January 2003

A very interesting article on washingtonpost.com outlines how the Extremadura region of Spain is converting from Windows to Linux.. It’s a government sponsored campaign with the goal of converting more than 100,000 desktops in the next year.

In Extremadura, the regional government paid a local company $180,000 to cobble together a set of freely available software. The resulting disk contains a suite of programs that includes an operating system, word processor, spreadsheet and other applications. The government also invested in a development center that is creating customized software for accounting, tracking hospital patients and crop-yield management that the agency will distribute free to citizens.

So far, the government has produced 150,000 discs with the software, and it is distributing them in schools, electronics stores, community centers and as inserts in newspapers. It has even taken out TV commercials about the benefits of free software.

The article notes briefly that the conversion represents a “low-cost way to bring technology to the masses in the impoverished region.” Forget all the Microsoft-funded studies on TCO – this is Linux changing lives by reducing costs in a very real way.

It says here that Linux is challenging Windows for the desktop. Says so on all seven of my machines, too.

As far as I can tell, the install recovered nicely. I have a working KDE desktop that I’m configuraing now. Actually, I killed the install using Ctrl+C, shut down, and picked it back up several times when the CD-ROM refused to read. When everything appeared to have installed, I ran apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade. I also had to run dplg –configure -a. I’m not sure at this point which packages may have been dropped or lost in the process. I’ll poke around a bit more and let you know.

All in all, short of CD-ROM failure, this was a pretty easy install.

Next up in the Libranet is root setup. Again, the text-based screens for setting up the root user are very easy to use. Actually, they’re quicker and easier than a GUI tool for the same task. Root setup is quickly followed by setup of the normal user, and we’re off and running on the package selection.

The package selection in Libranet is interesting. Packages are divided by types, as with other Linux distros. However, there’s no option to select apps from within each package type. In other words, if you select print tools, it appears you’ll get them all. This is a bit antithetical to the Debian approach, but it does make some sense if you’re aiming the distro at newer users. The package groups are selected by arrowing up or down to highlight the group, then pressing the space bar to select or deselect. As is the norm on my minimal test machine, I went with a minimal install, deslecting audio, graphics and printing tools among others.

The install started just fine, but it looks like the CD-ROM is failing again. Maybe we’ll get to test Libranet’s powers of recovery …

I’m running a Libranet install this afternoon, in preparation for review in Penguin Shell starting Wednesday. I’ve had a bit of recurring trouble with the CD-ROM drive on Cerebrum this afternoon, but have managed to finally get to a boot screen for the install.

Libranet is based on Debian. I’ve reviewed an earlier version of Libranet and liked the distribution quite a lot. It seems to nicely bridge the gap between Debian and more conusmer-oriented distros, featuring an easy text-based installer and all the well-known Deb tools, such as apt-get.

The installer for Libranet 2.7 is still text based. The first item is a brief description of how to navigate in the text installer, followed by keyboard configuration. Next is a screen detailing the hard drive preparation options: Automatic partitioning and layout, using the entire hard drive for Libranet; Automatic layout, for use on a drive that already contains a Linux installation; Expert, using fdisk and other tools.

I selected the Expert option and was able to quickly set up /, /boot, swap, and /home simply by using the up and down arrows. It looks like there’s no real knowledge of fdisk or the other tools necessary. I selected ReiserFS for the filesystem. Less than 30 seconds after writing the partition table, the drive layout was complete.

The system then mounts the CD-ROM and automatically installs the base system. I think this is a more sound approach than I saw with Slackware in the last install. Slack only noted the items that are requried in the install, but didn’t install them until the user started tye full install. In other words, Libranet breaks out the installation of the base system and the kernel from the installation of the other apps.

Next is an option to allow Libranet to handle the boot chores. When asked if I wanted to let Libranet handle booting, I selected yes and the bootloader was installed. I didn’t get a choice of bootloaders, so we’ll have to see which is the default in Libranet.

Setting the time zone is next. It’s done via the familiar text selection box. Once again, it’s quick and easy.

Next up is the creation of a boot disk. I always write a boot disk, just in case …

After boot disk creation, the system needs to reboot into the base Libranet system. I’ll post this chapter, and be back in a bit.

This looks promising. It’s the most sweeping commutation of dealth penalty sentences since the US Supreme Court overturned the death penalty in 1972.

Given the Illinois record on death penalty convictions, Governor Ryan’s moratorium was a smart and compassionate move. In the wake of the moratorium, even more problems with Illinois’ death penalty system have been uncovered. This commutation adjusts the sentences of those on Illinois’ death row to life without parole. They won’t die at the hands of the state. Nor will they see life outside prison walls.

I can’t justify taking a life, ever. Capital punishment is a dangerous form of justice that, in many cases, offers no justice at all. The dismal Illinois captial punishment record proves it.

Governor Ryan’s actions are even more important given that he’s a Republican. His issuance of the moratorium and, now, commutation of all death sentences in Illinois is politically analogous to Nixon embracing China. Nixon reviled China and its communist system through most of his political career. In effect, that attutude made him the perfect person to open dialog with the Chiese government. When the loudest detractor became a supporter, the mainstream Republican faithful followed. A liberal Democrat simply couldn’t have effected the change. Perhaps the fact that Governor Ryan has, in the past, been such a strong proponent of the death penalty will move the mainstream of his party in a similar fashion.