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Adélie Linux is an Intriguing Independent Distribution

It's been a while since we checked out an independent Linux distribution. Adélie Linux sounds interesting.

You know, in the sea of Debian/Fedora-based Linux distributions, whenever I come across independent Linux distros that are built from scratch, I always tend to get curious, with only one question in mind: What's different?

Adélie Linux is one such distro, a lightweight Linux distribution that caters to a wide variety of platforms, whether it is a desktop, clusters, or a server.

🚧
This is an under development project that cannot be recommended for production use.

Adélie Linux: Overview ⭐

a screenshot of adélie linux installer

When I checked out the Adélie Linux 1.0-BETA5 release, it was running a highly customized version of Linux kernel 5.15 and was based on the musl libc library.

With this foundation, they aim to become a POSIX certified distribution.

Some key highlights include:

  • Lightweight Nature
  • Minimal User Interface
  • Wide Platform Support

Initial Impressions 👨‍💻

I tried installing it on a virtual machine, and I was glad to see that Adélie let me choose the desktop environment, with options to install a text-only session and a customized session with packages of my choice.

a screenshot of adélie linux installer

Sadly, it got stuck during the installation process, and I had to switch back to the live session to check what Adélie had to offer. Bare metal is a better choice for testing this distro out.

I moved on. The desktop was a clean yet familiar experience, thanks to the older KDE Plasma 5.24.5 release featured with Adélie Linux.

The other desktop environment options include LXQt, MATE and Xfce.

a screenshot of adélie linux desktop view

The pre-installed applications on offer are dominated by the wide range of apps from KDE, and there was also a minimal web browser, NetSurf which handled the internet-based tasks.

For a complete list of apps and packages, you can refer to the official packages page.

a screenshot of adélie linux application launcher

With what I saw, this distro can be a daily driver for someone who likes to have a fully fledged experience on various hardware architectures (server or desktop).

Unlike numerous other projects, it does not claim to reinvent anything. It just puts forward the goal of POSIX compliance, Libre, user freedom, and privacy. I guess that makes me feel that their development approach must be focused, which is a good thing. Don't you agree? 😄

📥 Get Adélie Linux

Adélie Linux is offered for a wide variety of CPU architectures with different flavors, such as Server, Desktop, Full Rootfs and Mini Rootfs.

You can pick the image that works best for your use case on the official website.

You can also check out its GitLab repo if you are interested in the source code and the official documentation if you run into any issues.

Suggested Read 📖

13 Independent Linux Distros That are Built From Scratch
Unique and independent Linux distributions that are totally built from scratch. Sounds interesting? Check out the list here.

💭What do you think about this distro that I discovered? Let me know in the comments below!


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