Austrumi Linux 1.9.3
I got another interesting distro review suggestion by DJiNN on the Request A Review page recently so I thought I’d take a look at Austrumi Linux in this review. Austrumi Linux is based on Slackware and is pretty tiny in terms of size, weighing in at about 108MB.
As you might imagine, Austrumi Linux is not geared toward competing with Ubuntu, Fedora or any of the larger desktop distributions. Rather it’s all about portability and the ability to maximize utility while minimizing the actual size of the distribution.
What’s New In This Release
Here’s a list of changes in this release:
- made 2 new themes for FVWM
- improved wireless configuration tool (OPEN, WEP, WPA and WPA2)
- added dovecot – IMAP and POP3 server
- added ktsuss – graphical version of `su`
- added lxtask – lightweight task manager
- added pkgtools – utilities for handling Slackware packages
- added recordmydesktop – desktop session recorder
- added slapt-get with gslapt – package management system
- added wmhdplop – a hard drive activity monitor dockapp
- added wmmixer – mixer dockapp
- added xtrlock – a very minimal X display lock program
- added xz – compression utility based on the LZMA
- removed aspell added hunspell
- removed aterm added urxvt
- removed bluefish added geany
- updated: abiword, cdrtools, cpio, firefox, flash-player, gimp, gpicview, gv, hardinfo, hiawatha, less, linuxdcpp, mc, mplayer, MySQL, ntfs-3g, Nvidia, pcmanfm, php, squashfs-tools, tightvnc, transmission, wireless-tools, wpa_supplicant, xfonts-terminus, Xorg-server
- updated libs: alsa, cairo, enchant, freetype2, glib2, glibc, gtk2, libacl1, libattr1, libogg, libpcap, libpng, libvorbis, mesa, ncurses, openssl, pango, pixman, readline, slang, sqlite, xlibs
- removed compiz & emerald, metacity, RutilT, wbar
- updated kernel 2.6.30
Requirements & Installation
Austrumi requires the following:
- CPU – Intel-compatible (pentium2 or later);
- RAM – at least 256 MB (if 256 Mb or less, then run boot: al nocache);
- HD – not needed;
- CD-ROM – bootable CD-ROM drive.
Austrumi is designed to run in RAM so an install is not necessary to use it. However, you do have the option to install it to a hard disk or onto a USB device. I mucked around with the hard disk install but wasn’t able to get it to work in VirtualBox. Your mileage may vary, however, so if you want to play around and see if you can get it installed, go for it. Please take a moment and share the results in the comments section below if you do decide to do an install.
Note that you should be sure to choose English while on the boot up screen if that’s the language you want to use while running Austrumi Linux.
(4 votes, average: 3.25 out of 5)
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Instead of Minefield, maybe they should call the browser “Fire in the hole!”.
I have been getting that same Firefox error message a lot since switching to 3.5 regardless of OS. As such, I have reverted back to the 3.0x series until Firefox decides to get their bleep together.
As to offering a good, lightweight, and stable web browser in these smaller distros, I have yet to find one. SeaMonkey and IceWeasel are the least offensive, but both still need lots of work. I always end up downloading Firefox.
@timck: Iceweasel is Firefox without the trademarks. Any differences you perceive would be crated by the difference in the browser name that websites see. Otherwise they are identical.
I use Swiftfox – i <3 it
tlmck wrote:
Yes, I think “Fire in the Hole” would have been very accurate. Heh.
Nobody Important wrote:
IceWeasel may be based on Firefox, but every version I have used has had problems. The latest version of Firefox, at the time, ran just fine on the same machine. The last IceWeasel I tried was in DreamLinux 3.1.
Now I just ignore any browser other than Firefox.
I am sorry to hear that Austrumi has such an unstable Web browser. Odd, too, because I have been running frequent nightly builds of both 3.6 (and even 3.7!) versions of Firefox from the Shiretoko, Minefield (and one other) code name, along with nightly builds of SeaMonkey, and I have not had a single problem with any of them. I have also occasionally been participating in the “Litmus Test” suites to feed back the Mozilla project on the results of Firefox and SeaMonkey builds. I am quite happy with them.
Given that Austrumi can’t seem to find a usable version among the many solid versions that are out there, nor provide even a single stable alternative, it does not seem worthwhile to use, though it certainly does seem to have many other desirable traits.
Also given that I have very fast builds of antiX, Puppy, Tiny Me, and Tiny Core, and I have them on disk, on CD, on USB, and in Virtualbox OSE, I am not particularly in need of another fast test system.
Thanks for the review though Jim. If I get the itch, I may give one of their versions a peek again. I’ve used Austrumi before, but it has been a while since I last tested it.
The first thing i noticed when i opened your site is the google ads in left side of the first paragraph…..Nice idea jim to move the Google adsense from right to the left of the starting paragraph……..it will surely give you a lot more eyeballs…I really appreciate you for that idea…I really enjoyed your idea to “buy jim a cup of coffee”….you are really a fantastic marketer who knows how to market your stuff……At the same time you are keeping the simplicity and readability in your blog….Really Linux need this kind of marketing to succeed in this world…
manutd31 wrote:
Thanks, glad you are enjoying the blog.
I didn’t try Austrumi 1.9.3 yet but I suppose it’s very easy to get a stable browser from the Slackware repositories. Of course it should be better if the browser just works out of the box!
I like Austrumi for its ever very nice look and for its amazing choice of applications compared to its size.
Infortunately, it doesn’t include ndiswrapper (at least the last version I tried) so I’m not able to connect to my network from it with my two PC’s.
I have tried 3 or 4 releases of Austrumi in the past, each time hoping for improvement. Alas, I have run into some sort of a glitch each time.
If Austrumi is designed to run in RAM, how do you preserve changed settings? Does it include a Remaster option?
Are you sure that it wasn’t VMWare that caused or contributed to the instability in the browser?