Commentary
As Specialized A Linux Distro As You're Likely to Find
You want proof there's a Linux distribution for absolutely every possible application? Here's one for you: Hikarunix, a distro dedicated to Go players and based on the ever-versatile Damn Small Linux (DSL).You want proof there's a Linux distribution for absolutely every possible application? Here's one for you: Hikarunix, a distro dedicated to Go players and based on the ever-versatile Damn Small Linux (DSL).Go, in this case, is not the very funny 1999 movie, but the Asian strategy game. It's vaguely similar to checkers or Othello, over 4,000 years old, and is said to be a whole order of magnitude more difficult than chess. (The line I've used to describe it is, "Chess is one battle. Go is the whole war.") I play the game intermittently, and I'm bad enough that I get consistently whomped by just the computer, never mind the human players. (The "Hikaru" part of Hikarunix is a reference to Hikaru no Go, a manga / anime series with a small but deeply enthusiastic following about a young Go player and his rise to mastery.)
Hikarunix is a great example of how a whole Linux distribution can be packaged and presented as a kind of mega-application -- one that doesn't need to be installed per se since you can run it as virtual machine in Virtual PC, VMware or VirtualBox.
More Software Insights
White Papers
- Mobile BI: Actionable Intelligence for the Agile Enterprise
- Red Alert: Why Tablet Security Matters - by BlackBerry
Reports
More >>Webcasts
- Maximize ROI with Database Consolidation onto Private Clouds
- The ABC's of Cloud Computing in the Midmarket
Boot the Hikarunix image and you'll be taken to a desktop that sports quick links to many Go tutorials, practice programs, applications that let you play against other people across a network, and the usual package of apps included with a DSL distro (Firefox, Sylpheed e-mail, etc.). It's addictive -- much like the game itself, which you can learn the basics of in about five minutes and spend the rest of your life getting trounced at.
One caveat: Installing the Hikarunix distribution to a hard drive is a little less straightforward than it might be with some other distros I've played with (including the vanilla edition of DSL). This is a little problematic if you want to install it somewhere and then update it regularly, but not fatal.
Related Reading
| To upload an avatar photo, first complete your Disqus profile. | View the list of supported HTML tags you can use to style comments. | Please read our commenting policy. | |
|
|
T-Shirt Giveaway: Each week we're selecting one great comment from our readers. The author of the comment will receive an InformaitonWeek Community t-shirt. So get posting! |
Subscribe to RSSResource Links
This Week's Issue
Technology Whitepapers
- Mobile BI: Actionable Intelligence for the Agile Enterprise
- How To Regain IT Control In An Increasingly Mobile World - by BlackBerry
- The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet's Good Bones - by BlackBerry
- Red Alert: Why Tablet Security Matters - by BlackBerry
- New Visual and Wizard-Driven Paradigms for Exploring Data and Developing Analytic Workflows
Featured Broadcast
This white paper explains how to create a manageable, scalable environment suited to answer real-time business needs by building out a data center on a standards-based, virtualization-aware, energy-efficient and affordable platform. Plus, learn how virtualization is making the jump from the server realm into the application, mobile and database worlds in the additional resources section.
Learn More












