Light Weight Portable, Private and Secure or is it?

Happy Independence day to all Americans and would be (aspiring) Americans! Light Weight Portable, Private and Secure or is it?

It looks like American Defense Industry is  doing catching up service (activity).

Sometime Americans let me laugh at myself.

I am not antiamerican (there is no word called antiamerican in the American dictionary) in philosophy but in ideology.

My theme is small is beautiful.

The American ideology is bigger the best. 

The Thinking Big is IBM philosophy.

In other words, the richer an American becomes better is for the world.

The American dream is become rich from cradle to the grave, even if you are not a politician.  Our dream is let only politicians become rich by default

My theme is “become rich just enough to become small in thinking of becoming big but big in thinking to be sustainable and not become a big White (or Black or Yellow or brown) Pest in this world which cannot afford to have anymore with scarce resources.

I like one American Philosophy and that is to be liberal in thinking not aristocratic or regimented like in a orthodox religion.

Become a free thinker and an open inquirer.

The WiKiLeakes has done enough damage to American esteem and reputation and they are adopting some of my Linux strategy in practice.

United States of America’s Department of Defense has produced a Linux Live CD for public use probably for Americans abroad and would be non-american spies in the Middle East (Not necessary in Sri-Lanka, we do not have secrets that Americans do not know except the last two days of our departure or radio silence when most essential silence was maintained by the defense establishment which American have to come here and learn from out Big Ball Boys of Cricket-how to land a carom ball or a googly at will- we never tell English boys how much Mahela is going to score in the next match or the World Cup final).

Sri-Lanka is the only country in this world where Americans do not need to have any secret spies and our defense secretary is American by registrations and does not trust American a wee bit but our mothers would be when pregnant, do not say Baby going to London town but My Baby is going to New York or Washington is the current theme and from mothers to fathers to babies will give American embassy their money to spy on our mother Lanka.

It is amazing to see they are stealing my original Sri-Lankan ideas and I feel bit redundant, though.

1. Number one is Light Weight (Bonobo type of Linux distributions-SLiTaz is only 30 MiB) distributions in Linux

2. Number two of my ideas is make all distribution Public including Microsoft and Apple which are all American Creations with serious bugs when WiKILeaks  used them exposed them.

In other words American inventions are the most reliable security lapses that we can exploit to get American secrets.

3. For security I say go for Linux and the Americans have turned to Linux for safety and security but leaving daring loop holes in execution of them.

Having said that they are new to Linux and one never uses root permission (only when one roots on top of a problem or underdog) to boot but their Live CD is already booted and rooted all the time like American based French IMF guys.

Another alarming feature is hashed passwords are stored in the would be-readable /etc/passwd file, that can be cracked.

The funniest part and which I laugh at length is they are promoting my AntiMicrosft stance from the DoD (Department of Defense) which accepts Microsoft is the biggest liability.

Another great idea is to use Flash  which recently had breached security through FireFox browser.

These American in the Defense Department got them all wrong and Linus Torvalds must be laughing nonstop like over nonstop singers and dancers. 

American please use this distribution at your own liberty and risk but non-americans beware that this must be another ploy to make some unrest in the Middle East which they are fast losing ground.

I am downloading it and will be very elaborate when I give my next comment.
If you need more details please visit distrowatch weekly review but thier description lacks funny tone coming from America.
American do not know how to laugh at themselves and DoD has given them a big opportunity.
Use when there is freedom of disposal, Linux-wise.

Porteus Linux and who was Beilby Porteus

Porteus Linux is the best of SLAX (Slackware) distribution under 300 MiB 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 expalining 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 criticise 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 of 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.

Linux on a low budget and RAM

I was somewhat obsessed with the variety of live CD distributions on offer that I have overlooked the Linux on a low budget and computers both old and new with little and inadequate RAM.

 

There are many to list but I will mention a handful of them to conclude my investigation of user friendly tiny viny distributions that I have come across. 

1. Geebox come to my mind that is similar to gamebox or media player with needing 0nly 25 MiBs.

2. My favorite is Puppy which is 90 to 120 MiBs and there are over 30 varieties.
The last of which I downloaded was EliteOS (with a commercial presentation included).
It is pretty good.
In the Puppy 5 series, the lupu is another celebrity.

3. Damn Small Linux (the one I use when I am in trouble booting and partitioning) is a beauty on its own with only 50 MiB.

4. Astrumi (120 MiB) is another good one. I think it is a Polish distribution.
The older version cannot recognize LCD monitors.

New ones are coming by the dozens.

5. 4MLinux-Gamer is only 11 MiB and and the standard is 25 MIB.

6. Voyage is only 45 MiB.

7. xPUD a web browser and media player is 65 MiB.

8. The xin-v1 is only 52MiB

9. SliTas

10. Tiny Me

11. Finnix is another

12. WiFiWay small 285 MiB and Standard 408 (Spanish).

13. Minix is 385 MiB.

14. CRUX is 220 MiBs.

15. NimbleX was less than 200 but now is bit fatty and has doubled itself to 400 MiB.

16. Feather Linux is also another flag bearer (like DSL) of small and beautiful Linux.

Then come to the the partition tools, there are many and one does not need a proprietary software to do partitioning (I have dropped MS partition magic for good but it was the one that saved many hours of sleep (sleepless nights before that) in the early days of Linux experience)

17. gparted

18. partmagic

19. pmagic

20. R.I.P. Linux

20 is a magic number for me. In studies of evolution (my personal work) if there are 20 related species in a locality that 20 would circumvent any adverse climatic change at least temporarily but if that figure is 3 the species is critically endangered.

With the same context in time to come Microsoft is an endangered commercial species. may be catering for other planetary systems in space.

The host of Ubuntu derivatives that come as TURNKEY should be the fitting end to my list.

The list is endless and my favorites are Puppy. DSL and Feather Linux.

They are the ones I have used comfortably and on a regular basis and have used in demonstrations to show my prowess.

Sorry guys and girls that I have only mentioned your names only and they are much better than my GoGo.F.O.F. Linux which is still under construction with my workforce on extended Christmas holidays enjoying other Linux for relaxation.
They are allowed to copy any good idea free of charge or copyrights.

It is an understatement when I say that they are the most useful when one (I am in trouble) is in trouble or on low in RAM to do the tit bits (not bits and bytes).

Bye till new year!

Linux100-FeatherLinux-114

Like Damn Small Linux and Puppy Linux the Feather Linux is a Beauty.

I always believed the concept “Small is Beautiful”.
This is and example in addition to DSL.

I was DSL fan to begin with.

When I was new to Linux and when I first bought the Linux Bible by Christopher Naegus (I have three different editions now, latest one I bought few months ago after a 6 year Gap), and in those boot from Floppy Disk days, there were only a few Live CDs (Knoppix was there but I did not know about Puppy then-Puppy is one of my favorites now with over 25 varieties in my possession) that I copied form one of the CD/DVDs that came with the book. 

I booted up live and enjoyed Linux and its utilities.

 

Just little over 100 MiB can do wonders which 1000 MiBs or GBs cannot.

It is a Knoppix derivative by the way!

One thing they did best was if you are unable to get to the internet they did it in double quick time (with a router easily but with with Sri-Lankan Telecom modems with some difficulty).  

Today I used Dillo and I could not sign up with Google (that was basic test based browser without cookies) and bit fiddly with my keyboard too but I managed to post this in Firefox (that I did not see at first glance).

Abiword is there xPDF is there, Xmms is there and many more.

Pretty fast to boot too.

Today just for testing downloaded 700 MiB of STUX (which STUCK) after half an hour of struggling it could not configure my NV Graphic Card and configured non existent devs and I was scared it will bust my Graphic Card all because it was trying to mount all its compressed files into RAM.  

It could not give me a console (or consolation prize) to exit or a killall command.

I had to switch off the computer by getting into a null state (I call it null state) a non existent command in Linux (just wait a while and switch off the computer with the hand on your chest with gospel words in my mouth-but beware the graphic card and RAM-which I burnt those days and also mid night oil learning Linux all by myself with no Guru to help).  

Thanks a lot the Guys and Girls at Feather Linux.

Keep up the good work.

It is long time since I booted Feather Linux.

You will have lot of feathers in your caps.

Thanks again!

Linux100-XO-Pup-1.0

After an year old development thread XO-pup is available for download for One Lap Top Per Child (O.L.P.S) platform. 

It in tar.gz format only a Linux box can expand and extract it to a fat partition or U.S.B.
Thanks Guys and Girls.

I will soon be downloading it.

Linux100-Quelitu-109

Another fantastic effect light weight based on Lubuntu.
It is in English. French and Garcian (hope I got the spelling right).
I give special points to light weight and multilingual capability.
Well done.
Good one.

Linux100-Mini-No-108

Debian based distributions that would help one to use an old computer (new computers too) without dumping into attic or waste.

The idea is eco-friendly use of computers as long as the hardware are functioning.
One can add second, third or 4th computer at home or office doing some useful function.
I have many at home networked only my laptop is brand new.

All of them are secondhand some (including a server) were thought to be useless by secondhand vendors but doing useful work at home and my office. 

The eco-friendly idea is catching fast in the West very soon we may not be able get secondhand computers for the price we paying now but that is beside the point. We must not waste of our resources.

Linux unlike Microsoft is helping the masses (comparatively poor but not intellectually).

This is a goo one.

I think developers are listening to some of my comments the idea of 100 Linux distributions should be in everybody’s mind.
I never thought the response will be this good.
Imagine we have over 100 Live Cds to choose.
It is a wonderful feeling.

Fantastic Guys and Girls!

Linux100-Puppy Studio 3.1-107

Even though I used PCLinux as my gold standard (it has some problem with its new partition tool-not recognizing some partition types) for live CDs for its versatility and the availability of many versions at disposal, the record for most number of CDs downloaded goes unquestionably to Puppy Linux (I have, more than 20).

Puppy Linux Studio is the latest I downloaded.
It has lite version which is 288MiBs.
The full version is 376 MiB. 

It is pretty good and has taken most of the useful packages from TeenPup and LeagcyPup.

Both over 650MiBs.

Puppy less than 200 is always in my front pocket even when I travel abroad.

Even though I carry a flash drive (pen drive) I rarely use it for any problem solving.
Puppy is enough and it is amazing in doing simple and complex things.

Why carry a laptop when one can avoid it.

Before I buy something I load Puppy and see whether everything works before paying in foreign currency.
If Puppy fails I do not buy that for sure however much the market hype is.

As far as I am concerned I categorize (like any other Live) Live CDs based on Puppy MiBs.
Is it less than 200 MiB?
I love the ones below 200.

NimbleX is one of them. NimbleX has bcome bit fatter recently but still less than 500.

The next category is 200 to 500 MiB (little less or more).
CRUX, Peppermint and many more out there now.
What annoys me is why try to compress into 700 MiB which is impossible unless one uses compression used by Knoppix.

If it goes beyond 700 MiB might as well double 500 to 1000 and go for a decent DVD like Mint rather than remain in no man’s land.
There is another problem with trying to compress into 700MiB.
Unless one has 1GB RAM, live session is slow and painful.
Many people do not have more than 512 RAM or DVD.
Many of the old machines can be revitalized with 500MiB input.
I am glad to see some are catering for these machines.

Having said that with or without your own machine all Puppies are adorable.

I will be with you on Pendrive Linux soon.

Linux100-PuppyBrowser-100

It is fitting to arrive at 100 with two Puppy editions.

 

One I am booted now is Puppy Browser. It is 5.1. and I started with 4.1 and I have a large collection of Puppies now. 

The other that I downloaded few minutes ago was PupItUp, the music Puppy.
Both connects to the web instantaneously.
If not setup configures you in seconds.

I am afraid Microsoft pets cannot even bark.

Well done.

You cross the line at 100 with flying colours.

 

Don’t worry Guys / Girls, I think I have made several entries for R.I.P and would add a few more than the 100 already in to remain not out till 2011. 

I should now concentrate on Puppy to entertain me when big fat DVDs take a long time to download and test.

Guess, 4 more days of downloading for SuSe. then Mandriva before its metamorphosis.

I have not passed 3.3 yet.
That is artistX which has an erratic boot loader.

Linux100-Trisquel-mini and Standard-99

Another Spanish Distribution based on Ubuntu with support for English language. 

It seems that one my criteria for Live CD is language support and if English are not doing it others in the EU is doing it for us and US.

There are very good Linux distributions coming form Spain, Italy, France and most recently from Poland (Greene).

This is a very good one with all the utilities in 400 MiB.

If you boot in English it goes strait to web site in English.

If you boot in Spanish it goes to the the web in Spanish.

Well done Guys and Girls.
Your distribution is excellent,
Like PCLinux get some variety too.
I am impressed.

Standard edition has more options and Open Office.