Apricity OS 07.2016.........
Fearless admirer of all things Arch Linux, Shashank Sharma tries out a distro derived from it to determine whether it’s bogroll or a chip off the old block.
Fearless admirer of all things Arch Linux, Shashank Sharma tries out a derivative distro to determine if its bogroll or a chip off the old block.
With all the documentation resources available to Linux users now, rolling release distros are no longer considered just for experienced users. This might explain why we’ve seen so many recently. Apricity OS is based on Arch Linux, one of the most stable and awe-inspiring rolling-release distros ever.
Despite its heritage, Apricity OS is a live-installable distro that produces two variants, with Gnome or Cinnamon desktop environments. Once you’ve dd’d the 2GB ISO onto a USB drive, the live environment boots up in seconds offering complete multimedia support out of the box and applications to suit all manner of Linux users. But while Arch Linux offers the opportunity to meticulously shape the distro to your liking, an Apricity installation – as is the norm with most contemporary distros – doesn’t even allow users to decide what packages to install.
Like many of its peers, Apricity uses the fairly straightforward Calamares installer. If you don’t already have a free partition available, it will enable you to carve space out by shrinking the size of an existing partition.
Unlike distros which follow a fixed period release schedule, the advantage of a rolling-release distro is that you don’t have to worry about reinstalling the distro or applications with each new release. By its very nature, the crux with a rolling-release distro is its underlying package management system. Thanks to its Arch roots, Apricity features Pacman, which is an incredibly powerful and robust command-line package manager. For graphical users, Pamac is available too – it’s similar in appearance to Ubuntu Software Center or Gnome Software but without screenshots of the applications you wish to install.
On top of its multimedia support, Apricity includes the ICE application, which is borrowed from Peppermint OS. If you have a list of websites you visit frequently, you can use ICE to create Site Specific Browsers (SSBs), which serve as quick launch apps to take you straight to these sites. However, this application requires the GoogleChrome or Chromium browser, and while the distro ships with Chrome as the default browser, we found the app is unable to detect it. This bug can be fixed by installing the available app update.
Sunny disposition
The latest release also introduces a new feature called Freezedry. Apricity maintains two configuration files, written in TOML, for Gnome and Cinnamon. You can make changes or additions to these defaults and create your own Apricity variant. A number of such community built variants are already on offer on the distro’s website, as downloadable ISOs. Or you can download the configuration file and point the Freezedry command-line utility to these to install the changes onto your system.
The distro’s documentation section is sparse, with a quick introduction to its new features such as Freezedry and answers to a few FAQs. For more detailed help, the website also hosts a very active forum board.
With excellent hardware detection, a well rounded default package selection and interesting offerings such as ICE and Syncthing, Apricity OS easily beats its goal of being a distro suitable for new and skilled users alike. Recommended for users tired of fixed-release distros and looking for one that’ll keep their system running without needing too much coddling.