In my opinion, the best bible study program available for Linux is Bibletime which is a Bible study tool based on the SWORD library which provides the functions to access modules like Bibles, lexicons, and commentaries. BibleTime provides an easy to use but powerful interface. It is as effective as Windows programs that cost hundreds of dollars. The SWORD library provides all these great resources in many languages and there is no charge. Also there are two java programs Alkitab and Bible Desktop that use the SWORD library.
Another application that is essential for a powerful bible study distribution is an Office Application Suite. Two great office suites are available OpenOffice.org 3, and LibreOffice3 which are the leading open-source office software suites for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. They are available in many languages and work on all common computers. They store all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. They can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.
Additional Windows Bible programs are available that run fine with the above puppies with Wine installed. The following threads provide additional information: Bible Analyzer, e-Sword, and theWord. I enjoy using all three. I recommend green_dome's latest wine-1.4 which works great with these Windows programs.
Xiphos, a linux program, is also available but it only works in Lucid pups. It is downloaded from Ubuntu repositories using Lucid's Puppy Package Manager.
Lighthouse
Tazoc's Lighthouse is a quick and easy to set up, full-featured operating system. Derived from PuppyLinux, it offers several media players, Wine and winetricks, GIMP image editing, multi-user support, a choice of window managers and Gslapt package manager. Optional KDE ('K' Desktop Environment) or multiple guest operating systems with VirtualBox. Modular design supports up to 40 concurrent SFS software combo-packs including Lighthouse Mariner, Voyager, KDE, OpenOffice, Opera, GoogleEarth, Kompozer and Xfce. The following steps are geared to getting Bibletime and Openoffice working properly. They also apply primarily to a Frugal Installation.
1. Download Lighthouse. I recommend that you download Lighthouse Mariner iso 5.03 which includes an office suite along with other applications. Also download from this site Bibletime-2.7.2b.sfs for LighthousePup. For easy use of sfs files that you need, please use a frugal installation.
2. Install Lighthouse, if you have problems with your installation, post on the Lighthouse thread since that is beyond the scope of this Howto.
3. Reboot your installation, create a save file, and then you will be given an opportunity to select the sfs files to load. Minimum selections are: Mariner.sfs, OpenOffice.sfs or LibreOffice.sfs, and Bibletime.sfs. After selections are made reboot.CAUTION: wrote: If you do a manual frugal installation and place your installation in a subdirectory. You must copy the following files from your LH Mariner subdirectory to /mnt/home, otherwise the Bootmanager cannot find them: Mariner.sfs, OpenOffice-.sfs or LibreOffice, and (optional Opera.sfs, VirtualBox.sfs, and Xfce.sfs). Also place Bibletime-2.7.2b in /mnt/home.
4. You will find your new Bibletime program under Menu/Personal. After installation, open it and go to Settings and select the Bookshelf Manager.
(1) Click Refresh which will refresh the list of resources available to download.
(2) Select and download your desired Bibles, Commentaries, etc.
(3) Go to Settings and select Configure Bibletime, probably the only change you will want is in the Fonts section. For example, click on fonts and place an x in Use custom font block, and select your desired font and size.
Tazoc has also included a very powerful feature in Lighthouse which makes it very easy to add e-Sword. e-Sword was developed by Rick Meyers for the Window OS and is a fast and effective way to study the Bible. e-Sword is feature rich and user friendly with more capabilities than you would expect in a free software package. It is also as effective as other programs that cost hundreds of dollars. If you want to also use eSword just select Menu/Personal/wine-eSword installation to install it. It works great. Then you will have the best from Linux and Windows on your custom bible study OS.
There is also a new LHP 64-bit version under development, although the current beta does not have support for eSword, however it does provide support for theWord, which IMHO is now a better choice. The current beta uses a Wine version that does not support eSword and the procedures for installing BibleAnalyzer need update.
Kirk has provided the latest Bibletime for his Fatdog OS that also works fine on LHP.
Unfortunately, Tazoc is ill and unable to provide support for LHP at the present time. Please remember him in your prayers.
Puppy-lucid
Lucid Puppy 5.2 consists of the popular Puppy Linux architecture that Puppy founder Barry Kauler has been refining through 4 editions of Puppy Linux. But this time Puppy is built with binary packages from the latest Ubuntu release Lucid Lynx, hence Lucid Puppy 5. The Puppy architecture is well known to be lean and fast, and friendly and fun, and Lucid Puppy is no exception. One thing that is new in Lucid Puppy is Quickpet, offering many Linux programs ready to use with a single click. So, click, and you can be using Gimp to edit pictures, Kompozer to build a web site, Songbird to manage your music collection, and many others. There is a choice in browsers: the four main ones, Firefox, Seamonkey, Chromium, and Opera are all also available for one-click installation. Some people even like to alternate browsers so Lucid Puppy has a simple program to select whichever of the browsers you would like to set as default. The Puppy-Lucid Repo has been added to Puppy Package Manager (PPM), with one-click install of many of the best Linux programs, tested and configured for Lucid Puppy, including, oh, there are too many, you need to have a look for yourself. Among these are Bibletime in PPM and links to Openoffice and LibreOffice in Quickpet under SFS/Sfs support.
There are some fine experimental distributions prepared by Pemasu, based on Lucid, that has an updated kernel that will also make a great base for your Bible Study system. There are multiple releases all of which are fast and stable ie:Polar Pup.
Download and install the latest Puppy-lucid and set it up as follows: As stated earlier, should you have installation problems post on the Puppy-lucid thread since that is beyond the scope of this Howto.
1.Download the latest Lucid 5.2.8. For easy use of sfs files that you need, use a frugal installation. Although Quickpet now has the capability to install an sfs to a full hd installation.
2.Using QuickPet, goto Sfs Get and download and install BibleTime-lucid. Bibletime pet and sfs packages are also available at ibiblio.org
3. Using QuickPet also download and install OpenOffice or LibreOffice. Although, not necessary for basic operation, for all office features to work, use Quickpet Useful Pets to install JRE or Sfs Get to install java_jre.
4. After installation, open Bibletime and go to Settings and select the Bookshelf Manager.
(1) Click Refresh which will refresh the list of resources available to download.
(2) Select and download your desired Bibles, Commentaries, etc.
(3) Go to Settings and select Configure Bibletime, probably the only change you will want is in the Fonts section. For example, click on fonts and place an x in Use custom font block, and select your desired font and size.
Puppy Squeeze
Puppy Squeeze is a generic-purpose, community-built Puppy with the core values of openness, collaboration and high quality of packages. It is built using Woof, just like Lucid Puppy, but from the high-quality and ultra-stable Debian packages. To be more precise, the core is from Debian while the end-user applications are built on Puppy Squeeze itself or taken from Debian in some cases. It has a Puppy with a Debian heart, which means it's pretty stable under-the-hood.
Download Puppy Squeeze and follow the installation instructions above for Puppy Lucid.
There are some excellent experimental distributions prepared by Pemasu, based on Squeeze, that has an updated kernel that will also make a great base for your Bible Study system. There are multiple releases all of which are fast and stable ie: Dpup Exprimo SMP 5.X.10.3 and Dpup Exprimo 5.X.13
Fatdog64
Fatdog is an all 64bit version of Linux built from source packages and using Puppy Linux scripts and structure. Fatdog is quite 'fat' compared to Puppy, the complete Xorg is included along with other extras that make it larger than Puppy. Other differences include Firefox, Xine-ui, Sylpheed, and Pidgen running as a non-priviliged user (spot), automatic Xorg configuration, default localization (see the setup wizards to make adjustments). Do not use Puppy pet packages in Fatdog, Puppy's 32bit packages won't work. Wine and it's 32bit programs do work.
Download Fatdog64 and follow the installation instructions above for Puppy Lucid.
Kirk has also provided the latest Bibletime for his Fatdog OS that works great.
Slacko Puppy 5.3 Spup
Slacko Puppy Linux 5.3.3 is an update release of the recent 5.3.1. It has binary compatibility with Slackware-13.37, which simply means that it is a Puppy built with packages from the Slackware, Salix and Slacky repositories.
The main version has been upgraded with kernel 3.1.10 compiled with Aufs, layered file system support, in the typical Puppy manner. There is also a PAE version to cater for machines with large amounts of RAM. Both iso images have SCSI boot support.
The Seamonkey-2.9.1 suite is the default browser and email suite but Firefox, Chromium, Opera, Netsurf, Iron, Dillo and Links are only a few clicks away.
Minimum system requirements for the main version are an i686 processor, 900MHZ, with 256MB RAM. Download here.
Saluki (presently a release candidate is available)
Saluki is a woof-build based on Racy with Xfce. The suggested target hardware is computers less than 5 years old. It should run tolerably fast on older machines and netbooks and older machines, but Xfce does need a bit more cpu than the standard ROX/Jwm puppy. The principle developer, jemimah is developing an amazing puplet that continues to improve. It's fast and stable and now has support for Crosswire Bible Societie's Linux Bibletime program. All that's necessary to install it is to use the Puppy Package Manager. It also runs Wine and I've found that the Windows version of Bible Analyzer, e-Sword and theWord work well on it.
FATSlacko
01micko has released FATSlacko which is
01micko has also provided Bibletime-2.9.1s which may be installed using the PPM so it picks up all dependencies but QT which must be installed separately with Slacko using the PPM. QT is already contained in FATSlacko.NOT an official product but a puplet. It is directly based on the upcoming Slacko-5.3.3. It is also the PAE version which will see your large RAM and as such is recommended for higher end machines.
It is Slacko with extras:Minimum system requirements <-- Pentium III 1 GHz processor, 768 MB RAM.
- Libreoffice
Java Runtime Environment
Mesa (aka xorg_high)
QT Libraries
VLC
Foxit Reader
Samba with kerberos support
Inetd daemon for Samba documentation
Recommended <-- 1.5 GHz processor, 1 GB RAM
FATSlacko makes a super Bible study system. it also runs favorite Windows programs under Wine: Bible Analyzer, e-Sword, and the Word.
This is a great choice for anyone with high end hardware.
Notes:
Lucid packages that work in the pups above can be downloaded fromibiblio.
Some of the above will run Amarok which is an excellent music application. An Amarok.sfs are available here.
Lighthouse has it's own latest version of Amarok.
Enoy your new custom bible study OS,
Jim