Kororaa
Encyclopedia
Kororaa is a remix of the Fedora
GNU/Linux distribution. Originally Kororaa was a binary installation method for Gentoo Linux
which aimed for easy installation of a Gentoo system by using install scripts instead of manual configuration. The name is an alternate spelling for the Māori
word, "kororā" - the Little Penguin
. Kororaa was pre-configured for SSE
capable processors.
installation on multiple desktop machines. Chris also intended that Kororaa be used to quickly demonstrate the power of Gentoo Linux
to users critical of 'compile times.' On November 7, 2007, Chris announced that he was discontinuing his work on the project, and that there would be no new versions of Kororaa.
The introduction of the Kororaa XGL Live CD was intended to demonstrate the capabilities of Novell
's Xgl
and Compiz
.
On December 23, 2010, Chris Smart has announced rebirth of Kororaa as Fedora Remix.
In March 2006, a Kororaa based Live CD
was released, preconfigured with Xgl
capabilities. The live CD supports NVIDIA, ATI and Intel graphics cards, and the latest version (0.3) comes with both KDE
and GNOME
.
and fglrx
drivers was a violation of the GPL
as they take GPL code from the kernel and build it into a non-GPL kernel module, qualifying as a derived work. This caused Smart to temporarily remove the CD image from his website in August 2006 http://kororaa.org/static.php?page=gpl.
Two months later, version (0.3) was released, and all proprietary drivers were removed by request. Because of this, only limited ATI and NVIDIA graphics card support was included.
On December 23, 2010, Smart announced the restart of Kororaa with a release of the Fedora-based version of the distro: ""I know that you'll be looking for something Linux related to do over your Christmas holidays and New Year, so I've just released the first installable live DVD beta for testing. The final release will be Kororaa 14 (derived from Fedora 14), code-named 'Nemo'. As with the original Kororaa, it's based on KDE. Essentially, Kororaa has been reborn as a Fedora remix, inspired by Rahul Sundaram's Omega GNOME remix. It aims to provide all general computing uses out of the box and it aims to include software packages that most users will want."
Fedora (operating system)
Fedora is a RPM-based, general purpose collection of software, including an operating system based on the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat...
GNU/Linux distribution. Originally Kororaa was a binary installation method for Gentoo Linux
Gentoo Linux
Gentoo Linux is a computer operating system built on top of the Linux kernel and based on the Portage package management system. It is distributed as free and open source software. Unlike a conventional software distribution, the user compiles the source code locally according to their chosen...
which aimed for easy installation of a Gentoo system by using install scripts instead of manual configuration. The name is an alternate spelling for the Māori
Maori language
Māori or te reo Māori , commonly te reo , is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand, the Māori. It has the status of an official language in New Zealand...
word, "kororā" - the Little Penguin
Little Penguin
The Little Penguin is the smallest species of penguin. The penguin, which usually grows to an average of in height and in length , is found on the coastlines of southern Australia and New Zealand, with possible records from Chile.Apart from Little Penguins, they have several common names...
. Kororaa was pre-configured for SSE
Streaming SIMD Extensions
In computing, Streaming SIMD Extensions is a SIMD instruction set extension to the x86 architecture, designed by Intel and introduced in 1999 in their Pentium III series processors as a reply to AMD's 3DNow! . SSE contains 70 new instructions, most of which work on single precision floating point...
capable processors.
History
Kororaa was started by Christopher Smart as a method to quickly reproduce a Gentoo LinuxGentoo Linux
Gentoo Linux is a computer operating system built on top of the Linux kernel and based on the Portage package management system. It is distributed as free and open source software. Unlike a conventional software distribution, the user compiles the source code locally according to their chosen...
installation on multiple desktop machines. Chris also intended that Kororaa be used to quickly demonstrate the power of Gentoo Linux
Gentoo Linux
Gentoo Linux is a computer operating system built on top of the Linux kernel and based on the Portage package management system. It is distributed as free and open source software. Unlike a conventional software distribution, the user compiles the source code locally according to their chosen...
to users critical of 'compile times.' On November 7, 2007, Chris announced that he was discontinuing his work on the project, and that there would be no new versions of Kororaa.
The introduction of the Kororaa XGL Live CD was intended to demonstrate the capabilities of Novell
Novell
Novell, Inc. is a multinational software and services company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group. It specializes in network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare; systems management solutions, such as Novell ZENworks; and collaboration solutions, such as Novell Groupwise...
's Xgl
Xgl
Xgl was an X server architecture designed to take advantage of modern graphics cards via their OpenGL drivers, layered on top of OpenGL via glitz. It supported hardware acceleration of all X, OpenGL and XVideo applications and graphical effects by a compositing window manager such as Compiz or...
and Compiz
Compiz
Compiz is one of the first compositing window managers for the X Window System that uses 3D graphics hardware to create fast compositing desktop effects for window management. The effects, such as a minimization effect and a cube workspace are implemented as loadable plugins...
.
On December 23, 2010, Chris Smart has announced rebirth of Kororaa as Fedora Remix.
Kororaa XGL Live CD
Live CD
A live CD, live DVD, or live disc is a CD or DVD containing a bootable computer operating system. Live CDs are unique in that they have the ability to run a complete, modern operating system on a computer lacking mutable secondary storage, such as a hard disk drive...
was released, preconfigured with Xgl
Xgl
Xgl was an X server architecture designed to take advantage of modern graphics cards via their OpenGL drivers, layered on top of OpenGL via glitz. It supported hardware acceleration of all X, OpenGL and XVideo applications and graphical effects by a compositing window manager such as Compiz or...
capabilities. The live CD supports NVIDIA, ATI and Intel graphics cards, and the latest version (0.3) comes with both KDE
KDE
KDE is an international free software community producing an integrated set of cross-platform applications designed to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X systems...
and GNOME
GNOME
GNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...
.
Kororaa XGL Live CD and the GPL
In May 2006 an unnamed kernel developer sent an email to Christopher Smart, Kororaa's leader, suggesting that packaging the proprietary NVIDIANVIDIA
Nvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
and fglrx
ATI Technologies
ATI Technologies Inc. was a semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, Canada, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technologies Inc., the company was listed publicly in 1993 and was acquired by Advanced Micro...
drivers was a violation of the GPL
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
as they take GPL code from the kernel and build it into a non-GPL kernel module, qualifying as a derived work. This caused Smart to temporarily remove the CD image from his website in August 2006 http://kororaa.org/static.php?page=gpl.
Two months later, version (0.3) was released, and all proprietary drivers were removed by request. Because of this, only limited ATI and NVIDIA graphics card support was included.
Development hiatus and restart
On November 7, 2007, Smart announced that development on Kororaa would be ended, and no further versions would be released; reasons given were that- Sabayon Linux already serves a purpose as a binary Gentoo distribution
- Gentoo already comes with a GUI installer
- Compiz is already installed on most desktop distributions by default
- Kororaa couldn't compete with other distributions which include non-free drivers by default.
- the weight of the project was too much for a single developer.
On December 23, 2010, Smart announced the restart of Kororaa with a release of the Fedora-based version of the distro: ""I know that you'll be looking for something Linux related to do over your Christmas holidays and New Year, so I've just released the first installable live DVD beta for testing. The final release will be Kororaa 14 (derived from Fedora 14), code-named 'Nemo'. As with the original Kororaa, it's based on KDE. Essentially, Kororaa has been reborn as a Fedora remix, inspired by Rahul Sundaram's Omega GNOME remix. It aims to provide all general computing uses out of the box and it aims to include software packages that most users will want."
Version History
- Beta 2 R1, December 12, 2005
- XGL Live CD 0.1, March 8, 2006
- XGL Live CD 0.2, April 6, 2006
- XGL Live CD 0.3, October 4, 2006
- 14 Beta, December 25, 2010
- 14 Beta 2, February 11, 2011
- 14 Beta 3, March 2, 2011
- 14 Beta 4, March 22, 2011
- 14 Beta 5, March 31, 2011
- 14 Beta 6, April 22, 2011
- Kororaa Linux 14, May 31, 2011
- 15 Beta, July 16, 2011
- 15 Beta 2, July 20, 2011
- Kororaa Linux 15, September 20, 2011
- Kororaa Linux 15.1, October 20, 2011