 Visitor Reviews |
SparkyLinux
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Reader supplied reviews for SparkyLinux
Average rating
8.3 from 105 review(s)
Version: 7.4
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-08-30
Votes: 10
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I am using sparky linux for over 1 year and in my experience it is the best linux distros I have tried. it has every thing .I am using it on my old 32 bit computer. its minimal version I like the most. I have installed some selected applications and prefer to keep my system light weight. I have faced no problem since then . my system is running very smooth since I am using lxde desktop environment on my 32 bit old pc. My web serfing experinece is also good. I am using chromium web browser on my system. it is very fast and smooth. I use both openbox window manager and Lxde and both are very fast and light weight. I have tried many linux distros on my 32 bit system but no distro was able to satisfy me but after installing sparky linux I am quiet happy and I compliment all the developers for their good works.
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Version: 2024.05
Rating: 9
Date: 2024-08-07
Votes: 9
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Been using Sparky on several machines, since early 2024, now August 2024.
One machine, a retired ASRock gaming box, ran fine until a hardware failure. Used a TP-Link TL-WN722N USB dongle (in a USB3 port) for wireless.
Second machine, a Dell Optiplex 9020 upgraded to i7, is where I write this review. Only using Cat 6 cabling.
Last machine is an old low buck Toshiba laptop, which is essentially a Chromebook with a DVD drive. Using only built-in wifi, rather weak hardware here.
All installed very nicely, installation duration commensurate with hardware power.
After a short time span, I elected to halt launching APTus, because on EVERY platform, it ran very slowly. Straight to Synaptic ala Debian.
In summation, all is quiet, no errors seen either with or without APTus.
Will revisit APTus, simply because it's their life blood, their raison d'être.
I've halted using WiFi for data connection, because 2 reasons:
A] latency of communication affected every communication - hard wire is definitely faster on my Optiplex versus the N-class wireless connections of the other 2, but the other 2 systems were ONLY wireless and were clearly slower to communicate. No talk about wireless hardware, because talk won't change my hardware.
B] hardware support for WiFi is always a joke considering my experiences - do distros successfully auto-install WiFi support? Not many. Did Sparky? YES!
Best wishes to Sparky, keep it up!
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Version: 7.4
Rating: 2
Date: 2024-07-31
Votes: 0
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The supporting time don't even have the ability to answer a report. I tried several times to log in to the KDE live 7.4 ISO, using UEFI and not UEFI, but nothing works, always asking for the password again. This is a mess of this distro, because in the original Debian there is no login to the Live ISO. I've been in computer science for more than 30 years, and surely this failure was not my mistake. Unfortunately I had to waste my time to register a failure of this distro, to which support does not respond. I installed another Debian and it worked perfectly!
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Version: 7.4
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-06-15
Votes: 19
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Sparky 7.4 Orion Belt Minimal GUI:
Sparky is a great project by an obviously very dedicated enthusiast.
Would I recommend Sparky to a Linux Novice? Yes, why not, if you go for a stable version with a standard DE. Why not even go for the semi-rolling/testing version? At worst, you may find a few issues, but at least you're not at the mercy of a corporation that communicates via a 3 word buzzphrase generator.
(What on Earth is 'optimal containerized immutability'? I know what that means, but I bet the corporate 'engineers' cannot explain it in everyday language.)
Sparky is real, with pretty good documentation, and if you want to get more real, then straightforward Debian or ArchLinux are options, both with very good documentation.
Sparky Stable is slightly unstable, because it includes software in its repository that is apparently unavailable elsewhere. This is partly because the lead (only?) developer of Sparky has written it themself (i.e. IS an actual developer), partly because they have gone to the effort of including other software in their repository (e.g. XnView/Convert, WPS Office, Firefox latest version, and stuff I've never heard of before). If you want something that doesn't even exist yet, then there's probably a header file in the Sparky repository. There's loads of useful software therein, more than most other distros.
And being Debian based, it's easy to change the /etc/apt sources from 'stable/bookworm/orion' to 'testing/trixie/sisters'. Read the Debian documentation on changing repositories. Things can get wild. There be dragons!
And if you already have Debian installed, then it's easy to add the Sparky repositories, although this will 'Sparkify' your system.
I think of Sparky as a vanilla Debian with added flavors, or a playground with enhanced artwork, perhaps even 'bleeding edge stable', if that makes sense.
Sparky Minimal GUI edition seems to be a showcase of ideas (e.g. sparky-dashboard) that are still in development.
And it's fast. Encrypted installation took about 10 minutes, rather than the stated 15 to 30.
It's also very fast for data backup, as in 10-20x faster than some others I've tried. Of course, this is hardware relative.
AND, Sparky seems to be the ONLY distro that knows how to use Calamares installer. There is no enforcement of 2x the amount of RAM as swap space. 'Swap to file/swap off' means what it says. Encrypted installation does not demand a 4GiB boot sector(!).
There are some things that I don't like, and there are several obsolete folders/files in /.config, but I can change that, because it's 'my computer' (OK, apart from the firmware). There are no keyboard shortcuts, but I know how to write them.
Sparky is as exciting as when I first tried 'Linux' back in the Noughties (RedHat/Mandrake/Ubuntu), unlike what seem to have become locked down distros (especially the corporate ones, or the angry obsessive ones).
If the Sparky developer continues to develop the bespoke Sparky applications, to create a real Sparky desktop, that would be brilliant.
Sparky demands engagement, but if you're interested, then why would you not engage?
I'd gladly contribute.
Overall, I give SparkyLinux 10/10 for reliability + 10/10 for enjoyment.
So in base 20, that's a 10/10.
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Version: 7.4
Rating: 8
Date: 2024-06-13
Votes: 3
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Not bad! Not bad at all!
Considering I had just tried the Number 1 Top-Rated Distro on Distrowatch; and it has been there for a while, trading with Mint I think a few times but it does not matter because I am talking about comparing Sparky 7.4 (which is the most recent stable version though the 2024.5 _looks_ like the newest because of its position and I have gotten off subject again. Sparky is better than MX Linux v23, as well as my Always-Come-Back-To Distro, Kubuntu, there, I said it!
But it is true. Why only an 8/10? Because I am not easily impressed and I consider a 10 to be Paradigm-Shifting, Earth-Shattering, Write-Home-To-Momma-About-It kind of spectacular. Really, it is supposed to reset the 'bar', if you like, so that everything else truly becomes a bit less colorful because you now see what can be achieved, in a way that you didn't know or just that it had never occurred to you (or anyone else?) to do it that way. Enough waxing philosophical, Michael!
Sparky is impressive in that it ends up accomplishing, for the most part, what the other ones with (sometimes) more than double the size. I should note that while I have always wanted to try the Qt-razor or LXQt environment but reading the reviews on ones that had used it in, for example, a new version of Lubuntu (because I am already familiar with Kubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, and the non-Unity version of Ubuntu; with their respective orders being a decrease in level of familiarity, thus Kubuntu is the highest, etc.) but also being (I thought) familiar *enough* with Qt because of it being part of KDE Plasma and Framework, etc.
My point, or at least, one of my points is that I remembered just how "costly" nearly unlimited tweaks and options or customizations can be on (RAM) memory and CPU cycles or cores/threads in an environment like KDE Plasma, where nearly everything can (now) be customized by using the GUI! I realize that this is very nearly blasphemy to those of us who know that everything *IS* customizable by the use of the Command Line Interface (CLI) or console. Am I suggesting that distros with LXQt are limited? No, I am not. But that does not necessarily mean it is untrue, either. But the trade-off of options like bells, whistles, millions of colors, and any number of other personalizations with nearly-instantaneous response times is as old as computers. Okay, that sounds weird. But there it is.
In short (yeah, I know: too late), had the person who commented only a few weeks ago that, "using Sparky as your Daily Driver distro," just waited for the 7.4 version that just came out yesterday, they may have had a different opinion of Sparky. But, as pertains to the Semi-Rolling release of which this person spoke, they are spot-on correct! I just hope people see that this person is speaking of a Semi-Rolling version. This newest one, however: I could quite easily see using this as my daily distro. In fact, I have a mind to do just that. Thank you to all of you who made this distro possible! You know who you are....and you made a great distro! Bravo!
-MC
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Version: 2024.05
Rating: 8
Date: 2024-05-20
Votes: 1
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If you are, or expect to be, using Sparky as your Daily Driver distro... then you are using it wrong.
Sparky has many weak choices for supporting apps and packages which require replacing to make it more robust. Plus it has a handful of bugs and conflicts that cause minor errors which the average user does not want to bother with. In which case you may as well start with one of the more popular distros instead.
But it serves one very unique purpose:
It has all the Desktop Enviornments (DE's) that you've ever heard of, plus some that you haven't. Many of the most popular DE's are in the .iso already, and there are a ton more in the repository. Plus Sparky includes a dedicated app for choosing these DE's, and a few tweaks under the hood to make them play nice with eachother.
So if you ever wanted to test out other DE's before settling on a more permanent distro, Sparky is perfect on a temporary basis, especially in a VM. This also makes it rather handy for Windows users getting their first taste of linux DE's.
One last note is the inclusion of CDE and its' slightly more modern cousin NsCDE. If you were a UNIX user back in the 1990's, and you are craving the feel of CDE out of pure nostalgia, then Sparky with NsCDE should scratch that itch. Though I might suggest installing it on your backup laptop or such, not your daily driver.
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Version: 2024.05
Rating: 1
Date: 2024-05-14
Votes: 0
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Once again, another try and another disappointment. Sparky 2023.07 Rolling would not even boot from the flash drive on my Dell Latitude 7490 laptop. Sparky 2024.05 Rolling installed OK but would not run. Didn't even bring up the desktop! It is unfortunate that Sparky is headed by just one person and is a one-man distribution. I think that's the main reason why Sparky has become so buggy in the past few years. The developer is spread way too thin and simply can't keep tabs on everything. The number of really reliable distros is also becoming less and less as some developers are getting lax about fixing bugs. I'll stick with Mint 21.3, LMDE6, Ubuntu 24.04 (With snapd completely removed) and Fedora which seems to have highly educated and competent developers.
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Version: 7.3
Rating: 9
Date: 2024-05-12
Votes: 5
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After testing Sparky 7.3 on my main system, Sparky was immediately installed on 2 more computers. That good, IMHO.
Having tried soo many distros, Sparky caught my eye for a couple factors. First, the Mate Desktop. Second, is the Debian basis.
Mate Desktop: In early May 2024, I left my prior distro because my rolling update lost a particular Mate applet; it had been dropped from all repos and somehow, the Mate applet was uninstalled. No reason was found when I searched the forum. Same distro announced a focus on KDE Plasma 6, no visible support for Mate. Clearly, no longer interested in supporting Mate, I find myself abandoned. Walk off.
Debian basis: In the past decade plus, I have been like a moth, drawn to the flame of Debian, getting burned, and falling away to recover. Example of Debian live supporting my USB based WiFi device, then installing from that same live session, and rebooting to find WiFi device is not supported in the installed distro AND I could not find instructions regarding manually configuring the same device. Don't do that! I run back to other familiar distros, then tire of what I've already walked away from several times in 20+ years. I need a full time, fully supportive distro.
I found Sparky by searching for a Debian based distro with Mate desktop. To conclude my research, I sought out only those distros which offer a download proclaiming the ISO is for a Mate Desktop version. Not: "It's in the repo's", rather a fully dedicated release for Mate. Sparky was the first I found matching my needs.
I'm familiar with Synaptic, so this is the manner in which I use Sparky, although APTus is fine as it is. I have used the GUI APTus in the past few weeks, it is quite helpful. Just not my preferred path for installing apps.
Updates are presented via a persistent dialog window, lower right corner of my screen, and the presented update process works just fine. Often times, I simply dismiss that dialog, and immediately launch and update via Synaptic. Call me kooky.
In the 2 weeks since I've installed Sparky, I've seen no issues with the software.
The administrator of my computers lacks something however.... ;-)
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Version: 2024.02
Rating: 3
Date: 2024-05-06
Votes: 0
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Curious to try this one. Loaded off USB but there was no start menu. II re-loaded, still no sart menu. had opted for xfce window manager. I wanted to try it on USB before considering installing it. Instead, all I could do, was right click and access things open box style. It did indicate xfce was there but not present on the start screen. Never seen anything like this, in all my years using Linux.
Suffice to say, a bit weird. Is there some peculiarity of this system I have overlooked?
I guess there's a reason Mint, which I use all the time on old laptops s one of the top distro's. Never had an issue, never misses a beat.
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Version: 2024.02
Rating: 9
Date: 2024-04-25
Votes: 1
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Officially, according to the output of "cat /etc/os-release," I am using Sparky 8, based on Debian Trixie. I have not checked the box to enable the Debian Sid repositories, but Synaptic reports I am using Trixie and the official "Sparky" repos.I for the most part am pleased with the Aptus software package, but starting with previous Sparky versions. it has responded to my requests to install software with a crashing halt and the message +Something is Wrong." This leaves me with the choice of forgetting my request or seeking an alternative method of installing the software, which in turn informs me Sparky 8 is not designed for users who are new to Linux,
who would certainly be discouraged with the number of times Aptus fails to install requested software.I'm using Sparky on a Dell Optiplex 9020 mini desktop with 16 GB RAM, quad core with an Intel® Core™ i5-4590 CPU running at 3.3GHz, and the system installed to an externally connected Seagate Barracuda 2 TB SATA hard drive.Sparky is in the ranks of one of those Debian-based distros that I am determined to hold on to unless it has a major failure to fulfill my computing needs.I have used previous versions of Sparky for similar reasons. It reliably installs with its calamares installer and functions well in executing the tasks I need to complete.That includes managing my base configuration of 23 Linux distros over two External drives. I would say if someone is considering a dive into the Debian world of Linux, Sparky is a candidate to consider. This applies to relative newcomers to Linux as well an intermediate level users.Experts have a knowledge base that enables them to easily make choices among those available. I'm thinking on the pleasure scale Sparky ranks up there with Watt and Kanotix, but is distinctly different because of its abundant collection
of available software.Whether is is reason enough to break away from using Windows is up to the individual.It passes my tests for
reliable start-ups and usability, but them I'm an average user.
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Version: 7.3
Rating: 9
Date: 2024-04-11
Votes: 1
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Nice, fast distro. It doesn't check all the boxes for me, but I've been using it for several months now, starting with 7.2 and making the seamless upgrade to Sparky 7.3.
I appreciate the Debian base, even though that means some things like having to settle for Firefox ESR versus the latest version, for example. On the plus side (in my opinion), there aren't any Snap or Flatpak resource hogs to deal with, such as in Ubuntu.
I like the idea of the Aptus store, but visually it looks really out of place. It works fine though, minus some initial lag. You can play around with different kernels and such easily, if you're into that (my opinion, don't bother). Upgrading is also very easy, through the Upgrade Tool, or you can go the more traditional routes with Synaptic or the command line instead. You're offered many choices.
In my opinion, XFCE is the way to go: the fastest version, though KDE isn't a slouch by any means, either. It's less exciting visually than other distros, but beauty is only skin deep. It looks good enough once you've settled on a theme and a wallpaper.
Overall, it's stable, it's quick, and pretty easy to use really. It feels mainstream without feeling like you're making too many compromises. It's a winning combination in the long run.
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Version: 2024.02
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-03-31
Votes: 0
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I've been using Sparky as my daily driver for over 4 years now, after hopping round most out there - Love it. Considering its a rolling release distro based on Debian testing, its always been very stable and has never let me down.
There is plenty of support available and because its Debian based the software repository is vast.
If you don't like the look of the default desktop, which I think is Mate, just go into Aptus or Synaptic and change it, simples.
If you want a reliable, simple to use but bleeding edge OS and you are used to Debian or one of its many downstream variants like Mint, Ubuntu, Zorin etc., there is no better.
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Version: 2024.02
Rating: 1
Date: 2024-03-09
Votes: 0
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This review is for Sparky 2023.07 which is not shown here under "Version". I tried to install it on my recently purchased Dell Latitude 7490 and the install ended with a terminal error which corrupted the EFI System file. I could not fix the problem so I had to wipe the 2 GB disk and start over. Thankfully I was just prepping the Dell to become my new production PC while my current production PC, a Lenovo Thinkpad T490 is still running OK and has been my production laptop for the past year. So much for Sparky. Maybe down the road sometime I'll try again.
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Version: 2024.02
Rating: 9
Date: 2024-03-03
Votes: 11
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SparkyLinux has been the absolute best install experience I've had so far for my old Atom netbooks. It didn't take hours and hours like other distros- very painless install and setup, plus upgrades. Note- I'm using the GameOver special edition and it is awesome to be able to play some of my old favourites as well.
Application installs are simple. Distro immediately worked with everything on my netwbooks- no driver hiccups so far!
Speedy little distro, easy to use, breathes new life into old hardware. Thank you!
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Version: 2024.02
Rating: 9
Date: 2024-02-23
Votes: 9
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I have been looking for a distribution like this for a while; minimal, light, fast. it is perfect for running Virtual Machines such as Gnome Box or Qemu. After experimenting with other so called light distributions I think I am going to consider remastering it strictly for this purpose alone. unless there is something else out there already (Not Proxmox) .
congratulations to the developers, the more I use it the more I like it. I don't know how I missed it before. so far it looks very promising and the fact that is Debian base makes it even more valuable.
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Version: 7.2
Rating: 1
Date: 2024-02-14
Votes: 0
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Install was fair enough, but i was curious when it mentioned that there was no WiFi available. I let it go on thinking I could rectify that after getting it installed. Wrong. What a circuitous zoo to try to set up WiFi. It claims to see a strong signal from my provider, but is deficient in being able to acquire it.
I spent an hour mucking about with the situation, and finally just shut it down. I have been using Linux for 20 some years now, and have come to learn that some things simply are not right. This is one of those things.
Too bad as it looked promising, but i am not going to waste further time on it.
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Version: 2024.02
Rating: 4
Date: 2024-02-14
Votes: 0
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Nice LXQT spin on Debian as far as the "Live" system is concerned. That's about all the good I can say. Lot's and lot's of screen tearing that I may have been able to fix if I could have got the Window Manager Settings to launch. I spent a bit more time with it and found the installed themes not to play nice with the icons. Lots of blacked out icons despite me trying various sets. Decided to over look those issues and tried to install. Upon creating encrypted LVM the LVM part of the partitioning causes Calamaris to crash. Tried it a second time and it still crashed. No custom encryption with LVM means No Go for me. Maybe its due to the testing branch stability. I will give them the benefit of the doubt and give at least 4 of 10.
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Version: 2024.01
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-02-03
Votes: 7
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I 've just installed Sparky with plasma wayland desktop, and it's really a breath after so many hassles trying Fedora, Kde Neon, Kubuntu, Endeavouros. Here every thing I need is working out of the box, scaling is ok, wireless printer and scanner recognized immediately, system is responsive. What else ! The only downside is maybe Aptuscenter a bit rudimentary and unatractive for new linux users but not a problem for me since I'm used to use terminal. Sparky really disserve to be in the top ten of Distrowatch. Great thanks to the author and contributors.
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Version: 2024.01
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-01-23
Votes: 5
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I been using sparky for over 4 years, have on on desktop and laptop. Also put on some older laptops that could not be updated with windows, (though I don't know who would want that.)
I had one bug, one time I can recall, put it on a laptop, when I did the update for the OS a few days or so later, it fixed the issue.
I use mate desktop on it, I have not used another Os.
I recently fetched a small desktop, and of course it has windows on it, but just for a second, lol, Sparky shall be on it.
The only thing I truly dislike is its app installer. Is clunky and takes to long to load, just getting around is uncomfortable. BUT it is by no means a deal killer. If It is to much at times, usually just me not wanting to deal, I use synaptic.
I love its stability.
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Version: 7.2
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-01-19
Votes: 9
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Semi-rolling Mimimal Gui version is by far the fastest distro out there, outperforming Bunsenlabs, Crunchbang++ and all the others left and right.
Installation is straightforward, no unneccessary bloat is installed, everything you wish can be installed with a few clicks.
The result is a modern looking, very reliable and highly capable distro for everyday use.
Runs especially well on old, underpowered computers. Even though the Calamares installer requires 1 GB, this can easily circumvented, therefore even old Netbooks can still be used.
Kudos to the developer.
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Version: 2023.10
Rating: 9
Date: 2024-01-05
Votes: 2
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Pro:
Closely follows Debian but much leaner. Offers many versions and editions. Regularly updated. A responsive developer. Useful as a standalone distro or as a Live utility USB stick. Very quick installation. Will fit on a 2 GB USB stick if needed. Has a good Facebook page, forum and community. Semi-rolling releases have relatively modern kernel versions. I have extensively used the XFCE versions.
SparkyLinux even had a testing Raspberry Pi edition that was fairly damn good.
Elsewhere I configured it to use Budgie and was rather cool too.
Con:
Tried the KDE edition was not my cup of tea, went back to XFCE
Overall, I think it is an excellent Linux project and deserves donations to further its great work.
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Version: 7.2
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-12-11
Votes: 8
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In my opinion this distro is amazing for older computers.Version minimal gui works verry fast.The system is very stable.That distro is one of the best.The speed test show me on this distro speed of internet 45 mb/s.In other distro i have only 35 mb/s.Minimal gui have the lightest GUI.This gui is lighter than openbox Archcraft.I reccomended this linux for this user ,who search fast and stable OS.I reccomended to use only System upgrade tool to update this system if you don't have much experience with Debian based systems.if you don't have much experience with Debian based systems.
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Version: 7.1
Rating: 6
Date: 2023-10-25
Votes: 1
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Good
-rolling distro
-Senseable installation of apps including all basics such as Firewall.
-Supports different desktop such as KDE
Bad:
-Aptus does not appear to install some items that it display providing an error. the apps shown differ than what is avaialble through apt-get install.
-when using encrypted disk if the password is mistyped it drops to the grub menu instead of providing a retry so a reboot is required to try again.
-Aptus App center search doesn't work properly. If I search for VLC several other apps show in the search results.
-Riseup VPN performs differently than the debian version downloaded from the riseup site. Example choice of differnt countries.
-no snapshot of system for restoration in the event of a failure
-The clipboard manager should always allow te ability to delete all copied information after a specific time for security.
-missing panel network utilization & disk usage
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Version: 2023.07
Rating: 1
Date: 2023-09-13
Votes: 0
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I had SparkyLinux 6.7 (Po-Tolo), which ran perfectly, fast, simple but most importantly never crashed.
On completing a fresh install of 7.0.1, LXQt amd64, Sparky stable edition, 2 days of use and the pc had crashed 5 times.
Caps lock light does not come on, screen frozen, nothing works.
As a full time Linux user since the 2006, this is completely new to me.
This version is no longer stable.
What ever has happened needs to be investigated.
I fear the open source world has become bloated and some aspects have become vulnerable.
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Version: 7.0
Rating: 8
Date: 2023-08-15
Votes: 2
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Good
-The menu's are very crisp and clean to look at and select apps
Bad:
when using encrypted disk if the password is mistyped it drops to the grub menu instead of providing a retry so a reboot is required to try again.
-Aptus App center search doesn't work properly. If I search for VLC several other apps show in the search results. Other searches do not work even though it is available in the repository.
-The clipboard manager should always allow te ability to delete all copied information after a specific time for security.
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Version: 2023.07
Rating: 8
Date: 2023-08-12
Votes: 0
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This review is for Sparky 8, which is a rolling distro based on Debian 13 Trixie.
Pros: Easy install, has most packages that I need and use on a daily basis. I installed Sparky 7 MATE rolling release 2023.07 and loaded needed packages and all my data files which took a few hours. I then ran the Sparky 7 to 8 upgrade script which performed flawlessly. Sparky 8 runs very well.
Cons: Printer support is lacking. Thus, an 8 rating instead of a 10. I have an aging HP ENVY 4500 All-in-One printer which has served me well for years. But I was not able to connect it through USB and instead had to rely on HPLIP to get anything to print. But the strange thing is that it prints multiple pages in "reverse" order. When you specify to print pages 1,3,5, it prints them 5,3,1. I've never experienced this oddity anytime in the past 40+ years with any printer or OS. Otherwise I am fairly happy with Sparky 8.
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Version: 2023.07
Rating: 7
Date: 2023-08-08
Votes: 0
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Ehhh.
Sparky is great for trying out NsCDE. It's a simple installation--just download it from the APTUs App Center.
But apart from that, there really is not much reason for a simple user such as myself to use Sparky over, say, Mint or other popular distros. It's really buggy. Some software will not install from the App Center. Some software will not UNinstall from the App Center. You will find yourself going to the Synaptic Package Manager a lot to install/uninstall what the App Center cannot. What a headache.
I am going to continue using Sparky for the time being as I am getting used to the workflow of NsCDE, but if I can figure out how to get the DE working on Mint, I'm jumping ship. Sparky's full of holes (unpolished) while Mint is a luxury liner (polished).
That said, I appreciate the effort from the Sparky devs. It's just too rough around the edges for my tastes.
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Version: 7.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-08-01
Votes: 5
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SparkyLinux is something different, somewhat 'leftfield'.
It's not actually necessary to install SparkyLinux directly, You can simply add their repository (& keyring) to a vanilla Debian, and build from there, to get all of the benefits.
This way works for me, because the SparkyLinux repository includes non-standard releases, e.g. SparkyLinux Openbox version that is not available for direct download. You can even get CDE, if you want to go retro!
The SparkyLinux repository also includes applications that would otherwise have to be installed via potentially insecure external downloads.
For example, I needed Microsoft Teams for a job interview. There was no installable application available from the Teams website, but there is from the SparkyLinux repository.
I did the interview, and I got the job. Thank you Pavroo (the SparkyLinux developer).
There're also useful applications such as Ventoy multiboot USB utility, and Brave browser, and probably many others, directly available from the secure SparkyLinux repository.
PROS:
Pavroo is incredibly dedicated. He also runs ArchiveOS, which is a library of discontinued and abandoned OSs.
SparkyLinux is hot on the tail of the latest Debian release, so your system will always be up to date.
CONS (not really):
Be aware that the SparkyLinux repository includes the Unstable branch of Debian, so you may want to comment that out of your /etc/apt/sources.list.d, if you don't want your system to go slightly mad.
_
I don't actually use SparkyLinux as a direct install, but the repository is invaluable. It's a perfect way to help build your own unique OS.
Support this project, donate to it.
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Version: 7.0
Rating: 6
Date: 2023-07-31
Votes: 0
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Just installed 7 this morning, took forever to install the main packages I need for my daily use.. waiting for one to finish loading had a break from watching it so the non disabled screensaver launched and would not re-open again, had to reboot.. once it was all setup though, it seemed faster and I found using symantic much better than the aptus package for installing more that I needed.. It is a pleasant distro overall, still no as polished as I prefer.. good work overall. Oh, almost forgot, when I rebooted for some reason I had to re-adjust my display settings again.. packages that I had installed were ok
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Version: 2023.07
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-07-24
Votes: 5
|
Never had any problem with Sparky Linux. Never. I use stable version and rolling one in my machines
Fast and lightweight. Sometimes I wonder for the problems people counts during install or bugs related.
For the install problem I will suggest to verify (checksum) iso before install. As it said Linux can run in old machines, but do not use/pretend fossile machines to try it, if you are no at expert. An used refurbished laptop(equiped with ssd and 8 to 16 GB RAM) of 2017 or 2018, does cost not more than 200-300 Dollars/Euro. In this machines Sparky just fly.
Days before, I updated my Sparky 6 to 7 (stable one) and 7 to 8 -(rrolling version. No any problem during update/upgrade.
Be sure to have enough space on your Linux partition when using it.
10/10
|
Version: 2023.07
Rating: 4
Date: 2023-07-21
Votes: 0
|
What can I say. I came to this distribution to install it on old hardware. I checked, the laptop met the requirements but when I came to install it, it said I didn't have enough memory. Just as odd was asking for the password to install and then needing it repeated three times before it was finally accepted. Probably the least pleasant experience I have had trying to install Linux.
The only upside is the USB loaded with this OS actually worked pretty well, shame it didn't install. Oh, well....
In the end I moved on to another lightweight OS and the install went without a hitch.
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Version: 2023.03
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-06-06
Votes: 8
|
Sparky linux LXQt
Sparky pros:
Nothing is in the way of the operator
Simple GUI Configuration all in a single window program, not multiple pop up windows with endless options
Debian tweaked for minimalism
Speed, This is the fastest "full operating system", that is not Linux distributions that run from RAM
Firefox "just opens" really fast compared to the standard Ubuntu which has a loading window delay
Sparky bugs :
Catfish conflicts
youtube-dl does not work
terminal bug for running super user xhost +local:
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Version: 2023.03
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-05-25
Votes: 7
|
Sparky 7 Orion Belt (Semi-rolling, Debian 12 'Testing/Bookworm' based) Minimal GUI installation.
Simply brilliant!
It did take a few installation attempts to get it right.
Calamares seems to only understand the US keyboard, so be aware of that when using special characters for encrypted installation passwords. That's a Calamares problem that is the same with every other Debian based distro I have tried recently.
Running live, at first I didn't like the Vala 'launchpad'; but now I appreciate it as a kind of app launcher that would belong on a touchscreen or smartphone. It's great if you don't feel like scrolling the menu.
This version really is minimal while being very complete as a basic standard system.
I did not have to remove anything before adding the applications that I want.
I even had to add my own 'user-dirs.dirs' file to .config!
If you want a user-friendly system upon which to build, then SparkyLinux Minimal GUI is a way to go.
This is a power-user's system, compiled by someone who obviously knows what they are doing.
This is an excellent manifestation of Openbox. Nothing is in the way of the operator. The menus are clean & precise.
Added to this is that the Sparky repository includes secure versions of software that would otherwise have to be downloaded from a potentially insecure website (e.g. WPS Office or XnView).
My only negative is that 'apt-xapian-index' & 'software-properties-gtk' are not standard. They make Synaptic much easier to use.
This is the best distro I have ever tried.
Where most distros put their image to the forefront, Sparky puts the OS first.
The GUI is the icing on an excellent cake.
I recommend SparkyLinux.
Sparky is getting a donation.
|
Version: 2023.03
Rating: 5
Date: 2023-04-19
Votes: 0
|
This review is for Ver. 202203 as I don't like what I found with 202303, especially the drastically changed Login screen.
Pros: Easy install, has most packages that I need and use on a daily basis.
Cons: I installed Sparky 200203 MATE (Debian Testing) and loaded all my data files which took a few hours. After the first update of 1153 new updates the GRUB apparently got messed up somehow. I could not repair or update it even with Super Grub2 to show the other two installed distros in the GRUB menu. Showed Sparky only. So I just deleted the partition and moved on with MX Linux 21.2.1 and Mint 20.3 (Mint 21 is buggy).
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Version: 2023.03
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-03-10
Votes: 2
|
I had the LQXT version in memory on a stick and installed from there onto the hard drive.
It all went smooth, everything worked and I am rather pleased with the result. The Synaptic package manager was there, ideal for the update and installation of some programs that might not have been included in the original installation, such as "gnome-commander" and / or "DoubleCommander" for which I was very grateful.
Running the distro is a pleasure. Most things are there where you would expect them and doing the things that you would expect them to do.
All up I can only recommend "SparkyLinux" to anone who is looking for a no frills, stable and aesthetic distro. Even a newcomer from the "Windows" department would find it easy enough to work with this distro from the same day onwards :)
|
Version: 2023.03
Rating: 8
Date: 2023-03-08
Votes: 3
|
Many thanks to the developers of SparkyLinux for the awesome job on the distro, and for doing the difficult work of pulling things together for the sake of a few thousand users or so who have encountered some frustration with the process of Debian reaching v12 near the latter's 30th anniversary. Everything is OK now, but I have to confess where I come from with this review.
At first I tried it with MATE, not sure now if it was the active branch. Because I was so busy distro-hopping and felt I needed something not based on Arch, Debian nor Fedora, I had to take it away. Sometime later I settled for SparkyLinux v6.6 with KDE but based on "Bullseye". Meanwhile I ran into tedium with my other installation, Debian with XFCE: "initramfs" taking ages to build, doing it three or four times per upgrade to Linux kernel and whatnot, running "winecfg" after installing or upgrading Wine held up until "wineserver" timed out, forced to use AppImages instead of "home" packages to be able to use Firefox and more. About two weeks ago I tried to get the Debian "DI-alpha" ISO. Installation was successful but then it refused to start into desktop for a silly reason. So I hoped SparkyLinux could be much better than that, and I wanted KDE instead of XFCE. It *was* (the "22.12" ISO) until I asked it to system upgrade. Near the end of the update it failed trying to rebuild "initramfs" for the fourth or fifth time. It took about 2-1/2 hours from starting Calamares, successful install, reboot, do some system settings changes and finally system upgrade attempt.
Oh well let me talk about the system itself. In live mode to start Calamares must give the password. This is the only distro I've tried that does this and I've tried a good deal with this particular installation program. It's annoying, please change it. Why is there the menu, which looks somewhat unprofessional on the left-hand side of the desktop? Consider a "Plasmoid" or something like Plank which I don't like but is not "sudden". The "Welcome" menu looks slick but it's a bit disturbing that when it needs to ask for user input, that main menu disappears to show another dialog. It's a "Yad" limitation but some people would point it out meaning to talk bad about something. I like the KDE default theme for this distro, which I've set without stupid animations and confusing transparency but the logging/suspend/shutdown screens are too "cycloptic" for my taste. Much appreciated is disabling tap-to-click from touchpad for clumsy users like me. Also well done that the 32-bit repositories are enabled by default. However, after "dpkg" is upgraded it warns about a "usr-merge" or something like that, which "could lead to broken or missing files". This could be a concern. Sorry but I have to stick to the "traditional" packages which are "apt" at the terminal, and Synaptics seldom.
Again, thank you to the creators for this late break of news in this update.
by mnrv-ovrf-year-c
|
Version: 6.6
Rating: 6
Date: 2023-03-08
Votes: 0
|
Good
-Senseable installation of apps including all basic such as Firewall.
-Supports different desktop such as KDE
Con
-no snapshot of system for restoration in the event of a
-the aptus app center when choosing "edit main repository" nothing appears
-Riseup VPN performs differently than the debian version downloaded from the riseup site. Example choice of differnt countries.
Conclusion
Sparky doesn't fill the O.S. with a whole bunch of apps just covering what is needed for all basic functions. the interface is clean in KDE.
|
Version: 6.6
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-02-22
Votes: 1
|
Best debian based distro IMHO... For really really "oooold" machines, the choice of LXQT over XFCE for desktop makes it feel much more efficient and modern when compared to MX-Linux.
A wide (wild!) range of software is available... It is very difficult to find ventoy, motionbox, qmplay2, avidemux all on the same distro; maybe sparky is the only distro that does that.
I instantly felt something lacking with the default openbox window manager provided by sparky... the compositor! I tried some compositors with openbox and it was not much different. So then I moved on to discard openbox and tried out KWIN. KWIN takes a lot more work and I was not fully satisfied with the end result I could achieve.
Accidentally I stumbled upon an old gem called "metacity" and it worked like a charm. It is absolutely straight forward to work with. Just install and it is ready to use with whatever default LXQT desktop configuration you have. If preferred, set window placement to 'always center' and add 'minimize' button to the application windows.
The desktop now looks much more modern and works a lot better to my liking.
Of-course there maybe features of openbox that are not available/configurable with metacity or KWIN; but I don't seem to have needed them ever anyway. Similarly, both metacity and KWIN come with a lot of functionality that will probably never be configurable for the LXQT desktop and again I hardly needed any of it ever.
Two thumbs up for the sparky team! Keep up the good work!!
If you have not already, request you to evaluate if the move from openbox to metacity/kwin makes sense.
|
Version: 6.6
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-02-07
Votes: 1
|
My daily driver at the moment and no problem so far.
Running the stable-version with KDE-Plasma is running smooth and perfekt on my 15 inch DELL Latitude Laptop with 8 Gen Intel i5 processor.
Installation was very easy and fast and there is much less of bloat-software, which I never use, compared to my other favourite-dostro MX Linux. Furthermore all of the Hardware is working right out of the box, thats how it should be.
One of my new favorite debian-distributions, highly recommended.
Thanks to the developers!
|
Version: 6.5
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-02-04
Votes: 2
|
As a long term user of Crunchbang which is now Bunsenlabs which are Openbox WM on Debain, I witnessed the ever growing size from 600 mb images to more than double. Each version became slower. I began testing these on a Net book in 2010 with atom processor and had a full PC in 2013. When beryllium-1 released this forced me to switch. I would drag the window (click hold) and the lag became noticeably slower (1/2 second) on file manager, chromium and firefox.
In January 2023 I tested SparkyLinux LXQt (LXQt on Debian) on the advice of a Bunsenlabs admin developer.
I tried Debain LXQt but that needed firmware hardware support. SparkLinux discovered all the hardware, installs easily, low resources, very fast and stable and runs full applications that I use for video editing, like KDenlive / Flowblade.
I use Vivaldi as my browser for making phone-calls (Yay.com) in the UK, better than chromium.
LXQt for me is the right balance of making adjustments by text editor to configurations settings, using the GUI to configure the panel
I hope SparkyLinux keeps to this ethos, for the next 10 years.
The linux kernal is bloated now, which i began using Linux in 1997. This is forcing us to use this type of distribution.
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Version: 6.5
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-01-14
Votes: 5
|
Fast and very simple installation.
Less disk space required.
Short start time on "old" computer.
Very fast access to internet using Brave to navigate.
I use the "Debian stable" version, no problem at the moment.
I used some others distros before (LinuxLite, PCLinuxOS, Trisquel) but SparkyLinux seems to be the best option for what I use my PC.
I plan to install it on some relative's PC's as some of them cannot upgrade your old PC's to Windows 10 and they don't want to spend money to buy a now one at he moment....
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Version: 6.5
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-01-10
Votes: 4
|
The best Debian derivative, installs on everything (where Debian "firmware" edition would normally give up).
Aptus software centre - the most comprehensive out there, relatively easy to navigate.
MinimalGUI lets you install whatever DE you wish.
The fastest Linux I've tested, on par with Devuan.
No bells, no whistles, no bloatware.
Fast and easy install.
Sparky6 desktop theme with sane scrollbars and steppers - a rare thing tto find these days!
Of course, to make your dream OS, you need to work a bit. Add partitions to fstab. Arrange your panels. Choose your window manager theme. Create keyboard shortcuts. Some may prefer a "ready" distro (which means less work but more unwanted compromises).
Sparky6 Po Tolo has a few incoveniences resulting from "progress" of the linux world:
Bleachbit doesn't remember the settings and asks me to choose them every time. Worked well in Nibiru (Sparky 5).
Kolourpaint has ugly and unreadable icons. I advise to copy icons form kolorupaint/hiclolor folder in Nibiru and move them to usr/share/icons/hicolor/corresponding folders to have back the icons which where good.
XFCE screenshot doesn't have the "close the window" option when opened with "-f -s /home/Pictures" argument. I have to save the file to close the app window.
Installer asks to create an additional 8mb partition for better performance and new fancy partition table.... which I ignore. Then the installer doesn't include swap patrition, so one has to add it to fstab. This has another potential advantage - as formatting swap partition at every install usually means more changes if other linux OS' are present.
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Version: 6.5
Rating: 8
Date: 2023-01-07
Votes: 5
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runnig it on 20yrs old acer laptop - 32 bit, runs well, with openbox, using links2 browser, nice little distro that gives U posibility to run latest debian on very old hardware - moved on sparky from mint when they discontinued 32bit editions (ubuntu did it)
openbox variant takes around 300mb RAM, xcfe 700mb so its runnig well on 2gb RAM laptop with singlecore celeron.
as is writen lower, its runnig from donations and it can dissapear if runnig low on funds, would be shame, cos its running better than some other low resources distros I tried
if U looking for something lightweight, U should try
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Version: 2022.12
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-12-07
Votes: 10
|
Using Sparky for near a month. It was a life savior.
Option was XFCE, but guess MATE would be a 10. Why?
XFCE has a few inconsistencies, MATE is more polished.
Note: For extra safety, suggest to install Opera browser.
PRO:
+ Light system, but all the Debian Apps available.
+ Speedy (it's a polished Debian).
+ Delivers quick upgrades,
+ Extra Management application with a few options:
[ Tools, Updates, Software suggestions ]
CON:
- Cannot find a way to change Applications Top bar.
For some reason, Themes do not alter them.
Meaning there, the black theme is kept (?!).
To conclude::
Must say this is the best distro from a very small team.
Congratulations for a job well done. (Have to try MATE)
Important: This Distro survives from donations.
It needs (well deserved) support and incentive.
Will surely receive mine (see it as Shareware).
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Version: 6.4
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-08-14
Votes: 27
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Amazing......easy install to imac's and old pcs Clean attractive desktop and all apps necessary on modern computer.
Never fails to install to all types of machines. Plus Debian based.
Wonderful OS
Thanks Poland
I have install so many Linux distos I have lost count. Two I always return to are Puppy derivatives and Sparky....they always
install and never disappoint.
So it does not matter whether I try to install on old mac minis or ancient portables or multi-core major machines Sparky always
gets there.
|
Version: 2022.07
Rating: 6
Date: 2022-07-29
Votes: 0
|
i have use sparky linux as my secondary backup system
sometimes i just update it (1-2 months) and daily use only win10
the latest upgrade totally ruined the system
the auto update started to looping,
so i thought restart the system, epic fail. not starting sparky anymore something mainboard error (not uefi)
i did try many distro but in the all was something small issue what i could not fix for my taste. mostly bluetooth audio, 5.1 audio and headphone
i like the way where the linux go.
i don't like the speed how they doing it.
after many many years still have basic problems in the system what shouldn't be there.
shame, i really liked this SparkyLinux and i thought i found what i needed.
I still believe this SparkyLinux is one of the best
|
Version: 2022.07
Rating: 8
Date: 2022-07-21
Votes: 6
|
I have been distro-hoping since the days of Beatrix Linux which was my 200mb stepping stone into the Linux environment 20 years ago. Tinkered with many other distros along the years, hoping to find something that was ultra stable and without systemD. Unfortunately, none of them would remain on my desktop for more than 3 months till I chanced upon Q4OS which was ultra stable but unfortunately with systemD. The only other negative was that it kept crashing when I installed the proprietary nvidia drivers for my 9600GT unfortunately with no desktop on next boot. Left it for a year, hoping to find a replacement. This is when I chanced upon Sparky Linux, which did not play ball 2 years ago. Had another go at it yesterday and got to say the Live environment intrigued me. Took up the courage to install it on a physical drive, and I am mighty pleased as of now. Have not installed nvidia drivers but got to say everything works just like Q4OS did. Will try nividia drivers after a week or so and shall report back to you. One and only serious flaw I could find is that try as I might, I was not able to install the OS onto the hard drive with the built-in calamares installer using BIOS/MBR method for my ancient amd DDR3 Phenom 960 equipped motherboard. Finally, installed Gparted onto the live environment and told it to partition the drive into ext4. After that, everything was a cakewalk and butter smooth when using the calamares installer. Yeah! I know this too has systemD. Waiting for the day when the developers get openRC working with Sparky.
|
Version: 2022.04
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-06-29
Votes: 19
|
I switched from Windows to Ubuntu a few years ago, not so convinced, then to Linux mint cinnamon, convincing and stable, only some applications very old, so I switched to Manjaro, top current applications, but after a few weeks something always went wrong, e.g. keybund problems, and then I discovered Sparky. Stable Debian base and is also offered as a rolling release, therefore huge programme selection, current versions. Wine installation excellent, incuding automatic the Windows fonts. Does not have a Cinnamon desktop by default, but can be installed with 2 clicks. Has successfully survived its "trial period" and was therefore also installed on my old notebook. Great work by the small team.
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Version: 2022.04
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-06-19
Votes: 14
|
I have used Sparky Linux for the past year, both the stable and semi-rolling versions. Both are seriously good. I thought the 22.04 semi rolling may have problems, so kept the stable version just in case, but have had absolutely no issues and prefer the semi rolling for up to date packages.
Sparky is a clean version of Debian which runs extremely fast. It has a useful set of tools and developer packages software for newest releases (such as newest firefox and newest Falkon). You can choose how often updates are applied, from hourly upwards. I'm using KDE Plasma on a Thinkpad and can thoroughly recommend.
|
Version: 6.3
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-05-12
Votes: 17
|
It's a great distribution for any purpose. It has a Gaming version in xfce with all the necessary software, also you can choose a version based on Debian (stable) or an amazingly stable rolling-release version based on Debian (testing).
Also you can use the CLI-Installer minimal version .iso (without graphic interface) if you are not afraid of that (its very easy, I think) to have a very lean OS with only the necessary packages, choosing a basic install of your favorite desktop and window manager configured by the Sparky team with a very out-of-the-box minimal and reliable installation, ready for simple tweaks here and there or install more things from the sparky software center (very well organized in categories and an unbelievable variety of software).
It can save your old machine or pushing your top notch hardware to its limits with a few clicks. My old Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 flights out with Sparky with LXDE for example and so much more my i3 6100 with MATE or my Ryzen 7 3700X + RX 5700 with KDE. It's amazing how a very little team from Poland have made an almost perfect distro. You can simply install anything from the Sparky software center and have a tailored suit made by a tailor its you. Their repository has things that I only saw on AUR from Arch and so many things that I discover now packaged by its team, even themes and custom kernels. Definetly, Sparky is a job well done with so much love. Debian for demanding users and also beginners who wants to go straight to a more skilled level of GNU/Linux without innecesary peaks of difficulty by learning the possibilities reading the description of the sofware from the Sparky software center and testing by themselves without sweating.
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Version: 2022.03
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-04-04
Votes: 34
|
I follow Distrowatch closely and am easily seduced by the latest releases, however they never stay on my hard drive very long. There is always some problem that makes me return to Sparky.
For a novice, the stable XFCE version is hard to beat. For a long-term Linux nerd like myself, the semi-rolling minimal ISO is the best - it's basically a blank canvas where you can install what you want and polish it to perfection.
Reasons to install this:
- ISO sizes are modest. Other distros are getting too bloated.
- Semi-Rolling gives you up to date packages with the stability Debian is renowned for. Updates don't seem to mess things up!
- The last time I installed pure Debian, it was a bit of a nightmare with lots of things not working but Sparky makes the whole process painless.
- Huge range of packages courtesy of Debian, plus a dedicated Sparky repo with lots of valuable extras such as Ungoogled Chromium & multimedia packages which are missing from the main repo.
- The principal developer seems to be a good guy who's passionate about the project (I'm impressed by how responsive he is to comments/queries on the Facebook group). He's doing a great job with only small amounts of donations coming in.
This distro definitely deserves more love. When it comes to Debian-based distros, MX seems to get the most attention, however I find Sparky to be a much better proposition.
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Version: 2022.03
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-04-02
Votes: 11
|
Using the Mate version for some time now on my Intel Celeron N4100 "nuc-style" PC (since the full Debian eventually was too much for it to handle and it started to crash while I was watching videos. It's very fast, updates are frequent and so far I have nothing at all to complain on. It detects my USB keyboard and headset much better than other distros and I really like the semi-rolling version.
It's also low on memory consumption and not bloated with software like other distributions. The Aptus Appcenter is a bit slow in using, but stable and easy to navigate. If your PC is not that powerful and you want a stable, often updated distro then give it a go!
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Version: 2022.03
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-04-01
Votes: 7
|
The newest KDE version of Sparky is amazing, the devs have made it intuitive which makes it as good or better than any distro in the top three. I am so happy I have tried it again after all this time. Sparky was very good before, and now it an absolute marvel right up there with MX and Mint and maybe better! I absolutely love the degree to which this distro has been polished, that is exactly what it needed. Next stop number one, just try it do not just take anybody else's word for it. I am going to put this on every computer I own, that is how good it is.
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Version: 6.2
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-03-17
Votes: 4
|
sparky 6.2 xfce:
Sparky is a good distro based on debian stable or testing and I recommend it.
After my quick test I would give Pavroo/dev team the following advice:
Welcome screen : ad an option box to disable this screen the next time the PC is started.
IMAGE VIEWER : remove GPicView and replace it with qimgv (without video option like available in manjaro AUR)
REMOVE on ISO : exaile , uget , liferea , hexchat , riseup-vpn gpicview ( but always available from synaptic or AptUS
AppCenter)
ADD : on ISO : Gimp , Audacity , ksnip , sane-airscan , qimgv (without video option)
APPEARENCE ( to be more appealing i would make by default)
style : adwaita- dark
font size : 12
I am convince that these changes made in stable AND semi-rollig Iso's will make Sparky more attractve.
I strongly recommend Sparky Xfce semi-rolling.
|
Version: 6.2
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-03-15
Votes: 20
|
Sparky is my new favorite distro. I love the choice between stable and rolling bases to install. And, the emphasis on lightness -- with choices from command-line environment, to minimal gui environment, to LXQt, to Xfce, to KDE (a progression of light to heavier. But, even the Xfce & KDE versions are lighter than many disros offering those desktops.). I also like that it's built straight from Debian (no Ubuntu in the middle).
I'm surprised Sparky isn't better known, more users. I think this is the next "I was using xxx before xxx was cool" distros.
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Version: 2022.03
Rating: 2
Date: 2022-03-10
Votes: 0
|
Absolutely (old) poor installer who doesn't accept the EFI Partition even flags and Mountpoint is set.
A new release with such a bad installer and the same bugs as previous versions also have... a no go (quality).
I gave up, Sparky should maybe check their Quality before release new versions.
Live System looks good and not full of bloatware as nearby any other Distros installs today and maybe Sparky could be good Distro, sad to see the above problematic destroys the first (live) impressions about Sparky Linux.
|
Version: 2022.03
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-03-10
Votes: 4
|
I am using SparkyLinux (the semi-rolling XFCE edition) now for about 8 months.
Works well so far. Only encountered a minor problem which was easily solved with help from the forum.
The issue was that Firefox had on some sites a bit of an ugly font rendering.
I followed what the forum recommended, ran 2 commands, reboot and the ugly font was fixed.
Also, when upgrading from version 6 to version 7, I downloaded the supplied script and the upgrade went well.
Sparky Linux is very close to Debian, so you can expect a stable distro.
What I also that you can enable Flatpak easily by first installing the flatpak in Aptus (the SparkyLinux software manger) and then add the Flathub repository by running the recommended command from the flatpak site recommendation for Debian.
This has as an advantage that in some cases, certain packages / programs in the flatpak repository are more modern than the standard repositories.
I must say it is stable, runs the latest software and I must say I am very happy with SparkyLinux so far
|
Version: 6.2
Rating: 2
Date: 2022-02-16
Votes: 0
|
Sparky 6.2 works OK as a live USB, but the installation process is flawed.
At the partitioning phase, it will not accept that my EFI partition has a mount point of /boot/efi with a boot flag.
I have tried multiple ISO's and the same fault occurs each time.
Consequently, I gave up at this point.
Also, sometimes the live usb detects my hard drive ( sda ) incorrectly as sdb, and the USB assigns itself as sda.
This is patently wrong.
Previous versions of Sparky have all had the same EFI installation fault, and this latest release is no better.
I multi boot two other linux distros which both installed without any issues.
Prospective Sparky users may prefer to look elsewhere for a more friendly Linux experience.
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Version: 2021.12
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-02-11
Votes: 31
|
I run Sparky XFCE on 3 desktops and 1 laptop at home - all bare metal installs. Although they have a Backup (snapshot + Skel) utility in the APTUS app centre I use Redo Rescue 4 to create full "golden" image which I clone to other PC's. After initial clean-up removing most pre-installed apps, I use WPS Office, Evolution and Gnome Boxes. I also ditched XFCE Whisker menu and use Application Menu. They systems are rock solid. What I like about Sparky and what makes it stand head and sholders above other Debian distros is the APTUS AppCenter which includes a bunch of 1-click utilities for cleaning, fixing and removing old packages and installing/switching between different kernels. This distro is super easy for beginners and highly customiseable. Everything works out of the box including Appimages, Wi-Fi and CUPs for network printers. You can choose between a "stable" and "rolling version - the only difference is Rolling includes updates from Debian SID. Compared to Sparky the MX has become over-hyped and bloated.
From my experiance Sparky is the best non-Ubuntu non-Arch distro out there.
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Version: 2021.12
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-02-09
Votes: 3
|
I have been testing both 6.1 and the rolling version (7) on a range of Thinkpads from T440s to T490s.
So far everything works out of the box (even the hybrid graphics models) I prefer Mate and have had no issues with adding it as a desktop. Overall I am very impressed with the builds. There has been a lot of good work put into Sparky and it feels polished. A few little glitches here and there with aptus but Congratulations to the Devs for a solid Debian Based distro. If LMDE5 doesn't live up to expectations (or doesn't arrive soon) Sparky is looking like a very suitable replacement.
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Version: 2021.12
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-01-21
Votes: 13
|
Il y a un manque de finition sur cette distribution, petits soucis de langue, firefox, libreoffice et le clavier étaient en anglais après l'installation, mais rien de sérieux.
Par contre, grosse disponibilité de logiciels, distribution étonnamment légère (KDE), Je suis agréablement surpris par Sparkylinux KDE semi-rolling, elle est mon coup de cœur et je vais la garder le plus longtemps possible. Un grand merci à l'équipe
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Version: 6.1
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-01-14
Votes: 23
|
I have been using version 6.1 on an HP Compaq Pro 6300 SFF with Dual Core Intel Core i3-3220 processor since December and I am very happy with it.
It perfectly recognized my NVIDIA GK208B [GeForce GT 730] graphics card by installing its drivers, the ASUSTek Broadcom BCM20702A0 Usb card, the Qualcomm Atheros AR9227 Wireless Network Adapter. It is a fast and reliable lightweight distribution. No problem for installing applications or via snap or APTusAppCenter, or Flatpack.
The Xfce environment is great but I prefer to use Mate and I had no problem installing it via APTusAppCenter.
I'm using it side-by-side with Fedora and I think I'm going to replace it completely. In conclusion 10.
|
Version: 2021.12
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-01-07
Votes: 10
|
I have been using Sparky for the last year on an old Sony Vaio laptop that I bought way back in 2009. It works great and has made it usable again after just sitting around for a long time and better than it ever was with Windows. I tried other distros and this works the best with this computer. I also use Brave browser with helps speed things up on this old computer by blocking ads. I have a feeling that this computer won't last me too much longer but at least I am able to use it until it dies on me for good.
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Version: 2021.12
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-12-16
Votes: 27
|
I'm running Sparky7 XFCE and I love it! This is a fast and complete distro that works well. I run spectrWM Debian on my Lenovo and this Asus rig with Sparky7 XFCE.
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Version: 2021.10
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-12-07
Votes: 32
|
A fast, stable, easy-to-use distro, lightweight too. Sparky works out of the box, recognizes my wireless printer and wifi adapter. Custom apps work great. Different types of distros for different uses- a gaming one, multimedia, etc.
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Version: 2021.10
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-11-30
Votes: 42
|
Sparky is THE lightweight distro to use. It’s fast, stable and performs better than other “lightweight” distros like MX, Linux Lite and Peppermint. Sparky is also very customizable and has a lot of applications to choose from in the repositories and you can add in more repositories too for even more customization and applications. I haven’t had any crashes using this. It lets me get my day-to-day use done and stays out of my way. Sparky just works. I recommend download and using this distro.
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Version: 2021.10
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-11-24
Votes: 24
|
Lightweight, easy to use, stable, looks great and developers do a great job with making sure everything works well and any bugs and such are promptly fixed. The forum community is helpful and kind too.
I have only used the KDE desktop environment on Sparky, so that is what this review is about.
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Version: 2021.10
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-11-18
Votes: 21
|
Sparkylinux, semirolling, kde desktop is stable, easy customizable and offers everything an average computer user needs. It is also fast on older computers and all hardware works out of the box. I've been using linux since 2008 and this distro is, from my point of view, exactly what I need. Everything is well thought of, especially the way of updating the whole system and the different package managers. Thumbs up!
|
Version: 2021.10
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-11-11
Votes: 23
|
Just installed rolling Sparky Mate version, and it's awesome. Was able to set up usual things, and some pleasant surprises in the repo too; media-downloader (yt-dlp) and hydrapaper. Art tablet (XP-Pen Deco) works fine. Only needed to learn to use dpkg -i to install a deb file. Runs fast and clean. A+++++
|
Version: 6.1
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-11-11
Votes: 7
|
gets better with every stable version..lots of goodies in the repos too.
Would dearly like to see a mate-stable edition please!
Have tried the rolling although prefer the slower stable releases.
|
Version: 2021.10
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-11-04
Votes: 19
|
Great downlaoded the game version of spalkly linux works fine
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Version: 2021.10
Rating: 7
Date: 2021-10-13
Votes: 4
|
Let me take the place of a noob...
I install sparky 202110 and i see:
Installation is easy
all my hardware is working out-of-the-box
I am satisfied with the choice of the applications.....but don't need exaile because vlc is here
APTus AppCenter delights me
everything is readable and pleasant to my eyes
but...yes there is a but :
in Control Center/Appearance/Theme the sparky6 theme has a ? and is unusable .
when i insert an audio CD and choose VLC, I see "Your input media cannot be opened"
when I insert a DVD i see "No application found"
....That's strange because these 2 actions work well with Manjaro, Mageia, Emmabuntus
and Debian11 xfce .......
SO, apart from these 3 bad points , Sparky is awesome and when corrected, Sparky will become
my daily system.
I hope the developers will make these corrections in all Sparky versions .
Sparky is close to victory Thanks.
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Version: 2021.09
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-09-21
Votes: 13
|
Used SparkyLinux a few years ago as a daily driver, well right back again with the new release. Install the minimal-gui distro, perfect to tweak and build upon.
Highly recommend this stable Debian build, very nicely done and just works folks.
Pros: Surprisingly fast with lower resource consumption. Attractive and a minimal collection of applications.
Cons: Systemd, but respect the developers choice.
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Version: 2021.06
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-09-12
Votes: 7
|
This distro should be so much more popular. It makes Debian usable for the average user. Really rock solid. Everything works fast and snappy with Gnome 3.38. If only Gnome was current.
|
Version: 6.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-08-23
Votes: 17
|
For me is Sparky Linux the best distro there is!! Everything works out of the box. On my old Dell Inspiron N5030 of 10 years old it works very fast. For everybody who wants Linux this is a good beginning. Keep up the good work!!!!!!!!!
|
Version: 6.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-08-20
Votes: 15
|
Sparky is awesome. Simple, clean, fast, reliable.
32-bit still supported for older machines which is great.
LXQt w/OpenBox
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Version: 6.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-08-19
Votes: 21
|
I migrated to Sparky from MX-19.4, which used to be my daily driver since 18.5
Both are rolling distros, both have "software centres" and both have programs for remastering ISO, i.e. you tweak out and rice your standard distro, then you can create your "personal" ISO that you can deploy for your friends and family.
Over the time MX has become bloated with too many utilities and accessories most ppl never use, so I had to spend a few hours doing weeding out all that to get to a "baseline" bare-bones OS.
Sparky feels a lot faster and snappier. It also comes with a few "click and close" handy tools to remove broken deb packages, cleaning up cache, etc.
But the main gem of Sparky Linux is the Sparky Backup System which creates a Calamares based installation ISO. It also lets you copy your personal settings and apps to /etc/skel folder, which then becomes the default "package" for the new users, once you install from the Live ISO.
Personally, I use Redo Rescue to create intermediate snapshots, then restore the "golden" image on the target PC and change the hostname to distinguish the PC's on my home LAN.
Overall, highly customiseable, robust and super-fast Debian Bullseye distro with familiar XFCE set of settings and utilities. Highly recommended!
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Version: 5.15
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-08-02
Votes: 11
|
1 month into my linux experiment. Once I learned how to install, I have hopped from arcolinux to zorin looking for something that will run well on this old gen4 intel laptop. My expert opinion, with ALL my 30 days of experience, sparkylinux wins hands down on choice alone. I got soo tired of all the regulars i.e. firefox, libreoffice, VLC etc. being rammed down my throat, even on minimal ISO's. CHOICE ... soo refreshing! Have been runnung 5.15 stable and am realizing how much time I could have saved if I had tried sparky sooner. Being able to try out different DE's w/o having to install everytime ...WOW
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Version: 2021.06
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-07-26
Votes: 26
|
After testing and installing tons of distros based on Arch, Red Hat, OpenSuse and Debian, both fixed and rolling releases, I've captivated by Sparky.
Pros:
- Based on Debian Testing
- Secure Boot compatible
- Stable (fixed) or Semi-rolling release cycle
- Specialized tools (although less powerful than MX Linux and YAST)
- BTRFS with grub snapshots (Timeshift + autosnaps)
- KDE (+ LXQt, MATE, Xfce, MinimalGUI/MinimalCLI)
- Dedicated Recue CD with Tools
- Support Forum and Wiki's
- AOSP (Android) building friendly
Long story:
- Mint is the 2nd best for me, allowing Home partition encryption out-of-box, but I can't go with Cinnamon and Mate as desktop. LMDE is based on
Debian Stable and takes time to be updated.
- Debian punishes us with the apps not up-to-date and some of my favorites does not work on old versions.
- Red Hat derivativas (Fedora, CentOS Stream, AlmaLinux, RockyLinux) are too much dependent on the company movements, both on interface and packages (see Fedora).
- OpenSuse is rock solid (even Tumbleweed), but it does not allow to change YAST related packages very easily (namely Snapper per Timeshift). Also GeckoLinux does not allow this flexibility.
- Almost none Arch derivative is Secure Boot compatible out-of-the-box (Manjaro, Endevour, Garuda, ArcoLinuxB, Salient, Reborn).
- Lots of others suffer the same "issue" (I know I can disable Secure Boot): MX Linux, Parrot, Siduction, Mageia, NetRunner, PCLinuxOS, Pop!_OS, PureOS, SolidKEE. I didn't test KDE Neon, ZorinOS and NetRunner for other reasons.
- Kubuntu (Ubuntu flavors) should be Secure Boot compatible, but for any reason the "shim" package breaks the installation near to the end. FerenOS is ok, but just tweaks over Kubuntu.
- KaOS and Solus are good, but limited on packages for AOSP building/apps.
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Version: 5.15
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-07-16
Votes: 15
|
I installed sparky on an asus L210, and give it a 10 because it installed painlessly and worked flawlessly immediately. The only tweaks I had to make were to my openboxrc for a couple of hotkey conflicts with the default issue. Unbelievable!
That and it includes xterm's standard utf-8 fonts, unlike *ubuntus, my previous distro, which disclaim all knowledge of such fonts. My cup no longer half-full, it positively overfloweth.
Many thanks for this distro!
|
Version: 2021.06
Rating: 2
Date: 2021-07-15
Votes: 0
|
In need to something small and fast I ve tried to install the minimal nogui .
The menus and installation process were smooth, the result was a total FAILURE:
The system could not boot, because the /bin/plymouth did not exist.
ZERO QC I assume from the Sparky team, if they don't care about this flavour better not
keep it.
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Version: 2021.06
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-07-06
Votes: 8
|
I played with MATE Sparky 2021.06 in live mode , and was pleased to see that the omissions seen in 2021.03 version have been corrected?..(.reported by another tester on 2021-05-24) .
PROS
great confidence in the developers who react quickly and well
on the whole SPARKY. is almost perfect
CONS
configuring APPEARANCE is week and has problems:
. number of themes is restricted...(but why not?)
. sparky6 theme has a question mark and cannot therefore be used...(must be corrected or deleted)
.the first time I changed the theme, the MENU became blank and illegible...(works well and durably
after logout/login)
WELCOME SCREEN cannot be desabled
Sparky could quickly become my daily OS and I recommend to newcomers or from some distro hoppers.
Congratulations to the developers and thank you.
|
Version: 2021.03
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-06-14
Votes: 20
|
I have to give Sparky a 9/10, since it's all I could expect, and more. Smooth installation, lightweight (~600 MB idle with KDE desktop), firewall is extremely easy to configure, audio/video codecs, Bluetooth and GPU drivers working out of the box, custom apps are extremely useful yet unobtrusive, has its own repos in addition to all of Debian's. The only con was that the keyboard layout I chose during installation wouldn't be recognised once the SO was, well, installed, so I had to change it from the KDE system configuration app.
So, if you don't care too much about eye candy, Sparky is more than fine, kudos to devs.
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Version: 2021.03
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-05-31
Votes: 17
|
I have to give Sparky a high score. I can find nothing wrong with it, at all. It does everything it's asked to do, and stays out of the way. My very first test is always to see how easily it can find and install printers. Top scores, there. Then, can it find scanners? Yup. Firewall is oh-so-easy to set up. Changing the wallpaper is a snap. Like I said, it just works. BTW, I installed the Mate version, which is now my "go to" desktop environment. Mate is attractive, yet not loaded down with unnecessary eye candy. It is so functional, and it's easy to customize.
The only "con" I see is that Bluetooth does not seem to be supported. That's odd, so maybe it's just me. But over all, I like Sparky a lot.
|
Version: 2021.03
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-05-24
Votes: 5
|
I installed Sparky 2021.03, with the Mate desktop. on an old Dell inspirion5521 ...and bravo all my hardware is recognized.
PROS
Lightweight (525MB RAM is used at idle), fast and simple
After 1 month of hard play this distro stays very stable although its a semi-rolling.
Ease to update, install or remove software thanks to Synaptic or APTus-APPCENTER
Ease to maintain thanks to in house APTus
Based on Debian testing
CONS
No preview of video, image,sound in Caja (the file manager for mate DE
but works by installing ffmpegthumbnailer and libgdk-pixbuf2.0-bin with synaptic
To test your speakers in Control Center/Sound/Hardware you have to install lbcanberra-pulse
These small things can easily be corrected but could irritate newcomers.
Try it , you will not be disappointed even if you come from Mint or MX and you will see how Sparky is comfortable .
|
Version: 2021.03
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-05-22
Votes: 10
|
Très bonne distro basée sur debian.Elle est aussi bonne que MX Linux et convient tout à fait aux débutants.Ils ont leurs propres dépôts, en plus de ceux de debian.Ils développent leur propres logiciels.J'ai testé la rolling release version mate.Very good choice of preinstalled applications.Continue the good job guys !
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Version: 5.15
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-05-15
Votes: 9
|
Using Sparky LXQt and it is awesome!
Super fast, simple and stable.
The APTus is very useful and has lots of goodies to offer.
Lightweight! At idle uses around 235MB on my system.
Highly recommended.
|
Version: 2021.03
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-05-03
Votes: 16
|
I recently installed Sparky 2021.03, with the Mate desktop.
I don't quite understand some of the other reviews which claim Sparky is spartan. I find it to be very full-featured, unless perhaps you are a software developer or do a lot of video editing, or something...I don't know. For most people, I suspect that Sparky will be more than adequate.
Sparky is lightweight, and seems to be very responsive. I did not detect any sluggishness, based on casual usage. I also found Sparky to be very stable...no hiccups whatsoever.
The main reason I tried this version of Sparky was because of the semi-rolling release model. I'm really tired of doing re-installs when new releases come out. Only time will tell how that will go.
So, I think that most people will find Sparky to be a very comfortable distro that serves them well. I'd try it.
|
Version: 2021.03
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-04-18
Votes: 11
|
Takes a bit of configuring, but Sparky is blazing fast and has a minimal, thought thought out set of apps and some clever utilities. It states on their website that the distro is not aimed at beginners, so don't expect ubuntu/mint/MX out of the box, but if you're venturing out of the 'newbie' box, it's really worth a look.
It's a fairly blank slate you can make into what you want, but most importantly it's semi-rolling, reliable and still the fastest distro I've used.
Using Minimal GUI version.
|
Version: 5.14
Rating: 6
Date: 2021-04-04
Votes: 0
|
I was hoping for more after reading the reviews.
Pros: No major crashes, reasonably fast on low end laptop.
Cons:
Its a lighter distro, but it's pretty Spartan, feature wise. There are at least a few other "light" distros that are significantly better equipped out of the box.
|
Version: 5.14
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-03-31
Votes: 12
|
I have a Dell Inspiron 14" laptop. It has an Intel processor, 8Gb ram and 240Gb SSD.
After putting Sparky 5.14 64bit distro It runs very quickly. Networks, printers were automatically detected
and connected. Power consumption was low. Sparky runs great out of the box. Its appearance can
be rather scrappy with the fonts. However by tweaking the fonts, it can be made to look neat.
The distro is about 1.2gb in size. However if you like a lightweight distro that runs fast then
SparkyLinux is for you.
|
Version: 2021.03
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-03-17
Votes: 17
|
Excellent semi rolling distro. It won't win any awards in the "looks" department but Sparky is solid and offers many interesting extras on top of Debian. You can use the very light weight minimal UI install version and add any type of desktop available under the sun!
Well Done!
Mike
|
Version: 5.14
Rating: 3
Date: 2021-03-16
Votes: 0
|
Sparky is a bit of a joke. I installed it on a VM and broke it. As i kept installing all the desktops to try them out, (jwm, window maker, draco, xfce, awesome, lumina and the whole lot of them) when i logged out once it went down to its original - Debian. So, bascially, i was using a debian distro but can still log in and change all the desktop environment. It was confusing as now i did not know whether i was using Sparky or Debian.
I decided to install it on hardware as in the VM i dont get the full resolution of 1024x768, only 800x600. After i installed it, i noticed nothing works, its a joke. Everything i click on such as launching firefox or anything, it does not execute, even after updating and restarting. Even now, reboot does not work, logoff does not work, you press one thing and something else happens. I cant even drag the mouse to highlight text.
Anyways, after i testing all the desktop environments, im ditching it for Manjaro!
Thanks.
|
Version: 2021.03
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-03-11
Votes: 11
|
This is the First and Only Linux or BSD operating system that has been installed and it works on my main computer from the start without a single modification.
Operating System: SparkyLinux 6
KDE Plasma Version: 5.20.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.78.0
Qt Version: 5.15.2
Kernel Version: 5.12.0-rc2-sparky-amd64
OS Type: 64-bit
Processors: 8 × Intel® Core™ i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80GHz
Memory: 7.7 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: AMD JUNIPER
|
Version: 2021.03
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-03-11
Votes: 0
|
Unfortunately no LXDE version available. Only the LXQT. Tried it but it is not the same as LXDE. Too many software with the LXQT
|
Version: 2021.03
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-03-08
Votes: 2
|
Sparky is an awesome distro. KDE desktop is super lightweight.
Lots to love about this project.
|
Version: 2020.12
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-03-04
Votes: 9
|
PROS
I install the Xfce rolling flavour on a 11 years old Dell Inspirion 5521 and everything is detected and running ...WiFi, Ethernet, Sound, Graphic, CD/DVD player, Bluetooth? Keybord, HP printer ......on login After 2 weeks it seems fast and stable
At login the Ram consumption is a little high 550MB.
CONS
Fonts are not eye candy and not very readable.
Gpicview is unable to read animated Gif and cannot be removed because part of sparky-xfce4-desktop so i have to live with and I install eye of gnome.
So I give a 9 and recommend Sparky.
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Version: 5.14
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-02-22
Votes: 8
|
Pros
1- based on Debian
2- Aptus is so useful
3- İts fast.
Cons
1- Aptus could look cooler
2- More İso for Desktop Environments and Window Managers could be released.
3- Conkies can be added by default.
|
Version: 4.13
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-02-21
Votes: 1
|
It is a debian-based distribution designed for older and under-resourced PCs. It comes with a large amount of software that allows to perform all the tasks that a user wants from their PC.
My PC:
Processor Intel (R) Pentium (R) 4 CPU 3.40GHz
Memory 3589MB (2470MB used)
Intel D945 GTP Motherboard
SparkyLinux 5.14 (Nibiru) operating system
Pro:
Its startup is relatively fast. It looks nice and it comes with lxqt, lxde and xfce desktops. I like it because it is a distribution that does not bring games.
The installation and configuration of the printers is very easy.
Against:
Its main drawback is the custom installation that presents certain drawbacks for a user with little experience of GNU-Linux, but that does not prevent them from being able to do it. Once this inconvenience is overcome, you can use your PC in all the activities you can imagine.
|
Version: 2020.12
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-02-17
Votes: 2
|
Xfce rolling flavour. This is one of the best rolling distros you can get,and the best Debian rolling for sure. A complete year using it and I found no problems at all. Thanks to the great APTUS utility even WINE installs in a breeze, and you have tons of software to install in the same easy way. Unfortunately the new APTUS interface is a pain in your xss: The old one was less pretty but far more functional (fortunately you can install the old one with Synaptic, working perfectly so far). So "only" 9/10 until old APTUS (or similar) is back.
|
|
Latest Reviews
Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 7.4
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-08-30
Votes: 10
|
I am using sparky linux for over 1 year and in my experience it is the best linux distros I have tried. it has every thing .I am using it on my old 32 bit computer. its minimal version I like the most. I have installed some selected applications and prefer to keep my system light weight. I have faced no problem since then . my system is running very smooth since I am using lxde desktop environment on my 32 bit old pc. My web serfing experinece is also good. I am using chromium web browser on my system. it is very fast and smooth. I use both openbox window manager and Lxde and both are very fast and light weight. I have tried many linux distros on my 32 bit system but no distro was able to satisfy me but after installing sparky linux I am quiet happy and I compliment all the developers for their good works.
|
Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2024.05
Rating: 9
Date: 2024-08-07
Votes: 9
|
Been using Sparky on several machines, since early 2024, now August 2024.
One machine, a retired ASRock gaming box, ran fine until a hardware failure. Used a TP-Link TL-WN722N USB dongle (in a USB3 port) for wireless.
Second machine, a Dell Optiplex 9020 upgraded to i7, is where I write this review. Only using Cat 6 cabling.
Last machine is an old low buck Toshiba laptop, which is essentially a Chromebook with a DVD drive. Using only built-in wifi, rather weak hardware here.
All installed very nicely, installation duration commensurate with hardware power.
After a short time span, I elected to halt launching APTus, because on EVERY platform, it ran very slowly. Straight to Synaptic ala Debian.
In summation, all is quiet, no errors seen either with or without APTus.
Will revisit APTus, simply because it's their life blood, their raison d'être.
I've halted using WiFi for data connection, because 2 reasons:
A] latency of communication affected every communication - hard wire is definitely faster on my Optiplex versus the N-class wireless connections of the other 2, but the other 2 systems were ONLY wireless and were clearly slower to communicate. No talk about wireless hardware, because talk won't change my hardware.
B] hardware support for WiFi is always a joke considering my experiences - do distros successfully auto-install WiFi support? Not many. Did Sparky? YES!
Best wishes to Sparky, keep it up!
|
Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 7.4
Rating: 2
Date: 2024-07-31
Votes: 0
|
The supporting time don't even have the ability to answer a report. I tried several times to log in to the KDE live 7.4 ISO, using UEFI and not UEFI, but nothing works, always asking for the password again. This is a mess of this distro, because in the original Debian there is no login to the Live ISO. I've been in computer science for more than 30 years, and surely this failure was not my mistake. Unfortunately I had to waste my time to register a failure of this distro, to which support does not respond. I installed another Debian and it worked perfectly!
|
Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 7.4
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-06-15
Votes: 19
|
Sparky 7.4 Orion Belt Minimal GUI:
Sparky is a great project by an obviously very dedicated enthusiast.
Would I recommend Sparky to a Linux Novice? Yes, why not, if you go for a stable version with a standard DE. Why not even go for the semi-rolling/testing version? At worst, you may find a few issues, but at least you're not at the mercy of a corporation that communicates via a 3 word buzzphrase generator.
(What on Earth is 'optimal containerized immutability'? I know what that means, but I bet the corporate 'engineers' cannot explain it in everyday language.)
Sparky is real, with pretty good documentation, and if you want to get more real, then straightforward Debian or ArchLinux are options, both with very good documentation.
Sparky Stable is slightly unstable, because it includes software in its repository that is apparently unavailable elsewhere. This is partly because the lead (only?) developer of Sparky has written it themself (i.e. IS an actual developer), partly because they have gone to the effort of including other software in their repository (e.g. XnView/Convert, WPS Office, Firefox latest version, and stuff I've never heard of before). If you want something that doesn't even exist yet, then there's probably a header file in the Sparky repository. There's loads of useful software therein, more than most other distros.
And being Debian based, it's easy to change the /etc/apt sources from 'stable/bookworm/orion' to 'testing/trixie/sisters'. Read the Debian documentation on changing repositories. Things can get wild. There be dragons!
And if you already have Debian installed, then it's easy to add the Sparky repositories, although this will 'Sparkify' your system.
I think of Sparky as a vanilla Debian with added flavors, or a playground with enhanced artwork, perhaps even 'bleeding edge stable', if that makes sense.
Sparky Minimal GUI edition seems to be a showcase of ideas (e.g. sparky-dashboard) that are still in development.
And it's fast. Encrypted installation took about 10 minutes, rather than the stated 15 to 30.
It's also very fast for data backup, as in 10-20x faster than some others I've tried. Of course, this is hardware relative.
AND, Sparky seems to be the ONLY distro that knows how to use Calamares installer. There is no enforcement of 2x the amount of RAM as swap space. 'Swap to file/swap off' means what it says. Encrypted installation does not demand a 4GiB boot sector(!).
There are some things that I don't like, and there are several obsolete folders/files in /.config, but I can change that, because it's 'my computer' (OK, apart from the firmware). There are no keyboard shortcuts, but I know how to write them.
Sparky is as exciting as when I first tried 'Linux' back in the Noughties (RedHat/Mandrake/Ubuntu), unlike what seem to have become locked down distros (especially the corporate ones, or the angry obsessive ones).
If the Sparky developer continues to develop the bespoke Sparky applications, to create a real Sparky desktop, that would be brilliant.
Sparky demands engagement, but if you're interested, then why would you not engage?
I'd gladly contribute.
Overall, I give SparkyLinux 10/10 for reliability + 10/10 for enjoyment.
So in base 20, that's a 10/10.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 7.4
Rating: 8
Date: 2024-06-13
Votes: 3
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Not bad! Not bad at all!
Considering I had just tried the Number 1 Top-Rated Distro on Distrowatch; and it has been there for a while, trading with Mint I think a few times but it does not matter because I am talking about comparing Sparky 7.4 (which is the most recent stable version though the 2024.5 _looks_ like the newest because of its position and I have gotten off subject again. Sparky is better than MX Linux v23, as well as my Always-Come-Back-To Distro, Kubuntu, there, I said it!
But it is true. Why only an 8/10? Because I am not easily impressed and I consider a 10 to be Paradigm-Shifting, Earth-Shattering, Write-Home-To-Momma-About-It kind of spectacular. Really, it is supposed to reset the 'bar', if you like, so that everything else truly becomes a bit less colorful because you now see what can be achieved, in a way that you didn't know or just that it had never occurred to you (or anyone else?) to do it that way. Enough waxing philosophical, Michael!
Sparky is impressive in that it ends up accomplishing, for the most part, what the other ones with (sometimes) more than double the size. I should note that while I have always wanted to try the Qt-razor or LXQt environment but reading the reviews on ones that had used it in, for example, a new version of Lubuntu (because I am already familiar with Kubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, and the non-Unity version of Ubuntu; with their respective orders being a decrease in level of familiarity, thus Kubuntu is the highest, etc.) but also being (I thought) familiar *enough* with Qt because of it being part of KDE Plasma and Framework, etc.
My point, or at least, one of my points is that I remembered just how "costly" nearly unlimited tweaks and options or customizations can be on (RAM) memory and CPU cycles or cores/threads in an environment like KDE Plasma, where nearly everything can (now) be customized by using the GUI! I realize that this is very nearly blasphemy to those of us who know that everything *IS* customizable by the use of the Command Line Interface (CLI) or console. Am I suggesting that distros with LXQt are limited? No, I am not. But that does not necessarily mean it is untrue, either. But the trade-off of options like bells, whistles, millions of colors, and any number of other personalizations with nearly-instantaneous response times is as old as computers. Okay, that sounds weird. But there it is.
In short (yeah, I know: too late), had the person who commented only a few weeks ago that, "using Sparky as your Daily Driver distro," just waited for the 7.4 version that just came out yesterday, they may have had a different opinion of Sparky. But, as pertains to the Semi-Rolling release of which this person spoke, they are spot-on correct! I just hope people see that this person is speaking of a Semi-Rolling version. This newest one, however: I could quite easily see using this as my daily distro. In fact, I have a mind to do just that. Thank you to all of you who made this distro possible! You know who you are....and you made a great distro! Bravo!
-MC
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2024.05
Rating: 8
Date: 2024-05-20
Votes: 1
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If you are, or expect to be, using Sparky as your Daily Driver distro... then you are using it wrong.
Sparky has many weak choices for supporting apps and packages which require replacing to make it more robust. Plus it has a handful of bugs and conflicts that cause minor errors which the average user does not want to bother with. In which case you may as well start with one of the more popular distros instead.
But it serves one very unique purpose:
It has all the Desktop Enviornments (DE's) that you've ever heard of, plus some that you haven't. Many of the most popular DE's are in the .iso already, and there are a ton more in the repository. Plus Sparky includes a dedicated app for choosing these DE's, and a few tweaks under the hood to make them play nice with eachother.
So if you ever wanted to test out other DE's before settling on a more permanent distro, Sparky is perfect on a temporary basis, especially in a VM. This also makes it rather handy for Windows users getting their first taste of linux DE's.
One last note is the inclusion of CDE and its' slightly more modern cousin NsCDE. If you were a UNIX user back in the 1990's, and you are craving the feel of CDE out of pure nostalgia, then Sparky with NsCDE should scratch that itch. Though I might suggest installing it on your backup laptop or such, not your daily driver.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2024.05
Rating: 1
Date: 2024-05-14
Votes: 0
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Once again, another try and another disappointment. Sparky 2023.07 Rolling would not even boot from the flash drive on my Dell Latitude 7490 laptop. Sparky 2024.05 Rolling installed OK but would not run. Didn't even bring up the desktop! It is unfortunate that Sparky is headed by just one person and is a one-man distribution. I think that's the main reason why Sparky has become so buggy in the past few years. The developer is spread way too thin and simply can't keep tabs on everything. The number of really reliable distros is also becoming less and less as some developers are getting lax about fixing bugs. I'll stick with Mint 21.3, LMDE6, Ubuntu 24.04 (With snapd completely removed) and Fedora which seems to have highly educated and competent developers.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 7.3
Rating: 9
Date: 2024-05-12
Votes: 5
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After testing Sparky 7.3 on my main system, Sparky was immediately installed on 2 more computers. That good, IMHO.
Having tried soo many distros, Sparky caught my eye for a couple factors. First, the Mate Desktop. Second, is the Debian basis.
Mate Desktop: In early May 2024, I left my prior distro because my rolling update lost a particular Mate applet; it had been dropped from all repos and somehow, the Mate applet was uninstalled. No reason was found when I searched the forum. Same distro announced a focus on KDE Plasma 6, no visible support for Mate. Clearly, no longer interested in supporting Mate, I find myself abandoned. Walk off.
Debian basis: In the past decade plus, I have been like a moth, drawn to the flame of Debian, getting burned, and falling away to recover. Example of Debian live supporting my USB based WiFi device, then installing from that same live session, and rebooting to find WiFi device is not supported in the installed distro AND I could not find instructions regarding manually configuring the same device. Don't do that! I run back to other familiar distros, then tire of what I've already walked away from several times in 20+ years. I need a full time, fully supportive distro.
I found Sparky by searching for a Debian based distro with Mate desktop. To conclude my research, I sought out only those distros which offer a download proclaiming the ISO is for a Mate Desktop version. Not: "It's in the repo's", rather a fully dedicated release for Mate. Sparky was the first I found matching my needs.
I'm familiar with Synaptic, so this is the manner in which I use Sparky, although APTus is fine as it is. I have used the GUI APTus in the past few weeks, it is quite helpful. Just not my preferred path for installing apps.
Updates are presented via a persistent dialog window, lower right corner of my screen, and the presented update process works just fine. Often times, I simply dismiss that dialog, and immediately launch and update via Synaptic. Call me kooky.
In the 2 weeks since I've installed Sparky, I've seen no issues with the software.
The administrator of my computers lacks something however.... ;-)
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2024.02
Rating: 3
Date: 2024-05-06
Votes: 0
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Curious to try this one. Loaded off USB but there was no start menu. II re-loaded, still no sart menu. had opted for xfce window manager. I wanted to try it on USB before considering installing it. Instead, all I could do, was right click and access things open box style. It did indicate xfce was there but not present on the start screen. Never seen anything like this, in all my years using Linux.
Suffice to say, a bit weird. Is there some peculiarity of this system I have overlooked?
I guess there's a reason Mint, which I use all the time on old laptops s one of the top distro's. Never had an issue, never misses a beat.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2024.02
Rating: 9
Date: 2024-04-25
Votes: 1
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Officially, according to the output of "cat /etc/os-release," I am using Sparky 8, based on Debian Trixie. I have not checked the box to enable the Debian Sid repositories, but Synaptic reports I am using Trixie and the official "Sparky" repos.I for the most part am pleased with the Aptus software package, but starting with previous Sparky versions. it has responded to my requests to install software with a crashing halt and the message +Something is Wrong." This leaves me with the choice of forgetting my request or seeking an alternative method of installing the software, which in turn informs me Sparky 8 is not designed for users who are new to Linux,
who would certainly be discouraged with the number of times Aptus fails to install requested software.I'm using Sparky on a Dell Optiplex 9020 mini desktop with 16 GB RAM, quad core with an Intel® Core™ i5-4590 CPU running at 3.3GHz, and the system installed to an externally connected Seagate Barracuda 2 TB SATA hard drive.Sparky is in the ranks of one of those Debian-based distros that I am determined to hold on to unless it has a major failure to fulfill my computing needs.I have used previous versions of Sparky for similar reasons. It reliably installs with its calamares installer and functions well in executing the tasks I need to complete.That includes managing my base configuration of 23 Linux distros over two External drives. I would say if someone is considering a dive into the Debian world of Linux, Sparky is a candidate to consider. This applies to relative newcomers to Linux as well an intermediate level users.Experts have a knowledge base that enables them to easily make choices among those available. I'm thinking on the pleasure scale Sparky ranks up there with Watt and Kanotix, but is distinctly different because of its abundant collection
of available software.Whether is is reason enough to break away from using Windows is up to the individual.It passes my tests for
reliable start-ups and usability, but them I'm an average user.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 7.3
Rating: 9
Date: 2024-04-11
Votes: 1
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Nice, fast distro. It doesn't check all the boxes for me, but I've been using it for several months now, starting with 7.2 and making the seamless upgrade to Sparky 7.3.
I appreciate the Debian base, even though that means some things like having to settle for Firefox ESR versus the latest version, for example. On the plus side (in my opinion), there aren't any Snap or Flatpak resource hogs to deal with, such as in Ubuntu.
I like the idea of the Aptus store, but visually it looks really out of place. It works fine though, minus some initial lag. You can play around with different kernels and such easily, if you're into that (my opinion, don't bother). Upgrading is also very easy, through the Upgrade Tool, or you can go the more traditional routes with Synaptic or the command line instead. You're offered many choices.
In my opinion, XFCE is the way to go: the fastest version, though KDE isn't a slouch by any means, either. It's less exciting visually than other distros, but beauty is only skin deep. It looks good enough once you've settled on a theme and a wallpaper.
Overall, it's stable, it's quick, and pretty easy to use really. It feels mainstream without feeling like you're making too many compromises. It's a winning combination in the long run.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2024.02
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-03-31
Votes: 0
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I've been using Sparky as my daily driver for over 4 years now, after hopping round most out there - Love it. Considering its a rolling release distro based on Debian testing, its always been very stable and has never let me down.
There is plenty of support available and because its Debian based the software repository is vast.
If you don't like the look of the default desktop, which I think is Mate, just go into Aptus or Synaptic and change it, simples.
If you want a reliable, simple to use but bleeding edge OS and you are used to Debian or one of its many downstream variants like Mint, Ubuntu, Zorin etc., there is no better.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2024.02
Rating: 1
Date: 2024-03-09
Votes: 0
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This review is for Sparky 2023.07 which is not shown here under "Version". I tried to install it on my recently purchased Dell Latitude 7490 and the install ended with a terminal error which corrupted the EFI System file. I could not fix the problem so I had to wipe the 2 GB disk and start over. Thankfully I was just prepping the Dell to become my new production PC while my current production PC, a Lenovo Thinkpad T490 is still running OK and has been my production laptop for the past year. So much for Sparky. Maybe down the road sometime I'll try again.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2024.02
Rating: 9
Date: 2024-03-03
Votes: 11
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SparkyLinux has been the absolute best install experience I've had so far for my old Atom netbooks. It didn't take hours and hours like other distros- very painless install and setup, plus upgrades. Note- I'm using the GameOver special edition and it is awesome to be able to play some of my old favourites as well.
Application installs are simple. Distro immediately worked with everything on my netwbooks- no driver hiccups so far!
Speedy little distro, easy to use, breathes new life into old hardware. Thank you!
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2024.02
Rating: 9
Date: 2024-02-23
Votes: 9
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I have been looking for a distribution like this for a while; minimal, light, fast. it is perfect for running Virtual Machines such as Gnome Box or Qemu. After experimenting with other so called light distributions I think I am going to consider remastering it strictly for this purpose alone. unless there is something else out there already (Not Proxmox) .
congratulations to the developers, the more I use it the more I like it. I don't know how I missed it before. so far it looks very promising and the fact that is Debian base makes it even more valuable.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2024.02
Rating: 4
Date: 2024-02-14
Votes: 0
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Nice LXQT spin on Debian as far as the "Live" system is concerned. That's about all the good I can say. Lot's and lot's of screen tearing that I may have been able to fix if I could have got the Window Manager Settings to launch. I spent a bit more time with it and found the installed themes not to play nice with the icons. Lots of blacked out icons despite me trying various sets. Decided to over look those issues and tried to install. Upon creating encrypted LVM the LVM part of the partitioning causes Calamaris to crash. Tried it a second time and it still crashed. No custom encryption with LVM means No Go for me. Maybe its due to the testing branch stability. I will give them the benefit of the doubt and give at least 4 of 10.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 7.2
Rating: 1
Date: 2024-02-14
Votes: 0
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Install was fair enough, but i was curious when it mentioned that there was no WiFi available. I let it go on thinking I could rectify that after getting it installed. Wrong. What a circuitous zoo to try to set up WiFi. It claims to see a strong signal from my provider, but is deficient in being able to acquire it.
I spent an hour mucking about with the situation, and finally just shut it down. I have been using Linux for 20 some years now, and have come to learn that some things simply are not right. This is one of those things.
Too bad as it looked promising, but i am not going to waste further time on it.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2024.01
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-02-03
Votes: 7
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I 've just installed Sparky with plasma wayland desktop, and it's really a breath after so many hassles trying Fedora, Kde Neon, Kubuntu, Endeavouros. Here every thing I need is working out of the box, scaling is ok, wireless printer and scanner recognized immediately, system is responsive. What else ! The only downside is maybe Aptuscenter a bit rudimentary and unatractive for new linux users but not a problem for me since I'm used to use terminal. Sparky really disserve to be in the top ten of Distrowatch. Great thanks to the author and contributors.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2024.01
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-01-23
Votes: 5
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I been using sparky for over 4 years, have on on desktop and laptop. Also put on some older laptops that could not be updated with windows, (though I don't know who would want that.)
I had one bug, one time I can recall, put it on a laptop, when I did the update for the OS a few days or so later, it fixed the issue.
I use mate desktop on it, I have not used another Os.
I recently fetched a small desktop, and of course it has windows on it, but just for a second, lol, Sparky shall be on it.
The only thing I truly dislike is its app installer. Is clunky and takes to long to load, just getting around is uncomfortable. BUT it is by no means a deal killer. If It is to much at times, usually just me not wanting to deal, I use synaptic.
I love its stability.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 7.2
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-01-19
Votes: 9
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Semi-rolling Mimimal Gui version is by far the fastest distro out there, outperforming Bunsenlabs, Crunchbang++ and all the others left and right.
Installation is straightforward, no unneccessary bloat is installed, everything you wish can be installed with a few clicks.
The result is a modern looking, very reliable and highly capable distro for everyday use.
Runs especially well on old, underpowered computers. Even though the Calamares installer requires 1 GB, this can easily circumvented, therefore even old Netbooks can still be used.
Kudos to the developer.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2023.10
Rating: 9
Date: 2024-01-05
Votes: 2
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Pro:
Closely follows Debian but much leaner. Offers many versions and editions. Regularly updated. A responsive developer. Useful as a standalone distro or as a Live utility USB stick. Very quick installation. Will fit on a 2 GB USB stick if needed. Has a good Facebook page, forum and community. Semi-rolling releases have relatively modern kernel versions. I have extensively used the XFCE versions.
SparkyLinux even had a testing Raspberry Pi edition that was fairly damn good.
Elsewhere I configured it to use Budgie and was rather cool too.
Con:
Tried the KDE edition was not my cup of tea, went back to XFCE
Overall, I think it is an excellent Linux project and deserves donations to further its great work.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 7.2
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-12-11
Votes: 8
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In my opinion this distro is amazing for older computers.Version minimal gui works verry fast.The system is very stable.That distro is one of the best.The speed test show me on this distro speed of internet 45 mb/s.In other distro i have only 35 mb/s.Minimal gui have the lightest GUI.This gui is lighter than openbox Archcraft.I reccomended this linux for this user ,who search fast and stable OS.I reccomended to use only System upgrade tool to update this system if you don't have much experience with Debian based systems.if you don't have much experience with Debian based systems.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 7.1
Rating: 6
Date: 2023-10-25
Votes: 1
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Good
-rolling distro
-Senseable installation of apps including all basics such as Firewall.
-Supports different desktop such as KDE
Bad:
-Aptus does not appear to install some items that it display providing an error. the apps shown differ than what is avaialble through apt-get install.
-when using encrypted disk if the password is mistyped it drops to the grub menu instead of providing a retry so a reboot is required to try again.
-Aptus App center search doesn't work properly. If I search for VLC several other apps show in the search results.
-Riseup VPN performs differently than the debian version downloaded from the riseup site. Example choice of differnt countries.
-no snapshot of system for restoration in the event of a failure
-The clipboard manager should always allow te ability to delete all copied information after a specific time for security.
-missing panel network utilization & disk usage
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2023.07
Rating: 1
Date: 2023-09-13
Votes: 0
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I had SparkyLinux 6.7 (Po-Tolo), which ran perfectly, fast, simple but most importantly never crashed.
On completing a fresh install of 7.0.1, LXQt amd64, Sparky stable edition, 2 days of use and the pc had crashed 5 times.
Caps lock light does not come on, screen frozen, nothing works.
As a full time Linux user since the 2006, this is completely new to me.
This version is no longer stable.
What ever has happened needs to be investigated.
I fear the open source world has become bloated and some aspects have become vulnerable.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 7.0
Rating: 8
Date: 2023-08-15
Votes: 2
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Good
-The menu's are very crisp and clean to look at and select apps
Bad:
when using encrypted disk if the password is mistyped it drops to the grub menu instead of providing a retry so a reboot is required to try again.
-Aptus App center search doesn't work properly. If I search for VLC several other apps show in the search results. Other searches do not work even though it is available in the repository.
-The clipboard manager should always allow te ability to delete all copied information after a specific time for security.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2023.07
Rating: 8
Date: 2023-08-12
Votes: 0
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This review is for Sparky 8, which is a rolling distro based on Debian 13 Trixie.
Pros: Easy install, has most packages that I need and use on a daily basis. I installed Sparky 7 MATE rolling release 2023.07 and loaded needed packages and all my data files which took a few hours. I then ran the Sparky 7 to 8 upgrade script which performed flawlessly. Sparky 8 runs very well.
Cons: Printer support is lacking. Thus, an 8 rating instead of a 10. I have an aging HP ENVY 4500 All-in-One printer which has served me well for years. But I was not able to connect it through USB and instead had to rely on HPLIP to get anything to print. But the strange thing is that it prints multiple pages in "reverse" order. When you specify to print pages 1,3,5, it prints them 5,3,1. I've never experienced this oddity anytime in the past 40+ years with any printer or OS. Otherwise I am fairly happy with Sparky 8.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2023.07
Rating: 7
Date: 2023-08-08
Votes: 0
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Ehhh.
Sparky is great for trying out NsCDE. It's a simple installation--just download it from the APTUs App Center.
But apart from that, there really is not much reason for a simple user such as myself to use Sparky over, say, Mint or other popular distros. It's really buggy. Some software will not install from the App Center. Some software will not UNinstall from the App Center. You will find yourself going to the Synaptic Package Manager a lot to install/uninstall what the App Center cannot. What a headache.
I am going to continue using Sparky for the time being as I am getting used to the workflow of NsCDE, but if I can figure out how to get the DE working on Mint, I'm jumping ship. Sparky's full of holes (unpolished) while Mint is a luxury liner (polished).
That said, I appreciate the effort from the Sparky devs. It's just too rough around the edges for my tastes.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 7.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-08-01
Votes: 5
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SparkyLinux is something different, somewhat 'leftfield'.
It's not actually necessary to install SparkyLinux directly, You can simply add their repository (& keyring) to a vanilla Debian, and build from there, to get all of the benefits.
This way works for me, because the SparkyLinux repository includes non-standard releases, e.g. SparkyLinux Openbox version that is not available for direct download. You can even get CDE, if you want to go retro!
The SparkyLinux repository also includes applications that would otherwise have to be installed via potentially insecure external downloads.
For example, I needed Microsoft Teams for a job interview. There was no installable application available from the Teams website, but there is from the SparkyLinux repository.
I did the interview, and I got the job. Thank you Pavroo (the SparkyLinux developer).
There're also useful applications such as Ventoy multiboot USB utility, and Brave browser, and probably many others, directly available from the secure SparkyLinux repository.
PROS:
Pavroo is incredibly dedicated. He also runs ArchiveOS, which is a library of discontinued and abandoned OSs.
SparkyLinux is hot on the tail of the latest Debian release, so your system will always be up to date.
CONS (not really):
Be aware that the SparkyLinux repository includes the Unstable branch of Debian, so you may want to comment that out of your /etc/apt/sources.list.d, if you don't want your system to go slightly mad.
_
I don't actually use SparkyLinux as a direct install, but the repository is invaluable. It's a perfect way to help build your own unique OS.
Support this project, donate to it.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 7.0
Rating: 6
Date: 2023-07-31
Votes: 0
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Just installed 7 this morning, took forever to install the main packages I need for my daily use.. waiting for one to finish loading had a break from watching it so the non disabled screensaver launched and would not re-open again, had to reboot.. once it was all setup though, it seemed faster and I found using symantic much better than the aptus package for installing more that I needed.. It is a pleasant distro overall, still no as polished as I prefer.. good work overall. Oh, almost forgot, when I rebooted for some reason I had to re-adjust my display settings again.. packages that I had installed were ok
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2023.07
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-07-24
Votes: 5
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Never had any problem with Sparky Linux. Never. I use stable version and rolling one in my machines
Fast and lightweight. Sometimes I wonder for the problems people counts during install or bugs related.
For the install problem I will suggest to verify (checksum) iso before install. As it said Linux can run in old machines, but do not use/pretend fossile machines to try it, if you are no at expert. An used refurbished laptop(equiped with ssd and 8 to 16 GB RAM) of 2017 or 2018, does cost not more than 200-300 Dollars/Euro. In this machines Sparky just fly.
Days before, I updated my Sparky 6 to 7 (stable one) and 7 to 8 -(rrolling version. No any problem during update/upgrade.
Be sure to have enough space on your Linux partition when using it.
10/10
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2023.07
Rating: 4
Date: 2023-07-21
Votes: 0
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What can I say. I came to this distribution to install it on old hardware. I checked, the laptop met the requirements but when I came to install it, it said I didn't have enough memory. Just as odd was asking for the password to install and then needing it repeated three times before it was finally accepted. Probably the least pleasant experience I have had trying to install Linux.
The only upside is the USB loaded with this OS actually worked pretty well, shame it didn't install. Oh, well....
In the end I moved on to another lightweight OS and the install went without a hitch.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2023.03
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-06-06
Votes: 8
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Sparky linux LXQt
Sparky pros:
Nothing is in the way of the operator
Simple GUI Configuration all in a single window program, not multiple pop up windows with endless options
Debian tweaked for minimalism
Speed, This is the fastest "full operating system", that is not Linux distributions that run from RAM
Firefox "just opens" really fast compared to the standard Ubuntu which has a loading window delay
Sparky bugs :
Catfish conflicts
youtube-dl does not work
terminal bug for running super user xhost +local:
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2023.03
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-05-25
Votes: 7
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Sparky 7 Orion Belt (Semi-rolling, Debian 12 'Testing/Bookworm' based) Minimal GUI installation.
Simply brilliant!
It did take a few installation attempts to get it right.
Calamares seems to only understand the US keyboard, so be aware of that when using special characters for encrypted installation passwords. That's a Calamares problem that is the same with every other Debian based distro I have tried recently.
Running live, at first I didn't like the Vala 'launchpad'; but now I appreciate it as a kind of app launcher that would belong on a touchscreen or smartphone. It's great if you don't feel like scrolling the menu.
This version really is minimal while being very complete as a basic standard system.
I did not have to remove anything before adding the applications that I want.
I even had to add my own 'user-dirs.dirs' file to .config!
If you want a user-friendly system upon which to build, then SparkyLinux Minimal GUI is a way to go.
This is a power-user's system, compiled by someone who obviously knows what they are doing.
This is an excellent manifestation of Openbox. Nothing is in the way of the operator. The menus are clean & precise.
Added to this is that the Sparky repository includes secure versions of software that would otherwise have to be downloaded from a potentially insecure website (e.g. WPS Office or XnView).
My only negative is that 'apt-xapian-index' & 'software-properties-gtk' are not standard. They make Synaptic much easier to use.
This is the best distro I have ever tried.
Where most distros put their image to the forefront, Sparky puts the OS first.
The GUI is the icing on an excellent cake.
I recommend SparkyLinux.
Sparky is getting a donation.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2023.03
Rating: 5
Date: 2023-04-19
Votes: 0
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This review is for Ver. 202203 as I don't like what I found with 202303, especially the drastically changed Login screen.
Pros: Easy install, has most packages that I need and use on a daily basis.
Cons: I installed Sparky 200203 MATE (Debian Testing) and loaded all my data files which took a few hours. After the first update of 1153 new updates the GRUB apparently got messed up somehow. I could not repair or update it even with Super Grub2 to show the other two installed distros in the GRUB menu. Showed Sparky only. So I just deleted the partition and moved on with MX Linux 21.2.1 and Mint 20.3 (Mint 21 is buggy).
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2023.03
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-03-10
Votes: 2
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I had the LQXT version in memory on a stick and installed from there onto the hard drive.
It all went smooth, everything worked and I am rather pleased with the result. The Synaptic package manager was there, ideal for the update and installation of some programs that might not have been included in the original installation, such as "gnome-commander" and / or "DoubleCommander" for which I was very grateful.
Running the distro is a pleasure. Most things are there where you would expect them and doing the things that you would expect them to do.
All up I can only recommend "SparkyLinux" to anone who is looking for a no frills, stable and aesthetic distro. Even a newcomer from the "Windows" department would find it easy enough to work with this distro from the same day onwards :)
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 6.6
Rating: 6
Date: 2023-03-08
Votes: 0
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Good
-Senseable installation of apps including all basic such as Firewall.
-Supports different desktop such as KDE
Con
-no snapshot of system for restoration in the event of a
-the aptus app center when choosing "edit main repository" nothing appears
-Riseup VPN performs differently than the debian version downloaded from the riseup site. Example choice of differnt countries.
Conclusion
Sparky doesn't fill the O.S. with a whole bunch of apps just covering what is needed for all basic functions. the interface is clean in KDE.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2023.03
Rating: 8
Date: 2023-03-08
Votes: 3
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Many thanks to the developers of SparkyLinux for the awesome job on the distro, and for doing the difficult work of pulling things together for the sake of a few thousand users or so who have encountered some frustration with the process of Debian reaching v12 near the latter's 30th anniversary. Everything is OK now, but I have to confess where I come from with this review.
At first I tried it with MATE, not sure now if it was the active branch. Because I was so busy distro-hopping and felt I needed something not based on Arch, Debian nor Fedora, I had to take it away. Sometime later I settled for SparkyLinux v6.6 with KDE but based on "Bullseye". Meanwhile I ran into tedium with my other installation, Debian with XFCE: "initramfs" taking ages to build, doing it three or four times per upgrade to Linux kernel and whatnot, running "winecfg" after installing or upgrading Wine held up until "wineserver" timed out, forced to use AppImages instead of "home" packages to be able to use Firefox and more. About two weeks ago I tried to get the Debian "DI-alpha" ISO. Installation was successful but then it refused to start into desktop for a silly reason. So I hoped SparkyLinux could be much better than that, and I wanted KDE instead of XFCE. It *was* (the "22.12" ISO) until I asked it to system upgrade. Near the end of the update it failed trying to rebuild "initramfs" for the fourth or fifth time. It took about 2-1/2 hours from starting Calamares, successful install, reboot, do some system settings changes and finally system upgrade attempt.
Oh well let me talk about the system itself. In live mode to start Calamares must give the password. This is the only distro I've tried that does this and I've tried a good deal with this particular installation program. It's annoying, please change it. Why is there the menu, which looks somewhat unprofessional on the left-hand side of the desktop? Consider a "Plasmoid" or something like Plank which I don't like but is not "sudden". The "Welcome" menu looks slick but it's a bit disturbing that when it needs to ask for user input, that main menu disappears to show another dialog. It's a "Yad" limitation but some people would point it out meaning to talk bad about something. I like the KDE default theme for this distro, which I've set without stupid animations and confusing transparency but the logging/suspend/shutdown screens are too "cycloptic" for my taste. Much appreciated is disabling tap-to-click from touchpad for clumsy users like me. Also well done that the 32-bit repositories are enabled by default. However, after "dpkg" is upgraded it warns about a "usr-merge" or something like that, which "could lead to broken or missing files". This could be a concern. Sorry but I have to stick to the "traditional" packages which are "apt" at the terminal, and Synaptics seldom.
Again, thank you to the creators for this late break of news in this update.
by mnrv-ovrf-year-c
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 6.6
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-02-22
Votes: 1
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Best debian based distro IMHO... For really really "oooold" machines, the choice of LXQT over XFCE for desktop makes it feel much more efficient and modern when compared to MX-Linux.
A wide (wild!) range of software is available... It is very difficult to find ventoy, motionbox, qmplay2, avidemux all on the same distro; maybe sparky is the only distro that does that.
I instantly felt something lacking with the default openbox window manager provided by sparky... the compositor! I tried some compositors with openbox and it was not much different. So then I moved on to discard openbox and tried out KWIN. KWIN takes a lot more work and I was not fully satisfied with the end result I could achieve.
Accidentally I stumbled upon an old gem called "metacity" and it worked like a charm. It is absolutely straight forward to work with. Just install and it is ready to use with whatever default LXQT desktop configuration you have. If preferred, set window placement to 'always center' and add 'minimize' button to the application windows.
The desktop now looks much more modern and works a lot better to my liking.
Of-course there maybe features of openbox that are not available/configurable with metacity or KWIN; but I don't seem to have needed them ever anyway. Similarly, both metacity and KWIN come with a lot of functionality that will probably never be configurable for the LXQT desktop and again I hardly needed any of it ever.
Two thumbs up for the sparky team! Keep up the good work!!
If you have not already, request you to evaluate if the move from openbox to metacity/kwin makes sense.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 6.6
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-02-07
Votes: 1
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My daily driver at the moment and no problem so far.
Running the stable-version with KDE-Plasma is running smooth and perfekt on my 15 inch DELL Latitude Laptop with 8 Gen Intel i5 processor.
Installation was very easy and fast and there is much less of bloat-software, which I never use, compared to my other favourite-dostro MX Linux. Furthermore all of the Hardware is working right out of the box, thats how it should be.
One of my new favorite debian-distributions, highly recommended.
Thanks to the developers!
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 6.5
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-02-04
Votes: 2
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As a long term user of Crunchbang which is now Bunsenlabs which are Openbox WM on Debain, I witnessed the ever growing size from 600 mb images to more than double. Each version became slower. I began testing these on a Net book in 2010 with atom processor and had a full PC in 2013. When beryllium-1 released this forced me to switch. I would drag the window (click hold) and the lag became noticeably slower (1/2 second) on file manager, chromium and firefox.
In January 2023 I tested SparkyLinux LXQt (LXQt on Debian) on the advice of a Bunsenlabs admin developer.
I tried Debain LXQt but that needed firmware hardware support. SparkLinux discovered all the hardware, installs easily, low resources, very fast and stable and runs full applications that I use for video editing, like KDenlive / Flowblade.
I use Vivaldi as my browser for making phone-calls (Yay.com) in the UK, better than chromium.
LXQt for me is the right balance of making adjustments by text editor to configurations settings, using the GUI to configure the panel
I hope SparkyLinux keeps to this ethos, for the next 10 years.
The linux kernal is bloated now, which i began using Linux in 1997. This is forcing us to use this type of distribution.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 6.5
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-01-14
Votes: 5
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Fast and very simple installation.
Less disk space required.
Short start time on "old" computer.
Very fast access to internet using Brave to navigate.
I use the "Debian stable" version, no problem at the moment.
I used some others distros before (LinuxLite, PCLinuxOS, Trisquel) but SparkyLinux seems to be the best option for what I use my PC.
I plan to install it on some relative's PC's as some of them cannot upgrade your old PC's to Windows 10 and they don't want to spend money to buy a now one at he moment....
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 6.5
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-01-10
Votes: 4
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The best Debian derivative, installs on everything (where Debian "firmware" edition would normally give up).
Aptus software centre - the most comprehensive out there, relatively easy to navigate.
MinimalGUI lets you install whatever DE you wish.
The fastest Linux I've tested, on par with Devuan.
No bells, no whistles, no bloatware.
Fast and easy install.
Sparky6 desktop theme with sane scrollbars and steppers - a rare thing tto find these days!
Of course, to make your dream OS, you need to work a bit. Add partitions to fstab. Arrange your panels. Choose your window manager theme. Create keyboard shortcuts. Some may prefer a "ready" distro (which means less work but more unwanted compromises).
Sparky6 Po Tolo has a few incoveniences resulting from "progress" of the linux world:
Bleachbit doesn't remember the settings and asks me to choose them every time. Worked well in Nibiru (Sparky 5).
Kolourpaint has ugly and unreadable icons. I advise to copy icons form kolorupaint/hiclolor folder in Nibiru and move them to usr/share/icons/hicolor/corresponding folders to have back the icons which where good.
XFCE screenshot doesn't have the "close the window" option when opened with "-f -s /home/Pictures" argument. I have to save the file to close the app window.
Installer asks to create an additional 8mb partition for better performance and new fancy partition table.... which I ignore. Then the installer doesn't include swap patrition, so one has to add it to fstab. This has another potential advantage - as formatting swap partition at every install usually means more changes if other linux OS' are present.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 6.5
Rating: 8
Date: 2023-01-07
Votes: 5
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runnig it on 20yrs old acer laptop - 32 bit, runs well, with openbox, using links2 browser, nice little distro that gives U posibility to run latest debian on very old hardware - moved on sparky from mint when they discontinued 32bit editions (ubuntu did it)
openbox variant takes around 300mb RAM, xcfe 700mb so its runnig well on 2gb RAM laptop with singlecore celeron.
as is writen lower, its runnig from donations and it can dissapear if runnig low on funds, would be shame, cos its running better than some other low resources distros I tried
if U looking for something lightweight, U should try
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2022.12
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-12-07
Votes: 10
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Using Sparky for near a month. It was a life savior.
Option was XFCE, but guess MATE would be a 10. Why?
XFCE has a few inconsistencies, MATE is more polished.
Note: For extra safety, suggest to install Opera browser.
PRO:
+ Light system, but all the Debian Apps available.
+ Speedy (it's a polished Debian).
+ Delivers quick upgrades,
+ Extra Management application with a few options:
[ Tools, Updates, Software suggestions ]
CON:
- Cannot find a way to change Applications Top bar.
For some reason, Themes do not alter them.
Meaning there, the black theme is kept (?!).
To conclude::
Must say this is the best distro from a very small team.
Congratulations for a job well done. (Have to try MATE)
Important: This Distro survives from donations.
It needs (well deserved) support and incentive.
Will surely receive mine (see it as Shareware).
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 6.4
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-08-14
Votes: 27
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Amazing......easy install to imac's and old pcs Clean attractive desktop and all apps necessary on modern computer.
Never fails to install to all types of machines. Plus Debian based.
Wonderful OS
Thanks Poland
I have install so many Linux distos I have lost count. Two I always return to are Puppy derivatives and Sparky....they always
install and never disappoint.
So it does not matter whether I try to install on old mac minis or ancient portables or multi-core major machines Sparky always
gets there.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2022.07
Rating: 6
Date: 2022-07-29
Votes: 0
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i have use sparky linux as my secondary backup system
sometimes i just update it (1-2 months) and daily use only win10
the latest upgrade totally ruined the system
the auto update started to looping,
so i thought restart the system, epic fail. not starting sparky anymore something mainboard error (not uefi)
i did try many distro but in the all was something small issue what i could not fix for my taste. mostly bluetooth audio, 5.1 audio and headphone
i like the way where the linux go.
i don't like the speed how they doing it.
after many many years still have basic problems in the system what shouldn't be there.
shame, i really liked this SparkyLinux and i thought i found what i needed.
I still believe this SparkyLinux is one of the best
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2022.07
Rating: 8
Date: 2022-07-21
Votes: 6
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I have been distro-hoping since the days of Beatrix Linux which was my 200mb stepping stone into the Linux environment 20 years ago. Tinkered with many other distros along the years, hoping to find something that was ultra stable and without systemD. Unfortunately, none of them would remain on my desktop for more than 3 months till I chanced upon Q4OS which was ultra stable but unfortunately with systemD. The only other negative was that it kept crashing when I installed the proprietary nvidia drivers for my 9600GT unfortunately with no desktop on next boot. Left it for a year, hoping to find a replacement. This is when I chanced upon Sparky Linux, which did not play ball 2 years ago. Had another go at it yesterday and got to say the Live environment intrigued me. Took up the courage to install it on a physical drive, and I am mighty pleased as of now. Have not installed nvidia drivers but got to say everything works just like Q4OS did. Will try nividia drivers after a week or so and shall report back to you. One and only serious flaw I could find is that try as I might, I was not able to install the OS onto the hard drive with the built-in calamares installer using BIOS/MBR method for my ancient amd DDR3 Phenom 960 equipped motherboard. Finally, installed Gparted onto the live environment and told it to partition the drive into ext4. After that, everything was a cakewalk and butter smooth when using the calamares installer. Yeah! I know this too has systemD. Waiting for the day when the developers get openRC working with Sparky.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2022.04
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-06-29
Votes: 19
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I switched from Windows to Ubuntu a few years ago, not so convinced, then to Linux mint cinnamon, convincing and stable, only some applications very old, so I switched to Manjaro, top current applications, but after a few weeks something always went wrong, e.g. keybund problems, and then I discovered Sparky. Stable Debian base and is also offered as a rolling release, therefore huge programme selection, current versions. Wine installation excellent, incuding automatic the Windows fonts. Does not have a Cinnamon desktop by default, but can be installed with 2 clicks. Has successfully survived its "trial period" and was therefore also installed on my old notebook. Great work by the small team.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 2022.04
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-06-19
Votes: 14
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I have used Sparky Linux for the past year, both the stable and semi-rolling versions. Both are seriously good. I thought the 22.04 semi rolling may have problems, so kept the stable version just in case, but have had absolutely no issues and prefer the semi rolling for up to date packages.
Sparky is a clean version of Debian which runs extremely fast. It has a useful set of tools and developer packages software for newest releases (such as newest firefox and newest Falkon). You can choose how often updates are applied, from hourly upwards. I'm using KDE Plasma on a Thinkpad and can thoroughly recommend.
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Project: SparkyLinux
Version: 6.3
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-05-12
Votes: 17
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It's a great distribution for any purpose. It has a Gaming version in xfce with all the necessary software, also you can choose a version based on Debian (stable) or an amazingly stable rolling-release version based on Debian (testing).
Also you can use the CLI-Installer minimal version .iso (without graphic interface) if you are not afraid of that (its very easy, I think) to have a very lean OS with only the necessary packages, choosing a basic install of your favorite desktop and window manager configured by the Sparky team with a very out-of-the-box minimal and reliable installation, ready for simple tweaks here and there or install more things from the sparky software center (very well organized in categories and an unbelievable variety of software).
It can save your old machine or pushing your top notch hardware to its limits with a few clicks. My old Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 flights out with Sparky with LXDE for example and so much more my i3 6100 with MATE or my Ryzen 7 3700X + RX 5700 with KDE. It's amazing how a very little team from Poland have made an almost perfect distro. You can simply install anything from the Sparky software center and have a tailored suit made by a tailor its you. Their repository has things that I only saw on AUR from Arch and so many things that I discover now packaged by its team, even themes and custom kernels. Definetly, Sparky is a job well done with so much love. Debian for demanding users and also beginners who wants to go straight to a more skilled level of GNU/Linux without innecesary peaks of difficulty by learning the possibilities reading the description of the sofware from the Sparky software center and testing by themselves without sweating.
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