Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
Debian is a truly legendary Linux distribution. Not only is it the progenitor of half the Linux universe, including Ubuntu, it is widely used in servers and other applications. It is also a desktop distribution but is not as commonly used in that role. Using the Debian net-install method the software readily installs, but once installed there are many things that need fixing like firmware, printers, wifi, fonts and so on. It is not that user-friendly, making it difficult for the average desktop user to get working right.
It was these sorts of issues, that it doesn’t “just work”, plus uneven release schedules and the ponderous project decision-making processes that originally led to Ubuntu being created in 2004. There have also been many other similar projects to create more user-friendly Debian derivatives for desktop users. It was just that line of thinking that led to the launch of a new Debian-based distribution in June 2022, called SpiralLinux.
Spiral’s lead developer wrote that the main trouble with small Debian-based off-shoot projects, led by only one person or a small team, is that there was too much customization and that put the project at risk. If anything happened to the main developer, such as being “hit by a bus”, as he put it, then it was all over, with users left unsupported. Having already created GeckoLinux as a repackage of OpenSUSE, the anonymous developer thought that a Debian-based distribution that only used Debian’s existing packages, repositories and update system, while repackaging it so it was much more ready-to-go and functional out of the box, would give it a combination of user appeal and resilience.
The resulting distribution is pure Debian, with no outside packages, personal package archives or other add-ons, but organized to be much more user-friendly for installation and use, one that will “just work” for desktop users, especially new-to-Linux, neophyte desktop users. Thus SprialLinux was born, with its first release on 6 June, 2022 as version 11.220606. Since then, there have been three more releases. The one I looked at was the most recent, 11.220925.
It is worth noting that Spiral uses a point release model and not a rolling release, which means if he does actually get hit by a bus there will be no more releases. However, the last release will continue to be available and existing installations will keep working, too. They should also update to future versions of Debian in perpetuity. It won’t matter that the developer is gone, as the Debian project provides all the support automatically and by design, not the developer.
Versions
The SpiralLinux release numbering system is a bit esoteric. Version 11.220925 is based on Debian 11 “Bullseye”, the current stable Debian version. The rest of the numbering is just the date: 25 September, 2022, even though the release was made on the 27th, but close enough.
Unlike in Debian where you pick your desktop during a generic installation process, with Spiral you download the version you want right from the start. SpiralLinux comes prepackaged in eight different editions by desktop: Cinnamon, Xfce, Gnome, KDE Plasma, Mate, Budgie, LXQt and a “builder” version. All versions are only for X86 64-bit architecture. That makes it simple for new users and logical too. Each version download is around 2 GB in size, depending on the desktop.
Installation
I downloaded the Gnome desktop version of Spiral using HTTP, since there is no BitTorrent option. The download links are right in the official website homepage on github.io, but the ISO downloads are hosted on sourceforge.net instead. The links work directly, though.
The Gnome version is a 2.2 GB download which is quite a bit smaller than Ubuntu at 3.8 GB for version 22.10.
Sprial has no SHA256 sum provided but there are SHA1 and MD5 sums. SHA256 would be better as both the others are considered “cryptographically broken” these days. The home page explains how to find the check sums as they are hidden away on sourceforge.net. I ran a SHA1 sum test from the command line to make sure the download was correct and it tested fine.
I dropped the ISO file onto a USB stick equipped with Ventoy 1.0.81 and booted it up from there for testing. SpiralLinux is not officially listed as being supported by Ventoy, but it worked just fine.
System requirements
SpiralLinux does not list any minimum system specifications, but Debian currently recommends at least a 1 GHz Pentium 4 processor and 2 GB of RAM. In my testing, SpiralLinux was using 4.3 GB of RAM with just a few applications open: Firefox with eight tabs, Nautilus, Gnome Terminal and gedit. I would think that at least a dual core processor and 8 GB of RAM would be a good idea for reasonable performance.
Features
Even though SpiralLinux is 100% Debian, it is not the “stock” Debian experience. When you first boot it up you get a modified Gnome desktop but changed using Debian’s own background configuration, as opposed to outside software.
After the green raindrop wallpaper, the first thing you notice is that this Gnome desktop has a pinned dock on the left side, Ubuntu style. These days on default Gnome, the dock is on the main menu only and not the desktop as a favorites list for quick access. Unlike the Ubuntu dock rendering though, the default Spiral dock is very plain without any transparency. It does allow application icons to be added, removed and re-arranged though. The settings for it are hidden away in the included Gnome Tweaks settings manager under “extensions” in the Dash to Dock extension, which comes pre-installed. This allows changing icon size, intelligent hiding when an application window touches the dock, putting the dock on any screen edge and selectable transparency by percentage. It also allows turning off the dock and going to the default Gnome experience, where it only appears in the main menu instead.
Once you open an application or two, the next thing you notice is that the “minimize” and “maximize” window buttons are there, just like in Ubuntu! In the default Gnome set-up, you only get a “close” button. Once again, this is a setting buried deep in Gnome, but it really makes the desktop much more functional.
The Gnome menus work normally. Hitting the “Activities” button or the “super” (windows) key brings up the main menu with its desktop switcher, open windows selector and search for applications and documents. Clicking the grid icon on the dock’s bottom or hitting “super + a” opens the applications menu.
The settings are spread out a bit. There is the usual Gnome Settings menu with most of the usual options there including your choice of 27 wallpapers. The wallpaper selections provided are mostly toned-down, with many from Debian and have the Debian logo. None have the SpiralLinux logo, so if you want one you will need to make your own. One included wallpaper is a token “not-toned-down” one, a really loud piece of artwork that may appeal to some users.
The settings missing from the Gnome Settings menu such as the “appearance” section are found in the Gnome Tweaks application. It is there you will find the choice of five window themes: Adwaita, Adwaita-dark, high contrast, high contrast inverse and the default Numix. Both Adwaita-dark and high contrast inverse are dark themes so that should keep those fans happy. Nine icon themes are also provided.
A lot of what sets Spiral apart from Debian is not visible and, unless you have tried to get Debian working, you may not notice it. Free and non-free firmware, drivers and media codecs are provided. The fonts are there too. Printers are discovered and set-up automatically and the wifi works without scouring though forums for help. Flatpak and Virtual Box are supported, and optimized power management is already configured. Software updates are set and it is possible to switch support from Debian stable to unstable or testing branches instead. As well, upgrades to future Debian releases should happen seamlessly keeping your Spiral installation running.
The free software purists are not going to like Spiral but then most of them don’t like Debian either for even offering non-free software, even if it is not installed by default on Debian. On Spiral, it is installed by default.
It is worth noting that Spiral uses the Btrfs file system in place of the more common ext4. Btrfs is a more advanced system for Linux and has some nice features, like system roll-backs, but some reviewers have labeled it “fragile” and noted as recently as August, 2022 that some crashes have resulted in unrecoverable disk corruptions.
Applications
Some of the applications included with SpiralLinux Gnome 11.220925 are:
Archive Manager (file-roller) 3.38.1 archiver Clementine 1.4.0 music player CUPS 2.3.3 printing system Document Viewer (evince) 3.38.2 PDF viewer Document Scanner (simple-scan) 3.38.1 optical scanner Files (nautilus) 3.38.2 file manager Firefox 103.2.0-esr web browser GDebi 0.9.5.7 package manager Gnome Disks 3.38.2 disk manager Gnome Drawing 0.6.4 image editor Gnome Documents 3.34.0 document manager Gnome Screenshot 3.38.0 screenshot tool Gnome Settings 3.38.4 settings manager Gnome Software 3.38.1 software store Gnome System Monitor 3.38.0 system monitor Gnome Terminal 3.3.38.3 terminal emulator Gnome Tweaks 3.34.0 settings manager GPaste 3.38.5 clipboard manager GThumb 3.3.11.2 image viewer Gparted 1.2.0 partition editor Image Viewer (Eye of Gnome) 3.38.2 image viewer LibreOffice 7.0.4 office suite Pidgin 2.14.1 IRC client PulseAudio 14.2 audio controller Text Editor (gedit) 3.38.1 text editor Synaptic 0.90.2 package manager Systemd 247.3 init system Thunderbird 102.5.0 email client Transmission (transmission-gtk) 3.00 bit torrent client Wget 1.21 command line webpage downloader VLC 3.1.17.4 media player
The mix of applications is not entirely stock Gnome and not all are based on the GTK toolkit. For instance, you get the Qt-based VLC media player instead of Gnome Videos (Totem) and also the Qt-based Clementine music player instead of Gnome Music.
Being based on Debian 11 Bullseye stable means that even though SpiralLinux Gnome 11.220925 is a September 2022 release, most of the applications are a bit dated and are from Gnome 3.38, although a few holder-overs are even older than that. That is because Debian’s focus is on stability over leading edge software and these days that is probably a pretty good trade.
All the provided applications are from the Debian repositories and are .deb files. This includes Firefox, which is why it is the Extended Support Release (ESR) version which Debian packages as a .deb.
LibreOffice is there, in its slightly dated 7.0.4 version, lacking LibreOffice Base and Math, the database and math formula writer components. Neither are used by most people but can be installed, if needed, of course.
Snap haters will rejoice that the Snap-enabling daemon, snapd, is not installed and this means that there are no snap applications in SpiralLinux by default. Snapd is in the repositories, though, so it should be possible to install it and use Snaps if you want.
Software can be managed from the user-friendly Gnome Software store, the more technical Synaptic package manager or from the command line via APT. Being plugged directly into the Debian 11 stable repository means that just about any Linux application in existence is available. Oddly, some of the installed applications did not register on Gnome Software as being installed even though APT showed they were.
User Case
At this point, Ubuntu users will be asking “what is the user case here?” After all, installing SpiralLinux Gnome 11.220925 will give you a customized version of Debian, like Ubuntu does, with a desktop with a dock, like Ubuntu, and some older application versions than Ubuntu typically provides. The support and updates are pure Debian, so they should be reliable, but then so are Ubuntu’s.
So, who would use this? I think the main appeal is to users who are avoiding Ubuntu for one reason or another, but who find getting actual Debian working right a bit too daunting. Fundamentally, Spiral is really “Debian-made-easy”.
In fact, the Spiral website supports this concept: “SpiralLinux is a selection of Linux spins built from Debian GNU/Linux, with a focus on simplicity and out-of-the-box usability across all the major desktop environments. SpiralLinux serves as an alternative live installation method for a highly reliable customized Debian system using only official Debian package repositories.”
Conclusions
I think it is fair to say that SpiralLinux meets its aims of providing a customized Debian experience that “just works” right from the download. For the committed Ubuntu user, I don’t think there is a lot of appeal here, but for someone looking for pure Debian that is easier, complete and functional from the start, this new distribution hits the mark.
External links
Official website: https://spirallinux.github.io/