 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 977, 18 July 2022 |
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Welcome to this year's 29th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The EasyOS distribution is an unusual project. With a history rooted in Puppy Linux, the EasyOS project experiments with a number of technologies, especially containers for providing clean, isolated environments. In our Feature Story, Jeff Siegel takes EasyOS for a test drive and reports on his experiences with this unusual distribution. In our Questions and Answers column we talk about migrating desktop themes from one distribution to another. Do you like to customize your desktop's look or stick with the default provided by the developers? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. In our News section we discuss recent changes and improvements coming out of the Tails project while the Zevenet developers have made it easier to renew Let's Encrypt security certificates. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. Finally, we warmly welcome a new, independent distribution called Peropesis to our database. Peropesis is a minimal, command line only distribution with a narrow focus and we're pleased to have it listed on our site. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jeff Siegel) |
EasyOS 4.2
Puppy Linux has offered a minimal and portable Linux system for almost 20 years, making it not only one of the oldest continuous Linux distros, but a legend among anyone who ever used a desktop in a hotel business center. Insert a USB with Puppy on it, answer e-mail, print a boarding pass, and never once worry about malware, spyware, or navigating Internet Explorer.
Puppy impresario Barry Kauler started development on EasyOS in 2017. The goal was to take what he had with Puppy and Puppy successor Quirky and turn it into a cutting-edge, but still minimal, Linux distro. Hence, EasyOS runs off a USB stick, takes up only 641MB and needs just 2GB of memory (though 8GB is recommended). The Linux kernel (currently, the 5.15 series) loads into RAM at the first boot. Then it can save itself to the USB at the end of the session. In addition, EasyOS uses some of Linux's most modern technology, including containers, and its EasyShare app makes finding network printers and shares almost impossibly simple.
In this, EasyOS is fast, efficient, effective, and impressive. And, if the desktop is a bit unsightly - "retro," says Kauler - it doesn't get in the way of the work. (Yes, we're talking about you, GNOME.)
Still, know that EasyOS - to be polite - has its idiosyncrasies. I downloaded EasyOS Dunfell 4.1 for this review in the middle of June; two weeks later, the OS had been updated at least three times, and the update mechanism was broken in the process. In addition, the download comes as an IMG file and not an ISO, and Kauler is adamant about that difference. Finally, EasyOS is a work in progress, and not everything always happens as it is supposed to happen. As such, it's not for everyone, as well-intentioned as it is.
But if you're willing to work with all of that, EasyOS can be much fun.
EasyOS 4.2 -- The default desktop interface
(full image size: 1.4MB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Taking it for a spin
How much fun? I loaded the IMG file on a Cruzer 64GB USB drive and used it on three computers - a Dell Inspiron touchscreen laptop running MX Linux that originally came with Windows 8.1; my Asus Ultrabook laptop with Xubuntu that I use for these reviews; and a Dell Optiplex desktop running Windows 10 Home that Microsoft won't let me upgrade to Windows 11. EasyOS was amazingly nimble on each.
The touchscreen worked on the Inspiron and it was as quick as the Asus, which has a faster processor. The biggest surprise was the duo core Optiplex, which only has 4GB of memory and sometimes struggles with Windows 10. But it took to EasyOS as if it was made for it. Best yet, the save function carried over for all three computers - so the work I did first on the Inspiron was there when I used EasyOS on the Windows box last.
As noted, not all was perfect. Installing EasyOS to the Inspiron's hard drive wasn't difficult, but performance was sometimes choppy. And, honestly, I don't see any reason to install EasyOS to a hard drive, as long as the USB is big enough to handle storage. Meanwhile, EasyOS's JWM/Rox window manager/file manager combination, as quick and light as it is, does take some getting used to. Adding new software can be laborious, and some of it wouldn't run after installation. GIMP and AbiWord wouldn't start, and showed errors when I ran them again in a terminal. This seems to be a known problem, and is mentioned in forum posts.
All the shiny baubles
Perhaps the most impressive thing about EasyOS is how simple it is to get it to run. It takes more effort to correctly hit F2 or F12 or whatever to get into the BIOS to select the correct boot option than to start the distro. Once you select the USB in the boot option (with UEFI, if necessary), EasyOS does the rest. It asks you to choose a keyboard and to make a password and 45 seconds or so later the blue EasyOS desktop appears, chock-a-block with icons and a Quick Setup Screen. That's followed by a sound card wizard, and yes, one of the test sounds is a puppy barking.
EasyOS 4.2 -- The Quick Setup utility
(full image size: 484kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The quick setup handles time zone, screen resolution, mouse troubleshooting, network settings, and language. The screen resolution setting works surprisingly well given how few system resources are available. It's basically the same system Fedora and Ubuntu use, though not as smooth looking.
Which is where EasyOS could suffer with some people -- elementary OS and its bespoke desktop it's not. Those of us who started with Puppy probably won't mind, but I can see newer Linux users looking at the rudimentary icons and watching JWM resize windows with flashing X and Y coordinates, and then wondering what they've gotten themselves into.
Plus, there are also almost too many pieces of software. How about three terminal emulators, three screenshot tools, and three scientific calculators? Some applications are decidedly retro, including Seamonkey for e-mail, Guvcview for the webcam (as balky about working as always), Gpicview for images, the mhWaveEdit sound recorder and editor, and the Osmo calendar.
Not to worry, though. Firefox and LibreOffice are the default web browser and office suite. Somehow, neither shows any signs of bloat. Both load quickly into RAM and are more than responsive; neither is this nimble on my Windows 10 computer, where Firefox can take a minute or more to load. Also included are the Audacious music player, the much underrated Homebank for personal finances, the MPV video player, and a Dropbox GUI. The EasyApps screen lets you pick which app among so many to use for which job.
EasyOS 4.2 -- The EasyApps utility
(full image size: 527kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The EasyShare printer and network app is nothing short of amazing. One reason why I use Nextcloud to connect the computers in my house is that I have always had trouble getting networking to work between my Linux desktop, laptop, and a couple of Windows computers. EasyShare almost makes Nextcloud unnecessary. Tell it what you're looking for, and it finds it.
EasyOS 4.2 -- Sharing files and printers over the network
(full image size: 980kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Since EasyOS runs in memory, the computer's hard drive is available for sharing files. Write a note about how the distro works using LibreOffice, and then use Rox to send it to the hard drive, where you can cut and paste it into the existing review.
EasyOS 4.2 -- Saving files to the hard drive
(full image size: 407kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Looking for containers
Adding software can be done with the PKGget package manage and SFSget. The former is traditional - pick repositories, search for the app, and download it. The latter is cutting edge and takes into account containers and compressed folders. The idea, apparently, is to sandbox apps or groups of apps. That way, all of the web and e-mail apps can have their own container, or so can LibreOffice's Writer. Kauler notes this isn't as much about security as it is testing containers. Also impressive: there are apps to check for missing dependencies and to "trim the fat" - remove unneeded dependencies.
In fact, Kauler's fascination with containers seems to be the distro's reason for being. The setup is simple enough, including a GUI, called EasyContainers, to build them. Any app or series of apps can be run in a container, including an instance of EasyOS, while a containerized version of Firefox is included. Having said that, it does seem that the container portion of the distro is more than most of us need, as intriguing as it is.
EasyOS 4.2 -- Setting up a container
(full image size: 499kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The other thing that sets EasyOS apart? Its documentation - pages and pages and pages of it, complete with links to even more pages. It's all apparently written by Kauler in a "We're all here to figure this out, so let's go one step at a time" style. What's not to like about someone who writes: "...a cheap flash-stick from the bargain-bin at the local supermarket may not be a good choice to run Linux!"
EasyOS 4.2 -- Exploring the EasyOS documentation
(full image size: 184kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The documentation is quite welcome, and especially for a distro as different as EasyOS. The help pages aren't too full of jargon or technical lingo, so when Kauler explains how to install EasyOS to a hard drive or how EasyShare works, it all makes sense.
But why not? Something called EasyOS should be easy.
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Hardware used for this review
My physical test equipment to install EasyOS for this review was a Dell Inspiron 11 3147 laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Intel Pentium N3530, 2.16GHz
- Storage: 465GB HDD
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Networking: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 802.11 b/g/n/ Wi-Fi+Bluetooth
- Display: Intel HD Graphics
When he is not testing out new versions of Linux distributions, Jeff Siegel can be found writing about all things related to wine at Wine Curmudgeon.
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Visitor supplied rating
EasyOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.8/10 from 35 review(s).
Have you used EasyOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Tails publishes list of recent changes, Zevenet facilitates renewal of Let's Encrypt certificates
The Tails team have published their monthly newsletter which outlines changes and work being done to improve the Tails distribution. One of the highlights is an improved interface for the Tor Connection application. "Here are a few highlights about what we did in May, among many other things: Our helpdesk email now has auto-reply. Improved the UX of Tor Connection: people that were 'exploring' the interface going back and forth used to find the wrong boxes to be automatically checked. We participated in Tor hackweek. It was very fun and very useful! We implemented QR code scanning. This seems to work, but it still isn't ready for inclusion. We added support for Snowflake. Again, this is a PoC: it's nice to see it working, but don't expect it to be released so soon. Tails 5.1 was released on June 4. It fixed an important security vulnerability, but it also brought many improvements...." The June report from the Tails team has more details.
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Zevenet is a load balancer and application delivery system based on Debian. The Zevenet platform provides HTTP and HTTPS connections for web applications as well as load balancing services for TCP and UDP traffic. The project published a minor update this past week which was announced in a brief post on the project's support forum. The key change in the new update was support for Let's Encrypt certificates: "We have fixed some issues and added a new feature. Now you can configure autorenewal for Let's Encrypt certificates via [the] web GUI."
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Transferring a desktop theme to another distribution
Taking-my-desktop-with-me asks: The version of Xfce which comes with Zorin is beautiful and looks familiar to my family. These days I'm mostly running Mint though. Is there any way I can get the Zorin desktop on Mint?
DistroWatch answers: The visual style of a desktop environment is mostly governed by a collection of settings and instructions called a theme. A desktop theme will change the colour and style of elements displayed on the desktop.
Sometimes it can be tricky to track down where a distribution stores its theme information. The Zorin OS project makes this relatively straight forward though and has a specific GitHub repository set up which holds its themes.
Once you download a theme you can visit your desktop's control centre or appearance settings module. On Xfce this utility is appropriately called Appearance. In the Appearance application, click the Style tab and then click the Add button. This allow you to browse for and import your new theme.
The Xfce 4.16 Appearance settings module
(full image size: 32kB, resolution: 400x583 pixels)
Additional information on themes, the locations of files used in a theme, and how to find more themes for your desktop can be found in the documentation for most major desktops. The Xfce wiki and KDE documentation share technical details on how their themes are implemented.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Network Security Toolkit 36-13232
Network Security Toolkit (NST) is a bootable live disc based on the Fedora distribution. The distribution's latest release updates networking tools, places OpenVAS in a podman container, and retires the WUI sidebar navigation menu. "Access to the Open Vulnerability Assessment Scanner (OpenVAS) and Greenbone Vulnerability Management (Greenbone GVM) has been refactored to run as a podman container providing the full-featured vulnerability scanner. See the graphic below: NST WUI page for the OpenVAS / GVM scanner. Added a Round Trip Time (RTT) column to the NST WUI ARP Scan application. In addition, most options are now supported and better documentation has been provided. An article on NST WUI ARP Scan usage can be found here. Now supporting underscore scoped DNS Node Leaf Attribute Names in the NST WUI dig application (e.g., _spf.google.com). Added a NIC selection control to the embedded IPv4, IPv6 and Host Name widget. The legacy NST WUI sidebar navigation menu has been retired." The full list of changes can be found in the release announcement.
T2 SDK 22.6
René Rebe has announced the release of a new version of T2 SDE, an open-source system development environment that allows the creation of custom Linux distributions. It is available for 24 processor architectures, with integrated support for cross compilation. The news post on the project's front page reads: "Today T2 SDE Linux 22.6 was released. A major milestone update to ship full support for 24 CPU architectures, variants, and C libraries. Of course all the architectures, including: alpha, arc, arm, arm64, avr32, hppa, ia64, m68k, mipsel, mips64, nios2, ppc, ppc64-32, ppc64le, riscv, riscv64, s390x, sparc64, superh x86, x86-64 and x32 can be rolling release updated through the rolling release scripted build system from source. Can be rolling release updated through the scripted build system. The 22.6 release received updates across the board, with latest stable Linux kernel 5.17.15, GCC12, LLVM/Clang 14 and the latest of KDE, GNOME and much more. There were 5014 change-sets with 6334 lines of commit messages. Approximately 4947 packages got updates, 331 issues fixed, 4947 packages or features added and 148 removed. Around 49 improvements have been committed."
Rocky Linux 9.0
The Rocky Linux team have announced a new release of their Red Hat Enterprise Linux clone, Rocky Linux 9.0. The new release offers GNOME 40, the ability to run different applications on different video cards, and filesystem improvements to reduce latency. "Rocky Linux 9 ships with GNOME 40 as the default desktop environment. Redesigned core apps, settings, and UI make it easier than ever to use Rocky Linux as a desktop operating system. The Activities look and feel provides a better experience when working, launching applications and arranging your personal workspace. Other notable improvements for desktop usage include: Software can be run on a separate graphics card by right-clicking and selecting the appropriate option; the ability to mute notifications by selecting Do not disturb, which will appear as a separate button in the notification; each screen can use a different refresh rate; the Activities program allows you to group application icons into folders using a drag-and-drop method; fractional display scaling." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.
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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: 2,744
- Total data uploaded: 42.3TB
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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) |
Customizing desktop themes
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about transferring the visual theme of one distribution to another. Some people leave their desktop theme as its default, others like to adjust themes - tweaking colours, button positions, and icon sets. Do you like to customize your desktop or leave it as your distribution's developers intended?
You can see the results of our previous poll on using the Nix package manager in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you customize your desktop theme?
| Yes - I change a lot: | 663 (36%) |
| Yes - I usually change a little: | 639 (35%) |
| No - I leave the defaults alone: | 221 (12%) |
| Maybe - It depends how good the defaults are: | 324 (18%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to database
Peropesis
Peropesis (personal operating system) is a small-scale, minimalist, command-line-based Linux operating system. It's an incomplete system, but it's constantly being improved. Also, it is a free operating system created from free software, mostly distributed under the GNU GPL or BSD licenses.
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New distributions added to waiting list
- AmOs. AmOs is an Arch Linux based distribution which features the Xfce desktop, the Calamares system installer, and several desktop themes. The distribution also offers support for third-party NVIDIA and AMD video drivers at install time.
- AgarimOS. AgarimOS is a Void-based Linux distribution which includes tools to connect to mobile cell networks.
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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, 25 July 2022. 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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| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Themes (by Friar Tux on 2022-07-18 02:20:00 GMT from Canada)
I voted "i change a lot". My usual rant is my hatred for that horrible dark grey (#xyxyxy). And I cannot use the bright white background due to eye issues. I've tried many a theme, but nothing seemed to fit. UNTIL I started redoing the theme's CSS files internally. I now have the perfect theme and I can take it to any Cinnamon desktop distro I want simply by putting it in the appropriate system folder.
What do I like about a theme? First, it has to have as dark a background as possible. Black is nice. As is dark teal (#001111 - #003333). The font is bright teal (#00ffff). Secondly, I prefer borders around the various elements - buttons, boxes, windows... usually in #00cccc. I DO have other coloured themes, but this one is what I always come back to.
Now having said that, if you don't mind dark grey, check out the work by "nestort" on pling (dot) com, or "Aravisian" on GitHub. Both are rather well done. (Note:- these are all GTK3 and GTK4.) You should be able to save the theme folder of choice to and external drive, copy it to the new distro of choice, and it should work. (Copy to usr/share/themes in Mint/Cinnamon.)
2 • EasyOS and Theme-changing (by Andy Prough on 2022-07-18 02:26:39 GMT from United States)
What a great review of EasyOS by Jeff! I'm going to try it out right away. I had a ton of fun with TinyCore last year, EasyOS sounds incredible. One thing I love about the Puppies is how they can do such amazing things without systemd, and it looks to me like EasyOS is no different.
As far as changing themes - I make light changes when I use XFCE or Lumina, but normally I'm using DWM and I don't do any theming or ricing with DWM. My reason for using DWM is to be as minimal as possible and get out of the way. I've tried ricing it in the past, but these days I just go with the default look.
3 • Customized desktop theme (by Cor on 2022-07-18 03:35:10 GMT from United States)
I use KDE Plasma for the very reason I can customize just about everything.
4 • Desktop Themes (by penguinx86 on 2022-07-18 04:26:42 GMT from United States)
I customize the desktop first thing after installing any Linux distro. I like to start with Xfce, change the default background, switch to Clearlooks Theme and Tango Icon Theme. I increase the Panel width to 32. Then I add my own custom Start Menu Icon. To me, this is what I consider a 'normal' default desktop should look like.
5 • Review of EasyOS. Tweaking the op-system interface. (by Greg Zeng on 2022-07-18 06:09:18 GMT from Australia)
Very interesting review of this Australian oddity, based on the Puppy Linux systems. The review was extremely unusual, in being compared with common operating systems, such as Windows 10, and other Linux systems.
As usual with most operating systems, I expect that it will not run most of my business utilities. Slimjet web browser, Gkrellm, gdmap, qbittorrent, FreeFileSync, and very powerful file managers, such as Dolphin? So only mainstream Linux systems do this, such as the Ubuntu-based systems.
6 • @5 - EasyOS (by nobody-home on 2022-07-18 06:27:21 GMT from Australia)
No-one is forcing you to use EasyOS... not quite sure why you think it's an oddity.
I think Barry has showcased previously with Puppy Linux that Linux distros can be left-of-centre and still be useful. His distros may not work for you but they serve a purpose.
I've used Puppy on older hardware to test them out and also to extract things from the hard-drives. In fact I had an old desktop that I'd put away a few years ago in the garage and while doing a clean-out a few months back I fired it up without knowing what was on it.. Didn't realise it had a Puppy Linux CD in the drive and was very happy to see it come up and still working perfectly!
I haven't tried EasyOS yet but may download it and give it a spin to see what Bazza's been up to of late!
7 • Themes (by shep on 2022-07-18 06:31:00 GMT from United States)
I run a highly scripted desktop based on Openbox (rc.xml), Tint2 (tint2rc) and jgmenu (jgmenurc) . Many of my apps, like mutt and ncmpc also have configuration (muttrc/ncmpc) files. I use yad for custom applications. one of which pulls aviation weather (TAF/METARS) from my local airport and runs animated gifs of regional weather radar.
The downside is that it is a major task to setup initially. The upside is that it is extremely portable. I've run it on everything from OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Debian, Arch, Slackware and Crux - my workflow has remained consistent for the last 10 years.
8 • Customized Desktop (by Dan on 2022-07-18 08:25:08 GMT from United States)
The only thing I change is the background. Everything else, I leave alone. Never have to mess with config files and do lots of other work. Keep it simple.
9 • Theming (by Guido on 2022-07-18 08:29:27 GMT from Philippines)
I have three PCs with the same distribution and not only made three different desktops but also all three completely different designs. Even though it's the same Linux, they look really different. In general, I don't keep the intended theme. Even simple window managers can still be customized. However, this is very difficult with the current Gnome, there is only one default theme.
10 • Desktop themes (by David on 2022-07-18 09:41:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
I hate the currently fashionable themes and always install Clearlooks-phenix: a modern descendant of the classic Red Hat Bluecurve. It's cheerful and legible, unlike so much current stuff.
11 • Transferring a desktop theme to another distribution (by Leon on 2022-07-18 09:54:16 GMT from France)
"Taking-my-desktop-with-me asks: The version of Xfce which comes with Zorin is beautiful and looks familiar to my family."
When I read this question, I got feeling that it wasn't about the simple theme-change, but about the appearance-change.
Zorin 16.1 Xfce doesn't look familiar (== Windows-like) because of its terrible theme; too bright and with very bad contrast -- but it does look familiar because of the 'zorinmenulite' menu.
https://ibb.co/9qS6mBZ
https://ibb.co/VC6bRqh
https://ibb.co/mqSbz2R
Adding a PPA, one could install it on Mint, but that's not really worth the hassle, as there is basically no difference between using Mint or Zorin -- they are both the same Ubuntu, and both come with the same broken Xfce.
12 • customizing themes (by always-courious-about-foss on 2022-07-18 10:06:52 GMT from Germany)
In XFCE 4.16 there is a choise between a light and a dark theme. If you are starting the actually firefox after installing there is also a choise between a light and a dark theme.
So why Linux Mint don't give the choise between a light and a dark theme when installing it ??
P.S i am a dedicated in customizing my desktop including conky and creating .desktop files and looking for the right icons for them. And the Panel and the Menu and and and......
13 • Themes (by harbl on 2022-07-18 10:36:43 GMT from Philippines)
Voted "Yes - I change a lot".
Interesting topic this week. I had to sit for a while to look back to how I got to where I'm at right now. One of the reasons I prefer the Cinnamon DE is because I wanted the least amount of tinkering with the defaults to get the thing where I want it. Unfortunately, I still ended up having to change a lot.
Theming wise, I'd say things have gotten better. I used to change the default window button theme if it used the same icon for maximized and unmaximized windows, but not too long ago, the mint-y theme got an update that addressed the issue I mentioned above. I also used to modify a text file somewhere just to change the default scrollbar size, but Cinnamon also implemented a slider for that at some point.
Besides those, I have to configure the system clock so that it displays the date in yyyy/mm/dd, plus I add a newline between the time and date so that it doesn't occupy too much horizontal space. On Cinnamon, I also have to add some extensions to organize/hide the less frequently used icons on the system tray because I don't think it has that functionality natively yet.
That's a lot of things said, but I still think it's the least amount of tinkering out of all the DE options I've tried. Xfce and Mate don't always default to the layout that I'm used to. Budgie and DDE can look stunning out of the box, but I'd have to acquaint myself to the layout. KDE is too worrying on a rolling-release because so many things can potentially break with every new update. Gnome is not my cup of tea, while also having the same issue that I have with KDE on rolling-releases.
14 • Internet Explorer (by Some Random User on 2022-07-18 11:08:35 GMT from United States)
Expect for websites that require Internet Explorer because they use ActiveX. For Ex my DVR/PVR.
15 • EasyOS (by Morton.F on 2022-07-18 11:35:52 GMT from Poland)
I'm using EasyOS USB since version 3.4 on different old and new notebooks and desktops. Really a Swiss Army Knife live OS in various situations. There are small rough edges understandable while the OS is dynamically changes from version to version. Unlike in review I hadn't problem with GIMP in previous version.
16 • Desktop themes (by Deutschchen on 2022-07-18 12:04:51 GMT from United States)
I’ve been using Linux exclusively at home since ‘04 and I almost always change themes somewhat. My favorite desktop for the past year, though, is EndeavorOS’s i3. I’ve seen no need to change anything about it. The look, feel, and function of it is just what I want.
17 • Theming (by Otis on 2022-07-18 12:45:23 GMT from United States)
This poll question is right at the center of something that I've noticed about not just Linux distros but computing in general: One can make any OS look like anything they want it to look like, no matter the window manager or theme choices or whatever. No matter KDE, Gnome, XFCE, Budgie, etc and on. I know because I have a default of my own that I work on first thing after installing a distro, and often before installing and just running the live DVD.
The work to do the tweaks is different from one WM and of course from one OS to another. In Gnome I have to head to the Gnome Extensions page and retrieve and install six or seven of those just to begin Then there's the choices in the native theming areas. In KDE it's about widgets and getting rid of a lot of junk in the taskbar etc.
The notion of migrating a theme from one distro to another seems like another alternative, but I've gotten to know the various environments so well now that doing so is not needed (and seems like a lot less fun).
18 • Theme (by Orazio on 2022-07-18 15:15:26 GMT from Italy)
I am convinced that Linux distributions should always adopt 'vanilla' desktops. I usually do not change anything.
19 • Sense of humor? (by Brad on 2022-07-18 15:50:02 GMT from United States)
I like the Rocky Linux declaration on their webiste:
"Rocky Linux is a community enterprise operating system designed to be 100% *bug-for-bug* compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux."
Sense of humor?
20 • @19 • Sense of humor? No. (by Brad) (by Leon on 2022-07-18 16:12:40 GMT from France)
No. THE main FEATURE OF a CLONE.
21 • Using desktop themes for learning and health (by K.U. on 2022-07-18 16:28:36 GMT from Finland)
The most useful thing to change in the desktop theme is the background image. One may, for example, use backround images to show useful information or something one wants to learn. Currently, I have a background image which contains mathematical equations.
Other reasons why one could want to change one's theme are the physiological and health effects in the human body. I tend to favor themes themes which give me peaceful emotions to avoid the harmful effects which high blood pressure and stress hormones might cause to health and wellbeing.
In addition, colors may have an impact in human melatonin production. (Melatonin is known as sleep hormone but it also an antioxdant.)
22 • themes (by Jay on 2022-07-18 16:40:44 GMT from Ireland)
I'm happiest under a minimal tiling environment and I've a well-trimmed no-gap i3 (which is in the Goldilocks zone for me), but I'll tolerate *box and LX* DEs because they don't get in my way.
This setup is a Manjaro-based OpenBox, but I'll make sure it runs a proper tiler once I've fully settled in. This OB distro offers a number of themes, some of which display a lot of custom tools and ricing, but workflow matters more to me than anything else.
I'm in the process of tweaking things rather than themes; I'm not a ricer by nature, but I'll be altering this one to cut back on some of the visual noise (I like zero icons, one bar) and adapt my personal Conky to it.
Once those are dealt with, I'll adapt the font sizes and background on my chosen theme, and then this thing's ready to add in the WMs and tools I need.
It's not a lot of effort, but it's it's a low bar by design. Most of my effort goes towards environmental personalization (tiler, zsh, etc) because that's where the most value is for me.
23 • @1 (by MrSparkleWonder on 2022-07-18 18:02:20 GMT from Mexico)
Themes. We don't care how you theme your desktop. If you want upvotes for your audacious theme, go to /r/unixporn and try to impress the sheep.
24 • Desktop themes - PRO-dark-XFCE-4.14 (by Jan on 2022-07-18 18:26:12 GMT from Poland)
Last week I had to reorder things on my laptop's disks, so I decided to give MX-21 KDE a try. Compared to my previous MX xfce version, it definitely looked more modern, but no so snappy as advertised (meaning quick, not snapless). And after 3 days it proved too vulnerable to mal- and mistreatment from my eager fingers, incessantly installing and removing new versions of unnecessary bloat and installing and compiling the latest and greatest kernels and applications. Well, you just can't fool with another man's distro.
So back to XFCE, my friends, but its looks seemed to be too much out of fashion, misaligned colors and ureadable toolbars, any of the preinstalled themes looking like we were in the 1970-ties.
I had no choice but to open xfce-look.org and there it was -
PRO-dark-XFCE-4.14 theme created by PAULXFCE in 2017,
works perfectly with the latest xfce (currently in MX-21 ahs), you can download it from
https://www.xfce-look.org/s/XFCE/p/1207818/
it really looks modern, all details match, the fonts are mostly black and white (choose Arial as your main font) - you can really read them. I do urge you to try this theme if you are an xfce fan, you would not be disappointed.
Dont't worry, be happy guys and gals!
25 • desktop themes (by Rincewind III on 2022-07-18 22:37:54 GMT from New Zealand)
Plasma defaults work for me,
I just change the cursor from "Breeze" to "wonderland" and change the desktop layout from "folder view" to "desktop".
no eye fatigue after 8 hours use. (brightness @ 100%)
26 • themes (by dave on 2022-07-18 22:43:59 GMT from United States)
I used to do pretty heavy desktop customization. That's what attracted me to linux in the first place. But for the last several years, I've just been lightly customizing whatever dark theme xfce provides. Right now I'm just using a slightly tweaked 'greybird-dark-mx' from mx linux.. I hardly ever mess with themes anymore.
27 • Package management (by mikef90000 on 2022-07-18 23:59:39 GMT from United States)
I wish that a little time had been spent showing the ease of package management (or lack thereof) for EasyOS. I never considered Puppy Linux seriously due to its chaotic documentation especially PM, and the trend continues.
28 • Fond Memories EasyOS - Puppy Linux (by Mulya_Yiri on 2022-07-19 00:07:32 GMT from Australia)
I have a very sentimental attachment to this OS. About 10 years ago I worked at a place that used a Linux server to run Windows 10 virtual machines to lock down the computers so staff couldn't spend time doing stuff they shouldn't. I had my own office and genuinely needed to have access to the web and my personal email. Puppy Linux saved my butt. It worked just so well from the Live USB. I got access to all I needed through this absolutely wonderful little distro. Thank you Bazza....
29 • I Use Gnome Desktop So... (by MattE on 2022-07-19 02:07:30 GMT from United States)
I'm trapped in a warm fuzzy blanket with no distractions.
30 • @,23, Themes (by Dr. Hu on 2022-07-19 06:08:58 GMT from Philippines)
"We don't care how you theme your desktop." Where does the 'We" come from. Either you are royalty, have a split personality, or just took ownership of the website. Otherwise, speak for yourself.
31 • @30 (by Dr. Hu) (by Leon on 2022-07-19 09:07:33 GMT from France)
Honestly, I have a feeling that some chat-bots are tested here sometimes.
In such case, "We bots don't care how you people theme..." makes sense.
But, it could also be only due to someones poor English-speaking abilities.
Some statements come completely out of the blue, like @14 for example.
Yes, it is related to IT, but in every other way, it is totally misplaced here.
32 • Desktop Themes (by Dr.J on 2022-07-19 12:46:44 GMT from Germany)
in general, I don't like it when computing means: dealing with themes, wallpapers, fonts, panels etc. A waste of time. On the other hand, distributions (and thus themes) are nothing more than some people's ideas of what Linux should look like, which in my eyes is firstly my job and secondly not a good idea anyway (because far too many people do that: Apple, Google, Microsoft etc.).
That's why I use Archlinux. Here, only a basic system is delivered without any Desktop Environment, which also contains such superfluous things as systemd, display manager, etc. So down with it. Runit installed, Openbox. That's it. Openbox on the other hand "invites" you to install a few additional things, such as Conky or nitrogen (for a really black background) or a panel, idesk for a few quick starts via icon. Then I like a dropdown terminal (guake) and that's it. Is that "changing a lot"? That's what I voted.
33 • Customizing themes (by Will on 2022-07-19 15:34:56 GMT from United States)
I don't usually change much. If I want a different theme, I usually go get a different theme. Having seen hundreds of custom themes gone awry, I think the theme designers usually have a better handle on colors and shades that work well together (or at least they have more time to figure it out than I do). I wish bright white weren't such a thing, though!
34 • themes (by Tad Strange on 2022-07-19 16:00:43 GMT from Canada)
I only really change wallpaper, or play with the light vs dark stuff. Otherwise it's mostly just quality of life system settings for me. It's the mark of a mature desktop environment when the developers can find a visual style that most people could live with, and make it simple to change for those who can not.
One issue I have is with the Mate desktop. There is a Mate Tweak tool and one distribution has a style called "Redmond", which I like for the main menu layout. I've tried to locate information on how to pack this up and install on another system that does not have this style, but I've never found a method that works.
Though I always end up in KDE anyway, which is not terribly difficult to change the things that I want to change
35 • Upvotes??? (by Friar Tux on 2022-07-19 16:08:01 GMT from Canada)
@23 (MrSparkleWonder) You've got my curious... what is are upvotes? (I'm assuming it's plural with that "s" at the end.) I think, maybe some sort of e-money? At my age (70) it's hard to keep up with all the new stuff, online. Anyway, I was just giving a small example for my choice of vote. A very small example. If I had done a full "report" it would have been quite lengthy as I change EVERYTHING. (I DO use the blue version of the default icon theme as I like it best - even better than any found online)
@32 (Dr.J) I tend to change everything as once it's changed and saved, you never have to touch it again and your distro will be to your liking. Since I will be on my computer almost daily, I want to decorate it more to my liking - similarly to when I bought my house. If I'm going to living in my house over an extended period of time I would prefer the colours, curtains, floors, and furniture to be the colours and patterns I like best.
Having said all that, The Wife, bless her heart, will install a distro and use it "as is" right out of box.
36 • individuality in desktops (by Trihexagonal on 2022-07-19 16:46:47 GMT from United States)
I use Fluxbox on all my machines and make all my own wallpapers on Gimp but I prefer a dark background with white text in the terminal. I tweak fonts across apps and the terminal emulator to match as much as possible and have many different skins for gkrellm and audacious for color balance.
The one I'm using now is a reworked negative image from the album cover of The Magicians Birthday by Uriah Heep. Poppy and Grimes are a never ending source if inspiration for me and I have screenshots almost everywhere.
I wrote earlier today to ask permission if I could submit wallpapers for consideration of inclusion in future releases of Kali Linux with some samples of my work. Someone in another forum forum said I could get a job in Hollywood making hacker desktops for movies.
Call me... Better yet, have Poppy call me...
37 • EasyOS (by goodeasy on 2022-07-20 04:36:51 GMT from Australia)
I used, liked and installed to a hard drive EasyOS 3.2.1 but I found the constant changes, even in interface, to be a bit much for me (at least one of the updates was also broken) and don't use it any more either on USB or hard drive.
I appreciate what Bazza's doing with it and that it is experimental - but would be nice if there was a more stable version.
@34 I think that Tweak tool is a great selling point for Ubuntu MATE, my favourite distro, and one that, funnily enough I don't tweak at all - I stick with the default layout and only ever change the wallpaper and the clock settings (to show date, seconds and 12-hour time).
38 • Customizing themes (by Matheus B on 2022-07-20 20:23:12 GMT from Brazil)
Yes, a lot. Aways XFCE and like Windows 95.
Is it wrong to use "proprietary" look on my (only) machine? I think it is not.
https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95
39 • Themes (by Gary W on 2022-07-21 01:01:16 GMT from Australia)
I always mess around with the themes on a new install... I hate, hate white window backgrounds and I'm not exactly fond of black, dark grey or light grey either. Like 99% of existing themes. Just about everyone has colour devices, no? The one I liked the most was called "Camo-something" but it never made the transition from GTK2 to GTK3...
40 • Camo-theme (by Friar Tux on 2022-07-21 04:06:04 GMT from Canada)
@39 (Gary W) Gary, the quickest and easiest way is to go to pling(dot)com, pick up NESTORT's theme called "E17 revolved". Once downloaded navigate to the "gtk.css" file in the GTK-3.0 folder and simply change the colour values to the first 150 entries. (It took my 10 minutes, though I already knew what colours I wanted.) I've made four different-coloured themes with no bright white, black, or any shade of grey, and they all came out beautiful.
41 • Transferring a desktop theme to another distribution (by Could-not-take-my-desktop-with on 2022-07-21 13:37:17 GMT from Brazil)
Could-not-take-my-desktop-with-me asks: I'm currently using MX19.4 Xfce, and its Appearance application unfortunately doesn't show an “ADD” button, so I tried to install a new desktop theme by dumping it into the directory /usr/share/themes, and also ~/.themes. But it didn't work... What stupid thing am I doing? And why MX Linux didn't include an “ADD” button in the Appearance application?
42 • themes (by Дмітро on 2022-07-21 14:16:59 GMT from Moldova)
I usually don't change themes at all, cause I prefer to use distros with good themes in the first place.
So i always use Manjaro, Ubuntu & Mint.
And they all have good themes, so I switch to dark theme, if distro is using a light theme by default.
IMHO Manjaro Dark is ideal theme.
43 • Themes on MX Linux (by Jesse on 2022-07-21 14:30:40 GMT from Canada)
@41: " I'm currently using MX19.4 Xfce, and its Appearance application unfortunately doesn't show an “ADD” button"
The screenshot I included in the Q&A article was taken from MX Linux (version 21). It may just be that your version of Xfce is older and therefore doesn't have the Add button.
44 • @41 (by Could-not-take-my-desktop-with) (by Leon on 2022-07-22 12:31:43 GMT from France)
Y'know, if you'd at least be able to ask your question properly, I bet you'd have an answer in a couple of hours, but so ...
How about telling us the exact name (with a web link) of the theme you are trying to install, as well as are you really using MX-19.4 Xfce, or eventually KDE?
And if you don't know the name of the theme, nor where it comes from, you could still, at least make a couple of screenshots and even upload what you have to https://gofile.io.
None of us here car read your minds ...
45 • themes and stuff (by Studebaker on 2022-07-22 14:48:54 GMT from United States)
@44 who said, "None of us here car read your minds ... "
I thought I was the only mind-reading car around here, with plural minds as well. Good to see others trying. And I'm not even from France.
46 • Themes on MX Linux (by Could-not-take-my-desktop-with on 2022-07-22 23:55:19 GMT from United States)
@43 (Jesse Smith)
Yes, that's it. I will upgrade to MX 21.1. But not before finding a way to install new desktop themes in MX 18.3 and 19.4.
----------------------
@44 (Leon)
Well, Leon, let me try to explain the situation in more detail:
In the present edition of DistroWatch Weekly (look at the following link), Jesse Smith showed how to install a desktop theme in Xfce using the ADD button of the Appearance application. I understood it perfectly.
https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20220718#qa
The problem is... THERE IS NO “ADD” BUTTON IN THE APPEARANCE APPLICATION OF MX 19.4 and I don't know how to install a theme without using that freaking button...
Excuse my ignorance (I'm a stupid newbie), and the lack of clarity in my previous post. I hope I had been clearer this time. By the way, it doesn't matter the specific theme I want to install (which name is “Neutronium”), since I don't know HOW TO DO IT.
Number of Comments: 46
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