Open Source For You — December 2017

Success Story For U & Me

http://www.OpenSourceForU.com | OPEN SOURCE FOR YOU | DECEMBER 2017 | 47

“I

t is not very hard to build

a Linux distribution,” says

Kumar Priyansh, the 20-year-

old developer who has single-handedly

created BackSlash Linux. As a child,

Priyansh had always been curious

about how operating systems worked.

But instead of being merely curious

and dreaming of developing an

operating system, he started making

OpenSUSE-based distributions in

2011 to step into the world of open

source platforms. He had used the

SUSE Studio to release three versions

of his very own operating system

that he called Blueberry. All that

experience helped Priyansh in bringing

out a professional Linux platform

THE MAKING OF A

‘MADE IN INDIA’

LINUX DISTRO

BackSlash Linux is one of the newest Linux distributions developed in India, and that too, by

a 20-year-old. The operating system has a mix of Ubuntu and Debian platforms, and offers

two different worlds under one roof, with KDE and GNOME integration.

that debuted as BackSlash Linux in

November 2016.

“To try and build a new Linux

distro I decided to dedicate a lot of

time for development, and started

attending online tutorials,” says

Priyansh. Going through many online

tutorial sessions, the Madhya Pradesh

resident observed that he needed to

combine multiple parts of different

tutorials to understand the basics. “I

started connecting parts of different

tutorials from the Web, making an

authentic and working tutorial for

myself that allowed me to build the

necessary applications and compile

the very first version of my own

distribution,” he says.

Kumar Priyansh, the developer of BackSlash Linux

It’s Ubuntu behind the scenes,

but with many tweaks

Priyansh picked Ubuntu as the Linux

distribution to build his platform. But

to give users an even more advanced

experience, he deployed Hardware

Enablement (HWE) support that

allows the operating system to work

with newer hardware, and provides

an up-to-date delivery of the Linux

kernel. The developer also added

a proprietary repository channel

that helps users achieve better

compatibility with their hardware. “I

ship the platform with a proprietary

repository channel enabled, which

Ubuntu does not offer by default.

This is because I don’t want