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The features page
This is the distribution features page. It does not contain links
towards the instructions for downloading.
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<TITLE>Independence distribution featuress</TITLE>
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<h1>Independence Linux 0.8 Antaeus</h1>
<p>
Independence 0.8 Antaeus is based on RedHat 6.0. We want it being a
distribution caring about the needs of the people and unconstrained
neither by traditions nor by marketing considerations.
</p>
<h2>Main features</h2>
<p>
Independence 0.8 Antaeus is not a crippled beginners-only
distribution: it is a superset of RedHat 6.0 so you can do with it
anything you can do with RedHat 6.0.
<br>
But we think in a Linux user who doesn't have a trained system
administrator caring for him so we made the distrib a little more
robust and a little easier to recover from disaster.
<br>
We think in a user who could need help so we try to allow him to be
able to send mail just five minutes after installation even for users
in dial-up contexts. We also care for daemons reacting appropriately
when the dial-up link is brought up or down.
<br>We think in a user who will be using Linux as his
personal computer so we want the distrib to be useful for real life
like allowing the user to manage his chechbook, wine cellar,
investments or helping his children with their math classes.
<br> We think that Linux must be fun so we added some games
and an MMX enhanced of the SDL library used in Civilization III. We
think that Linux must allow user's creativity so we include Povray,
the Moonlight and Giram modellers plus some music software.
<br> We think in users who have to live in a Windows world so we allow
mounting shares just by clicking on them, ensure they get the messages
of the SMB printer server and ship VNC for allowing the user to
display Windows programs on a Linux box. We think in Linux users that
will never see another Unix than Linux so we allow them to live
without ever seeing VI if they don't want to.
<br>We think that Linux should be used for _real_ work so we added
KlyX, a Wysywyg word processor (maxwell) and when possible tried to
allow the user not losing time on customizations.
<br>We think in people who could get hacked before they know how to
plug security holes so we added an easy to use program for blocking
access to the machine.
<br>We think in people who would like to use Linux as a file and print
server for Macs so we added netatalk and a graphic configurator to it.
<br>We think in people who pay Internet access and power from their
own pockets so we provided software allowing shorter connections and
ensured maintenance jobs would run as well on machines who are not
powered up 24 hours a day.
</p>
<p>In fact we tried to think like the users we are intead of thinking
like distribution authors.
</p>
<H2>Bugs and shortcomings</h2>
<ul>
<li>Installation brings little innovation respective to the one of
RedHat's 6.0 short of an installation class for personal users and
configuring dialup networking at install time. We think that
installation has a great marketing value but that what is really
important is ease of use not ease of installation. A free project
allows to do what is right intead of what is better for marketing.
<li>The PPP configurator used at install time is mediocre, we will try
to include a better one ASAP
<li>We provide nothing special about news.
<li>We need a better handling of daemons and of inetd in order to
allow unexperinced users not having unnecessary daemons running in
their computers. Each unneeded daemon uses resources and is potential
security hole.
<li>We don't want Indy becoming a mammoth distribution with dozens of
redundants programs. Their only use would be confusing the user. We
think it is a distributor duty to shield users from mediocre or
obsolete programs. However this version is still an "unfiltered
distribution".
<li>We would like to ship a more ambitious distribution but we are
short on manpower. :-(
</ul>
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--
Jean Francois Martinez
Project Independence: Linux for the Masses
http://www.independence.seul.org