I posted some news about sanpOS on the Amiga forum, and a question came up regarding a term used in the headline — education-focused - could you elaborate on it?
@Bohun - I posted some news about sanpOS on the Amiga forum, and a question came up regarding a term used in the headline — education-focused - could you elaborate on it?
Thanks for sharing it! Could you post the link to the Amiga forum thread? I’d like to answer the “education-focused” question there directly.
This distribution is geared towards education... so who is it for? Students? Teachers? What interesting features does it include that support education?
This is a Polish-language forum, but you can easily reply in English. Unfortunately, the forum requires registration.
If you don't want to register, you can write your answer here and I'll paste it there.
Actually, I'm also curious what use case you have in your plan for SanpOS
SanpOS is being designed for hardware used mainly for research and education. The idea is that a student or researcher can turn it on and have everything they need without hunting for software.
Bundled applications
I’m writing a set of native apps for SanpOS, built in C with AROS’s Zune GUI toolkit, so they’re fast, light and match the rest of the desktop. These include:
A word processor and an Excel-like spreadsheet that can open and save Microsoft Word and Excel files, so documents can be shared with Windows and Mac users
Scientific tools, starting with calculators for real coursework: a scientific/graphing calculator, a molar mass calculator (type a formula like H2SO4 and get the mass with a breakdown by element), unit conversion and more to come
The goal is small, focused tools that each do one job well, the way classic Amiga software did, rather than one huge suite.
Local AI
I’m working on porting llama.cpp so AI models can run directly on the machine, with no cloud account and no data leaving the computer. The plan is to connect it to the bundled apps. For example, it could explain the steps behind a chemistry calculation, help summarize or proofread a document, or answer questions about a spreadsheet.
From very powerful to very weak hardware
SanpOS should be useful on both ends:
On low-end or old machines, AROS already boots fast and uses very little RAM, and the apps are kept lightweight. AI features would use small models or simply be optional, so the rest of the system still runs well
On powerful machines, it can make use of more cores and memory to run larger AI models and heavier workloads
That way a school can reuse old computers, while a lab with newer hardware gets more out of the same OS.
It’s still a work in progress, so I’d love to hear what other tools people think a research or education machine should have.
@SanpOS
Thank you very much for your interesting and comprehensive reply. I posted it on the Polish forum I wrote about. I'm very impressed with your ambitious plans and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for them. It's great that you decided AROS would be suitable for your purposes. There are so many different Linux systems out there that another one would be lost in the crowd, and our lightweight system with Amiga roots has a chance to surprise and bring a breath of fresh air to the San Francisco IT scene ;-)
Good luck! I think you'll find many supporters of your project here.
@Bohun - @SanpOS
Thank you very much for your interesting and comprehensive reply. I posted it on the Polish forum I wrote about. I'm very impressed with your ambitious plans and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for them. It's great that you decided AROS would be suitable for your purposes. There are so many different Linux systems out there that another one would be lost in the crowd, and our lightweight system with Amiga roots has a chance to surprise and bring a breath of fresh air to the San Francisco IT scene ;-)
Good luck! I think you'll find many supporters of your project here.
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