Canaima (operating system)
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Canaima GNU/Linux is a
free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...
Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...
that is based on the architecture of
Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of D ...
. It was created as a solution to cover the needs of the Venezuelan Government as a response to presidential decree 3,390 that prioritizes the use of free and open source technologies in the public administration. On 14 March 2011, Canaima was officially established as the default operating system for the Venezuelan public administration. The operating system has gained a strong foothold and is one of the most used
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
distributions in Venezuela, largely because of its incorporation in public schools. It is being used in large scale projects as "Canaima Educativo", a project aimed at providing school children with a basic laptop computer with educational software nicknamed Magallanes.http://www.cnti.gob.ve/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=778:portugal-enviara-250-mil-computadoras-portatiles-a-venezuela-en-el-ano-2009&catid=44:nacionales&Itemid=88 Portugal to send 250,000 laptops to Venezuela in the year 2009 Use of Canaima has been presented on international congresses about the use of open standards, Despite being a young development, it has been used on the Festival Latinoamericano de Instalación de Software Libre (FLISOL). In February 2013
DistroWatch DistroWatch is a website which provides news, distribution pages hit rankings, and other general information about various Linux distributions as well as other free software/open source Unix-like operating systems. It now contains information on ...
ranked it the 185th most popular Linux distribution among 319 for the last 12 months.


Features

Some of the major features of Canaima GNU/Linux are: # Easy installation # Software license cost is free. # Free distribution and use. The
Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)#501(c)(3), 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...
(FSF) states that Canaima GNU/Linux is not 100% free software. This is because some of its components are nonfree software, in particular some firmware needed for graphic cards, sound cards, printers, etc. Canaima creators opted to include these nonfree drivers in order to support as many computers being used by the Venezuelan government as possible, and to facilitate the migration from a closed source operating system to an open-source one (although including nonfree software). It is expected that Canaima, in its upcoming releases, offers an option in the installation process for nonfree drivers to be optional, being able to install a 100% free software image of the distribution if the user choose to.


Included Software

Canaima includes applications for training, development and system configuration. The
Graphical User Interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
(GUI) and
desktop environment In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphica ...
by default is
GNOME A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characte ...
. There are other desktop environments and GUIs maintained by the community for the system, like
KDE Plasma Plasma is a desktop environment by KDE, and can refer to: * KDE Plasma 5 (2014–today) * KDE Plasma 4 (2008–2015) * Plasma Mobile for smartphones * Plasma Bigscreen Plasma Bigscreen is a software project from KDE which contains an interface op ...
and Xfce. Productivity: The office software suite LibreOffice, with
word processor A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Word processor (electronic device), Early word processors were stand-alone devices ded ...
,
spreadsheet A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in cel ...
,
presentation program A computing, a presentation program (also called presentation software) is a software package used to display information in the form of a slide show. It has three major functions: * an editor that allows text to be inserted and formatted * a ...
, it includes other more specific programs like project management software Planner and a HTML editor. Internet: Includes th
Cunaguaro browser
a
web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...
based on Iceweasel and adapted especially for Canaima 3.0 and onwards
Canaima Curiara
is a light web browser based on Cunaguaro, developed in python-webkit for specific applications on the distribution. Graphics: Includes
GIMP GIMP ( ; GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free and open-source raster graphics editor used for image manipulation (retouching) and image editing, free-form drawing, transcoding between different image file formats, and more specialized task ...
,
Inkscape Inkscape is a free and open-source vector graphics editor used to create vector images, primarily in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format. Other formats can be imported and exported. Inkscape can render primitive vector shapes (e.g. rectang ...
, desktop publishing software Scribus an
gLabels
labels designer. The full list of included software can be found a
here


Releases

Canaima has been releasing stable versions periodically since the last couple of years.


Development Cycle

Canaima GNU / Linux has a development model based on Debian but with some modifications to adapt it to the specific needs of Venezuela; In this sense, a development cycle has been defined as follows: The rolling release development model is used. 1.- The socio-productive Community, APN and Universities: They provide packages, proposals or, failing that, the corrections of some flaws (bugs), in order to raise the community requirements for the next version of the distribution. 2.- Building your own packages: For building packages, the debmake and debuild tools native to Debian are used. 3.- Alpha Version: It is built and subjected to tests where the correct interaction between the Canaima repository and the distribution is evaluated. The theming of the new version is displayed, performance tests are carried out on high, medium and low-end machines, the performance and management of the most used applications in the National Public Administration (APN) are evaluated. 4.- Evaluation: The Alpha version is evaluated by a group of workers from Venezuelan public institutions, related to the area of Science and Technology and some members of the Venezuelan Free Software Community. In parallel, the socio-productive community will carry out the packaging of its own packages to be added within the Beta 1 version. 5.- Beta version 1: The previously selected packages are added to the system directly or to the repository together with the project packages. At this stage of the development cycle, the distribution is published for Project users. 6.- Beta version 2: At this stage of the development cycle, more packages are added and errors are corrected, resulting in the correction of bugs previously reported during the community review of the Beta 1 version. 7.- Publication: At this stage, after the evaluation and corrections of errors found, the new version is published for the use of the Canaima Project community.


Cayapa Canaima

One of the community activities that has been generated around Canaima is the Cayapa. Cayapa is a Venezuelan term that stands as a form of cooperative work made by several people to reach one goal. On these meetings, free software developers get together to propose upgrades and fix bugs among other things; this activity is called a Bug Squash Party in other projects. The 6th Cayapa was conducted from 14 May until 15 May 2012 in the city of Barinas. The last Cayapa was conducted from 12 November until 14 November 2014 in the city of Mérida, Venezuela.


OEMs

Being a distribution promoted by the Venezuelan Government, a certain number of strategic agreements have been generated with several countries and manufacturing hardware companies: * Portugal: Agreement for the manufacturing of 250,000 "Magalhães" computers to be distributed on public schools *
Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...
: for the certification of Canaima devices from this manufacturer. *
VIT, C.A. VIT, C.A. (Venezolana de Industria Tecnológica, Compañía Anónima) is a Venezuelan manufacturer of desktop computers and laptops, supported by the Venezuelan government and a Chinese information technology company Inspur (former ). The first ...
: Venezolana de Industria Tecnológica, mixed-enterprise between the Venezuelan state and Chinese entrepreneurs in which it established the use of Canaima on the devices that are manufactured. *
Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited, often shortened to Lenovo ( , ), is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, Personal computer, personal computers, ...
: For the certification of devices from the manufacturer for the use of Canaima. * Siragon, C.A.: Venezuelan manufacturer of computer equipment, an agreement from which Canaima is certified for use on their devices.


Use of Canaima

The most successful instances of the use and adoption of Canaima:


Canaima Educativo

It is a project initiated in 2009 by the Venezuelan Ministry of Education (Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Educación) that provides students in primary education with a laptop computer, known as Canaimitas, with free software, using the Canaima operating system and a series of educational content created by the Ministry of Education. In 2017, 6000.000 laptops were acknowledged as being delivered.


CANTV

The national telephone company,
CANTV CANTV () is the state-run telephone and internet service provider in Venezuela. It was one of the first telephone service enterprises in the country, founded in 1930. The largest telecommunications provider in Venezuela, it was privatized in 19 ...
, uses the operating system to a certain extent according to thei
Equipped Internet Plan


Variants

There are a number of Canaima editions, maintained and recognized by community activists, that are not released at the same time as the official distribution and do not take part in the project schedule. The most significant ones are:
Canaima Colibri
a Venezuelan distribution with the goals of being friendly, light and functional for computers with low resources.
Canaima Comunal
the idea behind this edition is that it can be extended by community councils, a form of community government called "Consejos Comunales". The main aim is to deliver an operating system to the people in these councils for their everyday work, including tools for surveys among others.
Canaima Caribay
aimed at community media that has flourished because of government support, since the Venezuelan government sees most private media outlets as being heavily biased.
GeoCanaima
contains free Geomatics applications and data to perform various practices and interact with desktop applications, web servers and mapping generators.
Canaima Forense
a new user-friendly environment containing a variety of useful tools for computer forensics.


See also

*
GendBuntu GendBuntu is a version of Ubuntu adapted for use by France's National Gendarmerie. The Gendarmerie have pioneered the use of open source software on servers and personal computers since 2005 when it adopted the OpenOffice.org office suite, makin ...
* Huayra GNU/Linux *
Inspur Inspur, whose full name is Inspur Group (Chinese: 浪潮集团; pinyin: Làngcháo Jítuán), is an information technology conglomerate in mainland China focusing on cloud computing, big data, key application hosts, servers, storage, artificia ...
*
LiMux LiMux was a project launched by the city of Munich in 2004 in order to replace the software on its desktop computers, migrating from Microsoft Windows to free software based on Linux. By 2012, the city had migrated 12,600 of its 15,500 deskto ...
*
Nova (operating system) Nova is a Cuban state-sponsored Linux distribution launched in February 2009. It was developed in Havana at the University of Information Science (UCI) by students and professors to provide free and open-source software (FOSS) to inexperienced use ...
*
Ubuntu Kylin Ubuntu Kylin () is the official Chinese version of the Ubuntu computer operating system. It is intended for desktop and laptop computers, and has been described as a "loose continuation of the Chinese Kylin OS". In 2013, Canonical Ltd. reached a ...
*
VIT, C.A. VIT, C.A. (Venezolana de Industria Tecnológica, Compañía Anónima) is a Venezuelan manufacturer of desktop computers and laptops, supported by the Venezuelan government and a Chinese information technology company Inspur (former ). The first ...


References


External links

* * {{DistroWatch, canaima, NAME=Canaima GNU/Linux
Decree 3.390

VIT computers preloaded with Canaima

DistroWatch popularity rankings
Debian-based distributions Government of Venezuela State-sponsored Linux distributions History of computing in South America Linux distributions Rolling Release Linux distributions