Diagnostic Dream Drama

I am gone fully Wireless on my work table.

No clutter but two wireless gadgets I bought a decade ago, do not work, now.

One configured with Microsoft and I use only Linux, the other for wireless keyboard and mouse.

They all have only one year warranty.

For writing one need a clean granite plate (Gal Lalla as kid) or work place.

I keep up all night and sleep during daytime.
That is my routine to thud all mosquitoes who hover around.

The pouring rain I do not need watering my water plants but mosquito menace had resurfaced.

I sleep well but do not dream at all or I do not remember any due to my physiological block of raw stories unhindered.

I overslept and this dream may be  due to that overindulgence.

It goes like this.
There was a grand party with all those who were natural friends to me was in attendance.
What I remember is ad follows.

It was held by a guy who was on as wheel chair due to ischaemic attack.

His wife who was an anaesthetist was the chief organizer.

I see my friend on the wheel chair momentarily stand erect holding on to the frame of the chair and cheering.

He was a good orator and was a good friend of Rajitha the MP.

Then there was a doctor guy and he was alone and I paired with him.

There were two invitees one male and one female both past middle age who were unknown to each other but paired instantaneously and we're in lovelock.

I remember good food and drink of old days at least dreaming of the food itself was energizing with food scarcity of the present.

I am into one meal a day and my sleeping may be due to prolong hypoglycemia.

I put the kettle on, suddenly the light or current went off.

I was annoyed, to say the least and decided to empty the remnant of the last rough meal.

The buckets were empty of water and I filled them up before voiding.

Luckily light came again I had my cup of tea without which I cannot function.

So before I forget I decided to record it here and that will be inserted in as chapter with more additions from the wakeful state of my mind and affairs of topical importance.

The rain in spite of mosquitoes is all welcome, without which we will be starving by January.

AbiWord, SOT Office, OpenOffice and LibreOffice

This piece is long.

I am a writer, Doctor by profession (off from medical registration register for 22 years) and lastly a University Teacher for over 15 years.

Never wanted to become a professor.

University is an institution and it owns the individual and his / her status, when one works for one and long after one's exit from the institute and has copyright ownership of all the writings one may wish write.

In my time, in Ceylon one had to pay over Rs.35,000/= to get a copy of a chapter you wrote for them but was published by its printing press.

University sometimes owns a printing press too.

My university did not and the printing press doing the printing was near our house.

It is no more and gone bust since practically every university is defunct after pandemic closure (delay in having university entrance examinations and also delay in opening the university for those who already qualified).

Many of them have given and few a lucky one found a place in a foreign university.

I joined University as a permanent member well past 55 years and was a hard nut to crack.

University discontinued me on false grounds three times and I fought back only by threatening to take them to courts of law.

University has a lawyer of low caliber and always fear litigation.

I am a freelance writer and I self publish my books at Amazon books.

I am currently doing 5 books at my leisure and in the book of unique personalities I met in my life, I have a chapter on a nice guy who was the assistant registrar (only one registrar and the rest are assistants to the registrar) of the medical faculty.

He was a very nice guy and he was unceremoniously discharged from the university because he did not bend the law to satisfy the then Dean or the Vice Chancellor.

Reason, I do not know and my guess is one of the dons wanted to adjust the pass marks or class marks of one of his student stooges, probably of the opposite sex.

Registrar records the marks on a register and once entered by hand the marks cannot be altered and this is done individually and later checked in the presence of board of examiners.

In the examination board the board collectively decide to allocate additional minimum marks to pass a guy or girl who has failed the subject 4 or 5 times.

I have failed only one guy (foreign) in pathology in all my 15 years in the University.

He was a very nice guy hopeless in pathology but we made him to change the course of studies and found him an alternative university in his mother country.

I have not heard about of him since then.

All these rules, regulations and bylaws come from British and lately we are relaxing them to mass produce medical guys for export.

This guy fought the university for over 16 years or more and he won with meagre compensations.
He was not allowed to step into or legally barred from his ulma mater for life for standing firm on right side of the law.

It an inhumane place and I am glad I am no longer a part to it.

When politicians get involved in academic matters, they ruin everything.

The current president started as a state ministe of education.

He dismissed, the principle of the Issipathana School, Mr.Alles who did not bend to his wishes on flimsy grounds.
He fought back and won but  started the first private school, Gateway International.

My daughter worked there and one of my middle school teachers became the director of this school after retirement.

He was a very sweet guy coming from a Catholic School.

Now my superior professor who recruited me was removed from University Grant Commission by the current president unceremoniously.

It was a political assignment made by Chandrika.

My professor had a grand plan for the entire University System and current president ruined it and appointed a political appointee as the Chair of the UGC.

My professor and his wife another professor left to Switzerland and never returned.

Current president's boss JRJ wanted to ruin all of the university education to introduce private universities.

We fought him head on against his attempts to ruin it, to keep the universities as semi-autonomous institutions (with a huge Senate to administer the independence of each, in academic matters of national interest).

In Ceylon teachers are recruited as puppets or prostitutes of the government in power.

Just now I hear the band playing and the teachers are paraded like school kids in the teacher training college by reserved Army Officers.

Training teachers to be Subservient to the Army.

We are a Police State currently will soon become an Army State.

Teaching is low priority and subsevience is the name of the game.

This is why I wish NOT to be born again in Ceylon.

I am far off the target and I will start with Abiwotd and OpenOffice.

It all started with my University Thesis which I did on my PC with 1MB VGA and 128 MB on RAM on all floppy disks.

Working on floppy is a pain.

Every few minutes one has to save the file and Microsoft Office 95 with Macros was a pain.

I decided to make a print ready pdf (portable document format) file of my Thesis.

I was a camera man and photography was my hobby (not anymore) and turning my photos to png (portable network graphic was my forte for file transfer, in the old days of the Internet) and sending it to a friend abroad, was my intention.

So portable documents is in my genes and Microsoft could not do it.
Accidentally I found Abiwotd and my first book on Introduction to Linux was done on Abiwotd long after my Thesis.

Our University had strict standard for the Thesis and Office 95 with Macros could not fullfil it.
I went through SOT Office, Open Office 1 and 2 and found that OpenOffice removed Windows Macros in a flash (AbiWord does it much better).

That was the beginning.

I opened my Thesis done on Windows Office 95 in OpenOffice and it warned me (this is to remove incompatibility of DOS and ODF - open document format and currently it is called ODT) and removed all the Macros in one fullsweep.

Then I could make my Thesis exactly to the University Requirements and not a single dot or comma or statistics image needed any editing in the final document.

By the way, I printed tons of pages after every editing session.

Photocoping was cheap then.
The faculty had several photocoping machines.

Now another point of conviction.

I did not want to give my copyrights to the University and gave them the minimum data needed to get my MPhil.

The PhD thesis which I did parallel with the MPhil was published as one of my own books named Human Placental Morphology.

I own it and it is a classic in this field.

I did a book on Microscope, too.

Microscope including digital microscope which I own, is one my childhood fantasy or dreams.

Looking at tiny microbes live or stained was more interesting than looking at them in two dimensional pictures in books.

Of course, I did a few books on Buddhism, too.

Let me finish with my simple Buddhist Outlook.

Buddha a human collosal lived a very simple life.

His forte was mental vigility.

I am trying hard to understand his teachings and being a scientist myself have had no luck so far.

All what I can say is, it is supermundane.

The science and Linux I am talking about are mundane stuff.

The AbiWord with about 28MB of footprint in which I did all my books of print ready pdf formats was an absolutely fantastic discovery by accident.

OpenOffice also had pdf facility.

I am currently doing my first book on LibreOffice 7.3 installed in my Debian 15.2.1. as the default office package.

I sometime do the rough copy in LibreOffice and fine tune last with AbiWord.

AbiWord's page formates are finely tuned in headers, footers and chapters.

I will report back when it is over.

It looks OK but I am in my steep learning curve and do not like it's English spelling (American bias and coming from France no wonder) talents.

I have my Oxford dictionary by my side always.

I will finish with a Chinese YouTube presentation on chip industry.

The guy said one need not overtake the arse in front and chose a different lane to overtake or go for new Innovations.

They are selling the Norwegian Lithographic machines and currently on course of their own printing machines.

Chinese character language has no limitation in vocabulary and most probably need one such machine of their own.

I do not blame them.

At least then the Chinese guys won't kill the Queen's Language.

The King Charles should look after his mother tongue and his own tongue twisting.

Excuse me for typos.

I will edit this later after my single meal (a day).

I can survive on a single meal simply because English Tea is my Engine of Drive.

Regime Change in Reverse Order and the CIA Curse

Ukrainian President is a direct CIA proxy.

X-elensky curse should be renamed as CIA Curse!

What they plotted against President Putin is now working against the original plotters of the USA hegemony.

Last to fall would be President Biden (his son's Barisama deal is still hidden in a laptop) and the Democratoc party's crusade against war mongers and Military Industrial Complex is revealing its potential by bringing in the New World Order.

Great Reset is reversed.

The EU is in disarray and blasting Russian Pipeline was the ultimate catalyst (by American vested interests).

American LG Gas ploy is creating havoc world wide and Russian coffers are filling with Ruble.

Why CNN, Fox News, Sky News and BBC are hiding behind and bidding their own demise under the curtain of Regime Change?

Plot has backfired this time round.

Japan's PM was first to go then followed by Italy, Germany and UK.

Macron's double dealings world can no longer tolerate.

Collapse and End of EU and NATO are on the offing.

BRICS and not UK will emerge from the Ashes of Phoenix.

What a turn around?

In this scenario, next to fall is Poland even before a single missile is directed at its CIA headquarters.

Poor Polish boys on the ground will be soon decimated by winter, if they do not revolt and return to barracks on lock stock and barrel.

In history Poland always backed the losing horse.

History repeats again for Poland.

My entry here is to highlight the reality on the ground or see the ground situation in real daylight, since the Faked News that is doing the rounds can no longer sustain their credibility.

Lies, Lies and damn lies not cooked up statistics that are doing the undoing of the Western Hegemony.

I am totally against war.

Sanity should prevail to save young lives on the battlefield on both sides.

All these OLD Guys holding to power by slogan of Regime Change in Russia should be ousted from power to reap the benefits of the New World Order, while the  silicone valley revolution of smart phones and Steam Deck and Dock are beyond the reach of an average citizen in Ceylon.

We in Ceylon are on hand to mouth existence.

We should play War Games only on a console or wide screen.

That is my solution to the problem of war mongering.

Economic crisis and social disorder will take more than 20 years to recover.

I would be long gone by then.

Australian and New Zealand's subtle racism  and not the shuttle diplomacy is also on the ascendency created in the backdrop of Coronavirus blockdown.

I have no regret of leaving New Zealand 30 years ago.

It does not matter one meal a day in Ceylon (due to our dependency on wheat flour) for healthy adults and Manioc is not for our poor kids.

They need a high protein vegetarian diet.

The Manioc is no substitute but I love Manioc bites much more than the potato bites.

I am becoming a couch potato in politics not by design but by circumstances.

War Films, War Games, Star Wars and Elon Musk

My futuristic prediction long time ago on a theoretical level was that the future wars are fought in space and whoever who dominates space if he or she does not win  the war will decimate the planet earth.
I had no idea of the Russia and Ukraine conflict.
What had happened is

1. Actor becomes a president
2. Star Link provide the ground information
3. Ultrasonic missiles enter the fray
4.;Robots designed in country far remote in technology rain the sky of Ukraine

I am against any type of war.
I love films but not American War Films or Armageddon.

So it time for Elon Musk to step aside from space and become a film producer.
Then he should get Ukrainian president as his chief actor.
Not current war which has no monetary value for theatre goers (the lies are redundant and superfluous to film industry) but Stat Wars III should be the title.

Elon Musk can recover some of the money lost by deactivating (by Russia) of the hundreds of his satellites by entering the film industry.

He will also bolster the flagging image of a actor become impotent president.

Of course he should remain in the bunker provided by France and never think in terms of floating in space like an astronaut.

To become an astronaut one need lot of steel and this guy has no clout with the hammering he gets from President Putin.

Nobody should think of making a film about President Putin because nobody with correct sense attempt it lest he gets bumped off for misrepresenting real facts.

Putin Drama was created and played by America and CIA and it is based on damn lies of historical facts.

What about President Biden.

He is only second to Ukrainian president and has no value as an actor (all his life he was acting like one as the Vice President and given the right mantle  on top he squandered it by diplomatic inaction) by many a miles and he has become a puppet on strings of military industrial complex or MIC.

Transition of Big Form Factor to Small Form Factor

It's all about Energy and Economics.

Let me dish out a fact, first.

Do not Use Chinese DeepIn Linux.

It destroyed one of the last two IDE HDD I have.

I mounted IDE on an external case and installed DeepIn.

It booted once and did not boot again.

I tried to format the IDE and I couldn't.

It won't mount and it could be a ploy by Chinese to destroy old hardware and computers using a backend tools, unknowingly so that the user has to buy a new one.

It perhaps may be due to DeepIn's faulty GRUB.

Either way I lost one IDE even though I am going to depreciate all IDE hardware including CD/DVD drives.

My first PC of 10GB cannot be mounted Microsoft's Windows 95 destroyed it's boot record.

It looks like Chinese are taking a leaf out American Bill Gate and employing it's counter mechanisms against the American hegemony.

The other IDE of 80GB is mounted on an nice aircraft quality  aluminium external case and it has MultiSytem installed with many Linux distributions installed.

That is an entry point to to the transition of technology.

My gut feeling is Intel will discontinue Ryzen and Radeon in gradual steps.

If you are an Intel fan it is time to buy them now since there is a glut of graphic cards.

This warning is to the game players.

You should design your own game box provided you have space in your living room.

Time to design a VM Box too.

VM is graphic intensive.

This is true for AMD and NV or New Video, too.

I had a 512MB NV card and mounted it on my old PC.

It looks like the integrated graphic card of my ASUS motherboard is better and have better pixel density but I prefer lesser density of NV card since all the pictures and fonts are bigger at boot time and there is no eye strain at boot time.

I can adjust them to my needs if I desire.

I have not studied FPS, IK Resolution and Pixel density in real physiological (not in physics) terms but suffice is to say our brain can register at best 256 colours and 36 FPS at best and any advance in physics and physical dimensions of the gadget is converted to an illusion in the brain.

By the way, all digital games are an illusion of some sort.

I forgot an important point of integration of CPU and Graphic cards and heat generation in use.

Both CPU and new generation of graphic cards generate enormous amount of heat.

Choosing a proper cooling mechanism is of paramount importance and adding a few extra fans is (if the motherboard allows you) prudent.

The second point is the buss speed (may not be the correct term) of CPU should tally with the RAM speed of Graphic cards.

If not compatible these incompatibilities will effect one's gaming experience.

I leave it at that.

The buss speed of my 100 Herz per second and was not compatible with 128 of IBM server and next generation of 133 Herz per second.

I have about 20 sic RAM cards in my attic.

Consider my new NUC had 8GB RAM.

Coming to small form factor I believe Intel, AMD and NV will investigate and invest on cost of production and profit margin on the long run.

They will turn to small form factor invariably.

Mass production of them will be easy and FABs are in real demand.

The war of computer technology of America and China has already begun.

Thaiwan's silicone industry may even initiate the Third World War and it is  not certainly ny Russia.

Considering all these I bought a NUC of Intel.

Thank you Intel.

I have no money to go for AMD.

I have mounted 360GB internal and 360GB external SATA disks with my favourite Linux Distributions (unfortunately one at a time in one SATA).

Without games it is enough, till I kick the bucket.

I am thinking of buying another (one at home one on the move or fly) NUC.

Low noise and mobility are important to me in  old age.

Instead of an old USB, if I can carry my operating system in a 1 terra byte SATA is good enough for me.

I do not need these NVmew SATA disk with huge capacity which even NAS sever will envy.

I forgot another point out politicians do not care about.

We in Ceylon will buy (that include Universities and I thank God I am no longer work for universities and a free software advocate and freelancer) big form factor computers going cheap to replace our aging infrastructure with water cooling systems that cost lot more on running (with Power Cuts to deal with) costs.

They cannot even think of small form factor, low cost and low energy bills.

My Intel NUC on Linux

Intel's NUC box has a New BIOS that lets the system either boot Linux or Windows.
There is no need for EFI partition the boot medium.
NUC set itself in BIOS mode.
If lets you boot not from the chip set SATA but from an external disk attached.
However it does not let you install the distribution from a USB stick.
I just installed Debian 15 series using my PC with no FAT or EFI partition.
It's first partition is EXT4 with root.
It won't boot from my PC but it booted from the NUC.
This is my first time booting a Linux distribution by itself without being subservient to Microsoft.
Of course it was SparkyLinux showed me it can be done.
I need not tax the motherboard but let the external disk look after itself.
Noiseless booting without fan is my liking.

Organisational Skills and Japanese 5S

I am a well organised person by birth.
I think I inherit this probably from my previous birth.

I have worked with Japanese twice one in management capacity when they were developing JEB Vaccine based on Ceylon and other on academic capacity to get at least second hand microscopes.
I could not get one with a camera but bought a student's microscope with camera  for my research work.

On the second occasion I adopted 5S with enthusiasm.
Getting right first time was my motto and I did not want to redo my research.

I have met only one Japanese guy worth associating with.
All others were idiosyncratic and their inability converse with English was obvious.

I was much interested in Quality Control in Laboratory Work in Ceylon and done some work in this regard and was instrumental in Nawaloka Hospital getting the National award in mid 90s.

Quality was in my blood.

This is why I am an avid supporter of Linux Development.

My prescription is common sense and not Japanese paranoia which probably is indicated in consumer industry.

My interest was in service sector and especially in higher education.

Unlike Japanese I do not discard even a coconut shell after use.
It is hard and can be degraded to activated carbon.
Coconut fiber rubberised is very useful in making pot fillers and coconut dust has many uses apart from padding in our mettreses.
It was one of my classmates who pioneered the development of these techniques.
I do not know where he is most likely in Japan married to a Japanese girl.

Now coming to computers I have discarded all the IBM and IDE hard disks but collected an assortment of SATA disks (some internal and some external).

I did not get 5S training in computer assembly and I guess all this are done premanufacturing stage.

My job is to test their compatibility to Linux.
Debian, Ubuntu and lately I have covered Sparky Linux have mastered the technique of getting right first time round.

I did not discard any of the boxes and power cords that came with them.
Over the years I have put them in the wrong box and what I did was to put them back to their proper boxes with the items that I am not currently bnot using.
All of them have a latest 64 bit version running.

All of them are password protected and if I kick the bucket nobody can use them.
But I leave the passwords in one of my little notebooks.

Light has come up and I am back to installing Sparky Linux in my second SATA disk as a spare workplace.

Sparky Linux on My Intel NUC

The Sparky Linux 7 installer is not called Calamara but Orient Belt.

m new to Intel's NUC box which is cute and noiseless.

I love quiet mode that is conducive for my writing mode.

It is little bigger than an average cellphone but not rectangular but a perfect square which make orientation on six side meaningful.

Except for camera backside of a cellphone is redundant.

One can open the backside of NUC and slot in a small SATA hard disk.

It is portable and do not buy the bigger versions.

There are much slimmer versions from other OEM guys but they are expensive.

They will come down in price given time I wish I could buy a slimmer one before I kick the bucket.

Complete exit from this war mongering planet and galaxy.

Biggest hindrance is Power Cuts.
I have Debian in the inside chip of the NUC box and Ubuntu and Mint on a Western Digital external box.
The Visual BIOS is bit of a pain.
I mounted Sparky Linux on another WD SATA using my PC.
I could not mount it.
Finally I decided to undo chip set boot option and set it for USB boot.
After several attempts at F2 function key it booted.
I have said I have begun to like Sparky Linux and I am going to make it my workhorse.
It is Debian based and it has it's own APT application center.
It has VLC media player and Exaile music player.

I want to play some music from a Standard SD (micro SD) card.

I have not tried it yet.
Besides I have two Bluetooth speakers and music can be played without a computer.

Next problem is transferring my music downloads from my cellphone.

All these are nice entertainment for an old guy.

I end saying Sparky Linux is fabulous.

What I really like about Sparky Linux is it has brought back my memory of 8 workplaces (mind you not 8 windows cluttering the monitor) to any which I can switch and letting the others to work in the background, like downloading a Linux iso image.

Most Linux distributions are finiky    about internet connection but Sparky is not.

My advice is to install Linux without internet connection and both Ubuntu and Mint have heeded to our request and one can install without Internet.

But there is a big pause before disconnecting or looking for home site.

Just sit and wait till it comes back to install mode and partitioning.

By the way, after lot of trouble I got Emmabantus installed in my second hard disk of the PC.
I have to use a DVD and it won't boot from a USB.

Sparky Linux Installation

I have just finished installing Sparky Linux.
Unlike other Linux distributions it is happy to stay alongside other distributions and it's GRUB is similar to Ubuntu.
It says it is light wright secure and fast at boot.
It is actually fast at booting since it does not go through the file integrity checks at boot time.

Reason I tested Sparky Linux is to test it before I install Sparky Linux Game Over distribution.

It is slow to download and it has very few seeders.

My data finished in the middle of download and I won't go out for another 10 days to reload.

It's Debian based and I bet it is stable.
It uses Plasma Calamara Installer.
It's desktop is light weight and not Plasma.
It's desktop is clean without clutter and got a liking for it straight away.

It has its own application site and it supports WPS, OpenOffice and a multitude of office applications but there was no AbiWord.

It is going to be one of my regular  desktops once I install Sparky Linux Game Over.

It is going to be a healthy alternative for Steam Deck and Batoserra.

I will update my experience later and I have no hesitation of recommending it.

I downloaded Salix Linux and it looks like a replica of TrueOS.

TrueOS gone defunct and I have not used BSD for some time and I will soon be testing it.

It's installation is very cumbersome and I gave up.

Emmabantus Debian 4 Edition Installation

I had some major issues on installation of Emmabantus.

Now I know why Emmanantus could not be installed.
This distribution is meant for Africa and Asia in rural communities.
It is meant to be installed from a DVD since it has large number of packages.
It is not meant to be installed from a USB.
After partitioning with USB it looks for the DVD in the CD ROM and if the ROM is empty it hangs up.

I tried with a DVD and I had no problems.

I think the developers should work on this and allowed it to be booted from a USB.

USBs have come down in price and DVDs are being discontinued and finding a DVD is difficult and they have gone up in price.

I list them later but basically I think it is due issues with EFI partition and GRUB boot loader.

1. Number one problem was that the image I wrote in a 4GB USB was faulty.
It has over 5 Million MB files that cannot be accommodated in a 4GB USB.
Solution is to use 8GB USB.

2. I did not check that the iso image is complete and intact.

Simple way to check, is to use K3B and try to write it on a DVD (one need not have to write it to a DVD) and the K3B checks the integrity.

After 5 or more attempts of failed installation in a second hard drive I went back to Linux basics.

Check the image stored in an external SATA Disk and found it faulty.
Solution I had a spare image and redid the installation to the USB which is 8GB.

It had Fedora in the USB and I do not use Fedora at all and erased it with Emmabantus image.

3. Number 3 is Debian and Emmabantus cannot properly configure EFI partition for booting.

The GRUB file has to be written there and the Reserved BIOS Area of the old does not work now.

4. Number 4 is Debian and Emmabantus cannot look for all the distributions installed in my two hard disks of 2 terra bytes.

One terra bytes is for data which is never full.

It copies an old GRUB (already changed by me) which fails to boot to any distribution.

I do not keep a record of the partition table to change which one to boot at boot time.

5. Will you give up?

You should not.

Solution is simple.

Ubuntu has a great GRUB file and looks for everything before writing the final boot record.

6. Here how you do it with Ubuntu?

a) Install Ubuntu on any of the drives and let it take over the disk.
b) I resize the /root partition using Gpart.
c) Do not touch the EFI partition Ubuntu has created, one needs it for booting.
d) Install other distribution of your liking in the space created by the resizing.
The next distribution also takes over the rest of the disk and most of it is allocated to home partition.
e) Delete the home partition and make a new home partition smaller leaving space for a third distribution if you wish.

f) You  would find the distribution crashes at GRUB install.

Do not worry.

g) Either reinstall Ubuntu or make another copy of Ubuntu and the job is done by Ubuntu in it's Updated GRUB file.

Bottom line is before the power cut in Ceylon, I got all the distributions, I need including Linux Mint.

I have given a rough sketch of partitioning in another blog piece.

Make sure you have several swap partitions.

I install a swap partition on the boundary of each distribution.

One need not follow exactly what I have said and done, the user should feel free to experiment and get the best out your distribution.

But one should invariably have a copy of Ubuntu for posterity.

I am fast becoming an adopter of Ubuntu.

I have not yet tried Ubuntu 22-4.

Excuse me for typos.

Marathon Hardware and Software Update

I am home bound and with rainy season coming one month late, I have zero outdoor activity and my  rooftop garden need no intervention.

I planted 10 seeds of corn and only two are germinating.
No need for watering.

I have collected lot of computer gadgets and have one spare IDE hard disk and several large SATA Disks on which I had installed old copies of Linux some of them 32 bits and not booting with my PC.

I have several small SATA Disks and installed SparkyLinux on the SSD I removed from the PC.

It is only 120GB and I replaced it with 1 terra byte SATA.

I must say from the outset if not for the Ubuntu 21.10 I would not have done any of this.

I got Debian 11.4 and Ubuntu installed in my Intel NUC and I could not boot them (I have made some mistakes ) and I used another SATA external disk and installed Ubuntu and got Ubuntu and Debian booting from GRUB installed in the external disk.

This was bit annoying to say the least. I want it to be booted from the master SATA inside the NUC.

I resized the root partition of UBUNTU and installed Linux Mint and allowed it to write the GRUB on the SATA inside the NUC but it did not boot, this time round,too.

I had a little pause and studied the partition table and nothing wrong with both having EFI partitions.

I reinstalled Ubuntu on the external disk and made sure I installed the GRUB in the master or SDDa.

I made sure I selected the EFI on SDDa disk at partitioning.

It did the trick and all three Ubuntu, Linux Mint and Debian  are booting.

I did not remove the external disk, just in case but would take it out on a later date and see whether I can boot it from my old PC.

My guess is it won't since the boot record is on the SDDa.

But since I did not erase the EFI partition in the slave or external  disk there is some slight possibility of booting Ubuntu and Mint since an earlier occasion, I installed the GRUB on SDDb disk.

I mounted DeepIn on IDE mounted on an external case.
It booted once but I had an IDE of 10GB not working (remove from my first PC) and decided to put it inside the case, mount it with the PC.
Unfortunately something went wrong and the on / off switch and red diode stop flashing.
The current flows and the transformer is OK.

I think the case is dead and with it both my IDE disks.

No regrets since even though parallel data flow is consistent it is time for me to day good bye to all IDE disks.

I hate this master, slave cable select protocols and mounting only 32GB of  80GB disk.
Besides I can install only one Linux distribution.

Even 40GB SATA disk I removed from an IBM server I am going to discard.

Luckily I did not have any data in any of these disks only LINUX operating installed for testing purposes.

I have two SATA one 40 and 160.
Both are not booting and I selected the bigger one to install Ubuntu.

I accidentally dropped the case on the cement floor and everything came out in pieces and the back panel's plastic (plugs) locks broke.

Thankfully CBS did not crack.

I ised black tapes electricians use and sealed it and installed Ubuntu and it is running smoothly.

40GB SATA I cannot use it is too small for even Linux.

It is going to be discarded.

By the way, my first PC with 1MB on board  VGA and 128 RAM won't boot even with Ubuntu 5.4.
I did boot Ubuntu 5.4 on it first time round.

This happened after I tried to install Windows 98.
Windows 98 did something to the BIOS and even Puppy cannot mount on RAM now.
All Windows are pain in the Axsrxc and that is why I HATE Microsoft and stopped using Windows over 25 years ago.

It was one of my clever decisions that come good and me becoming a Linux Addict for life.

In spite of long use of Linux I still make basic mistakes not necessarily due to my mistakes.

It all due to some distributions diverging from the basics and try to do new things not time tested.

In that scenario, Ubuntu even though, I do not use regularly for my simple attachment to Debian may change eventually, since Ubuntu community is active and work hard to get things right.

Me making mistakes due to old age, learning new things (there is a price to pay for my mistakes ) does not come easy.

This site is called Linux 100 and I have done more than 1000 pieces on Linux.

It looks like time is right for me to take it easy or perhaps retire completely.

Island to Myself

This piece is about land and land grabbing of individual nations.

1. England
2. Ireland
3. Scotland
4. No Westland but there is Wales
5. There's no Eastland but east end and west end in London.
6. Iceland
7. No new land but New Zealand
8. There cannot be Sealand but only Sea.
9. There is Ceylon but no Ceyland.
10. There is no Wasteland but jungle.
11. There is desert called Dubai where soccer world cup is held with Russians spaceships hovering or monitoring the troups build up and not the football squads (where Russia is banned playing) on the grounds of desert land.

How can it be a sport when politics dominate all it's organizations and clubs.

I do not watch cricket why bother watching soccer.

It is nicer to see women playing Australian football with lot of handballs and boobs!

I missed Falkland for which Mrs.Thathhcher waged war and with American help sunk the ship Balgrano.

They only find fault with others not themselves.

Russia is no exception and Russia has the bounded right to assert itself on land and space.

NATO has to stay put until world cup football is finished.

It is nice to see a football world cup before the entire planet is blown up.

It only a wishful thinking.

Gnome Partition Tool or Gparted

First thing first.

I cannot provide a public server.
Instead, I use blog pieces through Google.

Google owns it and I have no ownership.

Unlike Twitter, Facebook or any other platform there is no censorship and I do not publish BS anyway.

I have a private server called AsokaPlus and it has no domain name.

To get a domain I need to pay a hefty monthly FEE to the local or foreign service provider.

When it began it was all free and one needed only an email to register and Gmail was non existent.
 

I started with Yahoo and it is my oldest email and it is all free and no censorship.

The internet had become a cesspit and how much filth is poured against President Putin and Russians unlike British and American media who live on faecal matter or filth.

Russia if one cares to visit one of the cleanest country on this planet.
 

Gparted of Gnome

It all started with a PC and FAT partition of Microsoft Windows.

DOS was the forerunner.

FAT 16 and 32  (sadly no 64) had the total market share except for Apple hardware and software. One still need to have at least one (1) MB start up partition to boot.

It changed to Microsoft Linux killer UEFI and now we have a solution called 500MB odd EFI partition to boot independent of Windows. Lot of politics involved and money exchanged. I do not want to be a part of it in my full retirement.

I am an avid user of G.P.T or Gnome Partition Tool.

My first book on Linux is how to partition a hard disk and dual boot with Windows XP. I started with 2GB hard disk with Windows with C, D and E partitions.

I have not used Windows for over 20 years and what little little I remember is, that I used Partition Magic tool installed in Windows to delete E partition and install Linux having partitioned with ext3.

There was a limitation of 15 partitions.

Only 4 primary partitions were allowed and 11 others were logical partitions on the last extended partition.

3 primary partitions and one extended in total.

I have to invariably use swap partition of twice the size of the RAM.

Swap rolls over the memory pages that cannot be accommodated by RAM in one sitting. Windows have not figured out a solution and they now depend on the cloud and with Elon Musk taken out of context by President Putin, the Cloud Solutions are not going to be viable and tricky for every American, British and Ukrainian citizen.

So I am left with 10 partitions and I would mount instances Mandrake, Suse and Redhat on those 10 partitions. Mandrake is no more and Mageia coming from France failed to live up to an average Linux user.

I gradually moved to Debian and never used Ubuntu but I am now liberal with Ubuntu and it's follower Mint.

Basically, whatever the Linux distribution I use, I have a disk Partition Tool of my own choise to partition the disk and later finalise the GRUB boot loader, on a Efi partition. I believe, unlike MBR or Master Boot Record, Efi can sit anywhere on the disk but I have never tried it, other than the first partition.

Earlier boot loader was LiLo.

Nobody uses LiLo (? Linux loader) because of the robust GRUB.

Coming back to GPT, the new partition tool has gone beyond 15 partition limitation and my slave disk had 41 partitions. Problem with lot of partitions is,        it takes ages for GPT to read them.

Mind you partitions are written in ones and zeros and it takes a along time read and write.

Avoid resizing partition since it takes a long time.

I have decided to keep my partition table under 25 and I have Debian 11, Debian 12.1..., Ubuntu, Mint, and Emmabantus Installed at various times. Currently three (3) Debian installations are one of Ubuntu on 5GB partition have been my choice. I have fallen out of Emmabanuts and Mint, since, they cannot configure GRUB to Multiboot

I have Partition Magic CD which has gone commercial and it boots to RAM and CD is ejected.

It has many utilities including Gparted.

Gparted is from Debian.

It takes a little time to learn using GPT and         I really like rewriting the partition table which voids everything without the need for erasing with 1s and 0s.

I have the habit of erasing my USBs using Debian disk partition tool. Debian's partition tool is limited in configuring the partitions but it is very good at erasing, evrything in the USB but tales a long time to do that, as I said before.

Never try to erase a big hard disk it might take half a day or more. So one must sit down and write down the needs and the number of partitions, on a piece of paper.

One can have up to 9 partitions for a Linux distribution install but I am happy with 5, /boot, /root, /home, /var and /tmp.

By the way one can mount Linux in one partition and that is the strategy Ubuntu uses.

So four distributions installed  means 20 partitions, in total for me.

There are several partition types.

I love journalized ext4.

I hate btrfs because of its redundancy.

Reifs is used by Knoppix.

Xfs by BDS and Endless Os.

Xfs does not allowed resizing and takes over the hard disk.

I really like the ufs file system.

I use different types, so that when I glance, the table written on a paper I know which distribution is in which type of partitions.

I love organization Linux since I am a well organized man all my life. I follow the Japanese 5S principle and get it right first time round is my moto.

One does not need to repeat boring protocols.

I am going to, my book writing mode and none will be digital (this guy called Indian Gupta who steal or plagiarize copyright material as his own).

Ubuntu the Linux with Best GRUB Boot Loader

I have recovered from the Linux Panic Mode and I installed two copies of Ubuntu one each on the 1GB SATA Disks.

Ubuntu's GRUB is fabulous and nothing to compare with.

I was under the impression that I had IDE spare disk.

I was wrong (I did not care to open the PC and look).

In any case it was working well over 8 years and why bother?

It is now in better order with two Ubuntu copied installed (I will change one copy to 22.4, once it is downloaded, soon).

The motherboard had all SATA ports and none IDE.

I have a IDE to SATA port PCI slit into the PCI slot in the mother board but I have no IDE disks left.

I have discarded them and changed to SATA.

I have three spare SATA Disks.

1. 40GB not enough to install even Ubuntu.

2. 120GB just enough for Ubuntu.

3. 250GB with Ubuntu copy installed.

No slots in the mother board for IDE.

Luckily I had only one 80GB brand new hard disk and I loaded it to an external IDE case and booted DeepIn Chinese Linux.

I had 120 SSD with no master boot record which removed yesterday with only one distribution installed.

I put in an external vase but Intel NUC BIOS won't boot it.

It needs EFI code signal.

All the other distributions were in the 1GB  SATA including my regular Debian.

I have two terra bytes and I have lot of spare space and probably would be installing SparkyLinuxGameOver.

I am not going to try Batoserra and Steam.

One game player is enough for me.

Cost of Download by Dialog

For 2.4GB download of SparkyLinuxGameOver costs me Rs.800/= in half an hour.

In other words each Rupee gives me 3MB.

SparkyLinux is nearly 4GB.

It costs me roughly Rs.1200/= for one image and I am not going to write anything about Linux in Ceylon after I have downloaded Ubuntu 22.4 and SparkyLinux.

It is torrent download and if I tried direct download it would cost me more.

I was in Linux Panic Mode since my computer went completely dead.

It took few hours to figure out the CMOS battery was dead.

This battery is little over Rs.500/= and luckily, I had a spare battery.

My better half always ask me why I by two.
I say next time round it is either out of stock or twice the price.

It is thicker than the normal battery which I have several.

I was thinking of putting one live and one dead to get the currency thickness to fit into the mother board battery slot.

I checked today and those batteries are not available in my city.

So if your computer (PC) is dead think if sending it to the junk yard for lack of a CMOS battery.

That's how it is going in Ceylon.

Wish I kick the bucket.

Linux Panic Mode and Ubuntu Warning

Our relatively Old PC had a SSD master and a SATA secondary disk.
SSD do not have master boot record and only boots on distribution. I have my own ways of circumventing booting problems and I managed to have Debian and Emmabantus installed in the 120GB SSD.
I somehow got everything booting on the second drive.
Thankfully no master and slave with SATA disks.
To boot I have to press F2.
Yesterday I decided to remove the SSD and put a 250GB SATA disk and installed Ubuntu and everything went OK and at the final second Ubuntu warn that the system is going to crash.
Did not give details and the computer did shutdown.

I could not boot it again and start button went dead.
Except for cleaning dust and spider webs I practically did nothing.
I did not touch the RAM.
I had a nice graphic card I had removed from another computer I dismantled.
I fixed it and closed the chassis.
After few hours I tried switching on the computer.
It was dead for no obvious reasons.
I was in panic mode by this time.
Then having slept for a while I decided to prove the CMOS.
It was dead.

Luckily I had a spare CMOS battery and fixed it and the computer booted.

I have used computers for so long this is the first time I had a dead CMOS battery.

I am back installing and installed Ubuntu successfully.

Update on Linux Distributions-2023

This update is early but not premature.

This Christmas and Winter going to be the worse in modern history, except for Russia (I wanted to say China but the effect on Chinese workforce is devastating and I want to say Coronavirus is most likely an American conspiracy brought on by multinational companies to stifle Chinese economy).

I was down by the vaccine myocarditis and I am back to 95% of myself, still have lingering side effects including backache and inability to lift more than 5 Kilos.

But it was a blessing and I have become happy, relaxed and more organized after this episode.

I consider it my Rebirth Again in this life with much better outlook.

My temper tantrum or the site of the brain causing me to be angry has become dysfunctional.

All these caused me to update my computers well in advance.
I have finished it by October 15th.

Of course Intel's NUC has changed me completely and it is fabulous.

My wooden desktop has no clutter and is in total Wifi mode.

It has three major components.
Monitor.
Keyboard.
Mouse.
Others include,
Two 1 terra byte SSDs (bought them long time ago).

Emergency Lamp with USB charger for power cuts.
One note book.
An Old Note book with all the telephone numbers.

There powerbanks.

Two cellphones Android 8 and 11.
One Cellphone is for update on Ukraine war.

The other for update on Linux distributions.

My need is portable, small foot print Linux.
1. Puppy Linux comes first with almost over 100 USB, mini CD, CD versions but only two are 64 bit versions.
Development is currently very slow.

2. Knoppix 9.2 English version, coming from Germany and is in hibernation mode.

3. Number Three and upwards are for my work outputs.

1. Debian 11 with Plasma 5 desktop.
Debian, 11 earlier version for all the desktops and some are in USB sticks.

2. Number 2 Linux Mint.

3. Ubuntu for GRUB configuration.

4. Sparky Linux (I have not got spakylinux game over)

5. Salix Linux.

6. DeepIn Linux an alternative for Google.

7. Emmabantus

8. EndlessOS for cellphone like desktop front and enormous packages but very slow to download (applications are not Torrent files.

9. Mageia.

10. Peppermint Linux, I have fallen out of favour.

Rest I have not tested and no intention at all, and I am allergic to Arch Linux and it's Derivatives PopOs and Manjaro.

The site www.distrowatch.com does an excellent update.

I only use torrent files and browse  Linux Torrent Tracker when I want to download an image.
I go for the stable version and not the latest for good reason.
I believe one makes a torrent file once all the bug tracking is done.
Whereas, direct downloads and beta version (I have stopped testing beta versions and filing individual reports.

The bigger problem of direct downloads is nefarious files can be added to direct files which are not checked as in Torrent files.

The communities are very active and no flame wars except in commercial versions like SuSe and Fedora.

They make a bit of a mess going for cutting edge and modern hardware.

I am also very allergic to what called cutting edge graphic cards and latest processors.

Gaming is a different ballgame altogether.

It is a different ballgame and there are few very enthusiastic guys producing YouTube videos.
I casually glance them but make comments  very rarely.

DeepIn Chinese Linux Installation

I am glad to say, that I am installing Chinese DeepIn Linux on a IDE 80G hard disk mounted on an external case.
It looks like it is general purpose alternative to Google and perhaps for Cheap CHINESE laptops.

It asks for  language for install and takes over the hard disk.

About 7 or 8 partitions and no manual configuration of partitions.

No root and personally accounts at boot time bit may be after successful installation.

Thankfully does ask for Internet Connection but I mounted my mobile (Huawei Mobile WiFi) WiFi  without data.
I do not want to waste my data on installation which might deplete data in no time.

It displays a visual introduction like Ubuntu while installing.

No live session for testing before installation.
But not a problem since I am installing it on an external disk.

I had some problem with my Bluetooth speaker and DeepIn did configure it during it's tuning of configuring.

Thank You.

Many Computer Mistakes on a Single Day

I tend to do only a few mistakes with my computers.

Yesterday was completely different.

Everything I tried went wrong.

I did not lose my temper.

When our dog was alive and well all I do was to take the dog for a walk which both of us used to enjoy.

After Coronavirus vaccination abreaction, I think I lost the temper tantrum part of the brain and I do not lose my temper.

Thankfully my memory is intact and only thing I now forget is telephone numbers.

I used to remember by heart about 20 telephone numbers in the pre-cellphone era.

I have never carried a note book in my working life but only when I travel.

Now my travel is limited to Singapore.

It was pain to go to UK with stopover in the desert.

I hated Dubai except duty free lounge and first time in my life I am not going to watch soccer or football world cup in Dubai.

There is no fair play to women and labour force in Dubai.

I am nothing again players like Lionel Messi, Maradona, Lampart and many more.

World cup without Maradona ranting is an antithesis to me.

My multiple mistakes were mainly due to EndlessOS handing up on me.

It is painfully slow to boot and to install even Abiword my favorite FireFox it took ages.

Need for constant rebooting and wireless connectivity was pain in the arxccsex.

All it did was to deplete my prepaid data.

Any way I got it booted with a trick from Debian 11.5......

I won't disclose it here.

I have only one SATA Disk of 40GB in a plastic box left now.

If I remember right I pulled it out from an old IBM server.

I am intrigued by so many defaults motherboard and in hardware.

I know it very well.

Bloat-ware of Windows and energy hungry graphic cards melts the lead sealing on the motherboard.

Answer is Linux.

Linux allocate resources precisely and no bloat-ware.

Abiword is an example by which I published all my books.

I am going to publish my first book by LibreOffice, soon provided no Power Cuts and data in my dongle and mobile WiFi.

No Ethernet at all which is super fast.

I had many fire hazards when cathode ray TVs were used.

Even the circuit board caught fire.

This is going to happen in this winter in Europe and America but not in Russia.

Three of them caught fire.

In one it's front glass panel broke to thousands of pieces.

A heavy speaker fell on top of it.

I also had three episode of fire when I was using old second hand IBM computer, an assortment of 15.

When the electricity bill went up, I dismantled all of them except my first assembled PC which is running Puppy and Ubuntu on a 10GB (on board video of 1MB and it never heats up) hard disk.

The bottom line is EndlessOS is pain to mount onto a hard drive and I mounted it on two USB sticks (one 8GB SD card other 32GB USB).
With some perseverance I mounted EndlessOS on a 80GB IDE hard disk.

It is all booting well but very, very slowly.

I am not going to use it instead I am going to mount three or four (including Ubuntu 22-04 version not yet downloaded) Linux distributions on a 240GB SATA heavy disk.

I have five or six light weight SSD SATA Disks mounted on external cases only two of them have data.

Rest of them had data on them and I have an astute method of storing data which started with large floppy disks and later smaller floppy version.

I cannot recover any of the data in them in exe files.

I have decided to mount Windows 98 on a slave disk and install either SOT Office or OpenOffice 3 and convert them to odt files.

That is of course if I have free time.

I am going to activate my Intel NUC with a standalone, nice wireless speaker with a radio and inbuilt rechargeable battery and bluetooth.

All my films are on SD cards.

What a change in my life from heavyweight IBM computers to 18 watts Intel NUC without any games.

Games with high frame rate consume lot of energy but our eye and brain physiology cannot go beyond 36 frames per second.

It gives an ILLUSION of movement to our brain without thinking.

Brain is made to THINK and Ukrainians and Americans do not know how to think.

I think President Putin will make them to think in fear.

Either fight or  flight is the animal instinct and Americans have lost even animal instinct.

This is where AI and Drones will take over humanity which I fear a lot.

AI have no empathy or emotions.

Yesterday I downloaded 5 Linux images.

For some unknown reason the Internet was fabulously fast and I got everything downloaded except Ubuntu desktop and SparkyLinuxGames.

I even downloaded Chinese Linux derivative (it is not live and I could not make a live USB) and I do not want it to erase my two hard drives.

It is not a DreamOS but pain.

It does not dual boot and it's boot record, I guess is not compatible with dual or triple or quadraple booting.

I have lot of spare IDE and SATA hard disks and a few external cases.

I decided to install EndlessOS on 80GB IDE hard disk.

It had multiple Linux 32 bit distributions and none booted.

It's partition table was clumsy.

I looked at its back and made the mistake of (I pulled the metal part of one of the jumpers in this process and the copper piece got stuck with the jumper pins) by putting an extra piece of jumper that restricted the hard disk to 32GB.

I used a tweezer the lady's use to pick the metal piece.

Mind you, I was a neonatal surgeon by training and doing extremely difficult surgical work on 250 gram babies in early 1980s have come good in computer hardware restoration.

EndlessOS detected only 32GB portion and I quickly realized that one jumper two many was placed in.

I love SATA without jumpers and Master and Slave mentality.

I can remember in early days when computers were primitive even 40GB was too much to handle.

Changing jumpers and formating the hard disk took an inordinate time.

That was the reason for mistakes and breaking my sleep due to mosquitoes  was an added bonus.

I hate mosquitoes!

I do not hate flies from them we Iearnt, the genomic base of little over 25,000 proteins, in evolution.

There are millions of molecules but base is only 25000 which even the tiny worm also has.

The Internet was so slow EndlessOS got stuck 3 times.

I could not get even AbiWord installed.

I wanted FireFox and it too got stuck.

I did not want to give up since I wanted the tomorrow to be fully free.

So I went back to basics and to Debian and I got everything fixed.

Then it was past 2AM and Internet suddenly became fast.

So by 3AM I got everything working and had a few sandwiches, as an early breakfast.

I am going to sleep now.

PS.
The editing and additions were done after, 4 hours of nice sleep without dreams.

EndlessOS running on a SD Card mounted on USB mounter

EndessOS can be mounted on a 8GB USB stick and run as a portable operating system.

Beauty is even the Intel's NUC is booting it.
This is Version 4. I mounted it on a SATA Disk and erased it but booting on 8 GB USB was a discovery. Problem is only a few applications can be installed.

I am going to install it on 32GB USB.

I was fond of carrying an operating system on a USB.
Puppy Linux gave that freedom.
I have over 80 Puppy CDs.
Only a few are on USBs
Reason is only FAT Pup and Foss Pup are 64 bits.
All the others are 32 bits but all of them boot from a Mini-CD.

My first computer has only 4MB RAM.
This is the computer I used for my thesis and all the work was done on Windows 98.
All the data was recorded on Floppies.
I cannot read them now but the Floppy Drive is in good condition.
This PC is booted by Puppy Disk on disk drive and persistent file is copied to a partition.
Hard disk capacity is only 10.
It cannot mount a 40 GB hard disk.
Only Ubuntu 5.4 Kernel boots it and even Debian got stuck three times on installation.
I gave up.
It's BIOS does not boot with a USB.
It boots with only CD.
It does not boot with Floppies and looking for Windows 98 boot Floppies which I do not have.

I never used this computer to boot Linux and I migrated to better IBM (all discarded from America) computers not one but 15 of them, all second hand but working well.
I dismantled all of them since the electricity bill went up.

By the way, I bought the NUC to cut down on my electricity bill.
Only if I play games my electricity bill will go up.

There is Power Cuts in Ceylon on daily basis and I have bought two new UPS to mitigate sudden breakdowns.

I was about to mount Endless OS on a USB and power failed and end result is editing this blog piece.

I would have gone nuts if not for the cellphone.

I did not anticipate power cuts but to save electricity I bought several  emergency lights and they have come handy.
They were cheap when I bought them and have gone up 300% and even for that price they are not available.
Dollar crisis has hit our coffers very badly.

I mounted EndlessOS on several USBs.

I have EndlessOS installed in my Laptop.

It has ton of or endless supply of tiny and big applications.

On the desktop it appears like a large cellphone.

Version 4 is little under 4GB.

I have not written an update on EndlessOS and this piece.

It is password protected at boot time.

Only down side of it is it takes (unless one uses an Ethernet) ages to download even very small utility.

This is probably related to very few in Asia using it.
I think it is worthwhile to do marketing campaign over Indian subcontinent.

I have already downloaded AbiWord and waiting for Transmission, Telegram, Skype, Xjournal (my favorite), GIMP and many more.

It has lot of tiny games.

Chrome and Libre Office are installed as a default.

My favourite is Firefox and it downloaded it quickly.

PCM and History Repeat Itself

PCM=Protein Calorie Malnutrition.
I have seen PCM in adult during Sirima and NM.

We on the verge of PCM if rain fails in the upcountry.
This time with population of 5 times that in 1960s the case load will be unsurmountable.
I give an example, the current slice of bread will float in air like in early 1970, if the fan on top of the table is in full speed to counter global warming.
There is so much air in each piece thanks to over fermentation with yeast.

Now I am impressed by how the biscuit manufacturers have responded to price hike of four.

1. Crunch each piece is no more.
2. I feel that each piece is lighter and there is lot of air in each.
3. Weight of the packet is labeled 20 grams less from earlier 100 grams.
5
4. The packet itself is bloated with nitrogen.
5. However the price has gone up by 300%.
There is no difference with parippu wade and masala wade which has gone up in price. There are no prawn wade now in Kandy.

So PCM soon will effect my health and I have hypoglycaemia by 1PM.

I know it well because I used to get hypoglycaemia at about this time when I was enjoying good wine (never poll arrak).

I do not mind kicking the bucket like BBC to support preemptive strikes on Russia.

But I do not want to see kids with PCM again.

I think we should ban early morning exercise for kids in school.
It is time for us to provide Gundu Banis (buns the government gave us in school again and we used to make mati-guli or mud balls to play with the mates during morning brake) to school kids and teachers.

Backward Compatibility of Debian Linux on Old Computers

Let me start with an important consideration with power cuts on daily basis in Ceylon the not so paradise country.

Go and buy a UPS before they go up in price.

We were like current Ukraine 38 years ago.
We had power cuts but we never went hungry.
I was looking at a plastic display stand with multiple tops.
The upright poles had lot of candle burns.
I have used it as a candle stand with it glass tops.
The glass tops are still there wrapped up in paper covers.
Thankfully out children were not born then.

It was hegemonic India behind a small country not as big like Ukraine.
India instigated minority Tamils.

In Ukraine it is minority Russians with mighty Russian behind them.
Outcome is obvious.

We did not have anybody supporting but I remember Ukrainians helping with old Russian aircrafts to supplement our aging Air Ceylon with only two second world war Arvos from Britain.

We were bombing our brotheren gone astray instigated by RAW of Indira.
Being a doctor I never support war anywhere in this world.
I was born after Korean War and I could never understand the American hero warship of their conscripts in Korea and their weekly War Soap Opera.

It is amazing how we prevailed and 50% of the Tamils moved to Sinhala dominant areas.
Thank you to those who mixed with us.
I love their dosai, masala wadei and parippu.
We only contribiuted with Pol Sambol.

Coming to Debian I mounted Debian Lenny (4 install CDs) and half way through resizing the 10GB hard disk light or power went off.

If I boot Debian, my guess is I can mount a second hard disk with 40GB capacity.

I could not install Debian Lenny and I have up after 3 attempts.

However Debian on non graphic mode (to save VG memory) did partition the disk to 10 partitions and another SWAP partition.
I am going to mount Puppy Linux Wolfe persistent on one of those partitions.
I would let you know whether that is successful.
I have successfully installed Wolfe on sda6.
It has Ubuntu in sda3 and a GRUB in master boot record.
I do not know how to boot to sda6 when it boots.
Sfs file is name after my Christian name.
I booted Puppy from a CD and Ubuntu is not configuring the internet but Puppy Linux would.
I have a safety precaution since I will always boot from the CD and not from the master boot record.

I am booting it now and it says next booting would be faster.

This is the second time Puppy saved me.
I won't discard the computer to the junk yard for metal now.
Small is beautiful and it uses 512MB space, even though I could have given more space.
This PC has old mult-ipin jacks.
However I have mounted a USB connecter on a PCI slot.

It has detected SWAP partitions 5 and 8.
I am recording it here less I erase them in another boot up procedure.
Everything is OK and my Puppy is wagging its tail.

Guys now talking about terra byte is an antithesis to me.

I booted Puppy Linux with 512MB USB and Puppy Linux really rocks without tech HiFi.

My Mosquito Theory of War

This point I missed in an earlier discussion.

It is the female mosquito who feeds on blood and the male except assisting in procreation (unlike in war as a foot soldier like a poor Polish boy) does nothing really in between.

Female Mosquitoes are likes Iranian drones who can fly about 2 miles a day to find a victim.

All what one has to do is to kill the female and leave males to die of sex hunger.

This ploy the Russia should address is to  deplete the resupply of weapons (blood in the case of War and in real Mosquito Strategy) of mass destruction of America and the Energy infrastructure of the Ukraine.

It becomes a walk over for Russia and Unlike our King Sri Rajasingha, one should not eat rice when it is hot but leave the balls of rice to cool down and gobble it fast and furiously.

So before the Ukranians cook the next rice meal, they should finish the job.

I am not a war monger but now it is in full swing (I have no control but to blog) I like to see end with a Russia Win.

My grudge with America is simply due to Bill Gate and Windows operating system and in no way to poor Americans mostly Indian migrants who went to West looking for better pastures and there afterwards, fully supporting the development of a faulty Microsoft operating system.

By the way my first computer from America which I bought 30 years ago is booting Ubuntu 5.4 and I cannot configure it to access the Internet with Wireless connectivity.
Only Ethernet works with it.

I have pulled out the 80 feet Ethernet Wire long time ago and I have no compulsion to pull the wire again on the roof and allow it to elements and thereby rot again.

My Intel NUC is fully Wireless and both keyboard and mouse which I bought  yesterday are working fine.

Indian after war is over must volunteer to help Russia to build a wireless network.

I am told Russians are very bad both on drones and wireless technology.

All the wires are burned down in 24 hours of constant shelling and Ukrainians do not have TV or Facebook to listen to their president and the mad hatter.

I am very partial here and brave enough to support Russia and call the spade a spade.

Hegemony and Decline of Independent Journalism

This applies to all media local and foreign.
I defer naming them since even bad publicity is good for these hegemonic institutions.

This piece is about catch phrases and alien invasion.
To be begin with, the current explosion of technology is the direct result of latency of reverse engineering of alien technology by American deep state or the MIC.

UK,USA and Israel finance these institutions for war mongering.

They have met the nemesis.
The Ukraine proxy war is consuming boot on the ground which is no longer the catch phrase.

I will come up with alternatives, later.

The name is not Rusputin but Putin, the greatest in modern history.

He has a diplomatic touch with everything he touches.

West has lost the meaning of diplomacy and replaced with hegemony.

Coming to my catch phrase it is "Drones on Air" managed artificially by AI technology of Aliens.

Americans fear to wear the boots and they have allocated STUPID Polish boys to wear the boots.

Now Polish boys are dying in large numbers and they want Nukes stationed in Poland.

Drones in Air is the latest American phrase or vocabulary and do you know who produce the best kamakasi drones currently.

It is Iran.

Who is using them.

Russians.

Where?

On Odessa where CIA covertly operates.

The war had just begun with proxy Elon Musk eliminated with one master stroke by Putin.

More to come.

Slow attrition of American hegemony and ascendency of China who are currently ruling the space with so many antennas mounted on China and on Mars.

Why?

They fear American and CIA sabotage.

Americans and NATO on the ground are scared to death without satellite information.

Elon Musk was providing them.

It is the so called brave British who stopped volunteering, with a women on top of the administration.

My boy is not going there, let the stupid Polish boys who were polishing the backside of Americans should volunteer,instead.

One up for Poland.

Putin might even Nuke the CIA command center in Poland bordering Kiev.

My December there is lot of surprises including preemptive Nuclear Arsenal from USA.

They have done it before and gearing to do it again.

Final Armageddon!

My Migration from Open Office to LibreOffice

My memory is failing but this much I can remember by going through an assortment of over 800 CD/DVDs having various applications, software and operating systems.

1. I started using OpenOffice of SUN Solaris in Windows 98.
I had some problems with Office of Windows and it was mainly due to macros.

2. OpenOffice removed macros of MS-DOS documents.

3. I got my thesis confirming to our university requirements.

4. I bought my first computer.

5. It was booted with Windows.

6. Having finished my thesis I migrated gradually to Linux using Linux floppies.

7. I bought an assortment of IBM (14 or 15 in number I cannot remember) second hand computers discarded from USA.

8. Installed Linux distributions on all them except 3 (Windows).

9.  I weaned myself of Windows totally.

10. I did all my books using AbiWord.

11. I am doing my first book on LibreOffice.

12. Could not do pre-printing final editing due to constant power cuts.

13. Currently enjoying my life without Internet but YouYube on my cellphone.

14. Enjoying my usual cup of tea.

15. Fully off alcohol and I do not pay tax to an illegal president and an unpopular government.

16. No politics untill (waste of time) the parliament is dissolved and the next election engine is fired.

17. I have no objection to the guys trying hard on the streets of  Colombo, at a difficult time.

18. Next election is fought on empty stomaches and angry mouths.

19. Average citizen has awaken to the reality of dumb politics.

20. While this is happening President Putin will rule with Ruble.

21. Dollar will crumble and with that, the sleepy Joe.

22. Bolton will be down and Trump in ascendancy.

24. Alternative TV channels will come up with true, not doctored news of CNN, BBC, and the lot.

25. It looks like Aljacera will top the world news.

Running parallels with Internal Ethnic War in Ceylon and Now War in Ukraine

I am not neutral here.

Little bit in favour of Russia.

Simple reason is My Grudge with Microsoft which is almost 3 decades long.

I am fully liberated now and into Linux by default.

I booted my first computer with Ubuntu 5.4.
It is slow but working.
This is the computer I used for my University Thesis.
All done on floppies not a single CD or DVD, then.

All my Linux distributions are on USBs and some on SD cards mounted on USB sticks.

Let me start with few generalizations in politics.

Number one.
It is easy to start a war but very
Difficult to end.

Number two (which was number one few months ago ).

The first casualty in war is Truth.

It is the time of Donald Trump's Faked News Saga.

CIA is the beneficiary.

The rest of the content bears no similarity.

In Ceylon there is a Guy called Milinda, talk show guy in Ceylon.
He tries to give advises on many fields, all are theoretically feasible but not practical.
He is a Guy who destroyed his grandfather's wealth to almost zero.
He has gone into hibernation.

For posterity Dayan Jayathilake should do a review of all Ceylonese political (journalists) pundits.

The other is Victor Ivan.

Hard core JVP guy now a venture capitalist.

When he was down I was one who was involved in raising Rs500,000/= to get his paper up and running to oust MaRa, the big political cheat.

MaRa used Milinda to purchase the Ravaya weekly and we politically scuttled it.

Aniddha was created and pandemic took toll of it.

Had I known that Victor becomes a venture capitalist I would not have got involved.

That is hindsight.

My contribution was buying three weekly papers and donate two.
Just over Rs.100/=.

Virtually nothing for me when I was working.

Coming to our politics it was Indian RAW and Indira Gandhi and her son (both gone for good) who engineered disruptive ethnics division in Ceylon which British were able to stem to a significant degree (thanks to yester year British which I am a byproduct).

Her paranoia was we were becoming a Singapore, down under.

My gut feeling was with so much greed in this Buddhist (antithesis to Buddha's teaching) country we would never create a Lee Quan Yu.

The bottom line is India created it and it was the minority who raised against the majority.

There was no significant difference in the two communities except minority invested on education and the majority spent none on advanced education (include computer science) except selling the language which is primitive with no scientific notions.

One must read the book on Power by Bertram Russel on these issues and they were really applicable to Ceylon in post colonial time.

We wasted our money on internal war and we are back to begging bowl and the majority does not have a square meal.

War destroys everything including common sense.

Ukraine War.
It is real war now.

Hitting Elon Musk is the first sign and this war is fought on space and with ultrasonic devices.

Difference.
It was the majority's attempt to destroy minority Russians.

It is American proxy war against Russia.

Now that the Ukrainian soldiers are decimated, it is the NATO soldiers on boot bearing the brunt

Major casualty is Poland and their Boys not UK and American boys.

American boys and British boys are running away.

Real War has not begun yet.

Ending will be far to the future with no country called Ukraine existing on the world map.

America created it and I do not know how they are going to sell the debacle.

Well start the Thaiwan War.

Top distraction.

This piece is for independent journalists (not CNN, BBC and Fox News) to look at the bare bone politics of today.

New world order is in the offing.

Star-Link of Elon Musk is busted by

I think President Putin has given OK to bust Elon Musk's StarLink that was helping NATO in Ukraine War.

This is probably in preparation on Winter Offensive.

This war (no longer SMO) will go on until Ukraine no longer exists.

Poland who was pilfering the Western weapons and profiting has plans to grab what they lost in the second world war.

History repeats and old simmering and festing wounds flare up at random now.

When war enters its own mechanics any current prediction is valid temporarily as only a news item.

Faked and doctored news become automatic gut reactions.

Satellites that are vital for normal communications are prioritized for war footing.

The soccer world cup in November in Dubai, my prediction  may even become a target of communication battle and we may not see live telecasting.

It will be a boom for gamblers and not for statisticians.

I will not watch it any way.

Going Fully Wireless

I am into Wireless connectivity for a long time.

In fact, I bought two chargers cum  wireless  connectors (internet) and used them for free wireless connectivity long before MobiTel and Dialog stormed the market.

This was for my laptop not for cellphone use, then.

I think I was the one who introduced satellite and router connectivity to my city in the center of the country.

Our STUPID politicians were slow to respond to changing dynamic of the globe.

Now we have satellite TV, too.

Analogue TV signal is very weak and I went to Lanka-Bell for solutions and got my first Huawei
Mobile with Lanka Bell SIM in which I now use MobiTel SIM connected with a USB cord.

The wireless keyboard and mouse was a failure simply because I only use Linux for work.

The drivers for the  USB dongle had Windows exe software.

Intel's NUC changed all this.
I am all wireless and bluetooth from today.

I got my old witeless Keyboard and Mouse from the attic and they are working nice with  AAA batteries.

AAA,batteries are hard to come by in Ceylon and luckily I have a stock of rechargeable batteries.

Current problem is Power Cuts.

I am a dog lover and appropriately, I have over 80 Puppy Linux Derivatives.

Only two are in 64 bit versions.

This is in addition to over 10 in USB sticks.

I use Puppy (sometimes Knoppix) when I have problems.

With my first PC with only 4MB RAM and 1MB VGA, I could not boot Ubuntu and finally after erasing the data using Puppy Linux, I managed to install Ubuntu  5.4.

It took almost 12 hours in the night and it is booting nicely.

I have only one problem in the night, that is assortment of mosquitoes.

I keep up to kill them all by good hand coordination which I learned not by typing on old keyboard but by necessity.

Now the keyboards have gone through the roof with new innovations.

What a welcome change but at a price.

I am very bad touch typist.

I use KO KO (where the key where the key of visual searching) method.

I am against using all purpose anti-mosquito vapours.

They kill other insects which is not correct.

I target only mosquitoes.

Russians should take a leaf from me and target only NATO mercenaries, not innocent civilians, now that X-elenslky forces are muted.

We had 35 year history of War and civilian casualties were enormous.

We by the way fed all including LTTE well.

We are peaceful now but nevertheless very hungry.

We are paying the price for debts incurred by the Warlords who emptied our sovereign(stole them).

It is happening right now in Ukraine and Poland is selling them in the black market and they never reach the front line.

War is a funny game somebody not in the battle field make millions if not billions while Americans, British and German ordinary people are taking the punch and the brunt.

War is a funny game in this century.

Regarding my first PC.
It did not have USB ports.
Long time ago, I stuck a USB connector to PCI slot.
It did not have a Ethernet port and I stuck a TV card to the PCI slot.

There was a separate connector for Ethernet.
Unfortunately no WiFi connectivity.

I have pulled off the 80 feet long Ethernet Wire which had a faulty portion due to old weather beaten nature.

In any case I am going to say good bye to Internet and there is no hard feeling.

Puppy Linux got my Old PC Running

Ubuntu 5.4 got stuck half way in the installation and I could not get the IDE hard disk partitioned.

I booted Puppy LUPUS mounted and created a bootable Puppy.

This PC originally did not have USB ports. 
I instslled a Device with USB ports into PCI slot. 
The Ethernet card was also slot into another PCI slot.

This is just to tell the new guys dealing with lot of RAM and SATA disks how primitive computer world in  the previous mellaneum.

My First PC and Ubuntu Rescue

My first PC was lying idle without an operating system and I tried to fix a 80GB IDE hard disk and I could not boot it.

First hard disk of 10GB did not boot since AntiX or Mepis I tried to install got stuck saying kernel is inappropriate.

I messed up even the CMOS battery and it won't even get the BIOS in.
After 4 days of trying I realized it had 1MB Video and 4GB RAM.
It won't boot from floppy of Mandrake, Suse, Debian or XandOS.

Finally I  got to the NM RAM and adjusted it to boot from CD.
Put the Ubuntu boot CD I had in my attic.

It is installing and that PC is back to live mode.

Thank You to Mark Sukerberk for distributing Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Livintu CDs.

The quality of those CDs is excellent even after 20 years in my CD Box.

Steam Deck, Gaming Platforms, Tech-High and Tech-Low

I am a Linux User and Windows Hater, not by conviction but by circumstances.

I started with Sinclair and Later Compaq and ultimately settled down with Linux Debian.

I used Windows for my research work (thank you) and games.

When my thesis printout was not according to the requirement of my University (on Microsoft Office) I switched to Sun Solaris OpenOffice and that would have been the trigger for me to switch gradually and totally to Linux.

Why I hate Windows is once you install it one has to add each and rvery  application and game, one by one.

Linux has bundle of utilities in one install but lately probably due to proprietary issues, especially Ubuntu and Mint that bundle has become smaller and smaller.

Windows was very good on cheap games and Linux was known for lack of games.

I was critical of this scenario (lack of games) and used to write a review on every distribution I have tested on all the issues including games. 

Valve and Steam was available  for a long time but without games.

I welcome the Steam Deck mainly because of its portable or mobile Linux distribution, not so much on the availability of games.

I use to carry Puppy and multiple Linux distributions on USB sticks for ages but I need to find a computer and monitor to run them "on the go", especially at an airport.

I hated bulky laptops and messy tablets.

I was thinking of a cellphone with Linux.

It has taken a long time for PINE phone to come up a solution but PINE has become very expensive and I cannot afford it, in my retirement.

Steam deck was like dream come true but it is beyond my purse,too.

Instead I went for a Intel NUC.

Valve will never come to Ceylon with people struggling with economics and hunger.

I have laptop with Endless OS and  an old PC with several Linux distributions on a rotating disk.

I have several portable hard disks with Linux and assortment of USBs running Puppy and Linux.

In fact, with NUC (I have not loaded it with games) adding to my armament, I don't think I should go for a gaming deck.

Even my son is not interested.

My son's first computer with 1MB Video and 4MB RAM I just got refurbished but I haven't got an operating system to boot from a floppy.

This is the computer on which I did my research thesis with lot of statistical diagrams. 

I think Linux does not have a statistical package.

I am not into coding for ages and if I did I would have made the basic framework for a Tiny Linux distribution for one of my Nokia phones.

I suppose I should wean myself off from Linux and computer addiction and enjoy only food and drinks.

Perhaps, I may go back to writing mode and who will buy any of my books with global economic meltdown.

I haven't done a book for over 3 years.

I am still wondering about my writing if not blogging.