Algerian distro based on Void turns heads with its quickness and dependability
By Larry Cafiero
Last week, I was in Seattle at SeaGL – the annual Seattle GNU/Linux conference – giving a talk about how to choose a distro. Among the many things I said is that perhaps the fastest distros are the ones based on either Arch Linux or Void Linux.
Which brings us to this week’s Distro of the Week, which is based on the latter. Noid Linux – rhymes with Void for a reason, obviously – is an Algerian distro which highlights three desktop environments, Gnome, KDE Plasma, and Xfce. While Xfce is the preferred desktop environment, we decided to take a look at the KDE Plasma version of this distro since, truth be told, we’ve been a little Xfce-heavy over the last several weeks.
Noid Linux is a minimalist system which includes a long-term Linux kernel, as well as providing its own repository for Void’s XBPS packages with additional software. Its ranking on the Distrowatch page-hit rankings is 173, which is not too shabby.
Installing Noid Linux
Downloading the 2.8 GB ISO featuring the KDE Plasma desktop environment went quickly, as did the transfer to a live USB to make the install. All of this transpired in about 10 minutes tops, and we were ready to install.
The live USB booted quickly to a standard KDE Plasma desktop, with an install icon in the upper left. Clicking on the icon provided a Calamares installer and going through the motions like keyboard, time zone, disk setup, login/password, we finally reach the point of checking everything and hitting the install button.
The install both went quickly and smoothly. One comment is that of all the Calamares-based installers provided, Noid Linux’s “show” during the install process was somewhat entertaining, and shortly thereafter it was completed and we were ready to boot into our new system.
Kicking the tires
Rebooting into our new system wastes little time, as the desktop comes up almost immediately and the user is greeted with Noid’s Welcome window, which provides – and I quote – “quick access to software installation, system updates, and setup scripts for virtualization and Rust-based tools.” OK then, how about our standard practice of updating the distro? There’s a button for that, as is a button for getting software, installing virt-manager, and oxidize your system.
Oxidize your system?
Well, yes. Choosing this option will install Rust and some useful CLIs, and will install rustup, Uutils coreutils and modify files so they can run properly.
All right then, yes please.
After waiting a few minutes for the system to download a variety of software, it was time to reboot and start again.
Noid Linux provides the bare minimum of software on the original install, and some of the choices might cause the user to scratch his or her head. Foregoing Firefox, Noid Linux provides Brave as the web browser of choice. The KDE Plasma version features Dolphin as the file manager and Konsole as the terminal, along with other KDE-based tools, but from there the software on the original install drops off considerably.
Thank goodness for Bazaar, which is Noid Linux’s Flatpak software center. Bazaar provides the user with nearly every software program imaginable – and maybe some that aren’t so imaginable – all in one place, and from here we went to work setting up our system.
Keeping Brave as our web browser, we started filling in the gaps for what we would use on a regular basis. Starting with music, we downloaded VLC media player and, for safe measure, the Strawberry music player. Graphics? GIMP, please. Email? How about Thunderbird. And no system would be complete without the LibreOffice suite of software, and we added it accordingly.
Once we got the system where we wanted it, it was go-time, and in short, Noid Linux did not disappoint. The Void Linux under the hood purred gently while daily tasks were handled with ease and efficiency. Using Brave as a web browser – at least for this Firefox uber alles guy – was quite a revelation, and I can now see why many distros opt for it in their installations. Brave is an outstanding browser.
Emailing with Thunderbird was a treat, while both VLC and Strawberry handled the musical aspect of digital life equally well. As for the issue of multitasking, Noid Linux handled each issue thrown at it with the typical Void-based aplomb, and the RAM rarely reached over 3 GB no matter what I had open. The distro handled web-based programs with ease, and Google Docs and Google Drive were easily used during the testing.
The final word
Being relatively new to Void-based distros, I have to say that my first impression of them is that they’re as fast as they are solid and dependable. That said, Noid Linux is a great representative of this wave of Linux distribution. I would even go one further: Noid Linux is the perfect entry point into Void Linux family of distros, because it gives the user a polished Linux experience while still letting him or her dive deep when the user chooses.
No small feat there.
Why Noid Linux is not higher than the mid-170s in Distrowatch’s page-hit rankings is a mystery, but hopefully they’ll soon move up to the place they deserve. Again, this is a solid and fast distro which hits all the marks when it comes to usability. The fact that it could come with more software is probably something that could be looked at in the future by the Noid Linux developers, but that’s a minor detail.
The age-old question of whether this distro is good for beginners invariably arises. Can beginners use Noid Linux? I would say yes, if for no other reason that the KDE Plasma desktop – as well as the more common Xfce desktop – lends itself to Windows refugees seeking a new digital home. Intermediate and advanced users would have a field day with Noid Linux, so this distro would work well within a wide spectrum of users.
Don’t take my word for it. Give Noid Linux a shot by downloading your choice of desktop environment here.
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!