Robert Milasan: Kongoni GNU/Linux aims to anybody who likes to experiment

Some Linux distribution are born to be big. Like Debian, Ubuntu and RedHat.

Other Linux distributions are born to die, because only limited set of developers are self-interested in them.

And there are distributions which are born to live small. They are changing maintaners and developers, but don't change the supporting idea. The example is Kongoni GNU/Linux. This is one of the few distributions born with an idea of freedom. This is one of the distributions approved by Free Software Foundation.

Let me introduce you the person who is steering this project now: Robert Milasan.

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DarkDuck: Hello Robert! Your personality is not so well-known as maybe your project Kongoni GNU/Linux. Could you please tell some words about yourself?

Robert Milasan: Sure, so my name is Robert Gabriel Milasan. I currently work at SUSE Linux. I previously worked at IBM, both in Czech Republic. I'm originally from Romania, but moved to Czech Republic about 5 years ago, and this is my home since then. I’m married, living in Prague and playing with computers and cars. :)

DK: You are not the original author of Kongoni, but became a maintainer of it. Why and how did this happen?

Kongoni: You have the right to remain silent

I have written about Linux distributions from different parts of the world. Australia, Cambodia, Turkey, Russia, Latvia, and even Brasil.
This time round I'll make a trip to a continent which I have not visited yet: Africa.

Kongoni is Linux distribution developed in South Africa. It has name with roots in Shona language.
Kongoni is based on Slackware. There are not many Slackware-based Live distros (SLAX, Porteus and Nimblex - those I know). That makes each new review in this area very interesting for me.
Also Kongoni claims to contain only Free Software Foundation approved software. Moreover, Kongoni uses Libre kernel, where all the non-open source binaries are removed. Although Kongoni is not listed as FSF-supported. My previous experience with FSF-supported systems was pretty much different. What does Kongoni have to offer?
Latest version (Kongoni 2011) was released recently. Funny enough, it was released twice.
The reason for double-release was inability to run Live USB from iso image. Bug report says that person was successful in creation of Live USB using Unetbootin.
First of all, I downloaded the image (just below 700 Mb) and tried to "burn" it to USB stick. Neither Unetbootin nor dd command helped me in this. My Unetbootin has latest version (549) and I tried it under Mageia, Debian and Windows XP. Same result.
I was in despair. The only way which I saw was to burn CD-RW. Old-fashion way, of course. But it worked.
Do you want to try Kongoni yourself? Why not order a CD via Buy Linux CDs site?
So, my CD-RW is in the drive of my Compaq C300 laptop.
Reboot. Choose to boot from optical drive. Let's go!