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issue215:critique1

Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !


I admit it, I’m a distro-hopper. I doubt it’s a stretch to estimate I’ve tried at least 100 Linux variants over the past 20 years. Normally, that means downloading an iso image, creating a bootable USB, firing up the virtual machine app (VMA), and going from there.

Great if your computer has the hard drive space and horsepower to handle such work, not so hot otherwise. It’s also time consuming with roughly an hour to complete the whole process (plus another hour or so figuring out what you tested was either garbage or gold).

For a while (around 2020, but nobody seems quite sure), there was a website called DistroTest.net that allowed you to try various operating systems via an online virtual machine (Qemu), but it disappeared roughly 3 years ago and the website is now occupied by a foreign gambling venture (appropriate given that either site was a gamble).

DistroTest offered 800+ Linux variations (some of them repeated with different desktop designs) and, as I recall, others were outdated or nonfunctional when I tested them (hence the motto, “Test it before you hate it”). Might see names you’d recognize, yet others remained in the distant shadows of the Linux world.

It did have a certain charm about it, though. Using Qemu as its testing platform, you could, OS permitting, take a peek at what was being offered in the Linux community. Bizarre and unknowns were treated equally there.

After they disappeared (and I do mean disappear - no adios, au revoir, nothing), I just went back to running iso images off USB drives and thought nothing more of it.

I recently heard about DistroSea.com, a similar testing site. I don’t believe they are the same company but I can state the website is better organized, at least visually (https://distrosea.com/). Instead of here, there and everywhere listings, you see icons for the following (all are Linux, so I’ll dispense with adding that word unless it’s part of the name):

Alma Alpine Antix Arch Archcraft Arco Artix BlendOS Bodhi BunsenLabs CachyOS CentOS Chimera Debian Deepin DE* Devuan DragonflyBSD Edubuntu ElementaryOS EndlessOS Fedora FreeBSD Garuda Gentoo Haiku HoloISO KDE Neon KolibriOS Kubuntu Linux Lite Linux Mint Linux Mint Debian Lubuntu Mageia Manjaro MX Linux Nitrux NixOS OpenIndiana OpenSUSE PeppermintOS Pop!_OS Porteus PrimTux PureOS RebornOS Rocky Siduction Slackware Slax SliTaz Solus SparkyLinux Tails Tiny Core Triquel VanillaOS Void Xubuntu ZorinOS Notes: * Chinese only, I let the website administrator know since there is an English version available. French only, but the description clearly states that. For the picky readers out there, I know that some of these OS titles are not capitalized, but I’m listing them as the DistroSea website does.

Ubuntu was left out because it gets 6 additional entries for Budgie, Cinnamon, Kylin (Chinese only), Mate Studio and Unity.

As you can see, nearly every type of Linux OS is covered - Arch, Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Slackware, BSD, and probably a couple I missed. Desktops represented include Pantheon, LXQt, Enlightenment, Deepin DE, Budgie, LXDE, Mate, Gnome, XFCE, Unity, and so on.

Maybe not as well stocked as DistroTest was, but at least these, so far, have turned out to be active OS offerings.

And, from what I can read on their Facebook page, this listing is ever changing so you can expect to see some obscure or long forgotten titles popping up.

For each of these distros you’ll find the appropriate icon as shown below (which is a small screenshot of a much larger page).

To use DistroSea you have the option of signing in, but those who do not cannot use the browsers or app stores while testing - that is reserved for those who use their Google account to sign in (I tried both ways and saw no difference).

Users have their choice of language to include English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, and Portuguese; however, any choice you make influences the DistroSea website, not the OS. Choose Spanish as your language of choice and the description will show in Spanish but the OS itself will show and run in English (although users can change the language in many live versions, but not all).

That applies to any language chosen with the exception of PrimTux (the OS is French - period), Ubuntu Kylin (Chinese), and DeepinOS (Chinese).

Beyond that language mystery, clicking on any of the icons results in the following:

A brief description of the OS along with desktop options, if any. You may be asked to choose from Gnome, Mate, Cinnamon, etc. In addition, you may find several versions ranging from old to new, stable and unstable.

You’ll then be asked to click on a box to prove you’re human. Fortunately, you won’t have to pick out bridges, fire hydrants, or whatever.

Then comes the dreaded queue. No matter how many users it showed ahead of me, I never waited more than a minute with the longest waits being for Nitrux (no idea why) and nearly any form of Ubuntu.

When your turn is up, you’ll then be asked to click on Continue and off you go.

When you’re done, power off the OS and you’ll be returned to the start page where you can choose another OS or leave.

Since you’re using DistroSea resources, you won’t be asked for RAM assignment, login credentials (unless the OS requests such and DistroSea will let you know), or how much drive space you want to sacrifice. These are all live versions.

As for OS speed, I’ll just say any you pick will act just like you’d expect a live version to - slower than normal. I asked the developer via email and Facebook about what VM app was used (even though I suspect Qemu) and RAM allocated, but got no response either way (the Facebook page hasn’t been updated since October, 2024).

Unlike VirtualBox or Gnome Boxes where you can allocate RAM and drive space to any tested OS, you’re at the mercy of resources provided by DistroSea.

For the most part, I found DistroSea to be a worthy alternative to downloading multiple iso images, especially if you offered desktop options and don’t have a clue what the difference is between Mate and Cinnamon or Gnome. And, since you’re using their resources, you don’t have to worry about sacrificing RAM or drive space to a VM.

Where this comes in handy is when an OS offers multiple desktop choices, but not in the same package. SpiralLinux offers Mate, Gnome, XFCE, Cinnamon, etc, for choices, but you’d have to download each iso image to test all of them. With DistroSea, pick your package choice, play with it, and then move on to the next one.

On that same topic, DistroSea saves the hassle of having to wait for downloads. Using SourceForge as its download source means getting multiple copies of the SpiralLinux OS can be a painfully long affair (nearly a half hour for me - and I have a high speed connection).

It has also let me discover that some distros are smoke and mirrors and really stink during testing. Yet others I tried, like RebornOS and Siduction turned out to be better than I anticipated.

However, nothing is perfect and DistroSea does occasionally bog down and I can only surmise it’s because users are throttling the resources available. And, in some cases, I think the OS I was trying just failed. Ubuntu Cinnamon was a big flop - twice. Apps failed to open and I got failure warnings galore.

Then you have the uncooperative OS that refuses to shut down. That’s where the little pop-out (shown left) comes into play.

The top part is for expanding the main window, the settings gear is there to tweak the incidentals, and the bottom is to kill the signal when the OS just won’t take a hint and quit when you tell it to.

And what happens if you don’t shut down or disconnect? You’ll get a reminder that the OS is still running and that session will be cancelled if you attempt to pick another OS to run.

Why did I include that little sidebar screenshot? It’s nearly identical to the one DistroTest used. Main reason: I’m sure DistroSea is using Qemu, just like DistroTest did.

Remember earlier when I made a comment about app stores? Of all the live versions I tried (at least 10), not one would allow me to install apps and all but one locked up when trying to review apps; however, when I ran most of those via my USB stick as a live boot, I could use individual app stores (although, of course, everything disappears upon shutting down unless you’re using a persistent drive).

There are small goofs here and there. For example, DeepinOS from China is downloadable in English from their website, but the DistroSea version is in Chinese with a smattering of English here and there (good thing there is an international symbol for shut down).

However, DistroSea is worth a try now and then whenever I see a new OS, and it allows me to do a brief look around before deciding to download the iso image for additional testing.

issue215/critique1.1743256910.txt.gz · Dernière modification : 2025/03/29 15:01 de auntiee