CATS, DOGS and SQUIRRELS

CATS, DOGS and SQUIRRELS 

TRINGO

Family Crisis, TRIN-GO the Trigger Mechanism of the Crisis.

Because of our industrial action, I have decided not to share publicly, except privately, any humour, anecdotes and many amusing stories that crop up when we do not Care for Work, like politicians, take a real vacation even though, it was premature by 6 months and enjoy the life as if there is only a few days to live in a year when the World is predicted to end as predicted by an Oracle.

But the focus was only on the Strike in spite of many obstacles.

Telling all my near and dear do not get depressed but try creativity which politicians lack and teach them a lesson, even it is not the time and the midterm of a aimless regime except glorifying and consolidation of the power base.

I was of the opinion that midterm was the best time to take industrial action since one can get a sleeping, lethargic and partisan administration to change its ways and be responsible and responsive. There was no pressure for those in power politically in midterm and extract what ever it may be desirable.

Equally, one can “Test The Mentality” of those in power and their corrupt officials giving them wrong and ill advice strategically.

I also warned them that it will take a political trend which I am technically or strategically against but not morally though, since there are many who will piggyback on US and take political mileage.

In a democracy if we remain silent and passive partners, the the cradle of democracy will crumble.       It crumbled since Tamils were silent when atrocities were enacted on them from both sides of the divide..     It is going to crumble if Muslim and Sinhala communities remain passive participants. Thank god Muslim community has realised it even very late.

They are been globally and systematically suppressed by American and British engineered propaganda which France is cohesively and covertly participating.

All due to OIL but nothing but OIL, the energy crisis looming.

I also told when politics not policies takes precedence, the final outcome is dicey and it will be a long drawn out and painful “Industrial Action” for both sides of the divide.

There is no Win-Win outcome.

The longer it gets into the deep end of the rotten and muddy pool of politics, the worse the outcome is.

Slowly and surely the bureaucrats have muddied the pool. All my predictions have come true except a viable solution.

This long preamble is to explain the newly coined name of our newly adopted grandson who is a squirrel who even had not opened its eyes. Again the full story will come after the strike is over and one has to wait.

We have kept a diary of him and that will come out when we are back at work, academically.

I need some diversions from the main stream to wear my creative hat when in full gear.

After I have attended to the emergency need half with my wife’s help, I was out in the town enjoying the new found Freedom.

I let the tiny one relax and go to sleep since my wife had frightened it so much, only sedative I could assure was dark room conducive for sleeping. I went to sleep myself and when I got up, the next thing was to name it.

GO was vital and I had decided that it had to GO when he is ready.

I won´t get attached to it.

TRI is that it had to survive the from CATS, and my DOG and Ants.

It also has stripes not three but many on its back.

I made a note on a little notebook for my daughter to attend and again went back to town to find a suitable pen.

Quite by accident the name rings on me the way we handle Reconciliation.

We are like CATS, DOGS and SQUIRRELS,

They cannot live in one house or in a restricted pen. We are so deeply divided, this country will never prosper.

TRIN-GO reminds me, the election results of the TRINCO, too.

Without any amendments the new name was endorsed by the adopted family and the poor  squirrel family has to be satisfied one minus but soon the juvenile will be roaming on rooftops and trees.

The question is why cannot we enjoy our new found Freedom?

Why it is only for One Dominant Party?

Why there is no reconciliation but only power politics?

Political power when absolute takes away prudence and cohabitation.

We are worse than CATS, DOGS and SQIRRELS.

In spite of the oddity in nature they somehow survive near human habitation. Only rarely one has to intervene.

When one is young, blind or injured we have to help.

Soon he has to be released to the mother nature.

That was my resolve and no attachment.

One should not get attached to Power, too.

Even our Buddhist monks are deeply entrenched in this Power Game. That is the sad part and we do not have philosophers to take their place.

Even the philosophy of live and let live is hijacked by the modern Buddhists. and their political leaders.

Why?

I do not know.

The Story of the Squirrel

It is fitting to finish this book with this story.

In fact this story hastened me to write before other books that I was planning for sometime.

Fortunately, if happened during the prolong industrial action and I could record the story briefly for posterity with the help of my wife and my daughter.

Family Crisis, TRIN-GO the Trigger Mechanism of the Crisis

TRIN-GO was the newly coined name of our adopted grandson who was a very tiny squirrel who even had not opened its eyes.

We  kept a diary of its progress not with any intention of including it in this book but the unexpected events that unfolded had made me to do so, and in fact hastened writing this book.

After, I had attended to the emergency need (half of the rescue work by my wife) I let the tiny one relax and go to sleep since my wife had frightened it very much, the only sedative I could assure was a dark room conducive for sleeping.

I went to sleep myself and when I got up, the next thing was to name it.

GO was vital and I had decided that it had to GO when he is ready.

I won´t get attached to it.

TRI is that it had to survive from the CATS, and my DOG and the fiery Ants.

It also has stripes not three but many on its back.

I left a little notebook for my daughter to keep the records and again went back to town to find a suitable PEN.

Quite by accident the name rings on me the way we handle RECONCILIATION.

We are like CATS, DOGS and SQUIRRELS,

They cannot live in one house or a PEN.

Without any amendments the new name was endorsed by the adopted family and the poor  squirrel family has to be satisfied one minus but soon the juvenile would be roaming on rooftops and tree as bird.

We are worse than CATS, DOGS and SQUIRRELS.

In spite of the oddity in nature they somehow survive near human habitation.

Only rarely one has to intervene, when one is young, blind or injured.

Then, we have to extend some help.

Soon he has to be released to the mother nature.

That was my resolve and no attachment.

Diary of the Young Squirrel

Few pages of the diary are here with very little editing.

Day 0ne-1

Friday the 21st of September 2012.

TRINGO is a bundle of energy.

He climbs up to the rooftop of the hurriedly made and fabricated playpen.

He takes only 3 drops per feed.

Last feed was at 11.50 A.M make and some fresh milk needs to be prepared at at4.30 P.M.

He has not passed water / urine and appeared very dry.

His stools are dry like squashed, parboiled dry rice.

Day Five-5-Tuesday 25thSeptember

Opened its eyes and may be about five weeks old.

Day 9 -Saturday, 29th September

Weighed 20 grams.

Day 11

Barely able lick milk on the anatomical snuffbox of the dorsal aspect of my hand.

Day 12

Able to reverse backwards,

Day 13

I made a mess while feeding and his under belly and tail was soaked with milk which I attributed wrongly to his urine.

Tiny drop of urine on my hand but very concentrated.

Gives a signal before voiding bowel which were soft and yellow.

Still weighs 20 grams but 21 grams after a feed.

I had to spend over two hours since he was very active and won’t settle down in the pen.

First jump when left on the bed on its own.

Tears down my dog’s eyes

Why?

I was playing with the new guy.

Yes, for three days he had tears in its eyes.

Are you neglecting me because of this new guy?

That was the message my dog planted in my eyes.

Able to nibble at soft banana but not able to swallow but takes the juicy part and still not ready for solids.

Needs coxing and guiding.

Unable to find food on its own except milk.

Loves fruit yogurt.

Very active won’t go to sleep.

Climb up and down and wonder away and not able to define its sphere of activity and returning to the base.

All together  two and a half hours play time and no winder my dog felt sad for himself.

Very well settled down. Grooms and talk to self and listen to external sound attentively.

Day 14-4th October

Becoming independent.

Able to find food on a tray but goes into panic mode when feeding is discounted.

Grooms on its own but not not the tail.

Self assured and no wondering in the pen aimlessly.

Tail still not straight or fully formed.

Alert to the presence of me or my daughter.

Has not gained weight probably due probably to its hyperactivity.

Teeth growing but unable gnaw guava which was hard for its teeth.

Loves ripe banana.

Day 15

Sleeps well when he has had a good meal.

Feeds more in two sittings.

Loves fruit yoghurt.

Day 16

Very talkative.

Say no and able to refuse food.

Loves to wonder around aimlessly.

Day 17-7th October 2012

Teeth visible.

Feeds OK.

Voiding OK.

You will see the rest of the story in the book both in print form and digitally.

My Android Cellphones from Android 5 to 13

My Android Cellphones from Android 4 to 13

Tuesday, August 11, 2026
My Cellphones

I have a collection of phones from year, 2009.

I have  the habit of donating cellphones to poor guys.
My first android phone was GreenTel.
It had a very good camera.

It works well even to this day.

My first tab was a Linux Suse, which I bought in Ceylon. That was the first tab that brokedown.

It stopped switching on its power.

I believed a Microsoft's bug did the damage.

Later I bought a Lenova tab in Singapore and it brokedown after a single update. 
Why it did bust I did not know.

Since then I boycotted Lenova.

I go to Singapore often when I want to do some shopping, including cellphones.

Running commentary.

I bought a cellphone for less than Rs.3000/= and  I updated it yesterday. It's RAM is limited but still works well on Google's Android.

The expensive cellphone I bought for my better half with sealed battery is defunct now.

I bought a few ZiGO phones.

One is still working and the other had a big defective line in its liquid crystal display.

I gave it away to a guy. He could not buy a replacement battery for it.

The second GreenTel I bought for less than Rs.6000/= was good.

I donated.it, too.

I decided to go for Nokia in 2015 and I have 5 Nokia cellphones working well with different Android versions up to 4G.

Now to the cellphone Servce Providers and the supply chain.

MobiTel is hopeless.

Dialog is equally worse and the broadband Internet I bought year ago is still inactive after paying the arrears of Rs.5000/=. I am going to take it to the retailer and thrash it on the floor to pieces, so the video of that incident is flashed on TV for public view.  That is after the New Year Break.

I switched to Hutch and they provide a good service but bit too, expensive.

I bought an AirTel SIM ages ago and finished it's data in one night updating my first Chinese Ameo Tablet.

The Ameo is still working with a damaged SIM slot. I updated it before damaging it's SIM slot. I play kids games on it.

So paying a lot for a cellphone where local communication suppliers have not upgraded their services, even to 4G is ridiculous.

They are still in LTE infrastructure.

So, buy a cheap phone with basics not an Apple for heaven's sake.

Even buying a Samsung is a is waste.

I will stick with basic Nokia but it's latest phones costs Rs.800,000/=.

However, buying a Smart TV with Internet connection and broadband is more prudent.

By the way, my TV is original SONY with three year warranty. 

All these are gathering dust in Ceylon.

GNU Emac

Tuesday, August 11, 2026

What happened to Coding Applications GNU Emac and Vim of GNOME?

I installed all including EMAC, Scribus and Inkscape.
 
They are very heavy.

That is why they are not included in Desktop Editions.

My suggestion is:

Somebody not Fedora with technical ane Coding ability should make a distribution incorporating these Utilities and name the distribution appropriately.

My suggestions are:
Geometry in Action
Coding for the Brave
Science in Action
Insights in Linux
New Frontiers 
Linux Never Miss

When I install GNOME Desktop, I do not find Vim or GNU Emac incorporated with it.
I do not do any Coding at all but nevertheless, it is a routine for me to install LyX.

I did not have the time to invest on LateX or VIM as a medical guy doing on call duty.

My time on Latex was limited.
It had the best page layout.

Then of course, I quickly realized AbiWord would  do me honours when writing my books.

LyX was the closest substitute to Latex.

Now that I am finishing my books on a leisurely fashion, I me revisit VIM.

Let me list a few of those coding applications.

1. Gambas3 is a good choice.
Yes, Visual Basic of Linux.

2. LyX as mentioned above.

3. Vi Improved of VIM.

4. Neovim
Never tried it.

5. Bluefish
That is the one I used during 32 bit days.

6. Xournal Editor

By the way simple little Editors can do bulk of the work.

1. Gedit

2. Geany

3. Gnome Edit

4. Jedi

5. Joe's Editor 
 

Simple Accident

I went into bit of Panic Mode since, I could not install Enlightenment Desktop under GNOME. 

IceWM was there but not Enlightenment.

I even queried AI and AI said whatever it is, it has to be temporary (either maintenance or some updates).

Yes, AI is right it is back.

Celebrations Without Microsoft Over 18 years

 

Monday, November 15, 2010

Celebrations without Microsoft

I am celebrating the third anniversary without Microsoft, this Christmas.

Is there anybody other than Anuradha doing work only on Linux in Sri-Lanka?

Please post an email or comment below so that we can have a private party.

I was trying to catch 100 students (school leavers to train free) from Kandy.

That was a total failure.

It was a blessing in disguise.

A much welcome free time for me to enjoy life with my kids.

ලංකාව අසමත් රාජ්ජයක් වීමට හේතු බුත වූ කාරණා

 ලංකාව අසමත් රාජ්ජයක් වීමට හේතු බුත වූ කාරණා 

ලංකාව අසමත් රාජ්ජ්‍යක් වීමට හේතු බුත වූ කරනා එමටය

1. පරිපාලන ව්‍යූහය පැය 24කින් ඉන්ගිරිසියෙන් සින්හලට වෙනස් කිරීම 

2. සුදුසුකම් නොමැති අයට උසස්පෙලේ තනතුරු පැවැරීම 

3. අදිකරණයෙ මුලපුටුවට නේවිල් සමරකෝන් සහ සරත් න් ද සිල්වා වැන්නෙකුන් පත් වීම 

දෙන්නම ලෝගුව දාගත්ත කපටි උප්පර වැට්ටි කාරයෝ. 

ඉතිහාසය විසින් ඔඋන්ව හරි තැන පෙළ ගස්වනු ඇත.

5. "සුර සේන, පුග්ගලයා නඩු තීන්දු දුන්නා වගෙයි" යන මගේ ප්‍රස්ථා පිරුල මන් මැරුණටත් පසුව, ජිවත් වෙයි කියලා, මට නිකමට හිතෙනවා.

අපේ අසාර්ථක බව හෙළි කරන කරුණු පෙළ සියයට වඩා දැන් වැඩිවෙලා.

කවුරු හරි නාමාවලික් ලෙස එය සකස් කළ යුතුයි.

දැන් ගොඩ ඒමට අපහසුයි.

අනේ අනි්ච්චන්.

Dr. Fauci, is trapped in medicine, including immunology

 Dr. Fauci, is trapped in medicine, including immunology

We were not ready for the current predicament suddenly exposed by the Coronavirus.

I have no inclination on probing the biological, economic and social arenas.

There are lot of guys already driving their efforts on those fields.

Dr. Fauci, is trapped in medicine, including immunology.

I need to say few words about him here, for posterity.

His dress is smart.

His sporting hat was fitting but not his throw.

I believe, the ball given to him had lead weight in it.

Should have been given a tennis ball, instead.

His composure was solid.

By the way he had many political slips.

It seems he was almost rivaling President Trump.

His scientific design and presentations were excellent.

His composure was solid.

He does not go round beating about the bush like politicians.

The recent senate hearing or review was indictment on all the journalists, including CNN, who were making their own political slips through.

The scientific facts were not evident.

I prefer, more of abstract dimensions that will even envy Steven Hawking.

I would fit in with the 5 dimensions out of the 13 postulated in mathematical terms.

That will lead me to dark energy and dark matter and shape shifting technology.

I would like to ponder on those matters and thinking of a way of getting to the nearest galaxy outside our own, at least in theoretical or philosophical sense.

Warning to GNOME and its Developers and SyneX

It seems everybody including SyneX which is Argentina based has gone for KDE and not GNOME Desktop.

All Gnome desktop based distributions failed to install on my NUC.

Most likely due to failure of drivers.

1.Moccacino Gnome failed.

2. Soplos Gnome of Spain failed.

3. SyneX from Argentina succeeded but took 90 minutes to install.

4. Pure GNOME Iso failed.

5. Only Debian Gnome is successful.

SyneX GNOME is beautiful and I have a copy installed

It is bit clumsy compared to Debian Gnome but panel items are attractive.

It has its own repository but lot of basic GNOME stuff is missing.

It has a bundle of KDE applications including Falkon Browser.

Could not install Vivaldi and Opera and on. That ground alone it put me off.

I am. Keeping it only because of its GNOME.

Enlightenment Desktop did not boot property.

I cannot recommend it to a newbie.

When I installed Latex Chinese base for testing it filled up the entire root partition.

EMAC failed.

Moccacino Gnome Installation

It took more than one hour to install.

Curious, I looked at the Terminal to see it is installing packages from the Gentoo Community Repository one by one.

It took long time for 7 browsers.

It installed Free Office. Took 2 minutes

Took the longest time on LibreOffice.

13 minutes

I hear the tickle in my NUC.

It is not FROZEN.

Calligra took 5 minutes.

GIMP 4 minutes.

Krita 5 mimutes

Inkscspe 12 minutes.

I do not mind keeping up at night.

I cannot sleep due to cold.

Ceylon Tea keeps me energized and focused.

I do not believe in Meditation either.

Linux is my focus on Meditation.

It is one hour 20 minutes of installation.

It searched for the community packages to Download.

Then Installs.

It is much better than ARCH where one has to 

Look for the repository.

Download an application.

Install it.

Compile it.

Then go to the next application to install. The FRUGAL Way.

Steam 7 minutes.

Installing NVIdia Drivers took 7 minutes.

Application install started at 4-8AM.

Now 5-19AM and the driver installation still not  finished.

Long Term Support Drivers and not the latest. It took 9 minutes.

Lutris took 4 minutes.

Wine Staging took 7 minutes

Now on layers.

I am going to take a break at 5-45AM.

At myspell dictionaries.

Development gcc not found.

Devel/cmake.

I think because it failed on Gnome it is now trying to install KDE.

It seems to have succeeded.

Now on vscodium.

Well at 6AM it got to the stage of BootLoder installation.

My NUC is clicking happy now.

It is 93% now.

I am glad I installed Gentoo based Moccacino.

It is the only one that gave me time to see what is happening behind the Terminal.

Finished at 6-8AM.

Booting now.

Moccaccinio in Kernel Panic but my boot-loader is intact and I am booting Debian.

Dark black and white Plymouth which I do not like.

Welcome

Architecture

Productivity

Gaming

Development 

Communication

Performance 

Security

Science and SDR

Creativity 

 

Value, Design and Future Perspective

Our current values will decide the basis of our intended designs of the future.

If we go on, without an objective, we would end up, in a blind alley.

This is so in economics, politics and even worse, in social realm.

It is pretty obvious in Ceylon and US we are heading for the cliff edge.

Sometimes, I think we are going backward, politically.

Simply because we do not have potent democratic values and a correct political design of flexibility.

We are groping in the dark.

The movement is generally, unidirectional and never multidimensional and that is also only towards the future.

 

Value, Design and Future Perspective

Our current value will decide the basis of our intended design of the future.

If we go on, without an objective, we would end up, in a blind alley.

This is so in economics, politics and even worse, social realms.

It is pretty obvious in Ceylon and US we are heading for the cliff edge.

Sometimes, I think we are going backward, politically.

Simply because we do not have potent democratic values and a correct political design of flexibility.

We are groping in the dark.

The movement is generally, unidirectional and never multidimensional and that is also only towards the future.

We were not ready for the current predicament suddenly exposed by the Coronavirus.

I have no inclination on probing the biological, economic and social arenas.

There are lot of guys already driving their efforts on those fields.

Dr. Fauci, is trapped in medicine, including immunology.

I need to say few words about him here, for posterity.

His dress is smart.

His sporting hat was fitting but not his throw.

I believe, the ball given to him had lead weight in it.

Should have been given a tennis ball, instead.

His composure was solid.

By the way he had many political slips.

It seems he was almost rivaling President Trump.

His scientific design and presentation were excellent.

His composure was solid.

He does not go round beating about the bush like politicians.

The recent senate hearing or review was indictment on all the journalists, including CNN, who were making their own political slips through.

The scientific facts were not evident.

I prefer, more of abstract dimensions that will even envy Steven Hawking.

I would fit in with the 5 dimensions out of the 13 postulated in mathematical terms.

That will lead me to dark energy and dark matter and shape shifting technology.

I would like to ponder on those matters and thinking of a way of getting to the nearest galaxy outside our own, at least in theoretical or philosophical sense.

My Cellphones

My Cellphones 

I have a collection of phones from year, 2009.

I have  the habit of donating cellphones to poor guys.
My first android phone was GreenTel.
It had a good camera.

It works well even to this day.

My first tab was a Linux Suse, I bought it in Ceylon. 

That was the first tab that to breakdown and it won't switch on its power.
I believe Microsoft's bug did the damage.

Later I bought a Lenova tab in Singapore and it is still working well with update of its system version. 

This is the one which went bust for the first time.

I go to Singapore when I want to do shopping, including cellphones.

I bought a cellphone for less than Rs.3000/= and  I updated it yesterday.
 

It's RAM is limited but still works well on Google's Android.

The expensive cellphone I bought for my better half with sealed battery is defunct now.

I bought a few ZiGo phones and one is still working and the other had a big defective line in its liquid crystal and I gave it away to a guy.

He could not buy a replacement battery for it.

The second GreenTel I bought for less than Rs.6000/= also I donated.

I decided to go for Nokia in 2015 and I have 5 Nokia cellphones working well with different Android versions up to 4G.

Now to the cellphone grafters or the supply chain.

MobiTel is hopeless.

Dialog is equally worse and the broadband Internet I bought year ago is still inactive after paying the arrears Rs.5000/=.

I am going to take it to the retailer and thrash it on the floor to pieces, so the video of that incident is flashed on TV for public view, after the New Year Break.

I switched to Hutch and they provide a good service but bit too, expensive.

I bought an AirTel Sim ages ago and finished it's data in one night for my first Chinese Ameo tablet.

The Ameo is still working with a damaged SIM slot.

I updated it before damaging it's SIM slot.

I play kids games with it.

So paying a lot for a phone where local communication suppliers have not upgraded their services even to 4G is ridiculous.

They are still in LTE infrastructure.

So buy a cheap phone with basics not Apple for heaven's sake.

Even buying a Samsung is a is waste.

I will stick with basic Nokia but it's latest phones costs Rs.800,000/= and buying a Smart TV with Internet connection and broadband is prudent.

By the way, my TV is original SONY with three year warranty.

LightScribe

 LightScribe 

LightScribe is an optical disc recording technology that was created by the Hewlett-Packard Company. It uses specially coated recordable CD and DVD media to produce laser-etched labels with text or graphics, as opposed to stick-on labels and printable discs. Although HP is no longer developing the technology, it is still maintained and supported by a number of independent enthusiasts.[not in body]

The LightScribe method uses the laser in a way similar to when plain data are written to the disc; a greyscale image of the label is etched onto the upper side of the disc using a laser. The discs were initially available only in a sepia color but later became available in many monochromatic hues.

The purpose of LightScribe is to allow users to create direct-to-disc labels (as opposed to stick-on labels) using their optical disc writer. Special discs and a compatible disc writer are required. Before or after burning data to the read-side of the disc, the user turns the disc over and inserts it with the label side down. The drive's laser then burns the label side in such a way that an image is produced.

Criteria for defining suitability of Linux Distributions

 
Friday, July 22, 2011
Criteria for defining suitability of Linux Distributions
22-07-2011

With Gnome 3 and Kernel 3 in the horizon and tablet on the market and Ubuntu making a radical changes to desktop with Unity already arrived, I have decided to award a point scheme for all the distributions active now and write an update for all the Linux distributions, I have downloaded so far.
 
That means moment I post an update on a distribution, my old writing here probably become obsolete and would be taken out without any notice.
 

I would be grateful if you post any errors of omission or commission on those post already here.
 

That means future posting will be slow to come and try my best avoid any errors.

I will keep the point scheme close to my heart and won't publish them here but on a future date if necessary may do that for completeness sake.
 

Points are given on quantitative as well as qualitative reasons.
 

Lowest mark is 10 and the highest mark is 300.
For an example I give 10 marks if it is only in French and 100 marks for multi-language capability.
 
I will give 300 marks if it includes Sinhala and multi-language capability.

Similarly Ubuntu Unity gets 300 for its innovative approach and as a teaser for loyal fans who hate the new approach. 

 

I would include the total points for the old version as well as the new version.
 

This analysis is with desktop users in mind and server editions won't get any additional mark but I would state that server is available.
 
I will start with Linux Mint, since it has O.E.M version, codecs version with minimal multimedia support and almost pure without any software infringements and full version with additional software.
It is a complete desktop and laptop friendly and it is currently is the top most downloaded  at www.distrowatch.com.
 
 It has both 32 and 64 bit versions.
 

I am going to stop stating that PCLinux is the Gold Standard of live CD to eliminate my personnel bias on that distribution but have a Hypothetical Gold Standard defined by criteria below and with a point award of 2500.
 
So anything that approaches 2200 for CD version and above is potential Gold Standard and you are free to try it.
 
Nobody will get 100% assuming that no distribution has reached its peak and would be trying to achieve that gold with constant improvement an bug fixes.

For DVD the point award is 3500 points and anything that tops 3000 is a good value with 90% to 95% of all software.
 
I am a believer that "small is beautiful" and would figure out a way to award points and my guess is Puppy will come on top but there are equally good small utilities like SliTaz, 4MLinux, gParted and  pMagic.
 
You are welcome to critically analyze my future writing with feedback but there is no attempt to compare with Microsoft and Apple Mac and in the next 5 to 10 years Linux will be way ahead of both of these distributions and I am not the one who need any pep commercial talks. 
 

In this period of course Linux guys and girls have to make 1000 and 1000 of tiny games and blockbuster games to invade the market in style. 
 
They are already there on mobile phones and they have to mature with the hardware specially tablets in mind.


Criteria
A. Use
1. Live CD installable
2. Light Weight
3. Mini to LXDE to Standard

B. Internet  
4. Easy Access to Internet
5. Automatically Configure Internet
6. Browser (ideally Firefox) Capability
7. Other browsers- 5 for each additional browser
8. Email Capability-Thunderbird
9. Google gadgets but not essential
10. Torrent Down Loader
11. Skype or alternative
12. Cloud-Dropbox
13. Cloud - Other

C. Productivity
14.Office Package -Abiword
15.Office Package -Others- Open Office
16.Office Package -PDF Reader
17. Scribus
18. CD burner (ideally K3B-50)
19. CD burner (10 others)
20. LightScribe/LaCie (100)

LightScribe is an optical disc recording technology that was created by the Hewlett-Packard Company. It uses specially coated recordable CD and DVD media to produce laser-etched labels with text or graphics, as opposed to stick-on labels and printable discs. Although HP is no longer developing the technology, it is still maintained and supported by a number of independent enthusiasts.^{[not in body]}

The LightScribe method uses the laser in a way similar to when plain data are written to the disc; a greyscale image of the label is etched onto the upper side of the disc using a laser. The discs were initially available only in a sepia color but later became available in many monochromatic hues.

The purpose of LightScribe is to allow users to create direct-to-disc labels (as opposed to stick-on labels) using their optical disc writer. Special discs and a compatible disc writer are required. Before or after burning data to the read-side of the disc, the user turns the disc over and inserts it with the label side down. The drive's laser then burns the label side in such a way that an image is produced.

D.Graphic
21. GIMP
22. Blender
23. Inkscape
24. Digicam
25. Tuxpaint
26. Special Graphics
27. Others

E. Audio
28. Mixer
29. Alsa
30. Others

F. Video
31. Imagination
32. VLC Player
33. Miro Internet TV
34. Cheese
35. TV Card
36. Others
37. Media Players including ability play itunes and divx  

G. Essential Utilities
38. Stable Grub Configuration
39. Partitioning tool is essential(ideally Gparted)
40.Ability to clean up the temporary file at boot up
41. Updates and Package management

H. Archiving
42. Ark
43. File Roller

I. For Children
44. Light Weight Games
45. Children Version (150)
46. Gcompris

 J. Subjective
47. Reliability (most of them are)
48. Speed at start up (most of them are slow except YOPER)
49. Quick installation
50. Portability
51. Type of Desktops (Genome/KDE)
52. Down loader that start from where one has left / stopped earlier
53. On line updates
54. Infrequent Cycles of Change
55. Downloads available for LibreOffice, Open Office, Skype (25 for each)
56.Speed at Start Up

K. Linux Fundamentals
57. Separate administrator in addition to normal user
58. Reliable Package Manager
59. Multi-Language in addition to English (5 for each Language-Total-100)
60. Sinhala Language Capability  (200)
61. Terminal  

L. USB Boot Up
62. UnetBootIn
63. USB Creator
64. Live CD creator

M. Emulators
65. DOS
66. Wine
67. Oracle VM
68. Apple Emulation

N. Games
69. Light Weight
70. Advanced Games (25 for Each)

O. Educational
71. Google Map
72. Tux Guitar
73. Tux Maths

P. Special and Development Utilities
74. Gambas
75. Web editor
76. PHP Admin
77. Scientific packages like statistics

Q. Access to Information
78. Home Web Site
79. Essential information including installation password etc
80. The facility for registration and writing reviews

R. Special Attributes
81. Less than 50 MB
82. Less than 200 MB
83. Less then 500 MB
84. Innovative approach GOBO and YOPER

S. Finances and Printing
85. Gnumeric
86. GnuCash
87. Printing

S. Very Special
88. Religion
89. Language
90. Kernel Version
91. Version Number
92. New Desktop Type
93. Innovative Changes
94. 32 bits only
95. Both 32 and 64 bits
96. O.E.M.Version
97. ORCAS - Visually Handicapped
98
99
100

Not a single water tap n City of Kandy

 Wednesday, December 12, 2018
Not a single water tap n City of Kandy
I was bit angry after an altercation with a pickpocket in this blessed city.
Then climbed the peak till my anger subsided.
There are no footpaths or shortcuts in this city now.
Five minutes walk took three hours but I enjoyed, all the same.
New roads are built and meant only for vehicles and not for one who enjoys a quiet walk round the lake.
 

Mahanayakas and Diyawadane have encroached upon every available space and no benches for rest.
 

The main exit road is blocked and I say these "Peretha Haththatuwa" should be cursed in hell after not finding a water tap for a sip.
 

Please bring water bottles and litter them on the wayside.
 

The worse scenario is not a single water tap to wet the dry lips and mouth.
 

The rest of the available space is occupied by government offices.
None of the offices shows the name boards prominently, so the visitor will go from pillar to post all day.
We ask a guy for a particular office, a lecturer in the university, he gave us the wrong information.
 

Then, I finally found the shortcut and it was littered with rubbish.
 

I saw a guy doing his repair work of an old car on this main access/exit road completely blocked by iron gates.
 

To my amazement I knew the guy from childhood and had a little chat and he had exhausted all his water bottles for the "majang work".
 

Finally ended in a city hotel and ordered two lime juices.
Then from out of the blue came an old friend mine with his sister (from UK) for a cuppa!
I said this is not the right place for cup of tea.
This is Ma Ra type of tea for the average for 50 but right good teas are served at 200 to 300 at the right place for foreign (but tastes the same) visitors.
 

Finally, they decided to have some lime juice, after tasting my glass of lime juice done nicely by a local waitress ( better than five star hotel).
 

Of course, I prefer the strong stuff but only allowed for foreigners in this city and not for the locals.
 

I have stopped precious commodity after the increase in tax as s protest.
 

Of course, if I get a free bottle, I will polish it in no time.
So cursing all the relevant peoples, is my pastime now but not fit for Christmas cheer.
So bypass this city, if you enjoy your holiday.

Flood Planes and Levees (Embankment)

This piece is NEW.

One has to read the junk before YOU get to my Universal Physics Theory. 

This is Revisiting my interest on Mahaveli River near our house and my rackety old Peugeot car.

I wrote a big article to be published in the local paper, Island. 

The editor did not published it. 

I was critical of the Public Work Department (PWD) and the local Rajapaksa goons carrying out the shoddy job. 

 

They did the typical patch work on the road to our house and driving my Peugeot car on this road was dangerous with big pot holes.

 

Besides, now I believe that the road to our house was built on a ancient stream dried up fully. The original stream may have found a more suitable lower plane and it is there little over 1 kilometers below.

The end result was me buying second hand books on Geography from local book sales. My elder sister's books on Geography were a treasure house. 

She is no more.

Let me finish Rajapaksa Goons story.

There goons have the subcontracts from what would have been our PWD.

They do a shoddy job two days prior to the rain. 

With the rain everything including sand get washed away to the floodplain.

I used to walk this stretch and watch the current level of water and the sand deposits.

My worry was one day our road would get washed sway and I would not be able to drive my Peugeot on a rainy day.. 

 

By this time there were big holes on the bottom plate of the car. 

Children had to take their feet off the ground to the seat to prevent nasty bumps when I accidentally hit a "rock bump" on the road to our house.

These goons collect the sand that got washed away and any other sand collected during the rain. 

They use the same sand over and over again.

This was a luxury business for them.

Repeated notices to everybody including Engineers of the Engineering Faculty did not bear results.

These guys were not local and I got the Panideniya guys especially the three wheeler drivers to be proactive. 

After about 2 years this practice stopped.

I do not know how.

My car was out of service and I decided never to buy a car while living in Panideniya.

I saw a picture of Panideniya Bridge with water up to the brim this time round, after the heavy rsin.

It did not happen last time round.

 

I  would expand on sand, cement and granite in another piece and continue on the constituents of the River Bank or levee.

Flood Plains

Land both sides of the river belongs to the river. 

 

It does not belong to people or PWD or politicians.

Our political guy who was doing shoddy jobs under Chandrika got elevated to high grounds and ended up building Massive Motorways when he was the president.

Environmental studies were done only on paper not on proper soil or floodplains.

Proclamation

Major Floods come in 100 year cycles.

 

The Next big one is worse than the previous worst flood.

The 100 year cycle shortens with every major flood until it becomes perennial in a country of 100 rivers.

We had over 100 rivers.

It has probably come down to, may be 80, now.

Levees are both natural and artificial 

1. Highest Water Level (HWL)

This is the highest water level achieved in a past worst flood. 

2. Low water channel

This is the normal water channel which varies according to the moonsoon rain pattern 

3. Flood plane

This is the area reserved for minor floods.

4. River side elevation

5. River banquette 

This is where Ceylon Hotel Industry has built their Hotel Chains.

6. Levee Crown

This is the Summit of the river bank.

I skip the levels on the land side and they are similar to the river side.

7. Protected Land on the land side 

This is supposed to be safe area for living and construction of buildings assuming that the next major flood is 100 years from now.

It is a false assumption, assuming we live up to 80 years. 

Nobody lives long enough to witness 2 major floods.

BERM

This is not natural but an artificial reinforcement on the landslide to prevent water seepage due to high water pressure from the river side.

Water seepage through air bubbles trapped in here on the land side is a big liability.

That is the major reason, landslides occur close to riverbeds.

The BERM does not prevent major landslides.

All these are assumed at one gravity planet of ours. 

In different planets with different gravity levels the rivers and river beds are entirely a different kettle of fish.

Here I want to digress and create my own hypothesis about our solar system.

I think I have another similar piece here in this blog site.

1. We are a bi-solar planetary system.

2. Our sun is the smaller one of the two.

3. The big one is dead. 

We cannot visualize it. 

Fact that, it is not visible does not preclude its presence.

4. If the big one is not there we would be dragged to mere wilderness of our Universe due to rapidly increasing Expansion.

5. I have created a Principle called Uncertainty Principle.

 

According to that principle this World should not exist.

Thereby "I" should not exist.

I exist on practical terms

Earth exists.

Therefore I had to create two solar system theory to establish the relative stability of our system which is unnatural in universal or global sense.

It is all an illusion of some sort. 

That is the bottom line and is the entry point to simple Buddhist Thinking.

Multi Prong Attempt to Break the Backbone of Ceylon

Multi Prong Attempt to Break the Backbone of Ceylon  

There is 4 or 5 prong attack to strangle Economy of Ceylon 

1. USA, CIA and IMF

Project Leader is/was Ranil Wickramasinghe.

He cannot or should not come back to politics in Ceylon.

2. Church 

This is spearheaded by Cardinal.

This started in 1980s.

This Kiribathgodaya and Mahamevna homosexual clan took the initiative.

It is in it's peak.

This is the CIA approach. Infiltrate and destroy from within.

The Major Attack is on our Culture and Buddhist way of life. 

3. India's Mahabharata Project

Plan is to economically strangle Ceylon and make it a Vasala State or under its Next-> Provincial Administration.

LTTE created by RAW is fully involved.

Anura has blindly signed all the English Documents with bogus Sinhala Translations.

He is the stupidest of all.

Project Ultimate Aim is to barter our Water Resource to India.

Very soon we have to buy Water Bottles from India.

Chindrika tried to sell our water.

I actively campaigned against it.

Then saying;

Weva

Dhagaba

Forest,

The 3 Concepts that should remain in practice in Ceylon.

But the most sinister part is down below Ceylon under our ocean.

There is very big rare mineral Deposit. 

Without giving us any Right to Ceylon or compensation, India is trying to extract those rare minerals.

4. China is interested in this Rare Earth Deposit for its own CHIP industry.

5. We are the stupidest Nation on this Planet Earth.

6. However, I think Wimal Weeravansa can change these plans.

He is the best to counter NPP/JVP hegemony.

7. Kalum Jayasumana has to spearheaded the YouTube campaign.

8. Whether he likes it or not Champika Ranavaka needs to put his boots on.

9. The Lawyers Unions should keep up the struggle to make Judiciary Free of Politics.

 

10. There is no role for Sepala Amarasinghe except reporting, not one side but all sides. 

He at one stage represented NPP and he covertly helped the project of the Church by showing only the misbehaving Maha Mevna Monks (3Ms) only.

11. While this is happening Wise Doctors should revive our Thriposha Program since we are heading for a major famine due to Middle East Crisis and Fertilizer shortage due to Russian's Blockade of Odessa Port.

Food  Crisis is eminent.

12. The powederkeg is about to burst.

What happened to Coding Applications GNU Emac and Vim of GNOME?

I installed all including EMAC, Scribus and Inkscape.

 

They are very heavy and that is why they are not included in Desktop Editions.

My suggestion is somebody not Fedora should make a distribution incorporating these Utilities and name the distribution appropriately.

My suggestions are:

Geometry in Action

Coding for the Brave

Science in Action

Insights in Linux

New Frontiers 

Linux Never Miss

When I install GNOME Desktop, I do not find Vim or GNU Emac incorporated with it.

I do not do any Coding at all but nevertheless, it is a routine for me to install LyX.

I did not have the time to invest on LateX or Vim as a medical guy doing on call duty.

My time on Latex was limited.

It had the best page layout.

Then of course, I quickly realized AbiWord would  do me honours when writing my books.

LyX was the closest substitute to Latex.

Now that I am finishing my books on a leisurely fashion, I me revisit Vim.

Let me list a few of those coding applications.

1. Gambas3 is a good choice.

Yes, Visual Basic of Linux.

2. LyX as mentioned above.

3. Vi Improved of Vim.

4. Neovim

Never tried it.

5. Bluefish

That is the one I used during 32 bit days.

6. Xournal Editor

By the way little Editors can do the work.

1. Gedit

2. Geany

3. Gnome Edit

4. Jedi

5. Joe's Editor 

 

I went into bit of Panic Mode since I could not install Enlightenment Desktop under GNOME. 

IceWM was there but not Enlightenment.

I even queried AI and AI said whatever it is, it has to be temporary (either maintenance or some uodstes).

Yes, AI is right it is back.

My Only Posting at www.distrowatch.com

 My Only Posting at www.distrowatch.com

Linux in Sinhala-Hanthana Linux included (by Dr.Asoka Dissanayake (Medical) on 2011-02-21 12:09:10 GMT from Sri Lanka)
I have waited over a decade to see a Linux version in Sinhala and finally it has arrived,
Our own Anurahdha who was an expert in Linux and especially Debian initialed it well over a decade ago and he produced an experimental version named Sinhala Linux(I still have a copy).
 

Then after 1994 tsunami he was drawn into presidential task force (had nothing going on at that time) to steer all web applications and e-commerce and the Sinhala project was push to a back burner.
 

I have been testing Live CDs (over 150 now, except Ubuntu) for the last 18 months and when I tested Debian 6, I accidentally discovered Sinhala Installation Capability which was a pleasant surprise. 

I downloaded all the Debian CDs and some DVDs for testing and they we pretty good.
 

Immediately blogged this fact at parafox and asokaplus (I am using them for promoting Linux 100) my rambling spaces in the web.

I am trying to distribute these Debian CDs / DVDs after thorough testing
 

 

But I personally prefer to install them in English which is second nature to me and activate the Sinhala capability afterward since the Sinhala terminology is somewhat alien and GREEK to me.

Mind you Debian is not for the weak minded and certainly not for a newbie or a novice.

And today I find Hanthana (I live down the Hanthana Range- on the other side of the University) Linux 3.6 GB DVD released which is Fedora 14.
It takes 3 to 10 days to download a DVD in Sri-Lanka and very few will bother to download it.
Now I have tested all Fedora 14 releases and Fubuntu (installed only Fubuntu for further testing) and all Fedora CDs freeze on installation (tried on several of my computers) but I did not bother to see Sinhala capability,
 

In fact because of this nuance in Fedore 14 DVD,  I decided to download all the 6 (5 CDs and one netboot) Fedora CDs for posterity.

It has some problem with the Grub file too.

I cut my teeth with Redhat 8 and 9.

Debian I learned many moons later.

Then again Fedora 3 was the first Linux to allow Sinhala font in Open Office and later Mnadrake.
I wonder whether the introduction of Sinhala font into a an experimental Linux distribution is a wise decision.

I hope my reservation proven wrong.
Anyway we have two robust distributions having Sinhala capability.
I hope Ubuntu will pick the trend and run faster than both of them.
I won't pass my judgment just for a little while!

We are one of a BINARY Star

 

We are  one of a BINARY Star

My Cosmological Inquiry

 

I have an outrageous theory for our solar system.

Before that let me dish out our limitation of colour sense.

We can distinguish only  3 colours clearly using rods and cones of our retina. 

 

In my case, I cannot see some colours properly from a young age and it is getting worse with age.

I realized this when I was playing snooker.
 

No problem with billiards since only two colours white and red are used.

The computer can distinguish millions of colour shades and for simplicity sake they use 256 colour shades in our monitor.
 

Another good example of colour compression is used in mpeg file format of video streaming, where redundant analog colours are shed to make the file light not bulky.

The name PNG or portable network file came into existence without sacrificing the quality of the image.

I am out of touch and use only GIMP for my photographic world.

The bottom line is analog files are heavy and we can shed lot of bulk when sharing image files in the Internet.

The Cosmos is Big and we can see visually only about 5% of the matter.

Rest of the Universe is dark and beyond our grasp.

To identify hidden matter we have to use other energy components of our energy spectrum using instruments mounted on a satellite probe.

That is the reality.

The man does not want to be blinded by his visual limitation.

My outlandish theory is that we are a binary star system and the other star died and disappeared into darkness long time ago.

It remains as a dark body outside our visible planets and gives stability to our solar system.

It may also have dark planets around since no light is reaching them to be visible.

Mind you it is not a dark hole but a physical body without visible light source but with powerful gravitational force.

My reasoning are simple.

Binary division is common in cells and biological world.

There is nothing to prevent binary division in physical world or in the cosmos.

It is a simple mathematical logic.

In spiral galaxies there are two arms one bright with young stars and another arm with old stars.

In between globular or elliptical bodies a bar body or dark matter is present.

I am using this analogy to our solar system.

The postulate the dark body is bigger of the two original stars.

Stars fading and dying is normal in the cosmos.

Like the bar body in a spiral galaxy it gives stability to our solar system.

Lot of our explorer satellites get lost or veer away from its course.

My postulation is we fail to take account of the gravitational pull of this old star unseen.

Like a good brother it does not let any matter escapes from our solar system.

Our cosmos is receding at a tremendous pace and this guy is trying to stop our solar system losing its components.

This is a working theory and worth probing on at a theoretical level.

This will be one of my questions in my philosophy book.