Penguin

Differences between version 7 and predecessor to the previous major change of ByzantineOS.

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Newer page: version 7 Last edited on Thursday, September 23, 2004 4:57:07 pm by AristotlePagaltzis Revert
Older page: version 6 Last edited on Thursday, September 23, 2004 4:56:20 pm by AristotlePagaltzis Revert
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-!! Intro  
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- [ByzantineOS | http://byzgl.sourceforge.net/ ] is a small LinuxDistribution focussing on Internet Appliances. While in alpha stage, it is clean, fast, and fits on a 28MB [ISO] by virtue of choices like using BusyBox and running [X11] in a FrameBuffer. It concentrates on the web software selection an Internet Appliance typically offers, ie a WebBrowser.  
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-!! Booting  
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-Pop the [CD] in, reboot, make sure you are booting off the [CDROM] drive, and sit back. A BootLoader screen (probably [GRUB]) asks for a choice of normal or hi-res (1024x768, although it doesn't say that there) FrameBuffer~s. Booting shows the usual sorts of output, although the noisy [Kernel] messages are hidden behind messages like ''configuring network card'' and the like. Unfortunately it fails to properly configure the interface and instead assigns a completely bogus [IP] address for some reason.  
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-!! Logging in  
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-After booting, it leaves a prompt saying ''press enter to enable this console''. Switching VTs shows this on at least a few other consoles. Once you log in you are presented with a shell... and no indication of what to do. [RTFM] reveals that you need to run startx(1). You should run dhcpd(8) first though, so you have a [DHCP]-assigned [IP] address, or at least manually set it via ifconfig(8).  
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-!! Using it  
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-You'll find the usual window decorations (such as title bars and close buttons) are absent, even though there is is a <tt>.sawfish</tt> menu in your home directory. It looks like no WindowManager is run, which makes sense for an OS targetted towards Internet Appliances.  
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-The system is equipped with an older [Mozilla] WebBrowser (whose age is of little true concern here). The browser is fairly customized in terms of menubar placement and available options.  
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-So what to do now? Browse the web! That's about all you can do really. The system is run from a <tt>cramfs</tt> image (compressed [RAM] FileSystem), and any changes (like installed plugins and settings changes) are lost on reboot.  
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-!! Conclusion  
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-It's a cool idea. On a small machine with a nice display it could be a nifty WebBrowser OS. It seems like a good first start for web kiosk type software, though you'll probably want to change many of the default options, and saving changes to disk or network storage would be really useful. All that limits its usefulness for the living room is the awful display quality of TVs. ''(At least until [HDTV].. . --JaredWigmore)''  
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---DanielLawson  
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-CategoryReview  
+Describe [ByzantineOS] here.