APC administrator22 June 2006, 2:14 AM
Are you ridiculously paranoid? Do you like to jam in your bedroom? Can you think of nothing better than digital image editing? Then a ridiculously niche Linux distribution is just what you need and only a download away. Welcome to the world of obscurity.
Are you ridiculously paranoid? Do you like to jam in your bedroom? Can you think of nothing better than digital image editing? Then a ridiculously niche Linux distribution is just what you need and only a download away. Welcome to the world of obscurity.
#3 Musix
Like many geeks, I've dabbled in electronic music production and mashup using my home PC as an instrument. Unfortunately, most of these dabblings have taken place on the Win32 platform because of the availability of software - applications like FruityLoops and Acid provide a great introduction to the concepts of non-linear audio production and synthesis, and are available as shareware.
Linux audio tools are a little harder for the novice user to set up. Part of the reason for this is that the tools have been designed by engineer-producers, but the other fact is that they offer a lot more power than many of their Windows counterparts, and this is sadly overlooked by users who find their complexity daunting.
Enter Musix to save the FLOSS community with chunky breaks and slamming bass-lines. It's available as a live CD (but can install on request), and is stacked with tools to make the task of music-making the GNU way as easy as possible.
Included software ranges from single-track non-destructive wave editing (Audacity) to an impressively feature packed sequencer (Ardour). There's more than enough tools to get started with, so give it a go and let us know what you think.
#2 Grafpup
Digital imaging is a big deal in the print world, and it's almost getting to the point where the average person knows what DTP stands for. As such, it's not surprising to find Grafpup, a Linux distribution aiming to provide professional photographers with a start-to-finish workflow solution.
The amount of software included is very light, but this keeps the OS small. In fact, the Grafpup standard version is a miniscule 80MB ISO. All of the software is well thought out, but a Grafpup install will more or less leave your computer useless for anything but photography, digital imaging and the basic day to day browsing and emailing tasks.
Then again, that's really the point.
#1 Tinfoil Hat Linux
They're going to get me for telling you guys about this...
Are you ridiculously paranoid? Do you worry about the toaster listening in on your phone calls? Do your walls have ears/eyes/mouths/noses?
Tinfoil Hat Linux is the OS for you. It runs entirely from a 1.44MB floppy image, is compiled from static libraries and contains absolutely no network stack at all (that's how they get you).
This distribution started as an experiment in encryption, initially intending to provide a secure operating system for encrypting files, and transporting GPG keys. In the words of the creators "at some point it became an exercise in over-engineering."
If you're really concerned about the safety of your data, this could actually be useful for you. It could, for example, be installed to a USB drive (giving you more space to work with) and then transported around to places where you needed to encrypt data. Want to keep IT out of your secret pr0n folders? This won't help you much. Want to keep them from opening your documents after you've left the company? Now you're talking...
I'll leave you with a quote from the Tinfoil Hat Linux readme.txt:
"If at all possible, boot THL on a laptop & disconnect all external cables, including the power & mouse. Turn off nearby radios, including cell phones and microwaves. Put yourself and the computer in a well grounded opaque copper cube. Download your tinfoil hat plans from http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html. Boot the floppy...."
Be safe. Be sure.