Saturday, March 17, 2007

Finally an Indian Linux - BOSS

Its not the first Linux distro to bring Indian Languages support. The first succsssfull distro was Indlinux. However, BOSS Linux is the first integrated and extremly usable Indian language distribution.
Here is my experiences with BOSS Linux Tarang.
Tarang impresses from the word go. First this appears a very well designed website offering easy and intutive navigation.
BOSS is "Made specifically for the Indian environment , it consists of a pleasing Desktop environment coupled with Indian language support and other packages that are most relevant for use in the government domain".
As it is supposed to be used in government offices, it packages almost all the essential softwares required for normal office and home usage.
To list a few
1) Firefox with Indic language printing support
2) Thunderbird
3) NTFS Read/Write
4) Gnome 2.14
5) BharatheeyaaOO (Localised OpenOffice.org 2.0.1 )
6) Input Method - SCIM with Remington Keyboard Layout for Tamil, Hindi, Punjabi,and Marati
7) Liferea – RSS/RDF Reader
8) Migration Tool - Bulk Document converter and most important
9) Netinstall usng windows boot loader, no need to burn CD.

BOSS offers three different CD's to download.
1) Install CD,
2) Live CD and
3) Utility CD.

The install is fairly simple with anaconda GUI installer. All I can say is install is to the standard of recent ditro's like Fedora. The interesting part is after the install. BOSS linux shines with good boot speed.
On login I saw my windows ( both NTFS and FAT) drives automounted and displayed on the desktop. Otherwise the desktop is very neat and offers a little customized Gnome.
BOSS is based on debian, so package management is simple. I simply installed the Restrictic format software. Infact I found the mirrors to be very fast, the advantage of having in-country mirror :).

Then came the turn OpenOffice.
Turning on and using hindi language is a child's play. Wow, drafting a letter in my mother tougue. Though I must admit that I am very bad when it comes to writing good hindi. I'll wait for my father to come and then will I write my review in Hindi.

I have a wireless router and the configuration on BOSS is as simple as Desktop => Administration => Networking . I do not have a printer to test the printer configuration or a good graphics card to chekc 3D Desktop ( I looks so good, I love compiz). Bad! can someone gift me a good graphics car or a printer :).

Here are the typical applications I use : XChat, Gimp( everyone uses it), Gaim, keyjnote and bonfire for CD burning. BOSS is based on debian so it has acces to debian's wast software repository.

Here comes the best part about BOSS, excellent documentation. The user manaul is very exhaustive and easy to read. Even a new linux user will find it easy to follow. I specially like the detailed # Desktop and th e Audio/Video sections.

In future BOSS is planning different versions of BOSS ( a la Ubuntu versions) namely, educational version (edubuntu), KBOSS (kubuntu) and a server version (Not sure what they call it in Ubuntu, but Ubuntu server version is there). I found BOSS to be as good as Ubuntu Dapper LTS, it does not have the latest packages of Edgy. Otherwise both are equally good. Advantage of BOSS over Ubuntu is faster speed ( not sure why?), great Indian language support and faster mirrors, in India. Advantage of Ubuntu is global recognition, HUGE userbase, very helpful and again HUGE community and Mark Richard Shuttleworth. I would suggest all Indians to try BOSS, at leat they will have the urge to write in their mother tongue. With current stability, BOSS looks right on the track, way to go!!!

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Proud to see a native Linux ecosystem building in India, even if we are late in the game.

But it should easy now, as we can delegate most work to debian,gnome etc, and localize them.

I am waiting for an open source Tally, so that businesses can run legal software in India.

Indraveni said...

Hi,

First lemme introduce myself. I am one of the BOSS developer and interested in Linux and open source softwares developement.. I am very impressed seeing this interest in people in OUR BOSS. With such a great support we can really do wonders in the Linux world. Thankyou Abhay :)

One small information, BOSS is not using Anaconda installer now, its using Debian Graphical installer. Its as easy as anaconda (infact more easier).

Paraksh, your request is good about tally, Tally is not open source right now but it will be good if it happens. It also works in Linux, yes BOSS Linux also.

Dear Indians, feel free to comment about BOSS and join hands to improve our BOSS much more......

Anonymous said...

Hi,

You can Install Windows Based Tally 7.2 on Ubuntu Linux, with the help of Codeweaver Crossover.
(I had checked on Ubuntu only).

It will give you errors, just you have to copy that .DLL files, and re-configure the Alt-F2 or other keys.

It is working fine, on my PC. I hope it will work in the same way on BOSS also.

Thanks,

Manoj Dube.

Anonymous said...

Hi,

You can Install Windows Based Tally 7.2 on Ubuntu Linux, with the help of Codeweaver Crossover.
(I had checked on Ubuntu only).

It will give you errors, just you have to copy that .DLL files, and re-configure the Alt-F2 or other keys.

It is working fine, on my PC. I hope it will work in the same way on BOSS also.

Thanks,

Manoj Dube.

Anonymous said...

The BOSS people have done a great job. Finally, Indian firms can ditch pirated M$ Windows and go to Linux. With Tally for Linux and OpenOffice, that would satisfy the need of 95% of small and medium firms out there.
You can check out the great instructions for installing Tally on Linux at Random Installs blog. Since this install was done in Ubuntu, it should work in BOSS also.

Anonymous said...

Hi,

To Mr. Paraksh & Indraveni,

I had checked Win based Tally 7.2 on Ubuntu 6.10 with Crossover installed. Its working fine, with minor tweaking.

So don't wait till open source Tally arrive (which I dont think will happen).

Thanks,

Unknown said...

Manoj:

Which dll files are you talking about? To be copies from where to where?e

Vipul Purohit said...

i am unable to open BOSS official website and download BOSS What to do??? Website not working.

Please tell me how to order or download BOSS.

Unknown said...

Hi vipul,
Now BOSS Site is up n running.
You can either download the iso from the site or may place a request here,
http://bosslinux.in/get-boss-cd/

Regards,
Sri

dhayfule said...

Regarding Tally alternative, there ia a project named GNUKhata (gnukhata.org) that will be released by July 31, 2011

Its supposed to be alternative to tally.

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