Live CD Script, Its beginning, Unity and PCLinux

Live CD Script, Its beginning, Unity and PCLinux

Progress of Live CDs had a bumpy ride.

The story as it is told to me is as follows;
 

But I do not know how true the facts are.

However, I discovered Live CD in 2007 with PCLinux 2007 long time after its hatching.

Live CD project was stagnant at the beginning which was understandable and had a Single developer working on it.
 

That developer joined Unity Linux and all 25+ developers there decided to help him make some progress on it.  

The impact Live CDs made on me is substantial and never waned.

In the meantime, they took the initiative to make improvements.  

For example, they gave it 64 bit compatibility.  

They gave it better detection capacity.  

They took the code and gave it better international language support.  

All those things are made available for Free to any distribution wanting to download a snapshot from SVN.

Now, if anyone has a claim to Live CD as ‘theirs’ it would be Jaco Greefe who was the principal on the project Long before any distributions other than Mandrake aka Mandriva even worked with it.  

The script creator Jaco Greefecame from Mandrake Project.

Texstar used Jaco’s project mklivecd and created the original PCLinuxOS 2003 release. 

This release was based on Mandrake 9.2 at the time and a few other Mandrake developers began to debug the script through the creation of PCLinuxOS.  

Mandrake was a trademarked name, so Texstar named it PCLinuxOS.

As you can see, if any one distribution has claim to mklivecd, it would be Mandrake aka Mandriva which was where the script creator/s came from. 

It’s also where the script was first made usable. 

Texstar made it into a nice package with PCLinuxOS which  is totally true.

Texstar only had 32 bit version and only supported English language.

Unity which branched off from Mandrake/PCLinux continues to improve the Live Script with 64 bit and added even udev.

Unity approach is for the Live script to work for other distributions not just for Mandriva derived distributions.

It is targeting developers and savvy guys and not newbies and users.

There have been many attempts by Unity Linux developers to get other distributions that use mklivecd involved with the development of it.  

That invitation is always open to any and all distributions that use it.

As it is Unity is struggling with manpower shortages and its development has again gone into crisis situation and stagnation. 

This is where even a good product may be lost at the end due to lack of improvements and enthusiasm.

The Goal of Unity as stated below are

Unity Linux targets DEVELOPERS.  

We don’t target end users.  

If end users like Unity, GREAT!  

If not, we don’t worry about it.  

Unity Linux has derivative distributions called “branches” that work to target the end user.  

Unity Linux itself is targeted squarely at distribution developers and advanced users who want to be able to use the mklivecd scripts.

Unity attempt at refining the core utilities and it is just over 300 MB.

1. Humanity.

2. Synergy

3. BBI are only three of its derivatives.

Hope everybody get together and help Unity Linux (not the Ubuntu desktop) to keep the spirit of Unity in Diversity and have a refined product at the end of the day.

Update is long overdue.

I have used the Unity 2010 and made a Live USB.

 

I tried to fiddle with the script (mind you it is in graphic form and not command line and terminal) and mounted an iso file of a distribution which was not a Unity derivative (which I was able to do with UnetBootIn) and it failed to mount the sfs file of that distribution.

It is not of the class of UnetBootin yet but given time and effort mklivecd scripts should become the gold standard of Live CDs

Lack of Scientific Strategic Point of Convergence

 Lack of Scientific Strategic Point of Convergence

This piece is.written with empathy.

I started  with skepticism bit mingled with sarcasm, especially, for all politicians of a large spectrum, globally spread.

I am gearing for equanimity but no where near it.

There are basically four fears.

Loss of one's belongings or greed of possessing more and more (it is called Americanism and Trumpism is its latest mutant) including power spectrum.

Anger or hate that has no limits (currently Israel but it shifts its location globally).

The worst of it is the idealism that come as various form of religions, now wanting women not to wear underwear but males excluded.

The worst is the fear of death and finding no space to bury the death, in India is escalating.

I think all humans deserve a final resting place, if not in place but in our memory.

They are our fellow beings irrespective of their birth or origin (I mean cultures).

They are not simple statistics but a product of two, a mother and a putative father.

We are sure of our mother but never the father according to Abraham T Kouvoor, an Indian skeptic or a rationalist, long gone with his establishment.

I simply believe  one can be a skeptic but but never a fully accomplished rationalist.

As a medical man every death recorded  is a sting on our expertise challenged to the very core.

Every man or woman is counted and they are not "Vote Bank" to exploit.

Every leader in the developed and developing world is accountable and culpable and it is applied to current President Biden and blaming Trump or scapegoating him is not the scientific way around.

We all fallible human beings, it is part of our nature but that rule does not apply to guys and girls clamouring for power keg.

The political powder peg!

The Coronavirus has exposed us to the way we use ad hoc management strategy to any human crisis, let alone a communicable disease.

It all started in London with cholera epidemic  and it took a decade or more to trace the series of deaths to a common tap used by Londoners.

The primitive Public Health was born but now with tons of antiseptics condiments it has proved ineffective.

It is long before Simpson's forensic principles which I loved in total, that put the foundation of my Pathology Stint.

Realizing that I could add only 20%  after full postmortem examination to the already existing 40% which put breaks to the scientific medical  brain of mine was a welcome recipe.

It broaden my outlook and opened me to Linux and Free Software.

Medicine was a boring subject that I never said while in practice.

With Coronavirus that gut feeling of mine has resurfaced.

I am not saying it to put off anybody who wants to become a doctor or nurse.

But the Coronavirus will diminish the entry into this field for a very long time.

It has exposed the public sector's lack of commitment in UK and private sector's vulnerability in USA.

Insurance corporations will rewrite their small prints to exclude Coronavirus deaths, if not care.

Their premise majority will not fall ill and the premiums are good source for investments falls on the floor, if not the on the face.

I always discouraged psychology and psychiatry not because their is significant lack of pathological footprints but the shear number of the population.

There are more than 7 billion living psychologies on this planet and their should be billions of psychiatrists.

Only Buddha who could read minds of others but that is also one at a time, with rebirth and it's consequences examined in.detail but ordinary psychology guy generally projects his perspective to the gullible subjects.

It has many inherent risks.

The psychiatrists commits suicide  more often than a pathologists.

That is why I always discourage somebody wanting to do psychology.

Now a bit of intermission.

Guys and Girls do not be in a rush to buy an Apple device or Google's Chrome device.

They are all bloatware padded with bubbling new icons and touch finger pads.

It is a waste of money and my version 8 and 9 if not 10 is sufficient for my work with fancy typefaces that takes the strain on my fingers and finger tips.

But if you want hard work performed it is the PC not your Laptop  that takes  you to the winning post, with Grammerly Typeface ruling with grammar.

Apart from my interest in Linux, I took the trouble to improve my English (especially after my retirement).

During my workdays, it was all about correct technical English and exact definition that mattered.

It is now more of both since I have broaden it to Ultra Science and Physics of mine.

I may have to coin new words to add the 4th dimensional view and perspective.

We are unfortunately trapped in 3 dimensions and there is more to this Universe than three dimensions.

It is a big mathematical puzzle.

Universe does neither stop at pictures and video conferences nor the speed of light.

It is much more.

One has to get rid of all religious beliefs and tendencies.

We have to drop political conventions that all men and women are equal.

We have enormous potentials that are suppressed by political, religious and broadly speaking scientific views.

I have already said we may be able to unravel the 20%.

I am not trying to be philosophical here.

The philosophers  are good at posing good questions and not expecting a ready made answer.

Quite the opposite here in my expansive projections.

Those projections are applied  to Coronavirus spread.

My current view is 50% blame goes to the politicians who govern and the other 50% who believe them as gospel truths.

We must make people less believing the plausible government side of the argument and find big holes in that argument.

I think there is a big hole in the big bucket of lies spread by paranoid doctors.

The big bucket cannot hold the current fluidity of the argument, since the virus is finding new ways explore the human predicaments.

Its fluidity in existence is existential.

There is no tailor made answers.

The answers have to be evolving with the trends and statistics.

I have a few points for argument.

The population is fast expanding and WHO has no population policy to begin with.

UNO is a Big Failure.

The nature's answer is Coronavirus to control the over population.

But a successful virus never exterminate it's host.

Less than 0.001% is it's normal strategy.

The Coronavirus far exceeds the limit of nature's tolerance.

That is my argument for human made or laboratory made virus argument.

It is also of 20 to 30 nanometer size very easy to spill out of the unregulated genomic laboratories all over the world.

Craig Ventor may have made millions, if not billions but that genomic cat has gone savagely wild now.

I do not fancy the argument that the virus was present and incubating in USA, well before 2014.

The Chart's extrapolation is in error.

Extrapolating without real data but imaginary data is totally  unscientific!

That is the Chinese side of the argument.

But nobody talks about Singapore planes taking the virus all over the world from China and its lack in house plans to spread inside the cabins.

I have no sympathy for few airlines going bust.

The current trends in technology and video conferences put lead weight on airlines trying to open up logistically again.

The priorities are changing fast and I have no grouse about Air Ambulances which was a part of my work in New Zealand.

This industry is only for the super flyers.

Not for an average Indian who does not have a regular place for logging and share a room or dormitory.

Lack of housing is a global problem, especially for migrant workers.
I need to expand on global housing and how architects have no inspiration as regards to human predicament in a global pandemic.
Their esthetics may have high value for rich customers but majority in this world does not have a proper roof above them.

Sharing toilets is a common problem.

A house with 4 should have at least three toilets if we are to avoid domestic transmission of any infection.

They should not be on the same level but at different levels, at least four with a rooftop garden to support robust plants that cool the house and capture at least minute amount that was released during construction.

I do not believe in Premadasa type of "Block Cement" compartments with common toilets.

I hate high rising buildings.

If a high rising building.catchers fire it is catastrophe.

See the film Towering Inferno.
I was once incarcerated overnight in Singapore due to mishandling of the flight schedule by Sri-Lankans Airline

I.was in the  21 or 23rd floor and I could not sleep having explored the fire exit twice.
I caught up with my sleep inflight to London.

Those days airfares were cheap and only a few traveled.

Middle seats were empty and space was enough to spread out.

Coming to ground level, in my neighbourhood there is a common toilet which is an eyesore.

There is a house built on Premadasa style near it without a toilet.

Our Grama Niladhari's office is nearby.
 

He has no toilet.

There was a public water tap like in London, there.

I was instrumental in closing it to save water.

Why somebody get free water while I pay the water bill? 

Mind you, our last water bill was over Rs.5000/=.

So this joint is a ideal breeding or spreading ground for the Coronavirus and the quarantine site or the teacher training college is nearby.

No wonder three wheeler drivers were the first to catch the virus.

Little beyond is the University.

Thank God,  it is closed to students and would have been  an epicenter.

We have mismanaged this crisis from the very beginning.

There were big holes to plug but they.plugged the easy ones.

It is our Navy who started it.

Of course army helped it spreading.

I finish with a sore point.

I have nothing against LGBT people but homosexuals spread this virus globally.

It is simply a Enterovirus that slips the gear to respiratory mode  having switched to Adenovirus methodology (this supports my original argument that it is a laboratory virus which escaped from China).

AIDS was a classic example.

It was tree monkey virus to begin with.

The German  Nazis had a base in Western Africa before Second World War.

They used poor tree moneys for experimenting.

Gods only know for what?

May be for biological weapons.

They picked up the virus from the monkeys.

They were homosexuals whereas Africans were not.

Poor Africans were subjects of vaccination program without sterilizing needles and instruments and not by sexual route.

They passed the Mutant AIDS virus to all Africans.

History repeats and this time, it is in Communist  China.

The bat was the source if not civets.

Dhamma, Religion and Science

Dhamma, Religion and Science

None of the above is infallible.

This word is often used to describe human capacity for error — no one is infallible.

In that context only science accept capacity to error.

Neither Dhamma nor Religion accepts that they are prone to error.

It is easy to dispense orthodox Church's dogma that god is the creator and the essence of the beginning.

If God created the world, who created God is the next pertinent question in science.

This was the question I used to pose as a kid when not even 7 years old.

I have not found an answer to this question all my life.

So my mind worked itself to science without any hindrance.

I was good at asking the most demanding question, in the class and I was thrown out of the class by my Christian rather the Catholic teacher.

He did not realize that I made my fellow mates to ask even more probing questions in my absence.

The end result was that all the so called Buddhists by descent were thrown out eventually.

We enjoyed games while my fellow Christian mates were indoctrinated with the dogma or the current expression “God Delusion”.

I subsequently stopped going to this school (there were many other reason including not teaching elementary science) to my father's annoyance.

To my disgust I never found a good science teacher in the city school, I subsequently joined.

I was born with scientific thinking and that was not a problem, thanks to books from the British Council Library.

I was reading Scientific American very early in my life.

Coming to Dhamma, I never had a teacher who could make interesting introduction to its basics.

Jataka Katha was an antithesis to me.

I should relate a particular incident.

We had a Poya Dasa Sil program in my village school as an antidote to our rebelliousness in the Christian school.

One of my mates asked a simple question from the Buddhist monk.

His question was (based on merit and demerit principle or the good and the bad moral principle) related to Buddhist decorations with Buddha's image littered all over the streets soon after Wesak Poya.

Is it good or bad to litter the streets with Buddha images?

The monk did not answer that question to my satisfaction.

I do not know what my mate's gut feeling was and I never discussed it with him.

This had a remarkable impression on me.

It seeded the interest in environment at a very early age.
 

Live and let live principle and do not litter the mother earth.

Our capital city Colombo is a classic example of living every day with litter.

The recent floods had made the city fathers to wake up from slumber. 

Even the Colombo crows (cravens) decimated due to garbage menace and polythene (cause intestinal obstruction and death).

The crows did a better service than our city fathers and mothers.

I never liked any religion including Buddhism.

I never declared my inner feeling to anybody including my parents but pretended to be a very religious person (which was trues as far as good habits were concerned and I was a visible conformist from outside).

I probed into Dhamma well past my adulthood.

I found Dhamma very tricky especially the Rebirth. 

However, Kamma was not my bete noire, in the way of cause and effect.

Buddha deliberately avoided controversy.

He strictly forbade the inquiry into the universe and the world of science.

He said they were the deterrent and superfluous to the Eight Fold Pathway he preached.

Kalama Sutta was the red herring which later scholars got hold of it by the wrong end or the tail of it, to say Dhamma is scientific.

He used his qualifications for systematic inquiry in Kalama Sutta to verify his basic teaching of Eight Fold Pathway of life.

His Dhamma was a way of life and a mental culture in pristine form.

There is no science in Buddha's teaching.

Any rendering outside his teaching is a viscous dogma (science included) which he specifically forbade.

What he tried to convey is that “the universe is within you” and not from outside or any alien forces.

Nibbana or the four sublime forms were the goals to target and not scientific methodology.

The bottom line is I am yet to find a Buddhist monk or layperson who reached these goals.

In my case, I am not at all interested in those targets and in that sense I am not a Buddhist, at all.

I am very much happy with what I am and my goals are very simple and mundane like, good night sleep, good holiday, bit of wine, a piece of cupcake with some chocolate chips, a good science book to read or detective story to ponder and never a melodrama.

If one has not worked out who one is, it is simply a burden to the mother earth, which gives oxygen to breath, water to drink, fruits (food) to eat and gravity to pull oneself into an erect homo sapiens who has not evolved to his full potential, yet.

 

Insight Wisdom

 Insight Wisdom

 

There are a few words in Pali which have no English equivalents.

1. Vipassana

2. Vidhasshana

3. Mudhita

4. Upekka

Let me bring three philosophical tenets.

1. Good

2. Bad

3. Neither good nor bad

A given notion can be categorized or simplified into, these three language basics. 

The task of a philosopher is not to assemble new words but to give relatively fluid meaning as in fundamental of physics.

Take the word "God".

A simple philosopher does not take a firm stand on the Notion of God but he says the concept of God is neither good nor bad.

He is not sitting on the fence but gives a non committing sense to the word God. 

In the case of an ordinary man or woman the term God has absolute meaning and he substantiate its presence by modelling it in the mind first and later in figurines. 

It takes an art form over time. 

None of them has seen the god in real time and space but the statistical odds against it's presence in his or her mind is never evaluated.

Dogma is born out of nothing substantial. 

I see this as the basic problem of mankind for time immemorial.

The propagation thereafter is infinite. 

There is no problem with the existence of man. 

For that matter even alien beings.

He is supposed to have a clear mind. 

I doubt the man ever had a clear mind. 

His mind was ever clouded or was never visited in depth.

He had only the fear. 

Fear of water and floods.

Fear of fire and burning.

Fear of wind, rain and lightening

Fear of loss.

Fear of death.

Fear of war.

Fear of destruction.

Fear of hunger.

Fear of pain.

The list goes on.

He does not figure out, all these are in the mind in time and space.

He is preoccupied.

He does not have time to ponder or reflect that all these are mind born.

So he is allude to the sublime.

Vissuddhi
Vidhasshana
Muditha
Upekka are out of the reach of his or her mind.

What is Vissuddhi?

It is what one sees with the naked eye.

It  may be a thing or colour of the thing.
It may be pleasurable or not pleasurable or without emotion attached and neutral.

All these are mind born feelings and nothing substantial present, at the mind door.

But he still, wants to retain all those mind born objects are as real and substantial.

Mind is not free even for a moment but flips from, one moment to another, like a stream not remaining still.

The mind stream flows.

No course correction at all.

What one needs is to still the mind of all mind objects and emotions, just for a fraction of a second.

If this is done for a sufficient length of time and over long period of time, mind begins not to respond for a fraction of a second to begin with.

That is the entry point.

Then the mind becomes open to its own analysis.

Another mind can never see this moment of reflection.

The subject and object are the same!

This analysis brings the mind to Viddhasshana.

Nothing real.
Nothing substantial.
Nothing permanent but empty phenomena.

This reflection of mind is a joy by itself, the moment one enters this domain.

This joy itself which is natural may be a hindrance to the next higher domain.

That is Upekka the highest level.

The sublime state of mind.

It is very difficult to achieve.

But this is within our reach.

That is the wisdom door of insight.

Dhamma Sense and Science Misrepresentation

 Dhamma Sense and Science Misrepresentation

Writings of Nanavira Thera

Reproduced by Kingsley Heendeniya (He was a teacher of Public Health)

I have not read this piece before but I feel it is appropriate to reproduce it.

 
It is yet again emerging in local papers.
 

There is a consistent trend to distort Dhamma. 

I am deleting almost all political pieces except few.

My observation is very similar but I would tend to disagree with his analysis of Relativity and Quantum Physics (there is no relevance in Dhamma).

The reason being, (of lately) certain individuals (mostly after retirement) posing as erudite, making his/her own interpretation of Dhamma and rendering meanings out of context.

One of them has published a book locally in English on Suttas and has said there is No Rebirth concept or Kamma in Buddhism.

I just had a peep of this book in a local bookshop. 

I must state that there was a conspiracy in a certain sect of a religion that envisaged that best way to “Kill Dhamma” is to infiltrate (kill within and not from without).

In Secret Service (CIA, KGB terminology) this is called planting a mole. 

 

There are many moles planted already.

 

One is Kiribathgodaya (planted by the Catholic Church) who is distorting Pali and putting his Sinhala Terms.

 

Other one in a Asapuwa is portraying Buddha as a sexual feminine figure.

I think it is called Mahamevna Asapuwa.

 

There is a  presentation of young nursing (private) students visiting this place. Young ones are enticed to "subtle sexual orgies" and not Dhamma.

 

Considerable number fall into this TRAP.

 

This guy is a Homosexual and there is no room for Homosexuality in Buddha Dhamma.

In another book in English from India one author from India (this was pointed out to me by a Christian friend) has said that Buddha as a young man raped a woman.

This is the level and intent of misinformation, with Internet in its Bubble State, this campaign would expand and intensify.

I need to pen few pieces before my digital hibernation.

I do not want to be a part of this sinister game plan.

I am afraid even Dalai Lama has succumbed to this plot.

Beginning of the Reproduction

It is very common these days to find educated professional indulge themselves in claiming able to forge links with scientific developments in quantum physics, astrophysics, biochemistry neuroscience etc and the Dhamma.

There is for example a pre-occupation with ‘research’ into rebirth through records of anecdotes under hypnosis suggesting that neuroscience should one day reveal the secrets of memory and prove rebirth.

I cannot understand why anyone wants to prove rebirth?

After that What?

Many of these persons having misled themselves in the Dhamma are thus misleading others and additionally by that egregious habit of offering certificates to the Buddha by quoting from scientists and eminent persons and brow beating.

The Dhamma is about 2500 years (Buddha c 563-488 BC) old. 

If we agree to begin with Aristotle (c384-322 BC), science may be regarded as about the same age. 

But whereas one person, the Buddha taught Dhamma for 45 years, thousands of persons have been involved in the discovery and teaching of science, many contradicting each other. 

Their disputes, assumptions, running into blind alleys and mistakes have not ceased or are likely to ever cease,

Conversely there is nothing to add or take away from the teaching of Buddha. 

According to him, it will last for 5000 years after his death and disappear.

The bogus scientific discussion is evidence that this process of decay has begun.

Buddha said, ‘I divine (better term is Noble One) makes known the noble world Transcending Teaching as the business of man’.

The business of science is strictly worldly. 

 

And all worldly endeavours have no value in the Dhamma. 

 

They are obstructions to the realization of the purpose of the Dhamma. 

 

When speaking of akusala and kusala action (skillful and unskillful) the Buddha declared; ‘That action leads to arising of action and the action does not lead to cessation of action.

Skillful action not rooted in lust, hate and delusion leads to cessation of of action, not to arising of action.’

In an advance warning of ‘five fearful things,not arisen at present but which will arise in future leading to the death of Dhamma.

Buddha said, “Again monks there will be monk in time to to come who will be undeveloped in body, virtue, mind and understanding. The being undeveloped in body, virtue, mind and understanding when these discourses uttered by the Thathagatha are preached, profound in meaning, beyond the world, concerned with voidness-they will not listen to them.

It is unthinkable that any scientist would make such declaration.

Science is thought to be progressive.

The Buddha taught the Dhamma is to one purpose Orly- for its practice through reflection, to stop birth.

He ends many discourses with the words: 

 

Bhikkus, ‘there are these roots of trees, the empty huts, meditate, do not delay lest you regret later’.

Dhamma is not taught in thousands and more modules for generating doubts, assumptions, debate, theorizing, analyzing, academic discussions, scholarship or speculation.

Also it matters little to the scientist whether others find any use for his science.

The pompous self satisfaction of the scientist and scholar coincides.

Venerable Nanavira has written thus: “only a vertical view strait down to the abyss of his own personal existence, is a man capable of apprehending the perilous insecurity of his situation; and only a man who does this is prepared to listen to the Buddha’s teaching.

Why are we cast in this world to die?

Dhamma is the general nature of Things.

All determinations are impermanent (Anitta).

All determinations are suffering (Dukka).

All determinations are not self (Anatma).

Understanding this the Buddha says, is the Seeing.

It is private knowledge unlike science.

The material world is public and common to the sense experience of everyone.

Natural Science writes Nanavira, in taking this as its starting point and polishing it a little to remove irregularities, has no place for the individual and to sense experience (let alone mind experience or imagination) for the material world of science is by definition utterly a point of view or reference.

In relativity theory, every point is a point of view, which comes to mean the same thing.

It is uniformly communal.

Science is essentially public.

Consciousness, intention, perception and feelings not being public are not part of the universe of science.

Science is inherently incapable of understanding the nature of material change due to conscious action (Kamma) - which is concisely reflexive exercise of preference for one available mode of behaviour (or set of them) at the expense of others (beings).

Quantum physics he says in hoping to reinstate the-observer- if only as a point of view-is merely locking the stable door after the horse has been stolen.