| BOSS (Bharat Operating System Solutions) | |
| Logo Alt: | Logo displaying BOSS prominently with two shades of blue and an outline of a left-facing face within the O supplemented with a full spelling of the name underneath. |
| Screenshot Alt: | A basic desktop environment of BOSS Linux 7.0 on a personal computer with menus above and a taskbar below. |
| Developer: | C-DAC/NRCFOSS |
| Family: | Linux (Unix-like) |
| Marketing Target: | Desktop computer, Laptop, Education, and Server |
| Language Count: | 19 |
| Language: | Assamese, Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Bodo, Urdu, Kashmiri, Maithili, Konkani and Manipuri |
| Userland: | GNU |
| Ui: | Cinnamon |
| License: | Free software licenses (mainly GPL) |
| Working State: | Current |
| Source Model: | Open source |
| Latest Release Version: | 10.0 ("Pragya") |
| Updatemodel: | APT (several front-ends available) |
| Package Manager: | dpkg |
| Supported Platforms: | x86-64 |
| Kernel Type: | Monolithic (Linux) |
Bharat Operating System Solutions (BOSS GNU/Linux) is an Indian Linux distribution based on Debian. Its latest stable version is 10.0 (Pragya), which was released in March 2024.
BOSS Linux was released in various editions for different purposes:
BOSS Linux was developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing with the aim of promoting the adoption of free and open-source software throughout India. As a vital deliverable software of the National Resource Centre for Free and Open Source Software, it has an enhanced desktop environment that includes support for various Indian language and instructional software.
The software was endorsed by the Government of India for adoption and implementation in India. BOSS Linux has been certified by the Linux Foundation for compliance with the Linux Standard Base.[1] BOSS Linux supported Intel and AMD IA-32/x86-64 architecture until version 6 ("Anoop"). From version 7 ("Drishti"), the development shifted to x86-64 architecture only.
BOSS Linux has nine major releases:
| Version | Code name | Kernel version | Desktop | Date of release | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sethu | 2.6.14-2-smp | GNOME 2.8 | |||
| Tarag | 2.6.17-1-i386 | GNOME 2.14 | January 2006 | ||
| Anant | 2.6.21-1-486 | GNOME 2.18 | September 2007 | ||
| Tejas | 2.6.22-3-486 | GNOME 2.20 | September 2008 | ||
| Savir | 2.6.32-5-686 | GNOME 2.30.2 | April 2011 | ||
| Anokha | 3.10 | GNOME 3.4.2 | September 2013 | ||
| Anoop | 3.16.0-4-686 | GNOME 3.14.4 | August 2015 | ||
| Drishti | 4.9.0-8-amd64 | GNOME 3.22 | August 2018 | ||
| Unnati | 5.2 | Cinnamon | 11 July 2019 | ||
| Urja | 5.10 | Cinnamon | 19 February 2021 | ||
| Pragya | Cinnamon | 15 March 2024 |
This release came with many new applications focused mainly on enhanced security and user-friendliness. The distribution included over 12,800 new packages, for a total of over . Most of the software in the distribution had been updated as well: over software packages (70% of all packages in Savir). BOSS 5.0 supported Linux Standard Base (LSB) version 4.1. It also featured XBMC to allow users to easily browse and view videos, photos, podcasts, and music from a hard drive, optical disc, local network, and the Internet.
There are several significant updates in BOSS Linux 6.0 (Anoop) from 5.0 (Anokha). Notable changes include a kernel update from 3.10 to 3.16, a shift for system boot from init to systemd, the full support of GNOME Shell as part of GNOME 3.14, an update to the GRUB version, the Iceweasel browser being replaced by Firefox and the Pidgin messaging client replacing Empathy, as well as several repository versions of available programs being updated as part of the release.
BOSS Linux 6.0 also shipped various application and program updates, such as LibreOffice, X.Org, Evolution, GIMP, VLC media player, GTK+, GCC, GNOME Keyring, and Python.
Related specifically to localization support, language support improved with the replacement of SCIM with IBus with the Integrated System Settings. Indic languages enabled with "Region and Languages" are now directly mapped to the IBus, and the OnScreenKeyboard layout is provided for all layouts.
This release is fully compatible with LSB 4.1.
The most significant change over previous releases is that support for the x86 version has been dropped, and BOSS is now only available for x86-64. Other notable changes include a kernel update to 4.9.0, a GNOME update from 3.14 to 3.22, and software updates to various applications and programs with wide Indian language support & packages. This release aims to enhance the user interface with more glossy themes and is coupled with the latest applications from the community.
The desktop environment is changed from GNOME to Cinnamon.
The Linux kernel was updated from 5.2 to 5.10.