A teenager’s passion for open-source operating systems
The Hindu
Rudra Saraswat, 14, is a tech nerd who loves to develop for Linux. He is a participant in 'DebConf 23', India's first Debian conference, and is an official Ubuntu member. He also enjoys hobbies such as tabla, swimming, tennis, and snooker. He hopes to pursue computer science in the future. Debian is a free and open-source OS used in computers and servers, and is the basis for popular GNU/Linux OSs like Ubuntu and BOSS.
Rudra Saraswat, who turns 14 later this month, is among the youngest participants in the ongoing ‘DebConf 23’, India’s first Debian conference, at Infopark with around 350 participants from across the world.
Rudra, based in Bengaluru, is in his own words, a tech nerd, “who loves to develop for Linux”. He maintains a home lab and uses Ubuntu, a Linux-based open source operating system. He said he was an official Ubuntu member and creator and project leader of Ubuntu Unity, Ubuntu Web, UbuntuEd, Gamebuntu, and other projects.
Being a tech nerd does not prevent him from finding time for his hobbies. He is a tabla graduate and loves to swim and play lawn tennis and snooker. He said on the sidelines of ‘DebConf23’ that he would like to continue with studies in computer science.
He said he took his first step into the world of applications around the age of five, developing small apps, and later turned his attention to developing operating systems too.
Debian is a free and open-source operating system based on GNU/Linux, developed and maintained by the Debian Project, an association of individuals, sharing a common goal of creating a free software operating system available to everyone.
The organisers of the conference said Debian was used across the world in computers and servers. The project to make Debian available in mobile phones like Android is also very active, and it is already available in PinePhone and Purism Librem 5 phones as Mobian.
Popular GNU/Linux operating systems like Ubuntu are based on Debian. In India, the Bharath Operating System Solutions (BOSS) developed by C-DAC in Chennai and the KITE GNU/Linux distributions used in government schools in Kerala are based on Debian. Anyone can download and run the software on their machines from the Debian website (www.debian.org/download).
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