http://byzgl.sourceforge.net/

ByzantineOS is a small linux-based distro focussing at Internet Appliances. Its still very much alpha software, however its clean and fast, and fits on a 28MB iso. It manages this by making use of cut-down tools like busybox, and running X in a framebuffer

Its focussed towards running the web software that a Internet Appliance uses. That means, it runs a web browser. Boot it on small machine with a nice display, and I could see this being a nifty web browser OS, suited for Kiosks and the like. I dont really see it being usable on a TV, but thats because TVs are so arse for this sort of thing. (At least until HDTV... --JaredWigmore?)

Booting: pop the CD in, reboot, make sure you are booting off the cdrom drive, and sit back.

A bootloader screen (looked like a GRUB screen) asks for a choice of normal or hi-res (1024x768, although it doesn't say that there) framebuffers.

As it boots, it goes through the usual sorts of output, although the noisy kernel output is hidden and this shows things like 'configuring network card' and the like. Note that it doesn't really configure your network card - it grabs a REALLY bogus IP address for some reason, so you have to run dhcpd manually later on

Logging in: It leaves a prompt saying "press enter to enable this console" after its finished booting. 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' however, provides the useful hint to run 'startx'.

Or, run dhcpd first, so you have a dhcp-assigned IP address... or else manually set it via ifconfig.

Window Manager: there is a .sawfish menu in your home directory, however I'm pretty sure that mozilla is being run as my window manager. Certainly none of the usual decorations are there (such as title bars and close buttons). This makes sense for an OS targetted towards Internet Appliances.

Its also an older version of mozilla, but thats of little concern really.

Its fairly customized too, in terms of menubar placement, and what options you have available to you.

What now?: Browse the web! Thats about all you can do really.. the system is run from a compressed ramfs (cramfs) so you can install plugins and change settings I think, but they are of course lost on reboot.

Its a cool idea though, and probably a good first start for web kiosk type software. Saving options to disk or network storage would be really useful, and you'd want to modify the default options quite a lot I imagine.

--DanielLawson