Lions and Snow Leopards

Ever heard Lions and Snow Leopards living in the same home.

In Sri-Lanka Lions and Leopards live in such close proximity and in harmony only a terrorist can drive them mad.

I hear they cannot simply because they are proprietary products from Apple Mac.

Some time ago I wanted to write something Apple computer and final cut but for no reason I could not.

It was a very fortunate lapse on my part and had I done that I may have to eat every word of my short piece.

The other day I happen to walk into Kandy Super market and I saw something very similar to Pinguy and drop into see who is promoting Linux in Kandy.

I was wrong and it was a posh Apple Mac store but I could not see any iPods.

All the computers had Snow Leopard but not the new Lion roaring. It looks like they are dishing out the last remains of Snow Leopards on unsuspecting but rich customers.

Just yesterday I posted and updated today that one can install four Linux distribution in over 2 and half hours and make them cohabit but unfortunately Snow Leopard and Lion can hardly ever cohabit in the same computer.

The trouble one has to go to install (which has two disks) Snow Leopard on Lion computer only and expert can do that also on has two apple computers side by side with firmware attachment.

This guy who is a keen photographer wanted to transfer some photographic stuff from a camera and his old camera is not supported by the new Lion.

But if he gives his video to me I can convert them to many formats using ArtistX or AVLinux.

This poor guy, metaphorically of course (who is poor who can afford a new Apple computer) should learn some Linux be gets older like me.

Updating My Laptop

I must tell you after preparing the 15 partitions booting four Linux images took little over 2 and a half hours. Pinguy took little longer 20 minutes extra since I had to install Dropbox and I was connected to the Internet.
half and hour is all that is rquired to install Linux.

1.Knoppix DVD was the quickest.
2. Then Vinux
3, Then Sabayon
4. Pinguy took one hour and one can cut it down to half an hour if you do not tick updates from internet and third party software like Flash and Mpeg.
To be honest I had made a mistake in the night by inadvertently using its home partition (wrong numbering of partitions) for Sabayon and I had to redo all including repartitioning to correct order and numbering sequence for me to remember by heart and I finished in less than two hours.
This would go as the quickest update under one day (24 hours) while doing lot of other things including taking my son out for meal who has high degree of visual handicap and sat with him with Vinux after returning home. He of course picked up the finer points in no time and by the time I returned having attended  to Internet cables I had pulled out accidentally while configuring the laptop.
In fact that took longer than the installation since I had to check all the cables and make sure my download work continued (it broke twice yesterday) and listen to BBC cricket on radio while doing all this.
Since PCLinux 64 bits version is not there I am going to install Debian and leave two partition free for it for future day.

Beauty is that the GRUB file/s of each distrbutions is / are now compatible it does not matter in what order I install them.

That also saved lot of time.

In other words it is going to inhabit 6 distributions with all the utilities I used in various combination.

I have not installed ArtistX or AVLinux since I have no time for graphic work now but I have the images in my collection if any of my friends need them to b installed.
Laptop is a showpiece but my real workhorses are old IBMs which run almost 24 hours everyday downloading various images I test on a daily basis but that exercise is going to end very soon.

I was waiting for the PCLinux2011 64 bits Version but it was never coming and decided to upgrade my laptop with a bigger hard disk which are becoming cheaper by the day.

The steps are 

1. Remove the battery.

2. Remove the Hard disk.

3. Fixed the new Hard Disk and place the old one on a portable mini USB bay/tray enclosure.

4. Use gParted to partition the new hard disk (15 partition restriction applies  for SATA Hard Drives.

5. Install Knoppix 10 th anniversary edition. No problem.

6. Install Pinguy. No problem with GRUB and detects Knoppix but painfully slow when updating on line.

7. Install Dropbox in about 5 minutes.

8. Install Sabayon 6 with no problem and detects both Knoppix and Pinguy. No problem with XBMC media center and mouse does not freeze.

9. Boot up Pinguy and let Dropbox synchronize and me go to sleep and it is 6 am in the morning.

10. Test the USB Hard Disk and boots up OK but slow and my data in old hard is intact. All these without paying any ransom to Microsoft and now I have 7 operating systems 4 on the old disk 3 on the new one with another  7 partitions left for install.

Two for Linux Image Storage in ntfs partition and three for Debian Sinhala another three for PCLinux 64 bits when it comes and I still have another partition for testing new Linux distribution and a FAT partition for posterity but sometimes destructive Linux distributions with my oversight might make me to reinstall all in one night of hectic work and the whole Saturday for me to  go into sleep mode and have a couple of dreams for Maha Brahma.

Please note that installing was done in the night only because out Telecoms download is painfully slow for on line updates (takes ages if done day time) in day time and all Sri-Lankan including doctors on duty sleeping except poor Interns who have poor diagnostic skills.

Please do not get sick at night we do not have ambulances to take you to a hospital and the ambulance drivers also prefer a good night sleep. Then you might wonder me keeping up all night. Well I had to keep all night up when on call abroad often working for three others and patient prefer coming to me at night since I used to solve problems those GPs took ages to give an appointment let alone solve.

Those nightly habits are a bonus when one deals with computing in Linux not that Linux gives problems but often due to human errors like installing a root partition on some other distribution's home partition due to wrong numbering of the partition table.

Pinguy and Ping Eee-Update.

For the time being Pinguy and Ping Eee are the best innovative Ubuntu derivative which is in the market and the score is 2385 which is very close to the Gold Standard and well above Unity and Mabuntux.

Out of the Ubuntu derivatives this is the most eye catching feature filled derivative enticint the Linux newbies as well as savvy guys / gurls.

It has Cloud Utilities, Light Scribe and it almost look like apple Mac for one who has never seen a Apple Mac.

I have the feeling Ubuntu's Unity has taken a leaf out of Pinguy and Ping Eee for netbooks and laptops.

It's grub file is unable to figure out my other distributions and that is why it is not in my box. It can recognize only one Linux distribution at a time and that cab be easily sorted out with few lines in the Grub.

It will take the tablets by surprise by any breath of imagination.

Dream-12 and its interpretation from Heaven

I was dreamless for  long period of time and may have to wind up dreaming now that the industrial action is all over, unless of course we may start it again if other side of the bargain counter is closed for new ideas and innovations.

I had a fragment of a dream and to keep Maha occupied in his job, rather his hobby, I posted it. The dream was on the day of the second part of the local election night where unlike the Cricket World Cup I was not at all interested because it was one horse race and the other horses were in the stable with the tails up.

The dream

I had gone out and I was stranded in a massive bus station newly developed after the war.

Location I cannot remember.

I can only remember my destination which was to go to Colombo and from there work myself back to Kandy.

The place was filthy in spite of being a newly developed site with filth was all over the place and even the filthy drainage spills  into the floor of the bus station. Except me most of them were on roller skates to avoid the filth and dirty water and in that process of skating were splashing filth in waiting commuters including me.

There were lot of buses and they were all going to a godforsaken destination, again I cannot remember, somewhere in the direction Budulla or thereof towards the jungle terrain.

I asked several drivers and conductors and they said there are no buses to Colombo and the buses are plying only in the direction Badulla and beyond which was very unusual.

The usual routine is for the buses to ply towards Colombo and nothing from there to remote destinations like Budulla, especially after 6 P.M.

All those buses were chockablock and fill to capacity and there was noway I could have squeezed in and survived a trip.

The place looked like to me the real hell on earth and the stench was so unbearable I felt vomitish and soon I was woken up.

Maha was ready to blast off and I told that the industrial action was over.

That means you are not going to dream and I will miss my hobby.

Sort of that is unavoidable Sir.

Is it a good dream Sir.

Not really, he said.

What was the second part of the dream Sir.

There was no second part and with your composure that is as far as I would have let you dream or go free and that is as far  as you would go  on your own and it is towards the Server Master General.

It must be the newly built university computer center isn't it?

I would be in charge of the database isn't it?

No stupid.

Don't you realize you were at the  big Gate of the Hell and you were scanning the Computer Server.

My goodness!

Interpretation

There is no difference between the dream and the interpretation.

You were at the entrance to the Apaya. the Hell Gate International and you were on the Sri-Lankan Gate for Transit and the Computer Server doing the scanning of applications.

I remember you have sent a software to man the Apaya Server and it has eased the work but scrutiny takes a long time for Sri-Lankan applications.

There are lot of forgeries and wrong stamps on wrong pages.

The data entry is the slowest process but once they are entered correctly your software produce a token ring and you are immediately in a Apaya cell built for Sri-Lankans.

No more red tape.

It is not a bus station but a giant Server Station General (this is a French word) for Sri-Lankans entering Hell.

Don't con Sir We Buddhist would never get there with all the Punya Karma and defeating the terrorism for good and making miracles in this Buddhist country.

You think so?

Yes sir.

Not a faintest chance the way you violate or not taken advantage of the elections, its administration and proper conduct.

In my estimate all the eligible voters ends up there in hell.

Either you do not make use of the franchise or if you use it you violate it in some way.

Upaya Chief has no alternatives but to scrutinize the violations and send you to hell for ages.

Is there a way to prevent it Sir.

Yes only one way.

By voting for the correct candidate Sir.

No stupid.

If you do not register as a eligible voter, then only you are safe.

In that case only Sinhalysa will be in Hell Sir, No Tamils?

It is not fare. There must be no Tamils there, now know?

How come?

Praba did not allow or register them to vote know!

I did not know that Maha responded and reflected politely and said it is good know.

Then you won't have Tamil to fight in Apaya know?

That is good know?

That is not my point Sir even in Apaya we must continue our struggle for supremacy and without that no fun in Apaya know and no news coming out from there for me (from Apaya) to relate to the earthlings.

That is very selfish of yours.

I am human and Sri-Lankan Sir, I am entitled to some graphic action (horror) stories.

By the way have you got a vote?

No Sir for 35 years.

Part of the time I was abroad and the other time I did not furnish proper data.

It is not right know?

It is like this Sir there is de facto and de juro element.

De facto means you are already there and de juro means you are there in the list but you are away serving another electorate.

As a doctor I am blessed with to be de juro all the time.

But you are lying and you had been in this country with at least 3 presidents running the show?

But that was easy Sir.

I have two houses Sir.

When one Grama Sewaka (village headman) comes to register, I tell him my name is in the other electorate, if the other comes I tell him it is in the other electorate and it is as easy as that.

The officers have no way of communicating with each other and they are not allowed to do that anyway!

You are very clever and you will never go to hell in that case.

Is it so sure Sir.

Yes.

Then what about your citizenship?

I have a passport. I have ID card and I pay taxes to the hilt.

I am a true Sri-Lankan in spite of not having a vote.

How can you be so neutral?

It is not neutral Sir.

It is the survival trick. 

Survival of the fittest.

If I support the government the opposition guys won't come to get medicine from me.

If I support the opposition the government guys won't come to me.

That's very partisan people aren't they?

Yes.

Why don't you ask the people to follow your tradition.

I tried a bit but I failed. 

They all are political animals in this country, beside I will be deprived of some entertainment, too.

Now that we have stopped the war we will not get patients to try our trade and suture wounds and repair bones etc.
.

Election violence is the surest way to get injuries both physical and mental.

How mental?

Unlike cricket we let India to win so that 2 billion  Indian enjoyed but after elections both side of the divide go into mental mode (2M Mode) discovering how stupid they are.

Or I see.

But England beat India know?

England has to do that Sir.

Otherwise there will be no cricket but casinos and betting pools.

In any case it is English Game and it is a gentleman's game and India is against DRS (Decision Reviewing System), too.

That is not good sport know?

That is the difference between Indian and Sri-Lankans, Sir.

We rig both elections and cricket.

But Indians rig only cricket and never elections.

Even if the politicians do not return the promises Indian do not blame them as long as if they win any game by hook or crook,.

The average Indian on the street is immune to politics but never to cricket.

That is why we let Indian win. 

We are very good neighbours except the Indian politicians especially in the south who are good at harbouring terrorists in their own soil to win elections.

There is always equal an opposite reaction and mutual benefits.

We two nations will survive without the stupid politicians.

We like Indian and Tamil food.

Indians love visiting Ceylon and opening tourist hotels.

We will survive in spite of politicians.

I got to go any more questions.

One Sir.

We did a disservice to Tamils by winning the war isn't it Sir.

What nonsense?

If they were under Praba none will have a vote and all will be debarred from entering the Hell by your definition.

Now they have elections in the North and East and at least 50% are voting and 50% will be going there for scrutiny.

I suppose so and I have no veto power in politics and that is a human game and we gods have no political affiliations.

In that case I will be coming to heaven. 

Isn't it?

I cannot tell you that Sir. 

It is ethically wrong to forecast like economists in heaven but send me some dreams will you?

OK Sir.

Scoring Update on Ubuntu and Unity

I have downloaded Ubuntu LTS and Unity and have tested them on my old and relatively new IBM computers and hardly anything to write home except 3 new introduction to Unity. They are

1. Cloud support with (Ubuntu one) 2 GiB space.

2. Clean up utility

3. New desktop (already made some comments)

Total score for LTS is 915 and for Unity 1255 (300 points for new desktop) both well below.

Linux Mint score is 1235 and difference between Unity and Mint is negligible and Mint is more robust than Unity.

The relative increase of downloads of Mint at Distrowatch may be a reflection of this lack of outstanding difference.

The difference is only cosmetic at the expense of stability.

At least if they had introduced Sinhala capability I would have given another 100 points and the lack functionality for visually handicapped (at least ORCAS) is a glaring omission.

Now you have a choice either go for Debian proper  at Debian Mint as alternative.

My prediction is Ubuntu is going to lose its fan base like what happened to Redhat when Fedora was thrust upon Linux addicts, like us.

Having said that I still support Ubuntu's innovative approach and with touch screen and tablets coming it will make a serge in the customer base.

Till then Ubuntu fans Multiboot with at least 3 Linux distributions in one box.

With hard drives going to 500 GiB and cheap now what other option one has?

Mind you both CDs did not boot with my old IBM and there was loss of font functionality.

Debian the clear winner-The Gold for Light and Heavy Weight Championship

Now that the industrial action is over, we brought the Hero to Gyro (not giro and we could not be bought by money circulating on illegal hands or corruption) except perhaps few individual who had vested interests and wanted to be heroes at the expense of the general body politics of our action perpetuated by sheer needs and not aspirations (fell far short of aspirations of accountability, transparency, fairness).

These instant Heroes had unassailable lead and they had to be pulled down to base level and gyrate them on the correct path lest all of us would be heading for disaster.

We never had the political will to bring Heroes to Zeros but the vision to come to the base level we reached way back in 2008 and gyrate in correct orbit instead of asking for miracles which we will never achieve the way we sink into dirty tricks and manipulations by undesirables.

I hope senses will come to body politics of the country, unless of course the voters will bring the Heroes to Zeroes in double quick time at the correct gyroscopic orbit and time and they are not stupid or donkeys who carry burden. 

We are of course in the minority in that context and what we can provide is wisdom if not vision.

We came to equilibrium position neither zero nor hero but a position of comfort from where we can gyrate to greater heights if correct recognition is extended.

Otherwise history will take us backward (like in cricket) instead of forward.

Debian

Coming to IT industry where there are commercial heroes but the clear winner which gyrate at the correct orbit is Debian.

It was no surprise.

Score of above 3000 and well above the Gold Standard of 2500 for the standard CD.

For the heavy weight category it is within the Gold Mark where no other distribution has all the components at hand with over 30,000 package well tested.

It has gParted which is around 100 MiB with partition and security features.

It has Blender, Scribus and Inkscape.

Only missing component was O.E.M. component.

It did not have a printed book but thanks to French and the English translation is due soon and available on line as open source.

It has all the versions from Mini to KDE to Server.

It has multi-language support including Sinhala.

It does not pretend to be a (commercial) hero but the wise counsel to all the other distributions which include Ubuntu and extending a hand to Linux Mint currently.

Additionally it is forging with FreeBSD too.

It is the clear winner.

If I said without my marking scheme everybody will say I am biased. Now it is vindicated and flame wars are not the necessity but a feature of Linux and its multi-faceted distributions..

Now I can say with or without bias it is the one that guides us and the Gyroscope for years to come.

If you need a solid, stable and secure enhanced Linux, there is only one and only one.

It is called Debian.

It is not for the lazy souls and it is the one who wants to dig a lot, sweat a bit and enjoy a lot of the hard labour.

Nothing is easy in the IT World.

One has to go into simple command line and give commanding orders till midnight commander sleeps like a sleeping beauty!

Scoring First 5 of the 100 Distributions

I am going to stop stating that PCLinux is the Gold Standard of live CD to eliminate my personnel bias on that distribution but have a Hypothetical Gold Standard defined by criteria below and with a point award of 2500.

So anything that approaches 2200 for CD version and above is potential Gold Standard and you are free to try it.

Nobody will get 100% assuming that no distribution has reached its peak and would be trying to achieve that gold wit constant improvement an bug fixes.

For DVD the point award is 3500 points and anything that tops 3000 is a good value with 90% to 95% of all software.

1. Linux Mint        CD                                                                        1235

2. Vinux                CD                                                                        1130

3. Sabayon          CD                                                                        1430

4. MayhemOS (Ubuntu)                     DVD                                     1015

5. PCLinux                                             CD                                      2230

6. PCLinuxFullMonty                          DVD   (Heavy Weight)                            3415

Finnix, the LiveCD for system administrators

Finnix is Genome / Linux Kernel 3 and only 102 MiB and fits a mini CD.

Below is a reproduction from Finnix Organization.

If I write about Linux Live CD that boots with windows X desktop only, I am doing an injustice to the Linux Developers, who make wonderful Little Utilities for system administrators.

Below is one of them, a CD that boots without  a desktop window on a terminal (window) with 300 MiB of utilities.

Download and enjoy!

Thank you Guys and Girls of Finnix organization.

 

Finnix, the LiveCD for system administrators

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Get a pair of free high-quality vinyl stickers, and find out how you can support Finnix.

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Thank you to our major sponsors, mirrors, donators and others who help support Finnix!

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Finnix is a self-contained, bootable Linux CD distribution ("LiveCD") for system administrators, based on Debian. You can mount and manipulate hard drives and partitions, monitor networks, rebuild boot records, install other operating systems, and much more. Finnix includes the latest technology for system administrators, with Linux kernel 2.6, LVM2, encrypted partitions, etc. And above all, Finnix is small; currently the entire distribution is over 300MiB, but is dynamically compressed into a small bootable image. Finnix is not intended for the average desktop user, and does not include any desktops, productivity tools, or sound support, in order to keep distribution size low.

Ubuntu Fans, You have a way out!

With the coming of age of Ubuntu and the entry of the new fashion lady Unity, ardent Ubuntu fans should not be disappointed.

You have a way out.

Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support ) 10.04.3 is now available for download from Softpedia and Distrowatch and you should download it/them and update your systems.

If you want to be like me (I have not tried this yet) who has many distributions in one box except windows, you should try dual or ideally multi-boot several Linux distributions (my advice is Linux Mint or Kubuntu for Ubuntu fans) including PCLinux.

For a Linux guy or girl learning curve is almost flat and over time decide what  he/she  wants to use.

Alternatively wait for my future comments at parafox and asokaplus on all the Linux distributions I have downloaded and tested, recently.

New point scheme is devised to eliminate person bias and make it somewhat scientific (qualitative and quantitative analysis).

I may be bit slow since our industrial action is over and I will be busy getting new entrants to learn Academic English in addition to my core work.

When they come from the English Program (ad hog) hastily devised I will have an uphill task, making conditions right for them to understand the scientific messages not political, I have to dish out.

I will keep my promise in 100 days (one a day would do) or within three (3) month since I have downloaded all except Linux Mint and my hard disk is chockablocked.

In the mean time I have to promote Sinhala Linux too (Debian 6.0.2 plus+), too.

Criteria for defining suitability of Linux Distributions

With Gnome 3 and Kernel 3 in the horizon and tablet in the market and Ubuntu making a radical changes to desktop with Unity already arrived, I have decided to award a point scheme for all the distributions active now and write an update for all the Linux distributions I have downloaded so far.

That means moment I post an update on a distribution, my old writing here probably become obsolete and would be taken out without any notice.

I would be grateful if you post any errors of omission or commission on those post already here.

That means future posting will be slow to come and try my best avoid any errors.

I will keep the point scheme close to my heart and won't publish them here but on a future date if necessary may do that for completeness sake.

Points are given on quantitative as well as qualitative reasons.

Lowest mark is 10 and the highest mark is 300.

For an example I give 10 marks if it is only in French and 100 marks for multi-language cababililty.

I will give 300 marks if it includes Sinhala and multi-language capability.

Similarly Ubuntu Unity gets 300 for its innovative approach and as a teaser for loyal fans who hate the new approach. I would include the total points for the old version as well as new version.

This analysis is with desktop users in mind and server editions won't get any additional mark but I would state that server is avable.

I will start with Linux Mint, since it has O.E.M version, codecs version with minimal multimedia support and almost pure without any software infringements and full version with additional software.

It is a complete desktop and laptop friendly and currently is the top most downloaded  at distrowatch.

 It has both 32 and 64 bit versions.

I am going to stop stating that PCLinux is the Gold Standard of live CD to eliminate my personnel bias on that distribution but have a Hypothetical Gold Standard defined by criteria below and with a point award of 2500.

So anything that approaches 2200 for CD version and above is potential Gold Standard and you are free to try it.

Nobody will get 100% assuming that no distribution has reached its peak and would be trying to achieve that gold wit constant improvement an bug fixes.

For DVD the point award is 3500 points and anything that tops 3000 is a good value with 90% to 95% of all software.

I am a believer that "small is beautiful" and would figure out a way to award points and my guess is Puppy will come on top but there are equally good small utilities like SliTaz, 4MLinux, gParted and  pMagic.

You are welcome to critically analyze my future writing with feedback but there is no attempt to compare with Microsoft and Apple Mac and in the next 5 to 10 years Linux will be way ahead of both of these distributions and I am not the one who need any pep commercial talks. In this period of course Linux guys and girls have to make 1000 and 1000 of tiny games and blockbuster games to invade the market in style. 

They are already there on mobile phones and they have to mature with the hardware specially tablets in mind.

Criteria

A. Use

1. Live CD installable

2. Light Weight

3. Mini to LXDE to Standard

B. Internet  

4. Easy Access to Internet

5. Automatically Configure Internet

6. Browser (ideally FireFox) Capability

7. Other browsers- 5 for each additional browser

8. Email Capability-Thunderbird

9. Google gadgets but not essential

10. Torrent Down Loader

11. Skype or alternative

12. Cloud-Dropbox

13. Cloud Other

C. Productivity

14.Office Package -Abiword

15.Office Package -Other Open office

16.Office Package -PDF Reader

17. Scribus

18. CD burner (ideally K3B-50)

19. CD burner (10 others)

20. LightScribe/LaCie (100)

D.Graphic

21. GIMP

22. Blender

23. Inkscape

24. Digicam

25. Tuxpaint

26. Special Graphics

27. Others

E. Audio

28. Mixer

29.Alsa

30. Others

F. Video

31. Imagination

32. VLC Player

33. Miro Internet TV

34. Cheese

35. TV Card

36. Others

37. Media Players including ability play itunes and divx  

G. Essential Utilities

38. Stable Grub Configuration

39. Partitioning tool is essential(ideally Gparted)

40.Ability to clean up the temporary file at boot up

41. Updates and Package management

H. Archiving

42. Ark

43. File Roller

I. For Children

44. Light Weight Games

45. Children Version (150)

46. Gcompris

 J. Subjective

47. Reliability (most of them are)

48. Speed at start up (most of them are slow except YOPER)

49. Quick installation

50. Portability

51. Type of Desktops (Genome/KDE)

52. Down loader that start from where one has left / stopped earlier

53. On line updates

54. Infrequent Cycles of Change

55. Downloads available for Libre Office,Open office, Skype (25 for each)

56.Speed at Start Up

K. Linux Fundamentals

57. Separate administrator in addition to normal user

58. Reliable Package Manager

59. Multi-Language in addition to English (5 for each Language-Total-100)

60. Sinhala Language Capability  (200)

61. Terminal  

L. USB Boot Up

62. UnetBootIn

63. USB Creator

64. Live CD creator

M. Emulators

65. DOS

66. Wine

67. Oracle VM

68. Apple Emulation

N. Games

69. Light Weight

70. Advanced Games (25 for Each)

O. Educational

71. Google Map

72. Tux Guitar

73. Tux Maths

P. Special and Development Utilities

74. Gambase

75. Web editor

76. PHP Admin

77. Scientific packages like statistics

Q. Access to Information

78. Home Web Site

79. Essential information including installation password etc

80. The facility for registration and writing reviews

R. Special Attributes

81. Less than 50 MiB

82. Less than 200 MiB

83. Less then 500 MiB

84. Innovative approach GOBO and YOPER

S. Finances and Printing

85. Gnumeric

86. GnuCash

87. Printing

S. Very Special

88. Religion

89. Language

90. Kernel Version

91. Version Number

92. New Desktop Type

93. Innovative Changes

94. 32 bits only

95. Both 32 and 64 bits

96.O.E.M.Version

97. ORCAS-Visually Handicapped

98

99

100

New Ubuntu Desktop Unity

I was never a Ubuntu fan and I took sometime before downloading Ubuntu and before that I read couple of web articles and if I had been Ubuntu fan, I can very well understand the logic, frustration and criticism of the loyal fans.

I have gone from Redhat to Mandrake to Suse to PCLinux and Mepis and know very well the pain I went through when Redhat dished us out to Fedora Community Project.
After Fedora 3, I gave up and that change in my  attitude and experimenting with other distributions even though troublesome was a very good experience.

After all I gave up Microsoft and giving up a distribution was easy because I used to have at least 5 operating system including Win 98 and XP in my computer and switching and testing and falling back to most stable and useful distribution came second nature to me.

In addition it made me to migrate to Live CDs and over the past two years, I have been talking about almost all of them I have downloaded and tested. Writing about their virtues and sore points has become a habit and when I test I have no preconditions attached to the exercise.

No expectations at all.

Testing Ubuntu Unity (which I have in principles supported due to other reasons ) was no different and no strings attached.

I tested it with my old computer (old IBM Netvista) which was disaster by itself and it booted up with graphic images with no fonts.

I came across this problem with several new Linux distributions including PapugLinux, JULinux and Taylor Switch  (KVM switch) and knew immediately to exit and boot it with my IBM Think Center and the subsequent experience was totally different and Unity booted up with a beautiful desktop which looked somewhat liked MeeGo (not that elegant) and getting round was a completely new desktop experience and I could not see any familiar features of Ubuntu.

My first need was the workspaces which I am so used to now without them I will have a heart attack.

With some fiddling I found 4 workspaces and I could open and exchange the programs from 1 to 4 (workspace).

Then I wanted to fill the other 2 workspaces and I could not.

I searched the applications but then I had to leave the workspace and that experience was a very bad one, now that I got used to FullMonty nice desktop arrangement.

Then I hit the web browser and went to distrowatch and looked at the latest downloads of Linux distribution and Ubuntu is now sandwich between Mint and PClinux which has climbed up to 3 from 7.

This was a pleasant surprise for me.
I used PCLinux as the gold standard of Live CDs and an arbitrary reference, coined for testing other Lice CDs.

I can understand the reaction of the Linux users but I have some sympathy for Ubuntu and hope their experiment will succeed.

It ought to since tablets are coming to the market thick and fast and all the looks are Ubuntu is ready with this new innovation.

I have decided to give 300 points (for innovation) of my scale which I am revising now with the latest trends in the super highway.

If not I have no way of promoting Ubuntu as a general purpose Linux distribution.

Switching to LibreOffice was good.

It will be a rough passage for them knowing very well we shift our allegiance when our needs are not satisfied by the latest distribution.

That is what I did with Fedora.

Now after 10 more distribution I have switched back to Fedora since it is one of the few that support Sinhala Unicode.

I hope Ubuntu Unity do the same of supporting Sinhala and then I will be promoting Unity with some new found vigour.

Asus' Convertible Tablet-the tablet-plus-dock combo

Asus' Convertible Tablet is doing a good job of converting an android tablet into a user friendly laptop.

It's price is right and it is cute and serves the writer to be free when fully engaged in writing instead of sending messages with the touch pad system.

This is one reason I am reluctant to buy a Tablet now.
Asus has changes my mind but I still wait for a while till the hard disk is big enough.

The dock on the Transformer extends the battery life of the tablet.

 It has USB ports too and it is coming close to my specifications except allowing me to boot another Linux system (dual booting perhaps Sabayon)

That is why the Eee Pad Transformer have surpassed 400,000 units per month only second to iPad.

Days of iPad are numbered unless thy decide to cut the price an profit margin drastically.

Why I wont buy a Tablet soon?

Why I wont buy a Tablet soon?

The bad publicity and nasty feeling I get when I hear the word "Tabloids" has made me to change to tablet like all the good journalists who write on computers use this word tablet.
I apologise for my little discretion.

Tablets are going to take all us by surprise and when it hits the market and the price is right everybody will join the band wagon.

1.It is a light weight.

2. It is mobile smart phone.

3. It is a little touch screen computer.

4. It is the news reader.

5. It is the web browser.

6. It is in every C.E.O.’s hand

7. Unlike the paper it will read the news while you drive the car.

8. It is the E-reader

9. Business companion, stock dealer and buying machine on E-bay and stock Market

10. Sports can be live like in the TV but unlike TV you can replay the match or game you like.

All these fancy features make the yappies to go for it and the rest will follow. That is what the predictions are.

But I won’t buy one in a hurry.

I need the following conditions satisfied.

1. It should have an alarm or a siren attached to it as in the car doors.

Why?

Like laptops, mobiles and money it is the item everybody wants to steal.

It should have pass word protection.

Why?

If it is stolen the thief (unless he is a hacker) should not be able to use it and the user should be able to track it down.

3. It should have a location mapper or a tag which we put on dogs.

Why ?

4. It should have a long life battery.

5. It should have solar panel.

Why?

In countries like us where electricity price is exorbitant and on Sunny days when we have power cuts, this is the only fun we can have outdoors.

6. It should have satellite (not 3G or 4G version) communication facility.

Why?

In countries like us where the Telecoms never give the band with they promise us and we pay for, this is the only way we can tune into America and A.O.L

7.It should have at least 4 USB ports, if not ports ability to expand it to a switch and attach DVD and USB.

The above points are general purpose and below are my own specifications.

8. Big hard drive with ability to put my own Light Weight Linux Distributions instead of Android only and dual boot it.

9. Ability to boot up with my Pendrive, if the above cannot be allowed due to Company Law.

10. Ten is the most important one. Sturdy titanium case shock proof.

Why?

If Android does not work the way I want to thrash on the floor and see it survives.

If it does, I will appear free on a commercial for Google.

There is another reason. I was one who supported Google from the very beginning when they announced it, many moons ago and remained solid with it due to Linux capabilities and they did not invite me for the party and also did not give me a free version to test.

11. real reason I to not want to go for the tablet is the lack of good and easy keyboard but ASUS has changed this radically by adding a transformer / converter to the tablet.
Read my blog on Eee Pad Transformer.
 

12. All American car manufacturers should install a tablet in the dashboard with appropriate buttons to listen to music, TV and newspaper .

Why?

This way we can prevent lot of rad accidents, even in the the 3rd world and the big Americans can say they were the pioneers of prevention of road accidents.

Apart from that real reasons are anything that attempt to kill Linux or Free Software Foundation, I get activated by default.

This is why I support Unity of Ubuntu.

“Tabloid is going to make print media obsolete in the not so distant future. Ink print might disappear giving way to digital news. Unlike the print paper, it can read you the news while you drive your car. Local Paper edition might come in smart cards. Advertisement supplements in the digital format make one to order with the touch of one’s finger tips”.