15 May 2011

2 Trips to South America

I try to cover different areas of Linux world in my blog. That means I take Linux distributives based on different principles, approaches, roots. And also I try to cover distributives with different geography. Quick list of countries which I have "visited" with my reviews will include Australia, Cambodia, Russia, Latvia, United Kingdom, Turkey, Germany, Czech Republic and USA. I hope that's not full list. I have never travelled to Latin America so far. Is it time to do so?


First trip. Dragora Linux.

Dragora Linux is developed in Argentina.
This is independent distribution, not based on any of the "mainstream" distributions. In other words, Dragora Linux is created from scratch. In these terms, Dragora Linux is very similar to Pardus Linux.
Disk image for Dragora weights about 400 Mb, which is relatively small.
I downloaded it and burnt to CD-RW.
Reboot. Choose to boot from CD-RW. Let's see what we have.
First screen of Dragora Linux's menu is almost the only which I managed to see. The reason? Dragora Linux does not have Live version. Distributive on the disk is for installation purposes only.
Fair enough, there is nothing about Live system on Dragora Linux's web site. To be honest, site itself is quite empty. Lots of sections are just dummies without any content.
Usually I only install Linux systems on my laptop when I know that I will use it for long time. That's why I have Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Debian installed. Unfortunately, I am not so sure about Dragora. Will I use it or just dump after few hours? No, installation of Dragora is not in my plans. Maybe some time in the future. But not this time.
So far, my visit to Latin America is unsuccessful. Good bye Argentina! Let's move to another country.

Second trip. ImagineOS.

Imagine OS is Linux with Brazilian roots. Of course, Brazil is famous for its coffee, bananas and Amazon river. But to say that this list is complete means the same as to say that Russia is only famous for its vodka, bears and Volga river. Of course, there are lots of talented software developers either in Brazil and Russia.
Imagine OS is not independent distribution built from scratch. Instead, it is based on longest Linux which exists so far: Slackware.
Imagine OS is more serious in terms of weight than Dragora Linux. Iso image takes full CD - 692 Mb.
So, CD-RW is in the drive of my Compaq laptop. Reboot. Choose to boot from CD-RW. Let's see what we have.
First screen met me with several options. This is the very first time when I see suggestion to run system in netbook variant right at the very beginning of boot. Other options included normal (Desktop) boot, memory check and couple of other. Selection options clearly state that Imagine OS uses only KDE as desktop environment. KDE is mentioned in both Desktop and Netbook options.
My Compaq laptop is not netbook, that's why I selected Desktop boot option. Boot screen was changed to another with big logo of Imagine OS across and progress bar below. Seemed, it took ages for progress bar to reach right-most point. Disk actually stopped spinning somewhere in the process. And what happened when progress bar finished its way? Nothing! System did not boot.
OK. That may be fault of CD-RW. Let's try another method, which does not depend on physical weariness of disk media. I "burnt" image to USB stick using Unetbootin tool.
USB stick is in the port. Reboot. Choose to boot from USB. What is here?
This time I was little bit more lucky. I was able to see splash screen of KDE. If you have even seen this screen, you remember icons appearing: from hard disk to KDE logo. Unfortunately, the only icon which I could see was hard disk.
That was a moment when I thought that my Compaq laptop is not suitable for Imagine OS. Since I have another laptop available, I decided to put my CD-RW into Toshiba's drive and give Imagine OS another try.
Reboot. Choose to boot Toshiba laptop from CD-RW. What is here?
Unfortunately, result is the same as with Compaq laptop. Progress bar moves to the right most point for some minutes, then stops and nothing more happens.
That was last chance given to Imagine OS.

Unfortunately, both of my trips to South America gave me nothing interesting to write about. It is quite disappointing to try Operation System which does not boot at all like Imagine OS, or which does not have Live mode to have a peek view like Dragora Linux.

Maybe my other geographical trips will bring me more interesting results?

5 comments:

  1. Hi DarkDuck,
    Before I settled with Mint I was using BigLinux as my Brazilian distribution. Try it out, who knows, you might enjoy it! I quit using it because the last upgrade was a long time ago. But there's a new RC version that has just been realeased. I haven't tried it myself! http://biglinux.c3sl.ufpr.br/iso/biglinux-27-04-2011.iso

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  2. @Roger Heberle:
    Unfortunately, I am not so good in Portuguese to try Biglinux. 8-(

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  3. Sad, but true - it is for natives... I don't suppose there's any Brazilian distribution that is not aimed solely at Brazilians, unfortunately.

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  4. Maybe you can try this one from Argentina: http://proyecto.ututo.net

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