Linux distro from Italy, based on Gentoo, hits all the right marks
By Larry Cafiero
While it’s been a slow June so far – unless you’re an Arch user – this week we’ve spun the proverbial wheel and it looks like we’re going to test-drive Italy’s MocaccinoOS 26.06, released by its developers earlier this month.
MocaccinoOS is an independently developed Linux distribution based on – wait for it – Gentoo via Sabayon, using a custom-built package manager called Luet. The main features are both minimalism and a small footprint, as well as ease of use with support for the most important cloud technologies.
MocaccinoOS is offered in several variants, including live images with Gnome, KDE Plasma, MATE and Xfce desktop environments, as well as a command-line only “Minimal Desktop” version. For purposes of this review, we’re test-driving the KDE Plasma version.
The system requirements for MocaccinoOS are fairly low. The distro requires a minimum of 2 GB RAM at a minimum and a 64-bit processor, although more would be welcome for the distro to run efficiently.
Installing MocaccinoOS
The installation of MocaccinoOS is fairly simple, with the ISO weighing in at an average 2.4 GB. After roughly 10 minutes of download time, we were ready to place the ISO onto a USB drive. It all starts with the the distro’s version of the Calamares installer.
The installer asks for the standard Calamares details, like language, time zone, keyboard layout, and disk partition options (always go for “erase disk” unless you are experienced, and maybe a little adventurous). Once that’s done it’s time to set up a login/password after which it provides some software options to include in the installation.
These options include web browser – we chose Chromium and Brave – and Office software, which we opted for LibreOffice. If you’re a gamer, it offers software options for games like Steam and Lutris, before finally offering development options.
Then the installer will ask you if all that you’ve entered is what you really want. Once you agree to what you’ve put in to Calamares, if’t off to the races.
The install takes roughly 20 minutes, which is a little long. Once the user sees the “all done” window, he or she can click the restart box and hit close, and the MocaccinoOS distro takes care of the rest by rebooting into your newly downloaded distro.
The KDE Plasma 6.6.5 desktop environment welcomes the user upon reboot. Once you do an update – here again, because the distro is based on Gentoo via Sabayon, the rules are a tad different (remember Luet?) – the user is ready to delve into what MocaccinoOS has to offer.
Let’s talk installed software: At first blush, the software installation provided by MocaccinoOS is fairly adequate. Not only did it download the Chromium and Brave web browsers we checked in Calamares, but it may have been overkill since the distro comes with Firefox ESR. While this particular version is KDE-based, there’s a plethora of KDE tools available, like the Dolphin file manager, Discover software installer, and the Konsole terminal, to name a few.
Outside of the software checked off in Calamares, like the LibreOffice suite and the additional browsers, the distro – to its credit – included the VLC media player on the original install.
Time to hit up Discover for an email client, namely Thunderbird, and we also downloaded GIMP for good measure.
Taking MocaccinoOS for a spin
Once we had Mocaccino 26.06 KDE Plasma up to the way we wanted it, it was showtime.
As advertised, MocaccinoOS is both lightweight and modular, and works well with all applications. The Luet package manager is supposed to simplify software management, and after getting used to typing “luet” instead of “apt,” it worked flawlessly. The distro’s layered architecture allows for smoother upgrades and easier management of system packages.
Ease of use almost becomes an understatement with MocaccinoOS. The distro worked well while putting it through its day-to-day paces. Email and writing assignments were handled flawlessly, and resizing photos in GIMP went without a hitch. Listening to music on the VLC media player helped during the week. All of which is to say that the multitasking of normal daily use seemed to be nothing to the distro, and the distro rarely went above 3 GB of RAM usage at this reviewer’s busiest times.
Additionally, MocaccinoOS played nicely with online programs like Google Docs and Google Drive, and swapping documents and photos between each of the programs and the hardware was a breeze.
The final word
MocaccinoOS 26.06 KDE Plasma is an ideal distro for a wide variety of users. For beginners it checks all the proverbial boxes for ease of use, and the distro’s website is full of information should he or she run into problems.
For more experienced users, the wide variety of available tools augmented by the relatively small footprint of the distro itself is cause to consider this version, not to mention that the distribution’s support for cloud technologies and containerization might be a plus for developers and system administrators.
The Luet package manager takes a little getting used to, but that’s more of a “me” problem than that of a new or experienced user. In fact, arguably a new user – taking a little time with Luet – could master the package manager easily.
MocaccinoOS is a rarified breath of fresh air, as far as Linux distribution go. The distro addresses both modern computing needs while maintaining a user-friendly approach.
See for yourself: Download a MocaccinoOS ISO at the distro’s download page.
Do you have a distro you think would make a great feature for Distro of the Week? Don’t be shy—let me know! Email me at larry.cafiero@gmail.com and I’ll make an effort to make your choice available to the wider public … No suggestion is too mainstream!