Chrome OS Laptops - A Review

Here is a critical review of Google's Chromebook. I call it critical because the reviewer dwells more on the bad and the ugly of Chromebook. And he also works for Microsoft ;-).
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Pinguy OS - An Ubuntu Based Linux Distribution on Steroids

Ubuntu has helped spawn umpteen Linux distributions. Pinguy OS is yet another Linux distribution based on Ubuntu (version 10.10 to be exact).

Pinguy OS is targeted at lay persons - people who are going to use Linux for the first time, or those who want an out-of-box working OS.
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Haiku - A new Operating System inspired by BeOS

Haiku is an open source operating system that specifically targets personal computing. It is inspired by  the now defunct BeOS and reimplements both the BeOS technologies as well as the end user experience.  Recently the Haiku team unveiled the first release candidate RC1 by releasing a liveCD of Haiku R1 Alpha1.

The Haiku R1 Alpha1 live CD ISO is only 380MB in size. Succumbing to curiosity, and because of its tiny size, I downloaded Haiku live CD and took it for a run. Simply put, I was really impressed with the user interface and the stability of the OS. I found the Haiku Desktop interface to be unique providing a radical approach to desktop computing.Read more »

Review : Arch Linux - A sleek, fast Linux distribution

I had always wanted to try Arch Linux. Mainly because, most people who used it became its ardent followers and, I wished to know what was the magic that pulled a Linux user to go the Arch Linux way.

Arch Linux follows the philosophy of KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. So you won't find a cool, eye catching GUI installer for installing Arch nor a colorful splash screen which hide the complex boot process while booting up. But what you get for this trade off is a blazing fast Linux distribution which boots much faster than many of its competitors.

Arch Linux is specifically tweaked for, and targeted at the i686/x86-64 architecture which is your ubiquitous Pentium/Celeron processor machines.

Installing Arch Linux itself is an oddity. You first download a minimal Arch Linux core ISO image of around 250-300 MB size and burn it on to a CD. Then you boot your machine from the CD. Arch Linux boots up as a Live CD and puts you in root (super user) prompt. Now you initiate the install process by running the setup script.

# /arch/setup

The full Arch Linux installation guide is accessible at /arch/arch-install-guide.txt. As most of you know, in Linux, you can access multiple virtual consoles at a time. So I opened a second console screen by pressing the key combination [Alt]+[F2] and logging in as root, opened the above mentioned installation guide. Thus I was able to switch between the consoles and simultaneously read the installation guide while continuing with the installation.

The Arch Linux installer is a ncurses based text installer. But someone who has installed any other Linux distribution a couple of times will be comfortable installing Arch on their machine. More over, those who have installed either Slackware or FreeBSD will find the Arch Linux installer very similar and easy to use.

Arch Linux Installation Steps

The following is a synopsis of the steps I had to execute to install Arch on my machine.

1. Boot the Minimal Arch Linux LiveCD
2. Login as root user and initiate the Arch Linux installation.
3. Select an installation source - You can install Arch from a CD/DVD or via FTP. I chose CD-ROM as I already had the base installation on the CD. You can choose FTP/HTTP if you have a very fast internet connection.
4. Prepare the hard drive - This involves partitioning the hard drive and setting filesystem mountpoints. Arch Linux comes bundled with the cfdisk partitioning utility which is quite easy to use.
5. Select Packages - This is essentially to give the user a chance to install additional packages not selected by default in the base install. For example, I needed the ntfs-3g package to mount my Windows NTFS partition and I selected it in this step of installation.
6. Install packages - The packages get installed on the hard disk. Takes some time depending upon the number of packages you have choosen to install.
7. Configure system - Arch Linux uses the BSD style init framework. So most of the configuration details are inserted in the /etc/rc.conf file. In this step, you are asked a few set of simple questions such as do you need USB support, Firewire support, PCMCIA support and so on for which you give a Yes or No answer. You also get the chance to edit the file directly in a text editor and set your timezone and enter your network settings. The file is superbly commented. Here you are also prompted to set the root password. While configuring the system, the installer asks you to set the package repository which will be used to pull all the packages you install via the Internet.
8. Install bootloader - Arch Linux provides you a choice of GRUB or LILO. Pick your choice.
9. Exit install
10. Reboot
    

While the steps listed above may seem a lot, it took me just a short time to finish installing the base packages. Arch Linux stores all the installation packages in the pacman cache. Once installation is finished, you can delete these packages as they are no longer needed. I used the following pacman command to delete all the packages stored in the cache.

# pacman -Scc

Are we finished installing Arch Linux yet ?

Of course after finishing the above mentioned steps, I now had a basic, minimal, albeit fully functional Arch Linux on my machine. The hardest part - the installation - was over.But for Arch Linux to be of any use to me, I had to install the Xserver (xorg) and all the necessary software.

Here is the good news - In Arch Linux, it is very easy to install and manage software because it uses a superior package management system called pacman. I headed over to wiki.archlinux.org which is the official documentation of Arch Linux. It contains detailed steps on installing any and all Linux software. I first installed Xorg and then decided to go for a light weight Desktop called LXDE which happened to be a good choice. And in no time, I had a spanking new upto date Linux Desktop with the latest version of software installed. What I found really nice was I had to install just those software which I needed, and that saved valuable space on the hard disk.

pacman - Arch Linux's superior package management tool

One of the strong points of Arch Linux is its powerful package management tool called pacman. Simply put, pacman is to Arch Linux what apt-get is to Debian or Ubuntu. But after using it to upgrade and install software on Arch, I feel pacman is a lot more superior to apt-get if not at par with it. More over, as mentioned earlier, Arch Linux is a rolling release distribution. This makes it possible to run pacman as a cron job and leave the system to update and upgrade itself on a regular basis with minimal user intervention.

Arch Linux has all the important and often used software in its official repositories. Apart from that, Arch Linux also allows the user - that is you and me - to create Arch specific packages of software compiled from source, which are not available in the official repositories. These user generated binary packages are made available in the ArchLinux User-community Repository (AUR). So if you do not find your favourite software in Arch's official repository, you can easily create a binary package by compiling from source and share it with others.

Is Arch Linux the best Linux distribution of them all ?

An interesting question that demands a genuine answer. Honestly, it depends on whom you ask this question. Arch Linux is definitely a fabulous Linux distribution. One of the endearing aspects of Arch Linux for me was when the latest version of GIMP 2.6.3 was officially released. To get the latest version of GIMP, I didn't have to wait that long. Within a few weeks, I was pleasantly surprised to be able to upgrade to GIMP 2.6.3. If it were any other Linux distribution, I will have had to wait till the next official release.

The pros of Arch Linux are ....

• Speed - It is much faster than any other mainstream Linux distribution.
• Simple management of software - Arch Linux has a superior form of package management in pacman.
• A strong community - I posted a query in the Arch Linux forum and received a reply in just a few minutes time. The strong community revolving around Arch Linux is one of its chief strengths.
• Rolling release distribution - Unlike most other Linux distributions, you need to install Arch Linux only once, and with clever use of Pacman, your system will remain upto date forever.
  

And the cons of Arch Linux are ...

• It uses a text based installer similar to that found in Slackware.
• It has no fancy GUI tools whatsoever for configuring your system. Configuration is done by editing text files.
• Arch Linux is optimized for i686/x86-64 architecture machines. For instance, there is no Arch release for powerPC or other architectures.
  

To sum up, if you are an avid Linux user who is comfortable in using the command line, and editing text files to configure your system, then you should give Arch Linux a try. I assure you, it will be a pleasant, fullfilling experience.

Fedora 8 review

The first ever Linux distribution I used was not Debian or Slackware but Red Hat Linux. In fact, as I remember it, the version of Red Hat I used was ver 6.2. A couple of years back, Red Hat decided to demarcate its Linux offering into two separate entities namely the free as in beer and Free as in freedom Fedora and its paid version but still Free as in freedom offering namely Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The improvements that are made in Fedora, after they go through a period of severe whetting are eventually incorporated into Red Hat enterprise offering or so it seems.

Let me tell you a funny thing, even though I have been using Fedora for many years now, this is the first time I am putting down my thoughts on Fedora. The latest offering from Fedora namely Fedora 8 is in every respect an excellent Linux distribution past compare. As with all previous versions of Fedora, the hard work and quality which is the trademark of Red Hat shines through in Fedora 8 too.

There are numerous features that are incorporated into Fedora 8. Some of the most notable ones being ...

• Inclusion of an advanced sound server called PulseAudio which is compatible with nearly all existing Linux sound systems.
• A new Java environment called IcedTea which is derived from OpenJDK.
• Numerous improvements to tools which interact with other devices such as Bluetooth tool, network manager and so on.
  

Read the full list of features for Fedora 8 code named Werewolf in the official release notes.

But if you ask me, the pertinent aspects of Fedora which place it a cut above most other Linux distributions are for sure the seamless integration of GUI tools to accomplish complex tasks. For example, Fedora has a GUI tool to create and manipulate logical volumes on your machine. There are GUI front ends for setting up a firewall, a set of SELinux tools to view, create and modify policies and so on. And it has been Red Hat's and in succession, Fedora's aim to make sure the different desktops namely GNOME and KDE have a similar look and feel which is evident when you install GNOME and KDE on your Fedora 8 machine.

The installation as such was a painless affair - considering that (as far as I can remember) it was Red Hat which first developed a GUI installer for installing its Linux distribution. And Red Hat installer named "Anaconda" is a fine piece of software that has evolved over time and which does its job splendidly. Check out a slide show of the screen shots of all the installation steps.

Once you boot into Fedora 8, you come face to face with a new default theme called Nodoka which is both a refreshing change and a pleasure to the eyes. Fedora 8 also feature a spartan look and feel called Infinity. GNOME bundled with Fedora 8 is version 2.20.1 and KDE is version 3.5.8.

Shown below are a couple of well designed GUI front-ends which aid the end user in accomplishing a variety of complex tasks - these tasks can also be executed using the equivalent command line tools.

Fig: Dual head display settings

Fig: Advanced Firewall configuration

Fig: Logical volume management GUI tool

Fig: Printer configuration

Fig: SELinux management

Fig: Services configuration

Fig: SELinux troubleshoot browser

Apart from the GUI tools displayed above, there are also GUI front ends for user management, sound management, network configuration, setting up bootloader and so on.

Fedora 8 LiveCD comes bundled with Abiword word processor and Gnumeric spreadsheet which are clean and lean alternatives to OpenOffice.org Writer and Calc. Of course you always have the option of installing OpenOffice.org if you deem it fit via Fedora's Applications > Add/Remove programs interface.

The Fedora team has also been innovating its offering by releasing tools which allow you to roll out (remaster) your own custom Fedora distribution with just the features and software you need. Check out several different spins, which are variations of Fedora built from a specific set of software packages.

On the other hand, Fedora team aka Red Hat is obsessed with making sure that its Linux distribution stays as Free as possible - much to the delight of Free software enthusiasts. A side effect for the end user is that it is not possible to play proprietary audio and video files on a default Fedora installation. If you want to, there is a round about way of enabling some third party repositories (rpm.livna.org and rpmfusion.org) and installing their custom build of multimedia players which are compiled with support for these proprietary file formats. Fedora also comes bundled with a new tool called Codeina which allows you to buy licenses for various multimedia file formats from Fluendo. The prices range from 7 Euros all the way up to 16 Euros for each set of codecs. I haven't installed them so am not in a position to comment on the quality of these bought codecs.

Fig: CodecBuddy (Codeina) allows you to buy licenses for proprietary file formats.

Fedora 8 does feature a GUI tool to easily enable desktop effects (namely Compiz). But then I was faced with a conundrum of sorts which was that without the proprietary Nvidia drivers (My machine has a Nvidia GEForce 2 card), it is not possible to enable the desktop effects. At the same time, it is a round about and messy process to install the proprietary Nvidia display drivers in Fedora; which may be possible if you are running SELinux in permissive mode.

In conclusion, if you are looking for a robust, secure and stable Linux distribution which stands out from rest of the brood in providing an innovative set of GUI tools for system and network administration but at the same time, you are also particular that you would like to use only Free software, then you should seriously consider taking Fedora 8 for a spin. You will definitely fall in love it.

An in depth look at gOS

I had recently written a post on the gPC running gOS. Now here is an in depth review of the gOS which is honest,

Despite not being created by Google, the focus of gOS is Google's online applications such as GMail, Google News, Google Maps, Google Calendar, YouTube, etc. It's a neat concept for a Linux distribution.

funny,

... there seems to be no "recycling bin" available on the desktop. I looked in the FAQs and found that apparently the recycling bin is still in development—somewhat ironic given the nature/green theme of gOS.

and quite focused.

The downloadable version of gOS doesn't include what's necessary to play DVDs and MP3s. For that you need to install it yourself or get gOS by buying a gOS-based computer.

Written by Jim Lynch at Extremetech, this review gives a very good insight into what you can expect from gOS without taking it for a spin. Has a couple of screenshots too. Read the whole review.

Review : EnGarde Secure Linux

There are hundreds of Linux distributions targeting a diverse sets of users. While quite a number of these Linux distributions - especially the main stream ones - position themselves as a universal solution to all your Linux expectations, there are some of them which take a specialist role of one form or other, catering to a specific set of Linux users.

One such specialized Linux distribution which is targeted specifically at servers is the EnGarde Secure Linux. As the name indicates, this Linux distribution lays stress on the security aspect because servers should by default be secure out of the box. And EnGarde Secure Linux goes the extra length and pulls all stops to make sure the server is indeed secure. More on that later.

EnGarde Secure Linux is released by its parent company Guardian Digital in two forms - one is the Community edition which is available for free download and the other is the commercial Professional edition. The community edition of EnGarde is full featured, secure and is built entirely from open source and it contain many of the capabilities of the Professional edition. Guardian Digital claims they have over 500 corporate clients across USA, Canada and the rest of the world who use EnGarde Secure Linux.

I decided to install the Community edition of EnGarde Secure Linux on my machine and take it for a spin.

One of the unique aspects of EnGrade Secure Linux is that it ships with only those packages that are absolutely necessary to function as a server. So you won't find software such as a X Windows server or other desktop utilities which is expected in any normal Linux distribution. But EnGarde ships with the necessary databases, web server, mail server and DNS server and you can configure EnGarde to function as any of those or all of them.

Installation of EnGarde Secure Linux

Installation of EnGarde Secure Linux is as such, a trouble free affair and is achieved via its text based installer. On the other hand if you are just interested in trying it out, that is also possible because the ISO also functions as a LiveCD and you can try out all the features that EnGarde has to offer without installing it on your hard disk.

Basically, These are the steps I had to go through in installing EnGarde on my machine.

Fig: Booting from the CD-ROM Check out all of them

Fig: Decide on the partitioning scheme.Check out all of them

• Change root and webTool password - this is applicable only if you are using EnGarde as a LiveCD.
• Decide on whether you want DHCP or static networking
• Choose between running EnGarde in installation or LiveCD mode - Here I chose Installation mode as I wanted to install it on my machine.
• Choose the language - English is default.
• Decide on the partitioning of your hard disk. Here there are two choices. One is the automatic one where the installer will create the necessary partitions (usually /,/var and /home). And the other option is manual where you can decide to partition your hard disk as per your requirement. But either way, it is not possible to dual boot between OSes if you are installing EnGarde on your machine as it wipes out your whole disk. So backup your data before you proceed with your installation - you have been warned. I chose automatic partition option here.
• Decide on the type of hard disk - whether IDE or SCSI.
• Choose the packages - The packages are broadly classified into 6 sections namely Databases, DNS, Firewall, Mail services, Network Intrusion Detection and Web services. I selected all the packages and pressed OK and the installer started copying all the files to the hard disk.
• Next I had to configure the network card and provide information such as the IP address, netmask, the default gateway and the network address.
• Then it prompted me to provide a fully qualified domain name for my machine.
• Lastly I had to enter the IP address of the primary and secondary name server.
  

That was it. EnGarde secure Linux was now fully installed on my machine.

By default around 220 packages are bundled with EnGarde and using the versatile webTool you can also install an additional 300 or so packages all of them cherry picked for use at the server end. EnGarde is available for i686 and x86 64 bit architectures and uses RPM packages managed by apt-get.

Security aspect of EnGarde secure Linux
Engarde implements security by following a number of rules.

1. It locks down the box at the Host level by implementing a number of features such as TCP wrappers, implementing restricted user rights globally and running SELinux policies in enforcing mode.
2. At the network level, EnGarde ships with a plethora of network tools which allow a system administrator to analyse the security level of his machine and take preventive measures. EnGarde ships with a unique webTool through which you can do any and all system administration tasks from a remote location including rebooting or shutting down the server. This means that after installation, you can safely place the server in a locked room and not worry about its physical security.
3. Up to date security patches of software are released on a regular basis (more like every month) enabling system administrators to plug any security holes in the server software they run. This is automated to a certain level via the Guardian Digital Secure Network (GSDN). And you are prompted to register and create a GSDN account (for free) - it is not an option.
   

Webtool in Engarde Secure Linux

At the end of installation, you are notified that the most preferred way of administering the Linux box is via a web browser using the address https://<engarde-linux-ip-address>:1023/.

I initially typed the address but missed the 's' in 'https' and was flummoxed but later figured out my mistake and correctly typed the address. That is right, the web tool is accessed via secure http (using SSL).

You log in to the webTool using two different passwords depending on whether you are using EnGarde as a LiveCD or if you have installed it on a machine.

For LiveCD :
The login name is 'admin' and the password is the root password you set while booting the EnGarde Linux CD.

When Installed :

The login name is 'admin' and the password is "lock&%box". And the first time you log into the admin section, you are confronted with an initial configuration screen.

Here the first thing you are prompted to do is register for a GSDN account which is free. EnGarde Secure Linux makes use of the GSDN account to provide up to date automated security fixes to your server. Then specify (or rather change) the root and webTool password, specify the NTP servers as well as your geographic location and lastly fine tune the services you would require to run on your remote server.

Fig: WebTool main page
More screenshots of webtool interface

The web interface can be viewed in three languages at present namely English, Spanish and Italian with work going on to support more languages.

WebTool is the pivot with which you can effectively administer the system remotely from within a web browser.

I was really amazed at the things you can achieve from within the web tool. For instance, you can manage users, manage database servers, manage the web server (Apache), implement DNS, view all the security logs updated in real time, manage mail servers, enable and disable system level services, enable and configure firewall, even run most of the security tools such as Snort bundled with EnGarde and view their output in the web browser. In short the web tool is a one stop shop for troubleshooting and managing your server from a remote location. A very powerful interface indeed.

I can already see the possibilities where choosing EnGarde Secure Linux at the server end could circumvent some hardware limitations. Here is a scenario - Say you are interested in hosting a website on a VPS (Virtual Private Server) account. Now a days, it is possible to get a VPS account for as low as $7/month. While the price is equivalent to any shared hosting price, there is a catch which is that, at that low price, the memory (RAM) allocated to your virtual machine is not more than 64MB and the % of CPU cycles allocated is also limited. You can't possibly run CPanel or Plex in this account as they require at least 256 MB memory be allocated to your server to function efficiently. Since the webTool is integrated with EnGarde Secure Linux and does not utilize much memory, EnGarde turns out to be a viable alternative solution to an automated server not to speak of the importance it gives to security and performance.

To sum up, I found EnGarde Secure Linux to be a unique blend of a robust Linux server topped up with loads of security features coupled with a very powerful webTool which aids in administering the server remotely, all from within a web browser.

PC-BSD 1.3.4 Review

FreeBSD along with OpenBSD and NetBSD form the triumvirate of BSD operating systems. Traditionally these BSDs are server centric operating systems - ie. those which are tuned to be run on a server rather than to be used by the end user as a desktop. Still, with a bit of tweaking and configuration, all the three of them can be used as viable desktop operating systems.

PC-BSD is a direct descendant of FreeBSD. As the name indicates, PC-BSD is a BSD operating system which lays stress on its use as a Desktop catering to the end users. From the point of its inception, the USP (Unique Selling Point) of PC-BSD has been to make it as easy as possible to install, update and use software, at the same time bringing all the powerful security features and stability of the traditional BSDs. Over one year back, I had reviewed PC-BSD 1.00 and if you have read the review, you would have found that my initial impression of this operating system was very positive. In the succeeding months many changes have taken place for PC-BSD. For one, in October 2006 PC-BSD got acquired by iXsystems which is now in control of the project - though Kris Moore, the founder of PC-BSD is still its project leader and has the final say. Apart from the acquisition, the project has moved quite smoothly.

One of the main changes I can see for PC-BSD 1.3 when compared to ver 1.0 is the drastic enhancement of the graphical installer with a couple of additional options thrown in. For example, at the time of installation, there is an option to encrypt the swap partition, there are options to open or close most popular ports such as the port used by SSH and so on, a choice of enabling or disabling the firewall and with a few clicks you finish installing the OS.

Fig: PC-BSD desktop

The current version of PC-BSD is ver 1.3.4. Some time back, I had downloaded ver 1.3.0 of PC-BSD and had installed it on my machine. The PC-BSD team have made it possible to upgrade the OS to the most recent version - 1.3.4 by downloading and installing a couple of patch files. Thus I had to download and install just over 40 MB of patch files which are made available in PBI format, to upgrade PC-BSD from ver 1.3.0 to 1.3.4. As a matter of fact, you do not even have to download individual files yourself to upgrade the OS. There is a GUI tool called "PC-BSD Online Update" which can be accessed by navigating through KDE Menu -> Settings -> System Administration -> "PC-BSD Online Update", that can be configured to automatically detect if there are updates available and then download and install them for you.

Post Installation scenario

It is really remarkable that the installation of PC-BSD went without any glitch and all the peripherals were detected properly. Sound worked out of the box and in no time, I was face to face with the graphical login screen. PC-BSD is a KDE centric operating system and comes with the latest version of KDE ver 3.5.5 and many useful software installed by default.

Once I logged into PC-BSD, I navigated to the PBI resource web page which contain the latest versions of most popular software such as FireFox 2.0.0.3, OpenOffice.org and so on and started installing those software which I use on a regular basis. As far as PC-BSD is concerned, you do not have to worry about dependencies as each PBI is a stand alone package which contain all the necessary libraries needed to run the program. So FireFox PBI will contain not just the FireFox binary but also dependent libraries as well.

Fig: It is possible to schedule the update of the OS to install security patches.

The PBI (short for PC-BSD Installer) is a GUI installer that is similar to its Windows counterpart, and is coded using Qt. To install a software, just double click on the respective PBI and follow the instructions. You also have the option of cleanly uninstalling the software from within the PC-BSD software manager.

Fig: View and remove the installed PBIs

Essential housekeeping in PC-BSD

One of the first things you should do the first time you boot into PC-BSD is to update the ports and install them. PC-BSD uses the FreeBSD 6.1 ports. And when you install software using the ports, you are essentially installing FreeBSD software. But unlike FreeBSD where you have to dabble with command line to update and install the ports, in PC-BSD, you can do the same using the GUI front-end with the click of a button (See the image below).

Fig: Install ports with the click of a button

Next I had to install the multimedia codecs to enable PC-BSD to play audio and video files in proprietary media formats. As with all Open Source projects, PC-BSD also follows the principle of not shipping the proprietary codecs by default and requires that the end user install them by themselves if they want to. Here is the interesting part. To install the multimedia codecs, all I had to do was to download and install the requisite PBI file from the PBI online repository. And viola!!, I was able to not only play wmv and quick time files but also watch encrypted DVD movies as well.

Fig: Kaffene media player detects all the codecs.

I have an Nvidia graphics card and I wanted PC-BSD to harness the full potential of the graphics card. Usually you can get along very well with the Nvidia open source driver but if you want to use OpenGL programs for instance, you need to install the proprietary driver. In the PBI repository, you will find a number of builds of Nvidia proprietary drivers for PC-BSD and you can choose the best package which works for you.

I found enabling Flash to be a little tricky affair. Mainly because Adobe has not yet released Flash Player ver 9.0 for BSDs. And the native build of Flash player for BSDs is still at ver 7.0. While you can very well install this version of flash player, many flash enabled websites now a days require you to have version 8.0 or above to view them - a big handicap for BSD users. One work around you have for PC-BSD is to install the Linux version of FireFox web browser. You heard me right. It is possible to install most Linux software and run them without any modification in PC-BSD. This is made possible because PC-BSD has a Linux compatible module installed.

I installed the Linux version of the latest build of FireFox from the PBI online repository as well as the Flash player ver 9.0 from here. And I was able to view flash websites without any problem. Of course I encountered a minor glitch in that each time I open two flash based websites simultaneously, Linux version of FireFox crashes. But by and large I was able to manage as long as I had only one flash website open at any given time.

I also downloaded and installed Sun's JDK 1.5 from the PBI online repository.

Is PC-BSD a FreeBSD clone ?

At first glance, one might be tempted to pass off PC-BSD as a clone of FreeBSD with some frills thrown in, as PC-BSD uses the FreeBSD ports. And it is easy to think that if you are installing software using ports, you are essentially getting FreeBSD software. But on close scrutiny, I was able to find notable differences. Some of them are as follows :

• A GUI installer which eases the installation process.
• Use of PBIs to install many software.
• Incorporating OpenBSD's robust and powerful PF firewall instead of the firewall bundled with FreeBSD.
• Many GUI front-ends which aid package management.
• Easily start/stop and enable/disable services via its equivalent GUI.
• Use of blacklist script to automatically ban IP addresses of machines of potential crackers who try to hack into your machine.
  

Suggestions for further improvement of PC-BSD

1. The three BSDs namely FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD have their own independent ports. PC-BSD team could also start maintaining its own independent ports system instead of depending on the FreeBSD ports. One disadvantage of depending on FreeBSD ports is that you have to sometimes wait a long time before the software gets updated in the ports.
   
   Take for instance GnuCash finance software. It is not easy to create a standalone PBI of GnuCash as it has to satisfy a lot of dependencies. And as of now the FreeBSD ports have the older version (1.8) of GnuCash which is markedly different from the latest version of ver 2.0 especially in the file format which the respective versions use to save the data. And the PC-BSD team has to wait until the GnuCash port has been updated to the latest version by the FreeBSD port maintainers. Truth be told, there is a GnuCash 2.0 place holder in the ports I downloaded in PC-BSD but when I give the command :
   

   # make install clean
   
   ===>   gnucash-2.0.5_3 depends on package: guile>=1.6.8_2 - not found
   ===>   Found guile-1.6.8_1, but you need to upgrade to guile>=1.6.8_2.
   *** Error code 1
   
   Stop in /usr/ports/finance/gnucash.
   *** Error code 1
   

   ... it complains that guile package is an older version and GnuCash requires a newer version of the same. These snags could be done away with if PC-BSD maintains its own ports with periodic selective syncing with FreeBSD ports.


2. When a user enters a root password to do system administration tasks using GUI, PC-BSD should offer to remember the root password so that the user does not have to enter it the next time he want to run a program in super user mode. Many Linux distributions such as Debian and Fedora have this feature. At present, if I want to install say 10 PBI's I have to enter the root password 10 times - ie. each time I execute the PBI, it asks for root password which gets really tedious. KDE dialog has a check box which offers to "keep the password" but it doesn't seem to have any effect.
   
   
3. The PBI should have an option to install software system wide or on a per user basis. This suggestion might seem strange but in a multi-user environment, it is not possible to hand over the root password to every one. And if a user wants to try out a software by downloading the PBI, he should be allowed to install it in his home directory if he cannot enter the root password.
   
   
4. The PBI should also support execution from the command line. This is not a must have feature but it can be convenient to execute and install a PBI package in certain situations where you have booted into console mode.
   
   
5. It would be nice to have a GUI front-end which allows a lay person to write custom firewall rules for PF.
   

Epilogue

PC-BSD is turning out to be an excellent alternative to other popular Desktop OSes. After testing and using PC-BSD for some time now, I can't but admire the sheer amount of work that is put into creating, developing and molding an OS for the lay person albeit with a strong slant towards FreeBSD. The fact that PC-BSD is able to accomplish all the tasks expected by an end user - be it using the Internet for communication, listening to music, watching movies or using it for recreation purposes holds it in good stead as a viable Desktop OS.

EnGarde Secure Linux 3.0.14

EnGarde Secure Linux is a Linux distribution developed by Guardian Digital - an open source Internet security company, and is designed with security in mind. Built from grounds-up, this product has been in development since 1999. EnGarde Secure Linux highlights its "Secure by default" tag as the one reason that it should be favored to be used as a Linux server. The developers have considerably reduced its size to include server-only applications and the whole administration of the server from the rebooting to its shutting down as well as configuring and maintaining web servers, database servers and so on can be done remotely from the confines of a web interface.

Guardian Digital has split EnGarde Secure Linux into three branches. Them being

1. The Unstable branch which contain bleeding edge packages and is open only to developers.
2. The community branch which is provided for free and is supported by the open source community. And lastly...
3. The professional branch which is officially supported by Guardian Digital. And which needs to be bought.
   

The main difference between the community branch and the professional branch apart from the fact that one is free and the other is paid version is that Professional branch is much better tested and documented and can avail of the official support of Guardian Digital. Compared to that, the community branch will have to rely on the mailing list for support.

Features of EnGarde Secure Linux are many and are as follows (as quoted from their website) :

• Linux 2.6 kernel for the latest hardware compatibility
• SELinux Mandatory Access Control provides high security by strictly enforcing service separation at the kernel level
• Guardian Digital Secure Network features free access to all system and security updates and allows for quick and easy updating of the entire server
• Broad support for server hardware, including 64-bit AMD architecture and hardware RAID
• Web-based management of all functions, including the ability to build a complete web presence with FTP, DNS, HTTP, SMTP and more
• Secure up-to-date LAMP stack serves virtual websites with Apache v2.0, MySQL 5.0, and PHP 4.4 (PHP 5.0 available as an optional package)
• Latest BIND 9.3 provides secure DNS services
• Completely new WebTool, featuring easier navigation and greater ability to manage the complete system via a secure web browser connection
• RSS feed provides ability to display current news and immediate access to system and security updates
• Integrated firewall with ability to manage individual firewall rules, control port forwarding, and creation of IP blacklists
• Commercial grade Network Intrusion Detection System displays and graphs incoming attacks in real time
• Built-in Host IDS monitors system files for unauthorized changes to ensure system integrity
• Built-in UPS configuration provides ability to manage an entire network of battery-backup devices
• Real-time access to system and service log information
  

Ryan Berens who is an open source advocate at Guardian Digital tells me that EnGarde Secure Linux is a fully functional platform distribution that focuses on integrated security and ease of management. EnGarde Secure Linux has also been released by Guardian Digital as a Live CD so that it can be taken for a test drive without installing on ones machine.

Review of Sun Solaris 10

For some time now, I have been tinkering with Solaris 10; the robust Unix from Sun Microsystems. In the past, I have posted news of the free Solaris media kit and its pictures as well as published news of Open Solaris starter kit give away.

With Sun releasing Solaris source code under the CDDL license and naming it Open Solaris, a number of clones of Solaris have cropped up in the past two years or so, such as Nexenta, Belenix and SchilliX. But Sun also provides Solaris in the form of Solaris Express incorporating the latest advances. And Solaris Express acts as a sand box with many new features eventually make their way into Solaris OS after a period of incubation.

Even though Solaris was originally designed for SPARC (Scalable Processor Architecture) hardware, it also supports Intel platforms. This has thrown open the doors for the hordes of Solaris enthusiasts who couldn't afford a SPARC based computer, to install Solaris on their PC and take it for a run.

Once you get hold of the CD/DVD containing Solaris 10, the next step is to install it. Installing Solaris from CD/DVD is a very simple and straight forward process. As long as you have a minimum of 256 MB RAM, you can go ahead with installing it. But any less memory means you will have to upgrade your PC memory before you can start installing Solaris.

I did not encounter any problems at the time of installation. And in no time, I was able to install Solaris and boot into it. Solaris 10 bundles with it mainly two desktops - them being Common Desktop Environment (CDE) and the Java Desktop System which is actually the Gnome desktop built on top of the Java framework.

Fig: CDE Panel - can be iconized

Fig: Java Desktop System Menu

Those who are coming from a KDE/Gnome/Windows background might initially be put off by the CDE. But after working in it for some time, I found the CDE to be a very functional desktop. To put it succinctly, it has some elements of the AfterStep window manager in GNU/Linux with lots of additional useful features.

In CDE, each component including the Panel can be minimized to the Desktop and all minimized applications are neatly arranged as icons on the Desktop. CDE also saves the state of a running application when you log out. And when you log back in, the application is automatically opened and displayed in its previous position.

Sun provides each Solaris user a choice of subscribing to the Sun Connection. It is a paid subscription and once you join it, you can use the Sun update manager to provide you suggestions, automatically manage updates, prioritize and keep a history of updates. OR you can also choose to apply the updates manually without any assistance. You can also download the latest patches and driver updates at sunsolve.sun.com.

Solaris Management Console 2.11

Considering that Java language is being developed by Sun, it is no surprise that it plays a very important role in Solaris. For instance, to do system administration tasks, Solaris has an all-in-one GUI toolkit in Solaris Management Console which has been developed using Java.

While it is also possible to use commands to achieve system and network administration tasks, SMC happens to be the preferred way. Here you can know about the status of your system such as your system information, processes running, logs, performance and so on. More over, it contains options to do almost all system administration tasks such as managing users, system configuration, managing services, storage, devices and hardware.

Solaris Management Console uses the concept of a toolbox to provide a view of various system administration tools or applications within a common user interface. It has three components namely :

1. SMC client called the console
2. SMC server
3. SMC console toolbox editor
   

To start the SMC toolbox editor or the SMC client, you run the following command :

$ /usr/sadm/bin/smc

As you can see, you need not be logged in as root to open the SMC. But to view all tools, it asks for authorization.

Similarly to check the status of the SMC server, you run the following command as root :

# /etc/init.d/init.wbem status

Suppose I want to mount a disk partition in Solaris. It is a piece of cake and is as simple as opening up SMC, then navigating to Storage -> Mounts and shares -> Mounts. Here select from the menu, Actions -> Add NFS mount. And follow the instructions. Similarly there are tools to create and manage RAID volumes.

Fig: System Management Console

While the number of software bundled with Solaris 10 is no where near that offered by GNU/Linux such as Debian, it does come with a useful set of programs such as the text editor, music player, web browser and so on which makes it a practical solution as a Desktop OS.

To spell out some of the unique software Sun bundles with Solaris 10, you get the advanced StarOffice productivity suite which is build upon Open Office.org, a card game called JSpider developed using Java, a Java based media player, a disk analyser 'JDiskReport' which is a free graphical disk report utility; also developed using Java. JDiskReport enables you to visually understand how much space the directories and files consume on your disk drives.

Fig: A diagramming software

Fig: Get a graphical view of the disk space occupied by your files.

Solaris also has support for popular browser plugins for Java, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Realplayer and Flash player (ver 7.0). You can download the plugins here.

Apart from the software bundled with the official Solaris CDs/DVD, Sun also makes available a collection of GPLed software compiled to be run in Solaris, which you can download from the Sun Freeware webpage.

One thing which I found really strange was the fact that Solaris comes with Mozilla ver 1.7 web browser and not Firefox. So if you are too attached to using Firefox, you are out of luck, unless you succeed in compiling Firefox from source.

Another aspect of Solaris that is really endearing is the excellent set of online documentation which has been made available by Sun. In fact I do not know of any Linux distribution which has even half the quantity of documentation as that made available by Sun Microsystems for Solaris. The Solaris documentation is available at docs.sun.com where each and every technical aspect of Solaris is covered. You can also download whole sets of documentation and guides in PDF format for offline use too. This could be a reason why there are not that many Solaris textbooks in print as you find on GNU/Linux.

Even though Solaris has not attracted the same level of evangelism as Linux has succeeded to attract, it does not have any dearth of followers. There are a large number of websites which cater to providing Solaris specific packages of a variety of software not officially made available by Sun Microsystems. The notable among them being the following :

Blastwave.org - This is a website which provides a slew of GPLed packages for Solaris. The USP of this website is that it provides an easy way of installing its packages on Solaris - some what similar to the apt-get method used in Debian Linux. The script pkg-get that they provide automatically does dependency checking and installs the latest packages that you require. I was really surprised to find GNUCash ver 2.0 among the packages that they offer - some thing which I haven't yet been able to get for Slackware.

SunFreeware.com - This is another humongous (Should I say the largest?) unofficial repository available for Solaris specific packages. And this site is very popular among the Solaris users and administrators alike.

While reviewing Belenix, I had noted the advantages Solaris has over GNU/Linux. Apart from what I had listed, Solaris also has a new advantage which is the "Secure by default" tag that Sun has provided it. The latest version of Solaris comes with all the ports closed by default.

I believe this is an operating system which holds a lot of promise as a Desktop OS. And if the people steering Sun Microsystems take the right decisions (hint: GPL ???), it just might take the fancy of a large section of IT savvy public, enough to motivate many of them to start developing Free software for Solaris.

OpenSuSE 10.2 Review

When you ask someone to name a couple of GNU/Linux distributions, in most cases, you will hear the names Debian, Red Hat, Ubuntu and then, SuSE Linux which is now a days known as OpenSuSE.

The reason is that apart from it being one of the oldest Linux distributions around, it has made a name as a distribution which is robust, secure and user friendly. Originally SuSE Linux was owned by a German company by the same name. But in January 2004, it was acquired by Novell which continued to further develop and fine tune it and include more SuSE specific features to it. The end result is a distribution which has grown to have its own unique identity. OpenSuSE is a community program sponsored by Novell and is developed in an open model.

One of the foremost reason to consider OpenSuSE Linux as a very popular Linux distribution is the mere fact that in the past couple of months, it has risen from the bottom of the heap to enjoy second place, just below Ubuntu Linux, in the Distrowatch most popular Linux distributions list.

This rise in popularity is not incidental. Rather it highlights the quality of this very fine distribution.

A couple of months back, I chanced upon a DVD of OpenSuSE 10.2. While in the past, I have installed a plethora of GNU/Linux distributions, this was the first time I happened to lay my hands on SuSE Linux distribution. And to tell you the short story, I was virtually blown away with its ease of installation and use. While the partition manager embedded in the SuSE installer is not as graphical as that found in Fedora installer, in all other respects it is very functional and intuitive. One thing worth noting is that OpenSuSE comes with flash player (albeit ver 7.0) and Sun Microsystems Java 1.5 runtime environment bundled with it by default and at the time of installation you have to agree to the license requirements of the respective software.

Fig: Redesigned Gnome Menu

The minimum specification for installing OpenSuSE Linux is a Pentium class processor, at least 256 MB RAM and plenty of disk space. The OpenSuSE installer detected all the devices attached to my machine without any problem. While it is pretty bleak to see a Linux distribution not detect any particular device barring wireless devices or internal modems, you can make sure that your laptop/desktop is supported by OpenSuSE by checking their hardware compatibility list (HCL). Once I finished installing the distribution and booted into it, I came face to face with a clean Gnome desktop. What is unique about the OpenSuSE Gnome desktop is that it includes a redesigned menu different from what you will find in the default Gnome setup. More over, the search is integrated in the menu with Beagle search playing a very important role in providing real time search. This is not surprising as projects such as Beagle search and Tomboy are developed by Novell engineers and is based on Mono language; which is also the initiative of Novell.

There is a central place called the "Control center" which can be accessed by clicking on the start bar (named "Computer" in OpenSuSE Gnome Desktop) and then clicking the "Control center" in the menu. Here all the applications are categorized by type or functionality which in my opinion makes it easy to navigate. Though the menu in the Panel of KDE is also redesigned, I found the Gnome menu much more pleasant to use than that found in KDE. But in KDE, there is an option to switch to the classic view which can be done by right clicking on the menu button and choosing "classic view". I couldn't find a similar method to switch in Gnome though.

Fig: Control center

By default OpenSuSE provides KDE and Gnome and you have to choose one over the other at the time of installation. But if you select a custom setup , then you can easily install packages specific to other window managers and desktops.

Over a period of time, Novell has also built a massive collection of documentation, tips, faqs and howtos related to accomplishing tasks in OpenSuSE which can be viewed here.

OpenSuSE Linux uses the RPM format to distribute its packages. And there are more than one ways of installing packages. But the most popular form of installing software in OpenSuSE is using YaST which does a good job of automatically checking for any dependencies.

A brief introduction to YaST

YaST is a unique tool found in OpenSuSE which allows one to do all the system administration tasks from within its GUI interface which includes package management, managing users, configuring firewall, configuring devices and almost all the other system maintenance and network administration tasks you could think of. It can also be used from the command line. YaST2 comes with three front-ends. GTK, QT and ncurses. And you can start the "YaST control center" using the command yast2. The correct front-end is automatically selected based on the available components and the current environment.

YaST supports the following modules to load the requisite GUI front-end. They are as follows :

answering_machine,  bootloader,  ca_mgm,  dhcp-server, dns, dns-server,fax, firewall,
groups, host, http-server,  idedma,  inetd,  irda,  kerberos-client,   keyboard,   lan,
language,  ldap,  mail,  mouse,  nfs, nfs_server, nis, nis_server, ntp-client, power-management,
powertweak, printer,  profile-manager,  proxy,  remote,  routing,  runlevel, samba-client,
samba-server, security, sound,  sysconfig,  tftp-server,  timezone, tv, users.

Here is how yast2 can be used from the command line.

To load the interface of a specific module you use the following syntax :

# yast2 <module name>

For example, if I want to add more users to the system, I can use the following command :

# yast2  users

... which will load the GUI front-end for adding users. For starting the power management utility, run the yast2 command as follows:

# yast2 power-management

.., and so on. You can also start YaST in interactive mode by passing it the phrase 'interactive'. For example, when you use the command :

# yast2 users interactive
YaST2 users> help

OpenSuSE will place you in the 'YaST users' interactive shell where you can run commands to add, remove or modify user data. After you are done, you can press 'exit' or 'abort' to come out of the shell.

AppArmor - OpenSuSE's unique security feature

While other main stream Linux distributions such as Red Hat and Debian have beefed up their defenses by incorporating SELinux into their structure, OpenSuSE has traveled a different path. Instead of SELinux, it comes bundled with its own security framework tool called AppArmor.

Novell claims AppArmor is equally robust and provides similar application level access controls with the exception that it is much more easier to configure and maintain than SELinux. The apparmor profile used by default makes OpenSuSE very secure. You can read more about Apparmor here.

Pros of OpenSuSE 10.2

• Robust and secure GNU/Linux distribution
• A good collection of software including easy availability of proprietary ones packaged in the SuSE RPM format. For instance, you can easily install proprietary Nvidia graphics drivers using YaST.
• Excellent GUI front-ends for almost all system and network administration tasks.
• Has incorporated some cutting edge features in Gnome and KDE desktop such as the redesigned Panel Menu.
• Good all round integration of Beagle search.
• Bundles with it Flash player and Sun's JDK 1.5 by default.
• Has an easy graphical method to enable/disable XGL if you like special effects on your desktop.
  

Cons of OpenSuSE 10.2

• To put it lightly, I found OpenSuSE 10.2 to be a memory hog. On my machine with 640 MB RAM, it was sufficiently slow. I attribute it to the number of services running on OpenSuSE by default.
• With the recent cloud formed over Novell striking a deal with Microsoft, many in the open source and Free software community are concerned about the direction in which Novell is going to steer SuSE in the future. There are also aspersions cast on whether this fine GNU/Linux distribution will remain Free at all.

A brief look at Slackware 11.0

When you hear the name Slackware, you are at once transported to a world where Linux users feel more at home in setting the configurations by editing ordinary text files. In fact the credo of Slackware is to keep it as simple as possible. In popular speak, it is known by the acronym KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). When I use the word simple, I mean simple in relation to a person who is already well versed in the use of Linux. So you won't find any Slackware specific memory hogging GUI front-ends to set up simple day to day configuration parameters. Apart from the ones provided by KDE - the default desktop of Slackware, you will not find any GUI helper apps as are common in other popular Linux distributions.

Another aspect of Slackware which has amazed me is that the whole project is the outcome of the efforts of one person - Patrick Volkerding. He has designed Slackware around the idea that the system should be a complete installation kept updated with any official patches. I couldn't help thinking that perhaps Patrick had been an avid user of one of the BSDs before he started the Slackware project and had been swayed enough to make Slackware as similar to the BSD which also consider the kernel together with the tools bundled with it as a single entity.

The latest version of Slackware is ver 11.0 which was released a couple of weeks back. Blame it on my internet connection, but in the past, I have had difficulties in downloading the ISOs of Slackware but this time round, I was successful in downloading and burning Slackware 11.0 on to the CDs. The whole Slackware distribution will fit into 3 CDs. If you do not care about X, then you can easily manage with just the first CD which contain a collection of Linux kernels and all the command line tools. But if you want to install KDE, you will need the second one. The third CD contain miscellaneous packages such as the language packs. It is prudent to download all the three CDs even though the installer bundled with Slackware will allow you to pick and choose between packages.

And while talking about the installer, Slackware comes bundled with a text based installer which is very similar to that found in FreeBSD. That means, you have a master menu which contain sub-menus to execute different functions. Such as a menu for partitioning the hard disk, a menu to format the disk, one for setting up and turning on swap, one to start the copying of packages to the hard disk and so on. And once all the tasks are completed, you are placed back into the master menu. The whole process is quite intuitive for anybody who has prior experience in installing an OS using a text installer. Of course unlike other Linux distributions, when you boot the computer using the first CD, you are put into a root shell and you have to type the command 'setup' to initiate the Slackware installation process.

I chose the full install since I had with me all the 3 CDs and within a little time all the packages were installed on one of the partitions on my machine which took around 4.0 GB space. Oh yeah, Slackware still bundles with it the LILO boot loader when most Linux distributions have graduated to the more user friendly Grub. Since I already had Grub installed in the MBR on my machine, I chose to edit the grub menu to include Slackware instead. During the installation, Slackware correctly detected the Windows NTFS and Fat32 partitions on my drive and prompted me for the path where I wanted it to be mounted.

The default kernel in Slackware is still the battle worn time tested 2.4 series (2.4.33.3) but you can also opt for the latest 2.6 (2.6.17.13) version of kernel at the time of installation by entering the command 'huge26.s' at the boot prompt.

As far as window managers are concerned, Slackware bundles with it a total of seven window managers which includes KDE 3.5.4, Xfce 4.2.3.2, Fluxbox, Blackbox, WindowMaker, Fvwm2 and Twm. But if you are a die hard Gnome user, then you will be disappointed though because Pat has long since discarded Gnome for its perceived difficulty in maintenance.

Slackware follows the BSD style init scripts

One note worthy fact about Slackware is its adoption of the BSD style init scripts over the System V init scripts more commonly embraced by the rest of the Linux distributions. What it translates for the Slackware user is simplicity in enabling and disabling services. You do not have to dirty your hands by changing the sym-links as you do in System V init scripts.

For example, say I want to enable the firewall in Slackware when it is booting up. All I have to do is move to the /etc/rc.d/ directory and set the executable bit of the file rc.firewall. And the next time Slackware boots up it will have the firewall up and running. On a similar note if you want to disable the firewall, then just unset the executable bit of the file rc.firewall. But that is not all. The contents of the rc.firewall file are in the same format as the iptables rules you enter in the command line which makes it quite easy to maintain in the long run. There is no iptables-save or iptables-restore for you.

Similarly for loading any extra drivers in the Linux kernel, you enter the module name in the liberally commented rc.modules file. For each service that is available in the system, there is a corresponding rc.<servicename> bash script in the /etc/rc.d/ directory and depending upon whether the executable bits are set or unset, Slackware chooses to start/stop the service during system startup.

Useful configuration scripts in Slackware

Earlier I had mentioned the obvious lack of any Slackware specific GUI front-ends. Well, it was more of a white lie ;-). Even though there are no GUI front-ends for configuration, there are a collection of curses based programs (scripts) which you can use to set up and configure a variety of features in Slackware including setting up networking. Some of them that I am aware of are as follows:

• netconfig - A menu based program that will help in configuring your network.
• pppsetup - A menu based program that helps in connecting to the Internet via a dial up modem.
• xwmconfig - Choose your default window manager.
• liloconfig - Setup and install LiLO to the boot drive.
• xorgcfg - Setup the configuration for X Windows. It will automatically generate the xorg.conf file which is saved in the /etc/X11/ directory.
• alsaconf - Automatically detects the sound cards and configures the sound.
  

More over, Slackware specific tools like Swaret, Slapt-get - a clone of apt-get and Slackupdate make it easy to keep the system updated with the latest security patches or even upgrade the entire system to a new version.

I have been using Slackware for a couple of weeks now and I am definitely impressed with the ease with which you can configure it. And I have started to really like this distribution. I did face some issues once I finished installing Slackware. Like I had to modify the xorg.conf file to get my mouse wheel to work also I had to run alsaconf to get sound to work properly. But nothing serious which warranted any drastic action.

Even though Slackware does not bundle Gnome with it, there is a separate project called Dropline Gnome which provide Slackware specific packages of the latest version of Gnome. Another site which caters to the Slackware crowd is linuxpackages.net which is a repository of Slackware packages.

Slackware is one of the oldest Linux distributions out there. And over the years, it has consistently kept pace with the changes. All the software bundled with Slackware 11.0 is the latest version - for instance Vim 7.0 is included, so is Firefox 1.5.0.7. And this is a remarkable feat since it is a project borne off the efforts of one man - Patrick Volkerding.

A concise guide to installing and using FreeDOS ver 1.0 in GNU/Linux

I have always looked at the DOS operating system with some nostalgia. At a time when networking as you see now was confined to some labs or universities in the US, and one had to put up exclusively with floppies to transfer data from one computer to another, DOS was a big player atleast on the home front. I have fond memories of playing games such as pacman, Dig Dug, galaga, ..... on Dos.

I clearly remember the Win 3.1 operating system which was entirely built on top of MS-DOS. But when networking between computers became more common, Dos (or MS-DOS as it was known) started revealing its shortcomings as it is not a network operating system and was designed to be run on standalone machines. More over it did not have true multi-tasking, multi-user functionality. Recognizing these drawbacks, Microsoft decided to move on and built the Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP OSes and gradually shifted base from a DOS based kernel to an entirely new network operating system as you see in Windows 2000/XP.

FreeDOS is a project which aims to recreate the magic of DOS and bring a truly free GPLed DOS encompassing all the characteristics of MS-DOS with lots of improvements thrown in. A couple of weeks back, FreeDOS developers released ver 1.0 of their OS. I downloaded the full CD ISO of FreeDOS from their website which was around 153 MB in size.

Since I have been using Linux as my operating system, I decided to install and use FreeDOS inside Linux by means of an emulator. In the past, I have used Qemu to run Damn Small Linux on my Ubuntu machine. And I was pleased with its performance. So I decided to use Qemu to run FreeDOS as well.

Qemu is an emulator which can be used to run a variety of OSes inside a host OS. It is well supported on the Linux platform with ports available for Windows and Mac OSX. Since Qemu is not installed by default on my Ubuntu machine, I had to install it first using the following command:

$ sudo apt-get install qemu

Once qemu was installed, I created a directory named freedos in the /opt/ path and moved the downloaded FreeDOS ISO file into it.

$ mkdir /opt/freedos
$ cp fdfullcd.iso /opt/freedos/.

Preparing an image to hold the FreeDOS

In Linux, everything is considered a file. So the hard disk, the monitor, the keyboard, mice are all recognised as files by the OS. By the same logic, it is possible to install programs and entire OSes into a file, the only requirement being the file should be large enough to store what ever is intended to be stored in it.

My intention was to install FreeDOS into a file and boot it using QEMU. I roughly estimated that 400 MB space is ample for installing and working in FreeDOS and so created a raw file named freedosfile.img roughly of size 400 MB using the dd command as follows:

$ cd /opt/freedos
$ dd if=/dev/zero of=freedosfile.img bs=1024 count=400000
400000+0 records in
400000+0 records out
409600000 bytes (410 MB) copied, 18.9476 seconds, 21.6 MB/s

Now a long listing of the directory /opt/freedos gave the following output:

$ ls -l /opt/freedos
-rw-r--r-- 1 ravi ravi 160184320 2006-09-05 02:11 fdfullcd.iso
-rw-r--r-- 1 ravi ravi 409600000 2006-09-12 10:38 freedosfile.img

Installation of FreeDOS
To initiate the installation of FreeDOS, I used the following command:

$ qemu -cdrom fdfullcd.iso -hda freedosfile.img -boot d

In the above command, -cdrom flag points to the ISO image of FreeDOS, -hda option denotes the hard disk to which I passed the name of the just created image (400MB) and finally -boot flag takes different options one of which 'd' denotes to boot from the CD-ROM.

Fig: FreeDOS installation boot screen

Fig: Another installation screenshot

I was shortly presented with a beautiful splash screen featuring the FreeDOS mascot - 'Fd Fish', and I was provided a menu which among other options prompted me to boot from the CD-ROM. I pressed enter and I was provided a second menu which gave me options to initiate the FreeDOS installation or boot the live CD. At this stage if you are in two minds about installing FreeDOS, you can continue booting from the CD and in a few seconds will be placed in a FreeDOS shell. But since my intention was to install the OS, I chose the first option which is to install to hard disk using freedos setup.

Without going into undue details, let me give a run down of the installation process:

Installation steps for FreeDOS

• Select your language and keyboard layout.
• Prepare the hard disk for FreeDOS 1.0 final by running XFDISK. You can also create a floppy boot disk at this juncture.
  Since the hard disk that freedos recognises is actually a file freedosfile.img which I passed via the command line, I chose to create a single primary partition encompassing the whole file (disk). Once the partition was created, pressing F3 wrote the changes and prompted me to restart the computer - which of course is the emulator Qemu. The right thing to do here is to press Yes and the same boot process takes place as earlier and in a short time I was provided with a menu prompt asking to format the hard disk (the file) with fat32 file system.
• Next the installer prompts to continue with the installation which includes :
  - agreeing to an end user licence (GPL)
  - installing the packages. Here I had the option of providing an alternate path to install, the default path being 'C:\fdos'.
  

The FreeDOS OS is split into 10 packages each pertaining to a particular aspect of the OS. They are as follows:

1. base - Essential DOS utilities which reproduce the functionality of MS-DOS
2. compress - Free file compression and decompression utilities (7zip, arj, bzip2, cabextract, gzip, tar, zoo ...)
3. driver - Free drivers for network cards and usb
4. edit - A collection of editors (emacs, vim, pg, setedit, ospedit)
5. games - A good choice of free DOS games - Doom, Solitare, BumpNJump, nethack, tetris...
6. gui - Gem Desktop (Very nice)
7. lang - Free compilers and assemblers (Pascal,C,Basic,assembler,Fortran, debuggers,make tool...)
8. media - Free multimedia applications (cdrtools, ogg vorbis, mpxplay,lame ...)
9. net - Networking programs (wget, VNC, SSH client, lynx, arachne, mail client, wattcp - a free TCP/IP stack for DOS).
10. util - Free file, directory and other utilities (fprot anti virus, locate, head, du, cal, dos32ax, tail, tee, 4dos, uptime ...)
    

It is prudent to select all the packages to enjoy the full functionality of FreeDOS. Next I was provided a list of programs from each package where I could fine tune my choice of programs. More specifically, FreeDOS ships with two kernels - the stable one called 'sysx' and the unstable kernel named 'unstablx' and I could choose one from the other. The unstable kernel has support for Enhanced Mode Win3.1 and some DOS programs require this to work properly. So I selected the unstable kernel and the copying of files started.

All in all, it took about 15-20 minutes to install all the packages. Then FreeDOS started configuring the parameters. And I was prompted to choose a packet driver. There is a packet driver for Qemu provided which I selected . Following which I was prompted to install the OpenGEM GUI.

Post installation, FreeDOS starts configuring certain aspects and asks a couple of questions such as the address of the mailserver, the email id and a few other parameters.

Starting to use FreeDOS in GNU/Linux

Once installation was over, I booted FreeDOS in GNU/Linux using the following command:

$ qemu -hda freedosfile.img -boot c

... and shortly I was placed into the C:\> prompt. I would like to clarify that the above command will not start FreeDOS with networking enabled. For that, I had to put in some extra efforts and configure a tun-tap device, the steps of which are the topic for a separate article.

And yes, to have access to the floppy drive from within FreeDOS, I used the command as follows:

$ qemu -hda freedosfile.img -fda /dev/fd0 -boot c

What I like most about FreeDOS is the number of additional commands which have been included in it apart from the basic ones that were originally available in DOS. Linux users will be endeared to find tools such as head, tail, cal, ls, tar, gzip, bzip2, lynx, wget and many more ported to FreeDOS. Not only that FreeDOS comes bundled with a utility called 4Dos which adds many additional features to the bland Dos shell such as command line history, command completion and so on. Gem Desktop is a real beauty and will bring some relief to the GUI fanatics among us.

Fig: Mine game in progress

Fig: Open Gem Desktop

While on the topic of applications bundled with FreeDOS, a special mention needs to be made about Arachne web browser. This is (in my knowledge) the one and only web browser developed for DOS which is capable of displaying both text as well as images. It also extends as a desktop and allows one to access the files on the hard disk. It supports most protocols supported by any modern web browser which includes http, ftp, irc, smtp, pop3, finger, gopher, find ....and so on (see the image below).

Fig: Arachne Web Browser

What is the motive for running FreeDOS when you have Linux ?

Now this is a question which most Linux users will ponder when faced with deciding to try out FreeDOS. The number one reason for using FreeDOS in my opinion is the enormous collection of applications available which run on DOS - many of them which were shareware at one point of time, now having been released as freeware. I still find small businesses running point-of-sale billing applications written in Foxpro using a low end 486 machine running MS-DOS. And these machines are prime candidates for running FreeDOS. Then there are the horde of classic games which have no other equivalents found in any other operating systems. These reasons alone should be sufficient to persuade a person in installing and trying out FreeDOS on his machine. And installing and running it using Qemu makes it possible to, figuratively speaking, have the cake and eat it too.