Thursday, April 17, 2008

Draco GNU/Linux

Draco GNU/Linux, is a semi source based Linux distribution and intended to be lightweight,simple and Clear Linux with strong package system.
It offers the rock solid stability of Slackware Linux as its base with the light weight and flexible desktop environment offered by XFCE.

For package management Draco GNU/Linux follows the concept of "Linux and BSD happily together !" which means using pkgsrc as the default package manager.This concept has also been adopted by Voltalinux and BlackMouse Linux .

Draco Linux, is a one-man-project, developed by Norwegian Ole Andre Rodlie.

The latest stable version 0.3.0 of Draco GNU/Linux was released on April 10, 2008. Featuring kernel 2.6.23 (with optional 2.6.16), Glibc 2.6.1, GCC 4.1.2, and OSS 4.0,this version is available This release also introduces Draco Desktop. Draco Desktop contains the latest stable Draco release, bundled with software from the latest pkgsrc branch. Draco Desktop defaults to XFCE, with Fluxbox as an option.

Draco GNU/Linux website provides rich sources of information through its wiki page including Installing Draco, Using Draco, DracoPKG, Draco Desktop, and FAQ.

I think Draco GNU/Linux is a good alternate for those who want Slackware stability , BSD simple and stable package management and with a light weight desktop environment like XFCE .

WinUtuxU OS: Window$ XP with Ubuntu skin?

Every now and then we hear about some kind of fun projects which stay for a while and then disappear.

One such example was Lesbian GNU/Linux which is a "parody" Linux distribution which was actually never materialized more than its website.

Recently I saw two threads on Ubuntu forum where a some kind of Window$ and GNU/Linux hybrid operating system known as WinUtuxU OS was discussed.


Little more google probing took me to the WinUtuxU OS home page which is all Arabic . My interest in this "hybrid" OS grew because of a statement I read somewhere saying that it is a " WinUtuxU OS with SP2 (Windows & Linux in One CD) " and it sounded like some kind of CoLinux to me .


But little more dissection of the story makes it more confusing: Is it a Window$ XP SP2 heavily themed with Ubuntu like looks or is it Ubuntu that looks like Window$ ? !


Ubuntu forum threads tell me that it is actually some form of heavily hacked Windows XP. It seems they replaced all the default programs with open source programs, and somehow modded everything, including the installation process. It offers long list of OSS packages such as JRE-5.0-Update-6gtk+-2.10.13Python-2.5.1vcredistdotnetfx-2.0InfraRecorder-0.43.1cdrtfe 1.3CdFly-0.37zip-4.51peazip-1.8.2Gimp-2.2.17Blender-2.44Inkscape-0.45.1ImageMagick-6.3.4frozen_bubble-1.0.0supertux-0.3.0tuxracer and so on.


Intelligent on behalf of the developers of this OS and shameful for window$ that its closed source architecture can be so easily modified and converted to look like GNU/Linux !


I translated the WinUtuxU OS website from Arabic into English and saw an interesting statement: " This version is completely different to the other versions of windows... The style never won't change, even after taking the updates from Microsoft. "


So does this mean it can get updates from M$ updates and it can also be updated for the OSS softwares that come with it via synaptic or apt-get? This certainly has to be sorted out!
Whatever this WinUtuxU OS is I am sure it will attract a lot of people, no matter if it is a fun or a parody OS.