Linux Mint Debian Included -An Update

Linux mint is trying to forge away from Ubuntu, Kubuntu derivatives and that is a very encouraging change since they are going back to basics.

Go back to Debian base and forge ahead.

Reason being the change of canonicals to Unity.

I am one who is in favour of mark Shuttleworth’s smart move.

Yes it is a smart move by him.

He is doing a Bill Gate to Linux Community.

I wish him success.

Linux missed the opportunity for netbooks and I do not want to see it misses on tabloid too.

Like iPads, tabloid is the future.

We must not let only Apple to dominate the market.

Google’s Android has shown the way and Ubunbtu should not miss this opportunity come what it may.

I am highlighting Linux Mint here since it overtook Ubuntu head and a nose recently in downloads at DistroWatch and Ubuntu in the last week or so putting its nose ahead again.

Linux Mint did not miss time in promoting both Ubuntu 10 and Ubuntu 11 base.

Not only that it did not forget the Debian and out came Debian Mint in Last December.

Linux Mint was thinking ahead and getting ready for all the consequences resulting from Unity experience and not forgetting the community they were with.

Like PCLinux Linux Mint gave variety of options and Long Term (LTS) support and rolling editions and also brand new version based on Debian for the newcomers and the newbies.

This is what was lacking with Ubuntu.

They did not have two versions but with too much enthusiasm promoted Unity only.

They can reverse this by supporting their community who were with them when Microsoft was dominating the field.

It is not too late, let the user decides the trends of the future what canonicals and Mint and Debian should do is to be ready for all the eventualities including brickbats were call in our country.

God Luck to everybody in Linux and especially the developers and without you we do not have a customer base,too.

In any case innovation is the future for IT both hardware and software.

Linux in Sinhala and Installation of Debian 6.0 in Sinhala

I can now report to you that Debian DVD 1 (one of many) has Sinhala capability and is available at LinuxTracker with many seeders and one can download it in less than 24 hours.

Please do not go for point to pint download or slt.net.

The good news is that I have now installed Debain in Sinhala with Sinhala dropdown menu  (mixture of Sinhala and English) and it is amazingly good.

It is Gnome but I will miss K3B but  the Debian Sinhala is going to stay in my main computer from now onwards and I will be reporting bugs if I detect any.

I hope, in its next edition, it drops Openoffice and go for LibreOffice.

In any case, it is going to improve my Sinhala leaps and bounds.

Thank you Debian and the Translator Team.

I have no hesitation in recommending it’s use but with one or two advices and some warning is in order.

Please get a proficient Linux guy / girl to install it and do not copy the DVD with Nero.

For best use one must have an internet connection when  one installs it and Debian configures the card automatically (better have a router instead of telephone connection) in its initial install and please have patience, it takes a fairly long time to install (do it in the night when internet is not busy).

With those provisos HAPPY SINHALA LINUX for all.

Mind you this was edited with Sinhala Linux activated and Debian’s Iceweasel on the web track.

Old Note on the CD

Now I have tried installing Debian 6 in Sinhala, I can report back and say it can be done but prior understanding of Linux and how Debian does things is essential.

I also have to report that the 4 CD / DVD that I downloaded is not available in Linuxtracker due to unfortunate incidents there.

It is up and running but it will be sometime before all Debian CD/DVDs are restored for download.
Moment I have good news I will be posting it here and elsewhere.
I  have to tell you that I had  to format my hard disks and redo all the installations new.

It is all fun and game in Linux but took lot of my spare time and not having interesting cricket matches to watch was a bonus.

Everything went on smoothly and I was expecting to work in Sinhala after the installation but sadly it was not to be.

I could not select Sinhala at boot time and none of the Linux distributions let  you do that currently  and even though many of the Linux distributions have the multilingual capacity, Sinhala has not been promoted in the web world outside Sri-lanka.

I am afraid lot of translation work has to be done  in legible and lexicographical world of Sinhala and enough Sinhala fonts have to be installed in the usr/src folders.

Coding for fonts and character map is now available but translation of computer terminology is extremely difficult and many thanks for the guys and girls for trying it.

I enjoyed installing it in Sinhala with my limited ability in Sinhala but lot of guess work, in doing so but having known Debian for a long time and had sweated a lot learning Linux, a little over decade ago, the guess work (Sinhala terms) did work.

This gives an opportunity to learn how Linux works especially Debian for one who has difficulty in English language.

But my advice for all is one should be proficient in both Sinhala and English to be a successful translator and Learning Linux in that process is an added bonus.

I am not at all good in Sinhala to be of any help to you but I am there to test the capability of Sinhala in Linux and report to the wider web.

Thanks again guys and girls for trying a very difficult task.

With good team work and perseverance it can be accomplished and good luck with your future efforts.

Debian is the best Linux distribution to learn nuts and bolts of Linux, even though it is bit difficult to master it and the learning curve is steep at the beginning but it invariably drops quickly after the first year of trying.

Do not give up your efforts of Learning Linux in Sinhala and English too.

Linux Extras-Sabayon-5.5-07

The new editions of Sabayon 5.5 are pretty good.
Their speciality latest XMBC is good too.
For the first time I was able to get XMBC running in my old IBM computer with inbuilt graphic card meager 1 GiB RAM without freezing of mouse or the videos.

It is the best available Media and Graphic centre.
The audio and graphic can be installed separately.
Live (for testing) and installation DVD.
It has no blender but lack of that is adequately compensated by graphic capabilities.
If I was not hooked to PCLinux and the PCLinuxfullMonty, this is the distribution that I will be having in my box in addition to other Linux distributions.
This time I am going to install (I have more than 150 distributions collected over 18 month period and going for the best 10 for me is an extremely difficult preposition) it and use it for graphic and audio collection.
Unlike PCLinux, Sabayon has 32 and 64 bit versions and I am happy that it follows the PCLinux tradition of having multiple distributions (all of which are light weight except fullMonty).
I have no hesitation of recommending it provided you have latest graphic cards and adequate RAM.
All above applies to CDs and DVD version of Gnome.
I was unable to test the KDE version which uses touchpad screen.
I do not have a monitor with that facility and if you have one this is the Linux distribution to try.
Good work and thanks to the guys and Girls at Sabayon.
The dream that we all believe.

Never Expect 1000 hits when doing a difficult task!

Thousand (1000) hits in less than 3 months at WordPress and 3 thousand (3000) hits at Google after 2 years was not the outcome I was expecting for Linux but never looked at the statistics till recently.

It was not a popularity contest any way.

It was  to persevere and bring it out of the wilderness.

Promoting something not taken roots in the market is not easy.
Intention was to promote even less fashionable Linux Distributions other than the top 10 to 20 distributions that are used.

The catch phrase was “Linux is not only Ubuntu”

Idea was to hit 100 (a century in cricketing terms and beat Sanath in his game and age and remain not out) and remain not out.

I am not out and would like to remain so unlike Sanath.

100 was achieved in less than six months in spite of the slow download speed in Sri-Lanka and mainly CDs and very few DVDs.
Having achieved the milestone I continued (lot of sleepless nights) and it passed 150 and may be 200 now and I lost  count of the number.

Idea was not to achieve number milestone but to bring out the less popular Linux Distributions into limelight.

It seems to be working now after I have migrated to WordPress.

Having 24 hits for each Knoppix and Mageia are a major milestone.

Good that I mix the Linux writing (lot of spelling and grammatical mistakes, sorry for that) with other topics and that also has contributed to the increase in the number of hits.

I will edit the mistakes and update (very difficult-Linux is moving really fast) them as and when necessary.

People who browse other topics are free to browse what is available on Linux

The categorization feature and tags are an excellent to way to attract traffic.

In the meantime the download speed in Sri-Lanka went down to 5 to 10 KiB per second with the introduction of PEOTV and I had to go to K-Torrebt and Linuxtracker.

Last weekend the LinuxTracker was out and that is the only weekend I did not have a distribution to test.

I hope LinuxTracker will bounce back with new vigour and vitality.

I will be totally handicapped, if that does not happen.

Unless somebody tracks like what the LinuxTracker does, a lot of beautiful Linux distributions would go into wilderness.

Thanks buys you made my exercise easy.

Because of the Cricket World Cup, a minor disruption to my download habit is not unwelcome change.
I can take a respite and watch cricket.
I hope it is not a long respite with Mageia, Mandriva and Suse are putting their acts together and there will be lot to download and test.

In the meantime you are free to visit parafox and asokaplus at WordPress (categorized topics with Linux given some prominence).
Keep blogging and browsing.
It is the only way to popularize excellent but less popular Linux distributions.

Thank you for hitting thousand hits.

My intention was only 100 and one.

If it his 1,0000 I may have to throw a party.

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.

Linux100-SAMLinux-95

My live CD craze started with SAM 2007 and it went up to SAM 2009.
It is a derivative of PCLinuxOS and is based on xFce.

My attempt at testing 100 live CDs wouldn’t have taken place if I did not come across SAM-2007 almost by accident.  

All the credit goes to SAM and the xFce. This is long before the my discovery of PCLinux.  

It’s last edition based on PCLinux was on August, 2009.

I waited long to I see the new edition in 2010 that is not to be yet and that will be a brand new edition and not based on PCLinux.

Unfortunately it is not going to be before I finish the 100.

SAM 2007 was the best live CD for me for quite a long time with games and lot of web utilities and that was the CD I used to demonstrate Linux (how easy to mount a live CD and configure internet cards).

I will edit this page when a new edition is on the horizon.

Linux100-gNewSense-94

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

Ephiphany as a web browser and Brasero as CD burner.

 

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

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

Linux100-GNUSTEP–91

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Linux100-ArchOne-for Acer-06-Update

Arch one for Acer has done a good job by switching to Openbox,
By saving lot of MiB it has included Skype and open office.
Unfortunately it is only for the laptop,
I cannot use it on my old IBM desktop.

Linux100-Zenwalk-40

Zenwalk is a derivative of Slackware which has organized itself like a Zen Master in meditation, rigid in discipline and conduct of its affairs.

I was waiting for its next release (2010 Live CD) but it never came and I have to preempt and write something now before I forget to include it in my 100 Linux live CDs.

It is of the mold of PCLinux, innovative in one sense and conservative in another sense.

It’s live CD is xfce based has everything except installation script.

It has proprietary drivers in stock and works with both old and new computers.

It has Core CD, Standard Cd, Live CD, Zencafe, a new edition and several updates of its install CD and an open box version.
It is light weight, fast to boot and connect to internet instantly and it’s home page is excellent.

It has all the ingredients I look for and is stable.

If I was not hooked to PCLinux this would have been my first choice.

Please read it’s reviews (from user base) before you decide on it or believe me.

Please also give a donation and I hope they come out with a Live CD with install option for me to try, soon.

Well done!