Independence 6.0.0.8

Independence is not just one of these commercial distributions who have been appearing daily for the last months. It aims at being a distribution allowing the users to make hear their voice in distribution design.

It is built by volunteers who no longer accept having an aristocracy of distribution designers providing solutions who have little relation to the problems faced by us, Linux users. It is built by people who dont accept that present distributions time and again neglect two areas who are vital for Linux future: the desktop and the personal computer.

Software included in Independence:

This is the selection of software that we think to be useful. And even those packages that do originate from the RedHat distribution are often modified to serve the end-users needs better.

Here, you will find a short explanation of the packages we provide, that are either a special remake from RedHat packages, or that are not derived from RedHat packages at all - our very own packages.

ClanLib: Game library, I will include ClanBomber with it.
FileRunner: a filemanager reminding Amigas. It can also act as an FTP client.
Giram: Modeller who uses POV as raytracer. Linux is supposed to be fun.
GnoSamba: Makes easier to config Samba
GTk-Perl: used by Independences Gimp
Hermes: provides MMX acceleration to the ClanLib and SDL libraries.
LinPopUp: allows sending and getting WinPopUp messages. For instance a Samba printer server could notify the user when the job is finished, alternatively a Linux user printing through an NT or Samba server will be avle to know when his output has been printed.
MPEG: An MPEG encoder and decoder.
Mesa: 3D libray used by various programs in Indy
OpenPTC: needed for the game libraries.
SDL: Indys second game library.
Timidity++: Midi sound player.
VNC: With it you can display on Linux applications running on Windows or Macs. Or the opposite.
VNC-alien: This is the part of VNC who will run on Windows or Macs.
Visual-Tcl: IDE and GUI builder for TCL/TK. One of Indys goals is to get that Windows people develop on Linux.
Wav-plugin: A Wav plugin for netscape.
XFree86 (Indy): This is obsolete. Indy had a patched XFree supportng more cards than RedHat, now RedHat has cauight up howver Indys XFree had the hooks for running XFCE in addition to Gnoime and KDE. However I dont think I will be able to add XFCE so I will put the new XFree in the updates section (we will use 3.3.6 against RedHats 3.3.5)
Xconfigurator (Indy): The XF86Config built by RedHat assumes the user is smart enough to nevver shutdown the font server. I find that making a distribution so frail to user error is unacceptable, so Indys configurator geerates a config file whho aloows X to be more tolerant of user errors.
aalib: Needed by Indys gimp.
abisuite: Wysywyg word processor able to read MS word files.
acroread: Adobes PDF reader, better quality than xpdf and able to read files xpdf chokes upon.
anacron: Indy does not assume that every Linux user and specially personal isers will kepp their boxes powered up 24 hours a day. Anacron takes care of doing your cron jobs (jobs that are automatically done from time to time) in such a way that your computer can be put on and off whenever you like.
atalkconf: Graphical configurator for netatalk (Apple Talk server).
autofs: (Indy) Indy was the first distrib relieving the user of the chore of mounting CDROMs. This was unacceptable on workstations.
blender: A complete tool for graphical creation.
cbb: Check book balancer. I have seen much too often people complaining they had to keep Windows due to lack of a Quicken like program. We asumme that many Linux users use it at home and that means they need programs in this vein.
cdda2wav: Reading audio data from CDs and making WAv files of it.
cooledit: Nice X editor.
etcskel (Indy): This contains the files wgho will be placed in the home directory of a newly created user. Indy puts some tricks of its own in this files/
gaim: Taliking to people using AOLs instant messaging service.
gdm (Indy): This is specific due to stupid copyright reasons: it displays RedHat logo.
gfcc: Allows easy configuration of masquerading and similar tricks you can do with ipchains. Can be useful in corporations but also for people with two computers linked by a LAN at home
gimp 1.1.14: For the artist sleeping in each user. This version is supposed to be for developers but I found stable and leagues ahead of the old gimp 1.0 shipped in RedHat..
gimpdoc-pdf: This is version 2 of the manual. RedHat uses HTML for the Gimp manual, Indys uses PDF due to the far graeter quality of the output. In addition some chapters of the manual would not display on Netscape unless you had _at least_ 64 megs of memory.
gltt: This is a library who will no longer be needed after we drop mooonlight, but the demo is so nice I will keep it in the distrib hoping people will create programs with it.
gnomeicu: ICQ client.
gphoto: Downloading images from electronic cameras and making some common manipulatins like removing the red eyes effect.
grip: CD player and ripper.
gtk--: C++ interface for GTK+
gxtar: A Gnome front end to tar, gzip, bzip2 archives.
ibtk: For ATI TV cards.
initscripts (Indy): Indy provides for automatic activation of network daemons when a PPP link is brought up. Also Indy is smarter and more robust than RedHAt respective to an uninstalled gdm, kdm. These tricks and perhaps some more are provded through this packege.
install-sendmail: Easy configuration of sendmail. We want the user being able to ask for help if something goes wrong.
kdebase (Indy): Again there is alittle Indy trick making things easier for the user.
kdevelop: IDE for UNix. If I have tiime to build it we will ship Code Crusader instead
killustrator: I wanted a vector drawing program but I still doubt between this and sketch. Anyone willing to compare them?
klyx: Nearly wysywyg word processor.
knetmon: You really need it if you have windows boxes around you. People who have never been in this situation include Gniomba instead. :-)
kvoice: Voice utility for modems
kwintv: Watch TV
lesstif: Library replcng Motif. Intended for Ted but some of the Motif apps we have could be recompiled with it.
libwmf: needed for abisuite.
lilo (Indy): Indys LILO tells you how to get out of trouble.
lincity: Game.
lokkit: Instant protection against the scum of the Internet. Indy does not assume the user has an experienced sysadmin at hand or is sitting behind a firewall: we have heard of something called home users.
loser: Game. Far too fast when the box has been optimized by Cobra.
lpe: A reasonable editor with online help for people who have to fix a box before having time to learn VI. Indys installs it in a such way it is available in the most desperate situations.