Top 25 Linux Distributions (Live CD/DVDs)

September 28, 2011

Top 25 Linux Distributions (Live CD/DVDs)
I have analyzed over 50 Linux distributions both qualitatively and quantitatively and following is a summary according to points scored of the top 10.
Rest are listed according to the points awarded without a comment.
Top Rank

 
1. Debian scoring 3005 points
Debian

Coming to IT industry where there are very few heroes Debian is the clear winner which gyrate and spins at the correct orbit.
It was no surprise.
Score of above 3000 and well above the Gold Standard of 2500 for the standard CD/DVD.
For the heavy weight category it is within the Gold Mark where no other distribution has all the components at disposal with over 30,000 package well-tested and stable (now gone up to 60,000).
It has gParted which is around 100 MB with partition tool and security features.
It has Blender, Scribus and Inkscape.
Only missing component was O.E.M. component.
Ranking Second with  2620 points is Ultimate Linux
 

2. Ultimate Linux
This is taking whopping 2620 points, simply because it is a games DVD based on Ubuntu and it has graphic features including Inkscape and Blender.
Apart from that it is basically a Ubuntu distribution.
Even though it gets a lot of points due to inclusion of many packages it should be used as  a games DVD rather than a general purpose distribution.
This warning is due to the changes in Ubuntu Unity and the attendant repository changes that may come as a result of that change.
Rank Number 3

3. UberStudent  with 2610 points
 UberStudent 

This is one of the very good Ubuntu derivative packed with utilities and only utilities I could not find were gparted and blender.
It’s on the fat side with a 2.7 GiB image.
This is one of the Linux distributions I could not download due to download problem but with some difficulty I managed to download both the CD and the DVD versions.
There were not enough seeders but I used point to point download.
It is Ubuntu based and excellent for students in the higher grades and in the University. 

It has many utilities that student would like to use in literature search albeit web-based.
I have no hesitation in recommending it.
It has almost everything one needs.
Why blender was not included is a bit of a mystery.
 

4. Knoppix fourth with 2410

Knoppix

Knoppix stands tall and scores 2410 which is well above Ubuntu and Unity on the threshold of becoming a Gold Standard on its own.
It is 4th in the my list of 50 and only three others above.
Debian comes first.
Ultimate Linux comes second.
UberStudent comes third. Packed with utilities except Blender and Gparted..

Good old days when it was difficult to find a distribution and DEMO CDs were hard to come by Knoppix started the revolution of Live CDs.
I have used it from its 3.1 versions and up and it was available even in Sri-Lanka.
It’s significant features apart from Live CD running on RAM are;

1. Good hardware detection (last version 9.1 cannot recognize Integrated GP of my basic NUC).
2. Sound configuration and unique start up with sound effects.
3. Ability to compress lot of programs into a CD/DVD.
4. Enormous number of packages
5. Partition tool and many more
6. ORCAs that is fun for visually handicapped user and is as good as Vinux.
 

It was way ahead until Puppy Linux came into the scene and took another twist by making Live CD under 100 MB.
 

Soon I became a convert of Puppy that comes inherently for my love of the canine species. Its weakness was it could not be installed into the hard disk and I found a way to mount it on a FAT partition. I always had a copy mounted on my hard disk when the LXDE came into the scene. Then came the 10th anniversary release which was  big hit by itself both CD and DVD versions.
Now it can be installed and administrative right can be restored after installing.
 

There is Knoppix for Kids and Games DVD which was something lacking in 95% of the Linux Distributions.

If you do not use any other Linux distributions this is the one one should always have.
I cannot find anything wrong with this distribution when I format my hard disk once a year towards December, it is the first one that goes into the hard disk as the flag bearer of Linux and other distributions are installed afterward.
 

5. Poseidon with 2390 points comes fifth
Poseidon Linux
Poseidon Linux not Scientific Linux (actually this name is misleading and does not have any scientific packages in this distribution) takes a big spot in my scale by a wide margin for packaging productive utilities for scientific (including statistics) and business purposes and for schools.
Its score is 2390 which is close to PCLinux but have more packages than PCLinux.
They are inkscape, blender, statistic and plotting packages but it is on the heavyweight category and downloading is slow mainly due to not having a torrent facility.
But it has CD version too and again it is a Debian/Ubuntu derivative.
In spite of its FATTY layer I like it very much and one has almost everything one needs in one shoe.
 

6. Pinguy/Pin Eee comes sixth with 2385
Pinguy and Ping Eee
For the time being Pinguy and Ping Eee are the best innovative Ubuntu derivative which is in the market and the score is 2385 which is very close to the Gold Standard and well above Unity.
Out of the Ubuntu derivatives this is the most eye catching feature filled derivative to entice Linux newbies as well as savvy guys / girls.
It has Cloud Utilities, Light Scribe and it almost look like Apple Mac for one who has never seen a Apple Mac.
I have the feeling Ubuntu’s Unity has taken a leaf out of Pinguy and Ping Eee for netbooks and laptops.
Its grub file could not figure out my other distributions and that was why it was not in my box up till now.
The new version has now ironed out this minor glitch and I have installed it with 5 other distributions in my laptop which I upgraded to 500 GB recently.
Interestingly enough, this is the one I boot first since I am getting attached to it day by day.
It now does a good job with GRUB and recognize all the other Linux derivatives. It will certainly take the tablets not by surprise but by its own imagination.

7. Dynabolic comes seventh with 2290
Dynabolic

Dynabolic 3.0.0 beta is currently available at http://www.linuxtracker.com.org torrent and this was one of the oldest Linux music distributions. It was created by Denis Rogo an Italian musician. It was in hibernation (version 2) but lately has created the version 3 for download.
I call him the Bob Marley of computer music.
It is feature packed but cannot be installed as yet.
It scores thumping 2290 points was not a surprise for me.
 

8. PCLinux comes 8th with 2255
 PCLinux

My favorite distribution gets 2255 points which is well below the 2500 points which I have for my Hypothetical Gold Standard but a future candidate for that award. It has promised to introduce bit 64 from the current version onward.
Even though it has no special features it sticks to Linux base with administrative functions and very stable once properly configured. It gets a lot of points for it’s web site and the digital magazine which it maintains. The package management is excellent and lets you install all the packages easily from repository. To be on record this is the only distribution which has a usable Skype (except perhaps Linvo). It also does not bother one with updates unlike Suse. It is a KDE desktop and has two Mini versions, one LXDE and the standard KDE. Once installed there is very little maintenance if firewall is correctly configured and easy with downloads and remove redundant files at boot time and if it is run on 24/7 schedule it does a good cron job too.
No wonder it is my favorite and may be so for others too (once 64 bit version is introduced it will become more popular).

 

PCLINUX of course went down the hill once TexStar retired.
 

Ubuntu’s departure from traditional base would be another reason. It is bit slow at boot time and K-torrent is good (it may be bit slow because of my heavy daily work and downloads) and if one is using it for light work, one may not find the slow boot up a problem. Even one is a light user of the computer it is a good practice for the distribution to run 24 hours at least once a week for maintenance which it does automatically well past midnight.
My reason for choosing it
It is very stable and stands 8th in the ranks.
 

9. Puppy comes 9th with 1910
Puppy Linux

It is Small and Beautiful size ~100MB!
It is Live booting from CD and USB flash drive.
It runs from RAM, making it unusually fast even in old PCs and in netbooks with solid state storage media.
Includes a wide range of applications: word processors, spreadsheets, Internet browsers, games, image editors and many utilities.
Puppy is easy to use and little technical knowledge is assumed. 

Most hardware is automatically detected.
Who is the founder?
Barry Kauler from Australia.

10. Ubuntu Dream Studio comes 10th with 1775
Ubuntu Dream Studio

Ubuntu’s Unity-Dream Studio
Is it a dream come true for newbies?
I think so and thumbs up for this distribution which I could download overnight with 2.1 GB.
There were only four seeders but it was pretty fast. Go and download it and increase the number of seeders in proportion to leechers and enjoy the Unity experience.
It is a new experience for old hand of Linux like me who never used Ubuntu on regular basis except for demonstrations.
Regular Ubuntu users will grumble but I will tell you what to do. Go ahead and have both old version and new version in the same box and enjoy the difference.
Sinhala capability was there which I did not test but probably needs some smooth ironing out which is another plus point.
It has LibreOffice and Blender a new version (Maya replacement).
Please do not call it Apple like but call it this is Unity Linux Desktop.
Sure it is a winner at the time of debt and cash crisis.
For good effects find a good compatible graphic card. 

That may be the only thing one may have to change in one’s computer.
My old computer’s graphic card was not enough to take advantage of Unity.
The few glitches I had with the Unity CD with workplaces has been reasonably taken care of and I could load all the workplaces with a running program and with a mouse click it goes into full screen image.
Play with it and enjoy the experience.
I do not know how far one can configure it to one’s own needs but it is good as it is why configure and make a mess out of it?
It score is 1775.

Rest with Only points scored.
11. Simply Mepis                1755
12. Trisquel                           1660
13. Suse                                 1560
14. Swift Linux                      1515
15. Sabayon                           1430
16. Ubuntu-Unity                  1405
17. PureOs                             1385
18. Salix                                 1380
19. Kubuntu                           1355
20. Fedora                            1325
21. Berry   Linux                   1275
22. Linux Mint                    1260
23. CloudUSB                        1240
24. Apodio                             1165
25. Vinux                               1130 

 

Incognito comes 26th and it for anonymous web browsing and cannot be installed.

I have missed ArtistX which would score almost around 2600 and could be in place of Ultimate Linux (If you do not like games Linux DVD).
It is also Ubuntu derivative and for Audio/Video and artistic work.

Other versions not included was the result of inability to download or incompatibility with my old graphic cards.

Porteus Linux and who was Beilby Porteus

 June 26, 2011

Porteus Linux and who was Beilby Porteus
Porteus Linux is the best of SLAX (Slackware) distribution under 300 MB with KDE and LXDE desktops.
SLAX is known for small Linux distributions and is now almost defunct but this production is excellent following it old tradition.
It has LMZA compression utility to pack all the KDE in under 300 and has K3B which I love.
It has excellent text explaining how to use it including making a USB stick.

I wonder why they use the name Porteus?
I give 100 out of 100 and another 100 for the name Porteus for reminding me of recent history.
Anniversary Sermon
Porteus used the opportunity afforded by the invitation to preach the 1783 Anniversary Sermon of the Society  for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to criticize the Church’s role in ignoring the plight of the 350 slaves on its Codrington Estates in Barbados and to recommend means by which the lot for the slaves there could be improved.
It was a well-reasoned and much-reprinted plea for The Civilisation, Improvement and Conversion of the Negroe Slaves in the British West-India Islands Recommended, and was preached at the Church of St Mary-le-Bow before forty members of the society, including eleven bishops of the Church of England. When this largely fell upon deaf ears, Porteus next began work on his Plan for the Effectual Conversion of the Slaves of the Codrington Estate, which he presented to the SPG committee in 1784 and, when it was turned down, again in 1789. His dismay at the rejection of his Plan by the other bishops is palpable. His Diary entry for the day reveals his moral outrage at the decision and at what he saw as the apparent complacency of the bishops and the committee of the Society at its responsibility for the welfare of its own slaves.
These were the first challenges to the establishment in an eventual 26-year campaign to eradicate slavery in the British West Indian colonies. Porteus made a huge contribution and eventually turned to other means of achieving his aims, including writing, encouraging political initiatives, and supporting the sending of mission workers to Barbados and Jamaica. Deeply concerned about the lot of the slaves as a result of the reports he received, Porteus became a committed and passionate abolitionist, the most senior churchman of his day to take an active part in the campaign against slavery.

Above is a small part WiKiPedia reproduction of life of Beilby Porteus for the reading of some British football hooligans turned Human Rights Activist of present day.

I should say when I was working in estate sector as a doctor the conditions of Indian Tamils were far worse (look at the BBC production of 1975-BBC then did not use faked videos, like Channel 4) when British were running the Estates.

In 1975 I had to do postmortems of Tamil Estate Workers who ate Manioc with their leaves and died of cyanide poisoning.
 

We have a saying do not spit looking upwards.
They land on your face immediately.
As far as I am concerned it does not matter which side the fence one is in.

Criminal is a criminal whether he is in or outside prison.
 

The definition does not change because of skin colour.

Spoken English and Mini PCs

Spoken English and Mini PCs

I have been watching and listening to YouTube guys presenting various small form factor Mini PCs. 

They are flooding the market and this glut provides an opportunity for YouTube advertisers to go into frenzy mode.

Their naming architecture is bizarre.

Mixture of N and S series and Venus and Magic and Magician instead of Vanilla or Testing editions(Linux terminology).

No imagination at all.

Products are so diverse and Apple is getting a very bad economic hit.

One can get 10 of these mini PCs and make FreeNAS Server at the cost of an Apple Mac. 

Microsoft has infiltrated this scenario surreptitiously and advertising the phrase  "it come with an operating system".

Bare bone system which costs less is my wish and I have two NUCs with me and being a Linux guy I won't buy one until Linux kernel 13 is out which would be end of 2025 and more likely mid July 2026. 

By that time sales for left over systems would be the reality.

There would be enough specimens to pick.

My picks are Minisforum and Geekom.

Acemagic has a place.

Another company that would be hit as badly as Apple is FrameWork computers, simply because Laptops would become thing of the past due to bulk, battery problems and high price.

This eGPU or external GPU to prevent heat throttling is also a bad advertisement for laptops. My old laptop is already in the attic and I take it out to recharge the battery. Unlike modern batteries the battery discharges even without booting.

The market is volatile and certainly the advertising campaign would become ineffective.

They are running short of buss words like generation I, 2 and 3.

Space saving, budgeting and futuristic won't work.

My amusement is that these guys are killing the Queen's or King's English.

S is pronounced as C.

G is pronounced as J.

N and M are not nasal but guttural.

It is all French to me.

My problem is when I want to write down the Model Number I have to listen to the presentation several times and I still get it wrong.

I advice these guys to display the name tag of these gadgets unobtrusively, while talking, so that the sales depend on whether the buyer gets the model number correct to his or her hea

It will be helpful when ordering through eBay or Amazon.

Less and less people would pop into a high market store to buy a mini PC.

What a turn around.

I used to walk length and breath of Tottenham Court Road to buy a Sony Portable cassette player. 

I could buy three mini PCs today for one Sony Portable.

15 Liter Mini PC Build UP

 15 Liter Mini PC Build UP

Cost is probably 2000 dollars and NUC with upgrades costs is 200 dollars.

Mini PCs

1. Minix NPs-5 Pro

Intel Irish GPU

2. GEEKOM Mini IT11

3. HP Z2 Mini G9

4. BEELink SER5

5. Minisforum Venus UM700

6. Minisforum Venus NPB6

7. Geekom IT13

8. Beelink S12 Pro 

9. Nipogi AK1 Plus

10. GMKtec Mini PC N100

11. ACEMagician mini PC

12. GMKtec Mini PC N97

13. MSI

1. ATX

ITX is the mini version

MCASE M2

Total Volume 15 Liters as compared to a one mini PC of NUC.

This is by the way, is a gaming PC.

There was no estimate of the cost of the system.

My guess is one can build a NAS Server system with couple of NUC boxes for the same price.

I do not play games and not even watch films. If I need to watch a film I need to stick a USB media player and stick a speaker to the USB.

Advanced Technology Extended by Intel.

Specification or mounting points and connectivity for motherboards and power supply for a standard computer.

I have two instances of Debian Gnome, Netrunner and MX Linux KDE a total of 4 distributions in a 320 Old SATA.

No noise and no heat.

Save space, money and energy in watts.

Only 20 watts maxim and no fans.

I use AbiWord (not even Libre office) for books.

2. Motherboard 

B650 Edge WIFI (Gaming)

BIOS Flashback 

CMOS Clear

4 Debug LEDs 

Iindicates if problem with DDR is detected.

Host of ports and vary according to the type of ITX.

Front panel has up down direction.

Back panel has lot of ports and the power button.

Side panels have lot of holes for ventilation.

3. CPU

AMD Ryzen-7 9800-X3D

8 pin cables 

4. GPU

16 pin cables 

GeForce RTX

Mounting Screws for the Cooling System.

Peerless Assassin 120

Has flexible mounting options.

GPU power button should be set on, since accessing it after mounting if difficult.

If need be enough room is a single for liquid cooling (not water).

Add few more mounts to fast chain several more fans to fill the avaible space.

The theory is more fans better it is BUT one should work out how air should flow out from inside to outside.

One does not need heater on a cold winter night. My dog who used to sleep on the cement flow would sleep under the PC which was by the side of my bed. My feet would warm up it's belly.

5. RAM 

DDR 5 6000 series (with higher end serirs there may be compatibility problem with CPU and GPU).

Probably has two slots.

6. Hard Disk

Non Volatile Memory Express

Single NVMe

Samsung 990 Evo

Two slots to mount one on the front (inside) and one on the back (shorter)

2 terabyte 

One for operating system and one for data is the better option.

One need to put protected film before installing.

7. Power Supply

Corsair 

SF850

Motherboard power cable has 24 pins

GPU cable has 16 pins

CPU has 8 pins

Flexible mounting options for power supply.

Tidy them with zip- ties.

Cabling is the clumsiest part.

In my old PC cables had 4, 8 and 12 pins.

Cooling system sat on top of the CPU on thermal paste. I never fiddle with the CPU mounting and that was the most expensive and critical piece.

Graphic cards were only upto 1GB and did not need cooling.

Hard disks and CD/DVD Roms need power supply. With spinning HDD one had to set master and slave meeting with metal clips. I used to make mistakes and on booting only one hard disk may be detected. With SATA there was no such need. 

Just fix in the data and power cables.

Human Destiny

 February 18, 2011

Human Destiny
If man needs to survive in this planet with dwindling resources and utmost pollution he has to take major steps.
The WHO culpable for its inability to forecast and foretell the emerging trends. 

It is also culpable in not having a sustainable strategy.

It seems it is dictated by the rich nations funding it and the cronies employed to effect the rich nations desired plan of inactivity.

They haven’t got an estimate of what is the sustainable population in which the planet can produce food (with a buffer stock for major catastrophe).

They let the market forces decide the events.

With inflation, the price of food is going up and that is no concern for them.

They haven’t got a plan for food security.

Above all they haven’t a slightest of idea of how the global warming would threaten food security.

Their performance is akin to UNO which is impotent in formulating any viable preposition to this planet except for dividing land, countries and nations to a level desirable for the rich nations to exploit economically.

Their pseudo-economic aid make these poor countries more vulnerable and this is happening in Asia and Africa.

They have no strategy to make Africa a food basket of the world.

Asia cannot sustain food security due to population explosion in India and China which are following a death trap of new open economy.

For the first time India was not able to produce onion which is not an essential commodity.

But what about the staple diet. It is no different. Up until now soya had been filling the gap. While supplementing the staple diet it was a buffer for the poor nations.

Now with bio-fuel taking precedence this commodity is becoming the rich nations darling exploits.

I would wind up with water security.

It is common knowledge that this planet is abundant with water and even can submerge some low lying nations with glacial melting.

But we do not have ample drinking water.

The man continue to pollute the rivers and their origins and basins with industries that should be banned for the benefit of mankind.

China, India and Ceylon are good examples.

In Ceylon all our rivers are neglected and allowed to contaminate with dangerous agro-chemicals from up country to low country of the North and North East. 

The rain forest is gradually destroyed and and disappearing fast and some rivers are actually now drying up in dry season.

The government priority was the war and making the economy running somehow but not having a sustainable plan to protect the forest and the rivers that are the live wire of our well being.

In fact, we do not have water security.

In the mean time some politicians are getting ready to sell the last resource we have. 

That is water for money to foreign capital. 

That plan is still in the drawing board and with two third majority even that is sold to a company or companies for generating money.

 I am not surprised judging by the level of intellectual capacity in the parliament. It is possible in the distant future for the water to be be sold to foreign capital, however much they deny that there are no plans to privatize water industry.
 

That is a big lie.

Amazon Silk the answer to Web Browsers that are Heavy

 September 30, 2011

Amazon Silk the answer to Web Browsers that are Heavy

I hate almost all the web browsers in current use except light weight Linux derivatives.
Linux derivatives are light on your computer and has utilities to block unnecessary cookies and erase the memory at the end of a web session.
All the web browsers have become bulky over the years and have left enough security holes.
I will list few of the Linux browsers  I like most before talking about the game-changer Amazon-Silk.
I hope it will become bulky in time but have enough security patches since lot of young kids are going to use it on daily basis. 

1.IceApe and its Suite
 

2. Dillo
 

3. SeaMonkey
 

4. IceWeasel
 

5. Midori
 

 

Mobile Web Kits
 

6.Opera Mobile (Mini)
 

7.Android WebKit
 

8.Safari
 

9.BlackBerry WebKit
 

10. Dolfin-Samsung
 

11.Nokia WebKit
 

12.Phantom
 

13.MicroB-Nokia
 

14. Firefox   Gecko in MeeGo
 

Note Gecko  is a Firefox Light derivative that comes from Linux origin, from good old days of Linux and unfortunately IE and FireFox has lot of work to do to get to Mobile Industry.
IE and FireFox are gorilla derivative of internet.
I believe Linux distributions should all have some alternative Lightweight web browsers included in their distributions.
It is interesting that SwiftLinux which has done a good job of it in its recent version.
These light weight stuff can be used in Mobile and Cloud Computing and now that Amzon has shown the way by splitting the resources we going to have frantic activity in this arena with mobile to lure.
Amazon’s Silk approach is admirable and it is going to be a game-changer.
I think all the web browsers have to go on a diet soon or have at least two versions.
One for mobile and cloud and the other for the desktop.

Ankelipitiya,Ratemulla, Etulgama,Gurudeniya and Thalatuoya

 Ankelipitiya,Ratemulla, Etulgama,Gurudeniya and Thalatuoya

What is stated by me are circumstantial evidences related to naming of villages in Kandy where pitch battles occurred during British time. I have started with the tug of war which may have been to make locals soldiers battle ready. 

I think instead of regurgitating the old tales worth it is while to study of the layout of the land and the relative movement of people away from the Church and British Control is wanting.

I have given my opinion having walked these places by foot as a school child. 

Ampitiya guys are famous for marathon running and hill climbing.

I of course was a short distance runner but could walk miles and miles without breaking down and with little food.

Ankelipitiya near Etulgama

This is where the Thalatuoya stream that flows to Mahaveli River at Gurudeniya starts.

It is at least 5 miles off from Ampitiya, Seminary on a hill.

It is a hill where place where Ankelipitiya is located in Etulgama.

When the original Ankelipitiya was taken over by the Church they would have moved in. Etulgama means inner village and it is also a hill with forest on a side. Major branch of the Thalatuoya begin here.

I think it is the Ankelipitiya that became corrupted to Ampitiya.

Am has no meaning.

An means horns

Keliya means gaming

Pitiya means plane or ground

It sounds reasonable and I have no direct records to prove or disprove this opinion.

I tend to believe Udagama, Pallegama, Maddegama were not real villages names but later adaptation or the original names.

The villages around the  hutch were deserted by people and British had to bring people from elsewhere.

Both my mother parents and my father came from Matale.

The third mile post had the most diverse community. The road by the side of Thaltuoya was ready access to Lewalla where blood bath and bloody war ensured when British soldiers tried to cross the river to Mada Maha Nuwara where King was hiding. It would have been the work of the British.

Besides, their was underground access to Haragama and Gurudenia. When British soldiers reached this underground road it was flooded killing everybody. They probably had to make a new road along the footpaths to Thalatuoya village.

Ketawala, Lewla, Marassana and Mylapitiya had fertile land and they moved to an alternative hill side in Mylapitiya where connection to Hewahata where service clans of various types were residing.

We cannot make concrete assumptions since British distorted the facts and created their own history of Kandy.

All the official residences of Nilmes were located where Boganbara prison stands.

Nuwara Wela was flattened to make way for railway.

People moved away from the Church and British with the influence of the Church brought in civilians for their work from other places.

People in Kandy did not starve and even today most of the produce come to Kandy from Marassana and Mylapitiya.

 

Mylapitiya

Myla probably meaning miles away.

Myla comes from Miles in English.

It was not as short as the British Mile but much longer. 

When I suggest the meaning for Marassana one might get some idea.

Pitiya means a hill in this instance.

 Mylapitiya probably meaning miles away from the Church and the British.

 

Marassana

 

Mara means death.

It really or probably means, killing fields. 

Or where butchering of captured victim.

Asana probably means how the dead were laid.

Who did it I won't guess

? Local soldiers

?British soldiers 

 

If the British soldiers came this far they would not return.

Mylapitiya was the furthers fertile land.

Leave us alone and you go back to your cities.

 

Ketawala

Probably means stones that were used to tie to the bodies to be dumped to the river.

Closed village to Ampitiya.

 

Lewla

Leewala means bloody pools.

Next in line to Marassana from Ampitiya.

Thalatuoya

Is the river it has two branches one starting from Ethulgama.

May have been lined with Palmyra trees from which leaves were taken for curing WataPathas or the fan used by monks.

Kirimatiya

Has local meaning

Etulgama

Has local meaning

Accessibly but not safe enough.

Probably a station to watch Britissh soldiers moving towards  Gurudeniya.

 

Galaha

May be related to exposed big boulders down the river.

 

Deltota 

Means places where they crossed.

 

Hindagala

Mahakanda

Galoya

Doluwa

Hindagala 

Mahakanda

Haloya

Wariyagala

Nilambe

Galaha

Deltota

Kandy 

Thalatuoya

Deltota.

 

 

Sirimalwatta

Yatawara

Beelink Mini BC

Beelink Mini BC

One of the standout mini PC is belink.

Compact and robust.

Office Productivity and industrial use.

Space saving.

samll form factor.

innovaztive and relable

sleek

1. Beelink U59

Browsing and office software

Intel celeron

512GB SATA SSD Storage drive bay

8 to 16 GB RAM

also space for 2.5 bay inch SATA

M.2 SSD SATA storage 

Dula HDMI

Reasonable price.

Office machine or embedded application

Ethernet port

2. SER5 MAX

AMD Ryzen CPU

Radeon 7 5800 GPU

2 X M.2 NVNe ports 

DDR 4 RAM

One ethernet port 

single type c interphase

audio jack

good cooling system

Good for video editing and casual gaming

Many ports for connectivity.

Portable notebook replacement

Plasti body

2.SSD NVME

audio jack

ungradable and customizable

cooling system is good

 

3. Mini S12 Pro 

 AMD

Intel Alder Lake N100

Ideal for media consumption

hold up to 2 terabyte

Expansible

7 to 10 watts in idle mode

 

4. SER6 MAX Extreme Version

 AMD 6900 processor

DDR 5 RAM 16 to 64

Gaming Mini PC

 6 nano meter  

Office software creative imge 

4 terrabuys expanble to

triple display

Duel fans

 

5. SER7

32GB RAM

AMD GPU 7784

2.5 SATA

NVME SSD

Lot of ports

4 monitors 4K

Power LED

Audio

Home entertainment light gaming.

 

 

Beelink GTI Ultra Docking Station

Beelink GTI Ultra Docking Station

This docking station is neat and compact.

It has two PCI slots for two SSDs.

It has a PCI e slot that takes the eGPU in without a connector.

No TBs or OCulink needed.

It has 24 pin power PSU- Power Supply Unit for ATX.

Slot for its own power and power supply is within with and two pin inlet.

It should be 20 pins.

It has two speakers within and no room for be ventilation.

Hopefully it does not get heated up when running.

How to Organize the Partitions in Linux?

Please note that one can install Linux in a Single partition but that partition should have minimum of 30GB and 50GB is ample.

How to Organize the Partitions in Linux?

I am a genuine Critic of Linux and a Long Time User.

If  you visit this web site and peruse pieces on Linux I had been critical of LiLo booting to GRUB booting to Daemon to Chron jobs.

I never fiddle with system files and root partition.

I am an adult teacher and  freelance writer.

First warning.

Do not expect the Internet to teach YOU Linux basics. 

It is a junk yard, with guys frustrated probably with their girl friends vent their anger on Linux. We are seasoned guys and can take any adverse comment but those guys should dig into basics. 

Better still read a book for reliable information.

Take the Linux Bible and read the relevant chapter. 

One need not read the entire book. 

But, I have read more than 70% of it over 30 years. 

I have the latest copy on the right hand side of the table. 

If I miss a point I revise myself and revisit the problem.

That has saved me.

I did not have to do it today.

Linux developers are very smart guys, they have documented everything, in a large Help file or manpage and I have never visited it or reviewed options available.

These developers are busy guys and they are not your teachers. 

They discuss their problems with their cohort or fellow developers. 

If you have a problem file a bug report. 

I have never filed a bug report but post a piece here, if I have a problem, believing one of them would read them in his or her own leisure time.

Linux has taken tremendous strides over the last 30 years. 

It is viable and robust. 

To test my gut feeling and I posted the following question in the Web.

How to Organize the Partitions in Linux?

I saw a few amateurish attempts.

This is why, I decided to write a book on Linux in spite having a big Linux Bible.

Unlike me, a medical guy who have read Harrison's Medicine and Russel L. Cecil (1881-1965) and Robert F. Loeb (1895-1973)  (W.B.Saunders) books on Medicine (never Oxford) reading Linux Bible with very specific instructions was chicken feed, as it were.

My book has gone over 400 pages. 

I will post here a section from that book on partitions.

Traditionally, Linux has a hierarchical file structure. 

Even though, Linux distribution can remain in one partition apart from the Efi partition theoretically, it prefers to organize the files in strict and orderly manner.

Ubuntu does it in one partition.

Endless OS has similar approach.

The simple order is Efi partition and /root partition.

The rest of the partitions sit under the /root partition in a parent and child relationship. 

That is it.

One my understand that there is a 1MB FAT portion above the EFI, probably dedicated to Microsoft Windows to snooze upon your system. Today I noticed it had Free BSD name on it. I tried to install BSD a couple of days ago but it hung up with a name tag. 

I name it again with my name if any guy or girl want to snooze.

/root

/boot

/home

/tmp

/var

/usr

/srv

/usr/local

/opt

With efi and SWAP there are eleven partitions (11) in total.

I have a SATA 320GB hard disk and therefore, I have limitations. 

I use to drop /var partition (the variable partition), since it gets loaded up with variable files in no time which eventually fill the partition up that cannot be cleaned up. I invariably gets a message saying, there is no space in the hard disk, meaning that the /var partition is saturated. When this happens, the system actually freezes and I cannot install additional software. 

The package manager has no idea what space is left in the hard disk and try to install ad hoc manner. 

What I usually do is, open the Disk Usage Analysis Tool of the Utilities Bundle and keep it opened while installing applications. When it indicates in graphic form, only 2GB space is available, I stop installing additional packages.

The Stacer utility in graphic mode is a better option. 

It may say, only 1.8GB is available. 

That is the bottom line and I do not install anymore software even for testing. 

Mind you, I have DBS Database in my LibreOffice Suite and it needs some space for additional Databases.

Moving to a different topic, there are different Installers and MX Linux has it own Installer which is very restrictive with only 3 partitions namely /root /boot and /home. 

Suse and Redhat have their own installers.

It is said Linux is either a File or a Directory.

In that sense, a summary of the file hierarchy in Linux is mandatory for a guy or girl using command line work.

It goes on like this.

/bin – Binaries

The /bin directly contains the executable files of many basic shell commands like ls, cp, cd etc. Mostly the programs are in binary format here and accessible by all the users in the Linux system.

/dev – Device files

This directory only contains special files, including those relating to the devices. They are virtual files, and they do not physically present on the disk.

/etc – Configuration files

The /etc directory contains the core configuration files of the system, use primarily by the administrator. The services, such as the password file and networking files occupy /etc.

If one needs to make changes in system configuration (for example, changing the host name), the etc folder is where one finds the respective files.

/usr – User binaries and program data

In /usr all the executable files, libraries, source of most of the system programs reside. For this reason, most of the files contained therein are read ­only for the normal user.

My advice is one should not allocate a partition for /usr.  It gets filled up in no time, if separate partition is allocated and the system would freeze when this happens. 

I tried various combination of partitions to test them and I have had very nasty experiences.

Let the/usr remain under /root directory and the /root automatically decides how to allocate resources to each directory with seamless efficiency.

/usr/bin contains basic user commands

/usr/sbin contains additional commands for the administrator

/usr/lib contains the system libraries

/usr/share contains documentation or common libraries, for example /usr/share/man contains the text of the manpage

/home – User personal data

Home directory contains personal directories for the users.

The home directory contains the user data and user specific configuration files. When root user allows one to create a user on a Linux system, it creates a home directory for the user with a specific name. Suppose the Root allows Linux system to have two users named Tom and Jury. There are two home directories as /home/tom and /home/jury. Do note that capital letters are not allowed for user names and additionally, Tom is not allowed to access  /home/jury and vice versa. That makes sense, since only the user should have access to his or her /home directory. 

However Root has access to all the files.

/lib – Shared libraries

Libraries are basically codes that can be used by the executable binaries. The /lib directory holds the libraries needed by the binaries in /bin and /sbin directories.

Libraries needed by the binaries in the /usr/bin and /usr/sbin are located in the directory /usr/lib.

/sbin – System binaries

This is similar to the /bin directory. The only difference is that it contains the binaries that can only be run by root or sudo.

One can assume that the ‘s’ in ‘sbin’ as super or sudo.

/tmp – Temporary files

As the name suggests, this directory holds temporary files. Many applications use this directory to store temporary files. But do note that the contents of the /tmp directories are deleted when the system reboots.

/var – Variable data files

Var, short for variable, is where programs store runtime information like system logging, user tracking, caches and other files that system programs create and manage. The files stored here are not cleaned automatically and hence it provides a good place for system administrators to look for information about their system behaviour. For example, if the Root wants to check the login history in the Linux system, this is where he checks, the content of the file in /var/log/wtmp.

I tend to give a big partition for /var since it is not cleaned up automatically and builds up with junk. 

The system gives a warning when /var gets filled up and I quickly delete unnecessary applications when that happens. I never try to fiddle with /root directory since, if a single file configuration is corrupted, the /root refuses to boot.

/boot – Boot files

The ‘/boot’ directory contains the files of the kernel and boot image, in addition to LILO and GRUB. It is often advisable that the directory resides in a partition at the beginning of the disc but in Debian, the /root has first priority and /boot /home and /tmp follow afterwards.

/proc – Process and kernel files

The /proc directory contains the information about currently running processes and kernel parameters. The content of the /proc directory is used by number of tools to get runtime system information. For example, if one want to check processor information in Linux, one can simply refer to the file            /proc/cpuinfo. To check memory usage of the Linux system one looks at the content of /proc/meminfo file.

The application, Stacer described in this book is a good utility to check the file system without disrupting the configuration of the system.

/opt – Optional software

Traditionally, the /opt directory is used for installing/storing the files of third party applications that are not available from the repository of the distribution. 

I tend to create a partition for /opt of sufficient size.

The normal practice is to keep the software code in opt and then link the binary file in the /bin directory so that all the users can run it.

/root – The home directory of the root

This is /root directory as well as the home directory of the root. Instead of /home/root, the home of root is located at /root.

Do not confuse it with the root directory (/).

/media – Mount point for removable media

When a user connect a removable media such as USB disk, SD card or DVD, a directory is automatically created under the /media directory for the user.

/mnt – Mount directory

This is similar to the /media directory but instead of automatically mounting the removable media /mnt is used by system administrators to manually mount the file system.

/srv – Service data

The /srv directory contains data for services provided by the system. For example, if one runs a HTTP server, the website data is stored in the /srv directory.

I think ordinary user should not worry about the file architecture of the system in detail but s/he should worry only about the /home directory where he or she   is allowed to use and function at lib.

The root user can limit the resources of this directory, if one fills it up with junk. 

It is the responsibility of user to maintain it in pristine form,

Partition Order for a Desktop Linux

I have had many second thoughts about the partition order. I do not think it matters a lot.

I presume the following order may be useful.

EFI about 528MB

/root

/boot (optional and may be redundant)

/home

/tmp

/usr    (the user file location assuming more than one user is using the computer)

/srv  services

/var

I have some reservation about /var partition, since it get used up when more and more applications are added. Then one gets the warning that not enough space is available in the hard disk.

SWAP is mandatory and I have several.

One should not forget SWAP Partition and I have one Swap Partition after every distribution, usually three in number. I sometimes delete (I have two more in reserve) the last Swap partition stationed as the last partition in the Partition Table and install, the latest distribution that I wish to test, to see how much hardware memory in GB the distribution needs.

Generally speaking, 10GB is the minimum for a light weight distribution but 30 to 40 is optimal but  I use at least 100GB for each distribution which includes a relatively large /home partition.

I hate Virtual Installations, even though, I have the BOX utility in my system. Only after full install one gets the real feel of the distribution one is using.

There is a small caveat here.

If one is using a spinning hard disk the order matters and the scanning needle has to spin a lot, if the order EFI, /root, /boot /home /tmp etc are not in  sequential order. In that scenario for effective booting EFI has to be the first. In  Solid State Disks (SSD), it does not matter unless one installs  many Linux distributions, in one disk.

By the way, I have reserved 50GB for a NTFS partition to store Iso images which I  Test and Delete, as I wish.

 

I have still have not made up the best three distributions one would like to use.

Gnome of Debian comes first.

The KDE Netrunner is pretty good.

Ubuntu I have disposed of due to many reasons.

May be Manjaro comes third.

Peppermint failed on my last testing.

Latest EndeavourOS  is pretty good

 

After many a tests I settled downed with MX Linux KDE.

Yesterday, I installed Netrunner KDE with 6.1 kernel. It is OK with a beautiful boot menu at the start but it is very slow to boot compared to Debian Gnome. 

Debian keep an eagle eye and it tells me it has some updates.

It took seven mutes for updates are done offline. The files are downloaded in the background as a demon when I am online. I have over 20 window managers to choose from Awesome to Cinnamon to Fluxbox, IceWarm (beautiful) many versions of Gnome to KDE, to MATE to XFCE, that is why it took 7 minutes. Otherwise few minuted would be enough.

 

My Grouse with KDE Desktop

My Grouse with KDE Desktop

My Grouse with KDE Desktop are numerous, to say the least.

This is comparison to Debian, Gnome

I can list 20 but would limit to 10.

1. It boot Menu is messy

All what I need is the in partition where it is installed.

2. Its booting is pretty slow.

I have 4 other instances, including Two Debians, Netrunner and MX Linux.

3. Installing alternative user is clumsy.

Finding the setting is difficult. 

4. Finding the package manager is difficult.

In fact it does not have one proper.

If Synaptic Package manager is not there one is at a loss.

5. Having installed AbiWord, my primary Word Processor, finding where it is, was a rigmarole.

6. Abiword looks strange when file is opened.

page setting go haywire.

7. KDE installed under Debian looks neat

Wayland instance not X11

But desktop is empty.

One has to go to the all application and look for the application and one has to click on to the desktop individually.

8. There is almost nothing on the bottom panel.

One has to drag and drop into the application panel.

9. I need only about 12 application in my desktop.

Gnome does it nicely.

I know where the other applications reside.

its customization is painful.

10. Finding a particular application in Flatpack Software is humanly impossible.

One need to know all the categories by heart.

In Gnome if I forget an application all I need to do is type the first letter of the application and browse in the list.

I would type R in Synaptic and find Revolt for example.

11. I think guys who talks high of KDE has never used any other desktop.

For example if I run Enlightenment Desktop, it modifies everything and I cannot go back to Gnome proper. 

Logging out is also difficult.

I logged in with it and when it started asking me various questions  I hit Ctl+Alt+ F1 to exit.

In that respect KDE is a reasonable desktop.

12. My advice is learn to use several desktops and settle down with one for long term use.

Gnome desktop is natural for me but KDE (I started with KDE of Mandrake) is almost foreign.

These are the things I am going to include in my book of "Linux Essentials".

It is coming out nice but I am currently updating my piece on "Mini Desktop Computers".

13. Updating takes hell of a lot of time.

Installing Window Managers

Installing Window Managers

It is easy.

 Synaptic Package Manger is necessary.

With root permission type Window Manager.

From Blackbox to Fluxbox to Cinnamon, KDE to Plasma to XFCE  to MATE are available

Except MATE, Xmonad and compiz, I installed all.

Enlightenment data is heaviest and needed 401 MB for DATA.

Enjoy the freedom

e GPU Build UP Dock

Old M.2 Adaptor

Connects M.2. SSD or mSSD

NVMe Drive is new small form factor Hard Disk coming in with new mini PC.

My NUC has a port for 2.5" SATA disks.

I have collected several SSDs over time and I wish not through them away.

When Linux 13 kernel come which is going to support these hardware, I might consider buying a new NUC.

Possibly ACMagic

Morfine

GHTech

Or any other model which fits my Budget.

Until then I am a YouTube Educator.

It needs M.2 adaptor with a OCulink port for internal/external expandion.

1. OCulink Board

PCIe slot

OCulink port

150;watts

No cooling necessary 

This dock or board has a on off switch,too.

PCIe 3

TB3

TB4

USB4

No OCulink

40bits per second 

PCI 4

OCulink 

63bits per second 

24 pins ATX 

Pico Power supply

Pic power supply has ports for SATA disks.

M.2 to OCulink adaptor is avaible.

2. Fix the power adaptor to 24 ATX pins.

3. Fix the GPU to the Oculink Board.

4. Fix 4 ruuber plugs to the base

5. You are in for connecting to a Mini PC or a Laptop

Modernization and Loss of Biodiversity

 July 10, 2011

Modernization and Loss of Biodiversity
In the city and the villages that surrounded it where I grew up,  almost anything that one throws away grows (Plants and Seeds) on its own provided they did not rot away due to too much water.

There was no need to water plants and like a clockwise fashion rain did come in 10 to 14 day cycles even in the dry season.

Inter-monsoon rain was regular and now I understand and believe that the vegetation itself fashion this rain and its cycles.

More trees mean more regular  inter-monsoon rain.
Less trees means less rain, for sure, inter-monsoon period.
I lived for short period in Kurunegala and we moved there since doctors advised my father to move out to reduce the recurrence of wheezy episodes I had in Kandy, when I very young.
I moved back and never had any problems and the problems were probably, related to growing up and poor nutrition, I ponder now.

That is just to restate the damply state of affairs of my city, of yesteryear.

Even Kurunegala the weather, then, when compared to as it is now with lot of vegetation and coconut trees was very mild with more frequent dry spells than in Kandy.

Now we are going through perennial failure of rain and even the rain fails in the upcountry regions where the most of the hydroelectric  power plants are located.

All these are related to modernization and clearing up of scanty vegetation for what we call development. 

It is going to get worse and there is no master plan to arrest it except adding more vulnerable projects including coal power plants.

Coal Power Plants will cause irreversible damage to our eco-system and by the time it is recorded by scientific pundits, I would have been long gone (Dead wood sitting on a cremation site) but I hope somebody will trace back to year 2005 where I started voicing this on a regular basis in the web.

It would have been earlier had it not been for the slow pace of development of the Web but the slow pace of the printed paper of course accelerated my efforts.

Now I have made it a pastime and I study what I call the “my sphere of activity” (very limited indeed, indeed) and its observation and I want everybody who is versed in biology (or not) would contribute to this type of observations and record them since we cannot believe the government and will never make any worthwhile consideration (except pass legislation they, themselves violate with political patronage with impunity) to this effort since politicians and their stooges won’t understand their policy impact on mother nature.

Like the mess we have inherited with cricket after 1996 and filling up an ancient tank and building a cricket ground on it is the classic example of the idiocy of our policy makers cricket or otherwise.

We are set for power cuts in spite of thermal power added to the system.

Now if I do not water the plants including water plants they will dry up and wilt away in as short as three days.

Unfortunately there is nobody to help me with a little background knowledge in biology to look after my plants.
If I go out for a short holiday for two weeks abroad, all the plants I have collected over the period of a decade will be no more.
I was late in using my power of observation since when we were young we did not have to worry about plants wilting away.
The observation period is over 25 years.
This started rapidly from 1975 when plantation section was nationalized.
Everything, I observe is in the direction of loss of bio-diversity.
The little exotic (I have lost all the orchids) plants I have now if I do not replant will be lost, if not in the wild, but in my garden which is very very tiny.
Lot in my neighbourhood has changed and except for the remaining jack-tree and the breadfruit tree (which is gradually dying) which stand tall, all the other trees have been felled by the owners and all the tree shade/s we have now is / are less than 20 years old.
Glad to say I have contributed to many of the remaining ones with a few exotic palm trees in that lot.
None of them were for commercial value but for shear beauty of their presence in my garden.
Now I have to make a significant observation and this writing was prompted by need to emphasize that.
We live in a small hill (in the middle) not very steep but the road now we use is where the waste water ran down and I believe there was a little stream trickling (probably during the heavy rainy season) down and the underground water table is very near the surface with solid rocks on top and we were without pipe born water and we had to dig a well for our daily use.
It took another 10 years to get the pipe born water and with my friends who were engineers (they worked hard) were instrumental in the Nilambe Project from which present politicians in the city steal water when they come for a respite from Colombo.
Particular president made sure he gave connections only to his partisans (he is no more) and I had to wait till he died for everybody in the area to get a regular water supply and that was the only time we had a President from the hill country.
 

Now what they do is surreptitiously divert our water to Kandy and elsewhere and depriving us at times of greater need.

Suffice is to say they never started a new scheme for a very long period of time.
 

There was a natural shallow well at our level which we used liberally during the construction of the house and I used to take a bath on some days for pleasure.
There were plenty of fresh water crabs there (they are gone now) and I had saved couple of big crabs who landed on our low roof to safety who had escaped on flight from birds of prey.
You should not believe that the crabs could fly on to my roof. 

Way our politicians travel by air I have to believe even frogs and crabs would learn to fly if they happen to be partisan with politicians, with or without wings.
The whole place is dry now in spite of ancient minor stream long long time ago.
We came to this area when water was becoming scarce but there was still some underground water, left.
 

Now to my point and re-directing my thoughts and the reason why I came this far.
1. I said I live in the middle.
2. The road was once where there would have been a minor stream, now totally dry.
3. Unlike those days which I drove a car (disposed it when I discovered it was consuming lot of petrol), I walk up the road for my exercise which is my workout and the day I cannot walk up the road, I would retire from this world for good and do not need a bypass or a borrowed organ or two to live. 

As a living destitute.

4. Unlike those days (it was a brisk walk,then) now I take my time to watch the flora and fauna (now dogs and cats only and a few birds).
 

5. I one day notice the flowers of the seeds I tried to grow in my plot but could not on the wayside at the beginning which is the ground zero level.
 

5. Seeds that I used to get sometimes from abroad are germinating in not my plot of land but in the plot of land at the bottom.
 

6. All the seed I put at the middle level could have got washed away and settle at the lowest level.
 

7. Strangest of my observations was a white flower (I got the seeds from botanical garden and tried to grow in our plot but never succeeded). 

Very pleasant surprise and the owners had left to Canada over 20 years ago and that house is still empty and once in 5 years somebody cleans it up and there was no way the cleaner (not a gardener) had planted it.
Few of them are still there.
 

8. Same day I went to the botanical garden from where I got the seeds (from the hanging runners coming over the fence). 

To my horror those runners have all gone, no flowers and dried up stems were seen in a tall tree.

I think I did some honours to the Botanical garden for picking few seeds (which I never was able to see  flowering in my garden) and spread in my garden which had got washed away and landed on a foreign soil where nobody was living now.
 

9. The sense of Sympathetic joy (Upekka) was overwhelming and that is why I have to pen it down here.

10. I now remember, just couple of meters away there was an exotic plant and on a rainy day dug up the yams and I now have an enormous collection (personal favorite) of it in my rooftop garden. They guy who brought me the specimen is dead. He became an alcoholic.
 

This Sunday when I walk up I will be picking up some seeds from that flower and then try again to germinate them, and perhaps I might even donate it to the botanical garden chief (previous one was a good friend of mine and I never asked him for any exotic plants except those on sale.
The present one when I met, I suggested  he should start selling water plants -which has become a monopoly of a selected few- and I am glad to say he has obliged and there are a few new guys doing water plants in Kandy, now.
I should now go for cuppa tea and wind up after stating from whom I learned the secret of throwing seeds all over the foot path (by accident) where I walk, now, though ambling.
 

It was my wife’s grandma.
 

She had the habit of spreading the seeds all over the garden and I used to pull most of them out to get some order in the garden. She was a sweet lady and she needed flowers for her daily offering to Buddha and we had at least 5 varieties almost everyday.
Now she and her daughter and my mother all gone we cannot pluck two varieties on a single day.

Strangely enough my rooftop garden has three to six including three varieties of Jasmine which I grow (a trick I learned from my mother) in the memory of my mother who died well past 90 (and the other two ladies too, I fondly remember when I see these flowers).
 

I wish I should not live that long since then there won’t be any birds or wild flowers to smell in this blessed island.

But as long as I could walk up the footpath (any footpath, for that matter), I am going to pluck dry flowers and spread the seeds like birds do.
I don’t care where they start germinating and like a good Buddhist I have to lose attachment to any worldly thing including flowers from now onward.
In this scenario I differ slightly from Buddhist virtues.
I want our great great grandchildren to have a reminder of the old times not of my photographs but some beautiful and fragrant flowers which we are losing by the day.
We do not have bees and the the little innocent black variety which were there for over 20 years and they come collect honey from my tiny water plants.
20 years ago, there was a seed I tried to germinate by various mean but never could.

Then one day I asked the lab assistant who was a keen gardener and my patient till he died when nearing 90 told me that the seeds crack when there is intense heat and then when the rain comes it germinate and if I soak the seeds it will rot.
Just today, I picked up three of those plants to pot before they are run by the three wheeler drivers. 

The road is now finished with concrete to lure the voters get heated up and the seeds on either side crack and germinate. 

They planted a photo of Ranil at the bottom.
Suffice it to say all the seeds coming from a plants / trees my mother in law planted.
When a generation take the exit pathway like in America we will have only commercial growers and mono-culture.