[apluslist] good news on A+

[Alexander Skomorokhov]

Hi all,

A+ is now included in one Linux distribution named Quantian
http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian.html From here you may
read:

What is Quantian?

Quantian is a remastering of the self-configuring and directly bootable
Knoppix cdrom that turns any pc or laptop into a full-featured Linux
workstation. Recent versions of Quantian are based on clusterKnoppix
and add support for openMosix. Quantian differs from (cluster)Knoppix
by adding a large set of programs of interest to applied or theoretical
workers in quantitative or data-driven fields.

Actually it happened first time in December 2003, when
Dirk Eddelbuettel (distribution maitanainer) kindly agreed to
include aplus-fsf there. From the what's new for release 0.4.9.2:

-  A+ packages aplus-fsf, aplus-fsf-dev, aplus-fsf-el and xfonts-kapl
   providing the APL dialect A+ originally developed by Morgan Stanley

Now I happily run Quantian release 0.5.9.1. You may download it from the
site or order from BudgetLinuxCDs.com. I ordered current version
on DVD ($7.5), because of downloading 1061M seems problematic to me.

So, what all the above mean? We have _LIVE_ CD (DVD) with _everything_
on numeric analysis and symbolic math and publishing. It runs perfectly!
Very fast with known from Knoppix excellent hardware recognition. I tested
it on 5 machines around me from old Compaq laptop to (also old enough:-)
dual CPU workstation. You quickly get to KDE (default, may be changed at
boot time to your favorite window manager, like windowmaker, or fluxbox, or
icewm, or...). You run XEmacs from desktop icon or a command line, press F4
and you are in A+ with proper fonts. The performance is outstanding. You
have normal screen resolution and color depth. All together it is MUCH
better in comparison to live CD from Morgan Stanley you probably tried.
If there you was able only to play a bit with iota something, here, in
Quantian
you may normally work or demonstrate the product to somebody else. You
may save your setting on the floppy, or on the hard disk (small image file
is
created). You may create your home directory on a hard disk. Or you may just
install the whole thing on hard disk (as I did) and have the Debian
distribution
with almost everything you need and with fresh versions of everything.

Well, show this to your friends and colleagues, distribute this info around
you.

Regards,
Sasha.