Debian: Sidux Forever

Published on June 13, 2008 in Linux and OpenSource and Views and Reviews. 491 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Introduction:

Before starting this post, let me give you a flashback of my current situation so that the lazier among my readers here can get a gist of the story without any clicks. Ubuntu Linux was my first Distro, but its most recent version was just too hot for my computer to handle. It was a disaster on my PC. Then I tried out Debian Lenny. It would have been good before, but now was the time its development period was about to end. And it was a bit too vague in many respects. So I had to say goodbye to it too.

You have seen two stages of my review of Debian Sidux GNU/Linux, about my installation of Sidux and my experiences with its first update. After a round of updates and installing software, and also customising, I can now consider Sidux to be almost family to me. Let me enter my third (and hopefully last) stage of my sidux review – the experience of Sidux now that everything has settled down(sort of).

Sidux – impressions and updating experience

Sidux is one of the best operating systems ever designed. It has features to automate nearly anything, and can be customised to an infinitely large extent. Everything a user might want is provided Out of Box. This includes compiling/building tools, media players, codecs, file/web browsers, editors, themes, administrative tools, etc. The debian multimedia repositories, the debian main, contrib and non-free repositories and the Google repositories collectively ensure that every software I want is provided to me. Sidux has built in features so that its code base, Debian “Sid” (Unstable), is no longer unstabilised due to faulty updates. Any suspected unstable updates are automatically held back. Its website is a must bookmark, as it provides valuable news about any update, vulnerability and security related issue. Its fun trying to administrate a sidux system, because to do it one needs to be at par with the general news about it during any day. Its like a continuous source of knowledge and information.

Package Management

Sidux is a rolling release distribution, i.e, one will never need to do a reinstall to get the latest operating system version ever again. The system is automatically brought up to date with the latest software and modifications thanks to the apt-get upgrade and apt-get dist-upgrade commands. As I said before, apt-get is the best package manager ever designed, and thanks to it, one can be as lazy as he/she wishes, with no dependency sorting or package finding issues, as everything is taken care of by the default repositories and the default package manager.

Commandline

Commandline is a breeze to work with in Sidux. Its actually fun, and installing software in run level 3 via root login at console is just awesome, and super fast. I actually log off and login again in commandline mode only to enjoy the fun looking black screen with white text on it, hoping that atleast something is available to do.

Desktop Environment: KDE

It has KDE, a complete desktop environment, and FluxBox, a window manager, bundled with it by default. KDE is a complete suite here, with an app to do anything you want. It is the most advanced desktop environment ever. Its menu is detailed and organised. It has lots of widgets that can be put on its taskbar, named kicker. Its media player is called Kaffeine, and its the world’s most feature rich and most format supporting media player. KDE’s KOffice is an excellent light weight office suite, and OpenOffice.org, the more familiar but heavier office suite is also bundled. KOffice needs to be installed separately though, but its just a 50 mb download via apt-get. This does not bundle Dolphin file manager for some reason, but I am not going to discuss why, because I myself have no idea about it. Krusader, the advanced two pane file manager is also present. KDE can have really killer looks too.

While KDE has been said to be resource hungry by advocates of Gnome, a lighter desktop environment, it far superseeds gnome in features and level of customizability. For those looking for light weight use, a window manager called Fluxbox is bundled, so installing gnome still serves no purpose. Even here, KDE apps start faster than gnome apps.

Window Manager: Fluxbox has been ditched for IceWM by me.

Fluxbox is a light weight window manager, one of the lightest ever, and also very minimalistic in nature. It might be the No. 1 choice for most, but personally, I feel IceWM is much much better. So I ended up replacing fluxbox with IceWM. It retains most configuring ease of fluxbox, but it also has better features. It has a taskbar, a tray, a show desktop button, icons on tray, etc and a very useful menu. It has lots of support for keyboard shortcuts built in, and the best part is that despite being more functional than Fluxbox, it uses lesser resources. Now wouldn’t you call this super cool ? And to add to its goodness, it launches KDE applications really fast. Definitely faster than gnome applications. its a killer and I advice everyone to install it over fluxbox. Let fluxbox live, but IceWM will serve you better since it is the lightest and still the most feature rich of the light desktop environments like JWM, Openbox, Fluxbox, Blackbox, etc.

Administration in Sidux

Being bundled with KDE, Sidux has lots and lots of administrative applications. Other than the usual KDE standard, which is pointless to discuss here, Sidux menu includes some useful shortcuts for root access to some applications like Konqueror file manager, Krusader file manager, etc. This is useful if you need a GUI file manager to go about and manually edit some files. A root terminal is also provided to log in terminal as root. Sudo privileges are disabled for a user by default, but its quite unnecessary in my opinion. Root login is allowed only in text mode, a clever move to discourage people from working as root.

Conclusion:

I am sure sidux is going to live for many more years to come as a means to get people to use Debian Sid in a safer manner. Its out of box support for many things adds more plus points to its book. Sidux is never constrained by distribution size. They don’t have a rule enforcing a single CD size, nor do they have a rule enforcing a full DVD. Their current size is a 1.5 GB ISO, and this ISO comes with exactly what is required, nothing less and nothing more. And this bundle is designed keeping in mind the average Intermediate User, exactly the kind of person who would choose Debian or Sidux in the first place.

So definitely install sidux if you can, and happy Distroing.

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