From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Nov 8 18:58:19 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from guru.mired.org (okc-27-149-77.mmcable.com [24.27.149.77]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 6EB2437B479 for ; Wed, 8 Nov 2000 18:58:15 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 26425 invoked by uid 100); 9 Nov 2000 02:58:15 -0000 From: Mike Meyer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <14858.4806.987473.460787@guru.mired.org> Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 20:58:14 -0600 (CST) To: "Daniel Taghioff" Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: A simplified operating system for developing countries. In-Reply-To: <110863877@toto.iv> X-Mailer: VM 6.75 under 21.1 (patch 10) "Capitol Reef" XEmacs Lucid X-face: "5Mnwy%?j>IIV\)A=):rjWL~NB2aH[}Yq8Z=u~vJ`"(,&SiLvbbz2W`;h9L,Yg`+vb1>RG% *h+%X^n0EZd>TM8_IB;a8F?(Fb"lw'IgCoyM.[Lg#r\ Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Hi Daniel, I was hoping someone who knew more about the project would answer, but it hasn't happened, so I'll do it. BTW, you'll get better response if you set your mailer to send one plain ascii copy of a message to the freeBSD lists, instead of one text and one HTML copy. Daniel Taghioff types: > I am studying development studies in London, and I am interested in low = > cost internet technologies as a tool for allowing people to organise = > themselves to improve their social situation, espaecially in the third = > world. > > I am looking around at low cost networking solutions like Linux, freebsd = > and netbsd. What I am looking for is the simplest possible operating = > system, which takes the least possible disk space, and will run on a the = > largest possible range of 486 and pentium hardware, allowing text = > download form the internet and simple spreadsheet and wordprocessing = > functions. > > The idea is that with a few floppy disks and a refurbished computer = > (with a modem), people with access to a phone line (not as simple as it = > sounds) in the developing world will, with very little previous = > experience of computers, be able to install such a system and access = > information from the internet in a text format, without outside support. = > =20 > > Is this possible? > Is anyone already doing this? > Is anyone interested in doing this? Sounds like you want the PicoBSD project. Try searching for that string on the FreeBSD web site and mail lists. From what I can gather, they are stripping the OS down to the point where it will run off of floppies. Everything else is doable. I suspect they aren't using a GUI environment, though.