What's so good about Guadalinex?

[Fibonacci]

Hello,

I've recently been told by a Spanish friend about an Ubuntu-based distro called "Guadalinex", which is developed by the government of Andalusia.
So... why not just plain Ubuntu? What has Guadalinex got that Ubuntu hasn't? In other words, what sets it apart from Ubuntu?
I found no answer to this questions in the official Guadalinex site (http://www.guadalinex.org/), so I was hoping someone who has used both could help me with this.

Thanks in advance,

-Fibo

[henriquemaia]

Hello,

I've recently been told by a Spanish friend about an Ubuntu-based distro called "Guadalinex", which is developed by the government of Andalusia.
So... why not just plain Ubuntu? What has Guadalinex got that Ubuntu hasn't? In other words, what sets it apart from Ubuntu?
I found no answer to this questions in the official Guadalinex site (http://www.guadalinex.org/), so I was hoping someone who has used both could help me with this.

Thanks in advance,

-Fibo

Maybe a more thoroughly support of Castellano?

[beniwtv]

I can't really say why...

but I like Ubuntu more than Guadalinex.

I first used it 2 years ago, when it wasn't based on Ubuntu, but simply I didn't fall in love with it. I much prefered Ubuntu.

Two things I disliked:

1) The logo of the "Junta de Andalucía" everywhere, and I mean everywhere!

2) It was to bloated. Very bloated. Simply to much programs installed by default.

So my vote goes to Ubuntu.

NOTE: Don't get me wrong - I am not bashing Guadalinex, but it's simply not the right for me.

[Brunellus]

For users inside Andalucia, it would be convenience--I understand that all public-sector desktops are moving to Guadalinex eventually there.

For users outside Andalucia, the advantage would be questionable--maybe better localization?

[Miguel]

This goes absolutely off topic, so I hope you'll forgive my premeditated e-crime.

There are at least *three* spanish linux distro's. There is Linex, which is developed for the Extremadura "council" (AFAIK, most public pcs there are using it). There is also the commented guadalinex, tailored for Andalucía. And least but not leas, there is Molinux, for Castilla la Mancha (the name comes from Molinux ~ Molino = Windmill in english -> don Quixote of la Mancha). Recently, my university wasted some euros to make an Ubuntu spinoff with the name "Basque Country University" on it plus a second CD to seamlessly install some common apps there (such as LaTeX, and maybe some commercial ones for which we've got licenses).

The way I see it, most political parties are using it on an utterly interested way. They "develop" linux to say something like "we are cool, we love linux, we save money". And we are the best "comunidad autónoma" (i.e. state) of Spain. But what they should do, IMHO, is push for better hardware support, pay the developers for something like, let's say, WPA-PSK, and provide pretty cool and correct spanish translation. This is even more important in my university, having Basque as a cooficial language, because basque support is noticeably poorer than spanish. And for a million euros you can translate every app in the ubuntu repos.

[Fibonacci]

Maybe a more thoroughly support of Castellano?

All other distros I have tried (three in total ^^U) have excellent Spanish support, and though I haven't tried it in Ubuntu, I'd say it's just as good.
And I'm talking European Spanish here.


1) The logo of the "Junta de Andalucía" everywhere, and I mean everywhere!

You mean, instead of the Ubuntu logo?


2) It was to bloated. Very bloated. Simply to much programs installed by default.

So that would be the major difference between the two distros, right? (It wouldn't be such a big deal, in that case - nothing apt-get cannot solve).


For users inside Andalucia, it would be convenience--I understand that all public-sector desktops are moving to Guadalinex eventually there.

This still doesn't answer my question. Why couldn't you just use Ubuntu at home if you live in Andalusia? What makes it so different from Ubuntu that you are forced to use Guada instead of Ubuntu to know your way around things?


For users outside Andalucia, the advantage would be questionable--maybe better localization?

That is, if there even is an advantage at all for Andalusian users.


The way I see it, most political parties are using it on an utterly interested way. They "develop" linux to say something like "we are cool, we love linux, we save money". And we are the best "comunidad autónoma" (i.e. state) of Spain. But what they should do, IMHO, is push for better hardware support, pay the developers for something like, let's say, WPA-PSK, and provide pretty cool and correct spanish translation. This is even more important in my university, having Basque as a cooficial language, because basque support is noticeably poorer than spanish. And for a million euros you can translate every app in the ubuntu repos.

So, there's no actual difference besides politics?

[henriquemaia]

A nice place to ask that:

Guadalinex forums (http://www.guadalinex.org/modules/newbb/) (in Castellano).

[Miguel]

All other distros I have tried (three in total ^^U) have excellent Spanish support, and though I haven't tried it in Ubuntu, I'd say it's just as good.
And I'm talking European Spanish here.

Well, you are right that spanish support is excellent (much better than windows anyway, it is more spread), but there are a couple of things that could be improved or even translated. There is a binutils bug where you are asked for confirmation (sí) and it doesn't accept the "í", so the app is turned worthless. This also happens in finnish.

But maybe I'm asking for perfection when what we have is pretty good. I don't know if it is that good from a Colombian or Mexican or Argentinean point of view.



So, there's no actual difference besides politics?

When it started, it was based on Debian testing, so there was an advantage from pure debian woody. Now? I'd guess it's just an standarised install plattform for the administration, nothing more.

[Fibonacci]

Well, you are right that spanish support is excellent (much better than windows anyway, it is more spread), but there are a couple of things that could be improved or even translated. There is a binutils bug where you are asked for confirmation (sí) and it doesn't accept the "í", so the app is turned worthless. This also happens in finnish.

And doesn't that happen with Guada?


But maybe I'm asking for perfection when what we have is pretty good. I don't know if it is that good from a Colombian or Mexican or Argentinean point of view.

It has been for me. Haven't yet found any of the figures of speech that make European Spanish odd to the ears of Latin Americans, as I did with Win98. Sure, it's not 100% pure Colombian Spanish (which I think NO project, open or otherwise, has), but at least I can understand more of it.


When it started, it was based on Debian testing, so there was an advantage from pure debian woody. Now? I'd guess it's just an standarised install plattform for the administration, nothing more.

So... just plain Ubuntu with the logo of the Junta?

[Fibonacci]

A nice place to ask that:

Guadalinex forums (http://www.guadalinex.org/modules/newbb/) (in Castellano).

Thank you, I've already started a flamewar there :P (not that I wanted to, but there are two guys over there who seemed to be offended by my question...)

[Miguel]

I've seen your thread. LOL. I didn't know you used Fedora. After reading that, I would recommend using Dapper instead of Guadalinex... basically because the latest guadalinex is based on breezy instead of dapper. Anyway, I suppose you can install Guada and then change sources.list to dist-upgrade to dapper but that doesn't seem very efficient.

[Fibonacci]

I've seen your thread. LOL. I didn't know you used Fedora. After reading that, I would recommend using Dapper instead of Guadalinex... basically because the latest guadalinex is based on breezy instead of dapper. Anyway, I suppose you can install Guada and then change sources.list to dist-upgrade to dapper but that doesn't seem very efficient.

It surely doesn't - what's the use of installing Guada if I'm gonna upgrade to Dapper right afterwards?
What I originally wanted to know was which differences were there between the two distros. But I talked a while ago with a friend of mine who used Guada, and told me that Ubuntu was exactly the same thing - so no need to try Guada now ;)