Sinhala Linux-Ubuntu 11.04

It is encouraging to note that Ubuntu 11.04 that I downloaded today has limited capacity of Sinhala installation among mainly English terminology.

I am happy there are some Sinhala translators in the fold of Canonical and it is a matter of time for a team of Sihhala capable developers to sit along with the Unity (new desktop) Team to unite together to bring out more Sinhala capability.

Desktop is attractive but lot of omissions to my liking.

Omissions are
1. No dropbox
2. No torrents
3. No cheese

I am very happy LibreOffice is there and Ubuntu is always (even though I do not use it on a daily basis but use it for demonstrations of Linux functionality) up front in Linux and its community and commercial efforts are well advanced.

Helping visually handicapped is a remarkable feature of Ubuntu.

I wish them success with their new endeavour with Unity.

King Cobra-Naja naja

This is not something to alarm you but to point out how man has neglected the use of cobra venom for therapeutic use.
In addition there is a paucity of knowledge how venom evolved in animals and how some animals are resistant the smaller doses of venom.
I teach that it is the venom that is produced in our body after the bite that kills us not the cobra venom (to illustrate the fact that cytotoxins have multitude of actions).
For example bradykinin that causes pain is the product of our own tissues.

Snake venom is a modified saliva and we really do not know whether these are produced in evolution for digestion of the prey or to immobilize or anesthetize (humane to the dying prey). None of the points I have raised have been addressed conclusively and potential for the use of the modified venom molecule for treatment of leukaemia or cancer cells or as antithrombotic activity have not been discussed in scientific journal adequately..
Why?
The answer is simple.
Once they discovered that antivenom as a cure, everybody forgot about the biological role and what system they act and why, when where and how they modify the homoeostatic mechanisms.
Moment the commercial activity of preparation of antivenom starts the scientific investigation of biological nature takes a back stage.
That is very unfortunate.
There lot we can learn from these cytotoxins.

Coming back to cobra (baby cobra-are as poisonous as the adult), I killed a young cobra with a ruler when I was as young as the tiny cobra who was under my bed.

When that little fellow made his hood and kissed the death I fell heroic and also very sad.
Then in another incident when I jumped over huge cobra in a big compound and looked around to see he was as frighted as I was and showed his hood with a warning and quietly slipped away to his safety, I wondered why fear an animal who is on his routine search of his food or prey.

I still say the jumped I made that day worth an Olympic record if somebody made an accurate measure on that day. Unfortunately I missed an Olympic record since officials were not there to record it. That would have changed my life completely but the day that completely changed my mind was another ordinary day.
I was walking along a stream with the intention of catching guppies and I had a stone in my hand (we used to play marbles those days unlike today's kids) and I saw a water snake (harmless creature) quickly swimming across in fear.

I took an aim in a moment of irresponsible stroke of mind of ill will and thought, threw the stone at the poor creature and it landed right on his neck.

It was like a bulls eye shot but the agony of the creature who succumbed in a long drawn out 5 minutes of death dance made an impact in my mind never to hurt (reflecting my killing in fear of the young cobra) an animal in either fear or sport.

Then on one night (2 am in the morning) in darkness a Ceylon krait landed on my right shoulder and I brushed it with my left hand gently and put the light in a flash to see creature landing on cement flow with a thud and my dog charging at it, I was man thinking of three lives my dog, myself and the poor creature who ventured at night.
Mind you Ceylon krait is the deadliest of Sri-Lankan venomous snakes.

I watched the creature and it quickly disappeared into crevice wide open due to rotten timber of the bathroom door.

I did not have any cement to seal and went to the kitchen an took some American flour (who says American flour has no place in this country) and sealed the hole with the dough hastily made since the price of flour was very cheap (cheaper than the cement) then.

Suffice is to say I flushed the hole with water before I did that and slept on the settee fearing few more in my bedroom.

After three days it emerged (none elsewhere) from the kitchen floor cracked and we caught it and released it to safety.

Of course I had to cement both holes in the bathroom end and the kitchen end.

The key point here is that animals fear us more than we fear them in this modern world where are we are encroaching on their habitat with blatant disregard to biodiversity.

What if one loses a Pendrive or a U.S.B Hard Disk?

What if one loses a Pendrive or a U.S.B Hard Disk?

Nothing much you can do about it if you are a Microsoft user.

If you are paranoid and buy some expensive stuff with password protection and or use encryption before saving, you can say alright I lost it but there is no use for the petty thief.

In a world where everybody is getting very selfish and living in self contained compartments, if you accidentally lose it the one who finds the gadget may not go all out to find the owner.

Best way to protect your data is to not to carry in a portable medium.

Cloud Linux and saving in a cloud is a good option and that is why I used to support it very enthusiastically but even there are some problems when hackers attack servers.

So there is no full proof method to save data.

Other option is to be somebody like me who make life principles very simple and have very little substance to hide or boast about except my Linux Images stored all over the place.

If I lose them no problem the Linux tracker will have almost all my Images except the very old ones and it is a matter of sitting down and painfully downloading them again on a portal which is painfully slow in the 3rd world.

When I come to think about it it is time for people with common interests to get together form Citizens Bureaus and possess servers of their own and maintain them on a voluntary basis with trust as the bond and friendship.

This is a wishful thinking of the futuristic world I am dreaming of but may not live long to see this in actual fact emerging as a force in need.

Everybody getting paranoid and everybody has something to hide or use the knowledge he or she possesses for capital gain in this present world of greed and profit but no common decency.


WiKiLeaks was something that had to emerge and I only saw the good side of WiKiLeaks and we saw the panic of so called good or is it bad Americans diplomacy and duplicity.

We see a similar round of duplicity when BunKi Moon decides to make his own world of wisdom, just to make sure his job is secure for another two years but throw the U.N.O. credentials and caution to the wind.

Transparency is only a word but not a practice proclaimed at high level.

We cannot expect it to get better or established at grass root level.

In this this context looking after ones data is one's own purgative.

If for common decency if one wants to save your family photos and a paltry sum of privacy you have from hacker at large, I have a solution for you.

Go Linux.

You can have a Linux distribution in a Pendrive or in your USB hard disk with boot time protection with password one can save one's common decency.

I have not tested this as a possible scenario in my live CD/DVD encounter and in future this is something I am going to promote or test as a virtue of Linux.

So I expect the Linux developers to think seriously about it including UNetBooIn Developers.

Even Knoppix has now introduced root password facility not as a default but one can enforce it after installing it in a hard disk. That is a good thing that is emerging for simple guys like us who sometime has to make political statement of some sort in a country where democracy is owned by only one party, one race or religion an government is enforcing some scrutiny on dissenters.

If these political guys or police get hold of a tiny statement in a Pendrive or a hard disk they have misplaced and produce it /them in a court of law they have no defense.

This is where even Polippix and Incognito has a place when police states emerge in the pretext of law and order an disciplined society where simple justice and common sense and decency may disappear forever.

I think Linux Developers should give us the utilities to protect common decency to if not the political will to change bad practices of all kinds.

My Selection of Linux utilities that Should make a Standard Distribution-Office

Office packages are the ones that are generally used by almost all the users.
before getting to the standard office utilities PDF editors are the ones that one has to pay (Adobe to get some real work done) pay attention.
PDF
1. Xjournel come to my mind first.
2. PDFedit.
3. PDF chain

Then for visually handicapped user
4. Okular

For Experts text editors

5. LateX for the experts. We should not forget this utility which did all the hard work before office packages emerged.

General user
6. Abiword is my favorite because of its simplicity
7. LibreOffice for OpenOffice (It is huge resource drainer like a gorilla in a dinner party)

Page Layouts

8. Scribus

Productivity

9.Gnucash
10.Gnemeric

11. And any that I may have missed.

At this point I must make a reference to FM Setup in FullMonty.
It is a refine way of presenting utilities in an organized workplace that user in mind.
If they add some user editing capabilities and customization it is going to be a top hit in desktops.
I hope everybody should (developer and the user) look at this nice utility and make some improvements to it without adding bulk that may slow down the boot up time.

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

I was off the track of Linux for some time since Bunki Moon was playing Pandu and Chuckgudu with 20 million peace loving people not knowing whether he is moving forward or backwards in time. He is a confused man like a CEO who is waiting for his removal or extension in office with so much anxiety created within himself which he is trying to divert into body politics of U.N.O.

Time will tell his strategy of securing his job first and then think of 20 million people and their welfare second would work.

Probably not.

Coming back to Linux distributions and essential utilities, I am a believer in time to come all O.E.M products should have Linux Internet utilities as default (no cost to them0 even without installing any OS one should be able to browse Internet by default.
In that context, Debian's Iceweasel (or even Dilo) should be the one that should be ported with the O.E.M with all the unnecessary cookies removed and probably Dropbox (or a cloud entity) also accompanied with the basic (minimal) kernel.

till then the list of Internet utilities should be as follows with no intention of giving any merit to any but despising all the utilities that track the uses interests and feed them back to commercial entities to make inroads by way of subtle advertisements.
I believe user is now mature enough to chose what s/he wishes to have in his system.
Without any intended recommendations or of any perceived benefits to me or the user are as follows.

1. Putty.
2. Kget
3.KTorrent
4. Transmission bit torrent
5. FilZilla
6. Kmail
7.Thunderbird
8. Opera
9. Firefox
10. Chromium Browser
11. Skype
12. Vodafone
13. Dropbox
14. Pidgin
15. Web Editor- Bluefish editor

I personally go for Iceweasel or Dilo since that do not have intrusion utilities embedded in them for tracking the user unnecessarily.

Why one should not buy a seondhand Laptop even if the deal is cheap

Postscript

If one wants to save time one could have uesd an external dirve to do the job and I have several (DVD witers) of them but thay are not used for odd jobs but only image writing.

I recommend netbook for laptop which can be easily booted up with a USB Key.

I hate heavy luggage to do simple jobs.

One should check the battery before any of these and if the battery is not chargin it is not worth the try.

Secondhand Laptops

I had a very bad experince over the weekend trying to resurrect an old Toshiba laptop.

It was the time of resurrection of Jesus and I took the challenge not knowing what a lot of time it would take.

in my case it was the longest time I spent in doing a similar thing and in that time I would have resurrected three old IBM desktops.

Anyway to cut the story short and to keep my reputation intact, I went down to work with serious intent.

Japanese and Korean Laptops are the worse in this context since they have finicky hardware and finding drives especially in Linux is difficult if not impossible.

Problems I encountered were
1. the RAM which was 512 was not enough to boot even 2010-2011 versions of Linux (even xFce and LXDE).

2. Combo drive was not working properly and the first thing I detected was that the DVD was not working. Even the CD ROM was painfully slow moving. Could not read high speed data written Linux CDs

3. I did not have the USB boot up but Floppy disk boot up and I did not want to waste checking the Floppy Drive.

4. Processor was 2.0 Hertz which was faster than most of my old computers and graphic was working OK.

5. Could mount a CD and connect to the Internet instantly so I decided that it is worth at least as a spare computer to access Internet and post an email.

6. Sound was difficult to configure but one can plug in a USB sound card and the two USB ports were bit rusty of use but working OK.


I fished out some of my old Linux CDs and it booted up well with PCLinux (SAM-the Mouse)-2007 (has Skype, Open Office and many light weight games) which was the only distribution that could run the CD ROM on its optimum speed. Did not try Puppy since with the poorly working CD (combo with DVD not working) repeated CD run was not an option.


Booted up with 10th Anniversary Knoppix CD (not DVD) and it booted well,
Used its gparted and deleted all the old Microsoft partitions and make one NTFS partition and 4 other partitions (1 rersefs, two Ext 4 and 1 SWAP with 2 GiB) and installed Knoppix and browsed Internet.

Mounting the second Linux was the most difficult part all new Linux distributions I tried either froze due to CD Rom freezing or the RAM freezing.
I was about to give up when I realize that peppermint would of 450 odd MiB was worth a try.

I booted it up with normal mode but it also froze but as a final try I tried it with compatible mode which is for old computers.
It really did the trick and this old laptop without Microsoft is now running with two Linux distributions.

Knoppix takes the crown (CD version) and it was the only one which did not freeze.Its file compression is extremely good and now can it be installed with root permission granted if you decide to do so after initial installation.

Peppermint comes close second and thanks to all the guys and girls for producing light weight versions.

Peppermint of course have all the Google application, gParted and Dropbox too.

Those are the two Linux distributions I recommend if one is prepared to spend time to resurrect any old laptop..
After that I told my friend he has to buy at least another 512 and DVD ROM which is very difficult to find even secondhand.

I told my friend do not use the CD and sealed it with a tape (in case I need to reinstall Linux-rarely happens, though) and it is good as gold to browse the Internet for another five years.

The bottom line is do not buy secondhand laptops even if they are pretty cheap and especially if there is no boot facility for USB booting.

None of my Flash Drives with UNetBootIn did work with this laptop.
Do not get caught to gullible secondhand vendors.

PClinuxFullMonty, the Gorilla has come to town for Dinner-Would you Join and enjoy the stay with him?

PCLinuxfullMonty is going to be one of the most feared Apes in the town by the Microsoft fans.
Yes it a monster of a distribution with all the utilities one needs arranged in what is called the FM Setup Layout and very well organized.

PCLinux was my Gold Standard of my Live CDs /DVDs.
This is my Gold Standard of Desktop.
Simply FM Layout stand out above all other distributions.
It is heavy and needs at least 1 GiB of RAM for install and even my laptop it froze once or twice while I was testing.

Because it has so many things loaded at boot time it takes almost all the RAM but does not use SWAP effectively in installation time.
So do not do any search for other things while it is being installed.
The version I have now had problem with making Live USB and it seems it has rectified that problem.
What I really love is it has LibreOffice and support for 60 localities which was lacking in PCLinux.

Thanks guys and Girls for your efforts.
I will give a feed back sooner I install it.

I was trying to find the FM Setup package in synaptic and I hope you make it available both at torrent and direct.

When I was trying to install PCLinux with UNetBootIn (not FullMonty) to a Live USB I encountered many problems and I have already posted how I got round it.

I am one who loves customized desktop and I hope they incorporate FM Setup with next PCLinux KDE.
Till then I hope they will have the package available at synaptic for download.

Five simple things that you can do to save the Planer Earth

Today is Earth Day.

You can do five simple things to help we save the planet.

1. Plant a tree on your birth day and look after it for the rest of your life. Spend a few (5) minutes each day caring for it. If you do not have a big garden go and buy a big pot to suit your needs and at least plant a jasmine and make sure once it is mature that you make few sapling from it's long branches into smaller pot and give it to a friend to care for it.

It flowers almost throughout the year.
There are three varieties.
Sri-Lankan which is difficult to care and a slender plant), the Indian and the commoner variety (needs a big pot) are rugged and withstand dry weather better.

2. Eat veggies

3. Walk do not drive your car but use the public transport.

4. Use reusable carrier bag and refuse to use polythene

5. Switch off all unnecessary bulbs in your house and change to energy saving bulbs.

Having done that make life digital and use electronic mail instead of paper mail.

Go digital and make your life paper free.

Why I cannot make Wine in Kandy?

This I have to post very quickly before the ordination of young ones by next Poya.

Then this country will be (alcohol free except in the parliament), smoke free (except smog from coal power plants and the variety of luxury vehicles imported for our representatives after elections and driving on our motorways built and will be newly built) and Buruwas free, the National and Awrudu Game including Polburuwas watching our TVs for another 5 years (i.e the voter in piece).


These Buddhist monks first Kariya or the duty would be to get rid of the above three (alcohol,smoke and games) and disregard any excesses of other kinds that are not permitted to Dasa Sil Mathwas on a Poya day.

But my real reason for not been able to Make wine is more of a scientific nature and is not in my control.

Making wine is simple process but this betel chewing (no taste for wine) and arecanut cracking (inhibit taste for wine but not arrack) nation would not experiment on new varieties of taste except what the government wants them to be.

In wine making one needs five to six ingredients.
1. Sugar
2. Yeast, living organism
3. Water
4. Flavour
5. Time and Temperature

We have five of them in abundance but only one is missing.

Guess what it is?

Even in Kandy I cannot provide it, the most important for correct brewing.

Well it is the temperature that is missing which has to be correct, precise and ideal.


1. Above 38 C (100 F) yeast will be dead.
2. Primary or the start up fermentation should start at 21 c (70 F)
3. Secondary or the slow phase fermentation should be at 16 C (65 F)
4. Finish product should be kept at 10 to 15 C (50 to 55 C)
5. Ideal requirement are 20, 15, 10 C (70, 60, 50) and very simple in arithmetic but never achieved in Kandy or suburbs.

That is the reason I cannot make wine in Kandy and the global warming has taken the toll.

I hope after Wesak Poya, the temperature should hover round 100 F (38 and above) and the newly ordained monks should meditate on his so that they do not have to worry about one of the three mentioned above for certain (that is the ideal way to kill yeast) but the mosquito menace and the music accompanied with will hinder their meditative path.

In my case I cannot think of
Pani Waraka Wine
Passion Fruit Wine
Banana Wine
Keeri Samaba Wine
Mangustine Wine
Belly wine
Diwul Wine
or any fruit cocktail Wine for certain

I have to think of getting them only in heavenly abode and probably after my death.

Gadgets that makes your worktable manageable-In other words organized

Gadgets that makes your worktable manageable.
My work place is really a junkyard for the last two years due to many reasons and with slowly but surely with some memory lapses I decided to organize.
I am a good example of a Sri-Lankan who is generally least organized in daily chores and that includes my desktop (the table I work, not the computer).

Working with the computer made my life easier and from the time of starting to use I Linux have never had a corrupt file or lost file. That is nearly a decade now.
Often it is finding the misplaced file or photo that I take 2 to 3 days to find but never a corrupt file.
But as far as my gadgets are concerned they are all over the place. Many hard disks, Pendrives with Linux, CD/DVDs, RAM Cards, Graphic Cards removed with upgrading and CD/DVD ROMs, Keyboards of various dimensions are a few of the many that are all over the place. In fact I do not have a place to keep and work with my laptop and it is often on my bed I do any testing of new things with my laptop. It is not a workhorse unlike how many people use it as. It has no storage and when somebody comes and I need a quick internet access and post a email with attachments it comes out to the dinning table and internet cable is pulled out from somewhere and it goes back to its resting place for months.
I needed to find a work place for some useful work the laptop and to demonstrate Sinhala Linux capability, pendrive stunts and few amazing Linux games.
I may go for a tiny light weight netbook soon with high capacity but till then I to use it for coffee table demonstrations of Linux capabilities.
So this year I decided to throw away the unusable and organize and free my desktop table.
It took nearly three months with lot of books (Linux books I rarely read now except when I am stuck with a problem) around.
What really caught my imagination was how to get rid of so many monitors. I have got rid of all the cathode-ray monitors to cut down on the bulk and cost of electricity which is becoming beyond my purse.
Even the two LCD monitors (one big and one small) which I have come down to was also a headache cluttering space. I needed to get rid of the smaller one with eyesight bit failing. I was looking for a gadget that can be plugged in and with one monitor output like a switch of a router because one uses only one monitor at a time with our two eyes.
So I told a vendor who will somehow get what I want even from Singapore and credit goes to him and he got a 4 port switch that plugs into four computers (there is two port one too) with four purpose built (designed) cables for TV, Mouse and and the Keyboard.
It has a switch or button on top with red light signal to indicate which one is in use.
This is skin to the workplaces in Linux which you can have up to 20 but I usually have four but with two for regular work and two for spare work.
I work on one window on the workplace and say internet, k-torrents are in the inactive or background work mode and sometimes games in the 3rd to refresh when I am bored.
With this context one of my computer doing full time downloading is totally hidden and I only switch it to see whether the download is complete.

With this arrangement one can have as many activities as possible on with only one keyboard, one mouse and a LCD monitor and lot of space with a spare USB keyboard on upright mode and a USB mouse on plastic box for an emergency when Live CD I boot does not recognize the P2S gadgets.

I would been happy if this switch had some spare USB ports and if designers asked me before its manufacture I would have strongly recommended that facility (especially for the laptop) and when I shop around in two years I am pretty sure it will be in the market. when that happen my spare USB mouse and keyboards are also permanently plugged in even for an emergency.
So when you shop around look for these little little gadgets that make your workplace well arranged and multitasking capable like a Linux computer.

Before I wind up I must tell you about the FullMonty setup of PCLinux.
FullMonty arrange the workplaces into six (6) which is very good for a working arrangement.
I bet Microsoft is going to copy it soon.
They are as follows.
1. Internet
2. Office
3. Games
4. Multimedia
5. Graphics
6. System
This is one reason I use FullMonty which very well organized work place in Linux.
I of course have two more workplaces for unscheduled work.
No wonder I can beat a young guy who is ill organized to the post in any computer activity except perhaps games with eyesight and rapid reflexes failing.
Go and have a resolution to get your workplace organized this year.
There is a lady in USA who makes enormous amount of money by getting workplaces organized.
We Sri-Lankans are very poorly organized during New Year and right throughout the year and that is something I would do for a fee (never free) if government asks me, that favour.
Look at how poorly organized we were the day everybody was retuning to work except the politicians who languor (some of them abroad) in a den, lodge, nest (with birds), hole or a holt.
Everybody wanted to come for work but had to wait for hours in the hot sun.

No wonder many of them did not want to come and delayed it by 2 to 3 days.
This is the way we go forward and progress.

Anuradha and Sinhala Linux

Below is a copy page from Anuradha's Web

See for yourself what a lot this gentleman and his team has done for Sinhala.

Now it is your responsibility to use it.

It is available (free of course) in Fedora 13, Debain 6 and probably in Sabayon Linux (you may have to download the module).

Sinhala is available in www.wordpress.com too for blogging.

Sayura Sinhala Input Scheme

By Anuradha Ratnaweera

Most up-to-date version of this document can always be found here.

Latest version of SCIM module is 0.3.3. Download it here.

If you are looking for a reference while typing with Sayura, download this brochure.

• Introduction
  • History
• Key Allocation
  • Vowels
  • Modifiers
  • Consonants
  • Al Akuru
• Installing

Introduction

Sayura is a quasi-transliteration scheme for Sinhala script. Unlike true tansliteration schemes, Sayura uses individual Latin characters to signify unmodified consonents, and not their "hal" form. For example, මම is entered as "mm", and not "mama".

History

I wrote the first implementation of Sayura transliterated scheme in mid 2004 to include in our first package (version 0.1 it was called) to enable Sinhala in GNU/Linux. It was only for GTK, and not properly named. For the GTK part of the implementation, I used some code from another im-module written by Chamath Keppitiyagama.

Sayura defines context dependant behaviour of keys. For example, "i" at the beginning of a word produced "ඉ", after another "i" it converted "ඉ" to "ඊ", after a consonant it added an ispilla, and after a consonant with an ispilla, it converted the ispilla to a diga ispilla. Multiple use of keys depending on the context allowed us to use fewer keys in very intuitive ways.

Sayura algorithm internally uses bytes, not UTF-8. Sinhala code page is mapped to characters 128-255, and ZWJ and ZWNJ are given 0x0d and 0x0c.

In September 2004, I announced an attempt to port the GTK im-module to QT. After first implementing surrounding text support, the QT port of the im-module was announced in late September 2004, and included in Sinhala GNU/Linux 0.2.

However, my patch to QT broke binary compatibility, so applying it also required a complete recompile of dependant apps. Therefore, it was unlikely to go upstream. Although Kazuki Otta's port made to QT4 upstream, QT3 apps were going to be there for a long time to come.

Typing in OpenOffice was yet to be solved.

In October 2005, there was a Codefest in Colombo as a part of the Asia OSS conference. Kazuki Otta ported the GTK module to SCIM. As SCIM stands below GTK, QT and OpenOffice and all other X apps, it provided a unified input mechanism.

The algorithm's dependency on surrounding text support was also removed. The package was called "scim-sinhala-trans".

For the next couple of years, scim-sinhala-trans became the primary input scheme on GNU/Linux systems, and was shipped with some distros including Fedora/Redhat. Debs were always available here.

In early 2008, S Pravin sent some patches to add preedit support and other improvements. I added several tweaks to the Sayura algorithm itself to preserve old semantics with the new preedit code, and also to improve in certain places. A key improvement is bringing back surrounding text support, but only to use it when available.

A development series 0.3.x was announced in May 2008 to continue and test the new set of developments, and the scheme was named "Sayura" to distinguish from other schemes such as Samanala and Sumihiri.

Key Allocation

Vowels

First, we assigned "a", "e", "i", "o" and "u" to their most obvious counterparts in Sinhala: "අ", "එ", "ඉ", "ඔ" and "උ". Remaining basic vowel "ඇ" was given he key "A" in Sayura version 0.2, but we decided to also allocate "q" to input "ඇ" in 0.3, because pressing shift to the common "ඇ" turned out to be counter-productive.

Long wovels are typed by pressing the same key twice. For example, "aa" produces "ආ".

"ඓ" and "ඖ" were allocated "I" and "O", and "U" produces long and short forms of "ඍ". "අං" and "අඃ" are given "x" and "hH", but from 0.3.1, we will allocate "Q" also to enter අඃ".

Modifiers

Modifiers are allocated the same keys as vowels, but effective when typed after a consonent. Only difference is that "a" corresponds to "ආ" instead of "අ".

For example, "kii" produces "කී", while "kU" gives us "කෘ".

Consonants

First we allocated lower case keys to consonents in the most obvious form: "r", "t", "y", "p", "s", "d", "f", "g", "h", "j", "k", "l", "c", "v", "b", "n" and "m" to "ර", "ත", "ය", "ප", "ස", "ද", "ෆ", "ග", "හ", "ජ", "ක", "ල", "ච", "ව", "බ", "න" and "ම" respectively.

The only arguable allocatoins are "t" and "d". We think "ත" and "ද" is more common than "ට" and "ඩ", so decided to risk a few initial surprises for the sake of long term efficiency.

Upper case letters are used for other consonant forms (e.g.: ඵ, ළ, ණ) whenever possible. We also introduced some shortcuts such as "M" for "ඹ". As we use "x" for "අං", upper case "X" was assigned "ඞ".

A consonant is converted to mahaprana and sagngnaka by typing upper case "H" and "G". But there are shortcuts such as "P" for "ඵ", "G" for "ඟ" and "M" for "ඹ".

Al Akuru

We allocated "w", the only unallocated and easy-to-type character, for al-kireema, and upper case "W" to add a ZWJ to create a joiner. So, typing "kwsH" creates "ක්ෂ", while "kWsH" produces joint "ක්‍ෂ".

We also have shortcuts "R" and "Y" to produce "rakaransaya" and "yansaya". E.g.: "SRii" produces "ශ්‍රී".

Installing

Latest version of SCIM module is 0.3.3. Download it here.

If you want to try out the present stable version of Sayura SCIM module (which is called scim-sinhala-trans), follow the instructions at sinhala.sourceforge.net. However, we encourage you to test 0.3 series, which brings out "preedit" support and improvements to the scheme itself.

DEB based systems

On Debian based systems, make a DEB package:

% tar -xzvf scim-sayura-0.3.3.tar.gz
% cd scim-sayura-0.3.3
% dpkg-buildpackage -b

If you get a "command not found" error, install the "dpkg-dev" package, and preferably "build-essential" package as well.

If dpkg-buildpackage complains about missing packages, install them and try again.

RPM based systems

Locate your RPM directory, usually in /usr/src/. Following examples assume /usr/src/rpm. You also need the 'rpmbuild' tool.

First unpack the tarball to a temporary location, and copy the rpm/scim-sayura.spec file to the SPECS subdirectory in RPM directory. Copy the tarball into SOURCES subdirectory.

# cd /tmp
# tar -xzvf /wherever/is/scim-sayura-0.3.3.tar.gz
# cp scim-sayura-0.3.3/rpm/scim-sayura.spec /usr/src/rpm/SPECS/
# cp /wherever/is/scim-sayura-0.3.3.tar.gz /usr/src/rpm/SOURCES/

Now run the rpmbuild command with the -bb options to build a binary RPM inside RPMS subdirectory.

# cd /usr/src/rpm/SPECS/
# rpmbuild -bb scim-sayura.spec

UNnetBootIn-How I did it?

If you have an old computer which does not boot from USB Flash Drive I have a solution for you.
This applies to the third world and perhaps to the guys and girls of the developed world who are going through rough times and cannot afford a USB booting netbook or laptop or desktop.

If you have a device which boots with USB, most of what of I state below may not apply to you except the principles.
If you are buying anything new do not buy ones without USB booting.

I of course use old gadgets and my 233 speed with 128 RAM and 4 MB graphic is still working but painfully slow.

Also for the guys and girls of the developing world who have gone abroad looking for better pastures with all your parents' saving and the parent no longer can support you on the second or third years.

All what you need is a Flash Drive and if you cannot afford that it is better you start looking for a menial job and rough out till times get better or they chase you out without extending the visa.

Once those universities sap all your money they have no use of you and start recruiting new batch for their own survival.

Education is money and money is education now in the developed world.

However world has not got better but worse with plenty of geeky gadgets around you, even I cannot afford them in my retirement age.

That is why I am turning to bare bones of computing and Linux utilities are there to get expensive work done with minimum of expenditure but lot of learning to do.

One must get out of the Microsoft plug and play mentality (i.e. even monkeys and dogs can be trained).

And nothing is plug and play even for Microsoft with so many new gadgets hitting the market and D.I.Y is one of the best ways to put your neck and nose ahead in the game of computing world.

Lot of time is necessary and risk taking is essential and above all experimenting. At worse you may ruin the partition table of the Flash drive which I have done.

Linux guys and girls are not there to spoon feed you and they are mostly doing it as a hobby with lot of work and midnight oil burning for their own survival.

But there are few professionals not many of course who are out there willing to help.

I am not a GuRu but an ardent supporter of Linux and a daily user of few outstanding Linux utilities.

UnetBootIn in one of them even though it has lot of teething problems.

For two years I have not looked at my Flash Drives with Live Linux distributions which were booting with my laptop but with none of my computers without USB booting facility.

Since my old IBM is ready for junkyard and power pack and mother board needing a rest period before the junkyard experience I went and bought a secondhand IBM in good working order with little amount of USB support but SATA hard disks.

As the testing period was over and it is doing my daily work and downloading at night, with the extended New year holidays I decided to go for the Acid Test of USB booting while doing lot of other things around the household.

This is my Final Report on UnetBootIn, may not be comprehensive but how I got it to do my work and used all my Flash drives for USB booting with or without USB booting facility of the other computers I have.

Ignore the top preamble and concentrate now.

I have no idea of how it works but this is how I figured it out with some basic idea about Linux booting practice with GRUB.

How I did it.
1. Its kernel is less than one MiB
2. Its init file is the biggest which is less than fifty MiB
3. It has ID file
4. It has GRUB Menu (slash.msg for Pendrive Linux)
5. System configuration file
6. Two text files names ubnfilel and ubpathl
These seven files are necessary for its booting.

Rest of the files are distribution specific out of which livecd.sqfs file is the heaviest and the most important that boots up after initial GRUB sequence.

It has a boot folder and isolinux folder which are basic essentials for Linux booting.

Process has 3 essential steps.
1. Downloading
2, Extraction
3, Booting (grub) sequence.

Most painful part is the downloading which can break at any moment because of the poor downloading here.

So I choose DSL my yesteryear favorite (50 MiB), Puppy 4.2 my very first USB Linux and parted Magic (158 MiB). Unfortunately gnome's gParted one of my favorite utility is not there in the listed distributions. I hope gnome will come out with gparted enhanced with UnetBotIn in it's 128 MiB distribution in the next revision.

Knoppix is not there but it is a different kettle of fish altogether with nearly 4 GiB of compressed files and the best heavy weight category and I am here with the light weight category, for now.

All three worked in the first instance but not PCLinux and Mepis.
Then I wanted to try PCLinux (could not get it because all iso files are now torrents at Linuxtracker) and Mepis (broke at once at 200 and the second time at 850 MiB out of 925 MiB).
Tried PCLinux from my hard drive but some important boot files were missing.

Failures on several occasions, I went into the experimental mode.

Prepare DSL for booting as usual or copy the files listed above to the intended Flash Drive.

Then go to the graphic item and distribution source and give the path for the file in my hard disk and click OK.
Before that one should delete the sqfs file of DSL or Puppy (or overwrite only this file when prompted).

Then say NO to overwrite for all the files except the sqfs file.

Before booting it is better to see whether all the files I mentioned above are copied correctly to the Pendrive.

If so shutdown the computer and reboot and the live CD is now in your Pendrive and you do not need to have a CD or DVD to boot your favorite Linux distribution onto the RAM. With this Pendrive you can install Linux to any worthwhile computer without a CD or DVD you may have.

In my case I did install PCLinux-2010 from the Pendrive I prepared on my laptop which I formatted to install Knoppix and record World Cup Cricket (quality of the USB TV card was poor).

Now I am looking for a netbook (my daughter would not oblige) to try my wizardry like wizard of OZ.

Only downside was that one cannot boot the DSL (you have overwritten or deleted in the process).

If you have brains you may even install another sqfs file and edit the boot menu and boot the second one too.
I have no time to try it but I hope UnetBootIn will add that facility in future and access to iso files in my hard disk so that I can bypass the downloading bit and boot any of the 100 odd Linux live CD /DVDs I have.

PCLinux USB creator was hopeless to say the least and it does not do the job properly like UnetBootIn and also needs Linux partition and not fat partitions.

Go and enjoy Pendrive freedom that come from Linux Developers of repute.

I must say special thanks to MCN (Mandriva) group which started the ball rolling in 2007 with the first Penndrive Version I got to work on a Pendrive in Singapore in 2009.

However Singaporeans have no clue about Pendrive Linux or Linux in general.

This is something Indians would have invested (prepare LIVE PENDRIVES for sale) during World Cup but missed it in toto and now doing IPL cricket instead.
Anybody can come to me but I charge for the time especially the download time which is painfully slow and I value my free time which is devoted for rants like this.

Edited on the 20th
How to get new Puppy into your Pendrive (It is easy as eating cheese cake and dogs love cheese)

Easiest method is to is to boot the Live CD and used it as a base to make a Live Pendrive. This was how I made my first Live USB long before Pendrive Linux and at a time when I did not have a computer with USB booting facility.

Puppy was my entry into Light Weight Distribution Version and I have not looked back on that experience.

Then I went into PCLinux and its many versions including PCLinux Mini Me. I am not impressed with the record of USB booting with PCLinux even now and that was the one that took the longest time and method (Thanks to UnetBootIn) how to figure out making a USB drive. It failed miserably with my USB hard drive in spite of me getting it into a Linux partition and I finally gave up because I do not fancy carrying a heavy SATA disk in my front pocket.

I prefer a Pendrive around my neck instead of a hard drive.
Mind you I use the hard drive to carry all my favorite iso images some of which are 4.4 GiB and Supreme Games Linux is almost 8 GiB.

Getting Puppy into a Pendrive was the easiest with UNetbootIn but with a problem.
It only downloads the 4.2 version (the first version I used before Dingo-most number of Live CD I have is with Puppy) from the internet.


So I set about to get a copy of Puppy lupu from my hard disk to Pendrive.

1. Plug in the Pendrive with Puppy 4.2
2. Start UnetBootIn and selected Puppy for install rather copy
3. From dialog box gave the path to my lupu already downloaded and click OK
4. Said NO to all overwrite messages
5. Check the Flash Drive to see production OK. Both Puppy 4.2 and and lupu 525 sqfs files were there with only 250 of the 14oo Mib used.
6. Booted the Flash drive to see it only boots the 4.2. Could not get F2 to change boot option since it configures the keyboard in later stages (Puppy bypasses even the BIOS) of booting.
7. Mounted Flash on my desktop and changed the 420 to 422 and lupu 525 to 420.
8. Booted again and got the kernel panic message (in early days when I get this message I go into panic mode, almost a heart attack but now wait for a few seconds and switch off the computer making sure RAM is not in freeze mode and fully flushed like toilet bowl after a wee, wee.
(I get a message from South Africa where water scarcity is a serious problem and asking me to put bricks on the cistern to reduce the capacity and fill it with waste or used water. I think they way we are chopping trees and the Coal Power Plant functioning at full speed we will be near that fate before India. Please excuse me on this diversion if I blog this separately nobody will read it and hence the inclusion here)
9. Booted again but again kernel panic mode
10. UnetBootIn again and and copied lupu 525 and this time said yes to all overwrite messages including uninit and unkernel.
11. Booted again presto the lupu was running.

Summary in 4 steps

1. Format the Pendrive with FAT 32 partition
2. Install Puppy 4.2 using UNetBootIn and check booting of the Pendrive.
3. Download any of the latest Puppy, lupu, quirky or wary (you can rename the iso image with your dog's name if you are a dog lover. I believe Barry Kauler an Australian is a Dog Lover. Note, unlike cricketers Australian are nice and normal guys).
4. Repeat Step 2 to with overwrite mode on (manually) and boot it up.

I think I have said enough of UnetBootIn.
I hope the Developers got the message and in its next update of UnetBootIn it is sweet as honey.
Thanks Guys and Girls you are doing some excellent work, you should make sure that you have some rest in between and play some Linux Games like me .

Postscript
I get a message from WiN 7 guys that they also have developed a Pendrive utility but it is painfully slow and need a huge Flash Drive with all the viruses included in the processing.
So before any one using it do a virus scan first using a Linux Utility called Medi Linux!

Maha Brahma and his Dog

This story was related to me by one of my yesteryear friends, not a doc but a dog now in high heaven.

I am well versed from the time of Maha Brahma's Assistant who was a Kandy dog frequenting rubbish bins in Kandy including Malwatta temple and by some clever means twisted the arm of the Maha Brahma and managed to get the present post.

I knew the dog well and once in a way he sends me an errand of some sort by email. I cannot send any email to him because it is not permitted by law of the heaven for human to send email direct but there is no restriction of outgoing email from heaven, though, very randomly. I am told they use a type of Linux distribution where in the tradition incognito the log, memory and search routes and rules are erased without a trace. I am trying to crack this and get some stories for earthling and I cannot wait till the next Buddha's time and appearance which is eons away.
As a form of grace they release some random stories and and I have the privilege of knowing the dog first and the current Brahma's Assistant and by that virtue a few of the stories circulating in heaven.

The story predates his time (present Assistant) and this time it was Pedigree dog.

This pedigree dog was resident of a demented man who was politician of yesteryear.

He was demented because of his bounty of alcohol when in and out of power. But sadly he lived up to ripe old age of nineties, physically well but mentally demented. The dog died soon after the master's demise but because of his virtues and because he happened to reach heaven at the time of our New Year holiday, he was put on the waiting list.
There were quite a number of dogs who reached there at the very same instant. Maha Brahma without an assistant then had great difficulty in selecting the correct protocol and the correct next round of births that they deserve.

Because this dog came from high office on earth he was very well noted by the Maha Brahma for extra credit.

Maha has a set of standard questions and it is very difficult to outsmart him.

He did not leave the demented politician now completely neglected by his party members, family members and the like but this faithful dog was with his master till his last few seconds on earth. My friend told me not to disclose where about of this politician now but suffice is to say much less honourable quarters than his favorite dog.

In his conversation with Maha this dog had lot of questions from the Master Being.

The pedigree dog could not understand why the behaviour of his master changed in latter stages of his life with dementia who could not remember the dog's name and used to call various odd names and forgot to feed him or fleece him.

He was telling Maha it was very unfair for a dog to be with a human in that stage of life and state and why only humans get demented and not dogs barring of course hydrophobia.

Maha did not have a suitable answer and he was impressed by this dogs devotion to his master when all earthlings deserted him high and dry including doctors.

There were lot of other dogs of lowly human settings including beggars, humbugs and the lot, Maha was pushed up to his neck and told the pedigree dog to wait for another day for a change and he could become his dog for a day and stay with him overnight.

This he could not decline.
He was so pleased with the offer did not bother the Master Being for even an overnight meal and went to sleep like a log.

Maha had other ideas and wanted to observe and test him before offering the next round of birth, the next day. But he lost this opportunity and in any case for his calm demeanour Maha was highly impressed.

The next day also Maha went on with his mundane routine affairs and was not ready with a place for our pedigree dog. That day was the same result, the pedigree dog that day went into dream mode thinking what a nice place he is going to get the next day.
This went on for a week and for some unknown reason Brahma had hit high on this week and was finding easy with his decision making.

In fact Brahma was enjoying his company which was docile but very pleasant.
It was the same with the dog who had a very painful last few months on earth with the demented politician.
So he became less chatty and never asked any favours from the new master the Master Being himself.

Master also never offered a new lease or round of births by default.

Well Maha also knew one day when his term of office ends like the politician and when he has to go he has to go and he did not want to go alone.

Master needed a companion.

So the Maha and his dog came into being and they got eons to go.

So do not ever think of becoming the master's dog or the master's assistant.
They are on eternal holiday without fire crackers and assistant is doing the mundane rounds without a break (he loves it though being a descendant of paraya or the stray dog clan).

In my case I am looking for post of the server manager in heaven with my experience in hell this may lead to better and faster Linux Protocol and Administration there in heaven.