New Linux for education

BANGALORE:Keeping with the President’s support for open source software, EFY has launched Linux from India — For You (LiFY), an educational version of Linux. LiFY is aimed at providing cost-effective educational software solutions to a large cross-section of the Indian population. It includes tens of applications for educational needs. It is totally free for any personal and business use. It is developed at LFY Labs, New Delhi.

Linux is an alternate to the commercial operating systems (Windows NT, Windows XP, etc.). It has active support of various government bodies, industry organizations (MAIT, NASSCOM, etc.) and commercial organizations (IBM, Oracle, etc.). Linux has widespread implementation and it’s the most common platform for web servers. LiFY has expanded the utility of Linux for the educational platform. A CD-ROM containing a complete version of LiFY will be available for free with Linux for You magazine’s June edition. The CD can also be availed separately for Rs. 50/- only, across different parts of the country.

LiFY is intuitively designed with a Windows XP like interface (XP Desktop Environment). It has a separate menu for educational applications. All applications are based on Open Source, which means that they can be used totally royalty free for various business and personal applications. The source code of the applications is also available for free for modification and re-use by programmers. The operating system does not need any installation and can run directly from CD-ROM. It is built in with Ethereal and other strong network support and applications.

LiFY has been integrated with many applications that are useful for education. These include applications meant for students at school, college and research level. Some of the applications bundled with LiFY include OpenOffice (spreadsheet, document processor, presentation software, etc.), Wims (Internet server system for mathematical and educational applications), Euler (program for quickly and interactively computing with real and complex numbers, matrixes and intervals), Physics Interactive, Dr. Genius (geometric shapes tutorial), Gperiodic (comprehensive periodic table application), LEKSBOT (Biology knowledge base), VisualOS (operating systems tutorial), Alliance (Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools & Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) design tools), Klogic (simulating and building digital circuits), Tux Math Scrabble (Mathematics game), Geometry (aid for Geometric and Trigonometric problems), gTempConv (temperature converter), KUnit (conversion system between various units), Math::MatrixReal (Matrices simulator), Citrus (universal unit conversion system), Calcoo ( register system tutorial), Kig (Geometric explorer), Tux Typing (typing tutor), KlearnNotes (manage musical notes), Lyx (document processor), MajorTeach (memory improver), and many others.

It also includes interactive applications for kids. These include Gcompris (Educational applications for ages 3-10), abc-blocks (block tutorial), Beads (counting tutorial), Linux Letters & numbers (letter & numbers tutorial), KLetters (multi-lingual letter tutorial), etc.

LiFY also includes applications for educational institutes in order to help them run better. These include STORM (system for managing educational institutions), Time Table (application for generating faculty time-table), School Scheduler, Satyanash Scheduler (College/school registration assistant), Open Admin for Schools (web-based administrative application for schools), Jadvisor (class scheduler, course planner and course search program), Ggradebook (automated report-card for students), Recruit (recruitments manager), etc.

The technical specifications of LiFY are:

Linux-Kernel 2.4.x, Windows Manager: KDE v 3.1, Office Suite: OpenOffice 1.0.2, Control Panel: Control Centre, File Manager: Konqueror, Command Prompt Window: Kconsole, Web Browser: Konqueror & Mozilla, Media players: X Multimedia System & Xine, Internet connectivity: PPP, DSL & ISDN and Graphics: GIMP.

The hardware requirements are fairly minimal. It requires a 486 processor, 16MB of RAM for text mode, 96 MB of RAM for KDE, CD_ROM drive, SVGA monitor, keyboard and mouse. It has been successfully tested on many different hardware platforms.