Reduced inertia to get you going.
Elesar‘s GoLinux application allows a Titanium-based computer to boot from the RISC OS desktop straight into Linux1 – Debian (Jessie) – effectively making those systems equipped with the software dual OS machines. This can be hugely useful, because even the most ardent of RISC OS users would have to admit there are many shortcomings in the software available for the platform – so being able to switch from RISC OS to Linux, all in the same box – allows a lot more software to be run without any extra space being taken up on the desk. If it can’t be done in RISC OS, there’s a good chance it can in Linux.
However, Linux comes with a significantly larger footprint than RISC OS, which has a bearing on boot time – quite simply, it’s not as quick to start up!
To this end, Elesar has released a new version of GoLinux – version 1.03 – in which the amount of “unnecessary debug chatter” has been reduced, thus saving a couple of valuable seconds from the boot time.
The application is a free download, and can be found on the resources section of the Titanium product page., or directly [zip].
Obviously, though, it’s not much use unless you have a suitable build of Linux – and the sources for Elesar’s port of Debian (Jessie) can be found on GitHub – but if you don’t want to roll your own, there’s also the option of buying a micro-SD card with it set up and ready to run.
!ReadMe
- Don’t forget, however, that booting into Linux is not reversible without a complete reboot or power cycle. If you have anything loaded in RISC OS when you do so, you will lose it – make sure everything is saved before running GoLinux.
