NepaLinux 1.0 is out: International Development Research Centre

Windows was recently launched in Nepali language and now another operating system gives the users an opportunity to interact with the computer in their mother language. But with a difference because it is free and can be modified to suit your needs.

We're talking about NepaLinux 1.0 that was launched by Kamal Mani Dixit at the Ashok Party Palace, Patan Dhoka on December 22, Thursday. NepaLinux is a complete Nepali operating system developed and distributed by Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya under the PAN Localization project with the support of International Development and Research Center (IDRC) of Canada in three years.

NepaLinux is a software with an open source code that makes every user eligible to customize it according to his need and also distribute its copies legally. Other proprietary and closed-source software cannot be edited and distributed without the permission of the software vendors.

A Debian and Morphix based GNU/Linux distribution, NepaLinux has packages like localized Gnome Desktop environment, OpenOffice.org, Gimp Graphics Editor, Gaim Messenging Tool, and Mozilla Suite to cater to the basic needs of an average desktop user who is accustomed to Windows.

The software can either be installed in the hard disk or run directly through its live CD without installation. According to senior developer Paras Pradhan at MPP, NepaLinux requires 64 MB RAM, 2 GB hard disk space and Pentium II or higher processor and it detects almost all drivers. He said that the development of NepaLinux was part of a project to promote free and open source software and computing in native languages.

The in-built Nepali Unicode helps the user to work with most Nepali fonts and also perform sorting and calculations in Nepali itself. NepaLinux has a spell-checker for nearly 22,000 widely used Nepali words and a thesaurus with 750 Nepali words. According to Laxmi Prasad Khatiwada at MPP, those words were selected by a language standardization committee of about 27 linguists and computer experts.