Quirky Linux 8.1.6 Released, Built using the woofQ Quirky Linux build system
Barry Kauler has announced the availability of an update to Quirky, a sister distribution to the lightweight Puppy Linux project. The new release, Quirky 8.1.6, updates the project's 8.1.x series and is compatible with binary packages built for Ubuntu 16.04.
Quirky, a sister project of Puppy Linux, is a Linux distribution built with a custom tool called Woof. The underlying infrastructure, such as boot-up and shut-down scripts, setup tools, hardware detection, desktop management, user interface, speed and general ease-of-use are common across all distributions built with Woof, but a specific build will have a different package selection and further customisation (even totally different binary packages). Quirky is developed by the founder of Puppy Linux and Woof to push the envelope a bit further, to explore some new ideas in the underlying infrastructure -- some of which may be radical or odd, hence the name Quirky.
Xerus 8.1.6
Xerus is the Quirky series built from Ubuntu Xenial Xerus 16.04 x86_64 binary DEB packages.The latest is version 8.1.6, and this matches the infrastructure of SlaQ 8.1.6, as documented above.
Functionally equivalent to SlaQ 8.1.6, however, a slightly different selection of packages. Xerus is bigger, with Libreoffice instead of Abiword and Gnumeric. The media player is also different, VLC instead of Xine in SlaQ.
The last release of Xerus was version 8.1.5, announced here:
http://barryk.org/news/?viewDetailed=00482
Version 8.1.5 uses Linux kernel 4.8.8, however, Barry Kauler had problems with his Asus E200HA laptop, and decided to roll Quirky 8.1.6 back to the latest kernel in the LTS 4.4 series, 4.4.40.
Note, for Xerus 8.1.6, it was decided to keep the same "dark brown" theme of version 8.1.5.
What's new in Quirky Linux 8.1.6
- System infrastructure and utilities improved and fixed
- Easyinit, a tiny ramdisk Quirky for f.s. check and recovery
- Linux kernel 4.4.40 1, SeaMonkey 2.46
- New "peachy-red" theme for GTK, JWM, icons and wallpaper
- Small download, yet has huge selection of packages
The release announcement and release notes for Quirky 8.1.6 offer further details and a list of known issues
Download
The recommended file to download is 'xerus-8.1.6-amd64-8gb.img.gz', which is an image that can be written to an 8GB (or greater) USB Flash stick.Ibiblio is the primary download site:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/amd64/releases/xerus-8.1.6/
For instructions on how to write the image file to a Flash stick, see the above link. This is easy to do for Linux and Windows users.
Quirky can run very happily from a USB stick, especially if it is a reasonably fast one (some el-cheapo sticks are incredibly slow). Note: if you have USB2 sockets, consider a USB3 stick -- Barry has found these to run about twice as fast as most cheap USB2 sticks, even in a USB2 socket.
Alternatively, a full install to internal hard drive can be made. You first need to be running Quirky from a Flash stick, then read these instructions:
http://barryk.org/news/?viewDetailed=00475
There is a single "devx" PET package with everything needed to turn Quirky into a compile environment (including compilers, svn, git):
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/amd64/packages/pet_packages-xerus/
Kernel source and patches can be found here:
http://barryk.org/sources/kernel-4.4.40/
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For those who want an ISO file, 'xerus-8.1.6-amd64.iso' is on the download site. This is a live-CD and can be burnt to a CD or written to a Flash stick.
