Thank YOU Microsoft

Even though, I do not use Window at all, the catalyst for my migration to Linux was none other than Microsoft Monopoly.

1. I was new to Linux.

2. I made a leaflet for presentation for university non academic staff.

3. I found a bright guy who was in the minor staff.

4. I trained him for hardware stuff. 

 

The guy who occupied the official technical slot was an idiot.

5. Numbers allowed for my presentation was deliberately limited.

6. A formal certificate was awarded.

7. This was long time ago.

8. One of the non technical (clerical and she was assigned to me) girl was allowed to attend on the request made by the chief technician. I could not refuse.

9. She went to Canada within a month. 

She did not tell me that she was leaving. 

My grouse was she took the place which somebody else deserved.

She only typed a single letter (by this time I was doing my stuff myself, including my Thesis) for me in nearly five months.

10. I called her and said, she cannot put me as a referee for her work in Canada. 

I would give bad reference, in fact the real reference. 

 

After this incident nobody asked any reference from me.

 

Outside the University, I identified three and guided them in Linux.

Two (asked them not to come back) went abroad on their own accord and the third guy Indika, now holds an executive post in MobiTel.

That is a long preamble.

Coming to Microsoft, at about the same time, I met a young (tiny) guy in Kandy who was running a computer outlet in his home coveted to sales outlet. 

He used to go to Singapore and bring stuff which I used to buy at exorbitant price. 

None of them (Window based) are in working order now. 

I vandalized them for hardware parts.

1. He organized an exhibition in Kandy for schools so that he can dish out all shoddy Microsoft stuff.

2. He gave me an invitation.

3. He did not know, I was an Amateur Linux Guy. 

I asked him to reserve a stall for me with 3 computers. 

He said OK.

4. I went there on the opening day with a friend of mine. 

Invited a few others none came. 

There not coming save me huge embarrassment. 

We could not get in until all the students were allowed. 

Thinking that I have stall inside, I did not bother.

5. We went in and there was no stall for me and the guy was hiding, unable face me.

6. This was hosted in Queen's Hotel ballroom. 

This is were we had the last Medical Dance.

So I went with my friend for a beer (I never take the stuff in the morning only after working hours well past 4.30PM).

7. Then we saw a few, may be six, school children ordering beer. 

We chased them away. 

They were bribed by this guy. 

We got to know Rs.500,000/= was dished out by Microsoft to hold the exhibition.

8. Immediately, I posted a Web  Piece exposing this sordid affair.

9. I became a full time Linux Guy on that day.

10. The booklet revised became my first book on Linux on Amazon Books. 

It is available for purchase but there are more than five more books on Linux by me, there.

My next book "Linux Essentials" is ready for publication.

This piece is a pre-publication advertisement. 

 

I think I would insinuate this piece in that book.

 

My First Computer to Intel's NUC

My basic  NUC with WiFi and Bluetooth is cute.

My first computer was huge, heavy and was beast (a behemoth).

I cannot lift it BUT it's RAM is only 4MB.

 

It boots up with only a Floppy Drive and I cannot believe all my research work was done on it.

This may be the first research work done on a computer (earlier it was done on paper and a typewriter) in my Faculty in the University did not have a computer.

I did the some pioneering work on the network of computers  (only 5 computers) having RAM of 16MB, computers discarded from America).

By the way network does not need lot of memory and the server did provide the workload. 

For my research work I used Windows 95 and Office.

 

The office with bad macros could not get my paper output for publication of the research thesis and the full print out (I bought a dot mat printer and later Cannon Large printer and still later a digital scanner from my pocket saving from UK). University had none.

They all are in working order except the dot max printer (which I threw, to the junk yard) and filling my bedroom. 

This piece is about my entry into Linux distributions. 

Since my paper out put was bad I used Sun Solaris OpenOffice 1 for my research work. It removed all the Microsoft Macros and I got the paper layout of my research thesis in A4 papers amounting to about 180 pages.

Then I did some research and found Debian, Suse, Mandriva, XandrOS and Redhat Boot CDs and booted them on a 10 GB hard disk.

 

That is my Linux beginning without a GURU but with lot of books. 

I still have those Boot CDS but the computer is dead.

 

Multiple distributions in one PC with only 4MB Video RAM and 128RAM.

I never looked back on Microsoft  again after my research work was accepted by the University.

Original hard disk was only 2GB.

I revived the computer and stuck a 80 GB hard disk and would try to install Debian on it today (only one CD) and others need at least 3 CDs for installation.

Windows had about 40 odd floppies.

 

Migration from HDD (Parallel) to  serial SATA was a long journey and I love the NUC with 8GB RAM and 320 SATA inside and another 320GB on an external case.

In my NUC, I have Mint (Ubuntu replacement), Debian, Emmabantus and Ubuntu installed and they are running smoothly on 18 Watts out put and without noise.

Currently it has 4 instances of Debian ONLY. 

Endless OS is on my OLD ACER Laptop.

What a turn around in my life with Linux.

 

Beauty of Linux is Linux run on any old hardware and new hardware, too.

I tend to do this just before Christmas BUT I did it by 3rd of October, 2023.

 

I have three month holiday from Linux.

Violence and War

Violence and War
It appears to me none of the religions except Buddhism abhor the violence that include self inflicted violence. 

What I mean is the suicide bombing in the name of religion or terrorist cause. Destruction of life whether it is self or otherwise and all beings is alien to Buddhism.
 

This is where Buddhism stand alone in high ground.
 

This is where we have to define the role of a suicide bomber in the modern society. There is no justification for the existence of similar entity and for that matter intolerance or discrimination of any human being for his or her origin, class, creed, religion, race, sex and whether rich or poor.
 

We are at a cross roads.
 

There is alarming trend of religious fanaticism and atheistic views raising their heads.
This is where the Buddhist Moral Principles should stand erect and relevant. 

They are strikingly different from all modes of other religions where it is espoused that killing oneself for the sake of a religion or sect (there was a similar sect-Ishihara- in Japan) is as the supreme sacrifice and results in being born in heaven.
This is a myth we must dispel with utmost vigour.
This is happening in Ceylon too but for a different reason and goal. Labile children with childhood trauma are selected and indoctrinated to take life for a course which they themselves cannot enjoy in return. The fallacy of this inhuman misdemeanour has to be born clear of all religions. The religious leaders and dignitaries have failed in their duty and the present political systems, whether authoritarian, capitalistic, communist, religious or liberal systems have failed to deliver any form of organisation except further division. 

 

Devoid of human values (we may call it moral principles) the perceived Global Village is collapsing.

Divine Abode

The four sublime states of mind described in Buddhist psychology the loving kindness (Metta), compassion (Karuna), altruistic joy (Mudita) and equanimity (Upekka) are the very essence of humanity that is lacking in the modern world.
Why these Pali words do not have a place in Oxford or Webster's dictionaries is an indication how the world politics are shaped up in the current century.
There is no English synonym for Avihimsa (world sans violence) and that is how the Western Democracy has evolved. From Romans to modern day Mandela the way of dealing with crisis was absolute violence without recuperation. Only now there is some form of dialogue emerging but with Western Bias. Instead, hate, vengeance and violence are the operating themes of the world be that it may be terrorism or state sponsored violence sanctioned by the UNO.

The Suttas description of development of these supreme states is as follows.
"There, O monks, with mind full of loving kindness (compassion, altruistic joy or equanimity) pervading in one direction, then a second direction, then a third one, then the fourth one, just so above, below and all around and everywhere identifying himself with all, he is pervading the whole world with mind full of loving-kindness with mind wide, developed, unbounded, free from hate and ill-will."
Thereafter he follows the same theme with compassion, altruistic joy and equanimity.
It is said that in this country there were hospitals caring for animals. The decadence that has set in our society and world at large has to be reversed. We must not let the politics, economics and business mechanisms to decide our future however powerful they are.
They are not the only stakeholders.
Silent masses without a voice is quite evident after the tsunami episode. We must be self critical of our failures. We must be mindful and expose the changes that is currently taking place globally due to unsustainable scientific and economic exploitation of the third world.

Do Not Use Ubuntu 24.10

Do Not Use Ubuntu 24.10 it is Useless

I just updated my old Laptop and downloaded BSD 13.4 and on second thought decided to download Ubuntu from its dedicated site.

BSD is for my old laptop. It has Endless OS which is Debian Gnome.

If Endless OS misfires (very unlikely) I am going to Install BSD in my Old ACER Laptop.

It is 5.7GB and cannot fire up Firefox. 

It is not due to RAM. I have upgraded to 8GB RAM but I was using 4GB at home without a problem.

Gnome boots up fast and I cannot wait for KDE Plasma to boot. 

That is why I do not use KDE.

Gnome gives a running commentary (it is pretty fast to read the commentary) while booting and that is why I love it.

If three a problem, I know it first hand.

It is usually hard disk filling up with junk.

I usually have a method to clean it up.

On a live mode on a USB, it did configure WiFI but it could not connect to the Internet.

Gparted did not mount.

Foirefox did not fire.

It had 32 odd applications and it could not go to the second page of items.

Ubuntu has gone commercial and that is its death knell.

It boasts itself as 20 years in service (Linux is 34 years old but if it cannot fire Firefox who would use it.

I have given up even testing Ubuntu for the last 9 months.