SalineOS is a new distro based on the Debian 6.0 Squeeze. On their website SalineOS claims to be fast and stable. I took this distro for a test drive on my desktop computer that I use for my daily work tasks. I also installed it on Virtualbox with guest additions enabled for screenshots and video.
The SalinOS release announcement was short and to the point so I went searching for some more information on SalinOS. While I didn’t find anything on Wikipedia, the SalinOS website about page offered up some more detailed information about the focus of SalinOS. Apparently the plan is to create a complete Debian distribution based on the lightweight XFCE desktop environment. SalinOS 1.0 also includes repositories that provide additional software that does not conform to Debian’s strict free software guidelines. Users also enjoy additional tools for installing proprietary graphic drivers.
The SalinOS DVD sized image .ISO file can be downloaded here. I burned it to a DVD and put it into my Dell Poweredge sc400 desktop computer. The live XFCE desktop environment was quick and snappy and the darker graphical look was a nice touch. I was surprised to see a copyright symbol on the default wallpaper. Obviously, this is easily changed.
I actually had some trouble finding where to install this disitrbution. That’s because the desktop installation icon is named Remastersys. I eventually realized this is the name of the installer and also found installation instructions for it in the PDF manual but think it should say “Install”. New users don’t know what the installer is named and not all users read will read the PDF, although they should.
The installation itself is a little bit trickier than installing Ubuntu, Fedora and some other distributions. This is because you must create a few partitions with gparted. The process is all explained nicely in the PDF manual included with the live DVD. Check out my video of the live dvd and installation process.
sgfxi is a self-updating nvidia, ati/amd fglrx, and xorg free driver installer and xorg configuration script that can be used on SalinOS by issuing sgfxi from the command line.
Popular applications included with SalinOS 1.0 are Chromium, Icedove, Pidgin, Osmo, Calculator, Dictionary, Parole, Rhythmbox, XFBurn, Fotoxx, Cheese Webcam Booth, Remastersys, Gedit, Transmission, GIMP and a few others. I was happy to see Chromium available out of the box and was impressed with the Remastersys installation tool although I didn’t use the backup utility it offers.
The stability of Debian is undeniably good and SalinOS has harnessed this and paired it with the speed of XFCE. The additional repos and tools included were also interesting. Overall, an excellent 1.0 release and a fun distribution to use.
