aptosid

aptosid

aptosid 2012-01 Thanatos "Θάνατος" KDE-full
Developer	aptosid-team around Stefan Lippers-Hollmann (slh)
OS family	Unix-like
Working state	Discontinued
Source model	Open source
Initial release	24 November 2006 (2006-11-24)
Latest release	(Rolling release) / Installation CD aptosid 2013-01 Ἑσπερίδες[1]
Available in	multilingual
Update method	APT (front-ends available)
Package manager	dpkg (front-ends available)
Platforms	x86
Kernel type	Monolithic (Linux)
Userland	GNU
Default user interface	KDE Plasma Desktop or Xfce and Fluxbox available by default
License	Free software licenses (mainly GPL)
Official website	aptosid.com

aptosid is a desktop-oriented operating system based on the "unstable" branch of Debian, which uses the codename Sid. It was known as sidux until September 2010. The distribution consisted of a Live CD (bootable CD-ROM) for the x86 architecture installable to a hard drive through a graphical installer. The goal of the distribution was to provide a stable, easy-to-use and cutting-edge free and open source operating system.^[2]

Features

Aptosid was based on Debian's most modern branch, sid. It includes a manual^[3] and a collection of tools and scripts to make desktop administration easier.

One of aptosid's more notable features is that unlike most other Linux distributions, it uses a true 'rolling-release-cycle', and thus continues to remain current. Users can update all of the system's packages via the command 'apt-get dist-upgrade'. Through this model, there should not, in theory, ever be a need to overwrite an aptosid system by installing an entirely new version. Other Linux distributions that use the rolling release model include Arch Linux, Sabayon and Linux Mint Debian Edition.

Live media

Each release comes as a Live CD or Live DVD, booting to a graphical desktop without installation. On the Live CD a USB installer is provided to create a Live USB system, but the Live USB can be created easily from the Live CD ISO file.^[4]

Installer

The graphical installation can be started directly from live mode, without rebooting. aptosid can be installed to USB-connected hard disks and USB flash drives, as well as to internal hard disks.

Updates

Once aptosid is installed, it can be kept up-to-date with updates from the Debian Sid and aptosid repositories. Updates are typically run from command line using apt-get. Because post and pre install scripts in the Debian packages may restart your display manager during updates and cause conflicts with running userspace applications, it is recommended that users upgrade their system outside of X (i.e., while NOT running the 'GUI'). This is achieved by applying all updates at 'run-level 3'.

Warnings regarding upgrades are posted on the main website and in the Upgrade Warnings section of the forum.

Support

• The IRC channel #aptosid at irc.oftc.net, port 6667 gives fastest response.
• The forum is also a good place for questions and talks, however the reaction time is longer, but it is a good source for searches.

Multilingual

The default language of aptosid releases is English, however German, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, Greek, English (GB), French, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese (BR and PT), Romanian, Russian and Spanish localisations (i18n support) are also provided within the DVD, selectable at boot prompt.

Packages

Aptosid comes with a selection of programs, covering system rescue and web surfing. To mention a few: KDE / Xfce desktop, OpenOffice.org, Iceweasel, amarok, digikam, gparted, gwenview, k3b, kaffeine, koffice, krita, krusader, sane, vdr, virtualbox, wireless-tools, xawtv, yakuake, ...

The complete package list is available for each release in the project download directory,^[5] named <release-name>.manifest.

Releases

The releases were originally available in 4 CD versions. However, since release 2007-04.5 a fully equipped DVD and two light CDs are being offered here. As of release 2008-02, an ~420 MB large Xfce variant is also available. DVD Versions at the end of a year contain more programs and preinstalled languages.

Derivatives

Currently the only alive Aptosid spin off is Siduction.^[7]

Name

The sid part of the distribution name is derived from Debian Sid (named after the Sid Phillips character in Toy Story). The apto part of the name aptosid derives from the Latin word apto from aptus which means to fit, to adapt, to adjust or make ready.^[8] The names of the releases are taken from Greek mythology.

History

The sidux project appeared on 2006-11-24,^[9] with the goal of providing a hard disk installable Debian Sid-based Live CD distribution. The first sidux preview appeared on the 2007-01-24^[10][11] with the finished release appearing on 2007-02-22,^[12] codenamed 2007-01 “Χάος"(chaos). In February 2007 sidux was awarded by DistroWatch with the donation of US$350.^[13]

The second sidux Live CD was released on the 2007-05-28,^[14] codenamed sidux-2007-02 "Τάρταρος"(tartaros). During the linuxtag 2007 (an open source fair in Berlin) a special linuxtag-edition was distributed at the shared booth of KDE e.V. and sidux. On the 2007-05-31 sidux e.V.^[15] (foundation) has been officially registered with the German authorities. On 2007-11-15 sidux e.V. was accepted as non-profit organization by German law,^[16] retroactively as of 2007-04-01. sidux was maintained by a team of former Kanotix developers including Stefan Lippers-Hollmann (slh). Initial administration was managed by The sidux Foundation, Inc. located in the United States. The Berlin, Germany-based non-profit organization sidux e.V. was administering and supporting the project. Due to disagreement between sidux e.V. and the sidux developers, all development of sidux was halted in summer 2010 until September 2010. The project was renamed as aptosid, announced on September 11, 2010. aptosid is a direct upgrade from sidux. At one time, the upgrade between the two was seamless, but the migration utilities are gone now. (At this point it is better to reinstall using the latest ISO.)

Software

Aptosid Releases contain only free software as defined by the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG). To aid proof of compliance, a monolithic tarball containing the source for all packages used in the release is provided alongside the Live CD ISOs.^[17] Access to non-free software such as codecs, plugins and wlan firmware can be enabled by configuring contrib and non-free Debian repositories in /etc/apt/sources.list.d

In keeping with the evolutionary nature of the "unstable" Debian branch, aptosid Releases do not provide an upgrade path from previous release versions. Rather, once installed, incremental updates are performed via regular "dist-upgrades". The idea of a "Release" is instead to improve Live CD hardware support, performance, flexibility and reliability, built from the current debian unstable repository.^[18]

System recommendations

Aptosid is officially supported for the i686 and amd64 computer architectures.

See also

• List of live CDs

References

External links

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Sidux

• Official website

Articles

• Interview with Chris Hildebrandt, the sidux project, DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 245, 24 March 2008
• Kanotix seeks stability, sidux follows unstable, Posted December 6, 2006 by ris, Article on lwn.net

Other

• aptosid at DistroWatch