My blog started as short reviews, or even self-addressed notes, of "
pocket" Linux distributions.
SLAX was number one, soon followed by
Knoppix and
Puppy. Then, as I developed my knowledge in Linux, I started to dive into the world of bigger distributions:
Ubuntu and
Kubuntu,
Debian and
PCLOS, and many more.
But "pocket Linux" is still a toy I love to play with. That's why I have returned to that topic again and have done reviews of
SliTaz 4.0 and
Puppy Slacko 5.3.1.
Today I want to develope this topic a little more, and talk about another "pocket" size Linux distribution. It won't be one-man show, though. Let me introduce my today's guest: Ahau from the Porteus Linux team.
DarkDuck: Hello! You are a member of the Porteus team. Could you please introduce yourself?
Ahau: Hi, I am "Ahau". I keep my real name confidential. I am a member of the
Porteus Team. I serve as the Documentation Team Leader, moderator on our forum, and maintainer for the XFCE editions of Porteus. I'm 32 years old, from the US, and I have been involved as a member of the Porteus Community since its inception in December 2010. Before that, I was a user of
Slax and "Slax Remix", from which Porteus evolved.
DD: Are there more people in the project?
A: Yes, there are several people involved in the project. In addition to myself we have a lead maintainer (fanthom, who started Slax Remix), a 32-bit maintainer (brokenman), and several individuals who contribute modules, applications, documentation and support on the forums. We consider ourselves a
"Portable Linux Community", and we take suggestions and contributions, subject to review by our maintainers, from anyone who joins up and is interested.
DD: Is there any formal project leader? Who makes the final decision?
A: Fanthom is our lead maintainer and he would make the final decision in the case of any disagreements, but we usually reach a consensus on decisions even before anything like a vote is needed.
DD: You picked up the SLAX project, which was stagnating after Tomas M. decided not to continue with its development. Now you have a different distribution. Why have you decided to do so?
A: Fanthom started Slax Remix after development on Slax was suspended. He did this in an effort to keep Slax current with a newer kernel, rebased on a newer release of Slackware, and he included bugfixes and other customizations. He also built and released a 64-bit edition featuring KDE4, which had never existed for Slax. He didn't intend on starting a separate distribution, but maintaining his project on a third-party forum became untenable after almost a year of development and nine releases.
DD: I heard that Tomas M. is coming back to SLAX project. What are your relationships with his project now?
A: We have many members that also Slax users, and I still visit the Slax forums on occasion to see what's new there. We don't have an official development relationship with the Slax project, but we think Slax is a great distribution and we're hopeful to see more releases from Tomas M. in the future.
DD: Am I right in assumption that Porteus Linux was never intended to be the primary OS on the computer, but rather a "pocket" distribution, which one could use on others' computers to have his favourite environment?
A: I think it's fair to say that Porteus is optimized to run from a CD or USB flash drive, but it's also just as easy to install Porteus on a hard drive for use as a primary OS. In fact, it will probably boot and run even faster this way. One of our chief goals in developing Porteus is maintaining and enhancing flexibility. As you know, the name of our distribution is derived from the words "Portable" and "Proteus", the greek god of the seas. A lot of our color schemes and art work have water themes, and I like to think of the distribution as something that can be transported in any container and used for a variety of purposes while retaining its original qualities, just like water. The distribution itself is less than 300 MB and software can be easily added and removed in the form of xzm "modules" to suit the specific needs of the user, whether it be for use as a primary OS, recovery tool, portable distro, or anything else.
DD: Does Porteus Linux have a large community? What would you say about its members?
A: We presently have just over 500 members on our forum, which is small compared to the larger distributions out there. But, we're new and we're growing, and when folks ask questions, they get a response. I'm continually encouraged by the knowledge, skill, and welcoming nature of our members. I've made many good friends in our community, and I look forward to my interactions there. We have an embedded chat window for members on our forum, and it's great for newbies with simple questions and also for the members and contributors to get to know each other on a more personal level. It's been a lot of fun working with everyone there!
DD: The current stable version of Porteus is 1.1. Are there any plans for future releases? When will they be? What new will we see there?
A: Yes, Porteus version 1.2 is in develompent right now; the second release candidate is already available for download in the testing section of our server. The final version should follow shortly. Porteus 1.2 will feature the addition of the XFCE desktop environment (available as a separate ISO) as well as a rewritten package manager (Porteus Package Manager, or PPM), a new GUI installer, a rewritten Langauge Selection Tool, and a rewritten "Save.dat Manager" which will allow more options and functionality (such as data encryption and a choice of filesystems) for users who want to save their changes persistently on FAT or NTFS partitions.
DD: What are own your favourite distributions, desktop environments, applications?
A: Obviously, Porteus is my favorite, and I still enjoy Slax. I also like
Puppy and
SliTaz, but the vast majority of my time is spent in Porteus. I've just started messing with Android, if you can call that a Linux distribution (I wouldn't...). I'm the Xfce maintainer for Porteus, and that is my favorite desktop environment now that I've learned my way around it. I think Xfce has the right mix of functionality, beauty, and configurability, but it's still light and intuitive. I prefer KDE over Gnome, and I think LXDE is a great DE as well.
DD: Do you read the blog Linux notes from DarkDuck? What would you like to improve or change there?
A: I don't read every blog entry, but I do stop by on occasion, I especially like your reviews of "
pocket" distributions, as I like to know what other distros are up to, and how they are receieved.
DD: Do you read any other blogs or FOSS-related web resources regularly? Who are your favourite authors, bloggers, journalists writing about FOSS?
A: I don't follow many blogs, but I do keep up on the
XFCE forums and
mailing lists, and I visit distrowatch.com. I spend a lot of time researching the web trying to solve problems or learn how to do things, so I tend to bounce around a lot. I do have to give a shoutout to the folks at
archwiki and
gentoo-wiki, I've learned a lot from their articles.
DD: Thanks for coming, Ahau. I hope to keep in touch and have another interview with either yourself, or maybe other members of Porteus team later.
A: Thanks for having me, DarkDuck! Feel free to contact myself or anyone on our team if you'd like to do another interview, and please try Porteus 1.2 when it's released. We hope you and your readers enjoy it!
