The Beautiful Nitrux Linux Distro Could Be a Contender (Linux.com)

[Jason]

Just read an article from Linux.com that I had saved in Pocket. It's from September 8, 2017 so not sure how relevant it is now but the article talks more about the philosophy in the design of Nitrux and what makes it different so that's probably still current. I would demo it sometime but it has steep CPU requirements that I don't have on my laptop and my present desktop is too heavy to move.

Would you try it based on the article? If so, why? If not, why not? Or have you already tried it? Let me know in a comment below.

[ssfc72]

I took a brief look at the article. I don't think I would bother trying it because of the high system requirements (2.4 GHz Quad Core is the current recommended specs, 3.0 GHz Hexa Core 16 GB Ram for the VMetal virtual machine add on).
Nitrux uses AppImage to install software programs so that may limit the programs that can run on Nitrux, such as the Opera browser.
In the frequently asked questions on the Nitrux website, it does mention the use of a MacOS package Manager, which will run on Linux, which sounds interesting.

It is a paid OS although the payment is apparently only 4 Euros.

[Jason]

Thanks for your input, Bill. Didn't realize about the fee; I thought it'd be like Elementary where it looks like you have to donate but can set the donation to $0 and download.

As far as Opera goes:

The good news is, if there’s a piece of software that doesn’t yet have a snap, it can be installed by way of the usual means (i.e., sudo apt install clementine). That means anyone using Nitrux won’t be severely limited to what software they have available to them. However, that does sort of defeat the purpose of using snap packages. When possible, at least with Nitrux, always install with snap packages.

It's hard for finding a really recent review of Nitrux (less than a year old) but I found a video one here from March 2019. It also notes that they've moved away from the snap format to AppImage. Balena uses this format for their Etcher app that has been talked about in the forums elsewhere. No idea why they did.

It will run on my desktop even the VM version but I haven't tried it yet. I like new things so I'll probably try out but as I said I can't demonstrate it until Mike buys me a high-powered laptop or I succeed in getting a job soon.

[fox]

Nitrux actually looks quite interesting, despite the fact that it uses the Plasma desktop.  There seems to be a lot of basic differences between the way that this one works and other Linux distros I am familiar with. I have no objection to paying 4 Euros for a distro I use, but I wouldn't want to pay for a distro just to try it out. However, there is a development version of it that is accessible from their website and it is free. I might download that and give it a try, and maybe one of you would want to do the same. Assuming it works, it might make a good PLUG presentation topic.

[Jason]

I could try the development version but even if I really liked it, I don't have a laptop that could run it so can't present it.
As far as cost goes, it doesn't look like their is a set amount, probably even a euro would do, unless you read something I didn't. It's kind of a sad day when we're not willing to pay a buck to try a distro when you think about it. We've been so spoiled with Free (as in speech) software, we forget that the goal was never free (as in beer) software. Programmers and maintainers should get something for their time. I'm not saying a donation every time you download, just with a new version and then you register so you can download the same version as many times as you like. And yes, I know that you've given to various projects, Mike, so have I, but lots don't and never will.

[fox]

I read that the cost is 4 Euros on their website. It was in their FAQ section. That doesn't mean that I couldn't have downloaded it for less, but if so, it wasn't apparent how. I would have had to go through an email-Paypal system to find out. (Provides payment method and download link.) I didn't want to do that until I know I want to use the distro. The free development version should tell me that, and just maybe I'll be able to contribute to bug identification that way.

I see what you mean by not having a laptop that could run it. I originally thought the concern was disk space, but I see now it has to do with the partitioning scheme, GUID vs MBR. At any rate, I downloaded the development version and will put it on a USB stick and try it. If I like it enough to actually use it, I will happily pay the 4 Euros and will use the stable version. I will report back here once I've played with it. I'm quite curious how it will run on a Mac, given the intriguing comment about Homebrew (package management system) working on the MacOS as well as Linux. But I'll try it on my xps as well.

[Jason]

I see what you mean by not having a laptop that could run it. I originally thought the concern was disk space, but I see now it has to do with the partitioning scheme, GUID vs MBR

The concern for me isn't the partitioning scheme, it's that my laptop processor isn't fast enough. They want, as a minimum 2.13 Ghz dual-core. Recommended is 2.4 Ghz quad-core. If you use vMetal as well, the requirements are much more RAM and a faster processor.

I think it's that everything is done in AppImages so that's why it has higher minimum requirements than most distros.
It looks like it's a tad more complicated to run it in a VM as well.
Do let us know how it goes, but definitely create a new topic to do that as many won't get updates of this topic unless they've chosen to.