Rough Edges of the ROSA Desktop Fresh R9 LXQt

ROSA is not a leader among the Linux distributions, per the Distrowatch rating.

However, Linux Notes from DarkDuck blog watches this distribution very carefully. There were reviews of ROSA 2012 Marathon, ROSA 7 KDE, ROSA 8 Plasma 5. Even though ROSA 2012 Marathon was far from perfect, the latter versions were much improved. Each time I felt this distribution was greatly undervalued by the Linux community. Maybe because its main development team is based in Russia and there is a stigma against anything Russian made in current Western propaganda?

ROSA R9 was released in April 2017, and an additional release of LXQt version was released in June 2017. I have never seen a distribution with the LXQt desktop, and I could not miss this opportunity to check what it feels like.

The ISO image of ROSA Desktop Frresh R9 LXQt is about 1.4 Gb in size. It is available through several mirrors. I downloaded it and "burnt" onto a USB stick using the most usual way: command dd.

The USB stick is in the port of my laptop Dell Inspirion 17.

Reboot. Choose to boot from USB. Fasten your seatbelts. Let's go!

4 categories of Linux distributions

There are different Linux distributions. If you just go to Distrowatch site, you will find hundreds of them listed there. Some of them even have my reviews listed. And how many distributions are NOT listed? Some of them either fail to gain registration on Distrowatch, or are in the process of that, like Zorin OS was just few years ago.

However, there are at least four distinctive categories of distributions visible in the Linux world.

ROSA Desktop Fresh R8 Plasma 5: is it near-perfect?

ROSA is a Linux distribution forked some time ago from Mandriva Linux by a team of Russian developers, Rosa Lab, or officially LLC NTC-IT ROSA.

I reviewed their distributions several times: ROSA KDE R7, ROSA Desktop 2012 and even interviewed the ROSA team.

The most recent release of ROSA is now ROSA Desktop Fresh R8, which is available in several flavours: MATE, GNOME 3, KDE 4 and Plasma 5. I decided to try the Plasma 5 edition of this distribution, especially as my interest to Plasma increased after the good impression Kubuntu 16.10 left on me.

There are links to the ISO images available on the ROSA download page, and I used it to get my own version of this Linux distribution. The size of ROSA Desktop Fresh R8 Plasma 5 64-bit image is 1.9 Gb. The dd command helped me to "burn" the image to the USB stick.

So, the USB drive is attached to my Toshiba Satellite L500-19X laptop. Reboot. Choose to boot from USB. Let's go!

ROSA Desktop Fresh R7 KDE: nothing to complain... almost

Mandriva was one of the most famous names in the Linux world just a few years ago. Unfortunately, the company behind that Linux distribution had some difficulties that inevitably created issues for the project.

Mandriva Linux also became a base for several offsprings, derivatives, and forks.

Even though the Mandriva project is no longer in its famous state, derivatives still continue their existence. The most famous of them is, of course, Mageia. I used to use Mageia versions 1 through to 5 for some time until I migrated to Ubuntu-based distributions because of some 3rd-party dependencies.

ROSA is a Linux distribution that was also forked from Mandriva some time ago. I reviewed it back in 2012, when ROSA Marathon 2012 was released.

Since then, ROSA released few more versions and the most recent of them is ROSA Desktop Fresh R7. It has been available since January 2016. Unfortunately, only the KDE version is listed on the official Download page, although a GNOME version is also available. You can download this distribution either from the Download section of the ROSA web site or via torrent. I would recommend to use this link to see all the download options you have. If you don't want to bother with downloading and making the disk, you can order one from the BuyLinuxCDs site.

The ISO image of the KDE versions of ROSA Desktop Fresh R7 is 1.9 Gb in size. I burnt it to my USB stick.

The USB stick is in the port of my Toshiba laptop. Reboot. Choose to boot from USB. Let's go!

How to configure keyboard layouts in LXDE, Enlightenment, Openbox

I have written recently about multiple keyboard layout settings in different Desktop Environments. The first article was about Unity, KDE and GNOME3. The second part of series was about Xfce, Cinnamon and MATE. I also created video how-tos for this.

Today we will talk about less popular, still existing desktop environments: LXDE, Enlightenment and OpenBox.

Mini-interview with ROSA

Some time ago, I wrote an article "How Fresh is the Dew?" That article was about the first release of the Linux distribution named ROSA. In Russian, the word "rosa" means dew, so that was playing with words that time.

I am not sure if the developers of the distribution read my article or not, but the latest release of ROSA, announced on the 19th of December 2012, got the name ROSA Desktop.Fresh 2012. You can read the official press release yourself. However, after reading it I decided to ask some clarification questions of Konstantin Kochereshkin, the PR-manager of ROSA Labs.

I think the answers could be interesting for you, that's why I have published them on my blog.

ROSA Desktop 2012: Is It New?

In the hard time for the Mandriva as the company and as a distribution, which currently struggles with their internal structure and the definition of their future, some other teams continue development of their forks of Mandriva operating system.

Namely, these teams are Mageia, which currently works on Mageia 3, and ROSA, which prepares the Rosa Desktop 2012 release.

These distributions are at different stages now. While Mageia 3 is only at Alpha 2 stage, with Alpha 3 coming in November 2012, the ROSA Desktop 2012 release is already in Beta 2 stage.

Even though I am not that big fan of ROSA Desktop, and you can understand from my own review of it, I think this distribution still has a right to exist. I know it has some fans.

What is new in ROSA Desktop 2012? I believe there was a huge work for the "under the bonnet" stuff. But this is not so much visible to users. The interface changes are more likely to attract the attention. That’s why ROSA team created a short video where they explain the visual changes. Welcome to watch!

Three LXDE-based distributions: race them face-to-face

I am in a very interesting situation. Some time ago, I promised myself to stay away from LXDE-based distributions. At the same time, I wrote about three of them in the last 6 weeks.

Can I compare them somehow? Probably yes. Let’s do it.

ROSA Marathon 2012: first-ever usable LXDE distribution

I was disappointed after my first acquaintance with ROSA Marathon 2012 KDE.

Some time ago I made a decision not to look at LXDE-based distributions. One of the reasons for me was a lack of usability, because of keyboard layout configuration. I need to type in Russian and English both, which means I need to switch between different layouts quickly and often. None of the LXDE distributions I've tried had this option: Debian, Fedora, Knoppix, PCLOS, Porteus, SliTaz, Zorin OS 6 Lite.

That's why I initially did not give much attention to the announcement of a new version of the ROSA distribution, this time with an LXDE environment.

Things changed when I accidentally saw some screenshots of ROSA 2012 LXDE. The screenshots showed something which I did not expect to see in an LXDE distribution: the keyboard layout indicator in the notification area. Something clicked, and I decided to give ROSA Marathon 2012 LXDE a go.

The image size of the distribution is just below 800 Mb, which means you can't use a CD to boot ROSA Linux, unless you use a high-capacity CD-R. Your normal options are either DVD or USB. My choice was Live USB, and Unetbootin helped me with this.

So, Live USB is ready and plugged into the port of my Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Pi 1505 laptop. Reboot. Choose to boot from USB. Let's go!

How fresh is the dew: ROSA 2012 Marathon?

Do you know what is happening with Mandriva as a company? It has been on the brink of collapse for quite a few years already. You can learn more from my discussion with Eugeni Dodonov, who used for work for Mandriva for several years.

There is no surprise that a Linux distribution under such poor management gets lots of forks. Mageia was a fork which I adore. Mageia 1 is a distribution which I have been running on my laptop from almost Day 1 of its release.

Mandriva 2011 Hydrogen was the latest release of the Mandriva team, and the world saw it in August 2011. This release was radically different from all previous versions of Mandriva Linux for a number of reasons. The biggest changes on the user interface side were brought by the team at ROSA Labs. ROSA Labs is actually a company closely related to Mandriva, they share the same management.

In May 2012, though, ROSA Labs released its own Linux distribution. Without much hesitation, it was also named ROSA. “Rosa” in Russian (spelt роса) means “dew”. So, what is in ROSA 2012 Marathon? Is it fresh like dew or as tiring as a marathon?

I decided to check for myself and downloaded the image. You can download it either from ROSA’s own server, or from Yandex mirror. We’ll see the Yandex name later in this review, but for now I’d like to mention that the downloading speed from Yandex was not bad at all. Other than direct downloading, there is a torrent option too.

The ISO image size of ROSA 2012 Marathon is 1.4 Gb. It is actually smaller than than size of Mandriva 2011 which was 1.6 Gb.

I used Unetbootin to “burn” the image onto my 8 Gb USB stick.official page

So, the preparations are over. USB stick is in the port of my Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Pi 1505 laptop. Reboot. Choose to boot from USB. Let’s go!