ArcoLinux-D-B 6.9

GENERAL
ArcoLinux wants to get back to our initial goal to stay around 2 Gigabyte as size for the ArcoLinux iso.

It is our vision to give you the means to install ANY desktop environment :

  • ArcoLinux – Xfce, Openbox and i3
  • ArcoLinuxD – with scripts and the ArcoLinuxD iso
  • ArcoLinuxB – build your personal iso or download what we build
ArcoLinux iso
Iso related changes

June and July 2018 were all about ArcoLinuxB. Weeks went into the development of the scripts and building and perfecting the isos.

The update of Archiso forced us to upgrade as well and it was an opportunity to look again at the build scripts for all 12 isos:

  1. arcolinux
  2. arcolinuxd
  3. arcolinuxb awesome
  4. arcolinuxb bspwm
  5. arcolinuxb budgie
  6. arcolinuxb cinnamon
  7. arcolinuxb gnome
  8. arcolinuxb i3
  9. arcolinuxb mate
  10. arcolinuxb openbox
  11. arcolinuxb plasma
  12. arcolinuxb xfce

Xfce is used as the delivery system to install the desktops. It is more efficient to manage that way.

Several weeks went into the development of all these ArcoLinuxB isos. They all needed a specific packages.x86_64 file, a unique installer and a unique configuration and new packages for example to logout.

We have also opted for the new calamares installer 3.2.

All the ArcoLinuxB isos have  been rebuild and can be downloaded from sourceforge.

See download page.

Added applications to iso

We have added the following applications :

  • none
Removed applications
We decided to trim down our iso and remove elements we either not use or that might be considered a security liability. You can install them if you want them after the installation of the iso. Our goal is to stay around 2 Gigabytes for the ArcoLinux iso.

  • speedtouch
  • zd1211-firmware
  • darktable
  • hunspell
  • hyphen
  • packer

 

Improvements
  • New logo from Phanner98 has been included in the logos of the conkies
  • Font display has been improved and resized to 11
  • Added vmware configuration file to include 1920×1080 resolution
  • Neofetch has been upgraded from v4 to v5. We follow the official config and change it to our own ArcoLinux config. Logo’s are now 300x300px
  • 000- script to use all cores includes now also 6 cores
  • New alias vbm to mount the folder Public when on virtual box
  • Old alias update is now “sudo pacman -Syyu”
Changed or updated applications

We have updated the following AUR packages

  • sardi
  • surfn
  • trizen
  • vivaldi
  • …

We moved these “fun” applications to this “fun” script – see this article.

  • cmatrix
  • cool-retro-term
Full package list
The full package list of the latest iso can always be found on github at this address :

https://github.com/arcolinux/arcolinux-iso/blob/master/archiso/packages.x86_64

What is new?

New repo added for third party software

Mid July 2018 we got updates in for libc++. These packages have a long build time.

To avoid long build times for us and all our users we have a new repo were we can host packages that take a while to build.

Installation time goes down from 30 minutes to 30 seconds for discord.

Added following applications

  • discord and dependencies
  • dropbox
  • insync
  • spotify

Use pamac to quickly see what we will add to this repo in the future.

New logo – arcolinux-fractal.png

You can find the logo in your conky folder in ~/.config. We thank Phanner98 for his creation and sharing of the logo.
New scripts

We created a new package arcolinux-bin-git to include a new script every month. The idea is to include a FUN factor.

Your .bin folder now also includes a folder called Main. The scripts, we use all the time, will be in there like

  • 000-script to use all cores
  • script to get the linux-lts kernel
  • deleting the linux-lts kernel

IT IS OUR INTENTION TO PROVIDE  EVERY MONTH A NEW SCRIPT.

PLASMA
In the months June-July we have created the ArcoLinuxD-Plasma scripts but also the ArcoLinuxB-Plasma iso.
FUTURE EFFORTS
ARCOLINUXD
More desktops will be created in the future.

The workflow is that at first we need to know what applications are required to get a fully functional desktop environment.

So we will first make an arcolinuxd/arco-*** github.

BYOI or ARCOLINUXB
After we created an ArcoLinuxD github filled with scripts and applications we know what we need to have a fully functional desktop and what configs are important.

Only then can we make an attempt of making an ArcoLinuxB iso.

You can find these efforts on this github : https://github.com/arcolinuxb

B stands for Build or Build Your Own Iso.

UPGRADING
Upgrading ArcoLinux boils down to 2 main actions

  • copy/paste hidden content from /etc/skel to your home directory
  • keep updating with pksyua

And sometimes we create a new package.
Install it with sudo pacman -S arcolinux-new-package-name
Always check whether it will be installed in /etc/skel or not.

More detailed information can be found in the beta links in the menu Blog and in this video.