Distro Monday 36: Salix, Linux Mobile, and OrangePi, Yum!

DM 36.1 – Salix Live Xfce 15
Salix is based on Slackware. Slackware is one of the oldest Linux distros, along with Debian and Red Hat, way back in the early days. It has its own package manager along with the rest of the things that make it its own distro. Salix takes Slackware and makes it as functionally slimmed down as possible. They have a one task, one application philosophy, which is interesting to me. This release is the Live USB build, so what is new here?

The ability to create a persistent, frugal install (read: portable, like TAILS), just more focused on being lightweight than being super private and secure.

Not much else to say about this one, but it is cool, and I like to cover indie distros, not just the titans of Linux, here on Distro Monday.
https://distrowatch.com/?newsid=11691
#distromonday #salix #linuxlive #updates #Linux #TechFreedom

Know thyself. Know your strengths, but do not shy away from your weaknesses. Isaac the Syrian tells us that knowing our weakness is the genesis of all goodness. Consciousness of our weaknesses helps us to keep perspective and humility when walking in this world. That is a seed of goodness, it can also lead to growth, if we address those things in us that would otherwise be negatives.
#distromonday #stisaac #weakness #goodness #churchfathers #memesplanation #TechFreedom

DM 36.2 – UBTouch OTA 24

I usually don’t cover Linux Mobile on Distro Monday, but this sticks out to me, so here we go...
What is new here? Why should we care, Matt?

First things first, we should care, because even though it is still really only of use to developers and tinkerers right now, the fact that Linux Mobile is even a thing at all is a wonderful thing. They are working on VOLTE, and that should be coming soon for most supported devices. Once that is accomplished, it should be easier to justify porting it and thereby making it more available to the public. Why does it matter, really, other than as a nerdy curiosity, though? When it is truly daily driver ready, we will have an entirely open source mobile OS option that, at least on certain devices, will never use proprietary blobs for firmware (this is really only the case for devices like the Pinephone and the Librem 5 (who has those, anyway?). This matters, because while AOSP (Android Open Source Project) is based on an old Linux kernel, it is decidedly NOT Linux. It is great because we are getting closer by the day to a 3 mobile OS world, and that is awesome. Is it perfect yet, no. Is it ready for the general public yet? No. Is it getting closer? Yes. This, and projects like it need more financial support, so that the developers who are best suited to working out these issues will be incentivized to focus on it so that these problems get solved. Ok, that was a long dissertation, and we aren’t done with the story yet...

What’s new in this OTA update?

Double tap to wake for certain devices
Better Fingerprint Reader Performance (reducing time between retries)
Media button support for headphones
Better SMS and MMS functionality
Lots of bug fixes

https://9to5linux.com/ubuntu-touch-ota-24-release-for-ubuntu-phone-users-heres-whats-new
#distromonday #ubtouch #Linux #linuxmobile #volte #comingsoon #TechFreedom

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#distromonday #TechFreedom #consultation #free

DM 36.3 – OrangePI OS (Arch) Is Coming

I talked about the OrangePI 5 last week, and was let down by the lack of Linux support, but now the Chinese company behind it, is making an Arch based OrangePI OS. Yeah, that makes me uncomfortable as well, but this is FOSS tech we are talking about here, maybe this will help the makers of RasPI to get off of their laurels and innovate a bit more, if this new distro, coupled with their SBCs is genuinely competitive.

https://news.itsfoss.com/orange-pi-os-arch/
#distromonday #OrangePI #OrangePIOS #alternatives #rasPI #Linux #arch #TechFreedom