The Amarok name can be misleading. There's a Volkswagen vehicle, a music player from the KDE project, and a now-discontinued Mandriva-based distribution. This article does not talk about any of them
In this case I mean one DDesktop GNU / Linux distribution currently based on Debian. The version I comment is based on Debian 11 ('Bullseye') with the Cinnamon desktop, but can also be downloaded with XFCE, GNOME, and MATE.
Testing Amarok LinuxOS 3.2.
Download and installation
A common problem with less popular Linux distributions is slow download times. The Amarok developers solved this by offering five alternatives:
- OSDN.
- SourceForge.
- Foss Torrent.
- Medium Fire.
- Google Drive
Of course, depending on which one you choose, the speed will vary. My experience using Foss Torrent was really good.
The creation of the installation pendrive can be done with any of the usual toolss. I use the Fedora Media Writer, but since it is based on Debian, the Ubuntu boot disk creator should work.
Yesterday I complained of the "institutional" colors of Ubuntu 21.10. Well, if there is something left over for Amarok 3.2, it is the colors. In fact, it is somewhat difficult for shortsighted people like me to see the home screen, but it is not an insoluble problem. What could be a disadvantage is that in live mode you can only choose between Portuguese and English. I say could because for me that I am familiar with Linux it did not mean major inconvenience, but I cannot speak for the new users.
It was also a bit difficult for me to see the installer icon on the colorful wallpaper, but it's my problem and easy to fix.
The installation process
I don't score distributions, but if I did, the fact of having chosen Calamares as installer would already guarantee them a 7 out of 10. Calamares is undoubtedly the best option of all the installers available for Linux. I said before that the live mode was only available in Portuguese and English. But, at the time of installation you can choose three variants of Spanish; Spain, Mexico and Puerto Rico. There are also two keyboard variants; Spanish and Latin American.
Partitioning can be done automatically or manually. Manual partitioning is very easy and Calameres tells you how to create them for UEFI boot.
When creating the user you can define that it is the administrator or create another that fulfills that function.
logging in
When you restart the computer, the colorful bootloader screen appears. I was able to verify that the installer detected the other installed operating systems and allows access to them without problems. At the end of the boot process you see the login window in which you also have to enter the username. Something a bit awkward when you have only one user and you made it an administrator.
Amarok Linux OS 3.2 welcomes you with an assistant that allows you to see all the configuration options on a single screen to leave the system to your liking.
Program availability is guaranteed both because of the extensive Debian repositories and one of the distribution's own, to which we must add the FlatHub assortment (Flatpak Format). In addition, thanks to Gdebi we can comfortably install DEB packages downloaded from the web. If that's not enough, you can always add support for Snap packages.
I said above that the use of Squids guaranteed you 7 points. Keeping Synaptic as an alternative to the app store entitles the other 3. Anyway, if you like a colorful installer with screenshots, the software installer works fine.
While the software assortment is abundant, Amarok LinuxOS 3.2. it doesn't come with many pre-installed programs. A video player (VLC), the browser (Firefox), a torrent client (QBittorrent) and a document viewer. To this must be added the necessary tools for configuring the operating system and installing programs.
My opinion
Amarok LinuxOS 3.2. is a great distribution that delivers what it promises; ease of use and wide availability of software. It is the ideal option if you want an operating system that offers wide freedom in configuration without having to complicate your life to obtain it.
Does it work on disk arrays? I have a RAID 0 in which I already have Windows, and I left enough space for MX Linux 21 Wild Flowers, but this installation did not recognize the arrangement, so I'm looking for XFCE options About Debian ... Thanks
It should work.
No, not every distro that has Calamares as an installer will work for you, because Calamares does not recognize the raids, some distro does, but because those of the distro have added it. My advice is debian testing xfce, I also have zero raid and now for a while now, both debian stable and testing recognize the raid, which they did not before. I have lost count of the time I have been with testing and zero problems, testing has only the name, it is super stable and I use it for everything, to play, to work, to study and the best distro I have had, not even stable. no milk, try.
It is great, fast and beautiful, and with updated software, such as the latest version of Cinnamon 5.05, the possibility of installing it from the Kernel 5.14 repositories and also the latest version of the NVIDIA drivers. The truth is that they have worked it out.
Does it go well with the Nvidia drivers?
I'm going to prove it.
Officials can be installed
Thank you!
I had several issues with nvidia and debian. For that reason I throw myself more to ubuntu or manjaro.
But I'm going to test them.
Thank you very much for your answer.