gnuLinEx 2004 Launched

Editors' Note: Click here
to read this article in Spanish.

In August 2004, the new version of gnuLinEx, the operating system used by the
government of the Autonomous Community of Extremadura, Spain, was
released. This new release confirms that the regional government is determined
to bet on free software.

Extremadura is one of 17 autonomous communities in Spain. Each one
of these communities includes one or more provinces and has considerable
independence from the central government, including the right to decide,
among other things, its educational system.

Extremadura is located in southwestern Spain, by the
border with Portugal, in the middle of a triangle formed by Madrid,
Seville and Lisbon. The region contains about 8% of the country's land,
and its population, 1,073,574 people, equals 2.6 % of the country's
total. The population is scattered among 383 towns and
villages, and only the city of Badajoz (136,319 people) has over 100,000
inhabitants.

Extremadura also is the poorest region in Spain, and the fifth poorest
region in the European Union. In its recent history, we have seen how
diverse factors have increased the economic and social breach between
the region and the rest of Europe. In 1998 an alert arose--the Internet
was going to increase the gap.

For that reason a unique project was started. A regional network called
Intranet Extremadura was created, and it currently connects more than
1,400 dispersed points, including regional administrative centers,
schools, hospitals and centers for public access.

The importance of this network is fundamental. Fifty-seven percent of the population of
Extremadura live in towns with less than 10,000 inhabitants. This fact
combined with the low per-capita income of the population make
Extremadura a non-profitable region for Internet service providers.

Apart from creating the network, some changes were necessary in
classrooms across to region in order to provide and maintain 68,000
computers for students. In addition, an internal network for each
educational establishment had to be created. An average high school
of 600 students requires 15 miles of structured wiring inside the building.
The Beginnings of LinEx
In 2001, the necessary infrastructure for Intranet Extremadura was available, but
something was missing--the operating system. The government analyzed
all options. After calculating the expenses for each, it was determined that
the cost of MS Windows licenses surpassed 20,000,000 Euros. And that
figure did not include educational and administrative applications; those
applications would have to be developed or bought and adapted to the local infrastructure.

After an analysis of cost and adaptability, the government decided to
develop a customized and regionalized version of GNU/Linux. It would be
called LinEx. The first version of LinEx, based on Debian Potato, was ordered
from a private company. From version 3.0 onward, the development of
LinEx has been made totally by the staff of the local government, the
Junta of Extremadura.

The installation of LinEx was gradual until it finally reached all of the high
schools in Extremadura. Since 2002, Extremadura has the highest density of
computers per student in Europe, with a median of one computer for every two
students.

The use of LinEx does not reach only the traditional educational system, however. It
also is used in some public administration centers, hospitals and centers of
technological qualification. The centers of technological qualification, called
New Centers of the Knowledge, are special schools that train people to use new
technologies. These centers offer people who have left school the
opportunity to become familiar with computers.

Additionally, private and enterprise development is of extreme
importance to the LinEx project, which is the reason why Vivernet was created.
Vivernet is a program designed to foster the creation of companies in
the region that offer support and solutions based on LinEx. Up to now, 70 companies have
been created.
Technical Features
From its beginnings, LinEx has been based on Debian GNU/Linux, and our
development efforts have focused on adapting the operating system,
translating applications needed by the educational system and
simplifying the installation process. Last August, gnuLinEx, the 2004 version of
LinEx, appeared and brought with it something more than a new name.

For the installation process, the Debian port of Anaconda made by Progeny is
used. Any GNU/Linux user who installed Red Hat or Fedora previously should
be used to Anaconda already. This installer offers a simple and graphical way of partitioning the
hard disk, choosing which components to install and setting the look and feel of
the desktop. It also allows a friendly configuration of the graphical
environment and diverse system settings.

gnuLinEx uses the 2.6.7 kernel and offers support for diverse devices
found in Spain. It is patched with supermount to allow easy access to
removable devices from the desktop.

During the installation, the user can choose between Personal Desktop or
Lightweight Desktop profiles. The first one includes GNOME 2.6, while
the second option consists of a XFCE4 for low-end computers.
In both profiles, special emphasis is placed on the look and feel of the
desktop, from the design of subjects and regional icons to the generation of simple tools
for updating the operating system. Also the installation of
additional applications, such as Squeak, is facilitated.

Of the educational applications available in gnuLinEx, the most
impressive one is Squeak. Squeak is a powerful multimedia and
educational environment, a live implementation of Smalltalk-80, whose
image for the Spanish-speaking world is actively contributed to by the
government of Extremadura itself.

But the new features of gnuLinEx are not only for the end user. This
distribution is one of the first ones to use component technology in
the building of the distribution. This technology, part of the
Componentized Linux (CL) project, allows one to think of a GNU/Linux
distribution as a set of interchangeable parts or, in terms of CL,
components.
The Component Model
Componentized Linux is a new project founded by the Debian Project
founder Ian Murdock. As he says, CL is a new way of constructing Linux
distributions, built bottom-up as a set of interchangeable parts rather
than top-down as a difficult-to-change whole. Under this new model, a
distribution builder could add support for MySQL simply by adding the
respective component; he also could exchange the GNOME 2.6 component for
the KDE 3.2 one if he prefers. All of this is accomplished without the
complexity of handling thousands of packages and greatly simplifies the
management.

The base component of CL, also included in gnuLinEx, is LSB 2.0.
It contains all the necessary software needed to enable total
compatibility between different GNU/Linux distributions, fulfilling
specification 2.0 of the Linux Standards Base (LSB).

In addition to component LSB 2.0, other components, such as lsb-devel,
have been included to provide basic development tools. Also included are
audio and graphical support components and all the accompanying ones for
hardware detection.

The component model did not help only in the building of gnuLinEx; it
continues to help in the building of derived works too, such as LinEx
Company and LinEx Gamer. The first one is oriented to the enterprise
world, and the second one is for all of us who enjoy using computers
for more than work.
Cooperation Agreements
The benefits of the component approach do not apply only to Extremadura.
Guadalinex is the localized version of Debian GNU/Linux used by the
autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. The people of Andalusia and
Extremadura reached an agreement to unite their efforts in the creation of
a respective operating system for the 2005 version, and they are
starting with a considerable common base. Each team will be responsible
for maintaining only its own components, which then will be shared with
the other team. This will allows both teams to concentrate on
other subjects, such as accessibility, usability and hardware support.

In June of 2004, during the International Forum of Free Software held in Brazil,
the Brazilian Portuguese version of gnuLinEx was introduced and welcomed
warmly. At the moment, an Italian version of gnuLinEx also is being developed.

Beyond the local efforts, other cooperation agreements are in the works with
Colombia, Argentina and a number of European regions interested in the
information society model of Extremadura.
Conclusions
If you are a Spanish speaker and a GNU/Linux enthusiast, and you want
a complete Debian system with a graphical installation or you are
interested in the use of computers in education, you should take a look
at gnuLinEx 2004.
Resources
gnuLinEx Home Page

Componentized Linux

Anaconda for
Debian

Squeak

Dario Rapisardi left Argentina to follow the gnuLinEx dream and
the good ham, so he finally settled down in Spain. He currently is a
gnuLinEx developer and can be contacted at
dario@rapisardi.org.