Armenian offering based on Void checks all boxes, and the distro’s anything but ‘lazy’
By Larry Cafiero
Sometimes you have a list of distros to choose from and you put them in a neat order to write about on a weekly basis. And sometimes a distro just proverbially falls out of the sky and into your lap.
This week’s Distro of the Week is definitely the latter.
From Armenia – of all places – and based on Void Linux – of all distros – is the latest version of LazyLinux.
LazyLinux features a modified version of the Xfce 4.20 desktop environment and, according to Distrowatch, aims to be “user friendly and usable right after installation.”
According to the LazyLinux download page, “LazyLinux is a pre-configured distro from Hadrut, Armenia, based on Void Linux featuring XFCE desktop and latest kernel version to provide a stable and user-friendly experience. It comes with a large number of software preinstalled for almost any purpose.”
Installing LazyLinux
The ISO for the Xfce version of Lazy Linux – it also comes in an OXWM window manager version – weighs in at a hefty 6 GB. While it downloads onto a USB drive, we should mention that the distro requires a minimum of 2 GB of RAM and 10 GB of disk space, but for optimal performance, 4 GB of RAM and a solid-state drive are recommended.
Once we’re finished there, we boot into the live version of the USB stick. The user is greeted with a somewhat humorous desktop display of a sloth grinning back at the user while eating pizza and drinking what one can only assume is LazyLinux cola. However, the Xfce 4.20 desktop environment provides only one icon – Install – and we oblige.
LazyLinux provides a standard Calamares installer, complete with adding your location, keyboard, disk setup, login/password and once that’s all squared away, the install starts. The download took a little longer than usual, but after it was completed, we rebooted. Updating the system for good measure we were on our way.
Kicking the tires on LazyLinux
The immediate look of LazyLinux – pizza-eating sloth excluded – provides the user with various options. The Xfce 4.20 desktop environment comes with a wide variety of additions to the upper panel. On the right is the stock Xfce drop-down menu, and moving leftward there are icons for the workspace, Search, Thunar File Manager, Ghosty terminal, and then icons for Zed, the Zen Browser, and the Brave web browser to conclude the icons on the left of the panel.
In the center of the panel are a variety of icons as well, including separate monitors for WiFi, disk drive, RAM, and disk use. On the right and filling out the icons are a language icon, Clipman clipboard manager, on-screen keyboard, WiFi network connection, Cortile tiling manager, a remote device monitor, Bluetooth, Volume, Battery monitor, Weather monitor, and Date/Time.
A lot to deal with for one panel, but I digress, although the Weather monitor icon bears special mention as a welcome addition.
The size of the ISO becomes evident when the user looks at the amount of software included in the initial download. In a nutshell, there are a wide variety to choose from, and when I say “to choose from,” I actually mean that specifically. As previously mentioned, two web browsers – Zen and Brave – are available. The distro provides an email client – Aerion – to its long list of included software.
But wait, there’s more. The VLC media player and GIMP image editor are also included on the initial download as is a variety of Void-based tools to configure the LazyLinux experience to the user’s liking.
For the first time in quite awhile, there was no need to add any software to the original install, which in and of itself is a feather in LazyLinux’s cap. While I would have preferred LibreOffice, we wrote the article using the available OnlyOffice, which performed admirably.
The Void Linux base on LazyLinux is clearly evident, since all the software and hardware react quickly and efficiently to a wide range of requests made by the user. Although I was a few steps away, rhetorically speaking, from the Firefox/Thunderbird “confort zone,” the software included in the distro performed swiftly and adequately. Multitasking on this distro is very simple and almost carefree, and multitasking issues were completely non=existent.
Lastly, even using two new browsers – new to me, anyway – LazyLinux handled online programs like Google Docs and Google Drive easily and effortlessly.
The last word
This is the first Void Linux-based distro that Distro of the Week has tested, and the Void base of LazyLinux passes with flying colors. As an aside, it urges an uptick in trying vanilla Void in an upcoming Distro of the Week.
Further, to call LazyLinux “lazy” is a complete misnomer. This sole Linux offering from Armenia checks all the boxes for speed, efficiency, and multitasking, and surpasses each with flying colors. Being based on Void Linux, LazyLinux inherits the speed, simplicity, and robustness of its parent distribution.
That said, LazyLinux is easily useable for new users dipping their toes in the proverbial Linux waters, despite being “burdened” – for lack of a better word – with a virtual tsunami of software and tools at the user’s disposal.. Both intermediate users and “greybeards” would have a field day with the amount of tools and setups available in the LazyLinux download.
Don’t take my word for it. Give it a shot. You can download LazyLinux from its download page and give it a try.
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!