as follows: /e/ is a complete, fully 'unGoogled', mobile ecosystem. We could have just focused on an OS, but apps and on-line services are critical components of a smartphone experience, too. /e/ consists in a mobile operating system (OS) and carefully selected applications, together forming a privacy-enabled internal environment for mobile phones. Combined with on-line services, such as a search engine, e-mail, storage and other on-line tools, it creates a unique environment: privacy-in, privacy-out. One of the big challenges any open source mobile platform faces these days is competing with the vast application stores of Android and iOS. The /e/ operating system side-steps this issue by providing what is essentially the Android operating system, but with open source technologies replacing Google apps and services. This allows /e/ to run most Android apps and therefore benefit from the Android ecosystem while providing a more open platform, less dependent on advertisements and data harvesting for revenue. The /e/ Foundation was kind enough to send me a demo phone which arrived in a nondescript brown box. Inside the box was the product's box itself which declares brightly on the front: "your data is your data". The back of the box lets us know it contains a smart phone with a one-year warranty that has been unlocked and is compatible with Android apps. Inside the box I found a little booklet which explains how to set up the phone. (Charge it, insert the SIM card and follow on-screen instructions.) The directions, while brief, are printed in five languages: English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. The /e/ phones, while they can be run anywhere in the world, are sold only in Europe presently. The box also contains the phone, a Samsung Galaxy S9 in my case, a set of earphones, a European outlet-to-USB adaptor, a USB cable, and a little pin that can be used to pop open the Samsung's SIM port. For people who do not live in Europe, you can buy a supported model of Android phone, download /e/ and flash it to your device. In the future, the /e/ Foundation plans to make a service available where people can mail in their devices and /e/ will install their operating system on it and ship back the phone. Getting set up In the booklet which came with the /e/ phone there is a recommendation for visiting a website to sign up for an /e/ account. This account gives us 5GB of on-line storage (with the option to upgrade), an e-mail account, and the ability to automatically synchronize files, settings, tasks, and contacts from our phone. The on-line account appears to mostly be implemented using Nextcloud and I will talk about that later. For now I will say the on-line registration process worked smoothly and I was up and running with a new account quickly. The phone I received arrived mostly charged and I let it sit plugged in for a while to top it off. I like that there is a light on the phone that changes colour, depending on whether it is charging, fully charged, or has a notification waiting to be read. This makes it easier to check the device's status without activating the display. There are four buttons on the phone I received. Volume Up, Volume Down, Power, and one which does not appear to do anything. Turning on the phone brings up a mostly white logo screen. We are then walked through a few configuration steps, beginning with selecting our preferred language from a list. Before moving onto the next screen, a warning popped up and told me "calendar has stopped". This was perhaps the only error I saw during my trial, but its timing (at the beginning of the test run) was not a great early impression. The phone's wizard continues to walk us through selecting our time zone, optionally connecting to a wi-fi network, and (again optionally) enabling location services for permitted apps. We can then choose to enable fingerprint unlocking and protecting the phone with a PIN. Finally, we have the option of putting in our on-line /e/ account credentials to synchronize the phone with our cloud account. So far things were going fairly smoothly. First impressions Once the setup process was complete, /e/ displays a user interface that is made up of two screens and we can use a swipe gesture to move between them. The main screen has launcher icons for installed applications. Toward the bottom of this screen are four icons set aside (fixed in place) which provide access to the Phone app, a texting application, the camera, and the web browser. The second screen featured two widgets, one showing the local weather and another which showed recommended (typically recently used) applications I might want to launch again. Along the top of both screens is a status bar that can be pulled down to see notifications and access some settings. At the very bottom of the display are three buttons which should be familiar to Android users, the Back, Home, and Open Windows buttons. The default wallpaper for /e/ is bright and mostly orange, which reminds me of a close-up view of the Firefox logo. Included software The /e/ phone arrived with several apps already installed for me. The line-up included a calculator, calendar, the Chromium browser (re-branded as the /e/ browser). The device also features a clock, file manager, photo gallery, camera, mail client, music player, and note taking app. There is an audio recorder, a task tracker, the Magic Earth GPS/maps application, and a weather application. There is also a phone call making application and texting app to round out the experience. Playing around with the included software, I generally found things worked well and as expected. It has been about three years since I last used an Android phone for any extended period of time, but it was fairly easy for me to get back into the habit of using the Android-style applications. The phone running /e/ was very responsive and I liked how snappy it was and how smoothly the user interface performed. One of the few problems I had when using the Samsung phone was getting accurate location information. For instance, when I was using the Maps app, at first my perceived location was off by several kilometres. After a reboot, the GPS managed to place my position closer, but still off by several blocks. I tried the Maps app a few times and it never got more accurate than a few blocks away from my actual position. If I manually entered my current location, the GPS functions would work and provide directions to where I wanted to go, but it did require that I tell the phone where it was and prepare to slightly adjust my expectations of the directions given. The other GPS-related quirk I ran into came from the Weather app. There is a default widget on the second screen which shows the current weather forecast and, as far as I could tell, it accurately displayed both my location and the local weather. Tapping the weather widget opened the full Weather app. By default the Weather app showed my position as being in London, England rather than Canada. I went into the app's settings and tried to enable location data, but this failed with an error reporting I needed to grant the app permission to access the GPS data. This seemed like a good idea, but it was not immediately clear if I could do this from within the app. I found that clicking the app's Update Location button did bring up a prompt to get access to location data, but the lookup failed. I had to close the app and re-open it before it would update its position. Then it did show weather data for a town in my province in Canada, just not the town I was in. I chalked this up to being "close enough" for all practical purposes. Hardware specifications Though the phone's hardware was not my focus during my trial, the platform always plays a role in how well an operating system works. The detailed specifications of the Samsung device list it has having an octa-core CPU running at up to 3GHz. My device shipped with 64GB of storage, 8.3GB of which was used for the operating system. The phone offered 3.5GB of RAM and I generally used about 1.9GB of memory when the phone first booted. The Samsung offers two cameras, a 12 megapixel camera in the back and an 8 megapixel view in the front. The interface was very responsive and smooth during my trial. Apps opened quickly and gestures responded immediately to my touch. The phone's hardware all worked smoothly, including wireless networking, the microphone, camera, and (with some quirks) GPS. I did not have any cause to test Bluetooth connections, but the phone enables Bluetooth by default. Adding new apps Downloading new applications on /e/ is quite straight forward. There is an icon labelled Apps on the main screen and tapping it opens the phone's software centre. The centre is arranged much the same way as the Google Play store or the Linux Mint software centre. The front page of the store shows popular items we can scroll through and new programs can be installed with the tap of a button. Tabs at the bottom of the store's page allow us to browse through categories of software or search for apps by name. The store can also handle updates to programs we have already installed. My experience with the Apps store was entirely painless and I found it easy to navigate. The interface was snappy and smooth. If I had any complaint it might be that the store's main page looks a little crowded on the Samsung's screen, but it is a small concern. Functionally and visually the store is quite good and I had no problems hunting down new applications. I went looking for quite a few programs and found lots of popular Android apps, including Spotify, Firefox, Telegram, WhatsApp Messenger, the F-Droid open software centre, Facebook, Plants vs Zombies 2, KDE Connect, and so on. In short, there seems to be no shortage of applications. However, not all programs available in Google's Play store are available through the /e/ store. If you need an application which is currently missing there is an option in the Apps store to request the app be added. The one issue I did have was at one point the /e/ phone popped up a notification that let me know there was an app update waiting to be installed. Tapping the notification opened the Apps store and I tapped the Updates tab. The Updates tab showed there were no new downloads available. The next day I checked back and there was one update listed (for KDE Connect), which updated without any problems. On-line services Earlier I mentioned signing up for an account which provides on-line storage and synchronization options. There is an on-line portal we can sign into that is basically Nextcloud with modules set up for handling e-mail, contacts, tasks, and a calendar. The web-based service is quite useful and I think its ability to sync data, especially calendar appointments and contacts, will do nicely to fill in for Google's equivalents. The only problem I potentially see is sharing these features with other users. I know several families who coordinate through Google Calendar and I don't think most people are going to be prepared to switch or coordinate with someone who insists on using the Nextcloud calendar instead. That being said, the on-line storage works very well. Photos, appointments, and contacts all sync automatically when we enable our account on the /e/ phone. Sometimes it takes a while for items to sync and it looks like the on-line Documents folder does not sync down to the phone, but the other folders do sync in both directions and it all works transparently. Observations and other features The /e/ phone allows users to apply permissions or restrictions dealing with a wide variety of access for each app. We can adjust access to contacts, our calendar, local storage, the microphone, and so on. Things tend to be pretty locked down by default. This is good for security, though sometimes inconvenient. For example, I had to grant the web browser permission to save files to my phone, then grant permission to open the file I had just saved. This sort of fine-grained permission is a careful balancing act between providing safe defaults and not inadvertently training the user to simply tap through permission prompts. For the most part I think /e/ does a good job in this arena, keeping things locked down, but usually not too much. It took me a while to find software updates for the base operating system. These updates can be found in the Settings panel, under the "About phone" screen. Specifically, the item we need to look at is called "LineageOS Updates". When I began using the phone there were two updates available. I installed the latest, which rebooted my phone, installed the update cleanly and caused the older update to be hidden. The update, which was 719MB in size, went smoothly. However, when I installed the update, I discovered vibration feedback (when typing) was turned on. I had disabled vibration feedback when I first started using the phone. The setting was still off under the vibrations and notifications settings so I had to spend a while hunting down where else I had to disable the physical feedback. I eventually found it tucked away under Settings->System->Languages & Input-> Keyboard & Inputs->Virtual Keyboard. It was a long dig down, but it allowed me to keep my phone from vibrating whenever I was typing. Earlier I mentioned updates to the /e/ operating system can be found under a section of the Settings panel under the heading of LineageOS Updates. This highlights an interesting issue of identification I kept seeing. On the surface everything is branded as "e" or "/e/".  But scratch the surface and we see the phone refer to itself as being "Powered by Android", or as running LineageOS, or running Linux. For example, the "About phone" screen identifies the phone as Android 8.1.0 and LineageOS 0.7, running Linux 4.9.133 with SELinux enabled. The on-line cloud storage, on the surface, refers to itself as "e" and copyrighted by the "e Foundation", but digging into some screens causes the portal to refer to itself as Nextcloud. For people who never peek beneath the surface, these quirks of identity probably don't matter. However, it is one of those little things that can confuse people when they are poking around or trying to get support. Hopefully the rebranding will become more complete over time. On a separate topic, I could not get my desktop computer, running GNU/Linux, to talk over USB with the /e/ phone. Even after confirming the phone's MTP protocol was enabled, and after trying multiple file managers on the desktop (including Dolphin and Thunar) I was unable to directly access pictures or files on the phone from my desktop. Luckily, the /e/ phone's software centre includes the KDE Connect service. This allows the phone to share files, notifications, and some other features with a desktop computer. KDE Connect is probably the one important tool I miss when I'm not running Android on my phone, and it was nice to see this service is available. Conclusions One of the tricky aspects of evaluating /e/, especially at this early stage, was trying to decide on what my perspective should be going into this review. Should I view /e/ from the point of view of a UBports user looking at alternatives? A former Android user interested in an un-Googled alternative? A relative novice to technology looking at phone options and comparing /e/ against iOS and Android? A privacy enthusiastic looking for a more locked down device? A person can try to wear a lot of different hats when looking at a new piece of technology and I was not sure the best angle to use when approaching /e/. For the most part I tried to view /e/ through two lenses: 1. Would it function as a good alternative for me personally when compared to UBports? 2. Could I hand this phone over to non-technology enthusiasts (like a parent or friend) and have them use it instead of iOS or Android? Looking at /e/ as an alternative to UBports, I see some immediate benefits to /e/. It has a much larger and more mainstream application ecosystem. The /e/ platform runs more programs other people are likely to be using and this makes it easier to coordinate with other people. The /e/ phone has more settings and fine-tuning options. This makes for a much more cluttered Settings panel, but it also offers more control. Perhaps the best feature though is the on-line storage and sync options. UBports doesn't really have a competitor to Google services, like calendar and contact synchronization, and it is a feature I miss. The Nextcloud web interface is quite good and I see it as not only better than anything in the UBports ecosystem, I'd argue that it beats Google's services in terms of friendliness and accessibility. The only problem is getting people you coordinate with on-line to use Nextcloud instead of Google Calendar or Google Docs. Personally, I think UBports does have a few benefits. It offers a full GNU/Linux platform, compared to Android's (or /e/'s) somewhat bare bones underpinnings. UBports also streamlines its settings more and has a much more flexible and powerful status bar compared to /e/. On the whole, I feel UBports provides the better base operating system while /e/ is providing a better and more powerful ecosystem around the phone. The apps and services /e/ offers are far and away richer than anything UBports supplies, but I like the UBports interface and low-level features better. As to whether I could hand this phone over to a non-technical user, I experimented by doing just that. I met with a current iOS/iPhone user and asked her to play around with my new phone. She had no trouble setting up tasks, appointments, browsing the web, and installing and accessing Spotify. While the interface was slightly unfamiliar, as it was from the Android family rather than the Apple family of operating systems, she had no trouble getting used to the experience. In fact, since she was accustomed to tapping buttons instead of swiping (which is the common interaction on UBports) she adjusted faster to the new phone than I did. The /e/ phone does not offer all the apps Android does, and it might not be entirely polished yet in the re-branding experience. However, it does provide a very solid, mostly Android compatible experience without the Google bits. The /e/ team offers a wider range of hardware support than most other iOS and Android competitors, it offers most of the popular Android apps people will probably want to use (I only discovered a few missing items I wanted), and the on-line cloud services are better than those of any other phone I've used (including Ubuntu One and Google). I'd certainly recommend /e/ for more technical users who can work around minor rough edges and who won't get confused by the unusual branding and semi-frequent permission prompts. I'm not sure if I'd hand one of these phones over to an Android power-user who uses a lot of niche apps, but this phone would certainly do well in the hands of, for instance, my parents or other users who tend to interact with their phones for texting, phone calls, and the calendar without using many exotic applications. This phone feels like a good first version from the /e/ team and, as the web portal firms up and more Android apps are imported into the project's software centre, I feel I will be comfortable recommending this platform to just about anyone who doesn't specifically need (or want) Google services. 1. Sometimes the phone identified itself as a Galaxy S8, though usually as an S9, depending on the screen or service I was using. Memory was also reported differently in various areas. The command line reports 3.5GB of RAM, the "About phone" screen lists 3.3GB, and the on-line specifications claim the phone offers 4GB of RAM. There is no practical difference in either case, but I find the little variations interesting. As I still have the /e/ phone and am continuing to play with it, I will be happy to answer questions about the device's software and services. Should you have a question about the /e/ phone, please leave a comment below or e-mail me. I will publish my answers in a future issue of DistroWatch Weekly.