[Indic-computing-users] The Ankur Bangla Live CD version 1 beta3

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			Announcing.....

	******************************************
	 The Ankur Bangla Live CD version 1 beta3
	******************************************

			"HiJibiJbiJ"
			 ==========

"keno haaschhi shunbe? mone koro prithibiTaa Jadi chyaapTaa hoto, aar 
shob jol goRiYe DaangaaY eshe poRto, aar Daangar maaTi shob ghuliYe 
pyaachpyaache kaadaa hoye Jeto, aar lokgulo sab taar modhye dhopaadhop
aachahaR kheye poRto, ta hole - Hoh Hoh ho"

....

"mone koro ekjon lOk aashChe , taar ek haate kulpi boroph, aar haate
saajimaaTi, aar lokTaa kulpi khete gie bhule saajimaaTi kheye pheleche 
- Hoh Hoh, Hoh Ho, Hah Hah Hah ha"

....

"aamaar naam HiJibiJbiJ. aamaar bhaaiYer naam HiJibiJbiJ, aamaar baabaar
naam HiJibiJbiJ, amaar pisher naam HiJibiJbiJ"

This is HiJibiJbiJ - from Sukumar Ray's "hojoborolo". 

..and the last beta of version 1 of the Ankur Bangla Live CD is named
after this fantastic, "ever laughing" (if I may put it in that way) 
character. 

This release features a major upgrade in the core system (Morphix 
base), which should solve many problems related to hw detection, 
bootup and other misc stuff. Also, a large number of
additions, enhancements, tweaks, fine-tuning, bug fixing has gone into
the Ankur Bangla Live CD v1b3; see the Changelog below for the details.
There should be an overall enhancement in performance for machines with
less RAM (128 MB), especially in the Multimedia segment. Moreover, people 
using this CD can connect to the Internet now - please see the Changelog 
for details.

However, in my opinion, one of the most significant enhancements in this
release is the inclusion of the "Ankur Bangla Chhar Poka Naashok". ;-)
Of course, there are many who disagree with me - my message for them,
well....

	HUMBUG!!
;-)

This tool helps users to gather debugging information in case the CD does 
not work properly. After the information has been collected, it is
dumped onto a floppy disk, so that it can be later sent to the
developers of the Ankur project.
To use this tool, while running the CD, switch to console mode by
pressing Ctrl-Alt-F2, and issue the command 'charpoka' (without the
quotes), and the wizard will guide you through the process. 
Screenshots of this tool are available at 
http://clai.net/sayamindu/index.php?m=20031113

The ISO image can be downloaded (approx 380 MB download) from 
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=43331&release_id=197316

Bugs should be reported at http://www.bengalinux.org/bugs

Mailing list for people interested in the LiveCD is at 
http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bengalinux-distro

Screenshots are available at 
http://www.bengalinux.org/screenshots/gnome/

I would like to thanks the developers of the Ankur Bangla team for the
great work they have done over the past one year.
A round of special thanks goes out to Indranil Dasgupta and Malay Mitra 
for helping in the production of the CD.
Also, the people who have been most helpful in the Live CD project are
the beta testers - and a HUGGGEEE thanks goes out to them - you all rock!!

(..and thanks also to Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay - for carrying out the
hard work of distributing the Live CD to the beta testers who don't have
a high speed internet connection).

-happy bug hunting to all-
-cheers-
Sayamindu Dasgupta
(on behalf of the Ankur Bangla Team)

PS: The Ankur Bangla Live CD v1 beta2 has been downloaded 149 times since 
it was first uploaded to sourceforge.net (not bad for a large ISO...)
:-D

*****************************************************************************

Known issues in this release
----------------------------

* The time is not displayed correctly
* The disk mounting system is somewhat flaky
* The system does not shut down automatically once you exit X (This is
  intentional - and will be removed in the final version)
* The sound volume in Totem and in the GNOME mixer are both set to zero
  initially, please increase the sound volume once you are logged in.
* GNOME Terminal does not work (no prompt)

Changelog for Version 1.0 beta-3 (HiJiBiJBiJ)
---------------------------------------------

* The core system (which handles the bootstrap process) has 
  been upgraded to Morphix 0.4.1
* The boot failure issue for most machines should be 
  resolved.
* Most of the packages in GNOME were updated. 
* GNOME Games is more or less completely translated 
  now (3 cheers for Progga!).
* XFree86 4.3.0 has been patched to the latest version and 
  hand compiled. 
* ATI Radeon users should experience increased stability due 
  to the upgrade mentioned above.
* Freetype2 has been upgraded to version 2.1.5
* Some patches from Ximian Desktop 2.4 beta has been 
  incorporated into the stock GNOME install.
* On machines with less than 96 MB RAM, a dialogue now pops
  up during the boot process, asking if the user would like 
  to create a swap file in an existing DOS partition. This 
  feature has not been tested very extensively - I expect 
  reports from people on 64 meg boxes.
* A network config tool has been added to the Live CD. This 
  tool can handle normal ethernet configurations, and has 
  support for wireless devices. I have not tested the 
  wireless support as I do not have the required hardware
  setup. Feedback expected on the wireless support thingy.
  Screenshot of this tool at 
  http://clai.net/sayamindu/images/network_config.png
* WvDial has been included for modem users (I am still 
  searching for a *stable* GTK2 based dialup tool - if 
  anyone finds one, please let me know).
* The disk mounting subsystem is undergoing a restructuring, 
  and is expected to be unstable - please mail me and let me 
  know if the harddisks/extra cdroms/floppies mount correctly 
  in your system.
* A new tool has been added - called Ankur Bangla Live CD
  Chhar Poka Nashok. This tool collects debugging and system 
  info and dumps them on a floppy, so that the user can send 
  the info to the development team later.
* The Live CD now supports both the (semi)phonetic Probhat 
  Layout and the Inscript Layout. Also included is a document 
  on how to write Bangla in the Ankur Bangla Live CD. 
* Some sample pictures have been added to the "aankibuki" folder
  on the Desktop
* An OGG file (under the Open Music Green license) has been 
  added to the "gaan baajnaa" folder.
* The Bangla Literary archive has been updated.
* Some blurb on Ankur has been added (still incomplete).
* The file selector originally used in the LiveCD has been 
  removed - it was having some performance issues.
* The buttons on the modified GTK file selector from 
  Ximian work properly now.
* Mozilla has been updated to version 1.5
* Xine lib updated to version 1-rc2
* NVidia  drivers updated to version 1-4496
* Support for the integrated ethernet device in Nforce/Nforce2/Nforce3
  based motherboards has been added.
* The PCIUtils packages has been added.
* Support for the graphics card (GeForce 4 MX) integrated with NVidia 
  Nforce2 motherboard has been improved (now it uses the nvidia drivers 
  instead of the generic VESA driver).
* General hardware support is also improved now, as I have integrated the
  latest version of the database used by the hw recognition system to the
  core.

--
Sayamindu Dasgupta
[ http://clai.net/sayamindu ]

The Illiterati Programus Canto 1:
	A program is a lot like a nose: Sometimes it runs, and
	sometimes it blows.