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Turkish Linux distribution aims for the big time

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Linux

Published: 03 Jan 2006 15:40 GMT

A Turkish research institute has released a Linux distribution that it hopes will attract widespread use in Turkey due to the inclusion of features such as Turkish spelling and grammar check capabilities.

The first version of the new distribution, Pardus 1.0, was released at the end of December and is packaged with a number of open source products including the Firefox web browser and OpenOffice.org office suite.

"Pardus is expected to arouse interest in the global Linux community," said the research institute TUBITAK UEKAE in a statement. "With the widespread use of Pardus, Turkey's software imports are expected to decline dramatically, and hardware sales and computer ownership to increase consequently, as the total cost of ownership of computers drop off."

Pardus developer Erkan Tekman said that open source software is more secure than proprietary software as many people can get involved in testing the software.

"The first advantage is security. Open source software, by its very nature, is inspected by thousands of eyes from the very beginning of the development process to the release stage. If a developer or a company with evil intentions drops some suspicious code into the software, it cannot remain hidden from all these cautious eyes for long," said Tekman in a statement.

Other advantages of open source software include improved stability due to more rigorous testing and the flexibility to change the code to meet new requirements, according to Tekman.

Pardus 1.0 is available for download from the project's Web site.