Ten (10) Minutes of Digital Linux-Multitasking

I was bored to death of this long new year holiday and having had a long sleep overdue for sometime switched on the two computers one for my daily work and the other for the downloading of Linux gamers.

One I use regularly is a secondhand IBM overhauled by me into prime condition with two SATA disks.

Other one is one overhauled just two weeks ago with one of my old second hand IBM computer's bare bones (mainly 133 bus speed SDR RAM which I used for the last 4 years, day and night and coming to its terminal stage of life and wanting to say good bye (on off switch is not working properly, graphic card is grumbling at times being unable to bear the load etc) but all the old SDR RAM Cards which I paid a fortune to get the (my ) minimum requirement of 1 GiB in working order, old CD Writer (combo) not much used and a DVD ROM hacked to its optimum use still working.

Now the SDR RAMs which I paid a fortune have no secondhand market value and throwing them into a dustbin was not my intention and roamed all the secondhand dealers in Kandy (looking for a IBM with SDR slots) and found a NetVista with 16 GB Graphic card (but the mother board supporting above 32 and above up to to 512 GB but the vendor selling it cheap, knowing it has no market value) and I was test driving it for buying it at a later date.

While I was doing all that another buyer (probably having minimum of Rs.10,000) without any respect to my age or dignity promptly wanted to buy it for cash on the spot. I took a back step and made a funny wink at the salesmen (by now who are very friendly with me) and said OK and sell it without the stranger form a nearby village knowing it, knowing I can have another later with a new power pack and the agreement of the dealer for providing a 32 GB graphic card (64 GB is the minimum for Linux now).

This incident reminded me of the post Christmas sale and mad rush in London high street where customers almost kill each other (I never went for any of them fearing my life like an Asian going to a English Football Club for a prime football match-unlike cricket of course-where one can get trampled to death by design if not by default- stay at home in London and watched them on TV instead) for a purchase which I wondered how could it happen in a civic society who teaches democratic values to Middle East sheiks.

And to put the story in perspective, I duly purchased the Kit with a 80 GiB IDE fortunately one day before the agreed buy / sell date saving time in my hand in the process (since I managed to get my salary one day before the due date) so that I could fiddle with it (in spite of many security tags they put on inner hardware) and get it in working order to download Linux games during New year holidays.

These are the things I did in 10 minute while K-torrent was downloading to images in two different computers in the background.
1. Copied a 1 GiB image in K3B - WiildLinux which is pretty good.
2. Went through my email answered new year greetings in double quick time.
3. Changed the screen saver on the newly assembled computer and almost ruined the graphic card of 64 GiB with plasma effects and comic strip. Please do not try these extreme graphic effects of Linux on new graphic cards not supporting Linux. You will invariably ruin them in few seconds.

4. Made a cup of tea in between and let it brew.

While my daughter was on Skype and my son watching peoTV on the same DSL line.

In spite of the slow speed of our Telecoms achieving all this is due to digital capability of Linux and not Microsoft.

Can Microsoft boast for same multi- functionality or multitasking?
I doubt very much!

New Year Resolution-01 to 03

My first Tamil and Sinhala New year Resolution is to have a long sleep after posting this.

My next new year resolution is related to the incident I discovered today.

Just today I went to drop a friend of mine to the airport and being new year we arrived at the friend's place in good time. Since I did not have a good night sleep yesterday (I was looking for various Linux gamers to download for the new year) I had a bath and had a little snooze on the arm chair.

I usually carry a book and gossiping is not my pastime; I forgot the wine making book I fished out from a secondhand bookshop, unfortunately.

We had lunch and tea and all that but my friend and wife were taking an unusually long time getting ready and I was bit bored dropped into their daughters room to say hello, and found a computer and sat in front of it.

There was a glaring message saying that the hard disk is at risk and blah, blah.

Then she came in with another cup of tea before leaving and she told my that it is giving trouble and could not connect it to internet.

I Looked at the router it was OK looking form outside (no evidence of hit by lightening) but not blinking properly and the outer panels were open pulled out the hard disk and the cable and she had another hard disk and fixed it as the slave and booted a Linux live CD (Peppermint with Google utilities) I had given her earlier.

It took a little time to configure first but in less than ten minutes with 256 RAM, I was up and running the Chromium browser and typed asokaplus and parafox.

So router part is OK and my friend was still not ready, I decided to boot the computer (XP, I believe a pirated copy vendor had installed) without the internet cable not plugged in and I could not find any (I had given her Medi Linux disk, too but did not use it for virus check) problem and it was running well.

I booted again with Peppermint, to show how to use it, this time it quickly configured and she was up and running.

My diagnosis Microsoft secretly spying on pirated copies and infecting the hard disk and giving instructions not to recognize the router with the message I did not care to read.

Router is above the operating system and Microsoft has no right to fiddle it at that level but they are doing it on unsuspecting Sri-Lankans who are using pirated copies.

So my solution is get hold of a Linux live CD and boot it with it and go to internet.

When using XP (pirated copies of course pull the internet wire out, a very simple remedy).

I prefer DSL (Damn Small Linux-that is what I have given my wife) with less than 50 MiB which boots fast.

If you have enough RAM go for any Live CD I have listed in Linux 100.

The second message is to say do not use Microsoft for internet.

Third resolution is to promote Sinhala Linux for the next 3 months and go into full hibernation so that Microsoft would not be be able to find a trace of me or my old testicles which are still producing enough testosterone to fight any villain against Linux.

If you have any brain take a few (5 enough) minutes a day and learn bit of Linux from a Live CD. It does not do any harm to your computer since it is running on RAM and there are enough forums to guide you through the early phase.