| Yoper: 'Your Own Operating System' revealed |
by Jill Ratkevic (January 9, 2003)
DesktopLinux.com speaks with Andreas Girardet, Founder of Yoper, a New Zealand-based Linux distribution. Launching its first release candidate in early December, the company aims to deliver a unique version of Linux that offers the best available programs open source Linux has to offer. Girardet relates the goals of the new company, explains what makes Yoper unique, and his philosophy about the emerging desktop market . . .
DL: Briefly, what is the story behind Yoper? That is, the history of Yoper as a distribution and as a company?
AG: Yoper is born out of the professional frustration with any existing OS, I have been using in my professional career as an ISP technician and manager. After leaving the ISP sector I established Yoper Limited as an Operating System company in March 2002 and have been working on Yoper full time since. Ydesktop is the first of our products to reach the public. Others are currently being developed. One of them, Ymessaging will be released in the next few weeks. It is a complete messaging replacement.
Yoper has been developed by a small team of highly qualifed engineers in New Zealand. A build script for the entire OS exists, which is based on LFS plus other resources of the internet. On our main development box (Athlon 1400 with 1GB of RAM) it takes 16 hours to compile. In one step we compile, package, make an install iso. These scripts are layed out to allow easy porting onto any other platform supported by Linux and available to us. We are currently also running Ydesktop on an Alpha -CPU system, but we do not plan to release any other version until we have funding to support these versions. More than 4000 working hours have gone into the Yoper build system.
Yoper has had tens of tousands of downloads since the 6th of December 2002 and is very well received by thousands of people, especially non-Linux users who finally have found an Open Source OS that replaces their Non-UN*X OS's.
With the help of these users we have been able to fix hundreds of issues to the point in which rc3 is certainly going to be an amazing experience for anyone who is willing to give some harddisk space to this project (2.2GB).
Lots of focus has been put into the look and feel of the system, notably HW openGL support for Nvidia and Matrox and enhanced font support.
DL: In what ways is Yoper unique?
AG: We are a high performance OS -- optimized for 686 and higher. We are not a general purpose distribution, but a compact OS with ability to use packages from all other major OS's with support for 'rpm', 'tgz-native', and 'deb' integrated. The binaries we distribute are built from scratch using the latest original "vanilla" sources. We use the best features from other operating systems and keep installation time to under 10 minutes.
Your Operating Systems is tailored to the needs of a particular user, company, market segment, industry segment, instead of trying to fit every single user with one product. We offer a fast, pretty, stable, adaptable distribution that offers the best personal service and unbeatable support.
DL:What is Yoper's business model? How do you incorporate open source into your business?
AG: Yoper will be following a franchising model in which every franchise receives the training and the help to successfully convert any number of offices to Yoper. We are currently doing exactly this here in New Zealand and offer our clients:- No license fee options.
- Single weekend conversions of entire offices.
- The ability to re-use old licenses of non-Linux software.
- A 1-month risk-free satisfaction guarantee.
- Since Your OS targets specific real-world clients or whole industry segments you get 100% what you want out of the box.
The company's goal, apart from producing the 'Perfect OS', is to provide the best personal service and an unbeatable support.
DL: A distribution includes numerous choices for various types of applications (mail, editors, browsers, etc.), desktop environments (KDE, GNOME, etc.), and so on. As the number of software packages grows and the programs themselves evolve, keeping up with new versions and new programs is increasingly challenging, making package management a real issue. Sometimes, for example, a simple attempt at installing an RPM results in a lengthy and frustrating process of locating and installing the required libraries. What is Yoper's approach and how is your compatibility with so many formats going to improve the ease and reliability of package management and new software installation?
AG: We can use 'rpm', 'deb' and 'tgz' packages and even compile from scratch to complement the OS and allow the user to receive additional software by simply downloading any other distro. Using the latest stable libraries maximizes the chance of other packages to work. You will find that we can already run a large amount of software that has not been specifically compiled for Yoper. Our solution to the dependency nightmare is to compile the entire OS in one go. Once you have Your OS for a particular client Y, the chance for changes is minimized, since the client already gets all it needs.
DL: What is your vision/expectation for the opportunity of Linux on the desktop? In your opinion, what are the main barriers to the success of Linux on the desktop, and what are the key things that can be done to maximize the success of Linux in the Desktop Market?
AG: Linux has just started to enter the desktop market. Too many people share their visions with the public. Personally, I rather focus on creating a reality in which the OS market is as varied as the car manufacturing market with plenty of options. Users should be able to choose an OS that fits every single niche market out there. In the same way a car manufacturer produces several cars, trucks, or similar vehicle that addresses customer needs. The OS market is already developing in this way.
DL: What market, and what sorts of users, represent YOPER's market focus?
AG: The small/medium enterprise and business users. And anyone who wants their freedom of choice back. We want to maximize their OS's performance and rely on industry standards.
DL: At less than one month old, Yoper is climbing in popularity (see ranking at Distrowatch). Was this a surprise? How has the community reaction to the release surprised you or has it validated your perception of the market demand?
AG: We are currently #3 and still growing. Of course, it is far too early to talk about real success since we are tracking the real success of Yoper by the commercial wins and not by the amount of users who click on a link. The reality is that we need people who pay money for the product and once we are #3 in that perspective, I will open the champagne. :)
What was surprising to me is that so many non-Linux users have found a new home already, even though this product is still in beta. Another suprise is the very vocal positive feedback from those users and an amazing amount of very enthusiastic emails and posts from Linux and former non-Linux users alike.
For a New Zealand project we certainly are happy about the success and look forward to bring more innovations to the northern hemisphere.
DL: In November, Dick Smith Electronics started shipping preloaded Linux desktops in New Zealand. Are you currently discussing any distribution bundling with hardware, thin clients etc. regionally that you can discuss?
AG: This is correct and we certainly are going to intensify our effort in 2003 to convince many integrators to give users a choice between propietary operating systems or Linux or OS X or Y.
DL: The move toward Linux has been strongest outside of the United States. Care to comment on that trend and discuss it as it has manifested in your region?
AG: Small/Medium Enterprises and governmental agencies are the ones that are driving the move to diversify. These are the businesses we care about and want to talk to immediately. I can't really comment on a trend, since I am more inclinded to create trends than guessing them.
DL: How can we get Yoper?
AG: Download it here or preorder our Ydesktop pack-1.0, which will include a T-shirt, manual, and 2 CD's.
This manual will allow you to get started with your own conversions to Y and allows you to start your way into the Yoper franchise.
Andreas Girardet is the founder of Yoper Ltd. He is an 0-kernel Linux enthusiast and internet professional since the early 90's. He has been a system administrator for Solaris, RedHat, Debian and non-UN*X systems, ISP technical Manager, and most recently a UN*X consultant. Girardet also holds an MA in Philosophy of Logic.
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