Ubuntu Linux may be all over the news recently, but anyone who’s ever perused DistroWatch has a pretty good sense of just how many other Linux distributions are out there as well, ready to be tried at will.
Dubbed the “31 Flavors of Fun” experiment, a new project aims to create a new Linux distro every day during the month of August.
Intrigued? Read on.
‘The Huge Advantages of Open Source’
“Todd Robinson, completely unassisted, will to attempt to create, and release, a complete desktop operating system each and every day for the period of 31 days, to demonstrate the huge advantages of using open source (shared knowledge) solutions in real-world situations,” explains the 31 Flavors site.
“This experiment will compare development speed, costs, and required manpower to the proprietary Microsoft Windows development of recent Windows releases,” the site adds. “It is not intended to compare features, discuss viral/malware issues, or anything outside of actual development aspects when comparing.”
For the purpose of the experiment, Robinson has defined “a complete desktop operating system” as one that has a GUI-driven desktop; can connect to the Internet or LAN via ethernet and wifi; has a GUI package management application capable not just of downloading and installing additional software but also of removing unwanted software; can automatically work out and install any software dependencies; can apply system, security, and application updates as required or available; and for which development files are freely available so as to allow further development.
Seeking Mirror Sponsors
Robinson will build and launch releases each day during the month of August.
“This will give me a few weeks of planning and prep, and allow others to give me their suggestions on what they would like,” he explains.
Releases will be made freely available for download via links on the project site as well as at On-Disk.com.
Currently, download mirror sponsors are being sought so as to help fulfill the anticipated volume of daily downloads.
Want to stay updated? Robinson will use the results in a presentation at the 2012 Ohio Linux Fest, and updates will be posted on his blog. There’s already a “31 Flavors of Fun” forum set up, and an anticipated releases section highlights ideas around which some of the releases will be built.