COMP 3000 2011 Report: TinyMe

Part I

Background

TinyMe's desktop

TinyMe is an extremely lightweight Linux distribution based on Unity and Mandriva. Note that it is "TinyMe" and not "TinyME" as that would cause unwanted reminiscence of WinME. It was developed by KDulcimer and Gettinther with help from the Unity Linux development team to be as bloat and lag-free as possible. It exists to ease the installation of Unity Linux on older computers and provide a minimal environment for people who like fast/light systems. Unlike other Linux distributions, TinyMe is a rolling release, so once installed only rare circumstances would force a re-installation. There is currently no stable release version of the 250MB distribution, however there is a non-stable release on their website and a LiveCD with an older version can be purchased from On-Disk.com. TinyMe has two planned versions, the Acorn release has programs included which are fitted for a minimalist distribution and is the only version currently available while the proposed Droplet release would allow you to choose your programs. As of 06-04-2011 TinyMe is in hibernation due to the lead developer KDulcimer taking some personal time off. However, there is talk of revival and basing it on Linux Mint.

Part II

Software Packaging

Software packaging for TinyMe is handled by Smart Package Manager, using the RPM package format. Smart also supports DEB and Slackware packaging formats if the user chooses to use them. A list of all packages currently installed on the system can be found by entering smart info into the command-line, info into the Smart shell, or on the Smart GUI. The Smart shell can be opened by entering su -c 'smart --shell' into the command-line.

Packages can only be added from the command-line or the Smart shell by entering the command:

 su -c 'smart install <package name>'

or

 install <package name>

If installing from a url or a local disk, <package name> would be replaced with <url> or <path/to/rpm>, respectively.

Packages can be removed by using the GUI by right clicking on them and choosing remove, or by entering this command into the command-line or Smart shell:

 su -c 'smart remove <package name>'

or

 remove <package name>

The software catalog is extremely extensive, trivial packages for programs like abiword or the Smart manager itself are listed right next to packages for input/output drivers and development tools.

Major Package Versions

Software	Package Name	Version	Upstream Source	Vintage	Modifications	Details/Rationale
Kernel	kernel-firmware	2.6.33.2-1	http://unity-linux.org/	Latest version: 3.1.1 <ref>The Linux Kernel Archive kernel.org 2011-11-16 (Last accessed 2011-11-16)</ref> 1 year and 7 months behind	There is nothing that indicates this has been modified	Standard Linux kernel Rationale: standard kernel for a Linux system
	kernel-firmware-extra	2010108-1
	kernel-headers	2.6.33.4-1
	kernel-legacy-latest	2.6.33.6
Glibc	glibc	6:2.11.1-8	http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/	Latest version: 2.4 <ref>GNU C Library gnu.org 2011-6-9 (Last accessed 2011-11-16)</ref> 5 months behind	There is nothing that indicates this has been modified	Library that defines basic facilities Rationale: standard C library
	glib2.0-common	2.24.1-1
	libglibmm2.4_1	2.22.1-1
	perl-Glib	1.222-0.2
X.org	xinitrc	2.4.19-20	http://www.x.org/wiki/	Appears up to date	Modifications appear to have been made for use with Mandriva and for importation to Unity	Computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for GUIs and rich input device capability for networked computers Rationale: GUI foundation
	xkbutils	1.0.2-1
Gtk+	gtk+2.0	r2.20.1-1	http://www.gtk.org/	Latest version: 2.24.8 <ref>GTK+ 2.24.8 gtk.org 2011-11-10 (Last accessed 2011-11-16)</ref> 1 year and 6 months behind	There is nothing that indicates this has been modified	Multi-platform toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces Rationale: GUI toolkit
	libgtkmm2.4_1	2.17.1-1
Bash	bash	4.1-1	http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/bash.html	Latest version: 4.2 <ref>Bash http://tiswww.case.edu/php/chet/bash/bashtop.html 2011-5-12 (Last accessed 2011-11-16)</ref> 1 year and 1 month behind	There is nothing that indicates this has been modified	Free software UNIX shell Rationale: UNIX shell
RPM	rpm	5.2.1-0.20091118.10	http://rpm.org/	Appears up to date	Modifications appear to have been made to prepare the repository for 64-bit packages	Package management system Rationale: package manager
	rpm-helper	0.23.1-1
	rpmorphan	1.8-2
Midori	midori	0.2.6-1	http://www.twotoasts.de/index.php?/pages/midori_summary.html	Latest version: 0.4.2 <ref>Midori http://www.twotoasts.de/index.php?/pages/midori_summary.html 2011-11-11 (Last accessed 2011-11-16</ref> 1 year and 5 months behind	There is nothing that indicates this has been modified	Lightweight web browser Rationale: lightweight
Medit	medit	0.9.4-3	http://mooedit.sourceforge.net/	Latest version: 1.0.93 <ref>Medit Source Code https://bitbucket.org/medit/medit/src 2011-10-22 (Last accessed 2011-11-16)</ref> 1 year and 11 months behind	There is nothing that indicates this has been modified	Programming and around-programming text editor Rationale: basic text editor
Lilyterm	lilyterm	0.9.9-0.pre7.1	http://lilyterm.luna.com.tw/	Latest version: 0.9.9-rc9 <ref>"Lilyterm: Changelog": lilyterm.luna.com.tw 2011-7-14 (Last accessed 2011-11-16)</ref> 4 months behind	There is nothing that indicates this has been modified	Terminal emulator designed to be fast and lightweight Rationale: lightweight
Openbox	openbox	3.4.11.2-1	http://openbox.org/	Up to date <ref>"Openbox: News": openbox.org 2010-2-8 (Last accessed 2011-11-16)</ref>	There is nothing that indicates this has been modified	Highly configurable, next generation window manager with extensive standards support Rationale: program for managing windows

References

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