Linux100-PureOS-Light and Standard

Very good light distribution of 366 MiB from Debian base. Guest and Root logging allowed. Only when logged as root one can install the distribution. Mouse based xfce x-windows is light on your RAM and very fast to boot.

Has all the utilities including Aniword.

The standard 700 MiB distribution is very beautiful and has Libre Office and gparted.The standard distribution is Gnome and is even better than xfce with blue hue used by Debian.

It based in France and the Administrator has taken all the trouble to list all the list of packages which may have taken an hour to type.

They are also promoting PureWebOS but I COULD NOT FIND the image to download.

This will be a healthy competition to HPWebOS, unless they decide to release it as OPEN SOURCE.

WordPress is also having a WebOS THAT CAN BE DOWNLOADED to a mobile phone.

Its light weight edition of PUREOS is also not available to download.

Debian the clear winner-The Gold for Light and Heavy Weight Championship

Now that the industrial action is over, we brought the Hero to Gyro (not giro and we could not be bought by money circulating on illegal hands or corruption) except perhaps few individual who had vested interests and wanted to be heroes at the expense of the general body politics of our action perpetuated by sheer needs and not aspirations (fell far short of aspirations of accountability, transparency, fairness).
These instant Heroes had unassailable lead and they had to be pulled down to base level and gyrate them on the correct path lest all of us would be heading for disaster.
We never had the political will to bring Heroes to Zeros but the vision to come to the base level we reached way back in 2008 and gyrate in correct orbit instead of asking for miracles which we will never achieve the way we sink into dirty tricks and manipulations by undesirables.

I hope senses will come to body politics of the country, unless of course the voters will bring the Heroes to Zeroes in double quick time at the correct gyroscopic orbit and time and they are not stupid or donkeys who carry burden.

We are of course in the minority in that context and what we can provide is wisdom if not vision.
We came to equilibrium position neither zero nor hero but a position of comfort from where we can gyrate to greater heights if correct recognition is extended.
Otherwise history will take us backward (like in cricket) instead of forward.

Debian

Coming to IT industry where there are commercial heroes but the clear winner which gyrate at the correct orbit is Debian.
It was no surprise.
Score of above 3000 and well above the Gold Standard of 2500 for the standard CD.
For the heavy weight category it is within the Gold Mark where no other distribution has all the components at hand with over 30,000 package well tested.
It has gParted which is around 100 MiB with partition and security features.
It has Blender, Scribus and Inkscape.
Only missing component was O.E.M. component.
It did not have a printed book but thanks to French and the English translation is due soon and available on line as open source.
It has all the versions from Mini to KDE to Server.
It has multi-language support including Sinhala.
It does not pretend to be a (commercial) hero but the wise counsel to all the other distributions which include Ubuntu and extending a hand to Linux Mint currently.
Additionally it is forging with FreeBSD too.
It is the clear winner.
If I said without my marking scheme everybody will say I am biased. Now it is vindicated and flame wars are not the necessity but a feature of Linux and its multi-faceted distributions..
Now I can say with or without bias it is the one that guides us and the Gyroscope for years to come.
If you need a solid, stable and secure enhanced Linux, there is only one and only one.
It is called Debian.
It is not for the lazy souls and it is the one who wants to dig a lot, sweat a bit and enjoy a lot of the hard labour.
Nothing is easy in the IT World.
One has to go into simple command line and give commanding orders till midnight commander sleeps like a sleeping beauty!

Debian Collection-Sinhala Capability

I am afraid you are not going to hear, I relate, any good dreams for a while and I was under the weather, this time not due to verbal diarrhoea of a political variety but really runny bottoms which virtually dehydrated me and the forced starvation had caused even hypoglyaemia to the extent, I have a slight headache even interfering my prolonged sleep on a Poya Day.

What usually happen is I have a good invigorating dream on Pre-poya day and I go straight to the computer and an email to Maha Brhma who virtually responds instantaneously to my dreams.

You may remember, we had an agreement unless the dream content has some humour, both ways my actual dreaming of it and its interpretation by Maha which makes the earthling practically starving of a good laugh, keep amused away from our boring politicians.

Suffice is to say I had some little fragmented dreams of no significance but a good one is long due.

Probably our cricket team’s poor performance and Sanga’s muted Revelations of Sri-Lankan Cricket would get no Sri-Lankan into a good mood awake or in dreams.

I have to agree with Sanga that Cricket was not something alienated with power politics or racial overtones whether it is South, North, East, West of in the Central Hills in the past but it seems under the present regime it has become alienated to extent one who is a Buddhist and coming from deep south only will get a chance to play for Sri-Lankan team as a newcomer and  s/he should be in the ruling party as a member of the parliament or avid supporter to get some contracts to fatten his or her foreign exchange illegally.

Corruption is ripe and only difference is unlike Indians our officers are cushioned by political maneuvers.

This is what Sanga could not state (not the 9 O’clock News item) but his resignation at a time when we had not groomed a viable successor, is an indication of his disgust how cricket is manged here in Sri-Lanka.

Well done Sanga, you come from the hill capital was the only one like our  Late Kadhiragarman who value principles of good governance. 
I suppose you should  now concentrate on law rather than cricket. 

Be a chip of the old block.

Time will tell who with the political backing will get the baton but who ever who comes with political baton will be sure to fail, since cricket is the only game where power politics has no place.

England has shown us how it is done with transparency and I won’t be surprised if England will lift the Cup next time around if they persevere with combination of youth with talent and senors with grit.

Just for record the criticism of of Trot was unwarranted and he is the one who helped to lift the cup and silenced English armchair critics.

Well done Trot you have more to offer as a Senior Player, if Sanath can play at 41 plus you should be playing at 38 plus if you keep your fitness, technique and solid temperament to win the game for your country right, in the shorter version of the game.

But if you are not up to it don’t wait like Peterson but follow the Thescovic example and play for your county till 40 plus and enjoy the gentleman game.

I hope you will be in the team which lift the next world cup and I will be following you very closely if not the others in your team and if you need a push I will certainly give it, far away from your home from the East.

Make sure you beat Indians this time round in summer like what you did in Australia.

Indian money and politicians are ruining the game and only English can save the game from disgrace, IPL included. 

We should never allow Bolliwood to fashion the game!

Please do not follow Chandimal and Mathews methods and they have learned these very, very bad habits from our politicians who have nothing but using fallen soldiers for their grandiose acts posthumously.

I am far off the target from Linux and Debian in particular.

Reason for diversion is nothing but I am waiting for the download of the last two DVDs in 386 version (I have 64 bit version) which is pretty fast due to so many seeders.

Now I have array of CDs/DVDs to promote Sinhala Linux and devoting my time for Debian during our industrial action which has given me ample time to sit in front of the computer.

Debian has produced bug fixes and I have downloaded them too.

I am gland they have followed my advice to break the distributions into Bonobo to Gorilla versions and Light Weight Chimp Versions of 500 MiB is the one that is going to rule the world for next 20 years with “Cloud Computing” on the horizon and Tabloids invading the market with very very cheap hardware.

I think Deann fork should follow Unity experience while maintaining Linux Mint under Debian fold.

Next 10 years should be the Linux Penetration Decade (LPD) of the masses which is only 1% currently. If Linux can make it to 10%, it is going to be a market force and the other 90% should be the “Cloud Servers” which will dominate the next 20 years until another innovation hits the web.

My answer to Ubuntu’s Unity Desktop Critics

My answer to Ubuntu’s Unity Desktop Critics

It looks like Ubuntu Linux has given lot of heartaches to its fan base.
I only use Ubuntu for demonstration of Linux versatility.
I am bit different compared to other Linux uses.
When I demonstrate Ubuntu I always say “Linux is not only Ubuntu”.
My point is to state that there are over 100 lovely Linux distributions for one to try.

Unlike the majority I strongly support the canonical’s new move to Unity.
I will only state one out of the many reasons.
Because of the smart move by Microsoft to give XP to OEM guys with netbooks, practically free, Linux could not penetrate netbooks.

If Ubuntu does not penetrate emerging tabloids market another opportunity will be lost..
Linux will be ahead of both Mac and Microsoft (Like the Android of Google) because of this move of Unity.
It is a smart move by the Ubuntu creator Mark Shuttleworth.
Only smart people will survive in this game.

I think ones who had come from Microsoft base will spread this negative publicity with hidden agenda but young and newbies will embrace Unity without reservation.
Time will be best judge whether what I say will materializes.

Ubuntu has to do one small thing right to shut the negative campaign.
Give them both options in a single DVD (two images for the prize of one, old and the new Unity) and I am sure they also will embrace Unity in no time.
I believe they already give this option and if thereis any problem Mint is there to fill the void.

Having said that Big Brother or the Good Father Debian will be  there to take the free open software to another level without anybody noticing it.
That is why I support many distributions.
For example Porteus (SLAX) base has done a excellent job without much funfair.
It is one of the best (KDE, LXDE) little distribution that has hit the market.
It is a little gem.

What to look for in a Standard Linux Distribution-Introduction

I have talked about practically all the possible combinations of Live and Standard Linux it is time for me to wind up with a guide for selection of a distribution without giving a particular distribution.I will not go into hardware compatibility even though it is a major issue since what innovation are round the corner is difficult to predict after this iPod and mobile utility craze is over and done with it.

But before that I must tell you my favorites without any order of merits.

I go for several light weight distributions and for one Gorilla Edition.

The Gorilla Edition is PCLinuxFullMonty which is almost comprehensive and lacks only XBMC but that also can be downloaded.

For Sinhala Linux Lovers (SLL) it is Debian 6.0.0

They are as follows

1. Puppy Linux and its various editions. you can simply carry in your front pocket (carry when I go abroad-an use it as an Acid Test of the computer, laptop or netbook I may buy-not that I want any more with all the assortments i have at home an office.
If I cannot boot it it with Puppy, I won’t consider buying the stuff, whatever the vendors gimmick may be.

2. Knoppix the 10th anniversary edition to show off its graphic capabilities including compiz and cheese the web camera. Now it has found a permanent place in my computers in spite of its finicky requirements for hardware configuration.

3. Gparted (Debian’s), the best companion to partition my computers when I reformat. Mind you it is light weight and does not say no to any complicated partition composition within the framework of the standard laid down principles.

4. KDE base nothing to choose between Mepis and PCLinux but I prefer PCLinux since I got a good hang of its versatile performance which SuSe lacks.

5. SuSe for my long association with it after Fedora in spite of craving for RAM (the new with Venation blind appearance but in vertical orientation of strips)I. It has the the best configuration utility called YAST (I call it Yet Another System configuration and teaching Tool) but the partitioning is limited to 15 which is a handicap when I want several distributions installed in the same computer.

6. Debian for its versatility and the ability to recognize all the hard disks of various make (SATA, SCSI, IDE) and the ability to write the partition table without getting confused when a fellow like me install assortment of operating systems in my own finicky ways.

It has taken a special place now with Sinhala capability of its installation.

7. Fedora for its ability to take on board changes which commercial operating systems resit and for my yesteryear long association with it and the Hanthana Sinhala Linux which is a derivative of it.

It was the first Linux distribution that I have used which could accommodate Sinhala fonts way back when other Linux distributions were learning the tricks of the trade.

8. GoBO Linux for its innovative approach but no new version for a long time.

9. YOPER for trimming, shedding dropping extra fringes to get it running fast but it has a big problem with its GRUB file.

10. Pure KDE without a brand name since it is the one made Linux desktop eye candy and a market force of its own and still introducing new innovation but one need at least 1 GiB of RAM and still more RAM for it’s better performance.

11. LXDE is my favorite even though I am hooked to KDE and its plane and bird like logo.

12. Cloud Linux

13. MeeGo

14. Pendrive Linux

15. PureOS, Saline OS, Peppermint, LinuxMint, Console Linux, Morphix, MYAH, ADIOS and the lot I forgot because of my bad memory.

16. Scientific Linux of course is my ultimate goal and that is where I belong to as a professional and where my personal biases are rooted, which I am trying to wean off and become an ordinary man again with taste and flair.

If I have left any other distribution, it is all because of my finicky behaviour and lack of space.

It is a fact that any one of them do the day to day work for me.

Please excuse for my bias since I am an ordinary human being with lot of personal deficiencies and lapses in my memory with geriatric age approaching fast.

Young ones are the live blood of Linux, you need to keep on innovating and also have a pause and listen to ordinary uses too.

Next few editions will be based on the packages one should have in a distribution that may vary from person to person.

I will start with K-Torrent and gParted.

I am afraid I may have to group them since there are over 60,000 of them, if one takes Debian as a base.
With that exercise I may finish my engagement with the wider world and go back to my normal life of gardening, fish keeping and looking after my dog.

Installing Debian in Sinhala-Debian-6.0.0-Update

I am glad to report to the wider world that I have tested Debian 6.0.0-32 bit and 64 bit versions on my desktops and the laptop and they are running amazingly well.

Now I am getting a hang of Sinhala terminology, installing went on while watching the cricket match and without making any mistakes but “alpili” and “papili” are still in awkward places but can read them without a problem.

They are not of print quality.

Bit better than the Sinhala fonts of the government web site.
So with a sigh of relief I go to bed with our boys getting a good win at cricket,too.

Thanks to guys and girls at Debian for doing a wonderful job.

Thanks to our cricketers for a creditable win.

Make sure you download CD/DVD from LinuxTracker and they are also doing a wonderful job.

Both DVD and CD (2 CDs at Linuxtracker) are Sinhala installation capable, now.
Make sure you use K3B and not Nero for image burning.

Grand Finale

I am almost completing 18 months come end of March of downloading and testing Linux Live CDs and lately few of the DVDs.
All good things have to come to an end and with Sinhala Linux coming to the scene without fanfare or funfair after a long delay, I will be concentrating on that instead of the Live CDs but with occasional reference to them (not full time as it used to be for nearly 18 months).
Real reason for this venture was the boring one year election campaign and as a diversion tactics of an intellectual nature.
The things I learned was enormous.
Sinhala Linux coming at the tail end was quite a surprise.
It looks as some of my critical comments are taken with serious attention and lot of my audience is not Sri-Lankans but Americans and far way web browsers.

I believe my comments were only academic and may be some times constructive but lot of things not intended by me has / have happened.
In the Grand Finale, I would like to list few.

1. Multilingual Distributions are coming from EU and South America which is pretty good.

2. French is also becoming a leading language of distributions.

3. Light weight and multiple editions are hitting the bench.,emulating PCLimux. Sabayon (Gentoo), Salix(Slackware), Aptosid (Debain), Fedora (Redhat) and Zenwalk are examples.

4. Some dormant like Korora coming out of the attic.

5. Distributions are looking at others to emulate or improve the Linux image.

6. Dominance of Ubuntu is diminishing and Ubuntu also looking for an image lift.

7. Redhat has come out of hibernation.

8. Debian is showing its prowess and slowly and rightly embracing the changes. Lot of live editions including Sinhala Linux edition.

9. Flame wars are becoming less intense but critical and constructive.

10. With all these I am becoming rejuvenated at my twilight years and old and young are coming together for a Grand Finale.

11. Puppy (front pocket) and Knoppix (piggyback) remain my favorites.

12. Pendrives are ubiquitous.

Only criticism I have is the children programs (except gCompris and few others) and games have been neglected.
Morphix, Myah and Adios are slow to wake up from hibernation or slumber.
Young chaps take them out of the attic and put some the grandpa influence on the map and make some really grandiose games and creative activities (for children and grandpa like me) and reinvigorate the Linux spirit of the yesteryear.

Sinhala Linux-Hanthana Linux Included-Debian Update

Reproduction from Distrowatch

(by Dr.Asoka Dissanayake (Medical)

on 2011-02-22 22:52:30 GMT from Sri Lanka)

I have to confess now I support Light Weight Distributions and PCLinux is my my favourite,

But I love its Gorilla (dearly) Edition PClinuxfullmonty too.

I use it (PCLinux) as a Gold standard (not bench mark) for 32 bit hardware and Texstar is about to release the 64 bit version but he is keeping it close to his heart.

Coming back to Sinhala Linux Debian is the winner by neck and half length (horse racing terminology). I downloaded all of the CD and DVD and had a trial run of them and they are pretty good and elegant especially the KDE.

Again I confess I am a KDE fan especially because of its looks and the K3B burner which does not harm the hardware. Before I started using it I used to lose a CD/DVD writers almost every two to three months.

Both PClinucx and SuSe are KDE based. Suse is damn slow like windows but PCLinux is pretty fast.

Unlike you guts I have about 8 distributions in my laptop and I use them in rotation to get best out of them.

I have Debian also and I will tell you now why I use Debian.

It is the only distribution which can cohabit with all the others distributions and arrange the partition table so nicely in the GRUB and boot all the others.

Unlike Windows and Ubuntu, Debian does not fear other distributions.

SuSe cannot read more than 15 partitions and in the beginning they used to have over 60 (I stand to correction) partitions. PClinux some time cannot read FAT partitions and its partition formats are limited.

So I install Debian one before the last distribution and to get a nice boot flash I use PCLinux the last.

Debian make it easy for the PCLinusx to read the partition table.

There are many other strong points about the Debian that is why we use it in the Server Level in the University.

Regarding the downloading of Hanthana Linux I just checked it a few minutes ago with only two seeders it takes 3 days plus.

Fedora 13 (the 6 CDs) version with many seeders it takes little over one day. I will download Hanthana Linux after the Cricket World Cup which is my preoccupation currently.

Following is a summary of download times for your perusal.

Last there (3 days)
1. Bodhi 3 hours
2. Kubuntu 7 hours
3. EB4 9 hours
4. Pinguy 4 and a half days
5. Monty 2 days
and fastest was ArtistX one day and probably Fedora 13 too (also little over one day (according to estimate).
These are facts and not gut feelings,
I am struggling with pixie which has taken one day but still not finished.

Freedom, Friendship and Sinhala Capability of Linux

I am happy to report that Debian 6 is available with Sinhala graphical installer.

Well. well I am happy to tell you that I downloaded KDE version (currently downloading Gnome version) of Debian 6 and it can be installed in Sinhala but I prefer installing it in English and then using Sinhala capability by changing the language after installation. 

It is install only but not a live CD.

Now I can update you to say that Live DVD is available which is Live as well as install. Ir comes in both 32 bit and 64 bit with Sinhala Capability.

I am going to make them available locally in Kandy and you are free to copy it,  install  it and send me a comment below if there are any difficulties in using it in Sinhala.

The Sinhala terminology in there was like Greek to me but when I have the free time I will install it in one of my spare computers in my office and see its virtues.

In the mean time, I get a few of my university students who are versed in Linux to try it and give me a feedback.

It is advised that one downloads it as K-Torrent and not as normal web browser download (point to point).

Thanks you Guys and Girls at Debian for doing the honours for Sinhala Language.

I have to thank Anuradha (who comes from Kandy) profusely for his initiation.

Please do not worry him he is a busy person and doing some other important work. It is time for you to make local Linux Groups and spread the message of wisdom in Sinhala.

It was long time waiting for me but I am now at a different level and carry Linux in a Pendrive and enjoying it as  pastime. and promoting Live CDs.

Visit my blog at http://www.wordpress.org  (Linux for Computing and updates at asokaplus).
There over 200 hundred versions but many of them are not in Sinhala and many do not have multilanguage capability.

I am now more interested in promoting Linux globally and activating K-torrent Groups who are posting and seeding Linux distributions globally for every nation on this planet to use without copyright laws.

For me this as an achievement of a few dedicated Sinhala (not the race but the Language) loving IT Guys and Girls who had devoted their free time to make Sinhala available in Linux.

It was our own Anuradha who tried to Make Sinhala Linux.

Unfortunately he was drawn into Presidential Forces after tsunami and he could not persevere with this project due to his workload and lack of support of dedicated Linux guys.

Our own Rev. Mettavihari (foreign) of course added Pali and Sinhala font and the unicode version of Sinhala some years ago but nobody took active interest in prompting Sinhala Linux.

Please note http://www.worpress.org has Sinhala capability and it is open source and I have seen a few using it in Sinhala.
One reason (now there are many) I felt out Microsoft is when it introduced XP there was NO Sinhala in its 40 odd languages.

Please note the note below.
Due to the lack of translation updates two languages were dropped in this release: Wolof and Welsh.

If we do not persevere it will (Sinhala) be dropped from Linux like Welsh.

Asturian, Estonian, Icelandic, Kazakh and Persian have been added to the graphical and text-based installer.

Kannada, Lao, Sinhala and Telugu have been added to the graphical installer.

Spread the message of Linux in Sinhala and Tamil.

Linux100-Debian-Crysalis-96

Chysalis a Debian based probably xfce windows distribution is fast to boot, sleek and attractive.
It  has lot of Debian packages.
I have listed few of the Debian (Mind you, Ubunbtu and Kboppix are Debian derivatives) in my nineties to illustrate how deep and dedicated the Debian community and developers and how deep they have gone in.

To know Linux one must master Gnome and Debian.

If you an average user go for other Live CDs but Core and Heart of Linux lie in Debian and Gnome.

Do not forget the Origin even though I had lot of difficulties learning it, when it could not support proprietary drivers for Graphic cards.

It has enormous repository, even the popular Linux Mint has produced a Debian base distribution. This is because the way Linux is moving each distribution cannot keep it own repository and update them regularly.
This is why we must have a convergence strategy for Live CDs. Desktop and Server.

Togetherness is strength and solidarity come with it.

Even though I have not elaborated fully with Debian but this is the way to pay back my dues.