Tuesday, June 29, 2021

TPM, UEFI, and Microsof Monopoly

Microsoft's strategy is to interfere with your freedom of choice.

Having failed with UEFI, Microsoft is bringing in another ploy to hoodwink gullible customers.

Do not get caught.

Within weeks I found a way to scuttle UEFI.

Simple.

Go to BIOS and activate It.

Better still use Gpt and use only Linux partitions and install Linux a d say Good Bye to Windows.

The latest ploy that will misfire is TPM.

Trusted Program Module.

The P stands for PAY to PLAY.

If you have money pay by all means but if you're a pensioner stick with Windows till 2025 and kick the bucket thereafter.

Microsoft want only your money and not your wellbeing.

People are just recovering from the pandemic and money you saved should not be spent on a gadget to upgrade your computer with a hardware module and service charge to go with It, to get latest Windows 11.

It is not a brand new operating system but a glossy front end advertisement campaign.

If you have money go and buy Apple computer but if short of cash go for Lenova with Linux 15 kernel.

Even Google's Chromebook is expensive but it does not need TOM upgrade.

If you are lucky and your PC or Laptop supports it, go to BIOS and change to, TPM mode if you really want Windows.


Microsoft Windows is like an Uppish Aristocratic Woman dressed in a glamorous Sari

I forgot a few points that makes Linux stand out in space on zero gravity or one gravity on earth, is its scalability and it's different tool kits to suit the desktop environment.

The desktop can be heavy like in KDE plasma and is always limited by the RAM and hardware of the cellphone concerned.

The bloated desktop in Windows consume precious memory and little is left for functionality. That is why it's development is staggered till a new kit or new kid comes to town with new skates.

Mind you, old keyboard cellphones ran on Java.

Now that new hardware and chips are coming out thick and fast, Linux also can show its prowess and that is what Emmabsntus has done with xfs and lxtq (a brilliant upgrade to front end).

Linux has enough backend stuff unlike Windows (lot put to front end nothing left for backend and that also one has to buy the bloat ware).

Having said that Goggle series 11 is more than adequate for daily use and going for a new cellphone with version 12 and above is a waste.

My favourite of course is Nokia and my old flame GreenTel I have not tested for many years.

Now this 5G connectivity is not going to have any effect in Ceylon due to poor infrastructure development by All Services local and foreign.

We are cash struck for another 50 years and ban-omics is the order of the day and do not throw away your old gadgets.

I cannot think of a better description than the above comparison to a Sari.

Sari may look beautiful but the lady behind is still old without innovations.

Instead of writing about Windows, this piece is about Linux Kernel 15 and a bit of politics at the end.

The distribution used in explaining new stuff is Emmabantus.

After a long period of hibernation Emmanantus team from France had done a credible job.

Linux is 30 years old and I have been using it over 20 years and exclusively over the past 5 years or more.

I am more critical of Linux than Microsoft.

That is how Linux improves leaps and bounds.

A swipe at Windows is due to my satire dying a natural death which is coming to surface unhindered and nothing more.

I have no intention of converting a guy entangled in Windows, except saying God Bless them for using a weak element.

Humans are not infallible and let them be.

But I get annoyed by guys who have used Linux over a year during the pandemic and writing a glossy scathing overviews.

These guys come from Window's background and unable to master 10 Linux commands or had not read the Linux Bible or the very big "Linux in a Nutshell" book.

Yes Linux in a nutshell.is a very big reference book for developers.

Linux did not come into existence by chance.

It is a simple guy's challenge to his professor which the professor took it offensively and the young guy split his hairs (I mean professor's hairs) and went his own way without crowd funding to begin with but a bunch of community guys with similar interests, added market value to it's products globally.

I am not saying crowd funding is the best way.

It can fail and Ubuntu currently is an example.

But Linus Torvalds kept his kernel business as his priority and the distribution development is left to focus groups and Debian keeping the repositories updated and also depreciating some dysfunctional applications.

I use AbiWord for my work for a very long time and it is not in Debian Store but Ubuntu has it in it's symantic store.

In that scenario if Ubuntu is not there I have to go back to an old Puppy Linux to work on AbiWord.

With difficulty I got it installed in Ubuntu 20-4.

What I mean here, is one cannot satisfy everybody but that is the name of the game.

Coming to Emmabantus, it has AbiWord.

Besides it has LibreOffice 7 version.

As I said earlier its kernel is 15 and kernel 15 supports version 7 of LibreOffice and no AbiWord.

LibreOffice has a kid's version and Emmabantus has it.

Emmabantus has three boot up options.

1. One for kids.

2. Two for new comers to Linux.

3. The third, the classic for guys like me who wants all the packages including old ones.

The Gimp new version which I did not test is there for your photo editing.

VML is there for my videos.

It has MultiSystem Utilitu to make bootable USB with multiple portable Linux distributions with xfs (not with Debian with enormous packages to boot in one go) capability.

Having said that I now use Plasma KDE of Debian for my regular work.

Debian has 7 or 8 other desktops for my light work.

Emmabantus use only xfce and lxtq to prevent memory over surge.

No hard feelings, though.

Then Ubuntu is in a new mode to take Google face up with it's Web Development Kit.

I support it whole heartedly since Google is trying the "Microsoft Strategy" of putting glossy stuff to lure gullible customers, since Fdroid (? Is it Linear OS) guys or JinglyOS guys from China (is crowd funding for a new OS and gadgets).

The Coronavirus has made explosion of technology and airlines going bankrupt has made people having money in their hands for spending (not efficiency in governments like UK and EU but people realising all governments are useless unless they spend money not for high rising compact buildings or 5S capability but  good solid infrastructure for hospitals and social welfare for the vulnerable).

My only problem is I have stopped travelling not due to Coronavirus but due to cash shortage but I had been economising long before Coronavirus (Telecom bills, electricity bills but not on water bills to keep plants from wilting in dry weather), knowing very well the Ceylonese Government is in global debts will introduce ban-omics and ban even Western Digital new external hard disk to try kernel 15 stuff in my spare time.

I am now short of USBs and I will discard all my 32 bit Linux distributions on DVDs by burning them in spite of the environmental pollution it entails.

No option, I am short of space, too.

Books I will keep without burning since buying old books from JUNK book sales, I believe will contribute to spread of Coronavirus.

I do not go to book shops now and that also saves money.

There is a guy in Ceylon who runs a TV station built by transporting hospital refuse from Europe and dumping them in unsuspecting countries and I believe he is responsible for spreading Coronavirus in Ceylon.

Hospital mattresses from Europe wrapped in a new lining was one of his promotions not innovation.

A crafty guy whose brother was in prison for murder and dealing with illegal drugs.

There is another  guy who is a minister now murdered two university undergraduates, in my time as a young assistant lecturer (he became rich by similar drug dealings).

The Grama Niladhari tells me drugs are smuggled into the University through a small access road leading o the Engineering Faculty.

I am happy it is closed (not the road but the university) for a very long time and many of those future graduates would not find a job anyway due to economic downturn (our neighbourhood is free of drug peddlers but there are lot of exotic birds visiting).

Unfortunately stray dogs are finding it hard and some domesticated ones, too are chased out from homes due to food shortages and today I woke up with the noise of  a big Dog Fight in our neighbourhood.

That is how life is progressing.