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Monday, February 23, 2015

Meet archibold, my daily OS

If you are looking for an Open Source Operating System that is constantly updated, Arch Linux would likely be your choice. Put the latest GNOME on top of it, and you are in a pretty sweet damn good looking OS that will give you everything you need. Would you like to install this stack but not 100% sure how? Meet archibold!

archibold: a zero hassle installer

The "Arch way" is to learn through the amazing documentation the same community created and keep updated through their wiki.
I am one of those that learned the hard way every single thing I needed, but I am also a very pragmatic and DRY person.
As example, there are subtle, problematic, not-always-clear "little gotchas" when you want to install an Operating System, such:
  • how to correctly partition the HD?
  • what is EFI boot loader and how can I customize it?
  • how to create a graphical EFI compatible splash screen that actually works?
  • what's the minimum amount of packages I need?
  • how to login automatically?
  • how to configure a full Desktop environment?
  • how to install, remove, or search for new software?
  • and what if the software is not officially supported?
  • will the terminal open new tabs in the current folder?
I strongly believe everyone should be welcomed as much as possible in the Open Source Desktop community, so why not making an installer capable of bringing a delightful and easy to use experience to all people that would like to upgrade to Linux?

... and a zero hassle manager

Once your PC will boot into GNOME, you can always open the terminal and type archibold:
$ archibold

 __________________
|                  |
| archibold v0.3.0 |
|__________________|

 usage:

  archibold [clean|update|upgrade]
  archibold [install|remove|search] package-name


 list of included AUR packages:

  acroread                # Adobe Acrobat Reader
  broadcom-wl-dkms        # Broadcom wifi
  dropbox                 # Dropbox client
  google-chrome-dev       # Chrome dev channel
  spotify                 # music baby!
  sublime-text-nightly    # Sublime 3

These are most common tasks I could think of, but of course all usual functionalities and software provided by default will be available too.
You have the freedom to learn with the ability to start easy, reducing the learning curve to the minimum.
There are also few problem solving hints and everything else needed could be found in the Arch Linux forum or wiki: just please search before opening a thread, I can assure you 99% of the time the problem is well known and documented.

About Compatibility

Right now everything based on Intel works out of the box, but most laptops come with a Broadcom WiFi and Bluetooth that might require extra hassle to be installed. This is where archibold install broadcom-wl-dkms becomes handy, you don't need to know everything about Dynamic Kernel Module Support the first time you boot your new Desktop environment, you have a ready-to-go solution and the ability, once your WiFi works, to surf all related must know things about it.

Enjoy and ...

I hope you'll be bold enough to try it out at least in a spare laptop, Intel NUC, Mac Mini from 2010, MinnowBoard Max, Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro or Samsung serie 9 or any other tested device I could try and please bear in mind that archibold is suitable for every kind of user, not only nerds/gurus/developers, even non techy people can enjoy GNOME on Arch Linux, is that beautiful, that powerful, always updated, and finally easy to install and use for very basic tasks.
Let me know how that goes, but please read all installation infos in the archibold site.

1 comment:

prasanth said...

Will be checking this out tonight. Thanks!