Tuesday, March 17, 2026
New Year Celebrations-2026=DOGS
One Night of Trouble with Linux
One Night of TROUBLE with Linux
I was trying to upgrade my computer with Linux derivatives and take an early Christmas Break.
I list the Linux Nuances not on any order of merit here.
All these are Human Errors and can be rectified.
I believe all the Linux developers are Doing a great Job but by rushing to put out the distribution before Christmas leave behind some ugly nuances.
They should be excused for minor lapses.
1. Peppermint Front end is Dark and Ugly.
I get a headache after few minutes of work.
2. Libre Office has No Thesaurus in Linux.
3. Ubuntu 14.04 takes four hours,mind you it is not their fault.
I hope during the Christmas holiday at least, they allow a leeway.
Why can't they Install first in English and give the User to download his or her language afterwards?
4. Knoppix 7.6 is beautiful on a Live Session but has a major glitch.
I downloaded the English version and Installed it to reiserfs partition.
It is not in English but probably in Danish.
I tried to convert it to English at boot time but it boots so fast that touching the Del Key or F2 has no effect.
5. Boot loaders are finicky, especially Knoppix but it gives the option of not installing it and let one configure manually.
6. None of them detect the UEFI based Window's 8 in my second hard drive.
I deliberately shifted its UEFI partition.
7. DVD booting of Pinguy, and Knoppix were halted abruptly due to sectors not written properly on the boot disk.
They were burned by K3B on Peppermint.
One disk did not finish writing on it.
I am not a novice to Linux and I have gone through these nuances many a times, I can tolerate all this in one night of Linux Dance but what I cannot tolerate is our Telecom restricting my access to Internet even at 5 KB per second.
It is killing me softly.
I take my hat off for all the developers.
I am making these comments before Microsoft guys try to bash (not the hash script) your back with critical comments.
If you hear these comments from a Microsoft Guy / Girl please ignore them and have a Patch ready by January.
Mind you Microsoft takes one year patch their faults by that time they have a new release for which you have to Pay.
Only foolish guys Pay for their own faults and make Microsoft Rich.
Linux, You Guys/Girls need a holiday and you richly deserve a holiday.
In any case I am going into recess any time from now and if you do not hear from me please do not assume I am dead and gone with the wind.
I will be back with all cylinders firing at top level.
Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year, 2016.
My Linux Beginning
Saturday, July 30, 2011
My Linux Beginning
Linux Reproduction for Posterity
I must tell you after preparing the 15 partitions booting four Linux images.
It took little over 2 and a half hours.
Pinguy took little longer and 20 minutes extra since I had to install Dropbox.
I was connected to the Internet.
Half and hour is all that is required to install Linux.
1.Knoppix DVD was the quickest.
2. Then Vinux
3. Then Sabayon
4. Pinguy took one hour and one can cut it down to half an hour if you do not tick updates from Internet and third party software like Flash and MPeg.
To be honest I had made a mistake in the night by inadvertently using its home partition (wrong numbering of partitions) for Sabayon and I had to redo all including re-partitioning to correct the order and numbering sequence for me to remember by heart.
I finished in less than two hours.
This would go as the quickest update under one day (24 hours) while doing lot of other things including taking my son out for a meal who has a high degree of visual handicap and sat with him with Vinux after returning home.
He of course picked up the finer points in no time and by the time I returned having attended to Internet cables I had pulled out accidentally while configuring the laptop.
In fact, that took longer than the installation since I had to check all the cables and make sure my download work continued (it broke twice yesterday) and listen to BBC cricket on radio while doing all this.
Since PCLinux 64 bits version is not there I am going to install Debian and leave two partition free for it for future day.
Beauty is that the GRUB file/s of each distributions is / are now compatible. It does not matter in what order I install them.
That also saved lot of time.
In other words it is going to have 6 distributions with all the utilities I used in various combinations.
I have not installed ArtistX or AVLinux since I have no time for graphic work now but I have their images in my collection, if any of my friends need them to be installed.
Laptop is a showpiece but my real workhorses are old I.B.Ms which run almost 24 hours everyday downloading various images I test on daily basis.That exercise is going to end very soon.
I was waiting for the PCLinux2011 64 bits Version but it was never coming and decided to upgrade my laptop with a bigger hard disk which are becoming cheaper by the day.
The steps are
1. Remove the battery.
2. Remove the Hard disk.
3. Fixed the new Hard Disk
Place the old one on a portable mini USB bay/tray enclosure.
4. Use Gparted to partition the new hard disk (15 partition restriction applies for SATA Hard Drives).
5. Install Knoppix 10 the anniversary edition.
No problem.
6. Install Pinguy.
No problem with GRUB and detects Knoppix but painfully slow when updating on line.
7. Install Dropbox in about 5 minutes.
8. Install Sabayon 6 with no problem and it detects both Knoppix and Pinguy.
No problem with XBMC media center and mouse does not freeze.
9. Boot up Pinguy and let Dropbox synchronizes.
I go to sleep and it is 6AM in the morning.
10. Test the USB Hard Disk and boots up OK but slow. The data in the old hard is intact.
All these without paying any ransom to Microsoft and now I have 7 operating systems 4 on the old disk 3 on the new one with another 7 partitions left free for install additional distributions.
Two NTFS partitions (for storage of Linux Images)and three for Debian Sinhala another three for PCLinux 64 bits when it comes. I still have another partition for testing a new Linux distribution.
A FAT partition is kept for posterity but sometimes destructive for some Linux distributions.
Sometimes with oversight I reinstall distributions that I have already installed. Usually, in one night of hectic work overload I try to test all the Linux distributions I have downloaded.
The whole Saturday for me to go to sleep mode and have a couple of dreams for Maha Brahma.
Please note that installing was done in the night only because our Telecom's download speed is painfully slow for online updates (takes ages if done during day time) in day time. This is while all Ceylonese including doctors on duty sleeping except poor Interns who have poor diagnostic skills.
Please do not get sick at night because we do not have ambulances to take you to a hospital and the ambulance drivers also prefer a good night sleep.
Then you might wonder why I was keeping up all night.
Well I had to keep all night up when I was on call abroad often working for three others and patient prefer coming to me at night since I used to solve all their problems. Those GPs took ages to give an appointment let alone solve a clinical problem.
Those nightly habits are a bonus when one deals with computing in Linux, not that Linux gives problems but often due to human errors like installing a root partition on some other distribution's home partition due to wrong numbering of the partition table.