3 minutes reading time
Dear BOSS Developers,
I’ve been running your distro on my main laptop for a couple of months now. I wanted to like it. I really did. There’s something comforting about using a state-backed Indian Linux distribution, developed by C-DAC, funded by the Union, branded with national pride.
But we need to talk about reality. Not the reality inside C-DAC's air-conditioned server rooms in Chennai or Delhi, but the reality out here in the villages on 256(really?) kbps BSNL EDGE networks.
First, your base. Debian is stable, sure. But every time I boot BOSS on my hardware, I run into driver issues that were solved upstream months ago. I’m a long-time Fedora user. Fedora sticks closely to upstream Linux kernel developments. When Fedora developers want a change, they don't fork off into their own isolated tangent; they work directly with upstream maintainers to fix bugs and commit code that benefits everyone. BOSS keeps reinventing wheels and getting stuck in driver hell on hardware that ordinary Indians actually buy. Why not consider Fedora as the base for future releases?
Second, and this is my primary grievance, how in the hell are we supposed to download this OS?
The BOSS ISO installer image is over 3 GB. And your official site provides only a direct HTTP download link. Are you serious?
Where I live, BSNL FTTH with 100 Mbps fiber is a fever dream for urban elites. Out here in our village, 2 Mbps is a luxury, and most of us rely on a 256 kbps (on a good day) 2G wireless connection. And that too, paying for every single MB we consume to the telecom overlords.
A 3 GB ISO file over a flaky EDGE signal that drops every time a storm rolls in or the tower connection fluctuates is an impossible task. Browsers crash halfway through, single-threaded HTTP gets interrupted, and the download dies, burning precious data reloads.
Fedora and Debian provide 1 GB minimal network installation ISOs, and more importantly, they distribute everything via BitTorrent with checksums and pause/resume capability. Why doesn't BOSS offer a Torrent download? Why must an Indian distro intended for the Indian masses demand a continuous, uninterrupted 3 GB HTTP stream over metered wireless connections?
If you want BOSS Linux to be anything more than a compliance checkbox for government offices, fix the distribution model. Give us Torrents. Keep up with upstream.
Until then, I'm sticking with Fedora.
Image Credit: Linux Terminal Server-kn.svg by Translated into Kannada language by user:vidyu44, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.