New Arch based distro Apricity OS using our very own ICE application

[PCNetSpec]

New Arch based distro Apricity OS using our very own ICE application
http://apricityos.com/

Scroll about half way down the page and you'll find this

ICE

Apricity OS lets you put your favorite web apps on the desktop with ICE, a simple SSB (Site Specific Browser) manager. These specialized browsers minimize the number of steps between you wanting to use your favorite web app and you actually using it. This embodies our vision here at Apricity: we want to help make your workspace, and your playspace, more productive and elegant.

[perknh]

Never heard of that distro before.  Good find!  One of the beautiful things about open source is that they can grab good ideas from us if they wish.  I wish them all the best. 

[PCNetSpec]

Zactly

[AndyInMokum]

That's really cool to know that Ice is being used in another distro.  I'm downloading their beta ISO.  I'm curious to see what this Arch based distro's all about.  It looks like they're using a super stripped down version of Gnome 3 for the desktop.  I wish them all the best.  I just hope they don't go the same way as Manjaro.  Unfortunately, for some reason, Manjaro seems to have attracted all of the brats in the Linux world.

Do you remember ages ago this bloke, eles got Ice working on his Arch rig? http://forum.peppermintos.com/index.php/topic,88.msg390.html#msg390.  I wonder if there is any connection  ?

[scifidude79]

Well, kudos to them and it's nice to see that the Peppermint dev team's baby is catching on. 

I was thinking about trying them, but I don't care for their file sizes.  The "smaller" download is 1.5 GB.  The bigger one is 3.9 GB.  I'm guessing this is one of those "kitchen sink" operating systems, where they come with pretty much everything they *think* you need.  I never really care for that approach, because I usually wind up spending a lot of time after installation removing stuff I don't want.

[perknh]

I just hope they don't go the same way as Manjaro.  Unfortunately, for some reason, Manjaro seems to have attracted all of the brats in the Linux world.

I was thinking the same.  Linux needs a Manjaro alternative --and maybe this will become it.   By the way, I thought those "brats" you were referring to were called trolls, but, then again, you might have met some nicer people in their forum than me!  (In fairness to Manjaro, the troll attacks were at first traced back to some disgruntled ex-employees -- the very people who knew how to wreak the most havoc within their forum.)

I do remember a little of that link you shared.  Hey, maybe there is a connection.  These open source ideas do have a way of getting around!  Could you, Kendall and PCNetSpec have helped inspire the birth of a new distribution --and an Arch-based one at that?  We may never know! 

[AndyInMokum]

Well, kudos to them and it's nice to see that the Peppermint dev team's baby is catching on. 

I was thinking about trying them, but I don't care for their file sizes.  The "smaller" download is 1.5 GB.  The bigger one is 3.9 GB.  I'm guessing this is one of those "kitchen sink" operating systems, where they come with pretty much everything they *think* you need.  I never really care for that approach, because I usually wind up spending a lot of time after installation removing stuff I don't want.

You're right, it's a bit of a, "chunky monkey".  The ISO I downloaded is, 4.2GB  )!!  I can't even put it on my faithful 4GB thumb drive that I found laying on the pavement/sidewalk.  Thankfully I've a spare 8GB SanDisk.  I let you know how ApricityOS looks  !!

[PCNetSpec]

Just a quick note....

Be aware that Apricity is 64bit ONLY .. this is not clear from their ISO image name or download links, but is mentioned in their forum:
http://apricityos.com/forum/discussion/comment/8/#Comment_8

[WallyA]

At my first glance at their website I thought "Oh, Elementary OS has had a name change" 

Idling around 500 mb of memory is good for Gnome shell, I get similar results in Ubuntu Gnome 15.04 w/ animations turned off and Dropbox not running.  By way of contrast my P5 machine is a little over 400 mb idling - but with Dropbox and Spideroak running in the background.

Cool to see ICE in use elsewhere.  Refreshing my memory regarding ICE (after trying earlier an version of Peppermint, 3 I believe) is what led me to give Peppermint another try w/ version 5 

[scifidude79]

Just a quick note....

Be aware that Apricity is 64bit ONLY .. this is not clear from their ISO image name or download links, but is mentioned in their forum:
http://apricityos.com/forum/discussion/comment/8/#Comment_8

It does say on their download page above both of the download links:  "64 Bit With Cache"/"64 Bit Without Cache."   Then, underneath the download links it says: "Note:  All downloads are for 64 bit systems."

[scifidude79]

I finally decided to download it and give it a shot. (VB, of course)  Fortunately, it only took me a little over an hour to download the big .iso file.  It's interesting.  I sure hope you can tweak the UI after installation, though.  It's giving me a headache.

It amazes me that it's such a huge download, yet it doesn't really come with much preinstalled software.  Plus, it apparently has to download 876 files during installation.  (I don't want to know how many it would download if I got the 1.5 GB .iso)  I'm hoping those are updates, but the update manager didn't show me that many files.  I wonder what is taking up so much room?

[agajews]

Many thanks to AndyInMokum (Andy Mitchell) for his encouragement on our forums. It really means a lot to us. @scifidude79, even though the installer GUI says it's downloading 800+ files, it isn't really. It's just checking their integrity and pulling them from the enormous included cache that speeds up the installation tremendously. We are working on a fix for the second Apricity beta.

We hope you enjoy using Apricity as much as we enjoy using ICE!

The Apricity OS Team

[perknh]

I couldn't get the md5 checksum to match with the download with cache.  I'm now waiting for the download w/o cache to finish.  This installation is supposed to end up being very light on system resources.  My problem is that right now I'm downloading from 0 of 0 peers --so it's not moving so fast. 

But if I can learn a bit about this seemingly Peppermint-inspired, Arch-based Linux distribution; well, I don't want to miss this rare opportunity.    But, the way this is looking to me right now, I may have to wait for a stable edition to come out first.  I'm really not having much luck here.

Is this just me, or have things been a bit bogged down within Linux yesterday and today?  Is this just a coincidence, or might there be a link between this increased activity within Linux repos and a quickly growing dissatisfied customer base within the Windows 10 community?  Could enough people be saying that enough is enough?

I'm certain this is just a coincidence, but funny how these two things appear to be happening at the same time. 

[Slim.Fatz]

For me "Light on resources" and idling at about 500 MB are contradictory statements 


When I start Peppermint Six running the JWM window manager and with conky running my machine idles at about 90-92 MB. Now that is more like what I imagine when I read "Light on resources" ... 


Even my standard installation Peppermint Six desktop idles at about 115 MB. 


Regards,


-- Slim

[scifidude79]

On my system, using the default desktop, Peppermint 6 idles at a little over 400 MB of RAM usage.  So, it's not like Apricity is much above that.

@scifidude79, even though the installer GUI says it's downloading 800+ files, it isn't really. It's just checking their integrity and pulling them from the enormous included cache that speeds up the installation tremendously. We are working on a fix for the second Apricity beta.

Ah, gotcha.  Thanks for the explanation on that one.  I noticed, once I installed the system, there were a number of packages installed that weren't on the Live version.  Were those on the .iso but just not available on the Live version?  Because, if they were, that certainly explains the big size of the .iso file.

Incidentally, a lot of the stuff that's preinstalled is stuff I actually use, (GIMP, Inkscape, Steam, LibreOffice, to name a few) so that was a nice surprise.    I also noticed it did install updates during installation, which is nice.  I've tried checking that option before in Ubuntu's installer with no success.

Another thing I really love about your distribution is your Tweak tool.  Wow, that's amazing.  In seconds, I had a classic Gnome setup.    All in all, I'd say there's a lot to like about your distribution.  I'm tempted to dual boot it with Peppermint 6 to see how it runs on my actual system, as opposed to VirtualBox.