Review: Bayanihan Linux 4
April 1st, 2007 by jamesThis Filipino-based Linux distribution, initiated by the Open Source Group in the Philippines’ Advanced Science and Technology Institute in October 2001, hasn’t received a lot of press (in the US, at least). I just first heard of it via DistroWatch announcing their latest release. Curious, I checked out the distribution’s website, which looked very nice. I’m always interested to see what government sponsored software brings about. I didn’t see any reviews on the DistroWatch page for Bayanihan, so I decided it was time to change that.
What is Bayanihan Linux?
From the DistroWatch page on Bayanihan:
Bayanihan Linux is a complete open source-based desktop solution for office and school use. It is a package that includes an operating system, a word processor, spreadsheet program, presentation software, email facility, an internet browser, and a graphics editor. This complete system is packaged in a single easy-to-install CD. The word “Bayanihan” relates to a Filipino tradition where people in a community help their neighbour in physically moving their house to a different place. The most recent versions of Bayanihan Linux are based on Debian GNU/Linux; previous releases (3.1 and earlier) were based on Fedora Core and Red Hat Linux.
According to the “About” page on the Bayanihan Linux website:
The Bayanihan project was initiated by the Open Source Group in Advanced Science and Technology Institute last October 2001. This was the first initiative of the group in Open Source Technology. Its goal was to provide the best alternative desktop solution to Filipinos. In details, it aims to provide a better hardware support, operation simplicity, speed, efficiency, stability and Windows portability.
Downloading and Installing
Bayanihan isn’t a live CD distribution like most of them today, so there was no trying it out beforehand. No matter, because I have VMware for this purpose, and I still didn’t want to remove Sabayon from my desktop.
I downloaded the 700MB ISO (bayanihanlinux-4.iso) and configured a new VM on my MacBook Pro. The distro started up and a simple and clean boot loader appeared.
Bayanihan Install CD boot loader
Bayanihan booted straight into the Anaconda installer. As you may know, Anaconda is a GUI-based installer for Linux systems. It was made for RedHat and Fedora, but has been adopted by other distributions as well, including Foresight Linux.
Anaconda installer
The Anaconda installer is pretty easy to deal with. I do really like the Anaconda installer since it’s so easy. It’s nice to see a number of distributions use it because it gives some extra consistency to the Linux world.
Installing Bayanihan
The install took awhile. I didn’t time it, but I found other things to do to pass the time. The installer worked flawlessly as I expected. No random errors or anything of that sort. During the install I chose 1280×1024 resolution and the kernel boot framebuffer splash screen came up in 1280×1024 as well. I liked the boot splash screen. It was different.
Boot splash screen
The X login screen came up, but at 640×480. I logged in as the user I created during the install and it was still at 640×480.
Bayanihan login screen
Using Bayanihan
The KDE 3.5 desktop came up and was very nice looking. It looked professionally polished and had a nice theme (though it was fairly close to the KDE default). One thing I noticed right away is that it was set for the Philippines timezone. That’s easily changed but understandable considering the target audience for this distribution. I tried to change my resolution from 640×480 twice, but both times it made the VMware window shrink to nothingness (hard to describe, but the window essentially disappeared.) Also the 2 other resolution options other than 640×480 were 1×1 and 2×2. I attempted to go through the Kxgenerator program but I’m pretty sure my problem was VMware related. I didn’t have these issues with other distributions that I had used in VMware so the issue could be the display driver being used.
Bayanihan desktop
In any case I’ll not let that detract from the rest of this review, though using an OS at 640×480 resolution makes things very difficult.
Bayanihan comes with the standard KDE applications as well as the normal applications we come to expect to be included with Linux distributions these days. It had Firefox (2.0.0.2) for browsing, but used Kmail for mail. It had Kopete for instant messaging. I prefer Gaim for IM and Thunderbird for email personally. Bayanihan had Blender and The GIMP as well as a few other graphics utilities and a PDF viewer. In multimedia it includes XMMS, K3b, MPlayer to name the major applications. OpenOffice.org 2.1 is included for your office suite needs. KMyMoney is included for personal finance. Firefox had a number of plugins for multimedia viewing, but not Shockwave Flash nor Java. In fact, Java wasn’t installed on the system. The system doesn’t include everything and the kitchen sink.
Running KMyMoney on Bayanihan (albeit 640×480 resolution)
That being said, Bayanihan uses Synaptic for package management, and so installing any extra packages is a simple matter. Unfortunately it seems by default no repositories are added to Synaptic and so I had to add it manually, which was an easy task. (Instructions here.) Once I did so, more packages became available, but still not as many as more mainstream distributions include.
Synaptic package manager running on Bayanihan
Final thoughts
Bayanihan Linux 4 is a pretty good, simple, distribution. It is easy to install and manage and it gets you going quickly right out of the box. That being said it doesn’t have all the latest gizmos and eye candy of the current wave of Linux distributions. It also doesn’t have a huge package repository, but you can probably add some more.
It’s not bad for a government sponsored distribution and if it gets more people to switch to Linux, that’s a good thing. Power users will want more than Bayanihan provides, but the average computer user will find all they need in Bayanihan.
April 3rd, 2007 at 2:50 pm
looks pretty,..but
Why no Java pre-installed, no Flash, no nvidia, no w32codecs etc,..
why call a distro with a oriental name that means to help people,.. when it clearly sets out to make un-necessary work for you?
Whats the point, and wasted effort of making distro’s without all the basic running progs that people want as standard
Why should anyone change from PCLinuxOS 2007 for this Asian junk?
Even the latest test 3 version of pclinuxos runs better and faster
April 3rd, 2007 at 3:35 pm
I never made any mention that anyone should change from any other distribution to this one. That being said I wouldn’t call it “junk”. It is made by a group of volunteers for free. It doesn’t include a lot of stuff with it but that doesn’t appear to be its main focus.
True there are better distros out there and no one will probably switch to Bayanihan from one they’re already happy with. But you never know, a distro like this could convert a few more people. There’s certainly no reason to trash it just because it doesn’t live up to the highest standards.
April 3rd, 2007 at 8:33 pm
“Why should anyone change from PCLinuxOS 2007 for this Asian junk?”
PCLinuxOS is CRAP.
April 3rd, 2007 at 9:24 pm
It doesn’t matter if anyone switches. This version is far and above what most students have available to them now in the internet cafes or college computer rooms that I saw in the two years I lived there and taught college in Davao City. Good work Jamie for getting the word out.
April 4th, 2007 at 4:35 am
The point of the Bayanihan Project, like other government-sponsored Linux-based projects, is to provide their citizens and public agencies a cheap, simple, easy-to-use alternative for Windows users to migrate to.
It is not meant as a replacement nor is it put forth as a better option for existing Linux users.
A true sportscar enthusiast will not go into a Japanese automaker showroom and then rant afterwards of apparent lack of european style.
April 4th, 2007 at 9:16 am
Windows OS is commercial,
Bayanihan Linux and most Linux OS is open source.
think of it..if Bayanihan is funded with ALL
the research and development resources it needs…
April 5th, 2007 at 10:38 am
The repository that you list here,
http://apt.bayanihan.gov.ph/bantayog,
was not available yesterday
and this morning;
connection refused.
The pdf help file installed
on the Bayanihan desktop
lists some repositories
and gives instructions
on how to add them
to the sources.list from synaptic.
Also,
you can set the display configuration
from the wizard,
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg,
the same applet that you
use from ubuntu.
April 30th, 2007 at 6:04 am
bayanihan linux will soon be another option to filipinos needing a stable, efficient, and secure alternative to money draining windows os. The Philippine Government has felt the impact of how opensource technology can revolutionize and lessen burden economy. For the average Filipino, whether he be a student, worker, or the average joe may be able to utilize the stability of the linux base with the native and local environment linux is to provide. Who knows, sooner or later Bayanihan Linux may be among the technology or usher opensource trend from starting as a single distro to coming live to mainstream os.
May 16th, 2007 at 6:49 am
Bayanihan like other Debian based distros
don’t offer everything but instead offer enough apps as basic desktop and easy way to add more in the future.
I tried BL4 in my VM, its true, even if i set it
to 1024×768 during setup it still came out to be 640×480 but i edited the xorg.conf and bingo! maybe due to VM limitations. but it worked fine! Good Job!
May 25th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
I think Bayanihan Linux has the potential to become a viable alternative OS like ubuntu/linspire/Fedora etc. At least it can play video DVD and MP3s since it has the all the codecs in it since in my country (THE PHILIPPINES) codecs, patents and all kinds of crap are okay for the government.
September 2nd, 2007 at 9:33 am
Just for clarification, bayanihan doesn’t mean ‘to help people’, it means ‘people helping each other to get a job done’, hence, a community effort.
It is not intended to compete with other Linux distros, but rather to provide a cash-strapped government with an alternative OS for its offices.
September 17th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Rightly said Bamm!
We all know that the Windows OS and applications costs a lot in pesos or dollars.
Here is an opportunity for us Filipinos to use an entirely free and available Linux operating system. Above all, its better than using pirated proprietary os and applications, for a change.
October 27th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
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