Linux distribution
Linux distribution
KateOS
was a
Linux distribution
originally based on
Slackware
. It was designed for intermediate users. Its
package management
system used so called TGZex (.tgz) packages, which unlike Slackware packages support dependency tracking (optional), internationalized descriptions, and were designed for ease of update. There were two native tools for package management:
PKG
and
Updateos
.
The last version released was KateOS III (3.6), including as a
Live CD
, in 2007.
[1]
History
[
edit
]
The KateOS project was founded at the end of 2003 by Damian Rakowski.
KateOS version
|
Release date
|
1.0
|
9 October 2004
|
2.0
|
9 April 2005
|
2.1
|
23 June 2005
|
2.3
|
13 October 2005
|
3.0
|
9 July 2006
|
3.1
|
7 October 2006
|
3.2
|
21 December 2006
|
3.6
|
17 September 2007
|
Kate Linux 1.0 Rabbit (series I)
The first version of the system was published on 2004-10-09. The system was based on Slackware 9.0. Due to the problems with the main server which worked only infrequently, hardly anyone learned about the existence of Kate 1.0.
[
citation needed
]
After a move to another server, the project has begun to gradually acquire users. After some time, Kate 1.0.1 (a fix release including UpdatePack 1), and a Live version were published.
Kate Linux 2.0 Zyklon (series II)
Version 2.0 was published on 2005-04-09, and was no longer based on Slackware. It was a long-term edition, the base for further development.
[
citation needed
]
It was also the first edition using Linux 2.6.
On 2005-05-06 the name of the project has been changed to KateOS.
On 2005-05-22 version
2.0.1
was published, providing a tool for managing and remote updating the TGZex packages. The tool was called Updates, and was written by Piotr Korzuszek.
On 2005-06-23 version
2.1
was published. Updates now could install packages remotely.
On 12 August 2005, the first
Live
edition of series II was published. It had a more distinctive graphical design, used the
squashfs
technology (2 GB of data packed on just one CD) and
unionfs
.
On 2005-10-13 the last version of Version II was published -
2.3
. Updates gained new possibilities, and the system had a better hardware autodetection with the Discover tool.
[
citation needed
]
KateOS 3.0 Virgen (series III)
On 12 April 2006 the first snapshot of KateOS 3.0 was published.
On 2006-07-09 version
3.0.1
was published. The packaging system was completely rewritten resulting in the
PKG
and
Updates2
tools, and the
libupdateos
and
libsmarttools
libraries. The functionality of the TGZex packages was widened, this time to include dependency tracking and descriptions in many languages. The installation process was simplified to allow a full install in only 15 minutes.
[
citation needed
]
The system used
udev
,
D-Bus
and
HAL
to detect hardware and mount devices automatically.
On 4 August 2006 the first '
Live
edition of Version III was published. It was aimed to demonstrate the possibilities of KateOS 3.0, and to be used as a data rescue system.
[
citation needed
]
The CD contained 2GB of data, including the
Xfce
desktop environment and many office and multimedia applications. It detected and configured hardware automatically.
On 7 October 2006 version
3.1
was published. It contained fixes, and the updated
GNOME
desktop environment. It was the first edition of Gnome adjusted especially to the KateOS system. It also included
Update-notifier
, a
daemon
for which the system trace icon changed and blinked when new updates were discovered. It let the user choose packages to be updated and update them. It was based on the
libupdateos
library, and only supported the KateOS packages and repositories.
On 21 December 2006 version
3.2
was published. Apart from fixes and updates, it included a new tool,
KatePKG
. KatePKG is a graphical package manager written in
PHP
with the
PHP-GTK
library, making KateOS the first system to include this library in the default distribution.
[
citation needed
]
It was designed to allow users to easily install, update, and remove packages from the system. It supports any number of repositories, including local ones (located on the user's hard drive).
On 17 September 2007 version
3.6
was released after eight months of development. This version brought several new and updated features to KateOS such as software driven
suspend mode
and the addition of several new programs such as
KateLAN
and
Realm
to help make configuring the system more user friendly. The
Live CD
version of 3.6 was the first KateOS to provide an on disc installer called
Install Agent
, allowing the user to directly install to their hard disk after trying the system live.
Additional information
[
edit
]
All new KateOS releases were planned to be supported for around two years.
[
citation needed
]
Users were encouraged to update via the
updateos
command to newer versions of the distribution, although major version updates (series updates), e.g. II--->III were not recommended.
Damian Rakowski, the 'project initiator, leader, and 1st developer', stated that the project was named after a friend and because the name Kate is "simple, nice and everybody knows it."
[2]
References
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External links
[
edit
]