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| Newer page: | version 3 | Last edited on Thursday, September 23, 2004 7:33:16 pm | by AristotlePagaltzis | |
| Older page: | version 1 | Last edited on Thursday, September 23, 2004 4:57:19 pm | by AristotlePagaltzis | Revert |
@@ -1,28 +1,22 @@
!! Intro
-[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.
+[ByzantineOS | http://byzgl.sourceforge.net/] is a small LinuxDistribution focussing on Internet Appliances. While in beta
stage, it is clean, fast, and fits on a 48MB
[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.
!! Booting
-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.
-
-!! Logging in
-
-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)
.
+Pop the [CD] in, reboot, make sure you are booting off the [CDROM] drive, and sit back. The boot process is streamlined and progresses automatically
. It autodetected and configured my graphics card and
network card,
and proceeded
to load up
the [XServer
].
!! Using it
-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
.
+X is loaded without a WindowManager. A very customised [Mozilla] 1.6
(in the build
as of September 2004
) is launched by default
. The developers have chosen to use it as an application platform, so it
is used to
run applications
, browse the web, and even configure your network card. Applications include
an SNES emulator, [Gaim], [XMMS], some card games, a calculator, and a few others
.
-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.
+!! Conclusion
-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
.
-
-!! Conclusion
+It
's a cool idea. On a small machine with a nice display it could be a nifty WebBrowser OS. It has come a long way since alpha, and feels very polished
. The addition of other applications since then makes it quite
a neat little distribution. The layout of the
[Mozilla
] interface is
, IMO, less than optimal, but that's partly because it's totally different to the "normal" layout
.
-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)''
+All that limits its usefulness for the living room is the awful display quality of TVs -- at
least until [HDTV]...
--DanielLawson
-----
CategoryReview
