Sri-Lanka Internet-Download Speed

  An Old Piece for Reflection

Sri-Lanka Internet-Download Speed

 

I must report to you my elation of fast download speed was very short lived. It lasted little over two hours.

 
Most likely server script blocking customer service was out of order for a while. 

 
It is currently ZERO for my download.

 
It took half an hour to download 580 kB file (1 MiB when installed) of Gparted.
 

It is a joke to talk about Data Super High Way .

I will keep what is below for posterity.

I decided to Install Debian due to many reasons.

It took nearly 4 hours to finish, for 1.8 GiB of resourceful DVD with live updates from a repository in USA.

Si-Lankan servers are very poor and Singapore is much worse (there is no reliable Linux community base there).

Then, our Telecom has a habit of slowing the speed to 5 KB/sec, once one has downloaded 20 GiB, (an arbitrary limit) within a month.

I pay a huge bill sometimes more than for electricity.

I have cut down my downloads due to slow speed and particularly to cut down on my electricity bill.

Having said that I was downloading Linux images for upgrading and on the 29^th the speed was very very slow, I could not even download the tiny torrent link file of SkoleLinux, a Debian Derivative (dedicated for school work).

I thought this was due to me exceeding the 20 GiB.

I have to wait for the next month to get my usual download speed.

I had to stop downloading Emmabuntus, a French derivative specially dedicated to schools in Africa.

Just little while ago, I activated the torrent to see that it is running at over 100 KB/sec.

I had a thought for a while.

A miracle?

Couldn't be?

But my gut feeling is that the ruling party is using its final thrust with the Internet propaganda and we have got a little bonus till January 8^th.

I hope Telecoms take a giant leap (in other countries including Singapore download speed is in Giga bites and Terra bites), come next year and speed up our Super Slow Internet Highway.

I do not think it does cost as much as, the down to earth, building a Speedy Motor Highway.

If they use tiny fraction of the money that were wasted for motor ways, it can make a big change in the IT industry.

Monday, December 29, 2014

Good Bye, to my Old Flame PCLinux-KDE

Good Bye, to my Old Flame PCLinux-KDE

Please bear with me for the unkind words.

PCLinux was my old flame.

I entered into Linux Live with a CD, I found in a stall selling pirated copies of multimedia including Microsoft Windows 98, with PCLinux xfce desktop.

I have been using Redhat, Mandriva, Fedora and with lot of pain Debian (that experience with Debian come good even now, namely expert or text based installation, with adequate warning) and Live CD was a new and welcome experience.

Why take the trouble to install.

 

Test it first.

Try Live, and then use it if it suits and agrees with your taste.

That is what I do NOW, since I need to test my old hardware, which are working well except the excessive consumption of electricity (I have discarded all 13 of them in one go).

I have dismantled 7 of the 13 old computers and two computers irreparably damaged due to Power Outage (which is common in Sri-Lanka and UPS batteries do not last long and are of poor quality).

Now I use only three computers, one for my wife (32 bits) and two for me (one 32 bits and one 64 bits rarely used).

 

I am bit like Textstar of PCLinux, who took a long hard look at 64 bit before retiring from active work.

? Why Change?

I hate KDE (there is KaOS a lighter version which I have not tried regularly to give you any recommendation) due its bulk and excessive resource hunger when in use.

That is why I use Peppermint, the best currently available light weight, Ubuntu derivative, cloud enhanced, and a Google based distribution.

As I said I have already gone back to the versatile Debian Linux and I am currently working on it with a SkolLinux theme behind my LibreOffice 3 application (it is currently on 4.3.3).

Debian is stable (there is also testing unstable version) and won't change to new versions by default (Texstar Wisdom) and use stable applications and probably have removed all utilities with fringe benefits by conviction.

Now I  come to PCLINUX without Texstar Wisdom.

It loads all the latest WiFi blue tooth, USB SATA ultra ports without testing the current but MY OLD hardware (deamons).

It is coming from America and like an average American thinks that all global citizens have;

1. Everybody has an email.
   
   
2. Everybody has a private jet.
   
   
3. Every body has a private holiday villa (Americans never use their holiday wisely, always it becomes a working holiday).
   
   
4. No wonder they are the sickest and global leaders of proprietary drugs use (in addition to hashish, OTC) them for mundane medical issues, like cholesterol.
   
   
5. The average income of a citizen is 5 million dollars a year.
   
   
   Let me explain, the Sri-Lankan context.
   
   
   a. Old guy above 55 (regularly go to temple to browse the Internet FREE, often to browse porn on Nena Sala) now well into retirement never wants to pay for any service. 
   
   
   His pension is not enough for 10 days.
   
   
   b. Does not have an email but uses his son's email. 
   
   
   c. Never returns a call from his mobile and often at 10 am in the morning it is switched off.
   
   
   d. Mobile is exclusively for Private and Selfish (survival instinct) Work.
   
   
   e. Never send a greeting card to a friend to say he or she already exists on this planet.
    
   Only browse and never answer or say OK or return kind regards or Cheers (he/she is unhappy and wants others to be the same).

f. His existence is for a better life NEXT birth but judiciously postpone his retirement (in other words become veritable pest like our politicians) from this planet gracefully.

Never want to bite the dust except his/her enemies.

Thee are many others issues like, over 40% children are under nourished and leave school at about (too competitive for an average child) 13 to 14 years.

They are easy prey to drug lords (who are Ministers of the ruling class) and become three wheeler drivers peddling drugs, often to young students in the universities.

I think with election campaign in full swing and floods in many parts of the country, few lines on, those issues are relevant.

1. Coming back to PCLiux KDE, only 10% in this country uses Internet.


2. Most of the MPs have a laptop but does not know how to use it but sell it on the black market.
 

3. We use pirated copies of operating system even in the universities.

4. Only 32 (thirty two) in the entire country of 24 million, uses Linux as a regular desktop according to Distrowatch Counter Statistics for the last five years (of achieving the miracle IT Status).


5. Many use old computers discarded from USA/UK/Canada, poorly refurbished.


6. ALL the software copies are pirated or used by foreign residents (duplicate the foreign users identity, authentication here).


7. They want the cheapest but the most modern utilities (coming from the background of FREE TEXTBOOKS) without any cost. 
 
They do not respect copyright law or use Open Software as an alternative.


8. They pawn parents' gold and jewellery for a smart phone or a second hand laptop.


9. Most of the visitors to my Linux 100 are foreigners including, USA, Russia and Ukraine. 


Very few Sri-Lankans visit my site but they are for my political satire (not Linux).
 
I have removed the political stuff. 
 

Often editors of the national papers who run short of ideas for editorials.


10. Editors of the national papers are stooges of the ruling elite and write only items that pleases the rulers, never for Yatath Vasiya (the subjects).


11. On that scenario PCLinux has failed me.


My RAM is 1 GiB and many has less RAM on a refurbished computer (mine too but well maintained due to use of Linux) often discarded from USA (just like in some African countries).


My Hardware is old.
 
PCLinux KDE;


It boots up very slowly.


It freezes without any warning (both mouse and keyboard).


It looks for non-existent  WiFi.


It looks for non-existent  Sata USB (I connect SATA it only when I need).


It does not configure the Ethernet and Internet is disabled.


So I will continue not use it with my previous experience of burning irreplaceable graphic cards.


It has a pleasing theme with a non functional desktop probably due to excessive use of RAM and resources.


Worse of all, after one our of patient waiting to FREE the RAM, I could not restart. 


For my luck, while waiting for it to recover and release the RAM, I picked my mail to see Linux Magazine, February issue had arrived.


Hang PCLinux, I have to read it before even I have my regular cup of coffee.


It is my current flame, anyway!


Lot of nice articles and an issue I had been pondering while (Flash of ADOBE in its final lap with HTML 5 in USE) installing Debian, Flash or gnash?


While, I was reading the Magazine and sipping the coffee, electricity went off and my agony of restarting it off from the PCLinux KDE was solved by our exorbitant BUT poor Electricity Board.


I sometime think it is a better alternative to wait for the electricity to FAIL, than to PRESS the off button of my OLD computer.


Doing that will effect the BIOS, Graphic Card and sometimes the RAM with irreparable damage.


So Good Bye to my Old Flame (no flame wars intended) PCLinux but a Happy New, (2015) Year, all the same.


I must tell you, I won't download and test or use LXDE or KDE mini (there is hardly any utilities to use in them).