Ubuntu Buddhist Editon

[lyceum]

So it looks like there has been a lot of discussion here about this. Did anything ever get resolved? I would love to help with art work, if this actually happens. Even if it is just a wallpaper and icon set, it could help market Ubuntu.

[aryah]

Well, such a distro would probably need support for various fonts & languages (pali&sanskrit, chinese, tibetan) & those various input methods for far eastern languages.

apart from this, it would be great resource if some of the various project for digitalising the HUGE buddhist cannons of various traditions could be included, and indexed in some practical manner. I saw a project for reconstructing and digitalising sanskrit cannon as well somewhere..
Im not sure if this requires permission from those people creating such digital redactions, i know that with music sheets, those companies that edit and form them into a buyable edition actually (and imo strangely) have authors rights over them (or copyrights in the common law world) , so probably regardless of their great age, those projects like the digital tibetan buddhist cannon etc would need to agree to GPL them or something for this to work. Perhaps they would be willing to do this? There are some partial translated or original cannons online, like the accesstoinsight, Im guessing including those would not be terribly difficult..

There are also some projects for making the early manuscripts like the ones from gandhāra etc digitalised...
I dont suppose Conze's or other great translations to western languages of key sutras and commentaries could obtain similar permissions...

Even one digitalised buddhist cannon included would be a huge resource, its possibly hundreds of volumes..

What else could such a project feature, apart from fonts and texts that is? Theres this online collection of religions art from himalaya region, maybe these thangkas etc would be of interest http://www.himalayanart.org ?

isnt there some distro thats used in buthan gov or something, supporting their language , fonts etc? I wonder what other changes were done for it?

[amerikkanu]

Just in the way of an fyi, if this project goes forward... I've had issues with Sanskrit input in linux for a while now and finally solved the remaining nagging issues in this tips 'n trick post. Basically, the default phonetic Devanagari IME (scim - ITRANS) is problematic in a few respects (e.g., typing "rh" yields ऱ् instead of र्ह् , etc.) So I tweaked that input method and streamlined various character combinations. I also created a new SCIM input method for Sanskrit transliteration, which is as intuitive as any I've used on *******, etc. It can easily be extended so that all the relevant languages can be transliterated with the same input method. (Since both input methods go beyond ITRANS, they ought to have a table documenting their character combinations--which would be easy to draw up from my post--if they're included in your distro.)

Good luck with your project, and if there's anything I can help out with, Sanskrit-wise, feel free to contact me. शुभं भवतु ।

[rainvoice]

Well in the first place i think it's a great idea to provide a kind of "framework" for IT-work related to Buddhist interests. I found this thread while searching for buddhism related software like an indexed collection of texts (e.g. the pali canon), or specially a buddhist calendar. What i found for now is a small bunch of Win... Software, almost everything commercial in any kind.

So i decided to start writing a buddhist calendar application soon in python, not decided yet which window-toolkit to prefer for this. If this project became reality in any kind i would be glad to contribute this calendar to it.

First of all i think the most important should be to work out a list of requirements and needs. My personal whishes for such a project would be the following:

- A set of useful software as mentioned above and by Seisen.

- Some artwork that will provide a working environment that may further spiritual welth, happiness, and development and helps staying in touch with the "Noble Eightfold Path" while working with your machine.

- Language Support as mentioned before in this thread by aryah and others

- I think one of the most important points for all of this should be a nice framework for buddhist science and study as well as help on practising.

So let's talk about the way and the needs: I think there has been made some really useful suggestions here why not put them together:

Beside my own needs as a buddhist, like koenn i really like the idea of a Ubuntu $RELIGION Edition. The idea of Blutack to realize the buddhist version as a metapackage sounds very reasonable to me. Also simon_is_learning's idea for a wiki seems to be the best start. So here are my ideas for all of this:

I think "Ubuntu $RELIGION" and the specific editions should be organized in sepparate projects but working together closely for compatiblillity and interaction issues. So i suggest to inspire interested users/developers to realize the "Ubuntu $RELIGION" distro and put our focus to the Buddhist part as a meta package, that could also be used in any other Ubuntu-edition.

I am willing to provide the space and install a mediawiki (or something similar) on my VPS to bring up the wiki for all the Buddhist related stuff but i will not have the time to fully maintain it. So Seisen (and anyone else who is interested) please let me know and i will setup the wiki within the next days.

I think that's enough for the first post let me know your opinions.

[RAV TUX]

Just in the way of an fyi, if this project goes forward... I've had issues with Sanskrit input in linux for a while now and finally solved the remaining nagging issues in this tips 'n trick post. Basically, the default phonetic Devanagari IME (scim - ITRANS) is problematic in a few respects (e.g., typing "rh" yields ऱ् instead of र्ह् , etc.) So I tweaked that input method and streamlined various character combinations. I also created a new SCIM input method for Sanskrit transliteration, which is as intuitive as any I've used on *******, etc. It can easily be extended so that all the relevant languages can be transliterated with the same input method. (Since both input methods go beyond ITRANS, they ought to have a table documenting their character combinations--which would be easy to draw up from my post--if they're included in your distro.)

Good luck with your project, and if there's anything I can help out with, Sanskrit-wise, feel free to contact me. शुभं भवतु ।

You may want to take a look at NepaLinux, Debian based.

Also, I think an Enlightenment 17 environment would be nice for this project.

[jclmusic]

as a buddhist, i don't see the point. but that;s just me...

[DrMega]

Isn't bhuddsim about letting go of earthly things rather than bind ourselves to more of them?

[soapytheclown]

i never got the point of these "Whole New Distro" why not just create a deb file with all the apps in and just get anyone insterested to download that and use it ontop of their standard ubuntu installation, because surely that is all each of these "religious distros" are.

[rainvoice]

Isn't bhuddsim about letting go of earthly things rather than bind ourselves to more of them?

Basically that's right but as long as we "stuck in the material world" we should live with it (not against it), and open up ways for all other human beings to follow the path of becoming free of material dependencies (in any way, not necessarily Buddhism). Today IT is one way to accomplish that. I could say a lot more about this but that would lead too far off topic. So here is one last hint to clarify my point: Books are also very earthly.

...why not just create a deb file with all the apps in and just get anyone insterested to download that and use it ontop of their standard ubuntu installation...

For this reason i also would favour a metapackage.

[DrMega]

Today IT is one way to accomplish that. I could say a lot more about this but that would lead too far off topic.

I'd be very interested to hear more on your ideas of bhuddism and IT but I appreciate you concern about drifting off topic. Perhaps you could PM me with an elaboration.