
Bodhi, A minimal, enlightened, Linux  - jancona
http://www.bodhilinux.com/
======
planckscnst
I see nothing good here. It is Ubuntu stripped down to nothing more than
Enlightenment (with a butt-ugly theme, of course), Midori (a light-weight
WebKit/GTK+ browswer), Leafpad (a poor excuse for an editor), PCManFM (a file
manager), a terminal, and a package manager. You can get the same system by
spending 10 minutes on a base Arch install.

If they really want to do something significant, they should make an good
Enlightenment theme (if that's even possible - I can't seem to find a good
one), and make a desktop-suitable version of Eve (a WebKit browser made with
Enlightenment's toolkit) as well as other Enlightenment-based tools.

P.S. Sorry to the folks who contribute to this project about the negative
tone. I hope you only use it as motivation to do something more than pollute
the Linux distribution space.

~~~
dkersten
The Arch package manager is also much more awesome than that of Ubuntu (IMHO,
of course). :-P

~~~
lukeschlather
Yes, I love package managers that don't provide a mechanism for signing code.
I also love compromised mirrors.

~~~
dkersten
That is being fixed "right now"[1], they seem to have most of it implemented
(yes, obviously testing and documentation is still needed before its ready for
non dev-branch release).

[1] <https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=115528> (I haven't bothered
checking the mailing list, but the latest forum post in that thread was two or
three days ago)

~~~
lukeschlather
I just don't understand how a distro can call a package manager with unsigned
packages ready for a stable branch. It's irresponsible, and if they don't care
about that kind of basic need for a package manager, I don't want to put
myself in a position where I'll discover (too late) what sort of other obvious
oversights they've made.

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jessedhillon
I'm glad we had a 3000 year old spiritual tradition that is sacred to millions
just lying around, waiting to be plumbed for names that are exotic-sounding to
Western ears. It just wouldn't do to call your OS "Salvation" or "Revelation"
would it?

I'm sure some would interpret this as admiration; is it really admiration to
take sacred concepts and redefine them to have profoundly dull associations?
And, is it admiration for the people who devote their lives to pursuing these
concepts, or for idealized representations of Eastern spiritual traditions?

(written as an atheist, FYI)

EDIT: From /about.html: "Bodhi comes from the Buddhist term for
'enlightenment'. It is also a type of sacred tree, thus the leaf used in our
logo."

~~~
andrewvc
Well, since it uses 'Enlightenment' as a WM it makes sense.

I'll tell you what, as an Atheist, if any Christians want to name their next
bible reading app Secular Humanism v3.0 it'll be fine with me.

~~~
jessedhillon
I haven't seen anything that suggests the Enlightenment WM is named after the
Buddhist concept. The Bodhi distro could easily be called Locke or Descartes
if you consider that the WM could be named after the age of enlightenment in
Western philosophy instead.

And if it is named after the Buddhist concept, then my question still stands:
why can the names of significant concepts from other cultures be appropriated
and applied to utterly mundane notions like software packages and OSes?

How is this different than when people who know zero Japanese or Chinese get
tattoos of CJK characters -- I think most people can see how that is an
example of shallow fetishization of a culture, appropriating superficial
symbols and detaching them from the significant context and value that they
are assigned in other cultures.

If it's a serious comment, witness the sibling to your comment where a person
thought that the only significance of "Bodhi" is the name of a character from
a movie.

~~~
tree_of_item
The other comment was a joke, and I think you're taking this way too
seriously. Software does naming like this all the time: "Gee, our WM is called
'Enlightenment'? What words related to that concept can we use?" It doesn't
matter which "enlightenment" the WM is referring to, as that's the nature of
word play.

Why does it matter that this distro is named Bodhi? It's just a word.

>And if it is named after the Buddhist concept, then my question still stands:
why can the names of significant concepts from other cultures be appropriated
and applied to utterly mundane notions like software packages and OSes?

Why can they do this? Because there's no one stopping them. It's some text on
a website.

> How is this different than when people who know zero Japanese or Chinese get
> tattoos of CJK characters -- I think most people can see how that is an
> example of shallow fetishization of a culture, appropriating superficial
> symbols and detaching them from the significant context and value that they
> are assigned in other cultures.

It's not different. And neither are a big deal. I don't see what's shallow
about it: "I like the way this character looks (and perhaps like what it
means) so I'll use it." You think it's shallow, but how deep does aesthetic
desire need to be to be valid? The culture police aren't going to come and
arrest someone for appropriating a concept.

~~~
jessedhillon
> And neither are a big deal.

To you. You're assuming that it's not a big deal to people who invest in those
concepts too. Or worse, you're presuming to tell other people what they should
and shouldn't value, and how much they should value them.

This passage from the Wikipedia article on cultural appropriation says it
better than I can:

"A common sort of cultural appropriation is the adoption of the iconography of
another culture. Examples include sports teams using Native American tribal
names, tattoos of Polynesian tribal iconography, Chinese characters, or Celtic
bands worn by people who have no interest in, or understanding of, their
original cultural significance. When these artifacts are regarded as objects
that merely 'look cool', or when they are mass produced cheaply as consumer
kitsch, people who venerate and wish to preserve their indigenous cultural
traditions may be offended."

\-- <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_appropriation>

~~~
doorhammer
I sense that some of your suffering may be caused by a negative attachment to
an inherently transient distro.

~~~
jessedhillon
:) +1

~~~
doorhammer
Heh, I can respect where you're coming from.

I'm not a buddhist scholar, but of the things that's always interested me
about buddhisms path through the world is how adaptive the underlying concepts
can be to new cultural contexts. I think, in a lot of ways, that the western
cultural context is just a new adaptation on that trend. You have people who
sincerely try to get at the heart of the religion/philosophy and you have
people that co-opt the names for their own uses, commercial or otherwise.

I'd wager that if we looked at the history of buddhism as it entered japan,
there would be similar trends of it being used politically and secularly (but
don't quote me on that if I turn out to be horribly wrong).

I think I get more bothered when I see things like mini cubicle zen-gardens,
or anyone else profiteering off of a barely there gloss of the cultural
history.

As for open-source software, and people trying to instill their distro with an
ambiance of 'zen', I think it's a little silly, but I don't think it was done
maliciously, and ultimately I don't think it will do a whole lot to really
water down the deep and expansive annals of buddhist history.

I think it's good to be sensitive to this sort of thing, and to be aware of
who you might be offending. Maybe I'm not being as considerate of the issue as
I should be. I suppose I just think that realistically, buddhist culture as it
stands in the world is going to go on, largely unaffected by the west and our
views, but perhaps greatly impacted by inexorable march of modernity.

I personally like buddhism because if they're right, I get a bunch more
chances to figure it out. Kidding, of course... kind of.

------
exch
I'm not a big fan of Ubuntu spin offs, but this one at least has the merit of
booting very quickly. The 'lightweight' label is not misplaced. I did find
some bugs in the UI. Most notably the layout of the "Run Everything" menu (tab
headers) was a bit messed up.

Which brings me to the name of this menu item. Seeing something labeled "Run
Everything" does not inspire me with confidence and zest to click it. Of
course I did anyway and was relieved to find that it did, in fact, not
actually run everything, but just let you pick a specific application to run.

I will have to play with it some more for a better feel. It definitely needs
polishing, but it's not a bad start.

I do agree with the choice of editor and file manager pointed out by a poster
below me. I'm sure there are some other applications I would have changed, but
to be honest, that is all mostly a matter of taste.

------
socksy
For a more minimal system, one might want to check out SliTaz:
<http://slitaz.org/en>

Under 30mb (compressed, in RAM — just over 100mb uncompressed), and quite
fast. No Ubuntu distribution, but packages available for it should be at least
adequate for most users.

------
andrewflnr
This was the first thing I thought of when I saw the website:
[http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2010/03/teal-and-orange-
ho...](http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2010/03/teal-and-orange-hollywood-
please-stop.html)

They need some help with design.

~~~
ramchip
That was quite an interesting read. I don't know if it has been on HN before,
but if it hasn't you should submit it.

~~~
andrewflnr
It was originally a comment here, on the post about a site that had reduced
movies to a big color band.

------
spudlyo
I can't read "Enlightenment: the lightest desktop manager there is" without
smirking.

~~~
sceadu
Maybe they're only going after the non-power users who never venture beyond
KDE or Gnome and don't know any better. :)

~~~
u48998
I'd agree. I'm a windows user for many years (XP) with couple of old machines
laying around. I have recently tried PeppermintOS, Joli, Lubuntu. I think I
have found Peppermint to be better than all of them and I think there is a
market growing for lightweight Linux distros. With a lot better software
manager, file manager, windows' look-alike environment and simplicity, I think
it is time for a linux comeback with all these distros competing with each
other.

------
yannickmahe
Side question: how many users can these minor linux distros hope to get? Linux
is still not mainstream for desktop computers (i.e. non geeks are a very small
minority of users), and there are dozens of distros with very little
differences between them. With the majority of the user base using the major
distros (Ubuntu, etc.), what is left for small distros such as this?
Thousands, hundreds, dozens of users?

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simonsarris
That's funny. I never even knew Bodhi was a Sanskrit word that is usually
translated as "enlightenment."

In the 2000 RPG-of-the-year Baldur's Gate II, Bodhi was one of the major
villains, a sadistic vampire character.

<http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Bodhi>

So the name has always had an eerie/negative connotation for me.

~~~
TY
And Bodhi was the name of Patrick Swayze's character in "Point Break", so in a
mind of a movie geek it makes total sense to think of this distro as Linux for
(web) surfers...

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limmeau
For minimalism, I still prefer grml[1], the live CD with zsh.

1\. <http://www.grml.org/>

~~~
gimpf
The live CD with an _actually really cool configuration_ of zsh. Whatever
linux distro you're using, get the zsh config from grml!

------
tjavailable
Bodhi Linux is an Ubuntu-based distribution that uses the Enlightenment
desktop in place of the usual desktop environment. Check it out
[http://ubuntumanual.org/posts/274/bodhi-linux-the-
enlightene...](http://ubuntumanual.org/posts/274/bodhi-linux-the-enlightened-
distro)

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whalesalad
Hideous.

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rch
"we are sure you will be impressed!" I'm not. So, what now?

