LinuxConsole is a

Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

independently developed by Yann Le Doaré. LinuxConsole should be written as a single word, and the use of the word "console" in the name does not relate to Linux's system console mode but instead represents its aim of providing a system more simple to use similar to that of a gaming console. This distro is built from scratch by developers from France, and has support for multiple languages. It is not based on any other Linux distribution and primarily features being

lightweight Lightweight is a weight class in combat sports and rowing (sport), rowing. Boxing Professional boxing The lightweight division is over 130 pounds (59 kilograms) and up to 135 pounds (61.2 kilograms) boxing weight classes, weight class in the spor ...

and easily accessible. LinuxConsole can function as a

live CD A live CD (also live DVD, live disc, or live operating system) is a complete booting, bootable computer installation including operating system which runs directly from a CD-ROM or similar storage device into a computer's memory, rather than lo ...

or live USB. It can also be installed as a complete

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

History

The earliest known verifiable release is documented as version 0.4 in 2004 on DistroWatch, and was based on Mandrake Linux. Version 0.4 expanded upon the previous release by adding many applications, and tools making it useful for more than just games and multimedia. The list of added software included programs used for working with documents, playing music as well as other server utilities, firewall security, and printer/scanner tools. The first release confirmed to be independently developed was version 1.0.2007 released in 2007. It added full capability to work with partitions using the

NTFS NT File System (NTFS) (commonly called ''New Technology File System'') is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft in the 1990s. It was developed to overcome scalability, security and other limitations with File Allocation Tabl ...

file structure via

GParted GParted is a GTK front-end to GNU Parted and an official GNOME partition-editing application (alongside GNOME Disks, Disks). GParted is used for creating, deleting, resizing, moving, checking, and copying Partition (computing), disk partitions a ...

. This release was thoroughly tested on several old computers using only 16 MB of RAM. LinuxConsole running the LXDE desktop

Release 1.0.2009 came out in 2009 with four distinctive versions. The first was a 200MB

ISO The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ; ; ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Me ...

image made for older computers low on

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

space, and came with a lightweight desktop and

file manager A file manager or file browser is a computer program that provides a user interface to manage computer files, files and folder (computing), folders. The most common Computer file#Operations, operations performed on files or groups of files incl ...

. The next was a CD image with a mid-sized desktop that added more features and games. The

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

version was complete with all the features included. Lastly, there was something available called the "Jukebox", where users could custom build their own ISO and transfer the image to

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical ...

with support for UNetbootin. This release was available via

BitTorrent BitTorrent is a Protocol (computing), communication protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P), which enables users to distribute data and electronic files over the Internet in a Decentralised system, decentralized manner. The protocol is d ...

. The release of 1.0.2010 in 2010 had the goal of being easy to use as a game console. Module management was completely rewritten to load all modules at once without any cache. It switched from

Dash The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

to Bash, and initramfs to initrd, allowing for a very fast boot time of only 4 seconds when starting

LXDE LXDE (abbreviation for Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment) is a Free and open-source software, free desktop environment with comparatively low resource requirements. This makes it especially suitable for use on older or resource-constrained pe ...

with a CD in

VirtualBox Oracle VirtualBox (formerly Sun VirtualBox, Sun xVM VirtualBox and InnoTek VirtualBox) is a hosted hypervisor for x86 virtualization developed by Oracle Corporation. VirtualBox was originally created by InnoTek Systemberatung GmbH, which was ac ...

. The default session was LXDE/ PCManFM and

IceWM IceWM is a stacking window manager for the X Window System, originally written by Marko Maček. It was written from scratch in C++ and is released under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License. It is customizable, relatively light ...

/Rox Filer was an option.

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

connections could be configured with wicd. The next major release was version 2.0 in 2013 with a fast boot, support for both new, and old

video card A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics accelerator, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or colloquially GPU) is a computer expansion card that generates a feed of graphics output to a displa ...

s, Live CD and Live USB support, and the ability to dual-boot with

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

. The release came with some games including OpenTTD, Tux Paint, BZFlag, Neverball, Frozen Bubble, fooBillard, Freecraft, SuperTuxKart, and Teeworlds to name a few. This release included support for Deb packages as well. Although this release is

deprecated Deprecation is the discouragement of use of something human-made, such as a term, feature, design, or practice. Typically something is deprecated because it is claimed to be inferior compared to other options available. Something may be deprec ...

, it can still be downloaded via the mirror link on the official website. The release of version 2.3 in 2014 saw the advancement of the lightweight opkg package manager. It offered a

gui Gui or GUI may refer to: People Surname * Gui (surname), an ancient Chinese surname, ''xing'' * Bernard Gui (1261 or 1262–1331), inquisitor of the Dominican Order * Luigi Gui (1914–2010), Italian politician * Gui Minhai (born 1964), Ch ...

to install and run stable

source Source may refer to: Research * Historical document * Historical source * Source (intelligence) or sub source, typically a confidential provider of non open-source intelligence * Source (journalism), a person, publication, publishing institute ...

packages in different categories including games, office, system, and education. The goal of this version was to run on old computers, and turn them into gaming consoles. It could work on systems with as little as 256MB of RAM, and had both PAE, and non-PAE versions available. It included support for multiple languages. This release is deprecated as well. The information page on the official website still exists, but the download links are no longer active. However, version 2.3 is still available via the mirror site. Version 2.4 was released in 2015, has a tool for installing third-party software, and it comes with the LXDE lightweight

desktop A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor) Desktop may refer to various compu ...

. It is compatible with

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

packages, and it can run

apt-get Advanced Package Tool (APT) is a free-software user interface that works with core libraries to handle the installation and removal of software on Debian and Debian-based Linux distributions. APT simplifies the process of managing software on ...

The LinuxConsole 2.5 release added support for

UEFI Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI, as an acronym) is a Specification (technical standard), specification for the firmware Software architecture, architecture of a computing platform. When a computer booting, is powered on, the UEFI ...

, and the 32bit version was the last one to support non- PAE hardware. LinuxConsole 2018 was released in December, 2017 with the updated ability to manage

bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is li ...

devices, as well as the ease of configuring

networks.

LinuxConsole 2019 supports installing an extensible set of software via modules, and some Windows software or games with the

Wine Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...

virtual

emulator In computing, an emulator is Computer hardware, hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run sof ...

. Additional software or games can be installed using the opkg and APT package managers. LinuxConsole 2022 has been released in 2022.

System requirements

*32bit or 64bit PC with

i586 The Pentium (also referred to as the i586 or P5 Pentium) is a microprocessor introduced by Intel on March 22, 1993. It is the first CPU using the Pentium brand. Considered the fifth generation in the x86 (8086) compatible line of processors, s ...

x86 or

x86-64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit extension of the x86 instruction set architecture, instruction set. It was announced in 1999 and first available in the AMD Opteron family in 2003. It introduces two new ope ...

architecture. *PAE compliant

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor, or just processor, is the primary processor in a given computer. Its electronic circuitry executes instructions of a computer program, such as arithmetic, log ...

. (Version 2.5 may be used for non-PAE CPU.) *500MB RAM (Listed RAM usages are based on version 2.4 requirements.) **128MB for basic usage on the non-PAE versions. **500MB for normal browser usage. **1GB recommended for graphics intensive programs such as SuperTuxKart *Can be installed to hard disk via live CD, live USB, Windows install, or net install.

References

External links

LinuxConsole HomepageLinuxConsole
on DistroWatch
Youtube video presentation about the tool used to build LinuxConsole
{{Linux distributions Light-weight Linux distributions Live Linux distributions X86-64 Linux distributions Linux distributions Linux

History

System requirements

See also

References

External links