I tried the Pantheon Desktop, that run on as 'live' but on 'fresh' install on HDD was like disaster...
RAM usage (with firefox / one page on google) was about 4M ! top/htop revealed high usage from something tasks "io.elementary.t" and "gala" the weird tings happened, eg alt tab displayd ONLY the app I was into , not the other apps running. I really regret that I deleted my fucntional Fedora 9 Cinnamon for that crap. ok good idea to include apps like Libreoffice etc buy ... sorry: NOT recommended!
Version: 38 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-10-25 Votes: 11
Ultramarine Linux Plasma Edition is indeed a remarkable offering in the Linux ecosystem. Its seamless meld of the KDE Plasma desktop with the stable and updated core of Fedora Linux reflects a meticulous effort to provide a top-notch user experience. As someone with over 20 years of desktop end-user experience, I find this distro to be one of the slickest offerings I've encountered in a long while. Ultramarine has done a splendid job with Plasma, presenting a distro that is both visually appealing and robustly functional.
One of the shining attributes of Ultramarine Linux Plasma Edition is its ability to embody the stability and recent package versions characteristic of Fedora, yet without inheriting some of the myopic issues associated with Fedora, such as phasing out support for 10-year-old hardware. This thoughtful approach showcases a genuine understanding of the diverse hardware landscape, acknowledging the reality that millions of older computers continue to serve in offices worldwide.
Moreover, the respect Ultramarine pays to KDE is praiseworthy. They veer away from the path of least resistance, which often entails relying heavily on GTK tools. Instead, they have embraced the robust and elegant toolkit that KDE provides, creating a cohesive and well-integrated environment that honors the KDE community's hard work and innovation. This dedication to a pure KDE experience shines through, making the Ultramarine Linux Plasma Edition a delightful distro to interact with.
The efficient, user-friendly, and aesthetically pleasing interface makes it a welcoming haven for both Linux novices and seasoned users. This distro doesn't merely cater to the technical functionality but also offers a visually gratifying user experience which, I believe, is a testament to the careful and passionate work done by the Ultramarine developers.
Ultramarine Linux Plasma Edition emerges as a distinguished entity in a crowded Linux distro landscape, echoing a blend of elegance, practical functionality, and a forward-thinking approach. The dedication to preserving the integrity of the KDE environment while ensuring a reliable and updated system is a balancing act nicely, nicely done by Ultramarine. This edition is more than just a distro; it's a commendable contribution to the open-source community, fostering an enriching computing environment for users worldwide.
Lance Haverkamp
Version: 38 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-07-15 Votes: 2
it works for the most part flawlessly some of the games require a source CD but provides a linux friendly engine very few things are truly broken for example the mouse click location for Open RA { red alert} on release 36 was perfect on release 38 its a bit off likely a graphics driver issue
a few browsers are not supported with my choice of desktop but still listed for install they do not install as a broken app instead gives a message of incompatibly
I have very few issues with this distribution I find it very secure as I am hacker magnet but combined with my UTM this distribution meets my security needs
this system is almost perfect as linux systems go my only issue is no support for snaps but that might change right now the repository is fairly large containing everything from torrent clients web browsers and office suites what ever you need it has for most common users unless your looking for some special database software its likely a viable option the over all look and feel will not disappoint its as user friendly as windows 11 and windows 10 its not the hard rough window boarders most linux users are used to or at best the windows 95 look its really all around a great distribution
Version: 38 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-07-09 Votes: 3
Using the Ultramarine 38 KDE plasma version for about 1 month. It's been phenomenal experience so far. Everything just works out of the box.
I tried installing regular Fedora and also Debian KDE versions but was unable to get all my hardware working on them but Ultramarine just worked straight away.
If you're not very technical and you want something that works without having to do too much then this is an excellent option. The most user-friendly Linux distribution I have used so far especially if you want to use up a raid on your machine.
Version: 38 Rating: 8 Date: 2023-07-02 Votes: 8
Wow, I have been using Ultramarine Linux since 2022 and it is the distro that made me stop distro hopping and finally concentrate on using my computer to get things done instead of wasting time to distro hop or to rice my desktops.
Pros: it really gets out of my way, very clean interface (am using budgie DE), very minimalistic in design and I have no urge to waste time ricing it as it already looks quite pleasing to my eyes. so far, I have never had any major problems with it, everything that i encountered was easily resolved by searching the internet.
A few months ago I tried the official Fedora 38 Budgie spin, I had problem with changing my display refresh rate, and there is no problem changing my refresh rate on Ultramarine 38. Not sure if this problem has been fixed or not in Fedora.
Cons: I am not a fan of dark themes, so it was a bit troublesome to switch to light theme for my apps, you have to change the universal theme to light using terminal with a command line. Also, I tried upgrading from 37 to 38 using the terminal, it was a failure, could not even boot into the upgraded system, and when I selected alternative kernels to boot into, the system has kernel for 37 but the system itself is actually 38, and it was extremely slow and unresponsive.
I resolved this by doing a clean install of 38, and so far everything has gone well.
Also, the default shell changed from bash to zsh, which is annoying to me as I could not use certain command lines, for example, to clear my terminal history. This change was not clearly stated by the ultramarine team, hence it took me a while to figure out how to clear my terminal history which was quite frustrating.
In conclusion, a good distro that hopefully will not give me much headaches in the coming future!
Simple to use and saves you time tweaking vanilla Fedora to get it to work.
Version: 38 Rating: 5 Date: 2023-06-29 Votes: 0
Testing on Xeon 14 cores+Nvidia RTX 2070 Super, 128Gb RAM.
Feel: Slow, as usual of many Fedora based distros.
Annoyances: after Nvidia 535 driver install present screen tearing on 2K Youtube videos in Firefox web browser.
Problems: Serious problem with File browser, file drag not working, indication of file transfer usually absent at all - no info of going processes with files. Unacceptable flaw comparing to all other distros on Fedora 38.
Plus: strangely but present some performance improvement in serious processing task, like some optimization by unknown reason. In RPCS3 emulator of PS3 game console the most hard game to emulate - the GTA V works faster (like addition +2/5FPS) than same task on Nobara 38 or Fedora 38.
Result: This distribution require serious work, it can be best from all Fedora distros, but serious flaws with standard instruments makes it annoying to use even for standard file operations.
Version: 37 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-03-08 Votes: 7
I am new to Linux, but heard good things about Fedora Linux. I am comparing Ultramarine Linux with Fedora Workstation. I am running the Distros on two different HP desktops. So far, UM Linux has the advantage. The Pros are easy installation, RPM and Flathub installed automatically, fast, stable, and seems secure. I am running Brave and Firefox browsers, Darktable, IDLE3 and VScodium programming environments, and Xboard(my chess game to practice for chess.com). The only difference between the two desktops is the amount of memory, 4GB versus 8GB. I hope to make one of the Distros a daily driver on the 8GB HP desktop.
Cons: None so far.
Overall impression: I like Ultramarine and Fedora. I am too new to make a recommendation, but as it stand, I favor Ultramarine Linux!
Thank you DistroWatch and Ultramarine!
Version: 36 Rating: 7 Date: 2023-02-04 Votes: 0
Easy to use as a fedora fan, but on some hardware I would lose the pointer.
love the Budgie and Pantheon desktops which worked well, along with the pre-installed non free rpms but it hasn't made me want to swap from fedora full time
if you are new to linux or want to try the stability of fedora then this is a good starting ponit, and I don't think you will not be disappointed. It uses the installer as fedora, so easy to go through and setup. though as many are saying somewhat dated now.
Overall a great distro that I will keep on the system I tested it on. and will see what happens when I upgrade it to 37.
Version: 37 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-01-03 Votes: 2
I absolutely Love Ultramarine with the ("flagship") Budgie desktop. It installed flawlessly and there are few things I'd change. I'd have folders sort before files, I'd have thought that obvious. I've been through settings and they are a nice mix. They need to add a lot more wallpaper, but functionally it's flawless. The stability of Fedora with the coolness of a budgie desktop. Only its newness and lack of bells and whistles give it a "9," otherwise, "10." Also the start menu needs to be better sorted in categories. Version 38 will probably catch all of this. Very well done.
Version: 36 Rating: 10 Date: 2022-12-06 Votes: 5
I'd been looking for a Fedora-based distro with the clean Budgie desktop for quite some time and during a cursory distro search, I fortuitously found Ultramarine. My Arch distro was giving me problems at the time, so I took a leap of faith and decided to give Ultramarine a go straightaway. Install went smoothly without any glitches. All hardware on my Lenovo is working out of the box. Suspend to RAM works too. It's relatively early days but so far, I am very impressed with this distro and it leads me to feel reasonably confident that I'll be sticking with it for the foreseeable future on both my laptops.
Version: 36 Rating: 9 Date: 2022-10-11 Votes: 5
After using Pop!_os for 6 months with many small problems, I decide to to test Budgie and after eliminated Ubuntu Budgie I selected Ultramarine Flagship and after 2 weeks using it I can tell you it has been an very good experience. Everythings works, even my Windows 10 Pro VM in Gnome Boxes works with only a small problem with the mouse pointer (nothing to do with the new distro).
Why Windows 10 VM? because I use RSAT tool for active directory management and also to give support with Quick Assist to my 30+ users.
Version: 36 Rating: 9 Date: 2022-07-14 Votes: 6
A pleasant surprise. Installing went fairly quickly, and with no hitches other than the odd prompt to set up networking on the live environment before attempting during the actual installation. That done and I was presented after the usual reboot with a very nice Budgie desktop. Plenty of software to offer for download, and all the codecs I need were right in the original installation.
Smooth and a bit unique for a Fedora based distro. It sems to be everything that AlmaLinux has been trying to be. I would give Ultramarine a 10 rating but for the inability to make the taskbar ("panel") fully transparent, which is one of my preferences.
VERY nice distro and it's staying on this machine.
Version: 36 Rating: 10 Date: 2022-07-02 Votes: 7
I love this distro. I have installed the Gnome edition and it has been flawless. I've tried it on several different laptops and had no issues installing. The same is true with the flagship edition except that I just don't like the budgie desktop much. I intend to try Pantheon and it's my understanding they are no longer working on Cutefish. I really like how they've linked to multiple respositories right out of the box, so I've had no trouble installing software that I use and need. I had my installation up and running just the way I like it in a matter of minutes. Fedora always takes longer because I have to chase down some of the odder packages I use. Not necessary in Ultramarine. I must say I'm impressed with some of the unknown distros I have tried like Storm and XeroLinux, but I have settled on Ultramarine as my go to OS for the foreseeable future.
Version: 36 Rating: 10 Date: 2022-05-30 Votes: 4
Ultramarine is the Best Linux Distro!!! I have tried out hundreds of linux distros over the course of the last year. Prior to Ultramarine my daily driver had been Pop_OS for its tiling windows feature, its software repository and it just worked though, like all other linux distros, it had some annoying attributes that I couldn't seem to resolve. Then I stumbled on Ultramarine which has all the features I loved with Pop_OS without the annoying attributes. In short, it just works, in every way that was important to the way I like to configure my desktop. I absolutely Love Ultramarine Linux!!
Version: 36 Rating: 4 Date: 2022-05-23 Votes: 0
Not recommended:
* installation issue: cannot be installed on a GPT -drive attached to a BIOS (not UEFI) machine. Other distros might warn you but will allow to proceed with the installation, at your own risk. And of course booting from the GPT does work.
* anakonda installer doesn't give the option to install Grub to a partition of choice, not even the option of not installing a bootloader at all. This is a no-go for a multi-boot machine.
* installed vlc thru DNF. Result: it's not in the task menue, can only be run from the commandline, specifying the source parameter, no GUI app. I worked around with the Parole -mediaplayer, which obviously is a weak replacement.
* memory usage after boot close to 900 MB - not what you'd expect from a low-resource DE like Budgie. Might have to do with zram swap, which I am not familiar with.
* shuting down the system takes > two minutes, because systemd is hanging at an effort to terminate some sort of user service daemon.
* no printer setup in the system tools: had to resort to good old lpadmin -cli, with the splix -package as a precondition.
* invoking Libre Office results in an error message similar to "missing components", then hangs for a while, then works.
* fonts are ugly, imho; switching from dark theme to bright one takes some effort, especially in Firefox.
Pro's:
* I guess many glitches are inherited from mother Fedora 36 and Budgie
* if you take fun in fixing problems and feel satisfied after having ironed out whatever Ultramarine QC missed - then this one might be for you. Although I am sure there are many more bugs than the ones mentioned above, after some hard work you might get a working Linux at the end of the day. However be aware that Fedora's support cycles are short, so you'll undergo the same pleasure again after approx. 13 months.
Version: 35 Rating: 10 Date: 2022-05-15 Votes: 7
Ultramarine is the best Fedora spin ever. It's way better than Fedora itself, which has always been problematic for me. Ultramarine has improve Fedora from installation to operation. I've tested Ultramarine for 5 months on an old laptop and it runs smoothly with no issues. Installation was a breeze. I'm not a big fan of the Budgie desktop, but I love how it's been adapted to Ultramarine. This distro has taken two Linux components I've never particularly liked, Fedora & Budgie and has turned them into game changers in my opinion. In fact, Ultramarine has renewed my faith in Linux has a whole. Now, I just wish someone could do the same for Slackware.
Version: 35 Rating: 10 Date: 2022-03-21 Votes: 3
Budgie Version installed on 2022-02-06 on ACER Aspire M3970 (2011) with i5 Intel processor (4core), Nvidia GT1030 and 12 Gb RAM.
After 2 weeks of use, I can say
Pros :
- No problem to install Ultramarine 35
- No problem to install Nvidia driver, Cuda and Codecs non free (RPM Fusion reposories)
- Budgie desktop environment is simple, easy to configure and really good integrated to fedora 35.
- No problem since the installation
- Good performance with photographic software (RawTherapee and darktable). That is important for me !
- Good responsiveness to kernel and software versions
Cons
- Like all distributions based on Fedora and Red Hat, it's not always easy to install software. It's not a Linux distribution for beginners in Linux
Version: 35 Rating: 9 Date: 2022-03-09 Votes: 1
I tried the Budgie version and had no problems in the live mode. So I moved forward with the install and had no problems there either. With Fedora and other Red Hat versions I've had the install sometimes get stuck halfway through without proceeding further. Even after a install I haven't been able to get any Fedora-based distro to perform hassle free since the 2014 version, so Ultramarine is a big improvement for me. It's about time. I'm going to keep using Ultramarine as a backup distro and then evaluate its long term performance, but so far so good.
Version: 35 Rating: 1 Date: 2022-02-07 Votes: 5
Same as the other 2 comments. Ultramarine 35 cutefish request live user password. NO LUCK!
Version: 35 Rating: 1 Date: 2022-02-05 Votes: 4
I tried the cutefish version and it request a password to login, and I was not able to find this password anywhere, very frustrating.
Version: 35 Rating: 5 Date: 2022-01-31 Votes: 11
I wanted to try the cutefish version in live, but it wanted a password at all costs. i tried live, root, cute, cutefish, ultramarine etc. but i couldn't log in with any of them. unfortunately i can't access the website or any of the additional services under the domain ultramarine-linux.org. An active distribution if you are up on the distrowatch site, you should expect to have the website available to the project!
I tried the Pantheon Desktop, that run on as 'live' but on 'fresh' install on HDD was like disaster...
RAM usage (with firefox / one page on google) was about 4M ! top/htop revealed high usage from something tasks "io.elementary.t" and "gala" the weird tings happened, eg alt tab displayd ONLY the app I was into , not the other apps running. I really regret that I deleted my fucntional Fedora 9 Cinnamon for that crap. ok good idea to include apps like Libreoffice etc buy ... sorry: NOT recommended!
Ultramarine Linux Plasma Edition is indeed a remarkable offering in the Linux ecosystem. Its seamless meld of the KDE Plasma desktop with the stable and updated core of Fedora Linux reflects a meticulous effort to provide a top-notch user experience. As someone with over 20 years of desktop end-user experience, I find this distro to be one of the slickest offerings I've encountered in a long while. Ultramarine has done a splendid job with Plasma, presenting a distro that is both visually appealing and robustly functional.
One of the shining attributes of Ultramarine Linux Plasma Edition is its ability to embody the stability and recent package versions characteristic of Fedora, yet without inheriting some of the myopic issues associated with Fedora, such as phasing out support for 10-year-old hardware. This thoughtful approach showcases a genuine understanding of the diverse hardware landscape, acknowledging the reality that millions of older computers continue to serve in offices worldwide.
Moreover, the respect Ultramarine pays to KDE is praiseworthy. They veer away from the path of least resistance, which often entails relying heavily on GTK tools. Instead, they have embraced the robust and elegant toolkit that KDE provides, creating a cohesive and well-integrated environment that honors the KDE community's hard work and innovation. This dedication to a pure KDE experience shines through, making the Ultramarine Linux Plasma Edition a delightful distro to interact with.
The efficient, user-friendly, and aesthetically pleasing interface makes it a welcoming haven for both Linux novices and seasoned users. This distro doesn't merely cater to the technical functionality but also offers a visually gratifying user experience which, I believe, is a testament to the careful and passionate work done by the Ultramarine developers.
Ultramarine Linux Plasma Edition emerges as a distinguished entity in a crowded Linux distro landscape, echoing a blend of elegance, practical functionality, and a forward-thinking approach. The dedication to preserving the integrity of the KDE environment while ensuring a reliable and updated system is a balancing act nicely, nicely done by Ultramarine. This edition is more than just a distro; it's a commendable contribution to the open-source community, fostering an enriching computing environment for users worldwide.
it works for the most part flawlessly some of the games require a source CD but provides a linux friendly engine very few things are truly broken for example the mouse click location for Open RA { red alert} on release 36 was perfect on release 38 its a bit off likely a graphics driver issue
a few browsers are not supported with my choice of desktop but still listed for install they do not install as a broken app instead gives a message of incompatibly
I have very few issues with this distribution I find it very secure as I am hacker magnet but combined with my UTM this distribution meets my security needs
this system is almost perfect as linux systems go my only issue is no support for snaps but that might change right now the repository is fairly large containing everything from torrent clients web browsers and office suites what ever you need it has for most common users unless your looking for some special database software its likely a viable option the over all look and feel will not disappoint its as user friendly as windows 11 and windows 10 its not the hard rough window boarders most linux users are used to or at best the windows 95 look its really all around a great distribution
Using the Ultramarine 38 KDE plasma version for about 1 month. It's been phenomenal experience so far. Everything just works out of the box.
I tried installing regular Fedora and also Debian KDE versions but was unable to get all my hardware working on them but Ultramarine just worked straight away.
If you're not very technical and you want something that works without having to do too much then this is an excellent option. The most user-friendly Linux distribution I have used so far especially if you want to use up a raid on your machine.
Wow, I have been using Ultramarine Linux since 2022 and it is the distro that made me stop distro hopping and finally concentrate on using my computer to get things done instead of wasting time to distro hop or to rice my desktops.
Pros: it really gets out of my way, very clean interface (am using budgie DE), very minimalistic in design and I have no urge to waste time ricing it as it already looks quite pleasing to my eyes. so far, I have never had any major problems with it, everything that i encountered was easily resolved by searching the internet.
A few months ago I tried the official Fedora 38 Budgie spin, I had problem with changing my display refresh rate, and there is no problem changing my refresh rate on Ultramarine 38. Not sure if this problem has been fixed or not in Fedora.
Cons: I am not a fan of dark themes, so it was a bit troublesome to switch to light theme for my apps, you have to change the universal theme to light using terminal with a command line. Also, I tried upgrading from 37 to 38 using the terminal, it was a failure, could not even boot into the upgraded system, and when I selected alternative kernels to boot into, the system has kernel for 37 but the system itself is actually 38, and it was extremely slow and unresponsive.
I resolved this by doing a clean install of 38, and so far everything has gone well.
Also, the default shell changed from bash to zsh, which is annoying to me as I could not use certain command lines, for example, to clear my terminal history. This change was not clearly stated by the ultramarine team, hence it took me a while to figure out how to clear my terminal history which was quite frustrating.
In conclusion, a good distro that hopefully will not give me much headaches in the coming future!
Simple to use and saves you time tweaking vanilla Fedora to get it to work.
Testing on Xeon 14 cores+Nvidia RTX 2070 Super, 128Gb RAM.
Feel: Slow, as usual of many Fedora based distros.
Annoyances: after Nvidia 535 driver install present screen tearing on 2K Youtube videos in Firefox web browser.
Problems: Serious problem with File browser, file drag not working, indication of file transfer usually absent at all - no info of going processes with files. Unacceptable flaw comparing to all other distros on Fedora 38.
Plus: strangely but present some performance improvement in serious processing task, like some optimization by unknown reason. In RPCS3 emulator of PS3 game console the most hard game to emulate - the GTA V works faster (like addition +2/5FPS) than same task on Nobara 38 or Fedora 38.
Result: This distribution require serious work, it can be best from all Fedora distros, but serious flaws with standard instruments makes it annoying to use even for standard file operations.
I am new to Linux, but heard good things about Fedora Linux. I am comparing Ultramarine Linux with Fedora Workstation. I am running the Distros on two different HP desktops. So far, UM Linux has the advantage. The Pros are easy installation, RPM and Flathub installed automatically, fast, stable, and seems secure. I am running Brave and Firefox browsers, Darktable, IDLE3 and VScodium programming environments, and Xboard(my chess game to practice for chess.com). The only difference between the two desktops is the amount of memory, 4GB versus 8GB. I hope to make one of the Distros a daily driver on the 8GB HP desktop.
Cons: None so far.
Overall impression: I like Ultramarine and Fedora. I am too new to make a recommendation, but as it stand, I favor Ultramarine Linux!
Easy to use as a fedora fan, but on some hardware I would lose the pointer.
love the Budgie and Pantheon desktops which worked well, along with the pre-installed non free rpms but it hasn't made me want to swap from fedora full time
if you are new to linux or want to try the stability of fedora then this is a good starting ponit, and I don't think you will not be disappointed. It uses the installer as fedora, so easy to go through and setup. though as many are saying somewhat dated now.
Overall a great distro that I will keep on the system I tested it on. and will see what happens when I upgrade it to 37.
I absolutely Love Ultramarine with the ("flagship") Budgie desktop. It installed flawlessly and there are few things I'd change. I'd have folders sort before files, I'd have thought that obvious. I've been through settings and they are a nice mix. They need to add a lot more wallpaper, but functionally it's flawless. The stability of Fedora with the coolness of a budgie desktop. Only its newness and lack of bells and whistles give it a "9," otherwise, "10." Also the start menu needs to be better sorted in categories. Version 38 will probably catch all of this. Very well done.
I'd been looking for a Fedora-based distro with the clean Budgie desktop for quite some time and during a cursory distro search, I fortuitously found Ultramarine. My Arch distro was giving me problems at the time, so I took a leap of faith and decided to give Ultramarine a go straightaway. Install went smoothly without any glitches. All hardware on my Lenovo is working out of the box. Suspend to RAM works too. It's relatively early days but so far, I am very impressed with this distro and it leads me to feel reasonably confident that I'll be sticking with it for the foreseeable future on both my laptops.
After using Pop!_os for 6 months with many small problems, I decide to to test Budgie and after eliminated Ubuntu Budgie I selected Ultramarine Flagship and after 2 weeks using it I can tell you it has been an very good experience. Everythings works, even my Windows 10 Pro VM in Gnome Boxes works with only a small problem with the mouse pointer (nothing to do with the new distro).
Why Windows 10 VM? because I use RSAT tool for active directory management and also to give support with Quick Assist to my 30+ users.
A pleasant surprise. Installing went fairly quickly, and with no hitches other than the odd prompt to set up networking on the live environment before attempting during the actual installation. That done and I was presented after the usual reboot with a very nice Budgie desktop. Plenty of software to offer for download, and all the codecs I need were right in the original installation.
Smooth and a bit unique for a Fedora based distro. It sems to be everything that AlmaLinux has been trying to be. I would give Ultramarine a 10 rating but for the inability to make the taskbar ("panel") fully transparent, which is one of my preferences.
VERY nice distro and it's staying on this machine.
I love this distro. I have installed the Gnome edition and it has been flawless. I've tried it on several different laptops and had no issues installing. The same is true with the flagship edition except that I just don't like the budgie desktop much. I intend to try Pantheon and it's my understanding they are no longer working on Cutefish. I really like how they've linked to multiple respositories right out of the box, so I've had no trouble installing software that I use and need. I had my installation up and running just the way I like it in a matter of minutes. Fedora always takes longer because I have to chase down some of the odder packages I use. Not necessary in Ultramarine. I must say I'm impressed with some of the unknown distros I have tried like Storm and XeroLinux, but I have settled on Ultramarine as my go to OS for the foreseeable future.
Ultramarine is the Best Linux Distro!!! I have tried out hundreds of linux distros over the course of the last year. Prior to Ultramarine my daily driver had been Pop_OS for its tiling windows feature, its software repository and it just worked though, like all other linux distros, it had some annoying attributes that I couldn't seem to resolve. Then I stumbled on Ultramarine which has all the features I loved with Pop_OS without the annoying attributes. In short, it just works, in every way that was important to the way I like to configure my desktop. I absolutely Love Ultramarine Linux!!
Not recommended:
* installation issue: cannot be installed on a GPT -drive attached to a BIOS (not UEFI) machine. Other distros might warn you but will allow to proceed with the installation, at your own risk. And of course booting from the GPT does work.
* anakonda installer doesn't give the option to install Grub to a partition of choice, not even the option of not installing a bootloader at all. This is a no-go for a multi-boot machine.
* installed vlc thru DNF. Result: it's not in the task menue, can only be run from the commandline, specifying the source parameter, no GUI app. I worked around with the Parole -mediaplayer, which obviously is a weak replacement.
* memory usage after boot close to 900 MB - not what you'd expect from a low-resource DE like Budgie. Might have to do with zram swap, which I am not familiar with.
* shuting down the system takes > two minutes, because systemd is hanging at an effort to terminate some sort of user service daemon.
* no printer setup in the system tools: had to resort to good old lpadmin -cli, with the splix -package as a precondition.
* invoking Libre Office results in an error message similar to "missing components", then hangs for a while, then works.
* fonts are ugly, imho; switching from dark theme to bright one takes some effort, especially in Firefox.
Pro's:
* I guess many glitches are inherited from mother Fedora 36 and Budgie
* if you take fun in fixing problems and feel satisfied after having ironed out whatever Ultramarine QC missed - then this one might be for you. Although I am sure there are many more bugs than the ones mentioned above, after some hard work you might get a working Linux at the end of the day. However be aware that Fedora's support cycles are short, so you'll undergo the same pleasure again after approx. 13 months.
Ultramarine is the best Fedora spin ever. It's way better than Fedora itself, which has always been problematic for me. Ultramarine has improve Fedora from installation to operation. I've tested Ultramarine for 5 months on an old laptop and it runs smoothly with no issues. Installation was a breeze. I'm not a big fan of the Budgie desktop, but I love how it's been adapted to Ultramarine. This distro has taken two Linux components I've never particularly liked, Fedora & Budgie and has turned them into game changers in my opinion. In fact, Ultramarine has renewed my faith in Linux has a whole. Now, I just wish someone could do the same for Slackware.
Budgie Version installed on 2022-02-06 on ACER Aspire M3970 (2011) with i5 Intel processor (4core), Nvidia GT1030 and 12 Gb RAM.
After 2 weeks of use, I can say
Pros :
- No problem to install Ultramarine 35
- No problem to install Nvidia driver, Cuda and Codecs non free (RPM Fusion reposories)
- Budgie desktop environment is simple, easy to configure and really good integrated to fedora 35.
- No problem since the installation
- Good performance with photographic software (RawTherapee and darktable). That is important for me !
- Good responsiveness to kernel and software versions
Cons
- Like all distributions based on Fedora and Red Hat, it's not always easy to install software. It's not a Linux distribution for beginners in Linux
I tried the Budgie version and had no problems in the live mode. So I moved forward with the install and had no problems there either. With Fedora and other Red Hat versions I've had the install sometimes get stuck halfway through without proceeding further. Even after a install I haven't been able to get any Fedora-based distro to perform hassle free since the 2014 version, so Ultramarine is a big improvement for me. It's about time. I'm going to keep using Ultramarine as a backup distro and then evaluate its long term performance, but so far so good.
I wanted to try the cutefish version in live, but it wanted a password at all costs. i tried live, root, cute, cutefish, ultramarine etc. but i couldn't log in with any of them. unfortunately i can't access the website or any of the additional services under the domain ultramarine-linux.org. An active distribution if you are up on the distrowatch site, you should expect to have the website available to the project!
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