Linux is 20 years young!

From www.linux.com

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Twenty years ago this summer, Linus Torvalds made a bold decision to share his operating system with the world. Not long after that, he chose to license it under the General Public License. Nothing in computing has been the same since.

In fact, today Linux is the largest collaborative development project in the history of computing, which means that the 20th Anniversary of Linux is an opportunity for the community to come together in celebration of this great success story and in collaboration on how it will define the next 20 years of Linux.

Today Linux is literally everywhere: in your phone, at your ATM, in your TV, on your desktop, at the movies, in your car, and in more places than I can write in one blog. It is everywhere because of everyone. We’re announcing today our plans for celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Linux and hope we can provide a variety of forums, online and in-person, where everyone can contribute to this important milestones.

We’re kicking things off with an exclusive video produced by The Linux Foundation that is one way to tell the Story of Linux:

7 Days, 7 hours and 7 minutes of downloading Debian Multi Arch (32 - 64 bits)

My dog is sitting besides me and the thunder storm might hit us or my computer in minutes and if I do not pen this down now, I may have to wait for long hours in the night.

Yes it took 7 days, 7 hours and 7 minutes of downloading for me to try the Debian Multi Arch (32 and 64 bits).

The last 2 MiB took 7 minutes and it was like long one hour for me with the impending thunder storm.

I pay for 3 MiB for a minute and I have to sit for 10 minutes to to get that service, which is a violation of the service contract. I cannot do anything about it and if I complain I might even get a far worse service. Here they can boast that so many have got internet connections but with service contract violation.
Can you imagine how many man hours I may have wasted over the last two years to download 150 t0 200 CD/DVDs.
But it was worth the trouble even with very poor service if one sets a target to achieve (testing 100 Linux distributions was my target) and persevere with it can be achieved. What I did was not stop at 100 but to continue with it, this time with torrent and what did I get.

Now I discover there is utility called FileZilla that can be used in a situation where there is often breakdown in service, it restart from where the breakdown had occurred. I have not tried it but love to try it when I have time.

I found something that I was waiting for a long time.
Discovering Sinhala capability of Linux was a welcome bonus that I was not looking for.

It is true I have not spent that amount of man hours for my thesis but thesis trained me in discipline and perseverance, which come good when doing a thing Like delving into to Linux.
Instead of flame wars, I look at what is there with some perceived objective and if I decide to make a live CD for myself, I now know what to look for and where to look for.

Yes I have tried it for few minutes and now I have one DVD with both 32 and 64 capabilities to try Sinhala Linux. This is the DVD I will carry with me for demonstrating Sinhala Linux capability.

See you soon after the thunder storm.

The seeder was from Sweden.
I have only Gamers Linus of 8.4 GiB to try and I will do that leisurely, now.

Why I hate month of April?

I hate the month of April.

List them down in point form.

1. It is the month of thunder and showers. It does lot of damage to my equipments including the switch board.

2. It is the month of fire cracker. There is a saying that empty vessels (like many politicians) make a big noise, it surely does in the month of April.

3. It is the month my dog is constantly behind me in fear of thunder and fire crackers. At least for the sake of our trustworthy friend we must ban fire crackers. Many of them left alone by owners die in this season. Good that we lost the World Cup in Cricket, it would have raised some forest fire too.

4.It s the month of extreme temperature which varies from 78 F to 98 F.

5. It is the month everything goes up in price for no reason like the ambient temperature. Not only it goes up but remains high after the season.

6. It is the month of excesses including alcohol and spiritual degradation.

7. It is the month of lot of accidents on the road with police on leave.

8.It is the month of petty fights both inside and outside the house due to economic hardships and not being able to afford what one wants.

9. It is the month we empty coffers and living on loans (for two months afterward we are in absolute poverty, unable to settle the loans).

10 It is the month of credit cards.

11. It is the month all the unwanted relatives drop in without notice and spoil one's quiet holiday.

12. It is the month of where healthy people go under the hammer and drop dead (violence, forget the medicine, too much sugar and diabetic coma, road traffic accidents and many more).

13. It is the month when the sun is above your head and shows its mighty power and all the good gods are looking the other way (in disgust probably) without helping us with some cash.

14. It is the month of mosquito music and menace including Santhus.

15. Come to think about it, now I know why April Fool's day is relevant and the month start with a day of the fools and end with full month of madness!

I sometimes wonder why we call it the New Year with so many unwanted catastrophes evolve round it.

These are points to ponder when you avail yourself of some welcome respite of daily chores.

Sinhala Linux Update-Who started it and where it is now?

I can categorically say one thing for certain, it was our own Anuradha from Kandy who started Sinhala Linux, way back in late nineties and early this century but it went into hibernation after tsunami in 2004 but now it has emerged in 3 or 4 Linux versions I have tested.

They are as follows

1. Fedora 13
2. Debian 6.0.0
3. Sabayon 5.5
4. Hanthana Linux
5. Fedora 15 Alpha ( believe-downloading 15 KDE alpha currently)

My profuse apologies to FEDORA Team for jumping the gun and giving the credit to Debian as the first distribution supporting Sinhala Linux.

I was wrong and apologies are with this little update on Sinhala Linux.

I have dissociated with Fedora from Core 3 but did not use it for 10 versions (3 to 13) for many reasons but it is not the purpose of this writing.

First thing first, it was Fedora 3 that allowed the Sinhala font to be used, and I am proud to say I used it with open office a decade ago when nobody was interested in Linux.

Then Mandrake (not Mandriva) allowed the Sinhala font installation but I was never expecting the Sinhala capability of Linux until now with Anuradha drawn into other work by accident.

I have changed myself a lot and given up all and gone to PCLinux which is only in English and 32 bits version.

Reason being the introduction of Live CDs which it was a pioneer from Big Daddy stage.

It has FullMonty and there is a version of it named (not by them, texstar tells me) as apartheid (it means what it says) which has brought bad taste to Linux community (only for white people-Mr.Shuttleworth of Ubuntu must take action now to wean the bad eggs in Linux community even if they are not under his fold).

There is Linux dedicated to Bible and I see no problem with it but Obama in high office this propaganda is something not for the current century.

What I am getting at is, all Linux Distributions including PCLinux should have multi-language capability and I give lot of credit and marks for that.

It is now happening in, French, German, Spanish and Russian.

Linux is global and for everybody unlike Microsoft or Apple Mac and multi-language capability is a must.

Coming back to Fedora when I realized that it has Sinhala capability and it is changing fast I decided to download all 5 CDs of Fedora 13 and DVD. I downloaded all the versions of Fedora 14 and I was not impressed and did not check Sinhala capability since Fedora 15 was round the corner.

After nearly 3 days of downloading I managed to have a DVD in my hand and tried it and found the Sinhala capability (I now invariably check for that ability) in installation.

So my ignorance was exposed and I have to correct that right away.

In defense of Fedora, I have all the versions of Redhat from 7 to 9 and Fedora Core from 1 to 3 and now Fedora 13 and above.

Suffice is to say, the most number of books and CDs I have are from Redhat and Fedora even though I did not use it for my work recently. My entry into checking 100 Live CDs was a harbinger and the Rediscovery of Linux Potential and for two years I have been downloading and testing Linux and I am in the final (stage) lap of honours to all Linux Distributions and Communities, especially with multi-language capability.

Not only that, I found a Fedora Bible (the book) with Fedora 6 version CD /DVD and bought it to add to my collection and for reference purpose and I am gong to support Fedora with all my heart from now onwards in spite of forgivable misgiving with Redhat Team, sometime back.

My only concern is that Redhat is introducing so many changes in so little time, will it be possible to have a stable edition like Debian (with many derivatives) for me to use.

I might even consider dropping PCLinux if they are resistant to other languages other than English.

It is time for other distributions to take the lead from Debian and Fedora and take Linux to new heights with muli-language capability.

Sorry for me being political here.

I hate politics of all types whether, it is economic, power, race or language.

Update on Fedora 15 Alpha KDE
I have now downloaded and tested the pre-release alpha version and it has no Sinhlaa capability in installation.
In addition it has some difficulty in detecting hardware.
It appears sleek and my genuine fears already compounded by its rapid change in many areas including file system and program selection make me feel hesitant to recommend for a newbie, especially in Sri-Lanka.

Best bet is to use Fedora 13 and see how it works but download DVD version, (or 5 CD version) and not live CDs (see how it works for you).

This is the same reservation I have for Hanthana Linux which is based on Fedora 15.

I have not been able to download it beyond 700 MiB but I will keep trying.
Fedroa 13 took almost 3 days with one or two seeds.
Debian multi arch is taking about 7 days with one seed.
It is painfully slow even with K-Torrent if seeds are not there.

In the mean time I have downloaded many others including CTKarchlive, Trisequel, Astrumi and Puppy and many other small utilities, including sound drivers for Microsoft.

I am also happy to report I managed to download Taylor Swift Swift Linux after about 40 (forty odd) attempts.
That was something based on Debian and AntiX (Mepis) and plays a Taylor Swifts song at boot time which was very pleasing.
It is meant for low RAM of 256 or so and old computers.
Download and try it please if your internet is fast enough!

Warning for Newbies using Live CDs

Now that it very easy to obtain a Linux Live there are certain prerequisites or conditions one must satisfy before experimenting with them.
I would list some of the mistakes I have done and continue to make in spite of the familiarity.
Some of them I call killer sharks.
The take over the entire system with minimum warning and they forget Live Booting is fun and game and there should no be any commitment to them like Microsoft Apple Mac as from the box.

1. First priority is the graphic capability. NVidia is the graphic card Linux find it easy to configure. Lot of manufacturers do not provide necessary OEM data for Linux to configure them. If you have the wrong card you may not be able to join the fun. They may boot up bit might do some damage to the card.
The damage may be due to wrong low level configuration or due to graphic intensity of the distribution. One example is SuSe which is graphic intensive KDE. On the other hand it may be like Swift Linux with low graphic intensity with the mind set for old computers and may not be suitable for graphic card with much power.

2. Second is the RAM. I recommend minimum of 1 GiB but more the merrier then the live session will be quite fast to boot and execute its virtues.

3. Third is the monitor. Lot of old distribution cannot configure LCD monitors. I of course in my early days with wrong horizontal and vertical configuration burnt few cathodes out of commission. Now of course most distributions tell you it has not got the driver for the card and uses the least harmful configuration for the live sessions.

4. If you have got a hard disk without an operating system or data no harm can be done. I often use the live session for preparing the hard disk. Partitioning and formatting can be done to get the hang of the process but with Operating system and data in the hard disk and no changes to the hard should be done without saving data.

5. Doing any of these without a UPS power supply is a risk. If power fails one should immediately terminate the session.

6. One more important point is that April is the month of Thunder and do not use your computer just before and during the early part of the thunder storm. Once a thunder struck and it went through UPS and through the battery to computer (my daughter's) and BIOS. It burned the graphic card and some rubber upholding of the processor. Damage to the switch board (electricity) was massive and do not believe the throughput of our electricity and it fluctuates (voltage) in spite of the big bill we pay the Electricity board. It took three days for me to realize the damage, I was thinking of a BIOS virus.

7. Our indoor temperature surges above high nineties F even in Kandy and avoid using the computer if the room is not air conditioned and dualcore computers consume lot of electricity and the cooling system may not work efficiently in hot weather.

My Selection of Linux Utilities that Should make a Standard Distribution-Internet

First of all let me send my condolences to the Family of Chesterfield who passed away yesterday morning.

He risked his health to go to the cricket field to report to us almost live unlike our sport arm chair pundits.

May he rise to high heaven.

This selection (Internet collection) is bit difficult and I would go by utility value.
1. Number one is Skype
2. Number two is Dropbox
3. Number three is K-torrent which I have already discussed.
4. Number four is email manager and Thunderbird / Kmail would foot the bill.
5. Internet TV- Miro Internet TV

6. Browser I have no selection here because they (browsers) are becoming groggy except perhaps Iceweasle

7. For Linux package downloads in a terminal KDE get or Gnome get

This selection has to be made keeping in mind the whether the distribution is light weight and bundled in a CD or heavy weight and DVD under 1 GiB.

If one is packing it over 1 GiB limit there should be a reason, say the distribution is like ArtistX, or XMBC or Education or Games.

10 and more reasons why I do not use SuSe now and gone to Mepis / AntiX

From this months onwards and after the World Cup Cricket, I have deleted SuSe from my computer.

There are 10 and more reasons.
They are as follows without any logical sequence.

1. It does not recognize more than 15 Linux partitions.
2. But faithfully recognize windows.
3. It does not give priority to other Linux distributions following the tradition of windows.
4. It discriminate other Linux distributions and in fact actively disable others at boot / install menu /time.
5. In fact it has become a wolf in sheep clothing.
6. It could not configure my new TV card in spite of 1 hour of trying and downloading.
7. It never (11.3) configured Skype
8. Its DVD is more than 4 GiB and cannot be copied as an image for posterity.
9. Its GRUB has radically changed itself and would not to recognize other boot menus of different Linux distributions.
10. It cannot delete large files.
11. It has no veritable CRON configuration to delete tmp files and like windows collect muck all over var and tmp
12. It is heavy and clumsy at times in spite of beautiful garb and it is infected with windows image.

I remember giving 10 out of 10 on first encounter with it, live and or install but now after using briefly over a month I have reduced 12 and and it is getting into two minuses.

If I use it any more there may be more minuses and I cannot be that harsh to a friend I associated with over the last 6 to 7 years.

Now I use AntiX and Mepis.
1. Unlike Debian it has a nice Graphic Front.
2. AntiX is fast to boot unlike Debian.
3. It has all the utilities I use.
4. Integrate well with other Linux except of course with SuSe
5. It has a sweeper incorporated

Debian I use simply because it has Sinhala capability and if I want anything missing apt get will do the honours.

Why I still do not use Ubuntu is that it has no root capability except sudo which I hate.

My Selection of Linux Productivity Utilities that Should make a Standard Distribution-05

Cricket World Cup sapped lot of time from all of us and it has done some good too.
I had to go back to windows for three days to install a TV Card and sound drivers and almost three days of struggling to find a suitable sound driver I manged to record the cricket match live in MPEG 4 compression and I could save lot of DVDs.

Since I could not configure the card in Linux I decided to set a day and SuSe automatically configure the card but it has no information about Asia and Sri-Lanka.
Linux has the canny habit of going down to the repository and looking for modules and automatically configuring it.
SuSe is very good at automatic configuring (YAST) and other leading Linux distributions also should follow SuSe.

This is simply because respective TV regulators have not provided the necessary information to Linux developers.

There are lot of TV utilities and the following is a list.
1. Miro Internet TV
2. TV Time Television Viewer
3.TV Mosaic
4.Saw TV

I have not used any but I am going to try at least on of them an give a feed back when I am convinced that the utility does the job for me.

Nuclear Accidents, Fire Hazard, Electricity Supply and Global Warming

Now that the Cricket World Cup is over, it is time for me to concentrate on more important issues relevant to safety at home and on the road.

Before that I would like to make some passing reference to why we lost.

I should pen it down here since our journalist are the worst stooges of the politicians and won't make the comments I make below as points of reference in their daily chores.

I may become very unpopular but I am not a politicians vying for votes rigged or otherwise.

First reason is Sri-Lankan we never united after the war whereas Indians were all behind the Indian Team and Sachin.

Indian papers were critical but were not destructive.

1. In our case one of the government channels run by political stooges raised a claim that Mahela played to the hands of Pakistan deliberately. What I understand now is that this was done by players rejected or not selected to the team with political intent.

Of Mahela answered the critics with his bat like Ponting and that was the very best of Mahela after his 167 odd runs in his first appearance against India in home soil.

What is important this time is, it is on Indian soil with nobody behind him except his team mates.

2. We were not ready for the world cup and we did not have a regular team up for the finals and poor Sanaga had to fiddle round and use his gut feelings. While playing on the round robin stage he had to select the players in best form from the makeshift team given to him by the selectors. There were only four or five who were worth the mettle and naming them here is not appropriate and others were filling the numbers from 6 or 15.

3. Then come the crunch game and politicians get activated and like after the war they want to reap benefit at the expense of cricketers and bloat their image while failing in their duties at ground and grass root level.

4. Now come the big political manoeuvre and Randive catapults into World Cup stage and comes home wicketless.

5. I have my praise for Gary Kirsten, graceful South African opener who did all the ground work for the victory after 2008 debacle. There were no politicos influencing him. Similarly the praise should go to Alan Donald the South African fast baller lifting the New Zealand team up to the Semifinals. The difference here is everything form ground construction to ground preparation to celebrations has to sanctioned by politicos or their stooges.

Everything is politicized and corrupt.

6. I feel sorry for army man Ajantha and poor but big ball boy Dilhara who was worse than a political stooge. He was the one who could have taken the wicket of Tandukar in a crunch game. Yes, he might give some extras and few no balls but we did not want him to ball full quota of 10 overs. Three overs form him would have been better than full quota of Randive.

This whole episode destroyed both the big boy Dilhara and new find Randive.
Who is to blame I leave it open.

Lesson from Dhoni is that he took the full responsibility of Srisanth's selection and he managed him accordingly but did not break his backbone like what we Sri-Lankan do. We win the war and then break the backbone of soldiers.

That is the way we go up the ladder.

It is cut throat politics, even in sports.

This one for the Indians. In the built up to the semifinals there is a little consensus among few of the intellectuals that if we win the World Cup, the government will increase the price of petrol and with it all the other commodities and Sri-Lanka should not win.

I also subscribe to this especially as teaser, something that I enjoy when spirits are high and I was the only one in Sri-Lanka who supported New Zealand on the day. I went on to say to irritate my close friends if we played on a neutral ground we would lose knowing very well New Zealand would not make it through.

This is like a Sri-Lankan government official who votes for the opposition on the day of the election and goes to work on the next day attired in a blue dress and a red or gray tie.

In my case if somebody volunteered money I would have put a bet for Sri-Lanka to win and support New Zealand in front of the TV.
Here money and win matters but usually it is the Santhosum or political bribes that do the job.

In India the commodity prices may not go up but cricket corruption and betting will surge with this win. Even though I subscribed to the view that petrol will go up in price after New Year and before New year if we win the World Cup as a teaser for my friends, I was of the strong opinion that our politicians are only sensitive to the voter only before and during election, that they are so insensitive they will increase the prices whether we win or lose.

In that context it is better to support our team irrespective of political realities and that is what we should do come finals.

I am of the strong opinion politicians and religious dignitaries should not get involved in sports.
Leave them to sports specialists and the coach and pay them well and on results basis like top CEOs and not to political bum suckers.

And come win or lose be prepared to tighten our belts for another 5 or 10 years and the promised land may never come true with global realities and food prices going up by the minute and production not keeping up with the demand from banis, bananas to political bana.

Safety First.
That is almost like a lecture in point form but we never correct our mistakes but the one I am going to write below if you do not take notice one might lose everything including life.

It is the fire hazard that we go through in March to May.
There are two factors one is external and other is internal.
External one is global warming and Sri-Lanka included and exaggerated by our Coal Power Plant going into operation soon.
The other is lightening and fire crackers.
I was happy that we lost the Cricket and if we won the fire crackers would have ignited few fires burning even our precious forest reserve too.
I am the one for banning fire crackers in entirety. It serves no purpose and many of our dogs die of fear during New year festivals when owners go out on holidays leaving vulnerable dogs to fire crackers and thieves (they poison dogs).

Other one is internal. That is our Electricity Supply which fluctuate in voltage. This risk is increased with thunder that accompany rain.
One computer and two voltage stabilizers busted from the month of January.
This not the first time and some time ago I lost almost everything(electrical equipments that included a TV, a tumbler dryer and a washing machine) including 2o odd bulbs in one night and morning due to power surge going above 400.
The has become a perennial problem now. If not fire one can get electrocuted.
The only way I have saved few equipments is by using UPS not voltage stabilizers (two of the Sri-Lankan voltage stabilizers caught fire and there is no alarm. system). At least the UPS has the alarm that goes up and we cannot buy any imported voltage stabilizers in Sri-Lanka now.

This New Year I decided to work on reducing fire hazard.

1. I have three or four digital thermometers.
One is on top of the computer I am working now. The other is on top of the switched off computer. The temperature difference is 7 degree F and time is mid night.

2. I do not switch on any equipment if the outside temperature is above 88 degree F except the fridge.

3. I use the computer in the night and who is going to go for air conditioning with electricity bill above Rs.6000/=

4. I use UPS. Recent ones have better quality internal circuits and integrators.

5. Check all the connectors and replace them with sturdy not cheap ones.

6. Be vigilant and safety first from kitchen to to bed room to living room.

7. No fire crackers.

8. Switch off all the equipment not in use.

9. Emergency lamps all diodes ones and keep them charged for emergency.

10. Keep an eye on the meter and the monthly bill which is going up by the minute.

Microsoft, TV Cards, Drivers and Cricket World Cup

I was little lazy this time unlike the last time and I was ready for with all the analog and digital paraphernalia to record all the World Cup Matches irrespective of who was playing who. I was expecting Sri-Lanka to win but wanted to record the Sanath, Brian Lara and Mavan in their last World Cup appearances.

There were hiccoughs in early stages when two matches were held on the same day, one game was not broadcast live due to broadcast rights. Anyway after some protest all the games were broadcast live and I recorded all the games with several TVs one with DVD recorder attached and some with VHS Video recorders and for digital recording an old capture card and a TV card in to other computers. The capture card and TV cards were not very effective but my analog DVD recorder did all the important work.

TV antenna were all over the place since the TV signals were very poor.

Everything went all right except the computer with the capture card went bust half way through the games, probably due to combination of factors which included inadequate RAM and poor power supply and BIOS virus (windows were a pain in the neck anyway).

Home was like a little studio for the entire period of world cup games.

But we were very unlucky and the rain interrupted the game when the players had a spirited start for the run chase. Unfortunately Mavan was not there to open but one who replaced was no match and the middle order caved in and we lost the match on Duckworth Lewis Formula.

This time I was not very keen supporting any team except perhaps New Zealand and South Africa but when both were eliminated and when we were emerging as a probable finalist, I came out of the hibernation and decided to record the final games.

Went and bought a TV card with no support for Linux and had to go back to windows for recording.

I got hold of a computer I used for testing Linux and installed windows and the TV Card and for three days I could not get the sound working. This was an old computer and I do not keep any windows drivers with me now and Linux automatically configures sound and codecs and there was no need for me to keep any drivers.

I went and bought a USB sound card and tried to link it with the TV card but could not. Actually the output from TV card could not be linked directly to the USB and without the internal audio codecs configured, the sound won't work.

Finally I got the OEM's name and went to the Internet and after about half an hour of search found a place to download several sound drivers and after another one hour got two drivers downloaded.

With a little bit of luck one driver was OK and I was able to configure the sounds and codecs and integrate with the TV Card and had a test recording of the replay of the semifinals with the New Zealand.

Thank god they had two to three rest days between the matches that I could do all this while going to work with some important meetings in between.

Otherwise, having paid for a card if I was not able to use it without all the windows drivers was not something I bargain for.

I will list the problems a Linux / Widows user has to go through.

1. The Chinese / Taiwan OEM guys of the TV Card (good one) did not provide drivers for Linux.

2. Microsoft guys do not have the ability to detect sound cards automatically of different OEM guys and one has to find the drivers.

3. If internet connection was not there one is not able to search for a driver. I did it with my Linux box.

4. I had a similar problem with a secondhand Laptop (Japanese) I bought for my son and I had to use a USB card to get the sounds while Linux automatically configures the sound. I could not get a driver through the internet since the Laptop was old (discontinued providing drivers for windows).

5. In spite of all the hype with new versions there is no coordination with OEM guys and operating systems.

So if you buy second hand computer make sure you have all the drivers and motherboard and driver CDs and OEM names for graphic and sound drivers before you pay cash even if you may save a lot on the bargain.

Like Sinhala language which was neglected by Sri-Lankan government as far as Linux operating systems are concerned the Sri-Lankan TV regulators have not provided the necessary frequencies and the systems (pal B) for Linux developers to work on.
Linux has the TVTime Viewer and without the frequencies and pal system information the Linux developers cannot accomplish any workable solution to my problem.
I hope by next world cup they will provide the technical information to a Linux Group that could coordinate with Debian to do the honours like they have done for Sinhala.

OEM guys also should do the same in future productions.
Why drivers only for Microsoft users.
It is unfair trade practice.
Only one more match and after the finals that I will format and erase windows anyway.

Edited on the 2nd of April.

Congratulation to Indian players especially the younger ones Gambir, Kholi and Raina who lifted the cup when Sachin and Shrwag were failing due to age.
Unlike Indian selectors Sri-Lankan selectors (for the final-sitting Mendis and Dihara on bench was unwelcome and mind you we did that to Mavan last time round) had done lot of mistakes which I have decided not to talk about in public and when politicians also get involved there is no transparency in Sri-Lankan cricket and politics.

I have lot to say about Sri-Lankan cricket and cricket in general but it is a waste of time and is like drumming or music to a deaf elephant. We won't change our corrupt ways. It is probably true for India too but with the win lot of things will be swept under the carpet.

You may now understand why a cricket frantic person like me was less than enthusiastic this time round-in fact for the past 2 years.
I.P.L is going to corrupt players and cricket and I won't be watching those games, anyway.

Be watchful young cricketers, it is not going to be the same with cricket with India lifting the cup and I.P.L guys making money, round the corner.
There will be many more burnt out cricketers at the end of this year.
There is a limit a sportsman / woman can do for a given time period and if s/he exceed the limits nothing a doctor or trainer can do.

That is the advice of a doctor (who was a sportsman in his days who still has niggling stiffness due to injuries sustained when young) who love sports and hate injured players whatever the game they play when young.

My Selection of Linux Productivity Utilities that Should make a Standard Distribution-04

My next category should be Internet if I am a young enthusiast but I prefer the office packages that one has to use daily before we browse the Internet since one tends to waste, me too, waste lot of time browsing rather doing some real work.

As a writer, again I go for light weight Abiword and I should look for Sinhala font at the outset.

Its light weight character makes it suitable for CD version of a distribution keeping in mind the download speed is painfully slow in the third world.

Downloading a DVD takes days and even the Simply Mepis 11, I downloaded today with 1.2 GiB took 22 hours. In this contest for the third time the point to point download link broke down for Pocketwriter (Slakware) and currently downloading at 5.5 KB per second and the overnight downloading touched 125 MiB. We are pretty efficient in the third world. That is why I included K-Torrent first which is very good.

I have now changed to LibreOffice since Oracle is trying to make some investment (which it never contributed at the beginning)on Sun Java products including Vesta1. I must congratulate the Open Document team for the excellent work they are doing and I love the French accent of it. It should be a multinational effort and it should include Sinhala capability soon, taking a leaf out of Debian 6.0.0.

Sad to say OpenOffice, I used from its from version 1 and used in the latter part of my thesis completion also is the third due to its heavy consumption of MiBs and commercial take over. It has multi-language capability and that is the reason it is consuming so much of precious MiB and the need a DVD for inclusion in a distribution.
The biggest hindrance is it's Gorilla size weightage and I never see it goes on a diet.
I hate Mega images especially the political type.

Mepis-AntiX-Linux Extras-14

Mepis is a Debian base Linux distribution with KDE desktop which very good. Except for its KDE front it inner works are like Debian.

One of its features is it has a light weight version which is called AntiX and boots up live easily and can be installed in old computers from 486 to 686. Its latest 686 id pretty good.
With 128 RAM it can boot up.
KDe DVD version has k3B and sweeper which can be used to clen up temporay files which is utility all Linux desktops shod have.
PCLinuxFullMonty also incorporate it but not in other PCLinux versions do not have this but it lets you activate clen up activity at boot time (lets you activate it at installation.

Current test version 11 is out in 32 and 64 bits and I am currently downloading it .

It has LibreOffice.
I will update you the moment I have it for testing.

Comment on best 7 Linux distributions

Top 10 or 20 in any category (food for example) has a false sense of security and it applies to Linux too.

For example Coca Cola is on top of the list and as a doctor I would say it is the worst drink (Pepsi included) a cricketer can drink (with World Cup Cricket which is on now) while playing.

See what the Indian advertisements are doing on our TV and how rational and sensible human beings are?

We are only sensitive to taste but not sensible and that is my assessment.

It is true when they bomb Libya too.
When we bomb in Sri-Lanka it is human rights violation but when NATO bombs Libya it is called UNO convention.

Bunki Moon should be ashamed now being a puppet on strings.
All these comments applies to Linux top 10 to 20 too.

1. If one has used only one or two Linux distributions on a regular basis and writes an article on top 10 it is not valid scientifically. It is like somebody who used Microsoft or Apple Mac all his life says they are the best.

2.If somebody who works for a Linux Enterprise Company either part time or full time makes statements about Linux does the same mistake.

3. They must say I have tested 10 (not 100) and these are my subjective assessments and should not make statements as if they were objective.

4. Unfortunately the word GURU has come into Linux and it has no meaning scientifically or metaphorically. They distorts the facts.

5. The reason why I tested 100 and more (dalmatians) was to get this unscientific tradition out of the way and out of the fray.
We are not going for a talent contest.
It is the use and the utilities that are incorporated in Linux distributions that matters.
That is why I try to highlight the utilities presently instead of trying to win a talent contest.

6. Other point is that Linux developers are poor CEOs and they do not know how to market useful and good products but get involved in flame wars like politicians.

Flame wars are killing Linux and Microsoft also add to this to the confusion.

We must start with the saying "Microsoft sucks your energy and money but Linux stands tall and delivers the goods", no matter what distribution you may use.

That is the starting point and Linux really work for me and saves time in the long run.

That is why I use it daily.

One has to learn the basics and get the tradition of computing out of power politics and money.

Below is a comment I made about 7 distributions listed.

Thanks for updating the article but no thanks for the recommendations.

I can agree with Knoppix and Backtrack only.

SuSe is beautiful and still clumsy and slow. 

I have stopped using it from this month.

Ubuntu is popular with lot of useful utilities but stability is a problem with frequent release cycles.

Redhat is rock solid but its service is poor like SuSe.

Ubuntu Studio I have not seen because of its very slow download speed and is painfully slow even with torrents.

Knoppix can be installed now without a hassle and it has extremely beautiful graphic features.
It really rocks!

I have downloaded Vesta 1 today and it is sleek and has plasma effect but cannot be installed.
 

It took 3 days to download it.

This is Java based and Oracle is promoting it and due to its ownership claims I am not prepared to recommend it.
It looks like everything is Java and it could not configure internet (router) automatically which any good Linux distribution does automatically.

Only kernel is Linux and the rest is Java and it will have stability problem since who is somebody anybody can write Java to upset its inner work and that is going to be the biggest problem a user may encounter.

Like Microsoft Visual Basics it has all Java platform development kits and eclipse.
If you are a Java man or woman, Vesta 1 is for you but remember it does not have a script for installing.

None of them support Sinhala installation except Debian.

The latest version of Debian 6 is pretty good and I have all the assortment of Live and Installable CD and DVDs.

It is taking a leaf out of PCLinux and spending time on light weight distributions. It has packed in one CD, LXDE, XFce and Rescue and that is what I recommend for users in the third world with little money and has Sinhala capability too.

What beats everything for me is Mepis which also has assortment of distributions (namely AntiX) that support 486, 686 to 32 and 64 bits. One need not throw away an old computer because win 2007 is there.

Its test version (11) is out for testing now. I have downloaded and tested it and has a big face lift this time. Download it and enjoy it.

I have dropped SuSe and have gone back to Debian (AntiX too) in my office because of its versatility.

It has over 60,000 packages (for every one from a kid to a scientist) and one rarely use all of them in one go.

Mind you it is the God Father of Linux and Ubuntu is the most successful derivative of Debian.

This article is useful for a newbie if he reads it with my comments at parafox and asokaplus (Linux 100) written in the same tone and flare of as Fortune 100 (or is it 500) companies.

Other option is to have several distributions installed in one computer and that is what I usually do.

My Selection of Linux Utilities that Should make a Standard Distribution-Support for Visually Handicapped-Orcas and House Keeping-03

One of the features I always look for in a distribution is whether it supports blind and the visually handicapped persons.

Ubuntu is well known for supporting blind users with Orcas which is a Debian based utility for keyboards and Linux support for braille is unsurpassed by proprietary operating systems. Most of the stable version Debian support visually handicapped users.

Along with this facility multi-language support is essential and many Linux distributions are only in English and some are only in French or Spanish.
But lately many distributions are supporting several languages. Debian is the leader in this and it now supports Sinhala too.

Third utility should go with this is virtual keyboard.

Often with the frequent use keys of the keyboard some of them get stuck and if this happens when entering a password one may not be able to get started which is a little embarrassment to say the least.

Virtual keyboard is value added utility.

All these must be bundled out in the accessibility corner.
I am not sure where the sweeper, the cleaning utility should be placed and I prefer it with the accessibility option. The sweeper removes unnecessary and temporary files and the history tree which tend to accumulate and get bigger and bigger in almost every Linux distribution.

Only in PCLinux I find the utility that removes temporary files at boot time which one can select at the time f installation.

Unlike servers where every data and every little movement are necessary for recovery purposes when a servers fails but all these details of history tree are not necessary even though very valuable when break into a system is suspected for a desktop.

Archiving utilities are universal in Linux distributions and if one uses them judiciously may be able to save disk space.
In my case it is not the hard disk (which I format once a year) that I use but CD and DVDs and burner utility either K3B or Brasso is essential for this purpose.

So I have lumped all the good housekeeping utilities in one category which are useful if one is using one computer for all the day to day activities.

Cricket World Cup-Final Count Down

Well before the Cricket World Cup, due to many a reason, I decided not to write about Sri-Lankan Cricket.

This not the time to list them except to say, there are many who have never played or watched cricket except on TV (armchair cricket pundits) who have entered into cricket fray and making money at the expense of poor cricketers in the Asia subcontinent.

IPL can be taken as an extreme example but what I mention here is much more subtle and lot of politics involved.

Cricket is going to enter into a different era with all the contenders of the West except New Zealanders have been eliminated and gone home already.

I feel really sorry for Strauus, who played a gem of an innings at the beginning and showed all the signs of long winter of cricket and petered away in an almost burnt out or run out of steam fashion.

He has lot of cricket left in him and all the cricketers except a few in the team deserve the respect they deserve for trying out hard under extreme whether conditions. It is easy for the normally grumpy (politicians and diplomats included) Britishers who sit like potatoes in front of the TV with an ancient Axe in hand and try to destroy them.

I was expecting some unruly Sinhalayas with anger towards harbouring LTTE in their political and diplomatic folds make some unwelcome gestures towards the team. Nothing like that happened but they expected a real beating at the hands of Sri-Lankan cricketers.

When several catches were dropped, it was uneasy for everybody watching but England failed to capitalize on them but capitulated themselves.

Our boys were ready for Australians but since weather prevented it and India had done the honours, the cricketers were ready to pounce on England as an alternative.

It is as if we wanted England to score over 200 hundred (only a wishful thinking, catches were badly dropped) and getting two centuries was a record that is going to be in our memory for a long time.

As for Ricky Ponting unlike Strauus, time has come to say good bye to Asian Subcontinent and his century was glorious. We want to remember him for that century and as a cricketer of high caliber, somewhat steely like Steve Waugh, and not as a rugged Australian who lost the Ashes.
Good luck for his future.

For Graham Smith, I was thinking that they had a chance of lifting the cup but when they lost to England, I knew something nasty will happen eventually and I was actually banking on New Zealand to do that.

I like Smith's demeanour very much and he was my most favorite captain of this world cup even surpassing Sanga for that category.

In my mind he made the mistake of opening the innings and he would have come down the order, may be one down or two down. If he was there in the middle when chips were down, unlike the younger players, the outcome would have been very different.

We are going to miss hm as the most amiable captain of the world cup.

Now there are only four of the captains left to prove their mettle and Daniel Vittory is an ace who may even challenge Sri-Lanka when chips are down.
Watch out for him. even with injuries.

He was of the same caliber as our Murali when injured and even though he was not our captain he (Murali) was the one who every opposition captain envied and every Sri-Lnkan captain revered, as a god send messenger of cricket.

He is our ambassador of cricket and long live his memories, only the good ones not the bad ones that come from Australia.

Luggage and Laptops

It was World Cup Cricket Saturday.
I got up late decided to stay at home but did not want go out thinking I might get late and miss the first 10 overs where the game seems to be decided.

I was almost confident Sri-Lanka will be in the semifinals barring bad weather and poor ground preparations.

In any case I bought a new TV Card (PCI plugging) with facilities for recording (compressed images) and tried it on one of my Linux computers BUT unfortunately even though it had a TV software it did not configure the new hardware.

Then on second thoughts I thought of trying the LAPTOP I was using for testing Sinhala Linux and few other new Linux distributions on which I installed Win 2007 starter pack.

While I was doing this I counted the number of little, little gadgets on the table and there were 12 in all which included the power pack and the USB battery I used in case of power surge or drop in voltage due to everybody watching cricket.

This is one thing I hate about laptops, so many luggage, in fact a gunny load of gadgets.

The list goes like this.

1. Battery cooler (one USB port used).

2. Extension for extra USB ports (two USB ports used).

3. USB Mouse (now three ports used and adorned).

I hate fiddling with the laptop flat mouse. I prefer a real meaty mouse. which I can grip and squeeze when I am annoyed which is generally the case until windows find a driver.

4. Power connector and step down transformer

5. UPS battery.

6. Power connection cord with multiple plug holes

7. TV USB Kit

8. Antenna

9. Mouse pad

10. Microphone or Speakers

11. USB extension cord to prevent clutter and get the antenna cable well away for clear TV signal.

12. CDs to install drivers and any instructions that come with the gadgets.

With all this I managed to get the TV signal with cricket (except other channels) but I could not get Microsoft to configure audio codecs and a message that the audio was not available was on the screen when I open the software.

This is something I hate, the drivers with Microsoft and OEM vendors.

It used to be the story with Linux 10 years ago but Linux will identify and configure audio automatically and sound quality is pretty good too.

I hope by next Cricket World Cup Linux will have a search engine to detect any TV single over the globe especially in villages areas where TV signals are weak and after the cricket the Linux box can be used for education and games for children with TV channels providing services instead of advertisements which galore!.

Any way I did some home work which I had learned from win 95 (42 to 45 CDs then) days and got the audio working (AC 97) with TV channels all received except one just in ready for the semifinals.

I must state how we got the win 98 work.
1. Prepare hard disk with FAT partition.
2. Install with many restarts.
3. Install graphic driver.
4. Install sound driver
5. Install virus guard
6. install media software
7. Install office.
8. Install any other software you paid for including TV software.

It was apin in the neck and I went through this rigmarole many a times to get it in working order.

Now I do not have to do any of those donkey work. Put a live Linux CD/ DVD on the CD/DVD ROM and check the media and run Linux sometimes lighting fast booting with 1 GiB RAM.

I thank Microsoft million times since it was not for such a pain (getting the computer in working order) I would not have discovered Linux in its early and formative years.

Anyway for three cricket matches I can go through the pain again.

I love cricket much more than Linux or Microsoft.

SwiftLinux Diet Edition-Linux Extras-13

After 40 or more goes at downloading (point to point) finally I manage to download 400 odd MiB of Linux iso. That is also not the full version but the diet version.
Glamour version is TaylorSwift Edition but I am still trying it.
This is the classic example of how poor is over Telecoms to connect with a distant server on the other side of the globe.
I am a fan of Mepis especially its tone down version of Anitx.

They are light weight in spite of being of KDE variety and also specializes on old computers with 128 RAM.

I still have an old computer with 233 speed, 128 RAM and 4M on board graphic capability which is still working with Redhat 9 and that is why I love this light version which boots up nicely and run fast. I still use it for demonstrations of old Linux versions with lot of nostalgia.
One need not throw away an old computer since the latest Microsoft cannot be booted on it, especially in the third world and kids can use them for DOS games and other fun.

Coming back to Swift Linux it is simple and attractive and have lot of utilities including Abiword and CD burner. If you have an old computer in the attic take and dust it out and boot with Swift or AntiX.
It (Antix) can be used in 486 too.

Sinhala Linux Update-Sabayon-5.5

I am pleased to inform you not only Debian but Sabayon which is a Gentoo based Linux distribution with many excellent graphic features let you install Linux on a laptop in Sinhala.
it has XMBC.
Unfortunately Gentoo Live DVD has not got a script to install on a computer.Make sure you have Sabayon but not Gentoo but if you want to demonstrate Linux features especially XMBC use Gentoo but I prefer Sabayon.

Thanks Guys and Girls at Sabayon for introducing Sinhala capability.

Edited on the 26th March
I have to confess now even though Sinhala is there for installation, in two installation incidents in my laptop the translation was not complete or not available in the DVD (probably one has to download the script from the repository which is the way Gentoo and probably Sabayon operates and I did not want to try because of slow speed of our Telecoms.
It states the availability of many languages and whether one needs to remove them during installation.
I would be happy to hear from anybody who had the time to try this facility.

Why I have reserve a FAT pattion in my hard Disk

I reserve a FAT partition of Generous 20 MiB in my hard disk would be mystery for you since I do not install Microsoft even for testing now.
I will list few of the reasons.

1. Sometime back when (I was not testing live CDs then) I lay my hands on a new Linux distribution I try to install them and many had no methods to install and some had what is called persistent and try to install in a FAT partition.
Two of them come to my mind, one was Knoppix and the other was GoBo Linux. Now of course both of them can be installed into hard disk.

2.Since I had many distributions in my hard disk most of them ran short of space in home partition and even writing an image was not possible. The Linux has the habit of collecting junk called history in tmp folders without automatic cleaning. So I used to take all my data files and place them in the FAT partition. External drives were expensive and i could not afford them. So FAT partition was the temporary shelter for my data till I write them to a CD or DVD.

3. Third reason was when I started downloading Linux Live images I use to shift them to a folder in the FAT partition when home folder was full. By doing this I was able to remove most of the tmp files cluttering the Linux system.

4. When I do cleaning up job for my friends with rotten Microsoft hard disks removed from the computer and mounted on a external drive, it was easy for me to transfer the data file to my FAT partition after doing the cleaning up process for cutting it to a CD or DVD. Then I give them the CD / DVD with data and freshly formatted disk and say I don't install Microsoft any more and don't come back again with Microsoft problems to me and virtually chase them away.

5. The latest is a very delicate issue. With data security paranoia most new Linux distributions let you encrypt your data (asks you whether you want to do that while installing) in home folder. This I did recently and took some photos of my dog and nephews and nieces and saved them. So after that I did testing Sinhala Linux and for some reason forgot about the whole issue. Then when I wanted to boot that image it had some problems with it's boot file. I could not get those photos. I tried many methods and I could not open the encrypted photos.
This was where I had to sit back and work out a strategy to recover the encrypted data (six photos). This was a Live distribution and I tried to recover the files while Live CD was running but could not.
Then finally I reinstalled the distribution without formatting the home partition (this is the value of home partition) with the same password and booted it up and formatted a free Linux partition to FAT transferred the opened photos to FAT partition without encrypting. The job was done and I recovered the encrypted photos. I also copied the encrypted file to another home partition of my computer using some devious methods to see whether I can open that in a another Linux distribution. I could not.
This was the longest period for me to solve a simple problem without using unencrypting software (which I am not interested and I am not in the habit of cracking passwords).

So do not be paranoid when encrypting your data. If you forget the password the data is as bad as in the dustbin or thrash.