Linux Format

Bundled apps & manager

Can you use the distro as an everyday desktop?

-

TENS supplies the user with a PDF reader and a bunch of remote desktop software, including the Citrix Receiver and VMware View. These are complement­ed by a smattering of applicatio­ns, such as a barebones text editor and an image viewer. The developers also produces a Deluxe edition of the distro which is the same as the regular release aside from including LibreOffic­e and Adobe Reader. However, more important than included software TENS has no package manager to help flesh out the distro.

With Tails you get the usual cocktail of software that you’ll find on many Linux distros, such as LibreOffic­e, GIMP, Scribus, Pidgin, Audacity and PiTiVi . It also bundles the Synaptic package manager for fleshing out the distro.

Similarly, Subgraph OS bundles all the applicatio­ns you need for daily desktop use, many with the added privacy protection. There’s LibreOffic­e, Video Player and Debian’s Icedove that are all wrapped by Oz, the sandboxing system. The distro can fetch packages from its own custom repository and that of Debian Testing.

Whonix too has more or less the same mix of applicatio­ns with a few exceptions. It doesn’t have LibreOffic­e (for a change) but includes VLC. There’s also KGpg for managing keys and many of its applicatio­ns are tuned for guaranteei­ng privacy. The distro has a bunch of repos and you’ll have to choose one while setting up the distro.

Linux Kodachi scores over the others and includes the widest set of applicatio­ns. The distro caters to all kinds of users and includes VLC, Audacity, LibreOffic­e, VirtualBox and Komodo Edit. It too is based on Debian and includes the Synaptic package manager to pull in additional apps.

 ??  ?? Whonix doesn’t includes a graphical package manager but you can use the WhonixChec­k script to search for any available updates and then upgrade the distro from the command line.
Whonix doesn’t includes a graphical package manager but you can use the WhonixChec­k script to search for any available updates and then upgrade the distro from the command line.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Australia