About Peach OSI

I am often asked: "Why Peach OSI? Why Patriot? Why use another Ubuntu/Debian/Linux Distro? And what is a Distro anyway?"

As a person who has worked with computers for over four decades, I believe that I can honestly say that I have seen it all. In school in the early 1970's while training as a programmer, we worked on a "small" Honeywell machine - it alone with all of its peripherals took up an entire room that was 30 feet wide and 40 feet long. But even with its "small" size, when we wanted to run a program as robust as a payroll program, our Honeywell had to connect with a main frame unit downtown. It was a Univac that literally was the size of a city block. I think most people today take computers for granted. Today most of us have more computing power in our pockets than we had when I first started with computers.

Yes, in my over forty year experiences with computers I suppose I've seen it all. Most of it has been a good experience, but not always. It is easy to forget that a computer is simply a machine - subject to problems - problems that people like me have always tried to solve. That is how my experience with Linux first began. I work largely freelance and I'm constantly hearing someone say something like,

"My computer won't boot" or "I can't access the files on my computer" or "I think my computer has a virus" or "I'm getting all these pop-ups and it just isn't as fast as it used to be."

About 2 years ago I was working on just such a computer. Windows® wouldn't boot so I popped in a USB bootable copy of Debian and in under 5 minutes I was moving this persons all important files to an additional USB hard drive prior to attempting to "repair" Windows®. The individual asked, "What's that?" when Debian booted. I explained what it was and he replied, "Heck, everyone should have a copy of that." His words stuck with me. Over the past two years I've been working on remastering a Distribution of Ubuntu (a Debian derivative) that anyone can use. I called it "Peach OSI". That was many years ago and today I call it Patriot. The term "Distro" is short slang for distribution. I've designed Patriot to be easy to use, flexible, lightweight, full of useful software and multi-functional. Before remastering Ubuntu, the most widely used desktop Distro of Debian, I installed and graded almost 200 Linux Distros, a process that took over 6 months to accomplish. In the end there was only 2 Distros that I could give a grade of an A (I graded them on a scale of A to E with A being the highest grade). I was looking for the perfect system that I could "give" to my family, friends and special clients so that they too could have all the benefits of a Linux system. In the end I had to conclude that, for the most part, most people would not use any of the Linux Distros because they were "just so different" from what they were used to using. Then I set about creating a Linux system that anyone with any computer skill level could use. The net result was and is Peach OSI - Now Patriot.

You can boot Patriot directly by DVD or by a USB stick if you want a completely portable system. You can install Patriot alongside Windows or OSX as a dual boot system so you always have a system to go to if your main system fails. You can also install Patriot as a standalone system. It really is that good. Like any Linux system, Patriot is not as susceptible to viruses that are designed specifically to infiltrate a Windows® system. Patriot does not have to have software like a defrag program or a registry repair program. The way that Linux files are organized, Linux files just don't get as fragmented and a Linux system doesn't even have what is formally called a "registry", the Linux file system is locked and unless you yourself change the file system - the Linux file system always remain the same. For the most part, Patriot will boot up and shut off just as fast the ten thousandth time as it did the first time.