5 "S" Strategy for Linux and a Businss Model

For the future of Linux Community of Developers we should have a strategy in ISO style.

1. Sort.

2. Set

3, Shine or Refine

4. Standardize.5. Sustain

I looked at the the successful companies and found no Linux derivative there.

This is the failure of Linux. We do not have a Business Model to boast about.

We have a Logo and a Mascot where are they standing at present?

If you look at the list in the first 20 we have IBM, Google, Microsoft and Intel and Yahoo at 66 but no Linux.

Like Coca Cola we should be in the Number One.

The simple reason is we do not know to market our products.

Do not merge with the big companies.

Look at Yahoo having merged it is in the 66th place whereas Microsoft is in the top 5.

Why?

1. Embrace

2. Expand

3. Extinguish or Explode

We call EXPLODE it in this country since we a firecracker happy nation (to show politicians are in the vicinity) to Explode at any moment.

We knew for over 30 years how to avoid and escape from bombs now we have to escape from (all powerful but impotent in deeds) politicians.

Unfortunately we do not know how to escape from the stranglehold they are imposing on us.

So merging with big companies or the politicians (Obama and his expensive social program) is not the way forward.

The way forward is to scrutinize the activities and put them the Acid Test of "5S".

First of all we have to SORT all the Models.

I will do it in my way but my analysis also a Primitive Model to work with.

1. SORT

Sort all the essentials (LIVE CDs, Servers, Desktops, Netbooks most importantly O.E.M.s).
Sort the Origin-Debian series, Knoppix and Live CDs series , Puppy series. Ubuntu series, Redhat. Centos Series... Mandriva series, Slackware series, Gentoo series etc.

I am almost finishing with the Live CDs with subcategories named after our ancestral mammals the Apes (Light Weight, Middle Weight, Heavy Weight type of apes and monkeys) with x-Windows to go with it.

2. SET

Set a business Model with a strong Logo for Live CDs, Desktops and Server and O.E.M.s (that will be the future netbooks).

Target is to get within the first 10 if not it is not marketable.

3. SHINE rather REFINE the most essential basics for each category worth marketing.

4. Standardize

(Linux is standard based operating system and this should not be a problem).

5. Sustainability

This is the difficult part without a strong Business Model.

This is only possible if all the Linux derivatives in each category pass a gold mark or the gold standard (for Live CD I have chosen PCLinux as the Gold Standard of usability) and move up the ladder in the 100 in each category.

That is my wishful thinking.

When I did my survey (now the time for a research) I found lot of good stuff has gone into dormancy because of lack of support like a business model would have.

To name a few are MYAH, Linux Console. ADIOS. O.L.P.S and many more.

It is a shame that the good work of dedicated developers are now in the attic instead of in the classroom or in the living room.

I have shown the way.

We must revive and take Linux out of the doldrums and develop some marketable products.

I will be willing to work with even the devil if my suggestions are taken to heart by Developers but not business crooks.

Please make some critical comments.

gNewSense-92

Another distribution with almost pure Gnome and free software.
Ubuntu based and relatively fast to boot and install.

Ephiphany as a web browser and Brasero as CD burner.

Neat , sleek and effective distribution preserving its Debian and Gnome origin,

Good one if you are a purist of Free Software Foundation.

SalixLXDE--91

Salix is another Slackware based distribution that has taken to heart of introducing a Live CD I am currently downloading.
It may be a little while that newbies will take this into their fold and give feed backs.

it will be matter of minutes before I run it in my box.

Bit slow to boot up but sleek and attractive Live CD.

Gets to internet fast but yahoo.is the default not Google.

Yahoo did not fish aroung bmy blogspot but I had to go back to Google.

Now I have booted the Live LXDE.

Intert browser is Midori and Abiword and Gpart is there,

Unlike Absolute Linux no hesitation with x-windows and it is installable.

Thanks Guys and Girls I have to wait long for your live CD.

The bigger version must be having more options.

T will be soon downloading it.

Absolute Linux--90

This is on of those installable CDs that takes over your hard disk in toto.

so look at the label is it Live or Install.
I almost erased my hard disk it with it .
Even then I have several editions of it but never install it to see its worth.

I fetched and got live Cd in a zip file from Softpedia and ultimately made a image and booted little while ago for testing.

It looks xfce but there is no record that it was from xfce was visible in the booted front.

It is very shaky with it configuration of x-Windows and warn and ask you some worrying questions (for a newbie) before the last stage of mounting.

It puts anybody off including me.
It readily displays the user and root and their passwords and violates the principle of password by using only 55 and 77,
that is not the lesson a newbie should learn.
Thanks it is in zip file only a Linux fan can unravel its secrets.

This is not for newbie as yet and it cannot be installed!

It is a good try and it has a long way to go like Centos (Salix has joined the fold recently) and the like who took up Live CDs seriously only lately.
I will be with you with Salix moment I download and test it for you.

GNUSTEP--89

This is the purest of the pure of Gnome and free software foundation (F.O.S.S) distribution. It follows the rules of the foundation and include utilities without compromising foundations goals.

In fact only a handful of them follow the rules to the letter.

It is a very good distribution with lot of utilities and I could not find gParted in the lot.

This distribution follows the principles and it should be a benchmark of Linux and Gnome.

Note my words. there is a difference of Gold Standard and the Benchmark.

Benchmark is the Guiding Principle but Gold standard is the utility Status whether you are a Gnome fan or an average consumer fed up with Microsoft and its franchises.

Interestingly it has Blender in its fold so it gets very good average score from me.

Linux is it Convergence or Divegence?

While Linux had been going on diverse and diverging pathways over the last decade there are significant converging strategies developing in the World Wide Web.

More and more people are using it everyday it has come to stay with the trends of the time.

Telecom's innovations are coming to its peak that less and less people (except the young) are willing to invest and pay for everything they use or partake.

Ordinary people are more conscious of the price since everything else is going up in prices.

This is where V.O.I.P will take a center stage in couple of years since it is cost effective and one does not have to pay twice for the same article or service.

Similarly Television channels are offered through the pulse line of telephone and slowly but surely everything is becoming digitalized.

Analog years are numbered just as the music turntables of the past.

Similarly Video formats would change.

This is where Linux will and can steam role and go forward faster than our imagination can take us.

In the third world we are not yet ready for this scenario changing but billions of consumers are there in the East in Asia and China.

That is where the profits are going to be.

In time come everything is going to be computer generated and only Linux can penetrate all these markets.

Linux have to move in different directions while converging on the desktop market. Server market and netbooks (rather O.E.Ms).

Live CDs showed the convergence pathway but what about the divergent pathway.

1. V.O.I.P is one pathway.

2. Video Generation (New Fast and reliable web format) and its different formats.

3. TV and Web TV is another pathway.

4. Education and Multimedia is another pathway.

5. Cloud Computing is yet another.

6. Business packages and MySQL is another pathway.

7. Science. Technology and Mathematics is another.

8. Web Utilities (like Google's Chrome)is another and sports is another.

9. Venture into Government and Universities is another.

10. Sports and Entertainment (Music and Films) is another

11. Web Storage is another since Linux will work tirelessly without breaking the system or the hardware.

There are many more avenues for Linux enthusiasts.

Linux also should have a market philosophy.

Merging with big companies and committing harakiri is not the way forward.

Linux should generate reasonable income to its developers and community.

Just like medical service operates the vaccination and community health should be free but people who get sick with indulgence (alcohol and cigarettes and unconventional life style should pay or should have a reasonable health insurance).

In other words people who can afford it should pay reasonable price for the service.

If one gives something free its market value will go down. This is seen in our country very well. We give free education and after 11 years of teaching English they cannot utter a sentence with 10 words clearly. This is true for Mathematics and Science and there is no training in IT.

Do not follow this stupid idea in the name cheap socialism.

For Linux workers (like labour laws) there should be some sort of compensation for the time and effort of the community and the developers. This can take the form of cooperative movement at internet level.

If one's idea is quoted and referred there should be a way of paying some royalty value through a cooperative fund. The fund should be developed from donations and charities. This has to be formulated with some strong checks and balances otherwise one rogue (we have our Sakwithies, here) will drain it overnight.

Then only it will go from strength to strength.

If we have repeated episodes of economic crisis one after another crisis the community will strangle itself and quietly dwindle it's human resources (which is natural with the present day youth) and the big companies will jump in for the kill.

We should not let this happen. We should be mindful.

WebConverger-88

This is a very nice Live CD for web browsing.

Coming from UK it has BBC on line too which is a good thing.

It has taken KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid) very seriously and I cannot shutdown the console once it is booted and rooted which is a big handicap at my prostratic age!

If they want to be serious about light weight must shed 27 out of 227 MiB, like the old Nimble X so that it will fit in a mini CD and I can wear it in my front shirt pocket.

Make it pocket size please so lest I cannot carry it in my front shirt pocket on holidays.

Take some cues from Good OS (gOS) and make it eye candy.

Good Luck.
I am downloading ADIOS web edition and will be back with you soon.

NiMbleX--87

This is a distribution I wanted to put with the teeny weenies but any longer.

It's 200 MIB was nimble to begin with but now it has gone to KDE 4 with little fat, an ailment of atherosclerosis.

When one is on a diet of KDE it is no wonder one gets atherosclerosis that is why I call the the KDE 4 fondly as the Gorilla in the wing (I love Gorillas any way) if not at the dinner party.

Unfortunately we simple Sri-Lankans are on a not so balance diet but on a lean diet due to food prices going up by the day and we cannot invite Gorilla for a dinner let alone a party. But we have two legged variety with both hands up for innocent voters charm.

We even cannot feed our four legged elephants except during perahara time. These majestic animals are killed one a day almost everyday (in the pretext of development) that we will not have any left in the jungle.

But the fat politicians are eating up everything including the limited resources.

Problem with fat distributions (like politicians) they waste time and energy doing nothing at all for me to talk about.
It takes lot of time downloading them and feeding them with RAM and memory.

I am downloading the 400 odd MiB not so Nimblex.
I will be with you soon with some comments.

It is sleek as always the KDE is.

Slow to boot but surprisingly once booted up moves fast/
it has everything a newbie needs including open office in 400 MiB which is an achievement.
They should take a cue or two from PCLinux and add some light weight X-windows to it's repertoires.
It has a long way to go to satisfy every type of customers . especially somebody like me in its fold to give a pet tap or a kick in the back and should not drop its light weight 200MiB descendent in its repertoire.

Good Luck with future endeavours.

Adioside-8.0q-86

This live Cd is the only one where I found MySQL Admin and MySQL query in its utilities and many web applications one which looked like (I did not go deep) a visual basic variant (not Gambase).

These three additions make me to recommend it for a newbies to download and use it live.
Unfortunately one cannot install it to hard disk. Had it being I would have done more deeper digging to it's heart.

When the next version comes I hope they read my comments and use it for special application for using MySQL with graphic applications.

I am nearing nervous nineties and I have to download few more and test them to finish my target.

LessLinux-85

A new breed of new but tiny distribution that come Germany is a good one for the newbies.
It took little time for me to get round it but it is a good rescue CD with many utilities.

TeenPupMini-84

This is one of the best among variety of Puppy pedigree.

It has eye candy graphic features which is excellent for oldie like me with poor night vision.
May not work with very old computers but who keeps old computers now that the second hand value of the P IV is very cheap.

In fact I bought a second hand one for testing Linux with Sata and IDE hard drives and 512 RAM (minimum for D.D.R II )for Rs. 15,000 and when my old computers are not working or IDE hard disks are not available (soon inevitable) I can use it as my back up machine.

I may have to spent a dew bucks for the DDR2 RAM and the Express Graphic Cards.
One of the web Linux friend tells me that the 64 bit machine gives only 4% acceleration and the most up time through put one gets is only 6% (I stand to correction on these figures but I believe him).

Who needs a dual core?
They are really not fast but they consume lot of electricity (electricity bill will be up) and lot of fans to cool them unless they have a way of tropicalizing them to suit warm countries like ours.

Sorry for diversions but Puppy Linux of any variety will stand tall among tiny Linux distributions.

grmi-83

This live distribution packed with all the pure Linux Utilities is only in test mode and is the handy work for Linux administers when troubled with administrative tasks.

One can log into a distant server and start doing the repair work.

Even a newbie cab use it to learn learn command line activities.

All the help is there with and everything one need to go is explained.
If one is graphic cravy this is not for you.

Linux Tit Bits

Now that I am in the penultimate stage of my analysis it is pertinent I should talk about the little distributions that did the work with only 4MiB Graphics on board. I still have my third computer with 4MiB on board graphics and 64 MiB RAM running old Linux distributions which is still working.

I use it for occasional demonstrations.

Who needs any demonstration with so many live CDs?

Even Windows 95 and 98 could land on this graphic card before the Graphic explosion!

I could never find a adapter to increase its Graphic potential to 8, the maximum.

Those were the days when we used Floppy disks to boot up and I still have few 5.5 inch Floppies.

The distributions that come to my mind are INSERT, Feather Linux, Tiny me and DSL.

I must confess except DSL I rarely needed to use the other distributions.

These became obsolete when Puppy Linux with 96 MiB came into the scene.

It is true that Puppy Linux stands tall among all the other distributions when one is using an old computer.

In historical perspective I must write few lines on each of these teeny weeny units.

The teeny weeny bikinis of the time.

In Linux terminology bare bones of Linux.

SqueezeBox-82

This is a Debian based distribution using Enlightenment Environment,

It has lot of other utilities including boot manager which a newbie should not fiddle with lest you destroy the booting sequence.

It looks like Debian based distributions are asserting themselves when commercial interests intervene their development.

Sidux has changed to Aptosid and Mandriva is going through its own destruction.
There is only a thin line between free software and commercial ventures.

Google and Oracle are also causing some concern.

D.S.L-81

This is the best I have ever used out of the less than hundred MiBs.
When I am busy and could not attend to my wife's computer this the one I give her so that she can get her email read.
She does not know how to save any documents with it.
Who the hell who worry about saving your files at home for use.
Google is now providing mobile space for saving and cloud computing is on the horizon for everybody and USB sticks to go around.

In any case netbooting hardware is the need of the hour.

Linux is there to take the challenge.

R.I.P. Linux--83 (Rest In Peace for Windows)-Update

This is the CD I use when I have accidentally erased everything in my hard disk which I did recently to partition my hard disk.
I really love this because it reminds me of letting windows Rest In Peace a long time ago.

But it is for recovery of your files and photos.

It says Recovery Is Possible and recently, when I visited a computer hacker (he rips off old laptops and sells the usable remnants for the price of a new one (good money if I stated doing that) to get a CD/DVD for my son's old Hitachi Laptop.

Unfortunately my son as well as I forgot all the passwords and could not boot it.

Not rooted or booted for one year.

I found a Combo that juts out of the front panel but I got the old Hitachi working again and I am going to use it for testing Linux distributions until the Combo packs up or I pull it out and use netbooting utility to rip the BIOS and booting sequence.

CDLinux-80

This is good for Windows guys and girls.
They can mount this on a windows partition not on a DOS partition.
I was annoyed that they did not let me install it on a Linux partition.
Fast, cute and good.

Trinity Rescue Kit-79

This is a utility Windows guys can use to clean up their box / boxes (if they are stupid enough to have more than one).
What I used to do manually this Linux utility does in series of scripts booted onto the RAM. No knowledge of Linux is required only trigger happy (for Sri-Lankans) or mouse click happy (outside of Sri-Lanka) window's stupid guys and girls.

Debris-78

Is another little utility with many applications.

Deft--77

I have been very busy, if not I may have finished the last phase (last 25 of the 100) my entries by now. I have already downloaded over 200 CD and DVDs in spite of the very slow throughput of our Telecom.
Guys / Girls of the Sri-Lankan doing a very good job with very limited resources they have.
Hats off for them for they are heading and giving a welcome hearing to my constructive comments.
Peo TV is very good venture and giving out a router which is above the Operating System in I.P. / T.P. protocol (Year ago the Modem did not support Linux) so that user can decide which operating system to use.

However, they are far behind in Telecom's innovations such as AsteristNow and the PABX. As far as Linux they are nowhere near international standards.

Coming back to Deft. it is a forensic distribution I fished out of Distromania archives. Apart form general utilities it has number of forensic utlitlis.

Debian-Update

The new releases of Debian 5.0.6 has forced me to write this.
Everybody is changing perhaps taking a cue or two from me and introducing a variety of Live CDs with different X-Windows front.

Linux is / was neither resource crave nor crazy to begin with.

Why it has taken this much time to change its course towards its humble beginning to rediscover its true nature of sparing its graphic resources and making it not hard on hardware and at the same time sharing and utilizing processor efficiently is a pertinent question to me.

It nice to see Debiain is again leading the race unlike the commercial distribution open source or otherwise.
It has produced a series of Live CDs for us.

I am currently downloading the first of the series and it might take time for me to write some comments.
So this post is to alert the newbies and savvy and make others interested in Linux.

It is a good ploy Debian should invest time and resources.

Thank again for broad basing Debian so that many newbies will be following Debian.

After all Debian is the Godfather of Linux.

SuperOS-33-Updatate

SuperOs has updated it's image to Ubuntu 10.04 and seems to have shed some of its Graphic Intensive front.

It stays the same with minimal changes but sleek appearance.

When one is hooked to Ubuntu it is difficult to make radical changes.

At least it can change it's name to Vanity or Sensation as I have suggested, earlier.
It has added some demos which is a good thing for a newbie.

My critical comments about the previous version is down below.

Number ##33 in my entries.

First Five out of the first 10 and more

It is time for me to narrow down the first Five Linux Live CDs (Please note not Installable CDs) only.I have no intention of giving points or put it in any order except alphabetical.

However criteria for selection were based on few important qualities.

They include the followings.

1. Stable Boot Loader preferably GRUB.

2. Ability to live with other Linux distributions side by side (not only with windows). Black Track4 fails on this issue. I cannot have it installed along with other Linux distributions so that it is available for me in an emergency.

3. Good Partition Manger (which include other OS types)or a editor which does not cause problem with many other partition tools available in Linux.

4. Installation process easy and compatible with other distributions.

5. Security tools and firewalls and parental control.

6. Availability of root and user options (unfortunately Ubuntu fails on this issue).

7. Availability of commonly used general purpose utilities or the ability to download them as an open option.

8. Attractive but light weight (tone downed KDE would do).

9. CD burner ideally KDE.

10. an assortment of light weight games (including card games) or one single high features game everybody loves.

Unfortunately all of the Live CDs fail on this feature.

1. Knoppix
2. Mepis
3. PCLinux
4. Puppy
5. SuSe

I have all in my 80 GB hard drive.

6. Linux Mint
7. Fedora
8. Vector Linux
9. Berry Linux
10. Zenwalk

For specialists and Newbies with special interest.
11. Arch
12. Chakra
13. Granular
14. aLive / aLinux ? Peanut Linux
15. AV Linux
16. Yoper
17. GoBo Linux
18. Linvo
19. Dream Linux
20. Ubuntu / Lubuntu / Kubuntu / SuperrOS and the lot

Then the Light Weight beauties.

21. Slax
22. Imagine.
23. Peppermint
24. Element
25. gOs
26. Paldo
27. Unity
28. Untangle
29. Chameleon
30. Imagine
31. Igelle
32. Myah
33. Leenux
34. Netrunner
35.Exodus
36.ELive
37. ViperOS

Commercial
38. Mandriva
39. XandroS
40. ? Linspire ? Freespire

I have not include the educational distributions like Scientific Linux, Fermi Linux, ADIOS. QIMO. Knoppix for Kids. Kids Linux.

I have also not included the middle weight or the heavy weight like. Sabayon, Monomax, Openmamba, Calculate Linux, ALT Linux, Epidermic and Genitoo.

Cypersafety

I have been coining new words for English lately and the first is parafox.

If you go to Google and type parafox you will get to my blog spot and see why I coined it and it has of course outlasted its original intentions and the meaning.

Now this is used to spread the news of live Linux CDs.

The Cypersafety is next in the line if not already in the internet vocabulary.

I think the word Cyberbullying is already there and no wonder somebody else has used with the same intentions.

In that case he or she owns it.

I have being doing too much on Live CDs and I feel I must get back to the normal stream with more appeal since I am nearing the century of Linux Live CDs.

The recent incident of committing suicide of a young teenage girls In USA brings us to the reality and the cruelty with psychopathic tendencies and behaviour of the web users.

Web belongs to everybody and there is no control over it.

There is lot of pornography too, lot of luring and enticement are there.

I am not sure how we can deal with this problem.

This is happening in Sri-Lanka in most unlikely places and I do not want to mention them and open a can of worms.

The cybersafety to be established we need to understand the mechanics, insinuation and subtle ways the web designers, advertisers and search engine use the web to manipulate young visitor.

Even the words games, play and kids can be tagged to catch an unsuspecting mind.

The parents have a role.

Teachers have a role.

Owners of Cybercafes have a role.

Above all awareness and education have a role.

Lot of forensic work has to be done.

To begin this word has to be in the vocabulary and in circulation with parents and their mouths and the would be parents.

Recently I was seeing a mother buying a web camera for a child unsuspectingly.

The vendor did not ask the young child for what purpose he was using and no warning was given to the mother how to use it.

For the time being parents should not give a child all the hardware to be installed in his closed room.

Like in a office the computer should be in a prominent, public and open place even at home not in a closet of its own.

That is the first line of defense.

The second line of defense is Linux with Child Protection Utilities and time slot allocation for kids.

I'll write few more tricks parents can adopt once the word cybersafety is firmly established in the internet.

This is where Linux can contribute immensely by deploying cybersafety utilities.

Linux can do that.

5th September, 2010

Things not to do with YesLinux and Elastix

I do funny things once in a way.

Edited on the 10th of September
I was doing search some search on Linux distributions specialized on telephony for one of Linux fan since he had some problem with the telephone card.
The intrusion made me to delay search and I found many telephony related utilities in BackTrack4.
In any case I was clueless about telephone industry especially the digital side.
Initially I could not get anywhere and finally found AsteristNow and tried to download AsteristNow and found a rouge script was in my system.
I could not download AsteristNow (Centos based) which was a free distribution supported by commercial venders of telephone hardware.
My search ended up ultimately my son getting Peo TV installed and a free router installed adding two more ports to my hardware.

I am thinking using one of them as a firewall when I have time.

The list of distributions I found were as follows
1. AsteristX now defunct
2. Amatix Live and Office
3. Alpine
4. Elastix
I had to find most of them in the archives of Distromania.

The Elastix is based on Redhat and it ripped my hard disk in few seconds.

In that scenario YesLinux was better only during the time I was sipping tea it ripped off my hard disk.

So if you are not like me taking any conceivable risk to investigate Linux (except my life) do not venture into unknown territory like browsing into pornography which is rampant in this country including temples.

Beware if you do not have a Linux Guru (hard to find in this country) to help you out.

Only yesterday I downloaded YesLinux from (probably not supported by anybody currently) Distromania archives.
It is only 300 MiB and the core based on Debian,
I activated the installation process and went to make a cup of tea,
Knowing very well Debian gives a written warning before any action.
This devil of 300 MiB distribution erased everything by the time I sipped the cup of tea without any warning.

I aborted the process and restarted the computer to find there was nothing and no boot record at all.
I kicked a high note what the hacker could not do I did it myself.
Of course after the minor hacking incident I was testing few of the non-live installable CDs and there was nothing of note except 5 GB of Isos which I did not copy (CDs were burnt but iso were lost) but burnt everything including Samity Linux (this another distribution that looked funny).

Most of the time you do your own damage so do not blame others for it.

Well it was Friday night, I do not get Saturday Night Palsy or Dropsy and partitioned the hard drive and put installation into action and went to sleep.
In the morning it was alive and running well.
So even a cup of tea can be deadly to your computer.

If you do not want to be like me please make an effort to record all what you do in a little notebook and read all the instructions before you click the mouse button.

The commonest mistake I do is to forget the root password and sometimes the user password.

In that scenario you have to reinstall everything once again which I have done hundred of times.
Little discipline built into your work habits carry you a long way.

One could laugh at oneself, that is what I do.

It is no fun!

Trusted Dowload Sites

Until recently I trusted all sites with Linux Isos.
Since things are moving fast and there is no site that can be spelled as specialist (in my view) I should write this brief note.

I was looking for Big Daddy of PClinux and I could not find one.

With some difficulty I found a link with Softpedia and started downloading it.

I keep them as my archive editions.

While I was downloading, the site webmaster decided to delete the image since it was not accessed by anybody recently.

This type of sites you must never trust.
They are just delivery system without cross checks.

No checks and balances.

I was very disappointed and finally accessed PCLinux Website and a kind gentleman there gave me a site to download Big Daddy.

If you are looking for archives the best site is Distromania.

1. Distromaina

2. Softpedia which give up to 5 years back issues.

3. Distrowatch which gives you current ones with fairly extensive literature on each distribution,

4. Live CD list site.

5. Linux question site

There are many more sites but beware if they are not properly maintained or they direct you to other sites, lest you may be directed to a rouge site.

I was looking for peanut Linux and finally found at Distromania.
Peanut Linux is now aLinux and aLive.

Security Warnings with Live CDs

It is high time I should write something on security on Linux.

Ever since I started using Linux I never worried about viruses or crashes and hence I never had a firewall to protect me.

If at all I used standard security or none at all since I started downloading Live CDs.

Incidents developing over this year and events most recently happened were eyeopeners.

One needs to have a Security Policy for each desktop in installation.

I follow the Standard Linux Principles.

1. Never use a distribution that is popular but without root as a user.

Unfortunately this principle applies to Ububntu, too.

That is why I use Ubuntu Linux as demonstration only and never for daily use.

Su is not a good option for me but it is a server administrator's tool as far as I am concerned.

Desktop is not a server.

2. Second Rule is always work as a normal user and never as the root.

3. 3rd Rule is to use high security options and firewall.

4. 4th Rule is to use child protection since there are lot of pornography in the web.

5. Firth rule is when downloading use only a trusted sites.

6. Use light versions of Live CDs for only relatively miner work like accessing your email but not for downloading.

7. Once you are happy with the distribution use the standard version of that Live CD for installation.

I will add up to ten when I have given thought to other current issues and that crop up with time.

For the developers I have this request.

For all light versions of Live CDs please add some enhanced security package bundled into one pack with instructions, how to use them for newbies.

I started using Linux distributions because of their excellent security.

We must not relax on that principle since the hackers that Microsoft hire are at work like worms eating the essence, now and forever, and some of them are modifying Open Source Distributions and posting rouge Linux distributions on sites that are not maintained properly.

Freespire derivatives is one example only.

3DGLive-76

Another Live CD resting in the archives to be rediscovered.

It has amazing 3D desktop effects like in enlightenment (E17).

I cannot believe why it is in hibernation.

It does not take much memory but the subtle movements with the mouse is fun for children.

Even at my age it was pleasing to play with it.

This desktop should be adopted for a children's distribution for children to learn various dimensions in space.

Who is willing make the to plunge and make a distribution designed for children.

It will certainly improve the hand eye coordination in children to begin with.

This is the looking through glass project.

VideioLinx-2-1-75

Now I am nearing the last 25 of the century, I am digging to Linux archives and looking for lesser known but powerful Linux distributions.
Videio Linux is one of them.
I am writing this with VideioLinux on RAM.
It is packed with lot of audio and viedio but unfortunately there is no Blender.
It is less than 500 MiB and I should down load from the synaptic repository (I prefer they should have done it for me since our Telecom is slow).
Guess from where does it come from?

PCLinux Based and I hope PCLinux get busy with them and make a lowly distribution.

Accident or Coincidence

It is no coincidence that many window's users are inundated with problems of viruses especially if they are using pirated copies of operating system and software.

There is no guarantee that even if you buy a proprietary you are free of troubles.

I have gone through all these troubles when I was depending on others for service and I was relatively busy with my clinical and academic activities.

Hard drive crash with bad sectors, CD Rom / DVD Rom laser burnt outs, RAM burn outs and Graphic card burnouts and faulty CD/ DVDs and bad burns.

These incidents were common when using Windows especially with the liberal use of Nero and Linux did not have a good burn utility.

With K3Bcoming to the scene and the new kernels are up by the minute these problems are things of the past.

The problem with Windows and Nero utility and the hardware (Disk, RAM, Graphic Cards) is they are produced as OEM products and the operating system cannot synchronize everything in one go.

When I started using Linux Only these incidents dropped dramatically since kernel modules are updated regularly and the synchronization and use of processes (windows will never be able to perform this) and sharing of resources are managed excellently.

This is the plus side of Linux if you are a heavy user of resources, like me.

Even if you are not using computers heavily the bucks you save on hardware is enormous.So make an effort to learn Linux.

Recently I bought (it is time I should write a book) the Linux Bible by Christopher Naegus (I am now far ahead of him as far as the Live CDs are concerned.

There is no competition though and it is an excellent book.

In the back of the book it says "Christopher Nagus knows Linux and so you do".I really like that phrase.

Go and buy this Bible if you want a head start.