Saturday, February 1, 2025

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

 Posted on September 18, 2011

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

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

Some saints are predicting end of the world by 2012 but I have a few predictions and I would like to see some of them happening before the end of 2012.
I will list them here first and would enlarge upon them on a future date depending on the time at my disposal.
 
These are made without any attachment to any country or state or company at large.
 
The concept I would like to develop is that there should be greater good to the average person on the street or is born every 7 seconds or so  to this World / Century with IT industry expanding and penetrating into every corner of life from medicine to agriculture to information technology.

Everybody enjoys music.

Similarly everybody loves reading a magazine or daily paper.

Both have become part of our lives.

Cellphone is universal now.

Information and its technology is no different.

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

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

Only English is dominating.

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

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

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

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

That domination should end, sooner than late.

1. In my list Apple Mac comes first.
Its domination with its pricing scale should come to an end sooner than late. 
It should be affordable if not it should be replaced by similar applications.
Could alternatives fill in?

Yes Linux can do that.

2. Domination of Microsoft should end.

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

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

But windows 8 has already gone paranoid.

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

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

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

There are alternative chip manufacturers.

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

Yes there is enough.

6. Amazon should step in.

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

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

In India Human Right Violations including rape happens everyday.

Nobody talks after IMF incident.

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

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

Amazon had been doing a silent service.

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

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

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

Linux has developed all the tool kits.

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

We must put an end to this.

There are over 100 very good Linux distributions out there.

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

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

Nobody in the U.N.O speaks.

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

I am here with Richard Stallman.

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

There are 10 Linux distributions for each exploiting company as it is now. 
They should divert their resources to take up the challenge and cloud computing seriously.

Ubuntu One is there.

CloudUSB and JoliOS are also there both Ubuntu derivatives.

Then there is Mobilin derivative MeeGo.

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

8. What can the China do.

It can do a lot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is U.N.O ready.

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


Only hindrance is the speed of the Internet.

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

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

It will be sooner than we have anticipated.

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

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

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

There is a lot of resistance to change.

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

But U.N.O is sleeping.

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

Linux can provide it
Its Community Spirit is more powerful than the USA or the sleeping U.N.O.

Already 95% of the industry depends on Linux.

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

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

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


What if one wants to try Linux?

 25-07-2013

 
What if one wants to try Linux?
 
This is a short recipe but the steps are far too many.
1. Decide what one needs
List the utilities one needs
Web browsing using only a cloud utility
Anonymous web browsing
Needs a word processor free of copyright, for example LibreOfiice
Needs a photo editor
Video/Audio player +++++

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

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

4. Decide on the hardware Laptop (never use a secondhand laptop) PC or self assembled PC.
Old secondhand PC computers with updated RAM (minimum of 1 GIB is my recommendation) with a graphic card of 256 to 512 MB is a good choice especially if it is the spare computer one is going to use it as.

On board Ethernet card is mandatory.

If there is no spare computer to download or the download speed is slow like in the developing world one has few options.
I do not download or test distributions now to save my electricity bill.
If I can save one month's of electricity bill I can buy the Linux magazine for a whole year.
That is what I do now.
One can visit and browse the Linux Magazine site and buy old copies of the magazine with Linux DVDs in them.
If you do so and buy a magazine copy, go for the copy with Knoppix DVD (as an extra copy) and a another copy of your desired distribution.

My approach.
One has to decide on either 32 bits or 64 bits (can have more RAM) version.
I will have five to six distributions in one box, few for my use and others for testing.
1. Knoppix CD (not DVD)
2. Gparted CD.
3. Linux Mint KDE (15)
4. Peppermint 4
4. Kiwi Linux
6. SuSe Linux KDE
7. PCLinux LXDE
8. Tails
9. Kali Linx
10. Debian 7.0
11. Pinguy Linux and many more

STEP 1
I boot up the Knoppix 7.0 CD.
This is to check my hardware.
This is the best Live CD to check on my hardware and it never fails.
If you buy the Linux magazine one is able to read the articles (questions and answers mostly) written by Knoppix himself.
I use this CD to partition my hard disk using Gparted.
It needs a rerserFS partition and a swap partition (onw has to use sufficient capacity for the DVD).
Then I install Knoppix CD version on the hard disk (follow the instruction while installing).

STEP 2
Then I boot Gparted Linux CD (Gnome Linux) and verify what was done and format all the partitions, (except where Knoppix is installed) for my need (read my articles on partitioning).

STEP 3
Then I install one by one all the distributions and see which one has the best GRUB utility.

Suse has the best configuration, partitioning and Grub file.
Peppermint comes close second but has very few utilities (cloud friendly Google based).
No word processors, torrent or disk burners.
Kiwi is pretty good alternative to Ubuntu

STEP 4
Redo the Step (three) 3 so that I get the best start up grub file that boots all the distributions.

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

Few comments worth mentioning.
 
1. use a router and not a telephone hookup.

2. Do not listen to guys/girls who test them on virtual machines.
There is a big difference in performance in actual hardware than in a virtual machine.

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

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

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

6. Have three partitions for your most used Linux distribution.
/root., /home and /var and the rest of the distributions can be installed in one or two partitions.

5. Have two users always, one for root or administrator and one for regular user with good passwords.
 
All my users name come from the primate family from chimp to bonobo to gorilla.

Ubuntu forums tells me that their password file is compromised and that means my account too.
So strong password is mandatory now with lot of hackers out there.
Once one is familiar with a distribution try to stick with it without upgrading if the system is running well.

6. Do the preparation in mid July and not in December when everybody is on leave.
We were on a long industrial action in 2012 and I had nothing to do except fiddling with Linux and that was a discovery I made quite fortuitously.
Before that I did it on December and found that I had to re-install some f them in April or May.
Linux distributions tend to mature by mid year, strangely enough!

Stupid Things that I have done in My Life

Stupid Things that I have done in My Life

I am glad to say I never did stupid things in my student days.
I was way ahead of other kids.
I hated Scouting.
I did Junior Cadetting and went to Diyathalwa on three occasions and last time as the Sergeant.  Every year of visiting to Diyathalwa was worse than the previous occasion including food and free time. I excelled in sports and we were third in the overall championship. Even, if we came first, I do not thing I would have taken army as my career.
 
Only thing that I enjoyed was watching the streams of butterflies coming down the hills. 
I felt butterflies were much freer and I wish to be free as butterflies on air and no bondage.
 
A very Buddhist attitude of mine.
I was thrashed by the cadetting master until the Albizzia

(Persian Silk Tree) 

stick broke into many pieces, for refusing to join the senior cadetting unit.
My idea was to join the university (never wanted to become a doctor) on the first attempt.
There was another teacher, very considerate who even discourage me taking o part in even in athletics.  I used to beat his elder son in the class in academics and he should have made me to divert my attention to other things. I was active in Wall Papers and he said they are useless activities and you have potential to go to the university, it is difficult but try that instead.
His son who became a good friend entered university on the third attempt and became a very good Veterinary Surgeon. I used to meet him, also I used to visit him (forget why) in the Veterinary Hospital which was next door to the brand new Japanese built Dental School, where I worked as a pathologist.
 
Coming to the current topic, I used to do stupid things as a medical student including gambling once year at Bogambara, Mr. Balasuriya's  casino joint.
 
1. I would start with the last thing first.
Volunteering to Coronavirus jab was one of them.
Vaccines should be time tested (it takes 20 years or more for them to become safe) before introducing them in mass scale.
Nearly 20 million died on vaccine related incidents which WHO is hiding the real figures.
I ended up with Myocarditis which almost killed me, which ended up me writing two books one on Coronavirus and the second on Interleukins.
 
2. The next worst thing I did was to volunteer for alcohol test in Pharmacology (third year).
Both of us ended up as unconfirmed alcoholics. I weaned myself 6 years ago, I do not know about my friend who is in Isle of man as a Radiologist. I met him last in our 50 year anniversary in Ceylon. He does not respond to my emails. 
By the way, I have stopped sending emails to any, now.

3. Third was the worst.
I volunteered to test myself with Radioactive Thyroxin in the first year.
I do not know, the dose they gave me.
Its radioactive trace effects lasted over one year.
Of course, they built the Nuclear Biology Unit, on the rear side of the Medical Library, exposing medical students to the hazards. 
It was a Department of Physics Project.
As a seconded officer in the University, I activated the campaign opposing it on the grounds they were using unsuspecting young girls in the Kandy District.
This guy probably hated me (he was a PhD guy) and I never saw him.
Incidentally he was from my collage.
I was interested in Thyroxin and I wrote a Protocol (It was probably related to grey hair), for a guy who I considered a friend of mine on the understanding that he would mention my collaboration.
He did not.
I ended up doing a research project (Penetration Study of Linux) with a young guy.
I did most of it but told him not to mention my name at all.
I wanted him to take Linux as a career but he did not.
We had a nice meal before leaving Ceylon.
I did the wrong thing of telling him of his weaknesses which included believing in astrology and the Manios (maniacs). 
I did with good intentions.
Now he does not respond to my emails.
Ego or personality are the biggest hindrance to progress in this modern world.
I hope President Donald Trump, take a leaf out of my experiences.
He is older than me but President Putin is younger.
Well I am into five books.
They need finishing touches.
There will be less of blog pieces here.
I have downloaded all my Linux images.
Just today, I noticed, Debian has all the images in Linuxtracker.

Friday, January 31, 2025

American and Japanese QUALITY GUYS

 

American and Japanese QUALITY GUYS

1. Walter Shewhart

2. Joseph M Juran

3.
W. Edward Deming

4. Armand Feigenbum

5.
Kaoru Ishikawa

6. Genichi Taguchi

7. Shigeo Shinto

8. Philip B Crosby


Faculty of Dental Sciences is celebrating its 25th anniversary.

I have to remember at least 3 Japanese.
I was involved with them from laying the foundation stone.

Dr. Yugiro Handa (now a professor)

He is now bit flabby and I cannot remember him wearing specks but he does it now.

He is now a professor and I can remember him saying he would be going to Africa.

I told him he is better as a ambassador but he choose to improve health and more importantly Treatment of Tuberculosis in Ethiopia.
 

Miss. Hagiwara

This lady was the one who managed the documentation and probably statistics.
She was bit stingy and did not give me a copy of SPSS for my research work.

This lady may be now in Ghana and trying to improve Child Health in African continent.

Through Professor Asoka Ekanayake I got her to install a copy of it in the Computer Unit of the Faculty of Dental Sciences.

I managed to find a pirated copy used by the Engineering Faculty Students.

My Microsoft Windows was not pirated and I had 42 odd 720MB floppies.

No wonder I turned to Linux.

It was one of my students Sanjeewa Kandegedara who game me my first working Linux copy.

He is now a good Maxillo Facial Surgeon.

I was involved in recruiting 45 young Dental Surgeons to be sent for Training in Japan.

Only two of them came back and only one paid back the security and resigned properly from the university.

Of course, none of them can joined the university again and they are blacklisted for life.

I think I was the only one who did not ask for foreign sojourns and I did my research work in Ceylon.

By the way, one of my parallel advanced level (bright guy) students from a different school did NOT get through medicine but got a scholarship in Japan.

He tried a scholarship in UK but failed.

He came back to settle his dues in the university and got married to a Japanese lady.

I told him, Japanese are very bad in English and start an English school in Japan, jokingly.

He took me seriously and opened an English Academy in Japan.

I have not seen him since.

Professor Ama Mia
He was a retired Professor of Oral  Pathology  and I gave my room for him to share.

His English was poor but sure enough he managed to learn English in six months and he made a presentation on special staining techniques.

He dissected a hamster and manually showed the technology to our technicians.

I preserved the skin coat of the hamster and kept it as a souvenir until my retirement.

I made his presentation into a booklet for our technicians to use.

My interest was Microscopes with a video display for students. My video microscope never aligned and what I focus student could not see (no synchronization).

99% of students who had never used a microscope in school were not interested in histopathology.

All of them I believed discarded from schools but working OK after thorough check up and alignment.

I of course put my own money and bought a digital microscope used by students in America.

Just forget about Electron Microscopy in Ceylon.

Total Quality Management in Education (at least in universities)

R.W our current president (shoddy deals) is the one who destroyed out University Education for him to initiate Fee Paying Private Universities.
 
We developed a streamlined University Education protocol for all the universities.

Professor Ranjith Mendis
R.W. came in and sacked the U.G.C chairman and destroyed the whole project and appointed a political goon.

Please do not believe him in his educational reforms.

His intention is to destroy our universities and install private institutions.

He is hell bent on this!

He destroyed the Quality Control of Education in Progress in the University System.

He thinks of Education like selling Wattakkas (pumpkin) and Bandakkas (ladies fingers).

When you look at him he is actually Big Pumpkin (I am referring to his brain not the belly).

5 S Principle

Sort

Set

Shine

Standardize

Sustain



TQM

Total Quality Management

Kaizen

Change for better

Continuous improvement

Thursday, January 30, 2025

Debian on Samsung Tablet

Debian on Samsung Tablet

I have made a List of Arch Linux below and many have gone dormant.

I have tested only 4 of them excluding Steam OS.

I could never boot an ARCH Linux in my 15 odd Network of 32 bit computers of the past.

There are much better Linux distribution of Linux available.

Unless you want to become, a lifetime Linux developer, do not waste time on ARCH.

I am a longtime Linux user and avid critic of Linux and I have proposed Japanese 5 S for Linux.

I was the one who introduced this Principle to Private Hospitals in Ceylon

Unfortunately, none of the private hospitals practice this principle in Ceylon, now.

These five words from Demming (an an American who introduced these principles to Japan), I can remember by heart.

William Edwards Deming is referred to as a quality guru because he was one of the first, in the 1950s, to propose a modern approach to product quality by using staff management, planning, product design and process monitoring.

Much of the field of Quality originated from several individuals who spent their careers researching, teaching and developing the field of Quality. These individuals are Walter Shewhart, W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran, Philip Crosby, and Armand Fiegenbaum.

Japanese who adopted this was Kaoru Ishikawa.

I had the pleasure of working with J.I.C.A. Dr. Yugiro Handa (he is professor now).

The first is Dr. Yugiro Handa and he was an amiable guy and I used to tell him instead of JICA, he should become a diplomat. I lost touch with him and he never game me his email and I did not ask in any case.

The other was Miss Hagiwara, opposite Dr. Handa very reserved and difficult to make any tangible friend. She was a computer lady and had all the Windows proprietary software including statistics with her. She was stingy not necessarily due to copyright issues but her nature. I gave up trying her but got Professor Asoka Ekanayake to demand from her all the software needed for student education in the small computer unit we had.

She had to give in and I built a small network in Linux at home with 14 computers. 

TQM and the Pioneers Who Made Us Think About It

The origins of total quality management (TQM) can be traced back to the early 1950s, when W. Edwards Deming worked with Japanese automobile manufacturers to improve product quality. The aim was to help Japan rebuild after the devastation of World War II and regain a competitive edge in the global marketplace. Joseph Juran and Philip Crosby also played a key role in developing TQM, each with their own unique contribution. Juran emphasized the importance of continuous improvement, while Crosby focused on the need for organizations to meet customer expectations. Over time, TQM has become an essential element of business strategy for many organizations.

1. Sort

2. Set

3. Shine

4. Standardize

5. Sustain

YES, one can run run Linux on a Samsung Tablet.
It needs at least Android 14.
I think it is Debian Buster which is Version 10. 
The reason Abiword did not work on this utility proves that.
I started with Android Version 4.4 which was named  Kitkat.
My cellphone on Android 13 does not support.
There is Linux Utility called User Land.
Do not use it it.
It is taken over by Ubuntu and one has to pay for the services.
I tried using User land 10 years ago on a Nokia Phone, supporting Android 8.
I could not do anything with it and gave it up. I think it was Android version 6.
I had over 10 Nokia phones and I did not know what version they were until, this Cellphone towers reach became an issue.
Current version of Android is 15. I think my old cellphones could support up to version 9, named Pie.
Cellphones supporting version 10 to 12 were expensive and as a pensioner I could not afford them, until I decided to buy two cellphones at cut rate before leaving Ceylon to Australia.

I knew in Australia cellphones were much expensive than in Singapore.

It is the same feeling now but Debian let one installs Synaptic Package Manager and  I even Installed Abiword, focus writer and LibreOffice.
Synaptic has ton of applications to choose.
I am still learning with only mouse key to work around, it is bit of a task. My fingers are OK, having been a Pediatric guy with surgical skills but my vision is the one that handicapping me.
I had to try Debian 4 times. Debian does not support it is an old edition.
I hope Debian Developers should look into its support for cellphone.
If an old guy like me can get it going on my Samsung I think newbie can do that.
Thank you Samsung.
I even got Chromium Browser running.

I think one should Install Synaptic Package Manager first. Synaptic look for libraries and that helps the Chromium Browser.
However, font installer hung up.
Keyboard is not virtual activated by defaults and LibreOffice needs fonts to work with.
I tried even Blender and it was slow and would not probably install.
Debian Developers are wise enough to support it but I think mature Debian Developers should help the young guys who took project seriously but have come into some difficulties.
Cellphone is not built to support Linux by default primarily because O.E.M guy feat that Samsung may be hacked by hackers.
There is only one cellphone, Pine that has Linux but it is for developers and is very expensive.
I hope before I kick the bucket I would have the pleasure to use a Linux phone. Even Ubuntu gave up. I was not keen using Linux on a cellphone moment I bought a NUC computer.
Mini PCs are ruling the computer world and very soon nobody would Apple phones would plummet. I think Apple cannot keep up with Mini PCs within a year or so.
I love the Mini PC with Touch Screen.

Active ARCH Linux distributions.

Asterisk indicates the year of first public release based on Arch Linux.

Inactive

These distributions are no longer developed, but show some of the history surrounding Arch Linux and the greater FOSS community. Sections show the year of the latest release.

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2004


Mini PC Domain-Minisforum Atomman X7

Mini PC Domain
Reason for using a Mini PC
Save Space, Money and Energy.
1. Save Space
2. Upgradability 
3. Productivity
4. Portable Gaming and Emulation
5. Save Money
6. Save Energy, consume less watts
7. They are Quiet

Minisforum seems to be the best with many options with up to 4 NVMe slots. 
One can add a frame for old SATA disks.
There is enough room inside and I believe one can change the CPU.
Oculink port is there for external GPU.
But it is very expensive but not worth the money spent.
DDR 5 up to 64 GB RAM.
Storage no problem at all.
Cooling system is pretty good and no thermal throttling at high work load.
It is a power house.
 
It does not have a touch screen on top which is my current craze
This is box shaped but I prefer a oblong or rectangular (cellphone like) design. 

Box shaped design generally makes the components cramped up inside.

Minisforum Atomman X7 has a touch screen design which is an excellent addition to Mini PC Domain.

Uses 
Multiple Monitors with 4K display with high frame rates
Gaming
Video Editing
Video Playback
AI compatible 

Setup
One can change the setup for Graphic Memory but they are optimally set at boot time and one should not fiddle with them without knowing how graphic cards perform in a given setting.

1. Minisforum 
2. Beelink is AMD
3. Acemagician
4. MSI
5. GMK Tech is Intel
6. Intel NUC
7. Morfine
8. Karui Plus 
9. Geekom 

Intel series are cheaper whereas AMD are expensive but performance efficient.

All these are better than Apple Mac cheaper and ungradable. With Apple one is stuck with their design, generally for two years at a time, whereas the rest of Chip Industry is moving forward extremely fast and dose not follow the old Moor's Law of incremental development.
It is actually exponential.
Chips have come down from 250 nanometers to almost 3 nanometers.

Samsung is on top with TSMC closely following.
Dell, LG and HP are way behind.
Intel NUC in the middle. 
NUC is bare bone but upgrade with a cost.

Ryzen is the CPU brand name
Radeon is the GPU brand name

Redeon is AMD proprietary Trade Mark.

Iris Xe is Intel at 1000 dollars whereas 
Geekom gives a better unit for 850 dollars.
This is the reason Intel NUC bowed downed to ASUS. 
Less people would be buying Intel NUC.

Graphic cards are expensive to produce and NVIDIA has been ruling the market.

RDNA is probably a Generic term for Graphic Cards
RDNA 5000, 6000 and 7000 series.

Choices
? Bare bone and cheap 
? Ready to go and expensive 

The Mini PC Domain is full of different Form Factor Units.
Deciding on a unit is almost impossible.

If you are new to mini PC, I recommend list your requirements before purchasing one.
Then go to the dealer and look for a Mini PC that fits your requirement and the budget. 
 
The plan is not to fiddle with the internal components inside once your operating system is installed.

I use Debian Linux which looks after the components and updates the system regularly. 
I have NO comments on other operating systems that are power hungry and resource hungry.

Adding components as and when one's money supply improves is not the way about
In that scenario waiting for a year or so is a good option, hence most of the old units with good performance invariably down their price when they introduce new designs. 

I do not recommend buying second hand one from E-bay (refurbished units), unless it is used as a spare unit. Managing two units is not are good idea. May be the spare unit one can take home over the weekend.

Mini PCs are in development for over a decade now, and they vary from the bare bone units to the top of the range units with many fancy brand names

I will let you know my own preferences later and I am not a gamer.

If you are are a compulsive game addict go for a top of the range unit and do not try to upgrade (it takes the warranty away). Besides, go for a 3 year warranty instead of one year as is the case of usual warranty.

One year difference is very big time in Mini PC Domain.

Limitations 
Has Integrated Graphic Card which cannot be upgraded. There are units with Thunderbolt and a port for external graphic cards but they are expensive. Problem with high end graphic cards is they consume lot of electricity and contribute to the thermal throttling. 
These units are meant to run on low power consumption.
Basic units do not have fans for cooling and use moderate resolution Integrated Graphic Cards which do not consume lot of power. 
 
But high end units will have well designed cooling system and fans but do not expect Water Cooling Systems in a Mini PCs.

RAM is not a problem with many units but single RAM units are undesirable
Two RAM slots is a necessity, simply because when running the system everything runs on RAM with only shared rendering with the Graphic Unit. Spending a lot on RAM is sensible. 
I use 8GB RAM in my NUC which is DDR4. 
I have a spare slot if I decide to do some graphic intensive work. 
I use Stacer (Linux Utility) to test my work load and my general consumption never exceeds 2GB out of 8GB. 
 
I run many Linux utilities in the background to test my user experience and never use cynebench marks.

CPU with single core is good for basic work but not good if heavy works loads are intended.

Multicore CPU is a necessity by default.
CPU is almost idle in my daily use.

Storage Hardware
With Nvme hard disk coming to market one must check what is the type of storage option and capacity.
I still use old (I have several), SSD SATA disks, and I look for whether the PC can accommodate one. 
I do not look for terabyte hard disks.

That's about it.
Only other thing, one has to worry about is how many ports are available for extensibility. 
Ports for mouse and keyboard cannot be used for other purposes
Stick them to the back and leave the ports in front for additional devices.
More ports there are it is better. 
This is especially so for monitors. 

Do not forget about audio / video outputs. 
 
I bought a cheap NUC without audio and I have to stick a USB Audio jack for music and video.

Having a stand for mounting is mandatory.

My Craze
The units with Touch Scree is my craze.
It is two units in one.
Cellphone and Computer Unit integrated.
 
I do not like the box or cube shaped units.
I prefer the rectangular shape units.

They are expensive but more units with new designs will come from China, if not from the West.

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

My Samsung Tablet

My Samsung Tablet

Last time I updated it was in December 2013.

Last time I used it was in May 2024.
Touch screen is very smooth and l wish it keeps it like that for ever.
Google does not support Abiword hence I will never use this tablet for long pieces of writing. 
Certainly not books.
It is updated to Android 14.
My standard cellphone was updated to Android 13 and I am happy with it.

I expected it to be smooth after updating but it went into a fenzy mood trying to do many things (multitasking) at once.

Before updating had several pages with different application icons in different pages.
My regular browser is Firefox but I use several browsers. I wanted all my browsers in one page. I could not move application icons to what I desired or alternative location.

Moment I touch the icon it opens up the application and split the screen into 3.
This was annoying. 
With some fiddling I got the blogger app to the first page.
I went to the Setup and look at the option for display.
It had two options,
One standard icon display.
The other was the split active application display.
I choose standard and it did help to stabilize.

All these things are annoying to an old guy. But I am a fast leaner.
I used to keep my cellphone charged to 100%. 
Samsung advises to charge up to 85% for longer battery life. Battery life is a concern for me, simply because unlike the old ones one cannot replace the battery easily when it is dead. One had to break the rubber seal. My first Samsung cellphone had that problem.
I am a Nokia fan from the very beginning.

Ultimate Gamers Edition

 January, 05, 2023
 
Ultimate Gamers Edition
 
Most of these games age already bundled up in Debian Gnome in 64 bit format.
 
I have not tested but Ultimate Arch Gamers also have bundled their own game pack.
Even though, it is 4.4GB the Box Utility of Debian it mounts in a Virtual Session, bringing nostalgia of 32 bit era.
It has GDebi Package installer and that it means it is updated to current use and once installed one can install even my favorite Abiword
 
Being a gamer, it has no office packages.
I have no hesitation to recommend using it by a newbie or an old hand like me in Linux.
 
Thank YOU guys and Girls developing Ultimate Gamers Edition.
 
I have included in my book "Linux Essentials" in the Gamers section.
 
I am not a fan of MATE and I have not used MATE as a regular user and that is why this Distribution has missed my attention.
 
By the way, I am not a fan of ARCH Linux but ARCH has come up with (Storm, Blue Star Linux, Arco Linux) many editions.
 
Blue Star Linux was 4.7GB and is a very elegant distribution only my lack of experience in ARCH Linux keep me not using it.
 
Manjaro is on top of my selections.
 
I am too, old to learn new tricks and I am happy with Debian.
 
It took almost two hours to download Blue Star Linux by torrents with only 3 seeders. 
I used my old Laptop
I use my Laptop (500GB but only half full after loading with all the Linux images) to store store all the Linux images, since my NUC has no space. 
Already filled with over 50 Iso images, mostly old Puppy Linux my favorite.
 
Linux Mint
Mx Linux
Debian
4M Linux (version 5 did not have seeders). 
Majaro
Blue Star Lminux
 
By the way, Netrunner KDE derivative has become one of my favorite distributions which has many attributes.
 
Ultimate Gamers Edition is an open source and completely free Linux kernel based operating system derived from the world’s most popular distribution of Linux, Ubuntu, and designed from the ground up for hardcore Gamers. 
The Gamers flavour of the Ultimate Edition Linux operating system is distributed as a Live DVD ISO image that has approximately 4GB in size,    it supports both 32 bit (x86) and 64 bit (x86_64) hardware platforms, but contains software packages optimized only for the 32 bit architecture. It can be written to either a DVD disc or a USB thumb drive of 4GB or higher capacity.
Being designed from the ground up as a Live DVD, the Ultimate Gamers Edition distribution will allow the user to use the entire system directly from the bootable medium, in live mode. By default, it will start automatically when you boot the ISO image from the BIOS of a PC, but various advanced boot options are available on the boot menu.
The distribution’s default and only graphical desktop environment is powered by LXDE (Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment), which uses a traditional single panel layout for a productive and very fast desktop experience.
Among the pre-installed gamesare 3D chess, 
Airstrike, 
Aisleriot Solitaire, 
Barrage, Blackjack, 
Boswars, 
Brutal, 
Chess, 
BzFlag, 
Brutal Chess, 
Chess, 
Dream Chess, 
Five or more, 
Foo Billiard, 
Four in a row, 
Freecell, 
Gbrainy, 
Glest, 
Gnometris, 
Gridwars, 
Hearts, 
Lango, 
Kslotski, 
Majongg and Mines.
The Nexuiz, 
Nibbles, 
Nimuh, 
Open Arena, 
PokerTH, 
Robots, 
SameGnome, 
Sauerbraten, 
Snoballz, 
Suduku, 
Super Tux 2, 
Tali, 
Tetravex, 
Tremulous, 
Vetris and Warsow are also included.
 
The Play On Linux application, a graphical front end for the award winning Wine software, will allow the user to download, install and play games that have been designed to work only on the Microsoft Windows operating system.