A small and fast Linux distro which runs as well on old hardware as new hardware

So, after out blackout supporting the Stop SOPA campaign, we’re back.  You can download the ISOs again, and you can keep up to date with our woefully slackly updated blog!

So, with NaNoWriMo over and Simplicity Linux 12.1 due out in just over 2 months, and we’ve done some development using the base distro of 11.10, however, even before 11.10, we were looking for a base distro which used the 3.0 Kernel.  Now we’ve found it in Racy Puppy 5.2.2.  It includes the 3.0.7 version of the Kernel, and it also features Xorg 7.6.

I cannot wait to begin development work on it, and play around with stuff.

So, it’s time for us to finally unleash Simplicity Linux 11.10.  And here is a quick guide to all the various Editions we offer.

Simplicity Linux 11.10 Obsidian: (112mb) http://www.mediafire.com/?9l7avgqzpnldjw7
Obsidian is a cut down to the bone edition of Simplicity Linux.  You get JWM as a window manager, Firefox and a network manager, and that’s about it.  It’s designed for putting on a USB key when you just need a web browser and nothing else getting in the way and taking up processor and memory resources.

Simplicity Linux 11.10 Netbook: (124mb) http://www.mediafire.com/?5yk0wgodw5xyrs2
Netbook Edition does what it says on the tin.  It’s designed to be used on a netbook rather than a desktop.  Most of the applications are web based rather than being locally installed.  If you use the internet more than you use local apps, this is the one for you. It’s designed to be small and light for fast bootup and fast use on Netbooks which have more modest specs.  It also uses XFCE as the window manager.

Simplicity Linux 11.10 Desktop: (379mb) http://www.mediafire.com/?8xdgb4h5lmvg24o
Desktop Edition is almost the opposite of Netbook.  It’s the Edition we personally use on our production laptop.  All the applications are preinstalled for you locally.  It’s a big download but you do get the full, uncut version of LibreOffice, as well as several other large applications.  And as with the other Editions, it comes with XFCE as the default window manager.

Simplicity Linux 11.10 Media: (131mb)http://www.mediafire.com/?7m2pjnypv9na3k6
Media is our newest and most experimental Edition.  Here at Simplicity Linux we listen to a lot of music and watch a lot of TV and movies.  So we created Simplicity Linux Media.  If you have a VGA port enabled TV, you can hook up a modest box to a TV and create a lounge PC.  It comes with iPlayer, TVCatchup, Grooveshark, Google Books, and Blinkbox to help you out with all your media requirements.

So, despite several setbacks this release cycle (there have been many personal issues and problems in the last 3 months) everything is on course for a full on release tomorrow.  We’ve used the excellent D-Pup (we left a couple of nods to the creators of D-Pup deliberately) as a base, installed XFCE and Firefox on top for Netbook, Desktop and Media Editions.  And as the community spoke, Obsidian comes with JWM preinstalled.

Tomorrow we will release some screenshots and descriptions of the various Editions, so you can decide which Edition is best suited for you.  We’re also planning to release some videos to show off what Simplicity Linux can do, and maybe dispel some of the myths around Linux.

Ok, so I had an idea whilst out for a walk to clear my head this afternoon.  Would anyone be interested in cheap netbooks (we’re thinking £130-£150) preloaded with Simplicity Linux?  Since Simplicity uses Puppy as a base, and runs pretty well on a netbook (we use one on the road) we’re currently in the planning stages of selling netbooks.

Unlike some (coughgooglecough) netbook/distro bundles, these would be plain, unbranded netbooks (we’re thinking Asus/Acer/Dell) with a little plain Tux decal where the Windows sticker might normally be found.

You would be able to pick from Obsidian, Netbook, Desktop or Media Edition preinstalled on the SSD.

So, the question for the poll is – if we offered a plain netbook with Simplicity Linux preinstalled and preconfigured for around £130-£150, would you be interested in purchasing one?

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Ok, so a little over a month ago I asked the good visitors of this site to help me decide on the Window Manager for Simplicity Linux 11.10 – our extremely lightweight distro.  And your feedback has been collected, read and acted upon.  Since 53% of people (as of 27th October 2011) have said that they want JWM as the Window Manager for Obsidian.  It’s good for us because it means minimal tweaking.  We’re aiming to have Obsidian at around 100mb.  Hopefully less.  It all depends on what more we can cut out.

So, thank you to all who voted, and we’re having another poll, since this one was actually pretty awesome!

Oh, and we’re on the comment situation.  At the moment it’s been a heavy month due to an unforseen personal issue a week or so ago.  But we’re on track to get Simplicity 11.10 out for Halloween and get the comments fixed today or tomorrow.

Ok, just to get a quick gauge of feeling from the community – Obsidian, our stripped down as far as it goes Edition at the moment is still deeply in development, namely because it takes the least amount of time for us to work on (removing packages is not that hard nor time consuming).  But we’re a bit divided on the Window Manager.  I personally don’t like JWM or IceWM, but both are light and respected by the Puppy community.  Adding XFCE will make it around 25mb heavier, which will obviously impact loading times and memory overhead etc.

So what do you think?  Should we stick with JWM as we have before or move to XFCE?  And apologies for not fixing the comments yet, it’s a known problem and we are on it.  In the meantime, here is a poll!

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So, you may have noticed that little square on the side of the blog.  It’s basically there to help try and generate a little bit of revenue for Simplicity Linux.  At the moment we bear all the costs of advertising ourselves, and don’t make any money from what we do.  Which considering we don’t charge for Simplicity Linux or tech support, seems fair.

But people are always telling me that I should try and make some money from this project, since it also seems fair that since I put effort in, I should get reward out.  Hence the advertising.  I think it’s not too intrusive.  And that is going to be the only bit of advertising we put out for now.  Don’t worry, we won’t become like some sites or blogs which is 40% advertising and 60% content.  At the moment we’re happy with our little square.  But we might run some ads along the bottom of posts too.  Again, nothing too intrusive.  Maybe just some text links.

So, as always, feedback would be nice.  And for those wondering – I went with Chitika and didn’t go with Google AdSense because I’m barred from AdSense.  I was a naughty boy before I saw the Open Source light and did a few things to anger Google on Windows boxes.

Ok, so I am going to keep this brief.  After I heard about the death of Steve Jobs, I watched The Pirates Of Silicon Valley and read his Wikipedia entry.  Now whilst I am sad that a human being died, and that is never good, Steve Jobs didn’t seem like that nice a person to me.  I mean, abandoning his daughter Lisa after he himself was given up for adoption.  Also, he canceled all philanthropic efforts in Apple on his return.  Whilst I may not like Bill Gates either, at least he does work for charity, which I do admire and respect.

So, sorry that I am not one of these people saying “Steve Jobs was insanely great” but whilst I think he was a great marketer and had great design vision, I’m not so certain he innovated in technology as much as people claim.

Ok, I know I promised releases, and I am getting there.  We’ve just hit a couple of hurdles is all.  But everything is set for a final release date of October 31st – or Halloween as some people call it.

Anyway, whilst playing around with some development, I decided that maybe I’d see how fast Simplicity Linux 11.10 is on really old hardware.  So I dug out my old eee PC.  as in the original eee PC from 2007.  The specs are:

512mb memory
900mhz single core processor
2gb SSD (not used during the test)

So I ran Simplicity 11.10 Base (OS and nothing else) from a 1gb USB stick which had a 512mb storage space on it.  And the results were pretty good for 4 year old hardware.  1 minute from eee boot screen to working OS.  But that wasn’t enough for us.  We’re quite into speed at Simplicity Linux.  So we popped the USB key into our old production machine:

1gb memory
1.2ghz dual core processor

And we were kinda blown away.  25 seconds from boot screen to working OS.  And no, we didn’t skip anything.  It’s just that fast.  In fact, we’re going to be making a series of “adverts” for Simplicity Linux for YouTube later in the month, and we’re planning on showing you literally how fast Simplicity is.  To the point where we might make a longer video (a couple of minutes tops) showing Simplicity booting on old hardware, slightly more modern hardware, and our new production beast.  And like the “advert” will say – “No steps were skipped, it’s just that fast.”

Oh, and we’re planning on doing something a bit special for the ads.  Boot screen to working browser in 25 seconds or less.  Ambitious?  Of course!  Possible?  I’ve seen it.