siduction GNOME

siduction GNOME is a freely distributed and open source Linux-based operating system built around the controversial GNOME desktop environment and using the "unstable" branch of the Debian GNU/Linux distribution.

Availability, boot options, supported architectures

The GNOME edition of siduction is available for download as two Live DVD ISO images of approximately 1GB in size, each one for a specific hardware platform (64-bit/amd64 and 32-bit/i386). Users will be able to create DVD or USB bootable medium from these ISOs using the Disks software provided by the GNOME project.

From the boot menu, it is possible to start the live environment with default settings or in safe graphics mode (in case your video card is not recognized by the first option), boot an existing operating system installed on the first disk drive, as well as to run a memory diagnostic test.

In addition, the user will be able to add specific drivers and additional kernel parameters, change the default language for the live environment, set up the timezone, as well as to change the boot source and add boot options.

Modern desktop environment with specific apps

The GNOME desktop environment provided in this siduction edition is comprised of a single panel located on the upper part of the screen, from where users can launch applications, cycle between all opened windows, switch virtual workspaces, or search files and folders.

Default applications include the Evolution email and calendar client, Nautilus file manager, Gedit text editor, Brasero CD/DVD burning software, Iceweasel web browser, LibreOffice office suite, Rhythmbox music player, Totem video player, as well as all the standard GNOME utilities, games and applications.

Bottom line

In conclusion, siduction GNOME is a decent distribution of Linux that features a traditional, yet low on resources desktop environment, as well as a great collection of useful applications that will help anyone to achieve their daily tasks with ease, both at home and at office.

What is new in this release:

• The released images are a snapshot of Debian unstable, that also goes by the name of Sid, from 2018-05-12. They are enhanced with some useful packages and scripts, an installer based on Calamares and a custom patched version of the linux-kernel 4.16.8, accompanied by X-Server 1.19.6-1 and systemd 238.4.
• KDE Plasma stands at version 5.12.5, while GNOME comes in at 3.28.1, with 3.28.2 waiting in the wings. LXQt ships at 0.12.0 and Xfce at 4.12.4, while Cinnamon comes in at 3.6.7-8 and MATE at 1.20.0.

What is new in version :

• Recommends enabled:
• Years ago we decided to not install recommends anymore for our releases or when the user installs a package. The handling of that feature in Debian was not as we thought it should be. A lot of cruft was installed to the system and we wanted to prevent that. Times have changed and so has the handling of recommends. So now the recommends that the maintainer sets for a package are installed in siduction. If you would like recommends not installed, you can override our decision in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/80-siduction in the line APT::Install-Recommends "1";.
• Rotation for Journald:
• To prevent the journal from growing too large we have implemented a journal-rotation and a maximum size to the journal. You can overrule this setting by editing the files in /etc/journal.conf.d/. There will be a blog post on this topic within the next days.
• SSH Handling:
• We built two small scripts to turn SSH on and off in the live and in the
• installed system. They are aptly named SSH Activate and SSH Deactivate
• and you can find them in your menu.
• Calamares - our new installer:
• This is the 2nd release with the new installer built from the
• Calamares Installer Framework and we are quite happy with it. It is under steady developement and will in the near future improve quite a bit on LVM and LUKS2.
• The partitioning is done by the brand new kpmcore 3.3.0, which is also at the heart of the KDE Partition Manager (KPM). The corresponding package for that is called partitionmanager.
• UEFI installs made easy:
• With Calamares we can proclaim full implementation of UEFI-Installs since 2017.1.0. For now we still have encryption with LUKS and LVM turned off, which Calamares offers as an option. We want to be on top of that feature before we offer it to you. Offering it means we need to be able to support this critical functionality. We do not feel we can do this adequatly at the moment, as it is an ongoing developement, that should be more mature with kpmcore 3.4.
• Non-free software:
• The installer does not offer the option to opt-out software that does not
• comply with DFSG, the Debian Free Software Guidelines. That means that non-free packages would be installed by default on the system. The command vrms will list these packages. One can remove not wanted packages manually or remove them all by issuing apt purge $(vrms -s) before or after installation
• The very same topic has ruffled feathers on the debian deverloper mailing list last month with two extensive threads and a
• possible future solution layed out by Russ Allbery.
• The following non-free and contrib packages are installed by default:
• non-free:
• * amd64-microcode - Processor microcode firmware for AMD CPUs
• * firmware-amd-graphics - Binary firmware for AMD/ATI graphics chips
• * firmware-atheros - Binary firmware for Atheros wireless cards
• * firmware-bnx2 - Binary firmware for Broadcom NetXtremeII
• * firmware-bnx2x - Binary firmware for Broadcom NetXtreme II 10Gb
• * firmware-brcm80211 - Binary firmware for Broadcom 802.11 wireless card
• * firmware-crystalhd - Crystal HD Video Decoder (firmware)
• * firmware-intelwimax - Binary firmware for Intel WiMAX Connection
• * firmware-iwlwifi - Binary firmware for Intel Wireless cards
• * firmware-libertas - Binary firmware for Marvell Libertas 8xxx wireless car
• * firmware-linux-nonfree - Binary firmware for various drivers in the Linux kernel
• * firmware-misc-nonfree - Binary firmware for various drivers in the Linux kernel
• * firmware-myricom - Binary firmware for Myri-10G Ethernet adapters
• * firmware-netxen - Binary firmware for QLogic Intelligent Ethernet (3000)
• * firmware-qlogic - Binary firmware for QLogic HBAs
• * firmware-realtek - Binary firmware for Realtek wired/wifi/BT adapters
• * firmware-ti-connectivity - Binary firmware for TI Connectivity wireless network
• * firmware-zd1211 - binary firmware for the zd1211rw wireless driver
• * intel-microcode - Processor microcode firmware for Intel CPUs
• Contrib packages:
• * b43-fwcutter - utility for extracting Broadcom 43xx firmware
• * firmware-b43-installer - firmware installer for the b43 driver
• * firmware-b43legacy-installer - firmware installer for the b43legacy driver
• * iucode-tool - Intel processor microcode
• New paste script:
• We have retired the old paste-script, that ran under the name siduction-paste. It's place was taken by what is now called simple-paste. Simple-paste is a cli swiss army-knife for pasting, written in bash, powered by pb. It supports command output, different kinds of screenshots, (auto-)deletable pastes and much more.

What is new in version 2017.1.0:

• GNOME shipped version is 3.14.1 and it brings new things. As GNOME is still pretty new in our release cycle, here is a few hints on how to run it:
• There are two ways to start your gnome-session:
• GNOME-Classic, which implements the GNOME2 look
• GNOME, which implements the GNOME 3 look and desktop-effects
• To choose GNOME or GNOME-CLASSIC users should choose default session from the display manager menu. By default in live mode GNOME 3 is started but it will use software rendering. To use GNOME 3 with hardware rendering, users of ATI cards must install firmware-linux-nonfree before starting the installer. Boot cheatcode "gnome" was removed because it is now deprecated. Windows look in GNOME has changed because GNOME developers dropped minimize and maximize buttons. To minimize or maximize a window, you must use right click in the window title bar and choose minimize or maximize from the menu. Also, to maximize a window you can double click on the window title bar. We have added to Favourites Applications (aka Dash) some of most used applications. You will discover hexchat, transmission, libreoffice, siduction bug report t

What is new in version 14.1.0:

• GNOME shipped version is 3.14.1 and it brings new things. As GNOME is still pretty new in our release cycle, here is a few hints on how to run it:
• There are two ways to start your gnome-session:
• GNOME-Classic, which implements the GNOME2 look
• GNOME, which implements the GNOME 3 look and desktop-effects
• To choose GNOME or GNOME-CLASSIC users should choose default session from the display manager menu. By default in live mode GNOME 3 is started but it will use software rendering. To use GNOME 3 with hardware rendering, users of ATI cards must install firmware-linux-nonfree before starting the installer. Boot cheatcode "gnome" was removed because it is now deprecated. Windows look in GNOME has changed because GNOME developers dropped minimize and maximize buttons. To minimize or maximize a window, you must use right click in the window title bar and choose minimize or maximize from the menu. Also, to maximize a window you can double click on the window title bar. We have added to Favourites Applications (aka Dash) some of most used applications. You will discover hexchat, transmission, libreoffice, siduction bug report t