DistributionWatch Review: Kondara MNU/Linux 2000
By: Eric Foster-Johnson
Tuesday, October 10, 2000 02:35:27 PM EST
URL: http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reviews/2447/1/
Tough-Looking Penguins Everywhere
It's hard to miss the ads sporting the tough-looking penguins crossing their flippers. In a seeming deluge of ads, the until-now almost unknown Kondara project has made a big splash in Linux publications. Kondara's main product is a Linux distribution called MNU/Linux.
Kondara MNU/Linux provides a distribution based on Red Hat Linux, Red Hat 6.x in this case, precompiled for Pentium or Alpha systems. It's clear that Red Hat provides the highest-visibility Linux distribution. Basing Kondara on Red Hat therefore makes a lot of sense. Quite a lot of other Linux distributions have followed the route of building new features on top of an existing distribution.
But this is not just any old staid Linux distribution, as you'd guess from the ads. For one thing, it seems like the developers have a lot of fun, starting with the name of the product. The MNU part of the name MNU/Linux comes from the sound made when you touch a penguin (no kidding). The Japanese symbols look more like munyuu to me, but I could be reading the Hiragana incorrectly. MNU also stands for "Mount is not Umount," according to the Web site, in what seems to be a play on the GNU acronym, GNU's not Unix.
The name Kondara also has a fun background, as quoted from the Kondara.org Web site:
The word "Kondara" is not a proper Japanese [word] but a wordplay from an old Japanese TV animation, and indicates their resolution to devote to this distribution.
The products sport very simple requirements, but clearly aren't intended for low-end machines. On the Intel side, you need a Pentium or better CPU, at least 64 MB of RAM and 1.2 GB disk. You need a video card supported by XFree86 3.3.6 and an ATAPI or SCSI CD-ROM (or 1.44 MB floppy for booting).
While Kondara states you need at least 64 MB of RAM, I suspect you can get away with less, since this is based on Red Hat Linux.
On the Alpha side, the only listed requirement is for a Compaq Linux-Ready Alpha server.
The main focus of Kondara MNU/Linux seems to be on creating an open source distribution that supports Japanese and places a heavy emphasis on graphics.
The Products
The desktop version comes with four CD-ROMS: a CD of Linux for Intel systems, a CD of Linux for Alpha systems, and source and applications CDs. Few Linux distributions include an Alpha version as a standard part of the release (normally, you have to order it separately if it is even available). This support for a non-mainstream CPU is great and helps add to the freedom of choice for Linux.
Kondara comes in two main versions: Kondara MNU/Linux 2000 aimed at desktop systems, and Kondara MNU/Linux Server 2000 aimed, as you'd suspect, at server systems. Aside from the color of the manual, the documentation is virtually identical between the two. This reflects the fact that a Linux system can work equally well as desktop workstation, server, or both at once. The server package includes an extra printed Administrator's Guide. Both versions include a good-sized printed User's Guide.
To help get started, the User's Guide covers two of the main window managers, Enlightenment and Sawmill, each with their own chapters. The Enlightenment chapter is especially long. Another chapter focusses on KDE (there is no GNOME chapter, but Sawmill and Enlightenment are often used as the window managers on the GNOME desktop), the Mutt email client, the XChat chat program, and Wanderlust, an emacs add-on (there is a large emphasis on emacs in this distribution). I never would have focussed on Mutt so much, but I don't mind getting user-oriented documentation. Window managers in particular are a difficult concept and all documentation is appreciated. Other chapters in the User's Guide deal with PPxP and ppp communications, accessing the Web, floppies and CD-ROMs, setting up printers, using packages in RPM format, and running the setup command. A chapter at the end includes the Alpha Miniloader (MILO) how-to document.
The Kondara.org Web site includes a lot of documentation, such as a guide to the RPM package format at http://www.kondara.org/docs/Kondara-RPM-HOWTO.en/Kondara-RPM-HOWTO.html. See http://www.kondara.org/docs/ for the main documentation page online. The Web site includes the same content as the printed manual as well as a number of frequently-asked questions lists and how-to documents. Many of these documents are in Japanese, but a very handy one, especially for users of Kondara Linux, is a how-to on installing Japanese support from the Kondara RPMs. You can use this how-to with any Red Hat-based distribution (including Kondara MNU/Linux).
The slim Administrator's Guide, which comes with Kondara MNU/Linux Server 2000, includes a long section on the Kondara-developed mph administration commands, including how to configure the Linux kernel, setting up Web, file, DNS, mail, and Samba servers, along with a section on adding users. The Administrator's Guide is short but to-the-point, and covers a great deal in its pages.
The frequently asked questions lists continue the emphasis on fun, with topics such as There is no sound with my Let's Note. (sob...).
The server version includes much more support than the desktop version, especially for things like DNS and firewall configuration, as well as 10 support incidents versus 5 incidents with the desktop package. This is reflected in the price difference between the desktop and server versions, $44.95 and $149.95 US, respectively.
Kondara MNU/Linux includes a separate applications CD-ROM, packed with RPM packages, along with Sun's StarOffice 5.2. As in most RPM packages, there are separate directories for i586 (Intel), Alpha, and noarch (short for no architecture) for packages not specific to any architecture.
The applications CD does have some fun use of English, such as the following from the start of the README.en file on the CD:
Welcome to Kondara MNU/Linux World! From now on, you are a member of Kondaraz. The developers of Kondara MNU/Linux are persistently dragging Kondara, a kind of road roller representing a tough work, with the sound GORO-GORO day by day, because they want to make Kondara MNU/Linux a much better Linux distribution. (Well, actually they are often struggling with it.)
Kondara provides a Japanese-language Web page pointing at the RPM repository at http://www.kondara.org/rpm2html/. You can download the packages, in Red Hat RPM format, from this site or from English mirrors such as ftp://rufus.w3.org/linux/Kondara/.
It's kind of hard to figure out how to buy the package from the Kondara.org Web site (look for what looks like a release announcement link and click on that). You can purchase the distribution from Digital Factory USA at http://www.df-usa.com/ or in Japan from Digital Factory Co., Ltd. at http://www.digitalfactory.co.jp/. At the Japanese site, you can also purchase Kondara MNU/Linux Web Cluster 2000. The desktop version costs $44.95 and the server version $149.95 US.
There are also downloadable RealPlayer movies on the Japanese site featuring the Kondara penguins on their motorcycles. How many other Linux distributions feature their own movies?
Installing Kondara MNU/Linux
To start installing most versions of Linux, you first need something to boot the installer program. With a bootable CD-ROM drive, boot from the first CD to start installing. Here, Kondara is no different from other Linux distributions.
If your system does not support booting from the CD-ROM, a common issue with older PCs, then create a boot floppy. To do so, first select a boot disk image from a list, a thankfully short list of boot.img in most cases; pcmcia.img for using either a PC Card CD-ROM or network card, or bootnet.img for booting from a network device. Then copy the boot image to a floppy disk using either the MS-DOS RAWRITE program or dd on Linux or UNIX systems. Note that each Kondara package includes a default boot floppy for Intel-based systems.
Like Red Hat, Kondara uses Disk Druid for partitioning the hard disk. In fact, most of the installation process seemed to mirror that of Red Hat Linux 6.2. As with Red Hat, install pre-canned configurations for GNOME workstation, KDE workstation, a Server system, or a Custom installation.
There were a few Kondara customizations, such as the GNOME workstation icon in the setup, and the fact that the default is for a Custom setup. I recommend using the custom setup, if only to see the wide variety of packages available for Linux. If coming over from Windows, you'll be amazed at how much software is in the package. In addition, most Red Hat users recommend choosing the Custom installation, a recommendation that carries over to Kondara.
As with Red Hat, select partitions using Disk Druid, and then choose which partitions to format. As a long-time Linux user, I have my own partition preferences, including keeping my user accounts and all my data on partitions separate from the root partition. This way, I can do a clean install of various versions of Linux, while still preserving my data. Thus, it is very important to be able to select which partitions you want to format. Like Red Hat, Kondara supports this feature.
Unlike Red Hat 6.2 Linux, Kondara defaults to specifying an IP address for networking. Red Hat defaults to using DHCP.
While the entire installation seemed very close to Red Hat's, there are more than a few small differences. If experienced with Red Hat Linux, you'll be able to install Kondara MNU/Linux with no problems. I found the differences in some of the packages interesting, though. For example, the editor packages on Kondara focus much more on emacs than Red Hat does, with a lot of emacs add-ons for international text support. Among the add-ons not in Red Hat Linux 6.2 are a Netscape flash plugin, the MagicPoint presentation tool and a lot more XMMS add-ons for playing music. Kondara has its own screen saver package, not enabled by default.
I saw at least two different Chinese input systems for X, along with a Korean input system.
The setup automatically detected my hard-won X configuration for my Voodoo3 card and 19" monitor. Why this was so hard to configure decently under Red Hat Linux 6.2, I don't know, but the Kondara setup detected it right away and set up a high-resolution mode.
Once done selecting features and packages, sit back while the setup program installs all the packages chosen.
Initial Configuration
After the installation, reboot and Kondara MNU/Linux is ready to go. Well, not quite--and this is an area where Red Hat doesn't provide enough documentation. You still need to configure a number of items--for example, the sound card using the setup or sndconfig utilities. This is the same as with Red Hat Linux 6.2.
To the basic Red Hat distribution, the Kondara Project has added some extensions, such as the sdr command to set up graphics environment.
The Kondara organization seems to be based mostly in Japan. Consequently, I expected to have a good support for Asian text processing and was not disappointed. With the basic X Window graphics environment, you can choose between English and Japanese versions. In the Japanese version of the X Window System, select an input method, such as Canna/kinput2, the default choice. (An input method allows entry of complex characters using multiple keystrokes. This is necessary for Japanese, Chinese, and Korean, due to the large character sets and the fact that keyboards can't hold enough keys for all the characters.)
The sdr command picks the language (English or Japanese), the input method, if needed, and the window manager to use. The GNOME and KDE desktops are considered to be window managers here.
The initial X Window display under GNOME (the default environment) is pretty nice. Obviously, the Kondara Project includes some graphic designers. The distinctive penguin with aviator goggles abounds--including on a custom screen background image, as well as the online help.
The default window manager is Amaterus, a window manager I hadn't used before. The GNOME/Amaterus desktop includes a theme manager and a clean, crisp look. There is quite a large selection of themes, including the mandatory LCARS (Star Trek) and a plethora of ways to use up colors and CPU resources.
Kondara provides its own penguin-oriented screen saver.
The default GNOME setup includes a bar across the top of the screen containing the main GNOME menus and a number of panel applets, along with the normal (and taller) GNOME bar across the bottom of the screen. This results in a look closer to KDE than to the normal GNOME. In addition, for some reason, the battery-watch panel applet was enabled by default, telling me that my desktop system had a low battery.
The applications on the menu seem directed toward user needs but there were surprisingly few games. This was odd because Red Hat Linux, upon which Kondara is based, includes about 20 games associated with each of the GNOME and KDE desktops. I was glad that Kondara includes gPhoto, a tool for working with digital cameras, which I hope to use to get my Agfa camera to synchronize (the Agfa Windows software fails to work with their own model camera, so I'm hoping I can use Linux in lieu of Windows).
One useful application missing, and one that is oriented towards end users, is GnoRPM, the GNOME RPM package manager.
The server version includes a set of tools called mph, a package-administration tool created by the Kondara developers. Short for Marvellous Package Hacker, mph aims to install packages more easily and better maintain dependencies than the Debian apt or Red Hat rpm and rpmfind utilities.
In addition to the package management, Kondara MNU/Linux Server 2000 includes a set of mph tools for configuring Linux. These tools include mph-sysv for setting up system network services, mph-kernel for configuring the Linux kernel, mph-ipfwadm for setting up a firewall, and mph-user for user management. Run any of the mph tools from the wrapper tool, mph-admin, which is similar to the Red Hat setup command, except that mph-admin runs the mph tools to configure parts of the system.
The Kondara project maintains a separate mph project page at http://www.kondara.org/mph/.
Conclusions: Have a GORO-GORO Day!
I started this review figuring that there was no good reason to switch from Red Hat, Slackware, or SuSE Linux (all populating my home systems). Not that these are the best Linux distributions, but Red Hat especially is so common that I find it easier to work with add-on applications because most seem to be built assuming a Red Hat distribution.
After working with Kondara MNU/Linux for a while, though, I'm hooked. There's no great difference from Red Hat Linux, and you get some extra features. If you like Red Hat Linux, you'll also like Kondara MNU/Linux, especially if your focus is on graphical desktop tools, where Kondara includes more than Red Hat. Even so, Kondara doesn't include nearly as many applications as do other Linux distributions such as SuSE.
If you want to use Japanese on your Linux system, then Kondara is the distribution to grab.
For the ratings, I used the LinuxPlanet ratings for Red Hat 6.2, and then adjusted (upward) for the added value with the Kondara release. Kondara is a good release, especially if you like Red Hat Linux or have an Alpha box. The price of $44.95 for the desktop version is a bit high for a desktop Linux, compared with $29.95 for the low-end Red Hat or $39.95 for the SuSE distribution. You do get a cool Kondara T-shirt, though, if you order from the Digital Factory USA Web site at http://www.df-usa.com/.
The Kondara project team seems to be very open to participation in the development of MNU/Linux. The Web site and README files all ask for people to join in. That's a refreshing attitude. Besides, I want to have a GORO-GORO day.
Eric Foster-Johnson wrote and co-wrote 15 books on Linux, UNIX, programming, and open-source tools, including Teach Yourself Linux (with Steve Oualline) and Cross-Platform Perl. He can be reached at erc@pconline.com or http://www.pconline.com/~erc/.