4 Lessons Which Bodhi Linux Taught Me

Ubuntu is not the oldest distributive on the Linux landscape. Moreover, it is not standalone one, and it is based on Debian. But Ubuntu and its derivatives became the most used Linux in the world, bringing Linux to the level when non-geek users can get benefits of this OS.
I have mentioned already that Ubuntu has huge number of derivatives. The Wikipedia page contains impressive list of them, but even that list is not full.

New star appeared on the Ubuntu sky recently, and this star is called Bodhi Linux. Version 1.0.0 was released at the end of March, just a week ago. Everything new is interesting. Hopefully, not only for myself, but also for my readers. That's why I have to try this new operating system.
Bodhi Linux image weights less than 400Mb, which puts it into the same line as Puppy and SLAX.
While testing Bodhi Linux, I learnt 4 lessons which I'd like to tell you about.

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Lesson 1. Unetbootin.

This is my first ever approach to Unetbootin. This is a piece of software which allows "burning" of iso images to USB sticks, rather than to CD or DVD disks. I tried to avoid it so far, and use methods advised by distributive authors. But wiki page at Bodhi Linux site recommends Unetbootin. I had no other choice.
For my surprise, Unetbootin worked quite well. I must admit, I used Windows version of it to "burn" my USB stick, but I think Linux version could do it even better.

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I had small issue though... It is not linked to Linux, Unetbootin or anything other in software world. Looks like my USB stick, which I got as a present from The Economist magazine, has some bad sectors. That's why I spent significant amount of time trying to record iso image to the stick with same bad result. Thanks God, I have another USB stick, and it worked pretty well from the first attempt.

Finally, I have my USB drive ready.
Reboot. Choose to boot from USB. Let's go!

Operating System booted quickly enough. It shows you some kind of animation where leaves fall off the tree and fly across the screen. You can switch off the animation and get to the black screen with boot log with Esc key.

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Lesson 2. Enlightment.

Bodhi Linux has concept of "minimalism". It means usage of minimal resources for the purposes. That's why Enlightment Desktop Environment is used there. It's other name is E17.
I have already tried E17 in Nimblex. That time I was not completely satisfied with results, and quite quickly switched to KDE which I know better.
This time I had no other option, but to stay with E17.

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If I was talking about minimalism, I'd like to return once again to the boot screen. What does minimalism have to do with pretty complex animation? I think this part of the system can be easily cut off without losing much of system functionality.

Once booted, user is welcomed by several screens which allows fine tuning of the system. You can choose your profile (desktop/laptop/bare etc) and your theme (desktop picture) there. It is similar to Pardus, but has less options and steps. Anyway, that is nice feature from my perspective.
Bodhi showed me very strange time on the clocks. GMT-5 hours - is it somewhere in Latin America or Eastern part of USA? I've never been there. Honestly. And my computer is set to show UK time, currently British Summer Time.
As I said before, Bodhi Linux is based on Ubuntu. Apparently, it is Ubuntu 10.10, latest stable version. And I was pretty much sure that Bodhi Linux would not have any difficulties with finding my WiFi card on Compaq laptop. That was true. Just few keystrokes for security passcode, and I am connected to the network and Internet.
What is available for the user in the world of software? I would say not much. Bodhi Linux comes with bare bones software wise. No games, no office, no graphic editors. All you have, not counting for few system tools, is:

• Midori browser
• Terminal
• Leafpad text editor
• PacMan file manager
• Network manager.

Last one from the list actually did not start from Live session, even though Network Manager applet worked OK. I used this applet for network configuration, that's why I know that for sure.
Same error appeared when I tried to run NTFS configuration utility. Is it just a Live version issue?
If you have no software in the distributive, you need to install it. Bodhi Linux has its own repositories, which can be used from Synaptics. And another way is to get software from the catalog on the web site. Link to that catalogue is in the main menu.
I tried to find Office software in the Synaptic and failed. Maybe I don't know how to search for it? That was a reason for me to try web site approach.
Catalogue lists two office packages as available: Libre Office and Light Office. I've never heard of Light Office before, but as soon as it consists of Gnumeric, Abiword and Inkskape, it makes me think about GNOME office.

The issue is not with the names actually. The issue is that no one office suite was available. Neither "install", not "download" buttons on the site worked.

Let's try another package. I wanted to make some screenshots of Bodhi Linux running on my laptop. Shutter is the package recommended for making screenshots on the official site. The installation link for Shutter worked OK, it was quickly downloaded. But... installation on Live system was not possible. And that's why I cannot provide screenshots of my laptop running Bodhi. You can see one of the wallpapers available on the web site instead. I think it is nice.

You can see, I could not do much in Bodhi. But programs which I could run worked very quickly. That is what E17 is for.
Bodhi includes several locales out of the box. All of them are English: American, British, Eire, Botswana etc. Unfortunately, no support for other languages and locales out of the box. They are probably available on the web site, but I did not find the link. Did you?
Even with English locale only, I could still read texts in Russian using Midori. Locale does not affect fonts and text display.

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Lesson 3. Light does not mean user-friendly.

Reading Russian text is nice. But what is about typing in Russian? Default keyboard of course is English with US layout. I found a place in Bodhi configuration panel where layout can be configured. But, unfortunately, configuring keyboard layout was something impossible for non-experienced user like me. It requires some deep knowledge of Enlightment. Otherwise, how should I understand abbreviations IIIMF, SCIM, UIM? Actual configuration for them is specifying variable parameters. Definitely not user-friendly approach. GNOME and KDE do it in much easier way.

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Samba is not included into the package, as you may already understand. Therefore I could not connect to my network drive from Bodhi Live. Even if I could, there are no players to test MP3 playback.
Youtube videos did not work in Midori. I was told to upgrade the Adobe Flash player.
Music from Internet resources also did not work either. When I tried to play something from my.Mail.ru or 101.ru I got same error.

Yes, Bodhi Linux has its benefits. It runs very quickly and has low disk space requirement, at least for initial run. It has good choice of themes and profiles, and they are easily changeable. In other words, good art work is in this system.
On the negative side, though, I found much more. General feeling about the Bodhi Linux operating system is that it is too naked to be used OOTB. It more looks like constructor which you need to assemble yourself, while some components of it are missing, some of them are not obvious and some are absent at all.
I would not recommend this operating system for newbies. Instead, this OS is for experienced users who know what they want and how to achieve the result. But would these users consider OS based on Ubuntu? Maybe they would look at Debian/Arch/Slackaware instead?

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Lesson 4. Small size does not mean pocket size.

Even though size of Bodhi Linux is comparable to SLAX, I would not consider it to be pocket OS. Basically, because SLAX is self-contained within same size while Bodhi is very limited in functionality.
For the same reasons I will not list Bodhi Linux on my Buy Linux CDs page. It is intended for users with limited Internet access or time for CD image burning. In case of Bodhi, you still need lots of Internet traffic to download your components, and you still need time to get all these components working.