Austrumi Linux 1.9.3
Final Thoughts & Who Should Use It
As much as I’d like to give Austrumi Linux some sort of thumbs up, I really can’t. The screwed up version of Firefox that comes with it makes web browsing almost impossible. In this day and age of web-based applications, social media, etc. you just cannot have an unstable browser as the only way to access the Web. It only frustrates and angers the user to have to wrestle with a browser that might or might not work depending on the site.
If you are an intermediate or advanced Linux users that likes to tinker then Austrumi Linux might be fun to check out for a few minutes but that’s about it. Beginners should steer clear of it as the browser problems will end up frustrating and annoying them.
Summary Table:
| Product: | Austrumi Linux 1.9.3 |
| Web Site: | http://cyti.latgola.lv/ruuni/ |
| Price: | Free |
| Pros: | Tiny file size, weighs in at about 108MB. Includes some useful apps. Doesn’t require hard disk install. |
| Cons: | Includes an unstable version of Firefox that makes it hard to use the web. |
| Suitable For: | Intermediate to advanced Linux users. |
| Summary: | An interesting and potentially useful portable Linux distribution that is crippled by an unstable browser. |
| Rating: | 2.5/5 |
(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.
There seems to be a version 1.9.5 downloadable from the homepage at Distrowatch – couldn’t find a link to it at the Austrumi site. Maybe they’ve fixed some of the issues?