ALT Linux Desktop 4.0 Released

The long awaited ALT Linux Desktop 4.0 from Russia has been released on Friday 24Th Aug 2007.

The official release announcement & release notes are still awaited.

ALT Linux supports English along with Russian language. To select English language on ALT Linux Desktop 4.0, press F2 & then select the 3rd option from the top.

The ALT Linux Desktop 4.0 offers KDE 3.5.7 in the base system & Gnome 2.16, Ice WM 1.2.30 in contrib. (thanks to gvy for this info)

ALT Linux offers an English mailing list at Community-en Info Page

ALT Linux Bugzilla page with English language support at Bugzilla Main Page

Download

The DVD ISO can be downloaded from main ALT Linux ftp server & mirrors links.

Here are quick links for the ALT Linux Desktop 4.0 DVD

1: Main Link for Download: dvd4.iso

2: Mirror link for Download: dvd4.iso

Torrent for ALT Linux 4.0: ALTLinux Desktop 4.0.0 i586 dvd4

Please virify MD5SUM after downloading the torrent with : 4.0.0/iso/MD5SUM

Happy ALT Linux Desktop 4.0 experience to everybody and many thanks for ALT Linux team & developers for releasing another nicely crafted Desktop Linux Distribution for Linux users world over.

Why do we use Linux as Home Users?

Why does a common Linux Home User who has little knowledge of the technicalities of an Operating System he or she uses e.g Windows , Mac OS or in that matter any other Operating System has any reasons to switch from the above Operating Systems and switch over to Linux?

1: Is Linux easy to use for a Linux non expert home user?

2: Is it because Linux is free of cost & people don`t want to pay for Commercial Operating Systems?

3: Is he or she worried about his/her system security and bothered by the viruses and spy wares ?

4: Is Linux more eye candy than other Operating Systems?

5: Does Linux offer lot more innovative tools than other Operating Systems?

Please answer these questions and let us find out why do we use Linux as a home user.

Please suggest any other reasons if you have in your mind .

KDE & KDE Lite

KDE is a great Desktop Environment for GNU/Linux, KDE is growing fast but KDE is getting bloated & fatter than ever. A poll from DesktopLinux.com shows that 43.5 % of people used KDE as their Desktop Environment as compared to the other major counterpart GNOME 26.5 %.

Today many Linux end users are just plain non professional Home Users & not Linux experts or Gurus.

While most users would prefer using the fully loaded KDE with all the available tools on it, most of newbies and Home Users only prefer basic and selective tools like a chat client, a torrent client, an ftp client, a download manager, media players and media burning tools .

Rapidly growing KDE is doing good but has it`s developers ever thought with the Linux beginner’s point of view and offering them an official alternate of KDE Lite along with KDE ?

In pursuit of such KDE Lite version few Linux Distributions offer such a choice.

1: Arch Linux offers its own customized KDE (KDEmod , KDE on steroids)

2: Easys GNU/Linux also offers a Lite version of KDE.

3: Independent project like Simple KDE is another alternative offering a lightweight, clean and user-friendly desktop environment based on KDE.

All these all these efforts are exerted to create a non bloated, clean, uncluttered version of KDE for Linux Beginners & Home Users along with experts who are not interested in lots of tools on their desktops. But all these efforts are individual, community driven and it will be more appropriate if Official KDE Project offers an alternate KDE Lite to all such users.

Distro behind curtains

When everybody is looking with high hopes and expectations for main stream liners distributions from countries like US & Canada then has anybody ever thought of those unsung heroes who sit quietly and work persistently to create a distribution of its own uniqueness?

ALT Linux from Russia is a Linux Distribution which I think is not much known to many people outside Russia but is certainly competing at it’s best with many well know distributions.

I was first introduced to its Compact 2.3 version while I was browsing DistroWatch.com looking for a Desktop Linux Distribution. It was a nice experience with a different looking Mandrake Linux based (at that stage) Russian origin ALT Linux, simple & elegant. I kept using it for quite some time when I switched back & forth to different distributions in quest for a perfect distribution.

Later on I got its 3.0.1 version but could not use it for much time because it had a bug? with KDE installation.

Recently I joined IRC #altlinux & got introduced to many helpful & friendly ALT Linux developers and team members & I came to know about the currently under development ALT Linux Desktop 4.0.

I downloaded one of the weekly built DVD ISO of ALT Linux Desktop 4.0 & I was plainly amazed how much things have changed with ALT Linux & it has grown to a mature & robust distro, almost better than Fedora Core and SUSE Linux ( IMHO ).

The DVD gives a live boot with later on disk install option & even at that early beta stage it was almost out of box hardly giving any problems with either hardware or with any of major soft wares.

I rushed for a hard disk install and it went smooth without any issue. The installer has thoroughly been rewritten with English language support by pressing F2 during boot. Installer of ALT Linux 4.0 is quite unique , it will ask few questions regarding basic system configuration & then goes for base system installation & Desktop Environment choice either between KDE ,GNOME & XFCE .

Once ALT Linux is installed to hard disc one gets a clean desktop with cool icons and simple background.

I kept using ALT Linux for quite few days on my system & reported appropriate bugs and requested for lots of tools & packages to their Bugzilla page and Users Mailing List which have English language support.

ALT Linux 4.0 is developing at a very good pace, lots of improvements introduced & recently an RC ISO has been released at their main ftp & mirror servers & hopefully soon its final version will be released.

I am quite sure that this release will be at its best in comparison to the other major Giants out there. Happy ALT Linux and Open Source experience from Russia :)

Break Through !

After years of stumbling around not knowing how & where to put my thoughts & experiences with Linux Distributions & Open Source world together finally my friend Babar Haq put me on the track of writing down blogs and share what I have to offer with whole world.

So here I dedicate my first post in the name of my ever supportive friend Babar Haq from Copyleft Solutions

Hope this blog takes its shape with time and I will be able to post things on regular basis.