 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 887, 12 October 2020 |
Welcome to this year's 41st issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Software developers are always looking for new ways to help us get the most of our computers. Though there are many schools of thought when it comes to determining what "most" means in this case. Do we want efficiency or user friendliness? Should the operating system focus on looks or performance? We begin this week with a look at Nitrux, a distribution from the Ubuntu family which ships with a customized version of the KDE Plasma desktop and some home-grown utilities. Read on to find out how this combination works in our Feature Story and let us know what you think of the Nitrux approach to making the most out of these customisations in the comments. In our News section we discuss new features coming to the elementary OS distribution along with evolutionary improvements to the Haiku operating system. We also talk about a tool for managing FreeBSD containers. Then, in our Tips and Tricks column, we explore the idea of compressed memory (called zRAM) and provide examples of how to use it to our advantage. Do you run computers with compressed memory enabled? Let us know what you use it for in our Opinion Poll. Plus we are pleased to share the new releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (12MB) and MP3 (10MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Nitrux 2020.09.05
Nitrux is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution suitable for laptops and desktop computers. Its main desktop environment is NX Desktop, a KDE Plasma desktop enhanced with "plasmoids" to create a special blend of aesthetics and functionality.
The distribution's website mentions a handful of key features including NX Firewall, a tool for simplifying firewall management. There is also a backup utility for automating and scheduling backups called Kup which is built into the distribution's settings panel. The Nitrux website also promotes using AppImage portable applications and suggests using AppImageHub, a central repository of portable packages, similar to how Flathub provides a repository of distribution-neutral Flatpaks.
I downloaded the ISO for Nitrux which is about 3GB in size. The distribution is available for 64-bit (x86_64) machines exclusively. Booting from the provided media brought up a menu offering to start the distribution in either live desktop or failsafe modes. Taking the live desktop entry loads the Plasma desktop - or a login screen, it varied during my trial. When the system brought up a login prompt I could sign in using "nitrux" as both the account username and password.
Once the Plasma desktop loads we find a panel placed across the top of the screen. The application menu is located to the left of this panel and the system tray to the right. There is a dock with some application launchers at the bottom of the desktop. One icon that launches the project's system installer is placed in the upper-left corner of the desktop. The Plasma environment uses a fairly dark, minimal theme. Once I had explored the live environment a little I turned my attention to the installer.
Installing
Nitrux's system installer is a graphical application which takes a pretty standard approach to configuring the operating system. We are walked through picking our time zone, confirming our keyboard's layout, and setting up a username and password for a new account. When it comes to disk partitioning our choices are limited. I could find no option to manually partition the disk. Instead we have a single guided partitioning option which offers to take over the entire disk with a Btrfs volume. The installer does not set up a swap partition or swap file. Once we have made our choices we are shown a confirmation screen which curiously displays a summary of our settings in white text on a white background. Then the installer sets up Nitrux on the local drive and restarts the computer when it is finished.
Early impressions
Nitrux boots to a graphical login screen. We are offered two session options. The default is to sign into KDE Plasma running on X.Org while the alternative is to run Plasma on a Wayland session. Upon signing into my account a notification immediately popped up to report new software updates were available. Clicking on the corresponding icon in the system tray launches the Discover software centre. Discover lists available updates which we can choose to install all at once or individually.
Nitrux 2020.09.05 -- Running the Firefox browser
(full image size: 358kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The first day I was using Nitrux Discover failed to apply the available updates, reporting it could not connect to Devuan's package servers. (Nitrux connects to its own package repositories along with Ubuntu and Devuan servers.) Attempting to refresh the package database likewise reported connections to Devuan servers had timed out.
The second day I was using Nitrux the connection to all repository servers worked and I was able to download the waiting 50 updates which totalled 173MB in size.
Application menu
The Nitrux application menu at first looks to be blank. This is because, by default, the first pane of the menu shows favourite launchers and no favourites have been set for us. This means we need to switch over to the second page of the menu to location applications. Programs are grouped strangely on Nitrux with the category names being: Bundled Apps, KDE apps, Maui Apps, Qt Apps, and Utilities. None of these tell us what the included applications do and causes some confusion. I showed the groupings to a non-techie and asked which category might hold an image viewer and their response was, "No idea, they're all called some form of 'Apps'." What about the settings panel? They replied: "On my phone and tablet settings are with low-level stuff under Utilities so I'd guess there." Unfortunately for them, the System Settings panel is kept under KDE apps.
Nitrux 2020.09.05 -- The application menu and program groupings
(full image size: 129kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
They would probably also be surprised to learn the software manager, calculator, and partition manager are kept under the KDE Apps category. The Qt group includes a document viewer and process manager. The Maui group holds a note taking tool, picture viewer, file manager, and terminal. The Bundled group includes just one entry for the Itch.io gaming portal. The Utilities group does not include any low-level tools, but rather the Firefox browser, GNU Image Manipulation Program, LMMS, MPV media player, and Inkscape.
When exploring the command line I found Nitrux ships with the zsh shell and the GNU Compiler Collection. No manual pages are included and trying to run man tells us we need to run the unminimize command and install the man-db package in order to see manual pages. Nitrux does not appear to be trying to be particularly lightweight so I was surprised the manual pages have been excluded from the distribution. Digging further I found Nitrux ships with the OpenRC init software and service manager. In the background I found version 5.6 of the Linux kernel.
Something I occasionally ran into while running Nitrux was some application windows were very small when opened. Their dimensions made it difficult to see anything in the window and I typically had to resize new windows before I could use the applications. This happened in both test environments and did not change when adjusting screen resolution or the number of open windows on the desktop.
Nitrux 2020.09.05 -- Some windows open with small dimensions
(full image size: 159kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Hardware
I began my trial by running Nitrux in a VirtualBox environment, later switching to running the distribution on my laptop. When running in VirtualBox the Plasma desktop has limited resolution (800x600 pixels) and did not dynamically resize with the VirtualBox window. I could adjust Plasma's resolution through the System Settings panel. The distribution ran smoothly, if a bit slowly in VirtualBox. The Plasma menus and effects were slow to draw with the default settings.
Nitrux 2020.09.05 -- The Systems Settings panel
(full image size: 80kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
When running on the laptop, the distribution detected all of my hardware. Again, Plasma was a little slow to respond. However, performance picked up once I disabled many of the visual effects in the settings panel. Some of the effects were intriguing. For example, when switching between windows the applications would be shuffled like papers and there were some nice animations for minimizing and restoring windows. However, ultimately, I opted for speed over eye candy.
Nitrux is a mid-weight distribution, consuming about 540MB of RAM and taking up 6.2GB of disk space. Though this accounting does not include any swap file we may wish to add later.
Software management
Earlier I mentioned Nitrux uses the Discover software centre to handle package updates. Discover also allows us to install packages and we can browse through available software using categories or by searching for items by name. When browsing categories of packages Discover sorts items by rating, though this can be changed to arranging programs by other criteria such as name or release date.
Nitrux 2020.09.05 -- The Discover software centre
(full image size: 124kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
I feel like Discover was a software centre that got off to a rough beginning as I typically ran into severe performance problems and stability issues when using it in previous years. Now though Discover appears to be improving and offering a solid experience. I like that it is pretty easy to search for new applications and we can queue items for installation with the click of a button. In fact we can mark entries for installation and continue to browse for additional software while packages are fetched in the background.
The one issue I ran into with Discover was I often could not find programs I wanted to remove. Searching for software that was already installed, including desktop applications, returned no results. For example, trying to find programs like Pix and qps returned no search results in Discover, but did show up when using the APT command line tools.
NX desktop, NX Firewall, and Kup
Apart from the Itch.io gaming portal and the promotion of AppImage packages, which are effectively distribution-neutral, Nitrux lists three key features on its website that I feel are worth mentioning. The first is NX Desktop, which is basically KDE Plasma with some alternative components. Nitrux swaps out some elements, adds some of its own applications, throws in the Latte dock, and enables several effects. It does provide a slightly different look and feel for Plasma, so I suppose the goal has been accomplished. However, the changes are not ones I like. The menu feels empty and mostly a waste of space, I'm not a fan of the dock, and the enabled effects slow Plasma down noticeably. Desktop environments are always a matter of taste and, personally, I wasn't a fan of the alternations done to Plasma.
The Kup tool is promoted as a backup utility with a friendly interface. Kup can be accessed through the application menu or through the System Settings panel. Kup works by setting up backup jobs. When we create a new job, Kup guides us through picking which directories we want to save, how often backups should be created, and where to store the resulting archives. We can also filter out files from being included in our backups. The interface is quite nice and easy to navigate.
Nitrux 2020.09.05 -- The Kup backup tool
(full image size: 74kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
Kup reportedly can create backups at a set interval or we are told jobs can be triggered manually through the utility's system tray icon. I tried clicking on the system tray icon and it did indeed share information on when the last backup ran, if it has ever run. However, I could find no option to trigger a new backup job. Even when backups were set to be entirely manual I could not find a way to initiate them. I also found that scheduled backups did not work. I once created some files and set the backup on the parent folder to run at an interval of one minute. No new archives were created, even after several minutes had gone by. This makes me wonder if Kup can be considered a reliable archiving solution as it created no backups and produced no error messages.
Finally, the Nitrux website promotes NX Firewall, a tool for configuring the firewall. NX Firewall appears to offer very few options. We can turn the firewall on/off and we can allow or deny both incoming and outgoing traffic. As far as I can tell, allowing or denying traffic, in either direction, is an all or nothing scenario. There doesn't appear to be any option to open specific ports while blocking all others. The firewall is disabled by default, but can be turned on with a click.
Something I found odd was that once I had accessed the NX Firewall tool, made a change, and closed it then I could not launch NX Firewall again. I also found that after opening the firewall utility I could not launch the System Settings panel. Rebooting the computer allowed me to open the settings panel again and the firewall tool. As a test, I opened NX Firewall and immediately closed it without making any changes. Then tried to open it again. This action failed, as did trying to open System Settings. This seems to be a consistent problem with just opening NX Firewall disabling the settings panel until a reboot occurs. This was a unique and unpleasant experience for me in the realm of firewall configuration tools.
Conclusions
Nitrux is an unusual project in a number of ways. In some ways it feels like the developers are regularly trying to find or create an identity for their distribution. They've promoted AppImages, talked about alternative update methods, temporarily turned the distribution into an exclusively commercial offering, then shifted back to free downloads. Their current offering feels like a strange mixture of Ubuntu, a modified Plasma desktop, and OpenRC init software in place of systemd. Oddly enough I'm not sure what to make of Nitrux in part because I have trouble figuring out who it is targeting. There seems to be a slight focus on gaming and AppImages, but without many features geared towards either. I wouldn't say Nitrux feels like a general purpose operating system either as it has a strange menu structure, a limited range of default applications, and a curious mixture of repositories and default programs.
I always appreciate it when projects try to add value or custom software or new ideas to their distribution. Stuff like NX Desktop and NX Firewall, for example, are at least doing something different. These, along with Kup and the customized installer give Nitrux a distinct feel. Unfortunately the items which Nitrux uses as substitutes for more popular applications do not work as well as the tools offered by other distributions. NX Firewall has very limited options, even next to relatively simple tools like Gufw, and it causes the System Settings panel to stop working. The note taking and terminal applications open in tiny windows and always need to be resized. The note taking tool doesn't even seem to recognize documents it has saved before. The backup tool's interval backup option did not work for me, leaving me without archives of my files.
All this is to say that while Nitrux is trying something different from the mainstream, there is a reason some applications and environments become mainstream: they typically work better. Being different is interesting, but I don't think (in this case) there is value added by the alternative tools Nitrux is promoting.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a de-branded HP laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: Intel i3 2.5GHz CPU
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 700GB hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Wired network device: Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast
- Wireless network device: Realtek RTL8188EE Wireless network card
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Visitor supplied rating
Nitrux has a visitor supplied average rating of: 4.1/10 from 18 review(s).
Have you used Nitrux? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
New features coming to elementary OS, Haiku improves performance and efficiency, A tool for managing FreeBSD containers
The elementary OS team has shifted its focus from working on elementary OS 5 to version 6. "Since elementary makes regular updates to elementary OS throughout its life cycle, you may be asking yourself why development focus has shifted to elementary OS 6 and why these updates can't be shipped to elementary OS 5. In short, the answer is big, breaking changes in technology. While our updates to elementary OS 5 have been largely incremental improvements, elementary OS 6 rips up old plumbing and reconsiders how things work under the hood in order to enable new features, make your experience more stable and reliable, improve compatibility with third-party apps, and make our desktop more portable to other open source operating systems." The team is making improvements to desktop settings, the lock screen, and accessibility features. An overview of the upcoming features can be found in the project's blog post.
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The Haiku project is making gradual progress on multiple fronts. The Haiku team outlined some of their work in the project's newsletter which reports on progress concerning Btr filesystem support, additional CPU power mode support to allow Haiku to operate more efficiently, and performance improvements to the package manager. "brjhaiku implemented the initial methods required for Btrfs write support. This was originally introduced during GSOC 2019 program, and still being merged gradually. Jerome Duval implemented support for more CPU power modes and functions that allows the system to use the CPU power more efficiently. This fixed an issue where on some hardware the system clock speed was stuck at 1.5GHz, and improved performance on other systems. Andrew Lindesay fixed a crash in HaikuDepot whilst synchronizing package metadata, also greatly improved icon caching, therefore speeding up the sync process during application start and memory consumption."
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The FreeBSD operating system has long had a type of container technology called jails. These jails allow the administrator to run programs and services in isolation from the rest of the operating system. While there are several tools for managing jails, few approach the task in the same style as Docker does on Linux. A relatively young project that has recently matured is BastilleBSD. BastilleBSD facilitates setting up new containers, managing them, copying their contents, and keeping them up to date. People who would like an easy and powerful approach to managing FreeBSD containers should begin with a look at the project's Getting Started guide.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Tips and Tricks (by Jesse Smith) |
Compressing memory with zRAM
zRAM (alternatively written "zram") is a Linux feature which allows us to treat a portion of the computer's physical memory as though it were compressed storage space. This allows us to write information to storage space that looks and acts like a physical disk, but has the speed benefit of RAM and the added bonus of being compressed to use less space.
There are a few instances where this could be useful. One is to set up a temporary directory that will typically only hold small files which can be discarded when the computer restarts. This avoids writing a bunch of small, probably rarely-used files to our hard drive while maintaining higher performance. Another common scenario is to set aside a portion of RAM to be used as swap space. When memory begins to fill up, lesser-used data stored in memory will get swapped out. In this case the data is moved from regular memory into the compressed memory, where it will take up less space, yet still be instantly accessible if needed. In practise this approach uses relatively small amounts of physical memory while making it seem as though we have very fast, compressed swap space
Using zRAM is an attractive option when running low-resource computers, such as the Raspberry Pi, or systems where we might want to store temporary files in RAM rather than have them written to a disk, particularly an older SSD.
There are a number of utilities for working with zRAM storage and each distribution packages these tools a bit differently. One way to avoid confusion is to follow the Linux kernel's zRAM documentation which explains how to work with zRAM in a distro-neutral fashion. However, while these steps work across distributions, they are not the most straight forward. With this in mind, I will be going through an example of how to use zRAM using the zramctl utility which is usually supplied by a distribution's util-linux package.
The first thing we need to do in order to work with zRAM is to enable the zram kernel module. Most Linux distributions do not enable this module by default. We can load the zram module and, at the same time, specify how many zRAM devices we want to work with. Sometimes it can be useful to have more than one, for instance if we want to set up multiple temporary directories. In this case I will create just one zRAM device. The modprobe command loads the zram module and, in this instance, creates one virtual device for compressed RAM.
modprobe zram num_devices=1
We can verify the above command worked by running the zramctl program and asking it to find any available zRAM devices. In this example, it found one, called zram0:
# zramctl --find
/dev/zram0
Now we have a zRAM device, an interface which will reside in memory while acting like a storage device. If we want to use this compressed storage as swap space, effectively compressing data in memory and making it seem like we have more RAM/swap, we can treat zram0 as a swap partition. Next we set aside 1GB of memory to be compressed and mount it as swap space. The first step is to specify a size for the available zRAM device:
# zramctl --find --size 1G
/dev/zram0
The above command locates the first available zRAM device and assigns it a size of 1GB. The command responds with the name of the device we are now using. The next two commands format the compressed RAM to be used as swap space and activate it:
mkswap /dev/zram0
swapon /dev/zram0
We can confirm the above commands worked by running swapon again with no arguments:
# swapon
| NAME |
TYPE |
SIZE |
USED |
PRIO |
| /dev/zram0 |
partition |
1024M |
0B |
-2 |
The above command shows we have one swap device, called zram0, and that it is 1024MB (1GB) in size. At the moment, none of the available space is being used. We can remove the zRAM swap space by using the swapoff command:
swapoff /dev/zram0
We can deactivate the zRAM device we were using, freeing it up for future use elsewhere by running:
zramctl --reset /dev/zram0
What if we want to set up a zRAM device to act as temporary fast storage space that will be discarded when the computer shuts down? The steps are approximately the same. Once again we begin by assigning a size to the zRAM device. Here I set aside 500MB of space to use as temporary storage.
# zramctl --find --size 500M
/dev/zram0
Next we need to format the memory. In my case I set it up to use the ext2 filesystem:
mkfs.ext2 /dev/zram0
Finally, we can assign the zRAM space to a directory, mounting it in place. Usually we would want to put temporary storage under /tmp or /var/tmp, but we can place it just about anywhere:
mount /dev/zram0 /tmp
Now any files we write to the /tmp directory will be compressed and stored in RAM instead of on the local disk. We can remove the temporary storage and clean-up by running the following commands:
umount /tmp
zramctl --reset /dev/zram0
A word of caution. It is probably a good idea to keep the size of your zRAM devices at 50% or less of your total physical RAM space. Trying to compress all your RAM to use as swap or temporary storage is likely to squeeze the system's resources and possibly cause more trouble than it is worth. I also recommend mounting any temporary storage early in the boot process rather than after you login to the desktop, especially if you mount temporary storage under /tmp. Some programs still save files in /tmp and mounting compressed storage in this location will make existing files vanish and that can cause unwanted behaviour in running programs.
* * * * *
Additional tips can be found in our Tips and Tricks archive.
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| Released Last Week |
SparkyLinux 4.13
SparkyLinux provides a Debian-based, lightweight distribution. The project has published refreshed and updated installation media for its "oldstable" 4.x branch. The latest release is SparkyLinux 4.13. The release announcement offers the following list of changes: "There is an update of Sparky oldstable 4.13 code name 'Tyche' out there. It is based on the Debian oldstable 'Stretch'. Changes: system upgrade from Debian oldstable 'Stretch' repos as of October 2, 2020. Calamares doesn't refresh package list to avoid breaking installation if Debian or Sparky repo is off. Sparky repos changed from 'oldstable' to named 'tyche'; make sure you use right Sparky repositories. Linux kernel upgraded up to 4.9.228-1. Firefox 78.3.0esr. Thunderbird 68.12.0. LibreOffice 4.3.3." The distribution is available LXDE, minimal desktop, and command line only editions.
Oracle Linux 7.9
Simon Coter has announced the release of Oracle Linux 7 Update 9, a new build of the company's enterprise-class Linux distribution's legacy branch, compiled from the source code of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.9: "Oracle is pleased to announce the general availability of Oracle Linux 7 Update 9, which includes Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK) Release 6 as the default kernel. UEK Release 6 is based on the mainline Linux kernel 5.4, supplying more innovation than other commercial Linux kernels: arm - enhanced support for the Arm (aarch64) platform, including improvements in the areas of security and virtualization; Cgroup v2 - UEK R6 includes all Cgroup v2 features, along with several enhancements; ktask - ktask is a framework for parallelizing CPU-intensive work in the kernel, it can be used to speed up large tasks on systems with available CPU power, where a task is single-threaded in user space; parallelized kswapd - page replacement is handled in the kernel asynchronously by kswapd, and synchronously by direct reclaim." Please see the release announcement and the release notes for further information.
Garuda Linux 201007
Garuda Linux is an Arch-based desktop Linux distribution available in a range of desktop environments and window managers, including KDE Plasma, GNOME, Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce, LXQt, Wayfire, bspwm, i3, Deepin, UKUI and Recbox (some of them in both "Ultimate" and "Lite" variants). An updated build, version 201007, is now available for download: "We are happy to announce the release of a brand new Garuda Linux version, called 'Golden Eagle'. With this release, most of the reported bugs have been fixed - along with some other QoL changes to the existing presets. As you might have noticed, we added five new versions to our repertoire: MATE, Cinnamon, Recbox, UKUI and bspwm. From now on, the editions containing window managers (i3, bspwm, Recbox, Wayfire), Deepin and UKUI will be available in 'Lite' editions only. Also we have changed the Deepin settings to be rather untouched since altered settings proved to be too buggy." Here is the complete release announcement.
Garuda Linux 201007 -- Running the Cinnamon desktop
(full image size: 509kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 2,167
- Total data uploaded: 34.1TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Using zRAM
In this week's comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on running the Deepin Desktop Environment in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Using zRAM
| I use zRAM to compress memory/swap: | 98 (8%) |
| I use zRAM to hold temporary files: | 20 (2%) |
| I use zRAM for both the above purposes: | 24 (2%) |
| I use zRAM for another purpose: | 10 (1%) |
| I do not use zRAM: | 1086 (88%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- AllegianceOS. AllegianceOS is a lightweight distribution based on Slackware's development (-current) branch. The distribution ships with the Xfce desktop and runs on 64-bit machines only, though it includes multilib support for 32-bit programs.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 19 October 2020. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Linux Foundation Training |
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Garuda is improving fast (by Carlos Felipe Araujo on 2020-10-12 01:40:59 GMT from Brazil)
I really enjoyed the distro, but.. The lite versions can be more lite. Still has a lot of bloatwares like a dozen icons and themes that I didn't like none of them, but they are there, eating my ssd. The xfce version has a confuse layout trying to copy gnome and macOS at the same time. I prefer a vainilla desktop or closest of this. Some versions (deepin, UKUI) bring Opera instead Firefox, but I don't understand why.
2 • zRAM (by dude on 2020-10-12 02:04:38 GMT from United States)
I have never used zRAM. But I do use tmpfs for /tmp and the Firefox browser.cache.disk.parent_directory to speed things up a bit.
3 • AllegianceOS (by jorge on 2020-10-12 02:38:15 GMT from Argentina)
Slackware distros like this make me feel I am in my place very nice job my best wishes to the team and regards to Porteus team
4 • AllegianceOS (by john on 2020-10-12 03:33:10 GMT from Canada)
Just downloaded and installed AllegianceOS - writing this review using it now. Seems to work ok, but not really sure of the point. It says it's to make Slackware easier, but seems to be the same as running Slackware itself. Granted - it's been a while since I've used Slackware, and maybe I've just been spoiled with other distros, but I wouldn't call this easy. If you don't know your way around Linux, you'd never get this running. Distros that exist to make "hard" versions easy - like Manjaro does for Arch - do a good job. This one still needs a bit of work.
5 • Nitrux sounds really interesting (by Andy Prough on 2020-10-12 04:13:23 GMT from United States)
I'm a big fan of openRC and Devuan. Mixing them with some software from the Ubuntu repos sounds like a very intriguing setup. Thanks for the review, I'm going to give it a spin.
I'm also very glad that it isn't just another Ubuntu respin with a different desktop, wallpaper, and a few different default apps thrown in. There are way more than enough of those floating around already.
6 • Re: Garuda Linux (by eco2geek on 2020-10-12 06:10:44 GMT from United States)
I downloaded and ran Garuda Linux (reviewed a few weeks ago), getting the KDE Ultimate Edition. I didn't install it, but ran it from a USB drive. When they say they recommend 6 GB of RAM to run the Ultimate Edition, they really mean it. It helps to have a fairly recent video card as well. If you like KDE's ability to display blurry (rather than merely translucent) backgrounds, this would be the distro for you. It's set up to run that way out of the box.
It also comes with Latte Dock, set up in such a way that the menus of applications are in the top bar when running, which is interesting.
They also have a "Lite Edition" for which they recommend 3 GB of RAM. Even it wants a recent video card to show off the eye candy.
The one thing that stood out as really odd was that there's a service named "nohang" that's supposed to handle low memory situations. It in fact caused KDE to hang on several occasions when running Firefox on the Ultimate Edition. The hangs stopped when the service was disabled.
As @1 Carlos said, you could certainly call this distro, even the Lite Edition, bloated, in that it's got a bunch of startup apps running by default, a bunch of pre-installed extensions in Firefox, and eye candy that wants newer hardware to run correctly. On the one hand, you can turn the eye candy off if you need to. On the other hand, if you've got the hardware, or at least some patience, it's a nice-looking distribution.
7 • zRAM (by mdisaster on 2020-10-12 06:19:53 GMT from Italy)
zRAM works like a charm on my Raspberrys, both the 512kb and the 4Gb models, and apparently helps to limit wear on the SD cards (I still have to lose one). I never tried it on a desktop PC though, maybe I'll give it a try after the next upgrade.
8 • @4 (AllegianceOS) (by Captain Obvious on 2020-10-12 12:08:34 GMT from United States)
Apparently it's listed as a Beta version.. maybe that's why it still needs work? :)
Also seems to be a video which guides one through the install. But if videos are not for you..
Two cents.
9 • zRAM (by dabbler on 2020-10-12 14:01:18 GMT from South Africa)
Surely the increased use of SSD's negates the advantages of using ZRAM?
10 • zRAM vs tmpfs (by anotherDude on 2020-10-12 16:08:48 GMT from United States)
Like @2 I've *also* never heard of zRAM, and also use tmpfs for /tmp and a couple other things. I don't know if I'd want to use it for swap (maybe if I set it up to be the first, tiny swap before disk?), but this week's question now has me thinking I'll need to look up the zRAM equivalents to tmpfs and maybe try it out.
I'm honestly surprised that a question about a "feature which allows us to treat a portion of the computer's physical memory as though it were compressed storage space" doesn't even *reference* how, from that description, it's basically tmpfs with compression? And if the reason is it's *not* that, then I'm surprised there isn't a disclaimer warning users that it *sounds* like that but isn't.
I'm not in the "try an experimental thing that reworks a critical part of my system" mood right now, but this alone has certainly warranted me flagging this issue to go back to later and see if this is worth switching to. Having even *more* room in RAM to spare the SSD needless writes and still (effectively) guarantee file removal on shutdown sounds useful.
11 • zram (by mikef90000 on 2020-10-12 20:55:15 GMT from United States)
Since memory is cheap and plentiful, I use zram for both /tmp and swap.
Zramswap is a convenient way to set up zram for swap, just edit /etc/default/zramswap and reboot. You can allocate space by absolute or percentage size.
12 • @8 (Allegiance) (by john on 2020-10-12 22:13:27 GMT from Canada)
Beta is for bug fixes and system issues. This is missing entire features for "making things easy" - like welcome screens and setup wizards and point and click installers... That's what I meant about still needing work. (and if you need to watch a video to figure out how to install and configure it, vs click next like Calamares or other advanced installers, then also - not "easy"). Just saying that I don't think it's currently living up to its stated goals. The OS works fine, but not simply.
13 • @12, Simple Allegiance (by Juan de la Cruz on 2020-10-13 12:23:37 GMT from Philippines)
I think you confuse simple or easy with GUI. I try different distros often, and Allegiance is a lot easier than the Nitrux mess. As simple as Debian, if not simpler. No video necessary. You do need to use cfdisk to create a partition, which can be confusing if you aren't familiar, but after that it's all accepting the default by hitting 'Enter" or typing "yes" a few times. Once done and booted to desktop you are given some choices of software to install add users and configure the desktop. No video necessary. I chose to install Chromium, and that's what I'm using right now. There's no GUI package manager like Debian's Synaptic. It is Slackware after all, just with a quicker and simpler install.
14 • zRam (by Ankleface Wroughlandmire on 2020-10-13 12:30:53 GMT from Ecuador)
I use zRAM on a Thinkpad with 8GB of RAM and an Intel CORE I5. I mainly enable it so that the kernel has somewhere to flush stuff to avoid a total crash/freeze if I get in over my head in RAM usage. However, it usually does *not* prevent freezes under low memory conditions. This actually highlights one of the biggest weaknesses of the Linux kernel in my opinion, which is terribly poor handling of low memory situations. Swapping (to the disk or to RAM) results in a completely unusable system (mouse won't even move). The kernel also has the OOM killer, but it never intervenes on time, and once it gets into zRAM the system is basically unrecoverable and has to be force-powered off. I say this as huge fan of Linux and with almost 2 decades of experience with it-- Linux allows the system to get into an unrecoverable state in low memory situations, which a good kernel should *never* allow to happen.
15 • @14 zRAM / RAMdisk is not advisable for high memory utilisation (by Matt on 2020-10-13 16:59:12 GMT from Singapore)
I think your machine crashes is likely due to your use of zRAM rather than the Linux kernel memory handling capabilities. Swapping seldom used OS modules, programs and data to the hard disk is a way for the OS to free up memory.
In your case, enabling zRAM has restricted the total available RAM for your memory hungry applications. Furthermore your zRAM space is probably too small for Linux to dump the uneeded programs. (Assuming 10% of your 8GB RAM is used for zRAM.)
I would advise not using zRAM for swap unless your machine is similar to a Raspberry Pi where the SD card storage has limited writes.
16 • Simple Allegiance (by Cynic on 2020-10-13 21:20:11 GMT from Ghana)
A graphical package manager is being developed. Glad it seemed simpler to you.
17 • @15 zRAM / RAMdisk is not advisable for high memory utilisation (by Ankleface Wroughlandmire on 2020-10-14 00:56:48 GMT from Ecuador)
Interesting, thanks for the response. I've had similar results with a large swap file on the SSD, although I admit I haven't tried a swap partition for years. I don't think a partition vs. a file could make a big difference. As for the zRAM size, the default configuration for my distro seems to create the same size as the physical RAM, as the zRAM is also 8GB in size.
18 • @16, Simple Allegiance (by Juan de la Cruz on 2020-10-14 03:09:26 GMT from Philippines)
Good luck with your project. After giving up on Zenwalk in frustration, I appreciate a working installer. Something like gslapt would be useful.
19 • @18 GUI for Software Management (by Cynic on 2020-10-14 03:42:00 GMT from Ghana)
Sadly gslapt only deals with packages. The one in development for AllegianceOS will incorporate packages, SlackBuilds.org, python pip and node NPM into one for install/upgrade/remove. One tool rather than needing 4 or more.. we'll see. :)
20 • Regarding Garuda Linux review (by Leo_sk on 2020-10-14 08:31:13 GMT from India)
After reading the review, I couldn't help myself without telling the reviewer that strange behaviour he had with windows was due to krohnkite being enabled default. It is a kwin script that allows tiling behaviour
21 • @18 - Slackel is a nice Slack-based distro (by Hoos on 2020-10-14 11:28:57 GMT from Singapore)
It has a graphical installer (of the distro) where the user can choose not to reformat existing swap partition(s).
As far as I'm aware, for various other Slack-based distros, they are still using the ncurses text-based installer where the user is forced to reformat swap, or even their graphical installer does that.
When you have multiple distros on your machine and you don't wish to mess with the existing swap and its UUID (which your other distros' fstab uses), that is an important consideration.
22 • AllegianceOS and Software Management (by barnabyh on 2020-10-14 19:45:50 GMT from Czechia)
Sounds like a great idea. I'm looking forward to trying AllegianceOS when that's done. IMO with the same amount of dedication and resources Slackware could be made into something just as good as what Manjaro is on the Arch base.
23 • @14 the handling of low memory situations (by Flatlander on 2020-10-15 07:44:05 GMT from Netherlands)
Maybe have a look at 'earlyoom'. With it installed, the first two times that Firefox suddenly went down were surprising, but I much prefer it to an unresponsive system and then having to hold the power-off button.
24 • Nitrux and WindowsFX (by whoKnows on 2020-10-15 16:26:26 GMT from Switzerland)
Just as Jessie did ... “I showed the groupings to a non-techie and asked ...”
I showed WindowsFX to a techie ...
Well, it was well worth it, we had a fantastic laugh.
https://ibb.co/NjV0BrW
As of Nitrux itself ... weeell ... we just got one more thing that no one needs.
Just like Pop! OS, it disqualifies itself the very moment when the desktop appears.
Black (default!) theme is an absolute no-go from the usability aspect (which IS NOT a matter of taste!), but not only that — they even managed to make it black-on-black!
https://ibb.co/tQzb6zM
Start menu opens with some 3 icons and the rest is empty. Applications are then grouped on the 2nd page.
Not enough, once one opens one of those groups and decides that he doesn't need any of the programs, there's no way to leave it except starting something, just to leave the menu somehow and come back out.
https://ibb.co/tbdRrcK
And then, I decided to check the installer ...
User nitrux with password nitrux quits in error. :)
https://ibb.co/q1Y71HT
Next try, with some random username and password worked, but ...
Upon installation was done (and reboot), there were some 600 MB of updates available.
Graphical and non-graphical install failed each time on base-passwd package.
https://ibb.co/wgPJYKq
https://ibb.co/XLWDkSP
https://ibb.co/64tVyLx
Do we really have to wonder when (sooner or later) something will fail to install on Nitrux?
https://ibb.co/7gpWmVs
25 • Installing Nitrux to HDD (by Kanwar on 2020-10-15 23:57:29 GMT from Australia)
Could not install Nitrux on my HDD. Tried both "install alongside" as well as "replace a partition" option. Nothing happens i.e. does not install even though the installers claims success :)
Anyone else face this?
26 • Nitrux (by Juan de la Cruz on 2020-10-16 00:45:28 GMT from Philippines)
@25, "Could not install Nitrux on my HDD."
Consider yourself lucky. See @24. I concur with @24's assessment, except for the dark theme, but then I don't use LibreOffice. It installed on VBox after a couple of failures, and also ran into the Frankenstein sources.list problem. Installing on SSD was a no-no, as it would not allow a choice of partitions and I wasn't about to screw up my setup.
27 • Dark Themes as Default (by whoKnows on 2020-10-16 07:33:18 GMT from Switzerland)
26 • Nitrux (by Juan de la Cruz)
"I concur with @24's assessment, except for the dark theme, but then I don't use LibreOffice."
Please don't get me wrong on dark themes.
Nothing against if somebody is installing it for her~/himself, but we are talking about “per default”.
The situation is simple: Computers were/are made for work (whatever you use it for).
Working on a computer on a workplace has certain ergonomic demands, and they are not a question of taste, but of science named “ergonomics”, and in the most countries of the world, ergonomic standards and regulations are given (clearly defined).
It's usually clearly defined how one office has to look like; what light levels has to meet, what placement of computers and so on and on.
Glaring displays are no-go, dark themes are no-go, pale fonts are no-go ... even if, if you'd be working in the dark cellar at night, the dark theme would obviously be a better choice. However, that's not a workplace nor the wast majority of people work in the offices without lightning during the night.
But now, please look at this:
https://ibb.co/hDR2z8s
What exactly they were thinking of??
Highlighted text in text editor is dark-on-dark gray with dark blue highlighting!
If LibreOffice already has to be dark, why dark-on-dark icons? There is a Sifr White icon set for that purpose.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E23mUplT-cg
And then the default icon set with that pseudo-shading ...
https://ibb.co/Rc9hKMt
Icon set with headache-warranty, if one looks at it for more than a couple of seconds.
The only good news: (Almost) Nobody who needs a computer for serious work uses Linux and if, then Ubuntu (Zorin/Mint) or Fedora/Red Hat.
28 • Serious work... (by Friar Tux on 2020-10-16 13:31:08 GMT from Canada)
@27 (whoknows) "Nobody who needs a computer for serious work uses Linux and if, then Ubuntu (Zorin/Mint)... "
Yup, that's true. Mint for me. I spend about 15 hrs a day on my machine (now that I'm retired) so I'd say my writing, reading, researching is pretty serious. I cannot use the average "light" theme as it's like staring at a 60 watt bulb. And those ugly dark grey themes - nope. For those complaining about the black themes (truely black, not really dark, dark grey), that's exactly what I use with cyan coloured font. It's perfect for all-day computering. I did, however, find a much better solution - the Oomox Theme Builder (not sure if there is a Windows version). It does an absolutely fantastic job of theme creation - in any colour you want. I now use a very dark cyan/teal with light cyan/teal font - quite restful on these old eyes.
By the way, @27, I do agree with that grey-on-grey bring quite hard to read - and then the darkish blue highlight... ouch, I would go cross-eyed after about an hour.
29 • "Serious Work" (by whoKnows on 2020-10-16 15:57:16 GMT from Switzerland)
28 • Serious work... (by Friar Tux)
You are not the measure, but the most users in most situations.
"Serious work" is maybe not a perfect word for it (but I still didn't find the more and the most appropriate substitute for it) and it maybe needs a little explanation.
Many things that one does alone can be done any way one wants it.
One can make a research work or write a book with a pen on paper, by typewriter, on PC in text editor or in some office suite.
However, in most cases "serious work" involves many people, or at least more than one single person (but it's also not necessarily a team work).
That book that you're writing, your publisher demands as DOCX.
Photo as PSD ... Illustration as ...
You get what I mean.
As I also said, there is always some use case for the dark themes, however it is and it will always, as long as there's desktop monitor, a huge no-go as a DEFAULT setting.
30 • serious work (by Otis on 2020-10-16 16:34:15 GMT from United States)
@27 "The only good news: (Almost) Nobody who needs a computer for serious work uses Linux and if, then Ubuntu (Zorin/Mint) or Fedora/Red Hat."
That's quite a cold splash of water in the face. Woke me right up. So, Linux is for non-serious work or recreation only. After all this time.
Where did we go wrong?
31 • "Where did we go?" (by whoKnows on 2020-10-16 17:18:08 GMT from Switzerland)
30 • serious work (by Otis)
"Where did we go wrong?"
So plus, minus ...
https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/linux-year-of-dissatisfaction.html
Don't like that fact neither. :(
32 • Serious work (by barnabyh on 2020-10-16 19:54:01 GMT from Germany)
"The only good news: (Almost) Nobody who needs a computer for serious work uses Linux and if, then Ubuntu (Zorin/Mint) or Fedora/Red Hat."
We should qualify we're talking about desktop use here. Unfortunately, I have to concur with the assessment. Perhaps adding Debian and its direct derivatives. However, WE did not go wrong anywhere because I would wager these type of distributions represent the majority in business and enterprise office use. It doesn't matter which distribution, only that it is a Linux distribution.
Dedoimedo is spot on as usual in almost all points. But as we know everybody's use case is different, needs and abilities are different. I haven't had any major issues, if any, since 2009 that did not turn out to be down to impending hardware failure in the end (read write errors on a dying HD). For me it is a case of 'good enough' and certainly better than Windows any day. It ticks all the boxes and does everything I need it to and I suspect there are plenty of users like me.
I hate nagging and pop-ups and would never go back to Win even if they paid me. That's my main pet peeve. Btw, that's a good reason to disable update-notifiers, at least on rolling distributions, and update at your own leisure.
33 • UNIX, Linux, BSDs and so on ... (by Neefty Nixer on 2020-10-17 07:48:52 GMT from Canada)
No matter which flavor of *nix you use,
you always remains unde UNIX sky;
with same legendary stars.
UNIX - KT, DM, and Bell & AT&T Team.
LINUX - RMS, Linus & all others individual distro brewer team.
MIT has played big roll may be because of RMS was at MIT.
BSD - Berkeley Software Team has played very decent roll IN BSD - among with all others.
After for a while when anyone who knows nuts-n-bolts of *nix,
DE, flavor and rest of vast diversities really does not matter much.
As all performs very identical, with slight difference in licensing.
Number of Comments: 33
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