Foresight Linux

Foresight Linux is an open-source and completely free distribution of Linux derived from the Specifix Linux operating system and built around the GNOME desktop environment. It features a rolling-release mode and rollback functionality.

Available for download as 64-bit/32-bit installable-only DVDs

The Foresight Linux project is distributed in multiple editions, with the GNOME, Xfce and LXDE desktop environments. This is the main edition of the distribution and comes with the GNOME desktop, available for download as two installable-only ISO images of 2GB in size each, suitable for 32-bit (i386) and 64-bit (x86_64) instruction set architectures.

Boot options à la Red Hat Enterprise Linux

The bootloader implemented in the ISO images is identical with the one from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system, designed to allow the user to start the graphical or text-mode installers, as well as to boot the operating system in rescue mode to repair a broken OS.

The graphical installer is quite newbie friendly

While the text-mode installer is designed to be used by power users who want to tweak every option available, the graphical installer is quite newbie friendly, requiring users to only select their favorite language and keyboard layout, partition the disk, choose a bootloader, configure the network and set up users and passwords.

Default applications

Default applications include the Banshee audio player, Evolution email and calendar client, Mozilla Firefox web browser, Gedit text editor, GIMP image editor, LibreOffice office suite, Liferea news reader, Pidgin IM client, Skype VoIP client, Totem video player and Transmission torrent downloader.

Bottom line

Summing up, Foresight Linux proves to be a very stable and reliable operating system in the style of the Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux OSes. It is a rolling-release distribution of Linux that does not require the user to download a new ISO image every time a major update is available.

What is new in this release:

• First release of Lxde with conary.
• Xfce 4.10
• Gnome2 with updated applications

What is new in version 2.0.5:

• Foresight Linux 2.0.5 released. It features the latest GNOME 2.24 desktop environment, OpenOffice.org 3.0, and the latest X.Org server release, version 1.5.1.