Sunday, August 10, 2014

Myth about Android and Linux


The Iso tested was not Google's but from an independent Developer. 

Chih-Wei Huang has announced the release of Android-x86 4.4, an unofficial port of Google's Android mobile operating system to Intel and AMD x86 processors: "Android-x86.org is glad to announce the 4.4-r1 release to public. This is the first stable release Android-x86 4.4 (KitKat-x86). The 4.4-r1 release is based on the Android 4.4.2 (KitKat-MR1) release. We have fixed and added x86-specific code to let the system run smoothly on x86 platforms, especially on tablets and netbooks. The key features include: integrate FFmpeg as the stagefright plugin to support more multimedia files; use the latest long-term stable kernel, version 3.10.52, with more drivers enabled, most netbooks can run Android-x86 in the native resolution; OpenGL ES hardware acceleration for AMD Radeon and Intel chipsets; enhance the installer to support upgrade from previous versions..

Myth about Android and Linux

Reason for writing this is, I downloaded Android iso today and ran it on my old computer.

Earlier versions did not work as a Linux distribution but this worked on VESA MODE.
Mind you, I am guy who never uses a Mobile phone and won't bother to test it either on a mobile.
Rest assured it will work on any mobile which is not locked in by firmware.
From the time Android came in my craze was to test it on a 686 computer.
Finally I can say, I can.
Earlier Kernels probably were mini Kernels and this is OK but won't pass as robust as Peppermint.
Thank you Google for your efforts.
Your mini applications are one of the best light weight applications.
I hope, one day you produce a Kernel just similar to Privatix or Tails for guys in this part of the world (where government goons are eavesdropping on freedom of speech) where political or freedom of speech is hindered.
Just to browse anonymously.
Not for dirty work but to keep “Connectivity Intact” and freedom of speech is not hindered or monitored.
The world is a small place NOW and Google has made it possible to connect.

Thank God, it is because, Linux (Linus, Stallman, Parfitt, Haddock and many others) and Free Software.

Certainly not due to Apple and Microsoft.

I have reproduced an article by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols here.

He is one writer who writes with full academic credentials.
I like him very much.
His articles are available on Google.
He loves Linux as much as I do.
I have removed hyperlinks except for Richard Stallman and ASOP (Android)

 

Myth 1. 

Google Services define Android.

Google Services are very handy. Maps, Gmail, Google Drive, Calendar, and Search are all great, but you don't have to use them. Android is a fine mobile operating system in its own right, with its built-in home screen launcher; contacts directory; dialer and phone app; and camera and gallery. You can, if you want to, add your own services to it.
Indeed, that's exactly what has happened in China. There, 270-million Android users use Android, but, thanks in part to China and Google's continuing feud, 70 percent of them don't use Google services.
Part of the confusion about services-and-platform tie-ins is that we're moving from a device-centric computing world to a cloud and services-based one. When people look at a device, they still see it as a standalone thing. That's often no longer the case. Instead, no matter who made it or what runs on it, the hardware is simply the endpoint for a variety of cloud services. That doesn't change the nature of the operating system, but it does change the user experience.
Each device has its preferred service provider: Microsoft for Windows; Apple for iOS; Google for Android; and so on. At the same time, each is usually open to other services, thanks to HTML5, and other development tools that trump native apps and services.

Myth 2. 

Android is not open source.

Yes, yes it is.
You can take Android Open Source Project (AOSP) code today and make your own version of Android today. If you want to, you can even take a page from CyanogenMod's book and make an Android that works with multiple devices instead of being tied to one vendor's smartphones and tablets.
Contrary to Edelman's claims, you can also build commercially viable operating systems off Android without Google Mobile Service (GMS) apps. Or, at least, you can try to. That's exactly what Mozilla is doing with Firefox OS. And, Canonical's Ubuntu Touch started out using CyanogenMod Android for its foundation. 
Indeed, it still uses Android during its initial boot up.
software" by Richard M. Stallman's definition, but it's open enough for all practical purposes.

Myth 3. 

Google charges licensing fees for Google Mobile Services.

No, they don't. A Google representative said, "Such stories are inaccurate. Google does not charge licensing fees for Google Mobile Services (GMS). 
We will not be commenting further."
Other sources, from major Android device manufacturers, agreed. 
One top Android smartphone and tablet vendor told me, "The Guardian story's just wrong."
That's not to say there isn't a fee to create "official" Android devices with GMS. Sources both at Google and Android OEMs confirm that Google charges no fee per se, Google does require devices to be certified; and the factories that do this certification do require a fee.
This certification fee varies from vendor to vendor, device to device, and from one version of Android to another. At the end of the accounting day, it appears to average about 75 cents to a dollar per shipped device. No one, however, would confirm this amount on the record. There is, however, no licensing fee per se.

Myth 4. 

Android isn't Linux.

Come on, folks! It's always been Linux.
I think this is the source of the recurring misconception: 
In 2010, a Google engineer put his foot in his mouth and said that Android isn't Linux. 
There were some technical differences which kept Android out of the main Linux tree for a while, but they were resolved.
Even at the height of the conflict, Android was still based on Linux.
By March 2012, Android and Linux were re-merged into a single operating system.
I can't imagine that the two will ever fork again, not in any way, shape, or form.
What it all means in sum is that Android is indeed an open-source operating system and that anyone—yes, even you — can use it as the basis for their own devices, applications, and services. 
As such, it's more open than Apple or Microsoft's mobile operating systems, and it's only significant open-source competitors, are — oh the irony — were actually built on AOSP.

Dreams-X-Files-01


Dreams-X-Files-01

I deliberately censured or sanctioned only few of my dreams for private circulation, lately.

This not to annoy Maha Brahma but I had enormous amount of unfinished work.

Besides, Maha Brahma lives for eons and I have precise little time to spare, before He or Director of Apaya, International calls me for his recreational activity in the Apaya Hell Service Server.

Thanks the second letter is not R and the last letter is not E (XRXE).

Besides, I might deprive both of them by attaining Nirvana in this life, since if I have really finished, all the unfinished quota of work, I intend to do while alive and well and my memory being intact for those tasks, there is no need for me to carry on regardless.

I sometime think by stroke of luck if my memory fails and those tasks are no longer remembered, I have a strategic leeway.

Then no need for me to go on or call for another round of birth to finish the tasks, I could not finish.

Ether way, my memory being intact, I was busy doing lot of things on the fly, so to speak.

Having said that, the dream I had at 5.55 am yesterday was a nice one to be sent to Maha.

This dream was unusual.

It has never happened before.

I was up 5.55 am sharp, half an hour before my usual break in sleep with the alarm clock buzzing and another half an hour, charge up, and really get out of the bed and gear myself for another day of chore.

I was annoyed but it was a nice short dream.

I have accomplished one of my wakeful hour (“I have a dream type” of Martin Luther King) dreams, writing or developing a Linux Game for Kids.

I was playing it, with a nice Walter Disney type front end.

I was so happy, I left the dream world to enjoy in wakeful state.

Then when I was woken up, I was annoyed for breaking the sleep half an hour early and also annoyed that Maha has intervened in my dream state.


He has a nice attitude for me; if the second half of the dream is bad, fearing I get a heart attack in my dreams, he interferes with my dream and fills up gap story with his inter-planetary chat, he has with me.

Nonetheless, I decided to drop to sleep, since yesterday being Saturday and Kandy Perehara in full steam, I was forcefully and by default housebound and the unthinkable happened.

I dropped to sleep almost instantaneously and back in the dream world.

As it were to complete the dream.

The second time, I was test playing the game with some kids to see its childproof ability.

To my amazement one kid played with it and there was a mathematical quiz which he changed and the characters changed sex immediately.

This not something I intended in the game but the kid found a way to tease me and manipulate, picture characters.

I must tell this was done in French with all the non-command line text in French (I was revising my little ability in French) and I felt the guy did change my French text into command line.

Mind you French applies sex character to every noun in its vocabulary.


So I asked him and requested for him to show how he did the trick.

He was nasty brat and he immediately switched off the console.

I was annoyed for the second time in as few minutes as, may be five minutes (in my dream state), I was woken up again.

To see that was a dream and immediately switched back to dream mode (new found ability and the discovery dreams can be reactivated if the GAP time of wakeful state is short enough) and the kid did the same thing couple of times and every time he did it, I was absorbed in his skill in the sleep more and more realizing if I get annoyed, I would be woken up and the dream would terminate.

By the way, I wanted the game to be childproof as well as child friendly.

This went on and on and both me and the kids were enjoying the game (unfortunately, I cannot remember all the details) very much.

Finally, I got up at 11.00 am with a very relax mood.

In all I have dreaming for five hours and I could remember only 15 minutes of it.

This dream was unusual and it got to be sent to Maha for interpretation since, I know I had been dreaming for five hours and was very happy.

Maha will pick the GAPS, that I cannot remember anymore and to be put in print for posterity for all to enjoy.

As usual Maha was prompt in video chat.

Long time, no see.

I said it was very short time.

But for me no dream from you is a long time.

Why any problem with you.

No, No.

I was busy and the dreams were mediocre and nothing exciting.

But why now.

I told him.

The weather was fine and lot of raining in the hill country.

But there is drought elsewhere, you know.

But we have Perehara in Kandy and it is held to get blessings from Rain Gods and not Sun Gods.

But it is to be Sun Gods to begin with and during the Perehara and Rain Gods comes at the end of the Day Perahara, you know?

I told him, I had a secret deal with one of his subordinate gods and requested him to have 10 days of rain, during the festival.

It is naughty of YOU.

You must not interfere with traditions.

Hang the traditions.

If we had a dry spell poor baby elephants captured illegally would burn their feet in scorching, sun.

That was my rationale and your nice god could not refuse.

You are very clever.

They had captured over 200 and more than half died only 80 left and one of them is with a sitting judge.

Is that so?

Yes the remaining 80 will die of over work and sun strokes.

Well in that case, I have no qualms.

In any case, now everything end to front and not face forwards with shoddy deals like capturing baby elephants, changing their sex, identity theft and also identity cards and passports.

Why passports?

Well they have to go abroad every time an entourage takes the flight.

Do they come back?

No.

Why?

They are traded for foreign currency to pay debts.

Are they expensive.

Yes with “Gaja Muthu” and other paraphernalia like ivory are lot expensive  nowadays.

How many elephants left in the jungle.

According to official figures 5500 (2009) and with over 1000 births after the end of the war and only 500 were officially and unofficially captured alive or dead, in 2014 there are 6000 in the wild, recorded on Registered Paper.

You are joking.

I am not, that is the official figures.

I know elephants do not procreate that fast and only in 10 years,you know.

If there are 3000 she elephants and one in three is pregnant and the bull elephants must be having a gala time know, making them pregnant.

The miracles are happening in this country, especially in the "wilder beasts" and it is quite possible, since it is on official record.

Then,  he begged me to give the real records.

I told him 200 are killed every year and 1000 are feared dead during five years.

My estimate is only 2000 left and at this rate of habitat lost and rapid development and expansion, they will be potentially extinct by another regime change or so.

What is a regime change?

It is the time when the “power grab, power grip and power grid” change, usually 30 years, currently on the 21st annual running.
We had 17 years of curse, now we are going through 21st year of the Curse (over 35 years was the curse was spent on War Effects)  but it may go on indefinitely. 

It is only counted in marathons years, now.

That is not good for democracy, know.

Who the hell who cares for democracy now, it is only autocracy with a rubber stamp of democracy by crazy elections ad hoc and never on time.

Any more news.

No mosquitoes because of rain.

No work due to festivals.

Just in NATO mode, No Action Talk Only, especially for reconciliation and UNO probing of crimes of war.

Yes crimes of war, in Ukraine, Gaza, Iraq, Syria and Central Africa.

Only we are free of war but Navi Pillai and Bunki Moon want to probe us nevertheless and never in Israel.

Why is that.

You should ask Obama, not me.


Shall we get on with the interpretation of the dream?

OK.

Is there a second part?

No.

Is it futuristic?

Yes and NO.

Why?

It is related to your elections, election monitoring and computer games?

It is futuristic, know?

But I cannot give the time schedule exactly?

Why?

Your President is very crafty?

I have not have a measure of him yet.

He is unpredictable.

That is why I said Yes and No.

Yes for elections and no for the exact time.

But it is in the stars above know?

You mean the gods.

No, no the solar system and planets.

Do people still believe in planets and their movements, when probes are sent to monitor meteorites?

It is absurd.


This is the Awakening, the Renaissance, Revival of of modern science, you know.

But not in Sri-Lanka, unfortunately with science education, English, and mathematics gone down the Hela / Hell, the nasty precipice.

What is the outcome?

I cannot tell you with this new computers the the election commissioner has acquired.

Its speed is so fast and it is accurate to about 100 decimals and they have already predicted the winner.

Then why elections?

One need to spend the money and time, you know.

You mean to say, you cannot predict the outcome.

I am sorry.

But then all the candidates go and have prayers for gods, you know.

You got to remember there are no elections in heaven.

We have only merits.

No demerits.

So we do not understand.

We do not have monitors too.

We monitor ourselves well, so there is no need.

What about the computer games?

That I can tell you.

We love games and especially, computer games.

I ran your game with the kids in your dream mode.

I enjoyed it a lot.

In fact, I was there disguised as a kid.

You could not do any whetting of me know, in your dream mode.

You were naughty?

I just like to be a kid again.

Did you enjoy my computer game?

Yes.

That is why I let you play the game with me for five hours.

Who were the other kids.

They were also gods in kids' clothing.

Well will you take me to heaven, next birth?

NO.

Why?

You cannot dream in heaven only humans and animals can do that.

Which animals dreams a lot?

Your elephants, my dear?

I thought cats.

No, No the elephants come first, they all want to come here instead of parading in festivals.

What about dogs.

They have an inborn right to be born here.

What about Buddhist politicians and monks?

Please do not send them here.

They might introduce elections here and evict me from my seat before my term of eons is over.

To me 20 to 30 years of one party in power is like an eon.

But you must activate the inner self of all the voters.

It is not my job.

But they are in deep insomnia and slumber.

They are zombies.

Just give all of them “kick in the back”.

Wake them up from slumber. 


See, you soon and he disappeared.