PurpleOS

[wweeks]

I've been working on a little project (purpleos.blogspot.com (http://purpleos.blogspot.com)) and was wondering if I could get some feedback?
If you go to the blog uri I listed above you can see screen shots of various parts of the OS. It's built on Debian 6.0.1 and KDE. Any thoughts/tips/ideas you could provide about would be great.
Basically I'm trying to write my own operating system. What I've done so far is start with Debian 6.0.1 and the standard GNOME. I used that to install KDE from the repositories and then removed GNOME. I then removed various bloated applications to fulfill the theme of the OS, a minimalistic KDE OS. :)
Thanks for you feedback!

[jerrrys]

not interested in trying it, but worthy of a bump :D

[boydrice]

Maybe I am missing something, isn't this just Debian with KDE and a new theme/color? What would make this it's own OS? Why would you start with a Debian GNOME install then install KDE and then remove apps. Sorry but what is the point aside from a learning experience for yourself?

[wweeks]

That was a huge part of this. Just learning. And because I wasn't familiar with Debian when I started at all and wasn't sure where I'd go with it.
It's basically specialized KDE Debian with a different set of apps. Also, with a limited number of widgets the KDE window manager runs faster than the standard setups.

[boydrice]

Fair enough. I think that is cool to try something new for learning more about linux. I would be mindful that what you are building is not a new OS or distro but just a respin of an existing distro.

[wweeks]

Ubuntu did that. :) I know they did a lot more work though and contribute back to Debian so its different in that case. As of yet I haven't done anything really significant with this thats a hugely different than Debian but this is just where I'm starting from. Keep in mind that I've only been working on this for um say 5 weeks? So, I've got a long way to go.

[Allavona]

If your going minimalistic, why choose resource-hungry KDE? Why not something lighter?

Applause for trying something different!:D

[wweeks]

If your going minimalistic, why choose resource-hungry KDE? Why not something lighter?

Applause for trying something different!:D
Because of my goal is an elegant minimalistic distro. I believe there are tons of people out there like me who want to see less of the OS and more of what they got on the computer to use. I find that with the settings I've given it it actually runs faster that Ubuntu 10.10 does on my older computer and runs very fast on my newer desktop.

[wweeks]

Would anyone be interested in helping seed a torrent of this? I'd most likely put the live iso up on a server and then seed it from my computer. Or would it be simpler to just make it a standard download? Right now its setting at 1.2GBs for the live iso but I might be able to reduce that some.

[Simian Man]

Basically I'm trying to write my own operating system.

No, no you're not.

[wweeks]

A man's gotta start somewhere hasn't he? I wanted to write my own OS... there is more too it though than I realized. A man can dream can't he? ;) So, I guess I'll just have a Debian respin of my own. Any one interested in trying a Debian respin?

[jerrrys]

do you know that your help me win scholarship link is being highjacked and takes you to castleink.com

[wweeks]

Its not being hijacked actually... but due to signature length limits there was no space to explain that. Thats what its supposed to do, everyone who clicks through that link and visits Castle Ink's page helps me because I'm trying to get the most visits from my site to theirs.

[jerrrys]

ok, then you got my vote :)

[wweeks]

I have a torrent up, you can get the torrent here: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BzN7EgAwN7aGYTE5ZDUwNTEtMDkxMy00ZWE4LWJmY TMtMmFkNWNkZTEyYTVl&hl=en&authkey=CKDuzvsN

Its a 1.1GB Live ISO, default user is "purple" and password is "purple". The root password is "mbarnet".

Sorry about this everyone, the torrent is broken. I'm going to have to figure out a different way to get this up for you all.

[wweeks]

Alright everybody, sorry for the delay, you can get it now here: http://is.gd/purpledebian.
Same details as last post except this time its just it will be a standard HTTP download.

[jerrrys]

download speed 60KB/s...ouch

[wweeks]

Yea, thats part of why I was having trouble get it up. The reason its running so slow because you're pull it from my desktop at my house (which by the way is running PurpleOS :) ). I have a really slow connection so yea it may just be slow. :( Sorry.

[walt.smith1960]

deleted

[wweeks]

I checked in to those and most of them have 100-200MB per file limit.

[jerrrys]

one gig limit (http://www.snapdrive.net/)

[Lucradia]

It doesn't look very purple yet. I also don't really care for KDE much, so I'll pass.

[wweeks]

@jerrys-The file is 1.2GB's so it won't quite fit.

@Lucradia - Thanks for the feedback!

Update: I left my computer and it decided to shut off. I'm restarting it so the download should be available again now. Sorry about that.

[jerrrys]

2 gig (http://www.filefactory.com/)

5gig (http://www.filedropper.com/)

nuf said

[wweeks]

Ok, looks like thats what I'll have to do. I did figure out what the problem was though with my computer shutting itself off...the power kept blinking...so, I'll use a different computer and get the ISO up as soon as I can, most likely tomorrow.
@jerrrys Thanks for the links, the problem is my internet blinks and mess up uploads and most free services don't offer recovery of uploads when that happens. We'll see though. :)

[Lucradia]

Ok, looks like thats what I'll have to do. I did figure out what the problem was though with my computer shutting itself off...the power kept blinking...so, I'll use a different computer and get the ISO up as soon as I can, most likely tomorrow.
@jerrrys Thanks for the links, the problem is my internet blinks and mess up uploads and most free services don't offer recovery of uploads when that happens. We'll see though. :)

You can make a torrent.

[wweeks]

Earlier in this thread I mentioned I had and gave out the link but I tried on three computer and for some reason it just wouldn't work. 3 different clients but no luck. I've never made a torrent before, you want to explain it to me?

[Lucradia]

Earlier in this thread I mentioned I had and gave out the link but I tried on three computer and for some reason it just wouldn't work. 3 different clients but no luck. I've never made a torrent before, you want to explain it to me?

Did you make sure to attach announce servers to your torrent? It doesn't work otherwise.

You also have to make sure to keep the computer that made the torrent running with the torrent on for several hours.

[wweeks]

Yea, the second and third time I did that right away and the first time added them after I created the torrent.

[Lucradia]

You then may need to make a web announce on your IP, which means going into your router / firewall and having your IP public.

This is very complicated, and requires you to have a web server on your computer.

[wweeks]

And there we hit a wall, my ISP won't let me have access to my router (and my parents won't let me make my ISP give me access) so I can't do that. I do have a mini server on my computer but then I run back to faulty power that blinks a couple times a day. :( I live way out about 15 miles from no where and 20 miles east of never was.

If I set up the ISO from that server as a webseed for my torrent do you think that would work?

[Lucradia]

And there we hit a wall, my ISP won't let me have access to my router (and my parents won't let me make my ISP give me access) so I can't do that. I do have a mini server on my computer but then I run back to faulty power that blinks a couple times a day. :( I live way out about 15 miles from no where and 20 miles east of never was.

If I set up the ISO from that server as a webseed for my torrent do you think that would work?

Your ISP gave you a router? :|

They give modems, but routers?

[wweeks]

Yea, we rent our router from them. Any chance if I know my miniserver can get past my router that I could use a computer to set up torrent off of that file?

[jerrrys]

for five more dollars a month my isp will provide a wireless one.

[MBybee]

Not really a KDE fan, but huge props for giving a Debian re-spin a shot :)
That's where the majority of distros come from (well, Debian or Slack).

It looks nice :)
I'd switch to XFCE though, if you actually want attractive but minimal.

[wweeks]

@jerrrys - Exactly, this is a wireless router/modem rented from them.

@MBybee - I'm actually looking in to XFCE, so maybe check back on a later version. :)

[athenroy]

Ambitious project for sure, but as mentioned, you'd probably get more help if you said you were trying to write your own distribution or derivative rather than complete OS. To call it a new OS, you'd really have to come come up with something non-Debien/Ubuntu related like the Haiku OS or something like that. Sounds interesting all the same, I just don't have the HD space to risk messing up my current installs to try it. Hope it works, though.

In Regards to Cable Routers: We have Brighthouse Network cable here a Time Warner spin off. They have a "broader band" Road Runner Lightning service available which includes a combination modem/wireless router but you have to put up a $50.00 one time deposit. At the time I was running an internet radio station, and even though I did the port forwarding on their router, you still couldn't connect through it. As soon as I had it taken out and went back to my Netgear, everything was fine, so I guess a server would be no different. Maybe it would maybe it would, but you would have to do port forwarding or tunneling on port 80 at the least. As to power blinking on and off we have the same problem in Florida, even when I lived in Tampa. They say that when power companies switch the grid they are using this occurs.

[wweeks]

Thanks for the feedback. I was using the term OS in a rather loose sense, and now I'm only using the term "OS" because I prefer "PurpleOS" over "Purple Debian". On distro watch http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution= you'll notice there are 20+ distros who include the "OS" in their name, many of them Ubuntu or other distro spin offs that have become their own distro just by providing different apps.
That aside, I'm going to be offering a live ISO so you wouldn't have to touch your HD to try it out, however it will have a installer once you boot up the the live ISO.

[wweeks]

@jerrrys - Thanks for the links! Finally got one of them to work (second one failed though).
Here's the link though to get it: is.gd/purpleosv1 (http://is.gd/purpleosv1), it'll take you to the site. Jump through their hoops and get the free download, or sign up if you want.

[jerrrys]

looking good

192781

EDIT: its up to 500KB/s

EDIT#2: that was 500MB downloaded...speed the same about 200KB/s

[wweeks]

Finally... :) Glad it finally is available.

[jerrrys]

something is amiss, can't seem to burn to usb. only getting a partial burn. check it out

192828

and thats it, 130K out of 1.1 G

[wweeks]

I just checked and it seemed to burn to my SD card just fine. I'll try booting it here in a couple minutes. Maybe try a different burning program?

[Lucradia]

something is amiss, can't seem to burn to usb. only getting a partial burn. check it out

192828

and thats it, 130K out of 1.1 G

By any chance are you burning using a USB CD-Burner via netbook or laptop? If it's a flash drive however, Is the USB Drive only 2 GB max? (You can't format it more than 1.9 GB)


I just checked and it seemed to burn to my SD card just fine. I'll try booting it here in a couple minutes. Maybe try a different burning program?

SD is not USB.

[wweeks]

SD is not USB.
Correct you are, I used the same program though so I thought it should apply. I'll go ahead and check with the USB drive.

[jerrrys]

im using unetbootin and yes its a 2G stick. how much do i need?

[Lucradia]

im using unetbootin and yes its a 2G stick. how much do i need?

unetbootin actually isn't that great of a USB Maker. I've tried it with debian once, and I couldn't boot into the USB. (It just gave a grey selection dialog when booted to, with no OS choices) So I used my windows machine with LiLi.

[wweeks]

I've checked and it seemed to write my jump drive all right but no luck getting it to boot on either of the computers I tried it on (this computer has had issue with Linux booting before but the other one has never had a problem). Sorry about this but you may just have to burn it to a DVD.

[jerrrys]

i have heard that unetbootin works better in windows, but no got windows. also, i been using it for a couple of years and yes, it can be problematic, but works for me.

wweeks got the way to go. have to pick up some DVD's tomorrow.

just how big (gigabytes) will this end up being?

[wweeks]

Its 1.07GB's downloaded, so I think you're stuck with using a full size DVD.

[wweeks]

It'd be great if anyone who gets this downloaded and running or installed could provide some feedback. You can reply here or it'd be better if you filled out this short form: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dHRwTEI4U2RVSEZuLVExNjg0Vmp3MFE6MQ#gid=0.