SPBLinux
| SPBLinux | |
|---|---|
| developer | Christian Ostheimer |
| License (s) | GNU General Public License |
| Current version | 2.2pre10 (September 10, 2008) |
| ancestry | \ Linux \ SPBLinux |
| www.spblinux.de | |
SPBLinux (for St. Petersburg , the origin of the software) is an extremely small Linux distribution (depending on the software selection in the single-digit megabyte range) which (when installing some additional packages, a total of almost 10 MB) even includes a graphical user interface with a web browser . Because of its size spblinux is mainly for rescue - floppy or USB flash drives suitable. There are numerous additional packages for a wide variety of applications, for example for communication with PDAs and cell phones .
history
SPBLinux is developed by the Swiss computer science teacher Christian Ostheimer. The first version, named after Ostheimer's place of study in St. Petersburg, was published in May 2000. Version 2 followed at the end of 2003 and was further developed at just as large intervals. The latest available version 2.2 from the end of 2008 is still marked as a pre-release but also as stable .
Smart Boot Manager
A toolkit is supplied with SPBLinux that enables booting from a USB stick. Almost all other small distributions (such as Damn Small Linux , about 50 MB) use the SPBLinux boot sector for the USB boot . SPBLinux comes with a specially developed boot manager , the so-called "Smart Boot Manager". It can also be used for DOS- based systems. The Smart Boot Manager is located in the first block with the SPBLinux boot sector at the beginning. By using logical block addressing instead of cylinder head sector addressing, it solves a number of problems due to the differences between the disk geometry with which Windows communicates with the USB stick and that with which the BIOS accesses the stick during boot .
Memory-saving implementation of the graphical user interface
The extremely economical use of space is inter alia made possible in this Linux distribution that instead of the heavyweight X Window system to a system client-server is omitted and the graphical user interface including graphics applications on the frame buffer is performed. This is done by the C-written software library DirectFB is used.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.pcwelt.de/downloads/SPB-Linux-2-0-1300619.html
- ↑ http://www.heise.de/software/download/spb_linux/36820 ( Memento from August 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive )