[ilug-goa] LINK: Hyderabad team building easy to use operating system

[FREDERICK NORONHA <fred@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hyderabad team building easy to use operating system

Bangalore, Mar 22 - Take the operating simplicity of Windows, build into it
the robustness of Linux. Make it a low-cost product and remove the security
loopholes that the operating system (OS) of most computers currently
suffers from.

What you're left with is the dream of a young team of software developers
working from Hyderabad. They're confident that the product under completion
with them will offer the usability of Windows together with the advantages
of the superior but more difficult to use Linux operating system.

Called Aryan Linux (www.aryanlinux.com), the firm says its goal is nearly
accomplished -- to create a true end-to-end flavor of Linux meant specially
for the desktop user, or the millions of non-technical end-users of computers.

"Other companies usually take full-blown distros (distributions) of Linux,
rip it off and add some applications. We've only taken the raw kernel and
taken the best of everything available to give the Indian user something
really useful in Linux," Aryan Linux's system architect Abhishek Datt told
India Abroad News Service here.

Linux, which is also called GNU-Linux, is a computer operating system put
together largely by thousands of volunteers across the globe. It is a
"free" operating system. Its license requires the source code to be
available without restrictions on use or requiring royalties. Linux can be
downloaded free of charge from the Web. Most commercial users obtain Linux
for a small fee from a distributor who provides support and services.

What would make this Indian distribution, different? "We've gone about it
in a little different way. We've studied the ergonomic way of how a typical
desktop user uses his machine. We don't want to have an average Windows
user (who's keen to shift over to Linux because of its many advantages) to
have to unlearn Windows 95 and learn Linux," said Datt.

So, the focus of their work was providing a helpful installation and a
useful selection of applications, said the Aryan Linux team. "We want to
make life easy for the newbie (who wants to shift over to Linux)," said
systems architect G. Narsimha Rao.

Because of the growing publicity that Linux is drawing, a large number of
computer users, including in India, are keen to try it out or shift over to
it. "The average computer user is not too worried about whether what he is
using is Windows 95 or Linux. What he wants primarily is to have a
productive computer that does the work he requires," added Rao.

"One of our dreams is to have three different types of desktops for three
types of users -- home users, office users and children," said Datt. "We
have lots of plans, but limited manpower," he added.

They concede that they've not done much work on regional language
development, something seen as critical to boost the use of Linux (and
computing in general) in a country like India. "But we don't want to create
these things in a patchy manner," said Datt.

Both these men from Hyderabad, still in their twenties, emerged from a
group of young Linux enthusiasts from the city of the Charminar. They had a
user group called LBUG, which later became LBUG Labs.

--India Abroad News Service