VistA as traditionally released by the VA did not run on GT.M. OpenVistA as available to date has been FOIA VistA ported to GT.M, but it also had some enhancements not in the FOIA software. With the release of a recent patch, FOIA VistA now runs on GT.M, which makes possible an OpenVistA VivA live CD that is exactly the software available under FOIA, no more and no less. Since the FOIA software has been referred to as the “gold standard”, the name of this live CD is “OpenVistA VivA FOIA Gold”.

Technically speaking, OpenVistA VivA FOIA Gold is a live DVD because the ISO image is too large to fit on a CD. This is because I built it using Knoppix (http://knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html) rather than Morphix (http://morphix.org). Knoppix is the state of the art in Linux live CDs, and manages to pack an amazing volume of software into a single CD (Morphix is a pared down version of Knoppix). Knoppix version 3.6, and hence OpenVistA VivA FOIA Gold 0.1, is a visually appealing user interface that includes multiple browsers; OpenOffice.org for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, etc.; GIMP version 2 for image processing, and much, much more. It also includes an optional 2.6 kernel, ndiswrapper for loading drivers for proprietary wireless network cards, and many other contemporary system level programs. However, since Knoppix itself fills an entire CD, the only way to add GT.M and the FOIA software was to go to a DVD. [In the future, I may make a line of thin live CDs that are small as they possibly can be.]

Please try OpenVistA VivA FOIA Gold 0.1 and tell me what you think.

Note that the OpenVistA VivA live CDs are my personal work, and my employer Fidelity Information Services, Inc., is not involved in any way.

Since not everyone has a DVD burner, I will offer to burn and mail DVDs to anyone who makes a donation of $25 to WorldVistA. You can do this right from the project page at Source Forge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/worldvista). WorldVistA is a worthy cause recognized as a non profit by the Internal Revenue Service, and your donation may be tax deductible (consult your tax adviser). Please make your donation and let me know (I don’t need a receipt – your word is good enough for me).

— Bhaskar