Bluestar Linux (Arch based)


I do quite like KDE as I like it's Activities, advanced windows configurations, and phone notifications, and have used some of the KDE (productivity) applications for work.

Back in the earlier days I simply loved to hate it, having been unstable, and the odd kidney bean thingy, and pointlessly rotating widgets.

However, since discovering i3 (thanks to someone, sorry, forget who, on this forum), haven't really used it since.
 
I'm not sure why anyone would use this when there's already a KDE spin of manjiro, which already gives you an easy way to install arch so that when the cutting edge aspect of Arch eventually breaks your system, you'll be largely unprepared to fix it. The way pure arch gets you to set everything up and gets you used to researching things on the arch wiki gives you a hope of fixing things when they do break, so I see manjiro and so on ways of installing a little bit dangerous for something as on the edge as the arch repos make it. All that said, I can't currently remember the last time an arch update broke my lxde setup here (hardware has been much more effective at breaking my workflow than software has been).

But yeah, if you want this why didn't you already want Manjiro KDE?
 
If you really want Arch but you don't wanna go through the manual install, then just use Arch Anywhere. It's still Arch and you still know exactly what packages are getting installed (as well as having decent-enough control over what's installed...kinda). Since Bluestar is literally just Arch+KDE, then I don't see the need for a middleman when Arch Easy Mode is available.

Solus is a great choice for people switching away from distros like Mint. It's rolling-release, but not as fast as Arch. It's heavily lacking in packages though, but at least what's available is up-to-date. They have a KDE maintainer, so you can go with that or GNOME 3 if you don't want Budgie. Since they support 32-bit libraries now, you can game on it, unlike KaOS, which I'd recommend over Bluestar if it wasn't 64-bit only.

Also, I agree with @levi's Manjaro KDE suggestion.
 
levi said:
I'm not sure why anyone would use this when there's already a KDE spin of manjiro, which already gives you an easy way to install arch so that when the cutting edge aspect of Arch eventually breaks your system, you'll be largely unprepared to fix it.
Click to expand...

I've been using Manjaro KDE for a few months, and updates still didn't break anything.
Can't say the same after using Antergos for a few years, updating every day, even if i only suffered 4 or 5 breakages, mostly because maintainers like me, are humans and can make mistakes.

And i fail to undestand why using the lastest stable versions of the programs, games, is "bleeding edge", unless you install packages with -git in the end of their name, or orphaned, not very updated packages from AUR.

At least the Manjaro team seems to test more before releasing anything, but you still need to do some tweaks depending on your hardware, like any other desktop OS.

And about this new distro, i fail to see how it will conquer the over crowded Linux desktop market.
But sometimes there are good innovations in obscure and very niche devices, ;)

I can understand distros for specific jobs, like KXStudio or Scientific Linux, etc, optimized and ready out of the box.
 
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If you reconfigure anything, you'll need to reapply your changes every time the package updates. An update seems to have broken sshing in from my Pandora, probably because I've been too lazy to research the changes I made last time (I think I bookmarked it, but my bookmarks really could do with being more sorted than they currently are already). But in terms of booting up and getting to the desktop, I've never had anything break so far, touch wood.
 
canseco said:
And about this new distro, i fail to see how it will conquer the over crowded Linux desktop market.
But sometimes there are good innovations in obscure and very niche devices, ;)

I can understand distros for specific jobs, like KXStudio or Scientific Linux, etc, optimized and ready out of the box.
Click to expand...
Maybe they try to take over where Mint left it's huge user base out in the cold with the always horribly obsolete versions of most packages.
Wouldn't something Debian based be better then?

Is there a Debian based distro like MINT with more or less current (stable) packages?
I gave up on Debian itself since the live-dvd won't even let me see a clear non-garbled picture.
 
I'd have thought if you wanted Mint without the blacklisted security patches, you could go to the Ubuntu Mate spin. Seems there's no cinnamon spin, but if you're happy with mate that should be more up-to-date that Mint.

This is a rolling release, which is a rather different kettle of fish to a six-monthly drop system like Ubuntu and its different spins.
 
In response to the KDE question, because some of us like it. It has been my primary DE for a decade or so. Of course I change a bunch of things away from the default setup and look, but I do that regardless of what I am using (because why waste screen space where you need it most when those damn bar thingies can easily go on the right side, which makes sense to me, probably because I am a righty or an American driver).

As for why this over a different distro, two answers:

Because you can.

Variety is a great thing imo, and maybe down the road they will do things that stand out from those that are similar, or maybe philosophically they will go down a different road, or maybe something will happen that kills off the "better" preexisting alternatives.
 
Variety is a good thing, but there is such a thing as too much, and I feel that maybe we've reached that point quite a long time ago now. All you really need is a rolling release version and periodic drop version, an install it yourself version and an easy installer version, and combinations of those. The only real difference between Fedora and Debian is politics. Ubuntu used to have borderline broken multilib support, but I hope that's improved in the intervening years. Maybe slackware has its place, it you really dislike package managers and dependencies. But providing they make spins of all the major desktop environments for the easy installer ones, and provide packages for the build-it-yourself ones that invalidates the need for other linuxes supporting different DEs.

I guess Fedora also dumps you with managing with SELinux extensions, which I found a hassle last time I tried to use it. I don't know how easy it is to pull SELinux off of Fedora, so maybe the way packages are laid out and the dependency tree specified are a valid difference. I just don't see this, which is using almost the exact same packages as any arch derivative, as far as I can see, claiming that as a difference.
 
levi said:
Variety is a good thing, but there is such a thing as too much,
Click to expand...
When I hear things like this I am reminded of evolution. Granted, I usually hear a variation of it in response to my entertainment choices, because mainstream music/film/books "should be good enough" for everyone (yet even my mainstream choices bother some people, such as what I prefer when it comes to blues). It also applies to many other things...like religion or spiritual practices and beliefs.

But that is why everyone isn't a Zoroastrian fish that only watches I Love Lucy and uses Slackware. All of those things are pretty interesting, though.

I am SO glad I have choices when it comes to food.
 
rygD said:
Well, I meant that for recorded stuff I go for the really early ones.
Click to expand...
I have a few old blues records on 78rpm... theres something magical about them.
 
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