Monthly Archives: December 2009

Salix OS Linux 64 Bit Overview

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For those that follow  Zenwalk linux, you know the Zenwalk team members decided to go in different directions a few months back. The result is a new distribution named Salix OS, available in 32 and 64 bit torrent and iso files. Added 12/30/09: This review is of  Salix64 13.0.2a

I chose Salix OS 64 bit XFCE torrent to download and install. I had trouble with Transmission on my Mac which gave me a ‘password’ error for the torrent file, so I opted for an iso file from SourceForge which downloaded quickly.

I set up my hard drive partitions using System Rescue CD with a /root, /home and /swap partition before installing Salix OS 64 iso. I may have cheated, or bypassed a possible install problem, but I doubt it. Installing any Linux distribution is not a complicated process, and almost anyone who has installed any OS should have an easy time with the Salix OS install.

Salix OS install is interesting because the opening screen give you three choices for install. The first choice is a ‘Full’ install which loads everything that is included in the iso. The second choice is a ‘Basic’ install, installs only the XFCE desktop, Firefox web browser, and Gslapt package manager. Third choice is the ‘Core’ which installs only the essentials for a console system to start.

I chose the ‘Full’ install which installs a complete operating system using one program for each application. The install was fast. The Salix OS home page states it takes “less than five minutes” for the full install on any modern pc. Installing Salix OS on my laptop was a fast install, but honestly I did not feel a urge to time it.

The only ‘issue’ I had was choosing to have ‘Numlock’ to be activated during bootup. Not a good choice for a laptop keyboard. It took logging in couple of times and getting kicked out before I realized what I did.

One dislike I have of Salix OS is using Lilo for the boot loader. Grub is in transition to Grub 2, so Lilo is the best boot manager choice at the moment. Grub 2 is available in the repositories if you wish to use it.

One treat I found was during the Salix OS install is I was given the option of creating a usb stick boot loader which when used at boot up brings you to the login screen bypassing the normal Lilo boot screen.

Salix OS uses XFCE desktop which I am partial to. XFCE is simple to navigate, allowing one click access to the menu system. XFCE desktop for Salix OS is more complete and polished than Debian’s XFCE desktop. Whether this is important or not is for you to decide. Kde desktop is also available.

Multimedia functions I mainly use are flash,  mp3 rip and playback, and youtube videos. While I completed updating to the most recent packages, I installed Lame so I am able to convert .wav files into .mp3 files.

Gslapt package manager is different, but that does not mean it is bad. Salix OS is a child of Slackware – which I have not tried. Salix OS claims there are as many or more tested and immediately usable packages in the Salix OS and Slackware repositories than are available for  Slackware itself. As far as total number of packages available, there should be enough choices for most users.

If you are a newer Linux user the installed apps should meet most if not all of your your needs. Repositories available via Gslapt have more than enough programs to generally meet your needs. If you still are not satisfied, you probably can roll your own programs directly from the source.

Salix OS appears to be every bit as solid, dependable, and fresh as one would generally want in a Linux distribution. Salix OS is backwards compatible with Slackware but more user friendly with some tuning already done for the user. The repository contains all programs which I need or want, though your requirements may be different.

I am really undecided about Salix OS. Due to it’s lineage, it is a well put together distribution. Salix OS competes on its own with Debian and uses newer package versions. Differences between Salix OS and Zenwalk are not obvious to me, although it is what is under the hood that is different and not necessarily what I see as a user.

In wrapping up, Salix OS is not a flashy distribution like some, at least in my opinion. Salix OS is solid. Each installed applications does the job it was picked for very well. If you want more bling, you will have to install it yourself. If you are looking to move away from Ubuntu or Ubuntu’s children, or another ‘beginner type’ distribution you will find Salix OS a system that is rock solid and dependable.

I have Debian as my primary Linux, but I find myself booting into Salix OS and playing around because exploring and changing settings in Salix OS is a simple matter. If you decide to give Salix OS a try, I do not think you will be overwhelmed,  frustrated, or disappointed. I think you will decide you have made a good choice.

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Using The Art Of Friendship

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If you have taken any business classes, work for a corporation, or enjoy strategy games, you probably have heard of Sun Tzu. This little treatise of approximately sixty-two-hundred characters has been studied, taught in war college, business classes for many centuries.

Sun Tzu’s writing is a good asset for business because it lays a foundation a business can follow to thrive and survive in their appropriate market(s). Sun Tzu’s, “Art Of War” provides a focusing lense leading to success for any size business. It has been said that Sun Tzu and Niccolò Machiavelli are all the only business partners one needs for business success.

Unfortunately these business partners have found themselves being used in areas where they are ineffective and self defeating. In arenas of friendship and cooperative work towards a common goal, Sun Tzu and Machiavelli ruin more friendships and joint efforts than they help.

Some people in todays overly competitive society have discarded appropriate and accepted forms of personal interaction and instead create for themselves a world of thinly disguised guerilla warfare and subterfuge.

Competition holds a valid place in business. Healthy competition between areas of a business helps competing groups reach a higher level than would be possible without competition. Competition among employees in the same work group, where some are waging war against their coworkers to promote themselves is destructive for the group and the parent company.

Utilizing Sun Tzu and Machiavelli for whole life management is not only destructive, it is dangerous. It destroys friendships, relationships, and families, leaving one isolated and alone. Family life and friendships are just that. Friendship and family life is a place where one can go to leaving the outside world behind.

Life is a series of battles and struggle, but as with an army, there has to be a place where one can go and relax and recuperate. A place where one can be themselves without worrying beyond good manners about what is happening around them.

For anyone living a life comprised of total personal war and continuos competition I suggest a new direction. I propose, “The Art Of Friendship”. Create a life where the Art of Friendship can survive and thrive makes everyone more effective in other areas of their life.

The Art of Friendship is a way of dealing with people around you who share your interests, either business or personal and benefits everyone by making everyone more effective and prosperous. Instead of planning assassinations of coworkers or friends who’s interests are a little too close to our own, look for ways to work together and share in the glow of excellence instead of the the false glow of simply winning.

Allowing those around you to work jointly towards a common goal, is not only more personally satisfying, it is powerful. Instead of working as a single entity, having more people to work together towards the same goal increases the chance of success, and reduces failure from something not considered by an individual.

These days to many people see themselves as a lone warrior out battling the forces against them. What they are really doing is creating is a vacuum, where everything that could be accomplished with help can not be done because no one is willing to risk helping.

Same as a single stick being easily broken, whereas a tied bundle of sticks can not, working together in friendship and trust creates environments where everyone wins more than any individual can alone.

Business in many respects is a game of chess, consisting of moves and counter moves. Although chess is played by one individual competing against a second individual, the individual pieces on the chess board are acting as a team with a common goal. The complete team of chess pieces wins the chess match, not an individual chess piece. Try working with your coworkers and friends instead of trying to better them, and see what you can conquer as a complete functioning team, and not a single chess piece.

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Pregnant Soldiers in Iraq

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On the news tonight, Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo has made it a punishable offense for women and their military partners becoming pregnant in Iraq. Of course some of our nations most powerful Women’s groups, and some U.S. Senators are sending out letters, phone calls, and are putting their political influence into the equation to have this general order overturned.

Any person in charge, whether it is a Mom and Pop shop, or a world wide company needs to have certain granted authorities to be effective. For the Military, this authority is even more critical. No company, especially a military organization, can be effective if its leaders do not have the authority they need to perform or complete tasks in their area of responsibility.

Imagine what would happen if a leader of a company was not informed of the companies tactical and strategic plans? The company leader when meeting with high level customers would not have the confidence to pitch the company to those customers. Nor would they be able to do the normal give and take of business negotiations. The company leader would not even be able to know if they were making round or square widgets a year down the road. Their position would be severely compromised.

Any business needs a certain minimum number of people to get the job done. The military, same as high tech, or other niche company, spends a lot of time and money developing people to do a specific job. For jobs in the military, it may take months of training and practice to obtain basic proficiency in a certain task.

In my senior year of high school, there was a draft board and a draft. I was appalled at the number of people I knew who were my age, that were desperate to evade the draft. Not because they believed war was wrong for whatever reason, but were scared to serve their country because they could be wounded or killed.

When my orders were called out as I was ending initial military job training, I was aghast to hear I was going overseas for three years. I steeled up and decided I signed my name on the dotted line, and I was responsible for keeping my end of my contract. I broke the news to my family, and made a conscious choice to make lemonade out of the situation.

During my first year overseas, some of my fellow workers decided they did not want to be either in the military and/or overseas. Suddenly there was a rash of people who ‘got religion’ and became pacifists. Others went to the First Sergeant and declared they were ‘Gay’. This was 1980 when it was not well accepted to be Gay in most places of our society.

A decade later when we were in the first of what seems to be a long term conflict in the Middle East; Men I worked shoulder to shoulder to for years suddenly were having back, knee, and other hard to disprove ailments trying to cheat their way out of their commitment.

Women have always known that allowing themselves to become pregnant was a free ticket out of the military. In a peace time environment, the numbers of pregnancies were low, and I imagine it did not matter that much. In a war zone however, the situation is completely different. All women soldiers signed up to rake on an important role, and all are needed and depended on for being there to do their job.

These groups, and even the Senators are wrong in trying to step in and halt the Commander from imposing a penalty for a soldier becoming pregnant along with her partner. There are penalties for becoming over weight, taking illegal drugs, and pretending to be ill when you are not. Sanctions such as Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo’s newest are no different.

Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo  should be left to manage his manpower as he sees fit. We as citizens do not make good arm chair military policy makers. Let the sighted lead the sighted, and do not mix up personal choice, civilian rights, with military policy. Most women and men in todays armed forces are doing the best job they can, and they serve their country with pride, what about them, what is fair for these proud soldiers?

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Three Old Assistants For Back Pain

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Search the web for  lower back pain, and the number of articles and references Google returns is over twenty million. If one was able to cull out the cross links and repeat entries, there would still be enough articles to keep one busy reading for a long while. If you are looking for advice or help with your back pain, this post is not a reference or a source, only an observation from days gone by.

What the more general articles have in common is almost everyone at some point in their life will have back pain from one cause or another. I read that we are prone to back pain because our spine is still in a form made for walking on four legs, and we have not evolved to a spine structure more suitable for standing and moving on two legs.

Unlike hurting your finger, hand, or arm, our back comprises is a major portion of our body trunk, going from bone to skull, it is a pretty hard to ignore when it hurts. If a hand or arm becomes injured, we can compensate by having our bodies opposite part do dual duty. While it is awkward to have to use your other hand, it can be done.

When back pain happens there is no opposite body part to use. No matter the movement or action, any major motion uses our back. It is not so common these days before there was so many products available to buy, almost every household had some basic equipment that would be pulled out and used when back pain happened to someone in the family.

The venerable hot water bottle was present in almost every home because of its many uses, helping with pain relief being only one of them. The rubber bottle could be filled with hot water, or ice and water depending on the moment and what was most effective.

A second item that was dragged out from time to time for various problems was a simple wooden cane or walking stick. Canes are used to redistribute body weight from a side in pain to the healthier other side. Canes also were usable for reaching, hooking, or pushing, and were an extension of an arm in a simple manner.

The third item every home had was a basic wooden chair. The chair was never fancy, and always had more than one function. The chair did double or triple duty in the basement, garage, or anywhere in the home where seating was needed. When  required a chair would also pull double duty as a bedside companion. A chair served as a place to put water, medicine, food, books, or anything else one needed who was confined to bed for any length of time.

Often when back pain is present, the range of motion in your legs becomes limited. Moving your legs in what would be a forward and backward motion when standing becomes painful or impossible when moving more than a few inches in either direction. Because leg movement is  hindered, leg and overall body strength limited by pain of moving. Movements that were used to get in or out of bed may now cause pain.

When it comes to back pain and beds, chairs were played a very important role. Beds by their nature are soft and have a flexible surface by design. For someone experiencing back or other pain, the chair came in handy. The chair was used as a go between between being actually in bed and standing. One would sit on the chair, and from there would either slide onto the bed, or use the solid build of the chair to assist in helping oneself to a standing position after sliding on the chair from the bed.

Always ask your doctor for advice for your particular situation, What helps in general may not be good in you and your particular situation. These simple items that every home should have may make simple struggles with back pain more manageable. When I was a child I thought they were silly useless items to have around the house, but like any tool or item, when you need it, you need it now.

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Public and Private Life Lists

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I am going to create a list of “I wants”. Many of us spend our lives making lists that start with, ‘I want’. Whether it is a grocery list, a checklist for a new computer, a new cell phone, even what we want in a partner or ourselves, we make and use lists all day every day.

One of the most used ‘I want’ lists is the famous, “To do” list. Even thought this appears to be a list of unfinished tasks, it is really a list about ourselves. Placing tasks in a list with some order of preference makes it not seem as much of an ‘I want’ list as a means to an end.

Another common ‘I want’ List os the shopping list. Whether the list contains grocery items, clothes, or make up, it is still an, ‘I want’ list. We write it out, drive to wherever we need to go, and put the items on our list into our cart or basket.

duelistOf all of our personal life lists, the list I find the most interesting are the lists we keep private. These lists are the most important lists in our life, and usually are not written down for anyone to find. These private lists are different lists of things we either want or do not want that define who we are.

One list may be a list of what we want to have the ability to attract a partner. Another list may be a list of items we are going to change in ourselves. There are other more private lists we have. We all carry around short lists of thoughts and habits we never let anyone else know about, such as our most secret desires, major flaws we believe we have, and our secret list of what is really important.

Keeping all these lists can be a good thing or bad depending on what we do with our list collection – and it really is a collection. Taking some time to review on our own secret lists, how do our private lists compare with our public self? Are our public and private lists similar, or do they have major differences?

For example somewhere on our public list there may be an entry to be generous when the occasion comes up. When we find ourselves in the public spotlight we are generous with what we have. Looking at our private list however we see that generosity is not on our private list. Our only entries for generosity applies to getting others to be generous with us.

Looking closely at our public and private lists it may be there is a lot of contradiction between our two lists. The list of items we show the world and our private list reads as if it were created by two different people.

It is not a simple matter to take out your private lists and live them in public. Social pressure to conform arrives via family, friends, church, and other sources. Anything public is a strong motivator to follow the group ideals. Doing what the group wants is the safest way to navigate life. However, doing what the group wants in public, and doing what we want in private is a tremendous drain on our own personal resources.

Having opposing lists of public and private actions, using one list or the other depending on momentary circumstance creates a large amount of inner conflict. Having this inner conflict swirling around, and determining our action by whether we are in public or private prevents us from really living in a manner that is of the most benefit to both our private and public self.

If you go over your public and private lists that comprise your life, and you find two different ‘I wants’ on your two lists, one of the responses needs to go away. Your public ‘I want’ should  be replaced by your private ‘I want’. Your private ‘I want’ list may not be what your social group wants, and that is okay. As long as your private ‘I want’ list is not immoral or illegal, following your private list all the time is healthier for you and your social group.

Serving two masters at one time can not be done. When you review your lists, decide who is truly the captain of your ship, those around you, or you. If you decide you are the Captain of your ship, lead from within following the private ‘I want’ list that defines you, and let go of the faulty, problem fraught  public ‘I want’ list which comes from outside of you.

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Self Help Fallacy

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I had a visitor at my site last week who felt my posts on self help and life changing in general are hollow wasted words. I agree one hundred percent with their thought. In fact there is not one article, lecture, or event one can attend that will make the slightest difference in any ones life.

Self help is a space filler of hollow promises promoted by people chasing a fast profit. Perusing the internet for unhappy self help victims one can find many instances where the promise was not only not filled, but not even partially filled. Of course there are no refunds which further sparks the fire and fans the flames.

Go into the local bookstore and shelves are filled with books claiming they can help you make your life better. If you have read the ‘about’ page of this blog, you read a similar thought there. here is a quote from my about page, “I have a lot of life experience, so I feel I have something to share with you, that you may enjoy or benefit from. “

If you believe that nothing anyone writes, said to you, or tries to sell you, will make your life any different, you are absolutely correct. Nothing you read or hear will likely make any changes in your life. The idea of any self help material, no matter the source helping anyone is an illusion.

It does not matter if you manage to bring Lester Levenson back as your personal advisor, the Roman Catholic Pope moves in next door to be closer to you, Lillith appears because she is going to be your personal mentor, or the Dali Llama agrees to be your life guide. Anything anyone could provide for you is only so many words or ideas.

self helpThis is the plain and ugly truth about self help. Nothing you can read or hear will help you. Your life is what it is and that is the end of it. Writing this certainly clears the air. Someone at last admits that every written or produced to improve your life is wasted effort. I am glad I went ahead and made this statement. If you are in agreement there is no need to read any farther. Nothing anyone can say will change your life.

However, I am glad for the person last week who took the time to make those comments. Perhaps this is the moment that needed to be said to me. Was I wrong seeking a way of living which improves my life? Maybe it was a mistake to get beyond anger, blame, and dislike. Maybe living my life would have been more rewarding by not trying to change it.

If I was happy living a life of anger, blame, and dislike, I think I would not have decided there was a better way to live and I was going to find it, or die trying. This beginning was frustrating and difficult. What books I read where written by people who never seemed to have to struggle once in their life, with the exception of the bible and we all know what happened there. What little changes I decided I could make in my own life seemed trivial and petty, and of no consequence.

I did not have a clue on how to make my life better. I started at the very beginning. The first thing I did was I admitted I knew nothing about living a happy contented life. Starting here I made small changes I hoped would make a difference in my life.

When I spoke with people who seemed to live a better life than I did, I listened to what they said about their life. I paid attention to their outlook, and expectations for their life. I especially listened to what they thought about themselves and other people in their daily life.

Life is a struggle from the moment of our conception. We struggle to grow enough to be born, we fight off disease when we have few tools to fight with. We struggle from the moment we drop onto the bed sheet. We struggle to learn how to take our first breath.

Life is a challenge, a struggle, an adventure, or an experience. Wether we are happy and enjoy our life or not, we are the person living it. We have the power to change our life, reshape, and remold it into a life we want.

All anyone has to do, is for a split second seriously ponder if there is a better way to live. That is the seed that starts the process of changing ones life into something we want to live. One second of wondering if there is a better way opens a portal, allowing all the help in universe to offer you a helping hand. Open your mind, reach out your arm, stretch out your hand and grab on, your new life is waiting.

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